Ship of Fools: Married Saints with children

Thread: Married Saints with children Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :

So many of the saints were celibate. So many lived apart from their families. Lots of Christians today are not in that position.

Have you a favourite married saint who was also a parent? Can you even think of one, or are they as rare as famous Belgians [Smile]

(Not counting Mary and Joseph!)

It seems when family life is under pressure we could do with some good examples, and some encouraging prayers, set before us.

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

The only ones I can think of are Margaret Clitherow and Thomas More, but of course they were both martyrs so not a path likely to be followed by most of us.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Here's a whole book of married saints. It's wonderful!

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

St Anne and St Joachim: The grandparents of God.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/26239/Saints-Anne-and-Joachim

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
St Anne and St Joachim: The grandparents of God.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/26239/Saints-Anne-and-Joachim

Not much evidence on the lives, or even the names, of these two....

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

I personally like Saint Margaret of Scotland, who was the Queen Consort of King Malcolm II of Scotland. They had a pretty affectionate marriage (he was quite impressed that she could read, which he couldn't) and she raised four of her eight kids to be "just and holy rulers", three kings of Scotland and a Queen Consort of England. She encouraged uniformity of worship in Scotland in line with Roman standards and was quite good at ecclesiastical embroidery.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I'd say ANY parent of multiples is a saint - or has saintly potential.

The inability of huge swathes of officialdom to cope with children born as part of a 'set' is gobsmacking.

Register the birth? You have to go through it all twice: there is no ability to save a record on screen and then go back into it just to alter the christian names and time of birth.

Student finance? Two students with the same date of birth and address couldn't be registered at the same address.

'Smart' passports? small twins with identical fingerprints (YES, really) couldn't be issued with one. No, the iris print option couldn't differentiate either.

Above all, just by not thumping the nth person to opine 'Double trouble' should have qualified me years ago.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Here's a whole book of married saints. It's wonderful!

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
Can you even think of one, or are they as rare as famous Belgians

(Not counting Mary and Joseph!)

Mary and Joseph were Belgian?
[Biased]

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

They're not canonized yet by the Quattrocchis became the first married couple to be beatified together in 2001. The Pope lifted them up as a model of doing "ordinary things in extraordinary ways." (That said, some of their life -- like running a refugee shelter during WWII -- was pretty extraordinary). Their feast day is their wedding anniversary.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

One of my favorite pairs of married saints is St. Justinian the Great and the Empress Theodora. They share a feastday (Nov. 14).

Sts. Cyril and Mary, the parents of St. Sergius of Radonezh, are also commemorated together (Sept. 26), as are Sts. Andronicus and Athanasia (Oct. 9), and Sts. Gregory and Nonna, parents of St. Gregory the Theologian (Jan. 1). In fact, lots of married saints are celebrated jointly.

And, of course, there are married saints, like Cleopas and Mary, that are celebrated separately, and there are plenty of married saints whose spouses were not canonized -- like St Innocent of Alaska and St John of Kronstadt. I am sure that St. John's wife Elisabeth is a saint, but she has never been formally recognized as such. A lot of the married saints whose spouses were not canonized are like St. John the Merciful -- his wife and children all died, and he is glorified because of the things he did after their deaths.

Of course, some of the married saints, like St. Shushanik and St. Thomais, were married to people who were not at all saintly, but they provide an example and hope to those who are living with an abusive spouse.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

There is St. Monica, who was married and had three children (including among them, St. Augustine--so it runs in the family).

From the 20th century, there is St. Gianna Beretta Molla. She had four children. The pregnancy with her fourth threatened her life, but she refused to have an abortion or other operation that would have led to the child's death. A son was born and St. Gianna died seven days later.

And let us not forget St. William of Rochester. He had an adopted son. Who--ahem--ended up murdering William.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

ERROR: St. Gianna's last child was not a son but a daughter. My memory isn't what it used to be. At least, as far as I can remember.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

St Helena, mother of Constantine. St Peter was of course married but we don't know if he had children. I would imagine that most royal saints were married with children?

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

Two who were martyrs but had young children were Perpetua and Felicity.

Perpetua was clearly married but her husband makes no appearance in her story. It is not clear if she was a widow or he just decided to have nothing to do with her because she was Christian. It is her father who keeps trying to talk her out of it. However, her young baby is mentioned a couple of times.

Felicity gives birth during her imprisonment, so she was killed shortly thereafter. We are missing a lot of details about her. I assume she was married, but, again, no direct proof of that. However, in line with the opening sentence of the OP, there is pretty substantial evidence that she was not celibate...

Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :

Our local saint, St. Gwladys, was married to Gwynlliw Filw (St. Woolos) and had a son, St. Catwg.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

St Thenew / Teneu aka St Enoch was an unmarried single mother to St Mungo.

Posted by Boadicea Trott (# 9621) on :

St Non, the mother of St David of Wales.

Also the RC Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin, parents of St Therese of Lisieux.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

My understanding as a non-RC was that being a Catholic saint wasn't about being a decent and devout 'ordinary' person, but about prioritising the faith over and above family and career to a degree that would be highly unlikely for the average Catholic, either in the 13th c. or today. Apparently the medieval RCC didn't concern itself too much with rural spirituality, and there were few peasant saints in the Middle Ages. And I imagine there are rather few 'juggling mums' being considered for canonisation today! I wonder when the optimum era was for ordinary folk to be canonised?

[ 07. June 2013, 21:37: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

I think the question is perhaps looking for saints canonised by the Roman Catholic church since the general enforcement of celibacy for priests and the split with the East.

How many of them, other than martyrs, were non-celibate?

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

A low percentage, unfortunately. The explanation is boringly simple for those wanting to get theological meat out of this in any direction: the process of canonization has to be a bottom-up one which is then approved from on high. The process of building a cult and then going through the complicated legal system for canonization is hard to do unless you're a diocese or a religious order. You're right that being martyred definitely ups your odds, but I think that most lay non-martyrs who have gotten canonized recently have been the result of someone of heroic virtue dying and then coming to the local bishop's attention who decided to take up their cause.

Posted by roybart (# 17357) on :

A number of married women entered the religious life, and became saints, after being widowed. Elizabeth Seton, founder of the Sisters of Charity, and canonized by the RCC in 1975. Seton had, I believe, 5 children from her marriage.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

Widowed and then joining an order doesn't cut it!

What examples do we have of lives lived in a sexual relationship being officially recognised as holy? Or do you really have to be a nun at least for a little bit?

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Margaret of Scotland is one example, it can even be argued that she died of a broken heart after her husband died. She certainly died within days of him.

Jengie

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

St. Paula and her daughter (Julia??) helped St. Jerome translate the Bible. IIRC, Paula was widowed.

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
St Thenew / Teneu aka St Enoch was an unmarried single mother to St Mungo.

And I thought St. Enoch was a bloke ... [Big Grin]

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Widowed and then joining an order doesn't cut it!

What examples do we have of lives lived in a sexual relationship being officially recognised as holy? Or do you really have to be a nun at least for a little bit?

A few examples: St. Louis
Bl. Maria de la Cabeza
St. Thomas More
Blessed Gianna Molla
Bl. Roman Lysko
Bl. Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:

Bl. Maria de la Cabeza

Along with St. Therese of Lisieux's parents I was going to bring her up as well as her husband, St. Isidore the Farmer (or "the Laborer") who is the patron saint of Madrid.

Another married couple is the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Blessed Charles of Austria, and his wife Zita who has had a cause for beatification begun for her.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

quote:
Originally posted by piglet:

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
St Thenew / Teneu aka St Enoch was an unmarried single mother to St Mungo.
And I thought St. Enoch was a bloke ...

Tangent // Elspeth King wrote a book on that very topic - "The Thenew Factor: the Hidden History of Glasgow's Women" about women who vanish from history. St Enoch / Thenew is often "invisible" as a female saint because people assume she was a bloke. // End tangent.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Widowed and then joining an order doesn't cut it!

What examples do we have of lives lived in a sexual relationship being officially recognised as holy? Or do you really have to be a nun at least for a little bit?
A few examples: St. Louis
Bl. Maria de la Cabeza
St. Thomas More
Blessed Gianna Molla
Bl. Roman Lysko
Bl. Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin

Just for the record, as I noted above, Gianna Beretta Molla has been promoted from Blessed to Saint.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by piglet:

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
St Thenew / Teneu aka St Enoch was an unmarried single mother to St Mungo.
And I thought St. Enoch was a bloke ...

One learns something new every day. There was me thinking St Enoch was a station.
[Two face]

Posted by Qoheleth. (# 9265) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
What examples do we have of lives lived in a sexual relationship being officially recognised as holy?

That depends on what we are to make of the BVM's sex life (see threads passim).

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
One learns something new every day. There was me thinking St Enoch was a station.

