There are a lot of patron saints out there in the Catholic multiverse. They have saints for every day of the year and then some. We’ve all heard of the more famous saints like St. Paul, St. Peter and St. Patrick. What, no Saint Gary? Pfft. But then there are some lesser-known saints, but by no means less holy.
Take St. Bernardino for an example. He travelled all over Italy and preached to the public instead of reading boring sermons in church. He became known as one of the greatest orators of his time, drawing big crowds with his captivating sermons. Sounds great, until you learn that he preached anti-Semitism, the brutal persecution of homosexuality, and the occasional witch hunt. Nevertheless, his gift of the gab led him to be venerated as the saint of marketing, communications and PR. No joke.
Then there’s St. Lawrence, who while being executed by the Romans (by being cooked on the grill) allegedly exclaimed after quite some time, “I'm done on this side, turn me over” and became the saint of cooks, chefs, and comedians. You just can’t make this stuff up.
And then some saints are very niche indeed. Like St. Lidwina of Schiedam, the patron saint of ice skating. At age 15, she fell over ice skating and broke her rib, which one source ominously states was the beginning of her martyrdom. No matter what medical intervention was applied, her rib just did not heal. She became progressively paralysed, soon unable to walk, her body slowly deteriorating to the point where she was confined to bed for the rest of her life.
But paralysis was just the beginning. Soon after her injury, gangrene set in and spread across her entire body. She had three large open wounds on her body where maggots feasted on her rotting flesh. She barely ate anything, surviving mostly on the Eucharist and had literally zero sleep for days, weeks, and even months on end. Then she began to shed. Skin, bones, parts of her intestines. Some stories suggest that she may have even puked out some bone. Her parents kept the offcasts in a vase, which would give off a sweet odour, making her quite popular with the townspeople.
All she could do was meditate on the ‘gift’ of pain and suffering that God had given her. At about 25 years of age, Lidwina began to experience ecstasies and visions and apparently, many miracles took place at her bedside, gaining her the reputation as a healer and holy woman.
But despite her blissful spiritual experiences, Lidwina continued to suffer every imaginable pain. She had intense headaches, toothaches, fever, dropsy, (generalised swelling), she couldn’t see out of her right eye, and her left eye was so weak that any light caused her pain. She was one big sore from head to foot and greatly emaciated. What a life.
Not only did she become the patron saint of ice skating, but she was also canonized as the patron saint of the chronically ill. And, as it turns out, Lidwina is thought to be one of, if not the first documented cases of multiple sclerosis.
Perhaps all that suffering was not so much God’s will, but an awful degenerative disease of the nervous system.
But to live in that amount of pain, she must have received help from St. Drausnius, the patron saint of invincible people. Or maybe she prayed to St. Genesius, the saint of torture (as well as clowns, actors, lawyers and many other random things).
What else will they come up with? Patron saint of the internet? (Spoiler, they already have)
-
[00:00:00] Rod: She's 15. She goes ice skating with her friends. Either she was a klutz and fell or more likely maybe someone pushed her over. So she fell really hard, broke a rib and probably banged her head quite hard as well.
[00:00:10] Will: That's not good.
[00:00:12] Rod: It's not great. The rib did not heal and no matter what medical intervention was applied, it just wouldn't make any difference.
[00:00:18] Will: Let's guess that there's something else going on.
[00:00:19] Rod: I don't know what you're saying. One biographer ominously declares, this was the beginning of her martyrdom. It's going to be great.
[00:00:25] Will: Because obviously the way that God works is not through, you know, the Romans stringing up the wrong people or what or tempting you with the lions and shit like that. But the God is like ice skating.
[00:00:35] Rod: Fell over ice skating, broke a rib, you're fucked mate. I mean, holy.
[00:00:38] Will: Yeah. All the way. I'm going to torture you into holiness. I mean, God, come on!
[00:00:42] Rod: I feel like you've ruined the story.
[00:00:43] Will: What the fuck? Like where is your big sky guy? Look, love ya, I love you Catholics, but, come on.
[00:00:51] Rod: Yeah. There are a lot of patron saints out there in the Catholic multiverse. A lot.
