1 September 2022 - Thursday of the 22nd week in Ordinary Time - feast day of St Fiacre - Psalm 24

It is interesting how I first discovered the saint we celebrate today.  A few years ago, I was visiting some friends in Indianapolis. We were admiring the beautiful garden of a friend in which there was a large statue of a saint wearing a cassock with a hoe in his hand.  I asked that friend if that was St Francis of Assisi, but that she stated it was St Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners. A couple days later we were in the garden of another friend, when low and behold, I encounter another statue of St Fiacre.   St Fiacre was an Irish monk from the 7th century.  He traveled to continental Europe in order to be a missionary to the pagans there.  He settled among the Franks near the town of Meaux, not far from Paris, where he told the local bishop that he sought silence and solitude.  Fiacre built a monastery where he could live and where he tended a garden to sustain himself.  He became adept at using herbs to heal people, which drew many of the faithful to come to his monastery.  He was also known for his charity to the poor.  An interesting point about St Fiacre: he became the patron saint of Parisian taxicab drivers as well.  We might wonder how that came to be, as there does not seem to be a logical connection between gardeners and taxicab drivers, does there?  It began at the Hotel de Saint Fiacre in Paris, which rented carriages back in the 17th century. People began referring to these carriages as “Fiacre cabs”, and then simply “fiacres”. Thus their drivers took on St. Fiacre as their patron and protector.  In the medieval period, many people prayed to St Fiacre for help and healing many centuries after his death.  Anne of Austria attributed the recovery of king Louis XIII from a terrible illiness to the intercession of St Fiacre, to whom she prayed. In thanksgiving, she made a pilgrimage on foot to his shrine in 1641.

The psalm refrain today states: “To the Lord belongs the earth and all that fills it.” What a fitting piece of Scripture for a saint who loved to garden and use the fruits of the earth to heal people. May we unite our prayers with the prayers of St Fiacre today.