A shopping mall with fake trendy cafes last time I looked!

I guess if you can have a tree that never grew, a fish that never swam, a bird that never sang and a bell that never rang; you can have a proto-Welsh princess named after Methuselah's grandfather. After all every book ever written about her son tells us that he was named Kentigern, and then calls him Mungo all the time. Names seem to have been flighty things back in those Arthurian days.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
What examples do we have of lives lived in a sexual relationship being officially recognised as holy? Or do you really have to be a nun at least for a little bit?

There's a story in the Desert Fathers -- I don't have time to look it up at the moment, but I think it's from the life of St. Macarios. It sounds like him anyway. One of the abbas at Scetis asked God to show him the holiest person in the region. He was, IIRC, expecting to see himself. But God led him into town and showed him a woman who lived with her husband (and maybe some other relatives,too). Anyway, to your point, they had lots of children, and as there is nothing in the story about any virgin births, presumably this woman and her husband had an active sex life.

Ordinary married people didn't get written up as saints very often, though, for the same reason that women didn't: the people who wrote hagiography were usually monks, and the monks wrote about the saints they knew, and they wrote the stories that would encourage them in their monastic state. One of the fathers (St. John Climacus, perhaps) said that cenobitic monks shouldn't read the writings intended for hermits, and hermits shouldn't read the writings intended for cenobitic monks, because you would start to covet the blessings associated with the "other" form of monasticism, and miss out on the blessings of your own calling. In the same way, monks were not encouraged to read and write about marriage. It wasn't part of their calling.

And for many, many centuries, it was the monks who knew how to read and write. So they got the bulk of the stories.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hart:

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Widowed and then joining an order doesn't cut it!

What examples do we have of lives lived in a sexual relationship being officially recognised as holy? Or do you really have to be a nun at least for a little bit?
A few examples: St. Louis
Bl. Maria de la Cabeza
St. Thomas More
Blessed Gianna Molla
Bl. Roman Lysko
Bl. Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin

Am I the only person who has a bit of a problem with this list?

- Bl Maria de la Cabeza, and St Isidore - "she and her husband committed themselves to sexual abstinence as a form of devotion, and, from that time on, lived in different homes" (wikipaedia).

- Bl Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin - seem to be mainly commended for being parents of a saint and a large number of nuns.

- St Gianna Molla - I'm sure she was a wonderful person. However, would she have been canonised if she hadn't died because of her commitment to a particular aspect of Catholic teaching which at the time was regarded as controversial and non-Catholics tended not to agree with it?

On this specific issue, I'm more impressed with St Thomas More and St Margaret, since they seem to have had normal married lives and been canonised for something else.

Statistically, I suspect most of us are descended from St Margaret. As her daughter married Henry I, every English monarch since except for Stephen has been.

It does often seem in more recent centuries, that some saints have been canonised more as representatives of points the official church wants to plug, than in response to being the object of popular devotion. That could apply to More, and almost certainly to Becket.

We don't have an official canonisation process. So all our 'saints' date from before 1530. We do have a commended list of people since then, and many of them do seem to have had more ordinary married lives. However, you do not have to have proved yourself by performing posthumous miracles to get onto the list.

[ 10. June 2013, 16:19: Message edited by: Enoch ]

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

Since our tradition's definition of "saint" is more expansive than that of some others, our Saints' Days and Commemorations (which cross-pollinates quite a bit with the Anglican list) are filled with examples of married persons. On the other hand, because these folks tend to be male clerics, theologians or missionaries, we tend not to hear about their female partners, who no doubt played a very important role as associates/de facto administrative assistants/secretaries/administrators,in addition to being household partners. That isn't fair to them, IMHO. While these days spouses of pastors, teachers, etc., usually have their own careers, even when I was growing up pastors' wives were more or less assistant pastors or AIMS without the pay, tat, worship role or respect. One of our pastors -- seriously not a very deep or articulate thinker -- had his wife write his sermons; everyone knew it, although of course technically that was o so wrong because she was a female. My dad's pastor's wife did what amounted to pastoral counseling for women who didn't feel comfortable meeting with the pastor; she handled the music; she taught confirmation class; she did what we'd now recognize as social work among a mostly immigrant, sometimes illiterate or at least non-bilingual congregation who needed help with things like tutoring English, reading/writing letters, dealing with the government, interacting with the greater community and so on. Oh -- and she took care of a handicapped sister as well as the requisite houseful of pastor's kids.

"We're all saints of God and I mean/God helping to be one too."

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