[00:01:02] Will: Yes. One for every day of the year plus more
[00:01:05] Rod: and some extra days. So you're famous one, St. Christopher, St. Peter
[00:01:09] Will: St. Christopher boats? St. Peter churches,
[00:01:14] Rod: St. Francis of Assisi, animals, you know, I think animals and and being unbathed. So there's also your lesser known mobs and two of these at least I'm just gonna give you a couple that are quite relevant to us. St. Bernardino, not mineral water, 15th century Bernardino traveled all over Italy preach to the public instead of remaining cloistered. So he was out.
[00:01:33] Will: There's a public understanding of Catholicism.
[00:01:35] Rod: He was getting out there but apparently even though he had a hoarse and weak voice, He became known as one of the greatest orators of his time, apparently.
[00:01:42] Will: Oh, you don't need a perfect voice to make a good speech.
[00:01:44] Rod: We've proven that. We do that every week now. Apparently he was captivating, he had creative use of language, it would draw big crowds, and it led to a bit of a revival in Christianity in the 15th century. But also his fiery sermons included anti Semitism, the brutal persecution of homosexuality, the occasional laming of women as witches.
[00:02:00] Will: Less good on him. I hate these people and these people too.
[00:02:03] Rod: You're a bastards, you're a bastards, you're a bastards. But I would say this eloquently.
[00:02:07] Will: But I'm not quite sure about the sainthood then.
[00:02:09] Rod: No, he earned it. Patron saint of marketing, communications and PR.
[00:02:13] Will: And, and anti Semitism and homophobic patron saint of marketing. Oh my god.
[00:02:18] Rod: Marketing, comms, public relations.
[00:02:21] Will: Fair enough. Everyone needs one. A hundred years ago, there was like 50 jobs. Now there's infinity jobs. So there's patron saint of consultants, patron saint of reverse data analysts.
[00:02:31] Rod: By the end of this, there's going to be patron saint of the wholesome show. St. Lawrence in Lawrence's day. Christian leaders were ordered once they were told they're going to be executed, they had to turn over all their riches to the church. Oh, yes. It was not uncommon. So the Romans would say, we're going to kill you so the church say, well, give us all the riches before we get killed.
[00:02:51] Yeah. So the prefect of Rome ordered Lawrence to do this and he said, can I just have three days to get all the churches goods together due diligence. I'm getting into it. Yeah. I want to do it really well. I don't want to stiff you. So in that three days he distributed his riches among the poor. Then he presented the city's poor as the treasures of the church. Oh, he also put up a widows and consecrated virgins as the true crown in the jewel of the church.
[00:03:16] Will: Okay, buddy. All right. Fair enough.
[00:03:17] Rod: This made the prefect peeved. So he said, true crown is our virgins. Yeah. It's like, are these the riches? Oh, the poor people, to which he replied, cook the fucker, cook him over a gridiron.
[00:03:34] So St. Lawrence, apparently having been put on the gridiron, allegedly exclaimed after quite some time, I'm done on this side, turn me over. So he became the saint of cooks, chefs, and comedians.
[00:03:45] Will: No, that's not, okay, yes. Comedians, I get. But cooks and chefs?
[00:03:49] Rod: By being cooked. He really cared about the craft.
[00:03:52] Will: Like, if he had fed a lot of the people?
[00:03:53] Rod: He may have, I don't know. These saints are pretty specific. I'm wondering if you've heard of St. Lidwina of Schiedam. She is, among other things, which we'll get to, the patron saint of ice skating.
[00:04:11] Will: Welcome to the Wholesome Show, the science podcast that fully expects to be canonized for its gushing devotion to the whole of science. No I don't expect.
[00:04:21] Rod: Don't you? I do now. Having read this, having learned about this.
[00:04:24] Will: I'm Will Grant.
[00:04:25] Rod: I'm St. Rod Lamberts. Lidwina, or Lidvine, Lidvid, Lidvud, Lidwina.
[00:04:33] Will: None of them are great, are you gonna get to a good one?
