The Fourteen Holy Helpers are a group of saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism because their intercession is believed to be particularly effective, especially against various diseases. This group of Nothelfer ("helpers in need") originated in the 14th century at first in the Rhineland, largely as a result of the epidemic (probably of bubonic plague) that became known as the Black Death.
Read more about Fourteen Holy Helpers: History of Veneration, The Auxiliary Saints, The Basilica of The Vierzehnheiligen, Depiction in Culture, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words fourteen, holy and/or helpers:
“For the first fourteen years for a rod they do whine,
For the next as a pearl in the world they do shine,
For the next trim beauty beginneth to swerve,
For the next matrons or drudges they serve,
For the next doth crave a staff for a stay,
For the next a bier to fetch them away.”
—Thomas Tusser (c. 1520–1580)
“... it was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words of the Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint’s picture.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.”
—Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978)