November Saints Trivia Quiz

Answer: She never married, preferring to devote her virginity to God.

Deborah (like other Old Testament figures honored as saints, it is customary to call her "St. Deborah" only on her feast day) was married to a man named Lappidoth. "She used to sit under the palm ... and the Israelites came up to her for judgment" (Judges 4:5). She sent Barak on a mission from God, to take an army of ten thousand men and defeat the armies of Canaan, which had been cruelly oppressing the people of Israel. Barak refused to go without Deborah by his side; she agreed, but foretold that the glory of killing the enemy general would therefore go to a woman. Sure enough, when the battle came, Barak won a great victory, but it was a woman named Jael who killed Sisera with a tent peg. Chapter 5 of Judges is composed mostly of Deborah's and Barak's hymn of praise.

In 2000, Debbie Friedman wrote a catchy folk song centered on Judges 5:12: "Arise, arise, Devorah! Arise, arise, and sing a song!" If you get a chance to listen to "Devorah's Song," I recommend it.

Answer: The identities of the next 112 popes

St. Malachy (1094-1148), Archbishop of Armagh, changed the Irish Church by encouraging the use of the Roman Liturgy. Yet his ecclesiastical contributions have been overshadowed by the cryptic prophecies that were first published nearly 450 years after his death.

The list begins with Pope Celestine II, born in Città di Castello along the Tiber River and described as "from a castle of the Tiber." The connections become noticeably more tenuous for popes elected after the prophecies were first published; for example, the strongest link between Pope Benedict XVI and the prediction "glory of the olive" is that the pope chose the name "Benedict," and some sub-orders of Benedictines use olives as a symbol.

After Pope Benedict XVI is said to come "Petrus Romanus," the destruction of Rome, and a day of judgment. Given the deeply unimpressive accuracy and precision of the prophecies leading up to this, Romans are not worried.

Answer: Through the prayers of her uncle, St. Beuno

St. Winifred lived in the seventh century, and came to God through the teachings of her uncle. Her suitor -- whom we would nowadays revile as a stalker -- cut off her head as she fled to a church for sanctuary. A holy spring welled up at the place where her head had fallen, and it still flowed even after St. Beuno restored her head to her shoulders and prayed her back to life.

She is said to have lived for fifteen years after her martyrdom, and served a few years as an abbess; meanwhile, her murderer supposedly vanished into the earth at the moment of his crime. St. Winifred, patron saint against unwelcome advances, is one of my favorites: so many of the Church's early saints are women murdered by men who would not take "no" for an answer, and St. Winifred is one of the very few who received her justice on Earth.

Answer: As a brilliant theologian, nicknamed "the subtle doctor"

Blessed John Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), known to his contemporaries as "Doctor Subtilis," was a Franciscan who traveled much of Europe in his studies as a theologian. (His epitaph, on his tomb in Cologne, attests to this: "Scotland brought me forth. England sustained me. France taught me. Cologne holds me.") The most enduring of his teachings is the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which became Catholic dogma in 1854.

He argued that she was conceived without original sin in an advance blessing of her Son's crucifixion. "God could do it; it was fitting that He should do it; therefore, He did it," as he was summarized by his followers.

His reasoning did not impress Reformation-era philosophers, and hence "dunce" became the insult it is today.

Answer: Attila the Hun

St. Leo was a Tuscan nobleman who reigned as Pope from 440 to 461. Prior popes had often been regarded as a sort of "first among equals," with much of their practical authority devolved to local bishops. St. Leo devoted his reign to the reclamation of this power, and to the positioning of the papacy alone at the very top of the Church hierarchy.

His encounter with Attila the Hun came in 452. Attila and his armies had plundered a swath of Italy, but after meeting with the Pope, they turned away and left Rome untouched. Perhaps the Huns already had all the loot they wanted, and just needed a face-saving excuse to go home; perhaps St. Leo's plea for mercy really was that eloquent; or perhaps it was the giant, fiery angel some traditions say was standing behind the Pope. Unfortunately, whatever it was, the magic was gone when the Vandals arrived to sack the city three years later.

Answer: Aristotle

St. Albert (1206-1280) was the son of a German count, who was not best pleased by the notion of his son becoming a Dominican monk and priest. His calling as a scholar led to his being known as "the Universal Doctor" even in his lifetime; his numerous writings include observations of eagles' care for their eggs, studies of European mountain ranges, and proofs that the Earth is a sphere.

A scientist at heart, he admired Aristotle's ordered approach to philosophy, and immediately saw its value as applied to Christian theology.

He worked on this application nearly his whole life long, until -- heartbreakingly -- this brilliant man was stricken with dementia at the age of 72.

Answer: Scotland

Born to an exiled prince of England's Anglo-Saxon royal family around the year 1045, St. Margaret and her family fled from England when the Normans conquered it in 1066. They sought refuge in Scotland, where the King was happy to shelter them -- and especially St. Margaret, whom he married.

She bore him eight children, including three kings of Scotland and a queen of England, yet she still found time for God. Before her royal breakfast each morning, she would feed the poor of the town; she founded churches, and she organized a council of bishops to reform the Church in Scotland.

She died in 1093 of an illness, just three days after her husband and eldest son died in battle, and for hundreds of years she was honored as the archetype of a just and pious queen.

Answer: On the day of her wedding, which she did not want, she comforted herself by singing in her heart.

Like many saints of the early Church, St. Cecilia had devoted her virginity to God. She was forced to get creative when her father made her marry a young patrician, Valerian. She spent the wedding feast singing silent hymns to God, and when it was time for the wedding night, she explained everything to her husband and wound up persuading him to convert to Christianity and take a vow of virginity to match her own. St. Valerian and his brother, St. Tiburtius, were soon killed for burying the bodies of Christian martyrs; St Cecilia got into trouble for burying the two of them. She was martyred too, but not before sharing her faith with so many of her persecutors that they founded a church in her home.

This beautiful story has made St. Cecilia real to believers for some 1500 years, but it seems that it was first told at least a century after her death. Little is known of the historical saint, but the legendary one is well beloved.

Answer: Vietnam

The Martyrs of Vietnam numbered over a hundred thousand people (and perhaps up to three hundred thousand), killed from 1625 to 1886. Some of the dead, like St. Théophane Vénard, were European missionaries; most of them were ordinary people of Indochina. St. Michael Dinh-Hy Ho was a silk trader brought up in a Christian family; St. Agnes Lê Thi Thành was a sixty-year-old mother of six; St. Joseph Tuc was only nine. All died in a systematic persecution that involved the obliteration of entire families and even villages.

The few whose names have survived stand in for a host of martyrs whom Catholics believe to be celebrating in Heaven.

Answer: St. Peter

St. Peter, the first Pope, has become more famous, but it was his brother St. Andrew who followed Jesus first. John 1:35-42 tells how this saint heard his mentor, St. John the Baptist, call Jesus "the Lamb of God." Intrigued, he and his companion spent the day with Jesus, after which an excited St. Andrew went to fetch his brother to see the Messiah.

They were already His apostles when Jesus famously called on them to accompany Him in His ministry: "Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19). St. Andrew followed. Little is known about his life after the time of the Gospels, but tradition says he followed Jesus even unto death: he was martyred, legend says, on an X-shaped cross in Greece.