Oh My Sainted Catholic Aunt! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sold everything he had to feed and ransom them

Acacius, who was the bishop of Amida in Mesopotamia from 400 to 425, sold every single bit of gold and silver in his church and lands to buy food and liquid for the starving Persian prisoners. With the remaining funds he had left, he paid for their freedom and then, until they could be safely returned home to their own country, provided for them in the interim.

When these grateful men returned to the safety of their own lands in central Persia, their ruler was so impressed by all that Acacius had done, that he ordered all persecution of Christians in his realm to cease immediately.

Answer: Prussians

Adalbert (956-997) was martyred in an old Prussian town near the Baltic sea when he tried to convert the people there. Unfortunately he tried a little too earnestly and, in spite of warnings to leave their sacred oak trees alone, he insisted on cutting down as many as he could.

These trees were very important to various pagan cultures of the time as they were involved in many of their rituals. Adalbert's acorn was accordingly lopped off as a result of failing to heed those warnings. He was canonised in the year 999 and his feast day is celebrated on the 23rd of April each year - hopefully nowhere near an oak tree.

Answer: The shape of her amputated breasts

Saint Agatha of Sicily (231-251) dedicated her life to Christ as a young woman, vowing never to marry. Subsequently, when she rejected the advances of a powerful man, he had her tortured. Part of that torture was amputating her breasts. The similarity of that part of her anatomy, in a scaled down form, to a baker's buns or a bellringer's bells today sees Agata as the Patron saint for both professions.

She has also, fairly recently, and sorrowfully so, become the Patron saint of women suffering from breast cancer.

Answer: King Ottokar I of Bohemia

Ottokar was the ruler of Bohemia from 1198-1230. He was a member of the Premyslid dynasty which reigned in various countries of that part of the word from the 9th to the 14th century. Agnes grew up in a life of luxury, but became a pawn in the marrying stakes of the day, where royal princesses were looked upon as prize cattle to be paired off and bred for the most astute diplomatic advantage.

She turned her back on all this and devoted her life to God and working for the desperately poor and sick of her country.

She founded a religious order for women, two friaries, and a huge hospital for the sick, with an attached monastery and friary. She eventually handed all these properties over to the Teutonic Knights and the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star.

She spent the rest of her life there, cooking for and nursing the poor, the helpless, those with leprosy, and the dying. Today, Saint Anne of Bohemia's feast day is celebrated on the 2nd of March each year.

Answer: Ireland

It is believed that Saint Aidan was born in Connacht in the West of Ireland. His exact birth date is unknown however, but from there, he moved to spend the early part of his life as a monk on the Island of Iona in Scotland. Iona was a large centre for Irish monasticism for several centuries. Following a request for missionaries to restore Christianity to Northumbria in the north of England and the lower part of Scotland, Aidan answered the call.

He spent year after year from that time, walking from one village to another, slowly drawing people back into the folds of the Christian faith from the paganism they had fallen back into. Along the way, he trained twelve boys from England to become future monks and founded a monastery in that part of the world as their base. Once, when given a horse to ease the weariness of his long treks, he gave it away instead to a poor man begging for assistance for his family. Hopefully they didn't eat it. Saint Aidan, because of his reconversion of pagans back to the Christian faith, is honoured in many Christian religions today as well as the Catholic faith, and has been considered as a possible Patron Saint for the United Kingdom.

His feast day is 31 August.

Answer: Dyed it with soot

Saint Angela Merici was born in Lombardy in 1474 and died in 1540. As a young women of exceptional beauty, and wishing to devote her life to Christ, she made herself as plain looking as possible. This included the soot dye she applied to her hair. She also became convinced that young girls needed to be educated, and accordingly she took as many as she could into her own home and taught them there.

She subsequently turned the entire premises into a school for girls. Following a vision which showed her the direction her life should take, she then set up a religious order of teaching nuns, the Ursulines, to carry on this fine work. Such was the impact of their work, and, long after Angela's death, this order had, by the 18th century, some 20,000 nuns, 350 convents and many congregations around the world.

