Two saints to mark on this September 7th, which also happens to be Labour Day this year:
First, Saint Cloud, whose name evokes the ethereal and heavenly, fitting for these last days of summer. His original name was actually Clodoald, a sixth-century hermit (+560), who was of royal lineage – the grandson of Saint Clovis – who renounced the world and became a hermit, settling down just outside of Paris – where the region is named after him. He himself lived and prayed amongst the fishermen and farmers, founding a church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, around which a monastery soon grew.
Then there is Saint Regina, a virgin-martyr who was from what now know as France, but was a Roman colony in those early centuries of the Church. As her legend goes, she was born to pagan parents, but when her mother died during birth, her father Clement gave his little girl to a Christian nursemaid, who had her baptized and raised Christian. Regina was sent to tend the sheep, but somehow caught the attention of a pagan proconsul, to whom she was betrothed. Regina refused to return to paganism – a prerequisite of the union – and so was tortured and beheaded, either during the persecution of Decius (251) or Maximian (286). Her name – in France, Sainte-Reine – is still quite popular, both of persons and of regions.
