Saints to Petition during Disability Pride Month
- St. Margaret of Castello. She was born with multiple deformities (blindness, spinal curvature, one leg shorter than the other, and a deformed arm) and she never grew taller than 4 feet. Her parents abandoned her at a shrine in Castello when she was 6. She was later on adopted by a loving couple that treated her kindly. She grew up to be a nun who nursed the sick, consoled the dying, and visited prisoners. During her funeral, a girl with deformed legs dragged herself up to St. Margaret’s casket, touched it, and gained the ability to walk. This miracle caused the priest overseeing her funeral to arrange for her burial to be inside of the church instead of the churchyard. That said, she is the patroness of the physically disabled and those who are abandoned because of ableism.
- St. Giles. He was born to a wealthy family in 650. After their deaths, he gave his inheritance to the poor. In Greece, he became known as a miracle worker, but he went into hiding in France so that people wouldn’t start worshipping him instead of God. He opted to live in a cave as a hermit for many years up until a deer ran in to hide from royal hunters. One of the hunters shot an arrow into the cave hoping to hit the deer, but it hit St. Giles’ leg instead. He begged to be left alone, but the king at the time sent doctors to tend to the wound he sustained. The king then had a monastery built for him and his followers where he eventually died in the early 8th century. He is a patron of the physically disabled (especially disabilities gained after an injury).
- St. Seraphina. The first 9 years of her life are unknown, but when she was 10, she was stricken by an illness (presumably tuberculosis or osteomyelitis) that began to paralyze her. She took comfort in St. Gregory and prayed for his intercession often. 5 years later, St. Gregory appeared to her and predicted that she would succumb to her illness in 8 days, to which she did. In the following years, many of the sick and disabled people who visited her grave were cured.
- St. Joseph of Cupertino. Born in 1603, it’s suspected that he had some form of neurodivergence. Absentmindedness, forgetfulness, a slow learner, aimlessly wandering around, and a bad temper. No matter how hard he tried, he never really seemed to fit in…until he became a priest. Despite his symptoms, he was always able to see the beauty in every little thing God made and often got lost in thought over it for days at a time. He was famous for miraculous healings of the sick and disabled. He also correctly predicted his own death.
- St. Dymphna. Not sure if I’m allowed to go over her story on here, but she’s a patroness of mental, psychiatric, neurological, and emotional disorders. She is a patroness of a few other things, too, but again, not sure if I’m allowed to get into it.
- While mostly known as a patroness of indigenous peoples & traditional ecological knowledge, St. Kateri Tekawitha is also petitioned for matters pertaining to visual impairments and facial deformities, scars, etc. She was struck by smallpox as a child and, while she survived, the sickness left her visually impaired and with permanent scarring on her face. When she died, it’s said that the scars on her miraculously cleared up.
- St. René Goupil. He was a surgeon and missionary. When he tried to become a Jesuit priest, he was rejected due to his hearing loss. He continued his volunteer missionary work and was later on martyred by Kanien'kehá:ka warriors after teaching a Kanien'kehá:ka child how to do the sign of the cross. He is a (unofficial) patron of the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
- St. Lidwina of Schiedam. When she was 15, she had a bad fall while ice skating and broke a rib. The rib didn’t heal properly which led to a gangrene that spread all throughout her body which left her paralyzed and she suffered from a few chronic and debilitating illnesses. She’s a patroness of ice skaters, the chronically ill, and those who experience chronic pain. Some suspect that she may have had multiple sclerosis, so she’s also a patroness of those who have MS.
If you know of other saints associated with disorders and/or disabilities, you can reblog this and add to the list!
