Indentifying Saints in Your Church

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PetoVeritas

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I’m curious to know how many of you have walked into a Catholic Church only to find some (or several) statues of Saints that you were unfamiliar with. I’ve got two in my church that I’m not too certain who they are. I don’t even have a clue about who they might be. I know some statues have saints holding certian items that identify them and some have plaques near them to identify them, but one of the two in my church holds nothing. She’s a female and is dressed somewhat like a nun. The other is dressed in a monk’s habit.
My real question is: Is there any easy way to identify who these saints might be? I suppose I can ask a priest or something, but I always feel like a priest has better things to do than take me on a tour of the church.
Has anyone ever wondered about this and figured out a way to identify saints in their church?
 
On Prince Edward Island, in the two Acadian Roman Catholic churches we visited, it took us a bit to figure out some of the saints.

Just ask your priest. Maybe do it through an e-mail? Or the parish secretary or someone like that.

Or, post a picture here and we’ll try!
 
Are there any other details you can mention? Sometimes saints are accompanied by certain symbols. Is the nun holding anything? Is she wearing anything out of the ordinary (crown of thorns, crown of flowers, etc.)? Is there anything at her feet?

Same questions in regards to the monk.🙂
 
Volodymyr_988 said:
That narrows it down to about 5000 different Saints. Could you give us better descriptions?
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Not really. I guess what I’m trying to ask is if there is a reliable way I can identify them for myself? A “picture book”… something. I don’t have pictures of them myself, and like I said before, there’s nothing to identify them really. Nothing at all that is special or peculiar.
 
PetoVeritas said:
Not really. I guess what I’m trying to ask is if there is a reliable way I can identify them for myself? A “picture book”… something. I don’t have pictures of them myself, and like I said before, there’s nothing to identify them really. Nothing at all that is special or peculiar.
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Amazon has quite an offering of picture books of saints
amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Picture+book+of+saints&x=0&y=0

Hope that helps, but without an outlying of money, probably asking the priest or an elder in the church would be easier.

Also, more information regarding the stance of the statues would help. Are they holding up a certain hand? Fingers extended? hand coverings? Arms outstretched? Feet/toes exposed? Sandles/shoes? Color of habit? For the Male saint hairstyle? Crucifix present or absent? Style of Crucifix? Cord at waist? knots and number of knots in cord? Skin Color? Pink cheeks, pale, dark, etc.

You would be amazed but even these little things will help with identifying them.
 
I am amazed at how much those tiny details would change who it is!! :eek:

The “monk” is in a brown habit with a white rope/cord knotted at the waist and hanging to his left.
The lady has I THINK a white? robe on, but she definitely has a black head covering. The “monk” might have a right hand raised, but I don’t think it’s the two up as if he’s offering a “blessing” like the Infant of Prague has. The lady MIGHT have a pink rose in her hand, but I couldn’t swear to that either. I think both her hands are down.

I’ll try to catch my priest the next time I’m wandering around there.
There seem to be two statues of Mary as well. One to her Sacred Heart and one just for her. A lady clad mostly in white. Then there’s one where she’s holding Jesus after his crucifixion so I think we have about 15 Mary statues 😉 , the Infant of Prague, Joseph, Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the other two… so there’s no shortage of statues in the church.
 
PetoVeritas said:
The “monk” is in a brown habit with a white rope/cord knotted at the waist and hanging to his left.
The lady has I THINK a white? robe on, but she definitely has a black head covering. The “monk” might have a right hand raised, but I don’t think it’s the two up as if he’s offering a “blessing” like the Infant of Prague has. The lady MIGHT have a pink rose in her hand, but I couldn’t swear to that either. I think both her hands are down.

I’ll try to catch my priest the next time I’m wandering around there.
There seem to be two statues of Mary as well. One to her Sacred Heart and one just for her. A lady clad mostly in white. Then there’s one where she’s holding Jesus after his crucifixion so I think we have about 15 Mary statues 😉 , the Infant of Prague, Joseph, Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the other two… so there’s no shortage of statues in the church.
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Wow! Nice Church. We* DO* need pictures!

The “monk” in brown is most likely St. Francis of Assisi. Check to see if he has the stigmata. Usually St. Anthony of Padua is shown holding the Christ Child. It could be St. Pio, but once again, check for the stigmata. St. Francis is usually shown as young and St. Pio looks just like St. Pio as an old man as you have seen above.

