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Saint Barbara

December 4th is the Feast Day for Saint Barbara!

I am very fortunate to be participating in a celebration at my local Botanica on this fortuitous day!

It is important to note that Saint Barbara is now an unofficial Saint, or a folk Saint, due to the fact that she has been removed from the official church calendar. However, her cults have persisted and many argue that it is because of her popularity in folk magick and spiritual traditions that her reputation is still alive!

In the African Diasporic religions of Lukumi and Santería, she has syncretized with Chango / Shango / Xango the deity of fire, lightning, and thunder. In Afro-Brazilian religions of Candomblé and Umbanda, she is often identified as Yansan, the orisha of wind and storms. She is one of the 7 African Powers of Cuban Santeria.

Many devotees of New Orleans Voodoo also revere Saint Barbara. And in hoodoo practices, her offerings are red candles, red roses and flowers, wine and red apples. The apples can be hollowed out to make oil lamps dedicated to her. She is typically seen here as both a Catholic Saint and an African Spirit at the same time.

Offerings of white barley with red pomegranate seeds sweetened with anise, raisins, and sugar are traditional among Arabic Christians in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. Saint Baraba's Day of the week is Sunday, her emblem is a tower, and her candle color is red.

Saint Barbara can be petitioned to drive away evil, as a protector of women, for love problems, when in-laws are trying to break up a marriage, for luck in gambling, to clear your path of obstacles, for help releasing someone in prison and for protection during storms.

She is the Patroness of ammunition workers. architects, artillery, brass workers, builders, fireworks, fortifications, gunners, impenitence, lighting, minors, stonemasons, architects, mathematicians, miners, the Italian Navy, warehouses and Santa Barbara California.

St. Barbara is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, venerated because their intercession is believed to be particularly effective against diseases. Barbara is often invoked against lightning and fire, with associations of explosions.

After the death of her mother, Barbara was locked high up in a tower by her father. She was extremely beautiful and this was her father's way of protecting her from the world. Barbara became a woman of faith and dedicated herself to the work of the Lord. She refused many suitors, preferring to save herself for God.

Her father did not share the faith and tried different approaches the dissuade her from this path. Eventually, he let her out of the tower, hoping the exposure to the outside world would change her. Barbara, however, became even more involved with advancing the path of her faith.

At one point her father hired great architects to create a private bathhouse for her. He instructed that two windows be put in, unbeknownst to him Barbara implored the architects to put in three windows, to represent the Holy Trinity. Here bathhouse soon became a place of healing, known far and wide, where many miracles are said to have taken place. It was compared to the Stream of Jordan by Saint Simeon Metaphrases.

Barbara was eventually locked up, beaten and tortured by her father and city officials. Jesus is said to have come to her to heal her wounds during these years. When they attempted to burn her Angels came down and covered her with a robe, all torches extinguished upon coming near to her. Finally, she was beheaded.

Both her father and the city official were struck by lightning and died in this manner, seen as punishment for their crimes. The United States Army Field Artillery Association and the United States Army Air Defense Artillery Association hold the Order of Saint Barbara as an honorary society within the military.

 

~Blessings~

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