Saints
Words by By Cynthia de León
An atheist’s/fallen Catholic’s favorite list of Santas Chingonas (or Chingonas Santas-not sure which. )
These are my favorite kick-ass female saints. The Catholic church celebrates (some of) these fierce female saints for their self-abnegation but I prefer to draw strength from their determination. I hope that their stories inspire the subversive wonder woman in all of us.
Santa Marina ( Also, known as Marina the Monk and Marinos). Eighth century Bythinia (Asia Minor).
Marina’s father became a monk so she followed him and took up a monk’s habit and was called Marinos. She lived as a monk, shaving her head for many years and living in the monastery. She met an innkeeper's daughter during a journey with fellow monks. The innkeeper’s daughter later accused Marinos of getting her pregnant and as punishment, Marinos was forced to live right outside the gates of the monastery. After the baby was born he was brought to the supposedly male monk to raise. Marinos/Marina raised the child outside the monastery gates for over a decade by feeding him goat’s milk that the local shepherds gave them.
What the church celebrates about this story: the virtues of humility and meekness.
What I celebrate instead: The ultimate triumph against the conventions of her time.
Saint Winefride of Holywell. Seventh-century Wales. Her father was a chieftain and her mother was the sister of Saint Beuno.
When Saint Winefrede was a teenager she decided to become a nun. One of her suitors was so enraged that he beheaded Winefride. A spring of running water appeared where Winefride’s head landed but then her Uncle (Saint Beuno) re-attached her head to her body and brought her back to life. The suitor fell dead on the spot. After Saint Winefride’s head was re-attached to her body, she had a fruitful life as an abbess (the head of a community of nuns) and even went on a pilgrimage to Rome.
What the church celebrates about this story: the virtues of piety and virginity.
What I celebrate instead: the ultimate revenge against unwanted advances.
Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita, also known as Bakhita. 19th-20th century Darfur/Italy.
Saint Bakhita was born in Sudan around 1869. She described the first years of her childhood as happy but was captured and sold into slavery after she turned eight. During Bakhita’s years as an enslaved person, she experienced cruelty and disfigurement at the hands of many masters. She was ultimately sold to the Italian Vice Consul Callisto Legnani in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. The Vice Consul, Bakhita, and his friend, Augusto Michieli fled to Italy when the capital was under siege by Mahdist revolutionaries. Bakhita later served as a maid to Michieli’s wife and a nanny to his daughter Alice in Italy. Eventually, Bakhita was sent for a temporary stay in an Italian convent while Michieli planned his return to Sudan. But when the day arrived for Michielli to take Bakhita back to Sudan she refused to go with him. Instead, she took her case to the Italian courts, which ruled in her favor and recognized her freedom. She stayed at the convent and became a nun.
What the church celebrates about this story: the virtues of redemptive suffering.
What I celebrate instead: The ultimate fight for freedom.
Santa Teresita Urrea, also known as La Niña de Cabora. 19th-20th century Sinaloa and Sonora, Mexico as well as various parts of the United States.
Santa Teresita was born in 1873 in Rancho de Santana, Ocoroni, Sinaloa Mexico. As a girl, she learned to use healing herbs from a curandera named Maria Sonora. She is known as La Niña de Cabora because her family eventually settled in Cabora, Sonora. It was here that Teresita fell into a state lasting more than three months. When she awoke, she performed miraculous healings. Word of her abilities spread throughout poor and indigenous communities who sought her out for help. She did not charge for her cures and always sided with the poor against the landowners. This made her politically dangerous so she and her father were deported to the United States. Teresita visited large cities in the United States where she continued to perform her cures but ended the tour when she discovered that her promoters were charging people. She eventually settled in Arizona.
What the church celebrates about this story: It doesn’t. Not yet anyway.
What I celebrate instead: The ultimate strength and independence of a border folk saint.
There is a lot of suffering in these stories but lots of resistance and power. Saints have traditionally been invoked against a variety of ills and calamities. Maybe we can invoke these saints as we strive to work against that ultimate calamity, the patriarchy.