Work and money

Any of these can be asked. There is no order of precedence and no wrong choice, so pick whoever the story fits.

• St. AgathaA martyr of Sicily, asked for by women facing breast cancer.
• St. AgnesMartyred at about thirteen. Her name means lamb, and Rome has kept it for seventeen centuries.
• St. Alberto HurtadoContento, Señor, contento: he picked the homeless up in a green truck, and Chile never forgot.
• St. Alphonsus RodríguezHe lost everything, then spent forty six years opening a door, and sent Claver to the Americas.
• St. AmandMissionary to the rough taverns of Flanders, and the patron of brewers, winemakers, and everyone behind the bar.
• St. AndrewThe first called. He heard, and went to get his brother.
• St. Anthony Mary ClaretA weaver’s son who built printing presses for the Gospel, and survived being slashed for it.
• St. Anthony the AbbotSold everything at twenty, walked into the desert, and fathered monasticism.
• St. ApolloniaThe elderly deaconess whose broken teeth made her the dentists’ saint.
• St. Augustine of HippoMonica’s answer: the restless genius who arrived late and wrote the book on it.
• St. BarbaraThe tower, the lightning bolt, and the promise of not dying unprepared.
• St. BartholomewCan anything good come out of Nazareth? The honest sceptic who got the compliment of the Gospels.
• St. Basil the GreatOne soul in two bodies: half of the Church’s great friendship, and the first hospital builder.
• St. Bede the VenerableFifty years in one monastery, and he wrote England into history, finishing his last sentence as he died.
• St. Benedict the MoorBorn to enslaved parents, mocked in the street, and chosen to lead the friars who ranked him last.
• St. Bernadette SoubirousThe girl who saw Our Lady at Lourdes, asked for by the sick and the poor.
• St. Bernard of ClairvauxThe honey tongued doctor who taught the world to look to Mary.
• St. Bernardine of SienaHe preached the Holy Name to packed piazzas, and told a ruined card maker to print it instead.
• St. BlaiseA physician-bishop, asked for by anyone with a throat ailment.
• St. BlandinaThe frailest of the martyrs of Lyons: she outlasted everything, encouraging the others like a mother.
• St. BonaventureThe Seraphic Doctor: head and heart refused to be enemies in him.
• St. Brigid of IrelandIreland’s other patron: abbess of Kildare, endless generosity, the cross of rushes.
• St. CajetanFounded a bank to protect the poor from loan sharks, asked for by job seekers and the unemployed.
• St. Camillus de LellisA gambler who lost everything, then invented modern nursing, asked for by the sick and by gamblers.
• St. Catherine of GenoaA miserable marriage, a plague hospital, and the warmest book on purgatory ever written.
• St. CeciliaThe martyr who sang to God in her heart, and the patron of every musician since.
• St. Clare of AssisiFrancis’s first follower, who fought the papacy for the right to own nothing and won on her deathbed.
• St. ColumbaHe copied a book without leave, and the ruling, to every cow its calf, sent him into the exile that converted Scotland.
• St. CuthbertShepherd, prior, hermit, bishop, and the first man on record to protect wild birds.
• St. DismasThe good thief: the only person in Scripture promised paradise to his face.
• St. DorothySend me apples and roses from your bridegroom’s garden, the lawyer mocked. In winter, a basket came.
• St. Edward the ConfessorThe last Anglo-Saxon king, remembered not for conquest but for peace, alms, and an abbey.
• St. EligiusThe master metalsmith who kept honest gold: patron of everyone who works on machines.
• St. Elizabeth of HungaryA princess widowed at twenty who traded the castle for a hospital, and died at twenty four having given it all.
• St. Elizabeth of the TrinityHeaven is in the soul: the young Carmelite who taught busy people where God actually lives.
• St. EphremThe Harp of the Spirit: he taught theology by writing hymns, and founded women’s choirs to sing them.
• St. ExpeditusAsked to pray for urgent needs, and against putting things off.
• St. FiacreThe Irish hermit whose garden fed a region, patron of gardeners and, by a Paris accident, of cab drivers.
• St. Frances Xavier CabriniSent west instead of east, she crossed the ocean thirty times for immigrants.
• St. Francis de SalesBe who you are and be that well: the gentlest Doctor, patron of writers and of the deaf.
• St. Francis of AssisiGave away everything, and is asked for by people who love animals and creation.
• St. Gabriel the ArchangelThe angel of the Annunciation, God's messenger for the news that changes everything.
• St. Gemma GalganiA young mystic of Lucca who lived with spinal tuberculosis, asked for by people with back pain.
• St. GenesiusThe actor who began a parody of baptism and stopped mid-scene, converted on his own stage.
• St. Gianna Beretta MollaA pediatrician and mother who refused a treatment that would end her pregnancy, and paid for it.
• St. Gregory NazianzenThe shy poet who was called the Theologian, and gave up a council rather than divide it.
• St. Gregory of NarekArmenia’s prayer poet: his book is kept under pillows, and Rome made him a Doctor across a divide.
• St. Gregory the GreatSold his estates, fed Rome through plague, and named the papacy’s true job.
• St. Hildegard of BingenAbbess, composer, physician, visionary: the twelfth century’s widest mind belonged to a nun.
• St. HomobonusA merchant canonized for honest business: dead at Mass, saint within two years.
• St. Honoratus of Amiens (Honoré)The reluctant bishop whose name is on Paris’s most famous street, and on its most famous cake.
