St. Ambrose

Who they were

Ambrose was the Roman governor of Milan, sent to keep the peace at a contested episcopal election, when the crowd began chanting Ambrose, bishop. The famous account has a child's voice starting it. He was a catechumen, not even baptized, and within a week he was baptized, ordained, and consecrated, and the drafted politician became one of the four great Latin Doctors.

He gave away his fortune, taught himself theology at speed, wrote hymns still sung and effectively founded Western hymnody, and drew crowds that included a sceptical professor of rhetoric named Augustine, whom his preaching undid and whom he baptized at the Easter Vigil of 387. His signature moment is civic: after the emperor Theodosius ordered a massacre at Thessalonica, Ambrose barred him from the Eucharist until he did public penance, and the emperor of Rome stood among the penitents. The infant legend of the bees at his mouth, foretelling honeyed speech, gave beekeepers their patron.

Why people turn to St. Ambrose

Leaders who need to hear no from someone holy, and the people who must say it. The Theodosius scene is the permanent template. Beekeepers and candlemakers by the old emblem, and Milan by right.

How to ask their intercession

Before the accountability conversation with power, whether a board, a boss, or a bishop, for Ambrose's combination of total respect and total refusal.