[00:04:36] Rod: Lidwina will do. She was born in Scheidam in Holland in 1380. She was the fifth child of nine, and she was the only girl. So her mother apparently was at a Palm Sunday Mass in the local church. So a very religious moment, you know, the whole Easter business of warming up. Suddenly she got rushed home to give birth to Edwina, and the passion was being sung. So one of those kind of, you know, Jesus is dying.
[00:04:58] Will: Why don't you stay in the church?
[00:04:58] Rod: well, 'cause she had to have the baby and it would be disrespectful to get the ooze on the floor of the church.
[00:05:03] Will: Yeah. But it'd be like religious and stuff. That's God's saying. Now's your time. Do it. Do it here. There's an altar up there.
[00:05:09] Rod: She had to go home to have the baby while the passion was being sung, which is, you know, deeply, the passion of the Christ and that's pretty horrifying.
[00:05:15] Will: She's got, she's got a hymns up.
[00:05:16] Rod: Yeah. But also it's like the talking about the yicky stuff. And one of the sources says this was an omen of the suffering Ludwina was to endure.
[00:05:25] Will: Oh, great. Cool. Great. Cool. It's great. You know, it's that thing that time machines. No one, there are no pregnant women that are going, you know what, if I get me a time machine, I'll go back to 1318 and have a baby.
[00:05:39] Rod: I Want the authentic experience
[00:05:40] Will: Anytime before now.
[00:05:42] Rod: And anytime before yesterday, like today is it. So yeah, apparently she was even very, as a child, she was drawn to the mother of God. I assume that mean Mary. By seven or eight, she was already greatly devoted to the image of our lady in the church Schiedam. Apparently she was a beautiful and intelligent girl.
[00:06:01] Will: I mean, that's what you need for sainthood.
[00:06:02] Rod: You need to know. Oh yeah. You want to canonize it. Is she hot?
[00:06:06] Will: But what era is this? Remember, this is the era of the fucking popes. They stood out I reckon around then. There was that pope that got killed by being thrown out the window for fucking too much.
[00:06:14] Rod: Didn't we talk about that?
[00:06:15] Will: We did. We did. I'm just saying that around then, this is an era where they celebrated this kind of thing. So.
[00:06:20] Rod: Yeah, they did. Celebrated non celibacy. By the age of 12, many men wanted to marry her
[00:06:26] Will: fucking hell.
[00:06:26] Rod: Marry. So formal, beautiful commitment wanted to, but she declared her intention to remain a virgin as I think a 12 year old should.
[00:06:37] Will: Again, could we just leave it alone? Could she just be playing with her toys?
[00:06:41] Rod: Couldn't she just be 12?
[00:06:42] Will: I know that being 12 back in those days meant working in the salt mine, milking 80 cows every minute
[00:06:48] Rod: and having nine babies a day.
[00:06:50] Will: No, could we leave out the having babies?
[00:06:52] Rod: We can't. You cannot tell the past what to do. They've already done it. So anyway, she'd said, no, I'm going to stay virgin. This is at 12. 15, she goes skating, ice skating with her friends. Either she was a klutz and fell or more likely maybe someone pushed her over on the ice. So she fell really hard, broke a rib and probably banged her head quite hard as well. Probably, but that's a little less clear. It's very clear she broke a rib on her right hand side.
[00:07:16] Will: That's not good.
[00:07:17] Rod: It's not great. The rib did not heal. Oh, and no matter what medical intervention was applied, it just wouldn't make any difference.
[00:07:25] Will: Let's guess that there's something else going on.
[00:07:26] Rod: I don't know what you're saying. One biographer ominously declares this was the beginning of her martyrdom. It's going to be great
[00:07:34] Will: Because obviously the way that God works, it's not through, you know, the Romans stringing up the wrong people or tempting you with the lions and shit like that. But the God is like ice skating.
[00:07:43] Rod: Fell over ice skating, broke a rib. You're fucked, mate. I mean, holy.
[00:07:47] Will: Yeah. All the way. I'm going to torture you into holiness.
[00:07:50] Rod: I feel like you've ruined the story.
