A mention of two other saints commemorated on this second day of September:
The first is Saint Agricola (630 – 710), who at the tender age of sixteen chose the ‘better part’, becoming a monk at the Abbey of Lérins. At the less-tender age of thirty, he was appointed coadjutor bishop of Avignon, which was later to provide a refuge – of sorts – for the papacy. During his tenure, he built a church, as well as a convent for nuns, and, as are most saints, was renowned for his devotion to the poor and sick. One legend told of him was that he prevented an invasion of storks, which is the first, and likely the only, time I have heard of such. Don’t storks bring babies? Due to his name, which he shares with the first-century Roman general who conquered Britain (England, but not Scotland!), Agricola is also the patron harvests, good weather and against drought, as well as plague and other kinds of ‘misfortune’. So, and all-around go-to saint. Go to him.
Then there’s Saint Ingrid of Skänninge (1220 – 1282), a Swedish princess from one of the most noble of families, who married ‘Sir Sigge’. After his death, she gathered other devout women who followed the rule of Saint Dominic, whose Order of Preachers had recently been founded. The female branch tends more towards the contemplative, as in the later Catherine of Siena. Ingrid’s niece became the mother of Bridget of Sweden, and it is told that the young Bridget was inspired by her great-aunt. Ingrid seems a formidable woman, making pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela, Jerusalem and Rome – back in those days without planes, trains and automobiles, to say nothing of roads, hotels, restaurants and maps. After her full and adventurous life, Ingrid died peacefully in 1281, seven years after Thomas Aquinas, of whom she may well have heard, and was beatified in 1499 by Pope Alexander VI (a Borgia pope, embroiled in the conflict with the tempestuous Dominican friar Savonarola). Our Catholic Church is certainly connected, and we will such in the vagaries of providence at the end of time.
