Saints be praised!

This year's advent calendar featured saints. Every day we opened one of those little doors and got a piece of artwork that has a picture of a saint. I was surprised but there were a handful I had never heard of. Weird names that belong to no one. I wondered how that happened, how some names disappear.

I grew up Catholic, so I couldn't help but stumble upon the various saints. The local churches and private schools, most of them had saint's names: Saint Francis, Saint Ursula, Saint Pius. (Did you know there are three Saint Adalbert's? How can that be?) In junior high, I went through confirmation when I got to pick my own saint and add another name to my given name. I was given a small book with the stories behind some of the saints (a Catholic Top-10, perhaps?) and I picked Agnes, mostly because her picture was so pretty. (Don't judge me; I know people who picked their saint because their other names fit together so nicely or the saint had a name they would rather have than their given name. We were in junior high; we shouldn't have been trusted to pick saints that had any actual meaning for us.)

The saints are a wacky bunch. They hear voices, they tend to die in awful ways (I read about one that was killed by stones placed one at a time on top of her breaking her back, then, finally, crushing her to death. There's another one who carved "Jesus" into her arm) Some of them just seem to do good deeds, which is admirable, but seems to be much easier that being burnt at the stake for your beliefs.

It seems like certain saints are around more than others; you see a lot of Saint Theresa and Saint Francis. Even non-Catholics will bury a Saint Joseph to try to sell their house. You also know people with names of saints. You might not know what Saint Maraget is about, but you know that there was a Saint Margaret (in fact, there was a bunch of various Saint Margarets). There doesn't seem to be a reason as to why some saints are more popular than others. I get that Joan of Arc was a big deal, but how did Saint Anne get to be so popular? She's a saint for being Mary's mom and for being older when she became a mom, an accident of biology more than a religious devotion.

This advent calendar has saints I have never heard of: Saint Walburga, Saint Casilda, Saint Palatias. Not only have I never heard of any of these saints but I don't know anyone (or any church) with these names. It made me wonder why there are some saints that get so much and others that are forgotten. What did these saints do to fall out of favor? Why do people pick up on some names but not others? Of course, I would have a hard time giving a baby girl the name Walburga.

Poor Saint Cunegund, forgotten except on the advent calendar.