SAINTS DAYS COMMEMORATED IN SEPTEMBER
1 September St Giles( or Aegidius, died about 710)
He was one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. He may have been born in Athens and became a hermit in France. He built the monastery St Gilles near Arles.
This was on the pilgrim route to Santiago and to the Holy Land and legends attracted pilgrims. St Giles was included in the list of 14 helpers, but was not martyred. He became the patron saint of beggars, cripples and lepers and was invoked against cancer and night terrors.
His cult spread all over Europe, he is the Patron Saint of Edinburgh. Most of the saint’ s bones were taken to Saint Sermin in Toulouse after his monastery was destroyed.
4 September St Hildegard of Bingen( 1098-1179)
She has in recent years become something of a cult figure through the wide dissemination of her music, which was only one of the accomplishments of this remarkable woman. The daughter of a German nobleman she was educated by an‘ anchoress’ named Jutta and followed her as abbess. From the age of three she had visions and was encouraged to write them down. Her constant theme is the live-giving power of God. Often verging on pantheism, she has an appeal to modern‘ deep ecology’ spirituality. She had a practical side which showed when she had water piped to all offices of her community on the Rupertsberg near Bingen on the Rhine.
She wrote a book on natural history and one on medicine, which described the circulation of the blood five centuries before Harvey. She produced words and music for hymns and canticles as well as a cantata for the nuns to perform and she preached in public. On top of this she wrote to everyone from the Pope and kings downward. She died peacefully aged over eighty, miracles were reported at her tomb and a cult developed. This was given public approval by Pope John XXII in 1324, but she was never officially canonized.
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