[00:07:55] Will: What the fuck? Like where is your big sky guy? Come on.
[00:08:00] Rod: Yeah. So she became progressively paralyzed. She soon became unable to walk, which needed a stick or a crutch and her body would slowly deteriorate.
[00:08:07] Will: I'm going to do a little bit of science and say it's more than a broken rib.
[00:08:10] Rod: So from about 20 she was confined to her bed
[00:08:12] Will: When did she have the accident? 15. Oh,
[00:08:15] Rod: so she was limping around on crutches and stuff.
[00:08:16] Will: Progressively got worse and the ice skating was the moment.
[00:08:19] Rod: Yep. So yeah, from about 20 she was confined to bed and she basically remained in bed for the rest of her life. And no, that wasn't two or three years. That was quite a few years, but paralysis kind of sound like the best bit. I know because soon after injury gangrene began to set in and spread according to at least a few sources across her entire body.
[00:08:39] Will: When I was reading, you know, as a kid spontaneous human combustion, obviously the worst, obviously the number one, like just the idea that you could just explode.
[00:08:46] Rod: I'm just watching TV
[00:08:48] Will: gangrene, number two, like body rotting on you. Really? Like,
[00:08:52] Rod: I'm thinking date cancer.
[00:08:53] Will: No, I didn't think about that as a kid.
[00:08:54] Rod: And that's good. That means you had a good childhood. If you think about that as a kid.
[00:08:58] Will: No, I see. I was just worried about spontaneous human combustion and gangrene.
[00:09:01] Rod: The gangrene was setting in spread over entire body. Let's bring back something more pleasant at 16 and abscess burst in fluids, quote, came up through her mouth with the vomiting. She had three large open wounds on her body and maggots began to eat her rotting flesh. The maggots came out of the wound in her stomach and they put a plaster of fresh wheat and honey on it to draw the maggots towards that rather than to stop them feeding on her, which makes sense.
[00:09:26] Will: A little bit of brie. Sure, the maggots will like that more. We'll just put a little picnic next
[00:09:31] Rod: But apparently the smell that came off it was overall, surprisingly sweet. So that's nice. When she was about 18, her confessor, which I think just means her priest, taught her how to meditate upon the passion of Christ. Now apparently she found this quite difficult at first. She's three years into this ordeal. But with, quote, persevering effort, she acquired great recollection. She soon began to feel happiness in her pains, recognizing in them God's will and her special vocation.
[00:10:01] Will: Yeah, okay.
[00:10:03] Rod: So she got quite quickly to a point where she ate almost nothing, except for an occasional piece of apple, a little bit of bread, maybe some milk or wine, maybe some sugar or a bit of grape. That was all she'd eat. A bit here and a bit there. When her body got to the point where she could no longer tolerate that, she drank a bit of water from the river, which is not a good idea. And apparently, according to a number of sources, she survived on the Eucharist.
[00:10:25] Will: The little wafer bread.
[00:10:26] Rod: Bit of sourdough and some, I don't know, Pinot Noir. Survived on the Eucharist. Also, she was completely unable to sleep for days, weeks, and maybe months. Like, completely not sleeping. Sleep was out.
[00:10:37] Will: Surely she is just passing in and out of delirium. Like, with this level of pain and this level of rotting of the body.
[00:10:43] Rod: Religious ecstasy.
[00:10:43] Will: Religious ecstasy or delirium.
[00:10:45] Rod: I would imagine. So apparently there's a document from the time that was put together by town officials. And it may still exist. A document that corroborates she ate fuck all and apparently slept pretty much zero. Okay. Also talks of how Lidwina shed skin bones, parts of her intestines. Some stories suggest that you may have puked some bone out.
[00:11:06] Will: How does a bone get in the puke passageway? Apart from the gross out here, I'm just being sciencey here. Yeah. Like, how do you get the
[00:11:14] Rod: Footbone's connected to the tummy bone.
