A Writing Saint

The village where I live has a fantastic flower festival every year, where various individuals and organisations dress the church with floral tributes. The theme this year was "For All the Saints" and there were 17 displays in all. Each had a picture of the Saint and a depiction of their attributes in flowers. There were the obvious ones, like Francis of Assisi, complete with birds flocking around him, and the less obvious like St Bernard Mizeki who was murdered in Africa as late as 1896 in a tribal uprising. The amount of work that had gone into these displays was awe-inpiring.

But of course my favourite was Saint Luke, who is believed to have written Acts as well as his own Gospel. I can imagine him sitting there with his blank sheet and writer's block, and thinking what can I blog about today?! He was a physician before he became a great friend of St.Paul and was convinced by him of his faith. Thus he is the patron saint of physicians, and also of all creative artists including writers.

Whoever made his display had done it beautifully and included some healing herbs such as digitalis (foxglove) and his writing implements.

Also beautiful was the tumbling ivy in a swathe around the pulpit. What you will be unable to experience from my pictures is the scent and light. So many flowers gave off a wonderful aroma in the church, and the light pouring through the stained glass was breathtaking.