When it comes to picking favourite saints, I always pull a child-of-heretics thing and go for the lesser-known saints, like the medieval women martyrs like Uncumber, or St. Christina the Astonishing. Perhaps it’s the way that I was the fourth disciple in a very small passion play in our church, so we had John, Peter, Judas, and Thaddeus (nobody ever remembers Thaddeus). More seriously, I guess it just reminds me that… saints were sometimes entirely weird, but even without that aloof dignity, they’re still holy.

But really, I pray to St. Dymphna because she’s a patron saint of mental illness, and I deal with my own illness and the constant depression of teens I know, and it’s a constant reminder to treat them and myself as more than our problems (which is partly inspired by the treatment of the insane in Gheel, where she was first venerated).