St. Jerome

St. Jerome is one of the Fathers of the Church, a prolific writer and respected theologian. I know him best for his translation of the Bible into Latin which is commonly known as the Vulgate. It's a notoriously sketchy translation, but it made the Bible accessible to pretty much the entire continent of European scholars rather than just to those few people who could read both Greek and Hebrew.

Ironically, St. Jerome would probably disapprove highly of this blog since he had rather strong views on vainglory and fashion: "Let the words be ever on your lips: 'Naked I came out of my mother's womb and naked I shall return thither,' and 'We brought nothing into this world, and certainly we can carry nothing out.' Yet today you see many women packing their wardrobes with dresses, changing their tunics every day, and even so unable to keep ahead of the moth. The more scrupulous wear one dress until it is threadbare, but yet have their boxes full of clothes" (Letter XXII, To Eustochium)

Despite his criticism, however, I have designed an outfit in remembrance of him. He is the patron saint of librarians, so I came up with this:

This is one of my favorite shirts. You can't really see the pattern on it very well in the photo, but it's really very interesting up close. I've had this skirt for years - it used to reach all the way to my mid-calf and I never, ever wore it. But I got it shortened, and it's like a having a new skirt! The earrings are a hand-me-down from my friend Erin, and they are owls. For wisdom and knowledge. And librarians, I guess. Plus I have a librarian bun in my hair. This is one of my favorite outfits - I feel great in it!

St. Gabriel the Archangel

Today is Michaelmas which is the feast of the archangels Gabriel and Michael. Since I did Michael last week, I'm just focusing on Gabriel this week.

Gabriel is commonly known as the Messenger of God. He explains visions to Daniel in Chs 8-9 of the Book of Daniel, and he's the one who announces to both Elizabeth and Mary that they will miraculously give birth to their respective children in the book of Luke. But my questions about the sainthood of angels remain the same. Although, I will admit Gabriel makes more sense to me as a saint than Michael does. Gabriel at least interacts with human beings on earth. And, if fact, if you believe that angels have the ability to communicate with God, then Gabriel is the most likely one to serve in a real intercessory way. He gives godly messages to humans, so maybe that communication works both ways. I don't know. It's an interesting thought.

OK, so just like last week, angels = white and drapey, flowy clothes. My outfit is mostly brown today, but I put on this shirt that I have had for years, but have difficulty wearing. It has a drapey kind of neck that folds around itself and looks like old paintings to me. It is perhaps a little too early to break out the tights and boots, but I did it anyway:

Good King Wenceslas

St. Wenceslaus was a Duke of Bohemia in the 10th century. He was a Christian ruler, and his relatives who wanted to be in line for the throne murdered him while he was on the way to church. On the way to church!!!! So, now he's a saint. And the patron saint of the Czech Republic. There's a huge statue of him in Wenceslaus Square in Prague that "they" say will come back to life with the Czech Republic needs the saint's aid. Here's a photo:

So, today's outfit is gray for the statue with a little splash of red just for fun:

St. Eustace

I normally do not post on Friday since I really only put outfits together for work, but I am attending a conference this weekend, so I have two more professional-type outfits to put together than during a regular week.

Today's outfit is inspired by St. Eustace whose story appears in the immensely popular but highly unreliable medieval book of saints' lives, "The Golden Legend." Eustace was a Roman soldier who really liked hunting. One day as he was chasing after a stag, he saw a vision of Jesus between the stag's antlers. He immediately converted to Christianity along with his wife and sons.

Poor Eustace was then subjected to a horrible series of bad luck:

1) a plague killed all of his servants, knights and livestock

2) robbers stole all of his money and valuable possessions

3) When the family decided to sail to Egypt, their sea captain demanded that Eustace give him his wife as payment for the voyage. Eustace didn't want to, but when the captain threatened to throw him overboard, Eustace totally abandoned his wife.

