JACKSON HEIGHTS — Father Christopher Heanue, pastor of St. Joan of Arc Church in Jackson Heights, often fulfills parishioners’ requests to bless them before they embark on their vacations. And when they ask for the intercession of a saint, Father Heanue said St. Christopher is the “perfect one” to call upon during those moments.
St. Christopher’s status as the patron saint of travelers has spread far and wide over the centuries, even to non-Catholics, who rely on him as a good luck charm. For example, Aviator Charles Lindbergh carried a St. Christopher medal in the pocket of his flight suit during his historic non-stop solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927.
However, there are Catholics who mistakenly believe that St. Christopher isn’t a real saint, claiming that the Vatican removed him from the list of official saints decades ago.
This is because in 1969, Pope Paul VI actually made a change — not to strike him from the list of saints, but to remove his feast day (July 25) from the Church’s liturgical calendar.
While his feast day is no longer listed on the Church’s official calendar, St. Christopher is still very much a saint, and Catholics can pray for his intercession, said Father John Cush, a professor of dogmatic theology at St. John’s Seminary and College in Yonkers
Simply put, once you’re a saint, you’re always a saint.
“You can’t un-canonize someone,” Father Cush said, noting that even when saints are stricken from the calendar, their names appear elsewhere on official church records. “There are a lot of saints, and you can find their names in the Martyrology,” Father Cush explained, referring to the church’s official list of saints and martyrs. “Whether they are listed or not, they are still saints, and they intercede for us.”
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Pope Paul’s move left dioceses and individual parishes free to celebrate St. Christopher’s feast day if they wished. The pontiff’s action arose partly out of the church’s Vatican II reforms, which included the desire to unclutter a crowded liturgical calendar, Father Cush said. But he added that it was also because St. Christopher lived so long ago that aspects of his life are difficult to verify.
Little is known about St. Christopher, who is believed to have been born in the Middle East around 220 A.D. and died in 251 A.D. However, one legend about him points to why he is revered by travelers.
One day, a child is said to have approached St. Christopher on the banks of a river and asked to be carried across. St. Christopher agreed but found that the child grew heavier as they trudged across the river. When they reached the opposite bank, St. Christopher asked the child why he was so heavy. The child responded that he was Christ and that when St. Christopher carried him, he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The child then vanished from sight.
Fast forward to today, because of his status as the patron saint of travelers, St. Christopher is called upon to assist with all sorts of things related to travel, according to Father Heanue.
“His name is called upon when we’re blessing a car or a mode of transportation,” Father Heanue said. “His name is used for the safety of travelers, and that is something that I’ve been struck by.”
And while his feast day is not listed on the liturgical calendar, there is always the possibility that St. Christopher can be reinstated someday, Father Cush added.
“There are examples of this happening,” he explained. “St. Catherine of Alexandria is one. She was not on the general liturgical calendar. But Pope Benedict XVI added her back on.”