[00:11:16] Will: How do you suddenly pass a bone? I mean, I get a bone falling off you if you're rotting that badly. Oh my God. They threw up a bone. Fuck. Sometimes you throw up and it's a little bit of throw up. Sometimes you feel a powerful purge and you know, you know, that way you get a little bit proud of something that's that horrific, but that amount of, like, if you threw up a bone, I'd be like, fuck yeah, I threw up a bone.
[00:11:39] Rod: That's a bit of finger. I don't know how it happened. I didn't eat it. My right pointy finger only has one knuckle. I don't know if she was proud.
[00:11:49] Will: I'm just saying you got to take your wins.
[00:11:50] Rod: You do, you do, you do. So she's shedding this stuff, skin, bones, parts for intestines. Her parents kept the offcasts in a vase.
[00:11:58] Will: Oh, God, thank you.
[00:12:00] Rod: Which would apparently give off a sweet odor. And apparently, this is the quote, these excited so much attention that Lidwina had her mother bury the bits.
[00:12:07] Will: Mother, stop collecting my bones.
[00:12:09] Rod: People are interested in this stuff.
[00:12:10] Will: Mother, I'm rotting in front of you. Could you not keep it for show and tell?
[00:12:15] Rod: People seem to like the smell, which freaks me out even more. Also, she had intense headaches, toothaches, fever, and dropsy, aka generalized swelling. One report at least suggests the dropsy might have been caused because she'd been impregnated by the local priest, but I didn't see that anywhere else. So they're saying she may have been swollen because she was impregnated. I find that unlikely, but not impossible. She could hardly speak because of the cleft in her lower lip and chin. As well, she could not see out of her right eye, and her left eye was so weak that it was painful to see any light, so she often had to stay in the dark. Cool, right? But it's okay.
[00:12:55] Will: God wanted it.
[00:12:56] Rod: Cause when God slams a huge door in your nuts
[00:12:58] Will: it just opens a can of lemonade.
[00:12:59] Rod: He opens a tiny little crack in a window. Cause he, quote, rewarded her with a wonderful gift of prayer and also with visions. So, stop your whinging.
[00:13:09] Will: Okay, visions could be fun. It's like TV for the 14th century.
[00:13:12] Rod: About 25, she began to experience ecstasies, which continued throughout her life.
[00:13:17] Will: Well, that's better than not.
[00:13:18] Rod: It is. I agree.
[00:13:20] Will: I 100 percent go with, I'll take the ecstasy, thank you God.
[00:13:22] Rod: Her spirit was taken to purgatory, where, this is one of the examples, where she would see the suffering of souls, including some of her friends, but it said she accepted all these ailments with great love for God and offered them up for the conversion of sinners and for the souls in purgatory. So her suffering was in some sense helpful to them. I suffer a lot therefore, you and purgatory, et cetera, will be helped.
[00:13:46] And of course, some folks assume she was actually possessed by demons. Cause you know, you're going to be suspicious and jealous of someone in that position.
[00:13:52] Will: Oh, well, that's the thing you can't tell what God would do and what the devil would do. It's weird.
[00:13:58] Rod: Well, they worked it out. So at some point her local priest brought what they called an unconsecrated host. I assume like a shitty bit of bread. And she went, nah, that's a fake. That's not concentrated. So she's legit holy
[00:14:08] Will: fuck. That is science. This is how this is a science podcast.
[00:14:11] Rod: We did a religious test.
[00:14:13] Will: Where's your control? She's got 20 bits of bread. Some have been consecrated, not consecrated or not consecrated, or not consecrated, blind tasting of consecrated bread.
[00:14:20] Rod: She was basically blind. So that's cold, man.
[00:14:22] Will: No, I didn't mean it that way.
[00:14:23] Rod: That's cold. So many miracles apparently took place at her bedside and she gained a reputation as a healer and a holy woman.
[00:14:28] Will: Ah, oh, what else are you gonna do? You're in the local village or whatever. And you're like, Oh fuck. I've broken my leg again. And then let's go smell the bone thrower up.
[00:14:35] Rod: Yeah. Let's see what she sheds today.
[00:14:37] Will: It couldn't hurt, but also it's a great excuse. It's a great excuse. It's like, fuck, she's got to be gross. Let's go and see and Gary, could you just fake an illness and pretend you need some healing? And whoa, there you go.
