Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Saint Frances...The Patron Saint of Cars and Drivers

Oh bother, now I know who to pray for while test driving those new cars! Maybe I can get the priest next door to bless the poor old Aerostar. Or give it last rites!

http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintf10.htm


Also known as
Franziske
Memorial
9 March
Profile
An aristocrat by birth, her parents were Paul Bussa and Jacobella de' Roffredeschi. Married at age 12 to Lorenzo de' Ponziani, her marriage lasted 40 years. Mother of three in 1400, 1404, and 1407. Widow.

Benedictine. Foundress of the Oblates of the Tor de' Specchi (Collatines). Said to have been guided by an archangel only she could see. Spent her life and fortune, both as laywoman and religious, in the service of the sick and the poor, including the founding of the first home in Rome for abandoned children. Dictated 97 Visions, in which she saw many of the pains of Hell.

On her feast day priests bless cars due to her patronage of cars and drivers. Frances certainly never drove, but legend says that when she went abroad at night, her guardian angel went before her lighting the road with a headlight-like lantern, keeping her safe in her travels.
Born
1384 in Rome, Italy
Died
1440 in Rome, Italy; relics at Saint Frances of Rome, Rome, Italy; entombed beneath the pavement of the Ponziani sacristy of the Church of Saint Cecilia, Rome
Canonized
1608 by Pope Paul V
Patronage
automobile drivers, automobilists, cab drivers, death of children, lay people, motorists, people ridiculed for their piety, Roman housewives, taxi drivers, widows
Representation
woman habited in black with a white veil, accompanied by her guardian angel, and sometimes carrying a basket of food; nun with her guardian angel dressed as a deacon; nun with a monstrance and arrow; nun with a book; nun with an angel with a branch of oranges near her; receiving the veil from the Christ Child in the arms of the Blessed Virgin

2 comments:

. said...

I should let passengers in my car know about this.

It seems my car is akin to a religious experience for many anyway. I've had atheists praying for their lives in there.

Anonymous said...

A lot of the big horse power adds on TV refer to diseal engines on trucks. A bit different there as a stock motor with a reprogrammed ECU can make huge power increases.