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St. Christopher day is now known as a memorial day of
St. Christopher on July 25th
St. Christopher's feast day dropped from the list! Have
you ever signed up for a club, a team, a school course or similar
and show up the first day and told your name is not on the list?
Nervous? Angry? Disappointed? Confused?
The Saint Christopher feast day of July 25 was removed
from the Roman Catholic calendar of saints in 1969. Maybe in your
situation things were eventually resolved and you were put on
the list. Not so with St. Christopher because up to the present,
July 25 is not a day dedicated as his feast day. The explanation
as the reason for this is the commemoration was not of the Roman
tradition because it began around 1500 and because of the originally
slow acceptance into the Roman calendar. Saint Christopher is
still recognized by the RomanCatholic Church as a martyr, but
he no longer has a July 25 feast day.
How did such an apparent injustice come about? There are known
historical facts that St. Christopher did live in the late third
and early fourth century. He was taken prisoner in a war with
the Romans in North Africa, present day Libya. He was forced to
travel a great distance back to Rome and was assigned as a Roman
army officer during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. This emperor
decided to persecute Christians, and to his surprise one of his
personnel guards refused to participate and proclaimed himself
a Christian. This Christian is our current day St. George. The
emperor ordered that St. George be tortured and killed. Army officer
St. Christopher watched the torture and killing, and shortly after
declared himself to also be a Christian. The emperor declared
St. Christopher be tortured and put to death. A Christian martyr
is someone who dies in defense of the Roman Catholic faith. Based
on this definition, St. Christopher is definitely a martyr and
Catholics certainly believe that. Here is the dilemma : a saint
had to be a person who led basically a faith-filled holy life
and since virtually nothing is known about St. Christopher's personal
conduct in his life, he was dropped from the calendar of feasts.
Ironically, the best known story and symbol
of Saint Christopher is the saint walking in turbulent water
carrying a child on his shoulders. This image is derived from
possibly a monastery schoolboy's story writing in the thirteenth
century. A writer named Jacobus de Voragine wrote a collection
of wondrous tales named Golden Legend. One of the stories is the
basis for the legend of St. Christopher as the helper to the traveler
crossing a dangerous river. This is the basis of his patronage
as the saint
for travelers. The formal canonization of saints began in
the sixteenth century, and prior to that time saints were declared
by popular approval. In 1969 when the Catholic Church investigated
a number of saints it was decided that St. Christopher was mostly
created by the legend in Golden Legend and by subsequent popular
acclaim, and most of his life history is unknown. He was summarily
removed from the calendar of saints and thereby was removed his
former feast day of July 25.
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