Another hundred years on saw several universities and colleges of higher education founded by this excellent teaching order that was started so long ago in the home of Saint Angela Merici of the soot covered hair.

Answer: The Venerable Bede

Bede (ca 673-735) is also referred to as Saint Bede and the Father of English History. He began his studies with Saint Benedict Biscop from the age of seven, and, over his lifetime, wrote a vast number of scientific, theological and historical books, articles and letters. Today he is considered most of all in the light of an historian because of his great work, "An Ecclesiastical History of the English People" which was finally completed in 731. Saint Benedict Biscop (628-690) founded several monasteries and a great library.

He was born of a wealthy and noble family in Northumberland but turned his back on it all to devote his life to the Lord. His were the first ecclesiastical structures build of stone and in these he housed over seven hundred volumes of great scientific and ecclesiastical works. One could say that he lived long enough to hand over these mighty treasures of knowledge to the Venerable Bede, for that great scholar to carry on from there.

Answer: It's been exhumed several times to check her incorruption

This is indeed the case. Saint Bernadette, to whom our Lady of Lourdes appeared, died in 1879, but her body, on its last exhumation, was still incorrupt and hadn't decomposed in any way. Bernadette, who was born in 1844, was the daughter of a humble miller.

When she was fourteen and out gathering firewood for the family, she received her first vision of Our Lady. This vision, which always came accompanied with rushing wind and dazzling light, appeared seventeen more times to the girl, after which a spring, said to have healing properties, began to trickle out of the rock near where Our Lady had stood. Bernadette was first exhumed in 1909, when her perfectly preserved body was washed and reclothed in a clean outfit.

She was again exhumed in 1919, and once more in 1925. On the last occasion of this rather strange and disturbing ritual, her features were covered in a fine transparent wax to preserve the skin colour, and she was transferred to a reliquary where millions of pilgrims to the site have visited it every year since.

Answer: Saint Boniface

Boniface was born in Devon, England, some time during the 7th century and died in the north of the Netherlands in 754. He played an extremely important role in spreading Christianity throughout the old Frankish empire during this time. He also played a pivotal part in establishing a strong alliance between the Vatican and the line of Carolingian rulers which would eventually give rise to the mighty Holy Roman Empire (962-1806).

Unfortunately, while on his 754 mission to attempt to convert Germanic tribes living in the north of the Netherlands, the ungrateful inhabitants therein bumped off the fine and gallant old fellow. Saint Boniface's feast day today is celebrated each year on the 5th of June.

Answer: By refusing to eat

Catherine was born in Sienna in 1347 to a middle class, but prosperous, merchant. She began having visions of Jesus from the age of five, and, aged seven, decided to devote her life to the Lord. Imagine her horror then when it was decided she should marry her brother-in-law. Catherine, however, had been very close to her sister Bonaventura and knew that she had refused to eat until her husband improved his table manners, and whenever he was less than considerate of her in other ways. Catherine followed the same pattern, and, after a long struggle of many months, during which she almost faded away and in which she cut off her long hair in protest, her parents finally relented and allowed her to follow her life as she chose. On joining a holy order, she continued to have visions, manifested the marks of the stigmata on her body, and began petitioning the then reigning Pope to work for peace in the Italian city states, and to return the Papacy to Rome from where it had moved to Avignon in 1309.

The latter finally took place in 1376, and Catherine then spent the last four years of her life in Rome, where she died in 1380. Because she had continued to fast for long periods of time for the remainder of her life following her early escape from matrimony, Catherine eventually could not take food at all, and would disgorge any when forced to do so. Her sole means of nourishment for the last several weeks of her life became the Holy Eucharist which she received daily. Today, she is considered a Patron Saint, not only of Italy, but also of firefighters, women suffering miscarriage, those suffering from sexual temptation, and nurses. Perhaps this fascinating, complex woman could also be considered the Patron Saint for those suffering from the debilitating effects of eating disorders.