From Xico

Santoral for April 19

Today Sts Victor, Inez, Sara, Odette, Gerard, Marcelino, Simon and Theodore are celebrated.

Saint Ines, or Inés in Spanish, is referred to as the patron saint of adolescents. According to Wikipedia, she was born towards the end of the third century C.E., the daughter of noble Romans.  She rejected her suitors in order to give herself to Christ as a virgin.  One of her suitors was angry and denounced her to the government which, at the time, was in the midst of persecuting Christians.  She was tried and sentenced to live out her life in a brothel.  Miraculously, it is said she maintained her virginity.  In order to maintain her modesty, it is said that, also miraculously, her hair grew in such a way as to hide her nakedness.  Her name, Ines, is apparently the same as Agnes (Agnus).  For this reason the lambs whose will is used to make part of the garb of the pope and archbishops also are blessed on her saint's day.

In Mexico, Saint Ines has additional significance.  For one thing, she is the patron saint of one of the convents in the city of Puebla of which there were a startling number.  Now exconvento de Saint Ines, it was built in the 1600s in the colonial style. Here you can find a nice series of photos of it. Exconvento de San Ines also became the name of a brand of rompope.

All of Puebla's convents were important to the city in the distribution of fresh water. Later, they became known for the production of the liqueur Rompope. The church was very powerful in Puebla, mixing politics with religion and thus entertaining on a grand scale.  Apparently it was the nuns in the convents who were in charge of the cooking for the banquets held for the dignitaries of various sorts.  According to legend, a nun named Eduviges who'd already taken her vows knew the recipe for Rompope, a most delicious beverage was served at the end of meals.  Although nuns weren't permitted to drink alcohol, an exception was made for her so she could take a tiny taste of the batches being produced to determine their quality.  Eduviges later convinced the church authorities that there would be no harm in permitting all the nuns to have small tastes of it as well.

Rompope became a reliable source of income for the convents.

However, St. Ines Rompope is not made in a convent, but rather by a family business in Puebla. The family says it took the name of Ines because the name Ines has "a noble origin, and it is also taken from one of the mosts famous convens in Puebla, known for the goodness of the monks and for its beauty."

Santoral for March 24

From El Universal:
Today we celebrate Saints Diego, Simón, Berta, Guillermo, Catalina, Segundo, Marco, Flavio, Latino, Epigmenio, Timoteo y Severo.

Who are in English (or Latin), where applicable or where I can figure or find out the equivalent:
Diego is an equivalent for James.  Simon, Bertha,  William, Mark, Flavius, Timothy and Severus.

Saint James of the Bible is not the San Diego, actually two San Diegos, whose day is marked today.

One of these is San Diego de Alcalá, the patron saint of Tuéjar in Spain in the province of Valencia.  This town has a very lively web site where you can learn about its Iglesia de San Diego.  Here is a photo of a statue of San Diego from the church taken from the web site.:

Our San Diego (1400?-1463), although he was apparently not "de Alcalá" but  apparently from a small town in Andalucia called San Nicolás del Puorto.  It still is a small town, very pretty, in the central southern part of Spain near some rugged terrain.  You can see some photos here.

San Diego was a wanderer.  As the author of one hagiography says, "In the dust of his sandles were mixed and glued the soil of innumerable walks through Spain, France and Italy.

He was a seeker after God, and finally in Arrizafa, near Córdoba, he became a lay brother among the Franciscans.  And then set forth as a missionary. And of course
"in his wake he left caring and miracles which still survive in the traditional local places in not a few of those pueblos."

His one very slender connection with Mexico is probably his missionary work in the Canary Islands in 1450. As you may or may not know, in the mid 1700s Canary Islanders settled in the San Antonio, Texas area to cement Spain's claim to the territory.  The first community of civilians there was known as San Fernando de Bexar. 

Descendents of those first Canary Islanders still live in the San Antonio area.  My boss, when I worked at UT Health Science Center as a research associate, was a descendent of Canary Islanders.  Her great grandfather (or was it great great?) fought as a Texan against the Mexicans at the Alamo.

After all his travels, San diego returned to Spain to finish out his life.

He figures in a surprising amount of art work.  Here is an image I stole from Wikipedia.  He looks to be an interesting man.

Santoral for March 20

From El Universal

Today we celebrate Saints Cuthbert, Vulfrano, Eufemia, Hippolites and Ambrose.

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Vulfrano was born Ramon Mill Aran in 1909.  He was killed in Barcelona in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.  In 2007 Benedict beatified him and about 500 other religious who were  killed because of Republican hostility to the Church.  During the Spanish Civil War, most of the Church sided with the Nationalists and Franco against the Republicans, the latter seeing the Church as representing the elites and the powerful.  Pope Benedicts action was seen as deliberately controversial since a Socialist government had just come into power in Spain in 2007.  You may remember, this was the government that replaced conservatives  following the act of terrorism against a train in Madrid. It was also the government elected in part because of opposition to the country's participation in the Iraq war.  Here is a link to an article in the International Herald Tribune giving an account of the beatification and Spanish-Vatican relations at the time.

Calendar of Saints' Days -- El Santoral del 6 y 7 de enero -- and Epiphany

Today the saint's day for Gaspar, Melchor and Balthazar are  celebrated.  These should be recognizable as the Three Kings or Magi and of course today is the Feast of the Epiphany. Here Epiphany is a big deal, and it used to be the bigger day for giving gifts to kids before the commercial tentacles of Christmas spread themselves around.  Those tentacles I suppose are not all bad. 

A number of houses in Xico have chains of very pretty stars hanging out front I am guessing to mark the star that guided the Magi to the baby Jesus.

Anyway, yesterday I had to go to that bastion of commercialism, Costco (well, I didn't have to, I never have to) and lo and behold they were handing out free toys for Ephiphany.  And today our neighbors and the local doctora Veronica are handing out toys in our Colonia.

The feast is also celebrated with a big ring-shaped cake, the rosca del reyes, or king's crown,  in which, if I'm not mistaken, a small plastic (these days) baby is hidden so you have to be careful not to chomp down too hard.  If you are the one to encounter the baby, you have to have the feast next year.  Only people of faith are supposed to be able to find it.

Other saints whose days are celebrated today are James, Frederic and Aparicio.  Tomorrow Raymond, Virginia, Albert, Theodore, Edward and Julian are commemorated. 

As sual, I don't know the English analoges for all the names, this time for Aparicio.