I agree with the person that the Saint in white with a black veil is probably St. Catherine of Siena. But if the habit is brown, it is probably St. Claire of Asisi. St. Francis and St. Claire usually go together like Sts. Peter and Paul.
 
I play for a parish that has many statues of saints. I didn’t know who several of them were, so I asked some of the OLDER parishioners one day after Mass.

They were thrilled to be asked and thrilled to take me on the “tour.” You see, they grew up in that parish and part of their religious education back then was learning the names and bios of the various saints in the church building.

They told me several hints, too, to help identify saints. St. Lucy was particularly interesting. She is holding a platter with eyeballs on it. You can’t see this unless you climb up into the back balcony (which I occasionally have to do to play piano for cantors who feel uncomfortable in front of the congregation–it’s really hard on my knees to walk up all those steps, unfortunately. Balconies are definitely for the young!). When you are up in the balcony, you can look down on St. Lucy’s platter and see the eyeballs!
 
There really needs to be a standard symbolic languange for the statues and images of the saints – perhaps even an ISO 9000 kind of thing. If it were standardized the wishy-washy-ness inside many of our sacred spaces would diminish some.

When I see a picture of Santo Antonios Abate I check to see if there’s a porker with him… I’d say less than half of the images of him have a swine alongside him getting ready to fufill its noble purpose and be turned to bacon for the poor, yet that’s his standard symbol… an old dude with a pig walking next to him.

I’m iffy on the St. Joseph statues with a log and a saw… In my opinion he should always be seen with a lily in his hand, and a micro-Jesus in his arms or tugging on his belt.

Then there’s the discussion of terrible (or completely absent) stained glass. Good money is too often wasted on stained glass that doesn’t preach the Gospel. Then again after my trip across the USA I found too many churches with clear windows instead of stained glass. Stained glass has the two fold purpose. The first purpose is instruction in the faith. The second purpose is bless the light of the sun as it passes through glass that has been blessed making that very light contain prayer as it enters the sacred space. Light which passes through clear glass maintains its identity with the profane outside world. But, I’ve digressed.

So, in a round about way… the standardization of iconography and statues, stained glassand symbols would go a long way to giving the faithful a consistency thus feeling more at home when they enter a strange church. I should be able to walk in and take a peek, and then come to the quick conclusion that this church is dedicated to say – i dunno – the Five Wounds, or the Purity of the Church., etc.
 
Funny, one church around here has windows full of stained glass depitions of saints, and a good fifteen statues or so and I could identify all bar a couple first time I saw 'em.

There was St Alphonsus Liguori, but portrayed as a young man which threw me. Normally he’s shown as old and hunchbacked. St Francis de Sales and St Felicity, who had no real identifying features. Better than St Agatha - she’s apparently portrayed usually holding her chopped-off BREASTS on a platter :eek:

Those were about the only ones I couldn’t identify. So it would seem that there is, usually, at least a sufficiently standard iconography for most purposes, at least for those like me who pored over illustrated saint storybooks as a child. 🤷
 
I have to agree with so many posters - there’s nothing wrong with asking a priest or parishioner. I had some ideas but sort of changed based on details. Always look for any instrument in their hands or if they’re depicted barefooted or not. Oftentimes, a saint (if they were martyred) will be depicted with the instrument by which they died. ASK someone - we’re all curious at this point!
 
PetoVeritas said:
I’ve got two in my church that I’m not too certain who they are. I don’t even have a clue about who they might be.

Has anyone ever wondered about this and figured out a way to identify saints in their church?
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Pray to them. That might work.
 
Rawb said:
St Therese, the Little Flower?thecatholicgiftstore.com/images/uploads/st1105.jpg
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I thought of her, too. But somehow didn’t think white and black were the colors we see St. Theresa pictured in. BUT - sometimes - maybe. However, didn’t OP say one rose in hand? With St. Theresa, I think the key is that she’s often depicted with a Cross in her arms - the rose, if in her hand, would have to have roses falling from her hand, as well. OH, the suspense at trying to figure it out !:eek:
 
ConservativeOne said:
I thought of her, too. But somehow didn’t think white and black were the colors we see St. Theresa pictured in. BUT - sometimes - maybe. However, didn’t OP say one rose in hand? With St. Theresa, I think the key is that she’s often depicted with a Cross in her arms - the rose, if in her hand, would have to have roses falling from her hand, as well. OH, the suspense at trying to figure it out !:eek:
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St Therese is always depicted with a bunch of roses, not just a single rose. And she usualy wears the brown habit of a carmelite nun, albeit with a black veil.
 
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