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Happy St Gertrude's Day

Friendly's picture
Submitted by Friendly on Fri, 2017-03-17 06:02

March 17th is St Gertrude's Day. Gertrude was the Patron Saint of cats.

Her father was Mayor of the Palace for King Dagobert the First of France, and Gertrude was great-great-aunt of Charlemagne. She turned down an arranged marriage at the age of 10, and was installed as Abbess of Nivelles, in a convent her mother started, at age 20.

She was as good as a barn cat at getting rid of the mice in the harvested grain, which is how she became associated with cats and against mice.

For more information:

http://saintsforsinners.com/this-is-the-story-of-st-gertrude-of-neville-...
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06533c.htm
https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/gertrude-of-nivelles-saint
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3563
http://www.catholictradition.org/Saints/nivelles.htm

Image: 
Ste-Gertrude de Nivelles with a cat

Comments

Little Man McDonald's picture

Thanks for the info, I thought she just liked cats a lot, I didn't realize she was an awesome mouser! Who knew humans could do that? hehe

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