• St. Isidore the FarmerA day labourer who prayed before dawn and plowed after, the working farmer’s saint.
• St. Ivo of KermartinA lawyer and not a thief, a marvel to the people: the advocate of the poor.
• St. James the GreaterFirst apostle martyred, and a thousand years of pilgrims still walk to his shrine.
• St. James the LessThe quietest of the Twelve: called, stayed, and died for it.
• St. John BoscoA street-magician priest who built a family for Turin's abandoned boys, asked for by parents and teachers.
• St. John ChrysostomThe golden mouth: he preached to the powerful as if they were poor, and paid the price.
• St. John DamasceneFrom the caliph’s Damascus, he wrote the defence of holy images the Church still uses.
• St. John of ÁvilaAndalusia’s apostle: Teresa’s advisor, John of God’s converter, and a Doctor the Inquisition once jailed.
• St. John of GodA soldier turned hospital founder, asked for by heart patients and the mentally ill.
• St. John of the CrossImprisoned by his own brothers, he wrote the poetry of the dark night in the cell.
• St. John the ApostleThe beloved disciple, at the cross when the others ran, and given the Lord’s mother.
• St. John the BaptistThe forerunner: he must increase, I must decrease.
• St. JosephHusband of Mary, a working man, and the patron of a peaceful death.
• St. Joseph MoscatiThe Naples professor who treated the body and remembered the soul: the modern lay physician saint.
• St. Katharine DrexelThe banking heiress who spent the whole fortune on schools the country refused to build.
• St. LawrenceShown the fire, he kept the Church’s books and its jokes: the treasures are the poor.
• St. LazarusJesus wept at the tomb of this man, his friend. Four days dead, and called out by name.
• St. Louis IXThe king who judged the poor under an oak tree, and wrote his son the letter every father means to write.
• St. Louise de MarillacAn anxious widow who became the co-architect of organized charity, and the patron of social workers.
• St. LukeThe physician who wrote the Gospel of mercy, patron of doctors and artists.
• St. Madeleine Sophie BaratFoundress at twenty-one, superior for sixty-three years: for a single child I would have founded the Society.
• St. Margaret ClitherowThe butcher’s wife of the Shambles who hid priests, and refused to plead, to spare her children.
• St. Marianne CopeFifty congregations refused Hawaii’s plea. She answered, finished Damien’s work, and stayed thirty years.
• St. MarkHe deserted Paul once, and the last word on him is that he is useful to me.
• St. MarthaLord, don’t you care? The patron of everyone doing the work while others sit.
• St. Martin de PorresBarred from full membership for his race, he outshone the order that barred him.
• St. MatthewThe tax collector who left the booth mid shift, patron of everyone whose work touches money.
• St. MatthiasChosen by lot to fill the empty seat: the patron of stepping into a hard vacancy.
• St. Michael the ArchangelAsked to pray for protection, especially by people whose work puts them in danger.
• St. PantaleonThe emperor’s physician who treated the poor free: he lapsed once, came back, and paid the full price.
• St. Paschal BaylonA shepherd who became the kitchen brother, and the formal patron of every Eucharistic congress on earth.
• St. PaulThe persecutor knocked off his feet. Half the New Testament is his letters.
• St. Paul VIHe inherited an open Council and a divided Church, and carried both to the finish.
• St. PeterThe fisherman who denied him three times and was given the keys anyway.
• St. Peter CanisiusThe second apostle of Germany: he answered a hostile age with catechisms and courtesy.
• St. Peter ChrysologusGolden words: the Doctor who kept his homilies short on purpose.
• St. PhilipShow us the Father: the apostle who asked the question everyone eventually asks.
• St. Raymond of PenyafortHe organized the Church’s law, wrote the confessors’ manual of mercy, and then lived to be about a hundred.
• St. Robert BellarmineThe Church’s chief controversialist, who pawned his own furniture for the poor and wrote on dying well.
• St. Rose of LimaThe first canonized saint of the Americas: needlework by day, the poor in her family’s spare room.
• St. StephenThe first martyr. He died forgiving, with Saul holding the coats.
• St. Thomas MoreThe King's good servant, but God's first: patron of lawyers and of costly integrity.
• St. Thomas the ApostleUnless I see: the doubter whose demand produced the highest confession in the Gospels.
• St. TitusPaul’s fixer, sent into the messes nobody else could sort out.
• St. Titus BrandsmaThe journalist the Nazis killed at Dachau. His last act was giving his rosary to his executioner.
• St. Turibius of MogrovejoA law professor drafted to Lima, who walked his diocese for twenty five years and confirmed two future saints.
• St. VeronicaShe pushed through the soldiers to wipe his face: the patron of small mercies in large suffering.
• St. VitusA boy of the persecutions whose name medicine borrowed: patron of epilepsy, dancers, and performers.
• St. WenceslausThe good king of the carol, murdered by his brother at the church door.
• St. ZitaForty eight years a servant in one household, patron of domestic workers and finder of lost keys.
• Sts. Cosmas and DamianTwin physicians who charged nothing: the silverless ones, patrons of medicine.
• Sts. Crispin and CrispinianBrother shoemakers who charged the poor nothing, and whose feast day became a byword for courage.
• Sts. Cyril and MethodiusThey gave the Slavs an alphabet so the Gospel could speak their language.
• Sts. Priscilla and AquilaTentmakers, hosts, teachers: the New Testament’s model marriage worked as a team.