4) After they arrived, Eustace's sons were carried off by wild animals (although not killed, but Eustace didn't know that part)

After this Series of Unfortunate Events, Eustace went back and rejoined the Roman army. In the meantime, his wife escaped the clutches of the sea captain and randomly stumbled upon her two sons who had been rescued from the wild animals by kindly villagers. They then heard that Eustace was in the army and went to find him. There was a joyous reunion which lasted about 24 hours. The next day, the emperor commanded them all to make sacrifices to the Roman gods. Eustace and his family, of course, refused, and they were subsequently roasted alive inside a copper statue of a bull.

Whew! That's quite a whopper.

Eustace is the patron saint of hunters, so I chose green and brown as my color palette:

St. Thecla

Happy birthday to me! And happy feast day to St. Thecla. I had never heard of this saint before I did the research for this little project, but hers is one of the juicier stories, I must say. St. Thecla lived in the 1st century and according to the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla knew and was a disciple of the apostle Paul. You can click on the link if you want the full story, but here's the "good parts" version:

1) She broke off her engagement so she could remain chaste. Her fiance got very angry and sued her (well, the 1st century version of suing someone), and she was condemned to burn at the stake. However, when they lit the fire, she didn't burn.

2) She then followed Paul to Antioch where another guy fell in love with her. When she rejected his advances, he also sued her and she was condemned to be fed to wild beasts. When they threw her in the pit with them, however, a vicious lioness turned around and protected her from the other wild beasts, and Thecla survived.

3) She lived the rest of her life in a cave as a hermit. And who can blame her?

So, I immediately pounced on the wild beasts part of the story. My outfit today incorporates as many of them as I could. Plus, for the first time ever, I'm wearing my little lion brooch. I'm not really a brooch-wearing type of girl, but it was just too perfect! I have no idea where it came from, but I've had it for years. Something makes me want to say my Aunt Eileen brought it back from a trip to Mexico, but it wasn't a gift - that I know. I have no idea how I ended up with it. Anyway, here's my picture. I'm playing the part of the lioness:

St. Maurice

Today is the feast day of St. Maurice. St. Maurice was an Egyptian man who lived during the 5th century, and served as a soldier in the Roman army in Thebes. When he deserted the army after refusing to make sacrifices to the Roman gods, the emperor had him and his fellow deserters killed. Since he was a soldier, Maurice is usually depicted as wearing armor, but the most striking thing about him is that he is also very often depicted as black due to his Egyptian origins. Here is a 13th century statue of him from Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany:



For today's outfit, I went with the Egyptian theme:




I'm realizing looking at this picture that the really Egyptian things about this outfit are the accessories which you can't really see. I have a hieroglyph necklace that spells out my name, scarab earrings, and a peacock feather headband. I chose the blue shirt, though, from a little Egyptian hippo statue in the Louvre:



So cute, right? They make replicas of it that they sell in the gift shop, but we were so poor when we lived in France I never bought one for myself. My birthday's tomorrow, though (hint, hint).

St. Michael the Archangel

Michaelmas is not until Sept 29, but I'm highlighting St. Michael the Archangel today. He's the one who commands the angelic army and casts Satan out of the heavens in Revelation 12: "And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer a place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world - he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him" (verses 7-10).

I'm not sure how I feel about an angel being venerated as a saint. I guess I think it's kind of weird since I think part of the logic behind the veneration of saints is that they were humans who experienced human lives. The power of their intercession on our behalf, then, comes from both their immense piety and their undeniably human understanding and experience. St. Michael, as an angel, cannot really relate in the same way. So, I guess I find it confusing that he's a member of that particular club.

In any case, one of my favorite places in the world is named after him: Mont St. Michel.

If you are ever in the Bretagne region of France, it's worth a visit!

When I think of angels, I think of white and flowy clothes even though in most depictions of St. Michael he is wearing armor. He is the commander of the Lord's army after all. But, I went with my instinct and wore my whitest and flowiest top:

I actually wore this outfit last semester, so it's a repeat (gasp!). But I like it, and it's REALLY comfortable which is great because Tuesday is a very long day for me. My first day of boots! It was really too hot for them, but I got a lot of compliments, so it was totally worth it.