[00:14:50] Rod: And at least we get to visit. She probably likes visitors. That doesn't come up,
[00:14:53] Will: but again, no one's got TV. So her visions are probably better than anything.
[00:14:58] Rod: she was also quote credited with many acts of curing and charity, providing abundant food and nourishment to the needy that miraculously multiplied or lasted longer than expected.
[00:15:07] Will: Oh, cool.
[00:15:08] Rod: Fuck knows how that worked. I have no idea. That's just a comment.
[00:15:11] Will: No, but sometimes you make a dinner that lasts longer than you expect.
[00:15:13] Rod: That's true. You freeze it. You pat it out. So you got your meatloaf and you add corn flakes and then it seems like everyone's eating meat for longer.
[00:15:18] Will: Well, sometimes you're just not quite as hungry. Like you eat a bit more cheese and beforehand and you just go, normally this dinner I'd finish it all, but now I'm not, it must be a miracle.
[00:15:28] Rod: I had three beers before and I'm a bit full. This is going to last until tomorrow.
[00:15:32] Will: The miracle of the beers beforehand.
[00:15:34] Rod: By the age of 40, she was happy to be able to receive the communion at least a number of times a week. So by that, I'm thinking what they mean is, eat a meal because that was the Eucharist.
[00:15:43] Will: Yeah. But, but someone comes to her.
[00:15:44] Rod: Priest comes to her. No. She's not leaving. And during her last few years, she could not move anything except her head and her left arm, and she always had to lie on her back.
[00:15:52] Will: Oh my God. The human body though.
[00:15:54] Rod: It's a miracle, isn't it? It's a miracle. So at some point in her life, it's not really clear when, but at some point she was shown a vision of a rose bush and she was told When this shall be in bloom, your suffering will be at an end. Ah, so it's the spring of the year, 1433 she apparently cries out "I see the Rose Bush in full bloom."
[00:16:13] Will: Yeah, that's what Macbeth said as well.
[00:16:15] Rod: He did, yeah. But his suffering was not an end how? However, hers apparently would be. So on the morning of Easter Day, which she was apparently in deep contemplation, and she beheld in a vision christ coming towards her to administer the sacrament of extreme unction of some everyday unction.
[00:16:30] Will: No, it's fully no fear. He's got his sunglasses on he's fully sick.
[00:16:34] Rod: He's like I'm gonna extremely unction you and she died in the odor of great sanctity Not my words. So basically from 15 to 53. She suffered every imaginable pain, she was one sore from head to foot and greatly emaciated. What a life. Why the fuck am I talking to you about her?
[00:16:56] Will: It's a question.
[00:16:57] Rod: Well, she was beatified or canonized, not just for the patron saint of ice skating, but also the patron saint of, depending on who you read, chronically ill or people in chronic pain. But the real reason she came to my attention was because she thought to have been one of, if not the first Documented case of multiple sclerosis.
[00:17:14] Will: What?
[00:17:15] Rod: I know. Enter science and medicine. Historical texts, they list the string of maladies and problems that she had going on and has heaps in common with a lot of the characteristics of multiple sclerosis.
[00:17:24] So when it came on, so mid teens, how long it lasted. Okay. For fucking ever. And the kind of the course and nature of much of the disease paralysis, the eye problems, et cetera. Okay. Very MS. So she may have actually been the first example that's been recorded. So when you add these, the posthumous diagnosis of MS relatively plausible, so maybe it's been recorded since the 14th century and at least one source from the Acta Neurologica Scandinavia, so actual science source, does the history of multiple sclerosis go back as far as the 14th century? And the quote is a number of documents written before or shortly after her death surprised us by their very accurate description of symptoms, which now for the most part correspond to the clinical criteria for the diagnosis of MS. This is in the seventies.
[00:18:09] Of course, there are people who argue, they say, that's bullshit. Like there's a very big wig Canadian neurologist, a guy called Thomas Jock Murray . And he's like, nah, enthusiastic, exaggerated reports and myth building by those who revered her and her saintliness.
