Not a hoax. We are still in the midst of a pandemic. Here in the United States, we have been on one of the worst paths of any country in the entire world in dealing with the pandemic. Our death toll today is at 196,000. The number is mind-blowing to me. The lack of a national leader is painfully clear in this matter.
As a sidebar, when I write this blog, I always scan those “this day in history” blurbs to see if there may be any subjects of interest. They always cite major catastrophic events, hurricanes, typhoons, volcanoes, and the like. It always knocks my socks off when I’d hear that the 1965 Bengal cyclones caused 47,000 deaths. Or the 1954 Yangtze floods took 33,000 lives. I would be aghast at the massive number of deaths. Yet, in comparison to the 200,000 people we have lost (so far) to Coronavirus this year, I now view those catastrophes as being on the small side. Oh, the shift in perspective. But no matter how many, one death is still one too many.
Yet, the thing I really wanted to mention are those early days when the pandemic was just rolling outward. People everywhere were doing things to cope in many different ways. The funny videos about being in lockdown, the home remedies to ward off the disease, Corona Beer jokes, and on.
One such device was the story that St. Corona is the patron saint of pandemics and epidemics. While there really is a St. Corona, according to the Catholic church, she is sometimes “invoked in connection with superstitions involving money, such as gambling or treasure hunting.” A little off the mark.
Her life ended tragically, which is the case with most patron saints. They were always getting boiled in pots of oil, or burned at the stake. Corona’s fate was pretty bad though. The story goes that she lived around 170 CE in Roman Syria. That was the time of Marcus Aurelius’s reign. However it happened that she was on the scene, a Roman soldier named Victor was being tortured at great length. He would not denounce his Christian faith, so someone there was wreaking havoc on him. That is when Corona stepped in. She was either his wife or the wife of another soldier. That part is sketchy. Anyway, while he was being tortured she prayed by his side. This turned out to be a bad decision on her part. They decided to punish her for this, so she was bound to two palm trees that were tied to the ground. Then, when the trees were untied, they sprang apart, wrenching Corona’s body in half. And then, they beheaded Victor.
So that is how St. Corona came and went up until now. Here’s the thing. Just because she wasn’t the poster child for pandemics doesn’t mean she can’t be. (By the way, Gregory the Great, Roch, and Sebastian, are all listed in Catholic.org’s index as patron saints of plagues, Robert Bellarmine is the patron saint of contagious disease, and Godeberta is the patron saint of epidemics.)
Apparently, as far as appointing saints to be patrons, anyone, anywhere, can name a patron saint for anything. There’s no time limit on choosing new patronage for a saint. There doesn’t have to be any meetings, there’s no minimum number of people who need to agree on it.
It doesn’t even have to be a thing that was in existence while the saint was alive. Like, we could name St. Claude the patron saint of cell phones right here and now if we wanted. I’m telling you, Pope Pius XII declared St. Clare the patron saint of television in 1958, even though Clare was born in 1194, and TV was without a glint in the cathode ray’s eye back then. Heck, TV was barely a thing in 1958.
Anyway, if people want to name St. Corona the patron saint of a pandemic, it is fully within their rights.
And I am thinking of naming St. Donald the Patron Saint of Stupidity. Or Liars.
Or both.
===========
“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
===========
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation
===========
“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
― Abraham Lincoln
===========
