Patronage
At the canonization of Saint Gabriel, Pope Benedict XV declared him a patron saint of Catholic youth, of students, and of those studying for the priesthood. In 1959, Pope John XXIII named him the patron of the Abruzzi region, where he spent the last two years of his life.
Millions of pilgrims visit St. Gabriel's shrine in Teramo each year to see the saint's burial place and the monastic house in which he lived out his final years. The shrine of Saint Gabriel at Gran Sasso is particularly popular. Every March, thousands of high school students from the Abruzzo and the Marche regions of Italy visit his tomb 100 days before their expected graduation. Every two years from mid-July to the beginning of October, the Italian Staurós ONLUS foundation hosts at the Sanctuary of Saint Gabriel a celebrated exposition of contemporary religious arts.
The cult of Saint Gabriel is especially popular amongst Italian youth; Italian migrants have spread the cult to areas such as the United States, Central America and South America. The Passionist Congregation also spreads devotion to the saint wherever they have monasteries. Many miracles have been attributed to the saint’s intercession; Saint Gemma Galgani held that it was St Gabriel who had cured her of a dangerous illness and led her to a Passionist vocation.
A campaign, organized by the Saint Gabriel Possenti Society, is under way in the United States to have Saint Gabriel declared patron of hand-gunners. This is in reference to an apocryphal story which has the saint rescuing the town of Isola from marauding bandits, using the hunting skills he had learnt as a boy. Whilst this story is mentioned in one biography of the saint, the author admits that some of the accounts in his book were invented to “enliven” the story. No account of the alleged event is present in any other independently researched biography of the saint, particularly in early sources of his life, making such an incident seem unlikely. Moreover, at the time of the alleged incident, 1860, Gabriel was in the later stages of tuberculosis, making such strenuous exercise impossible.
Read more about this topic: Gabriel Of Our Lady Of Sorrows
Famous quotes containing the word patronage:
“She loved money, but could occasionally part with it, especially to men of learning, whose patronage she affected. She often conversed with them, and bewildered herself in their metaphysical disputes, which neither she nor they themselves understood.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Each of the Arts whose office is to refine, purify, adorn, embellish and grace life is under the patronage of a Muse, no god being found worthy to preside over them.”
—Eliza Farnham (1815–1864)