[00:18:22] Will: Could be either way.
[00:18:23] Rod: But there are many sources that suggest that maybe this was like the first account of mS.
[00:18:28] Will: So, so just to confirm, MS, like a neurodegenerative sort of condition, it's about nerves. Yeah. There's no reason to suggest that it probably hasn't always been around. It's not like some sort of disease that has emerged recently or anything.
[00:18:41] Rod: No, apparently not. It's not clear whether it has been around forever, but not really credible accounts.
[00:18:46] Will: I get that. But what we're saying. It may have been around forever, but we haven't, it's not like one of those things that just emerged.
[00:18:53] Rod: And the suspicion is when you go back and read through it is maybe she fell over because she was starting to get these paralysis or issues.
[00:19:00] Will: I think it's a fascinating thing to be able to think about conditions. That that, you know, we've lived through and we have so much better documentation now to go back and go, okay, so what might they look like in early literature where they're looking for different things?
[00:19:14] Rod: So it's tricky, but I mean, I'm not going to go into this cause there's no point, but there's a whole bunch of stuff about her canonization, different churches, bits of her body being a relics of saints, et cetera,
[00:19:24] Will: who doesn't want to keep a bit.
[00:19:25] Rod: Yeah. Exactly.
[00:19:26] Will: This is a bit of a spew. I got some bones here. This is the inside of her finger. She spewed it backwards.
[00:19:31] Rod: So morals of the story for me, historical times with lists of symptoms may be open to a hint of interpretation, but they could also be indicators of, you know, what's going on. You don't really have to work very hard for medicine to reduce any spiritual experience to a disease state. We're good at that. But more to the point, there's a patron saint of literally fucking everything. For example, I'll give you three more. St. Dralcinius, who's the patron saint of invincible people.
[00:19:54] Will: Oh, fuck yeah. Big call. Big call.
[00:19:59] Rod: Why the fuck do they need one?
[00:20:00] Will: Well, they'd like one. Like, it's like, no, it's a mascot for them. Like, I'm invincible, so I need a mascot.
[00:20:07] Rod: Oh, look, you're a saint, aren't you? Aren't you adorable? It just cracks me up. And I mean, I've verified this.
[00:20:14] Will: I always assumed invincible was a word invented by the comic books. Like it's like you get to comic books 1930 and it's like, okay, we need invincible as a term. I didn't think that the Catholic church would be like, we need invincible as a thing.
[00:20:26] Rod: Well, it's fair to say I'm reading modern sources of stories about such folks, so maybe the language is different. St. Genesius, which sounds like a Star Wars villain patron saint of actors, lawyers, barristers, clowns, comedians, converts, dancers, people with epilepsy, musicians, printers, stenographers and victims of torture. What are you fucking talking about? Stenographers is already funny. Not the profession. I really admire the profession of stenography, but victims of torture on the list of actors, lawyers, barristers, clowns, comedians, converts, whatever that is, dancers, people with epilepsy, musicians, printers.
[00:21:04] Will: I wouldn't take it seriously. Like I want my patron saint to be focused on me and not also talking to a clown. Like, I'm being tortured here, buddy.
[00:21:11] Rod: I don't mean to be offensive, but were you just talking to a clown?
[00:21:14] Will: I mean, really like, like don't care about a clown if you're caring about torture people, I'm sorry.
[00:21:18] Rod: Who are we to question the focus of the saints. Finally St. Isidore appointed by John Paul the second. patron saint of computers and the internet.
[00:21:31] Will: Computers in the internet. I logged on. What did you do? I was so good at my tweets. I was the greatest troll ever. Like, how are you the patron saint?
[00:21:48] Rod: There is information and things involved. So basically I'd like to say now, I think we have new spiritual sponsors. The Wholesome Show's new spiritual sponsors. Which one? Saint Isidore of course, because of the internet and stuff. Oh yeah. With the assist of Saint Lawrence and Saint Genesius. Comedians and of course clowns. So there you go. Saints, multiple sclerosis, we now have religious backing. You're welcome.
