24 August: Saint Bartholomew

24 August is the Feast Day of St Bartholomew. Here’s all you need to know.

1. Bartholomew was one of the twelve disciples who followed Jesus after the Baptism in the Jordan River. He was originally from Cana in Galilee and is sometimes equated with a disciple John mentions in his gospel, Nathaniel.

2. The name Bartholomew comes from the Aramaic, "son of Tolmai" or "son of the furrows".

3. After the Ascension, it’s said he was a missionary in numerous places including Mesopotamia, Parthia, Lycaonia, Ethiopia, India and Armenia, the latter being the first state to become officially Christian in 301, allegedly as a direct result of Bartholomew’s missionary work. Hence he is a patron saint of Armenia.

4. One version of his story says he was executed in Armenia because he converted the local king, Polymius, to Christianity. Polymius's brother, Prince Astyages, ordered Bartholomew's torture and execution. However, there is no record of a king of Armenia at that time with the name Polymius.

5. One thing the records agree on is the manner of Bartholomew’s death – flayed and skinned alive. Hence in art, he is often portrayed holding his own Skin and often wrapping it around himself; and holding the knife that was used to skin him. He is a common feature in medieval manuscripts, rather appropriately, as these were often made from the flayed skin of animals.

6. Because of the way he died, he is patron of people who work with skin, such as Glove makers, bookbinders, butchers, leather workers, shoemakers, tanners and trappers. He’s also invoked against skin diseases.

7. In the early days of the study of human anatomy, pictures of Bartholomew could also serve as an anatomical diagram with muscles, veins and tendons accurately depicted where his skin had been removed.

8. The modern day artist Damian Hurst was inspired by him, too. His piece Exquisite Pain depicts Saint Bartholomew in accurate anatomical detail with his flayed skin draped over his right arm, a scalpel in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. He’s holding scissors because the movie Edward Scissorhands was another inspiration for Hurst.

9. Saint Bartholomew’s fair, which took place in Smithfield, London around this time of year is named for him, as is St Bartholomew's Hospital, also known as Barts, a teaching hospital located in the City of London.

10. 24 August isn’t the only day Bartholomew is celebrated. The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates him on 11 June. 25 August is a celebration of the transfer of Bartholomew's relics, and on 30 June he is venerated as one of the 12 Apostles.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

5 June: St Boniface

Today is the feast day of St Boniface, so here are 10 things you might not know about him.

1. Little is known about his early life other than that, at an early age, he attended a monastery in what was probably Exeter, against his father’s wishes.

2. His original name was Winfrid or Winfred.

3. He was given the name Boniface by Pope Gregory II after the fourth-century martyr Boniface of Tarsus.

4. Pope Gregory III made him Archbishop of Germany.

5. According to the Orthodox church, he’s a patron saint of England and Germany. He’s also the patron of the county of Devon and Winnipeg, Canada. The latter is because a missionary called Father Norbert Provencher built a log church on the banks of a river in what would eventually become Winnipeg and named it for him. The log church was in due course consecrated as Saint Boniface Cathedral.

6. He was a missionary in Frisia, which is today the Netherlands and Germany. Once he began his work there, he never returned to England, but kept in contact with people there by letter.

7. One of the things he’s known for is cutting down an ancient Oak tree that was sacred to Germanic pagans. "Jupiter's oak" was located near the present-day town of Fritzlar in Germany. At least, he started to cut it down, but a strong wind occurred and finished the job. When the probably outraged local pagans saw that their gods did not strike Boniface down, they converted to Christianity.

8. His missionary work wasn’t always as successful as that and it was his lifelong ambition to fully convert the Frisians. On his final mission there, he was killed by armed robbers after telling his bodyguards not to fight them. He allegedly said, "Cease fighting. Lay down your arms, for we are told in Scripture not to render evil for evil but to overcome evil by good." So the robbers slaughtered them, but all for nothing. When they opened the chests the party had been carrying they were disappointed to find they were full of books and manuscripts and not the treasure they’d hoped to find.

9. Some traditions believe it was Saint Boniface who invented the Christmas Tree.

10. St Boniface Down, the highest point in the Isle of Wight, is named after him.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

8 March: Saint John of God

Today is the feast day of St John of God. 10 facts about this saint.

1. A saint’s feast day is generally the date he or she died, and St John of God did indeed die on 8 March 1550, but 8 March was also his birthday. He was born on this date in 1495.

2. His birth name was João Duarte Cidade.

3. He is the patron of Booksellers, hospitals, nurses, the mentally ill, heart patients, and the dying.

4. When he was eight years old, he disappeared. It’s not known whether he was kidnapped or ran away for a bit, but he was gone long enough that his mother died of grief and his father became a monk, so when he did reappear, he was a homeless orphan. He lived on the streets of Spain until he managed to get a job looking after Sheep.

5. His boss was fond of him and found him a diligent worker, and wanted to make John his heir. The catch was he’d have to marry the farmer’s daughter and he wasn’t interested in her, so he joined the army.

6. He almost died in the military, not from the fighting but because a pile of treasure was stolen on his watch and he was condemned to death. One of the officers managed to get him pardoned, at which point John went back to farming for four years. He still didn’t marry, and presumably missed the military life, for when another bunch of soldiers passed through his home town, he joined up again, this time remaining a soldier for 18 years.

7. Then he decided to go to Africa to help Christians enslaved there, willing to die as a martyr if need be. On the way, he met up with a Portuguese knight and his family with whom he became friends. When all their possessions were stolen and they were ill, John nursed them and helped financially. However, he became disillusioned with Africa and decided to go back to Spain.

8. When he was about 42, a religious conversion while listening to a sermon by John of Avila. He also had a mental breakdown and was sent to a hospital for the mentally ill where the treatment was frequent beatings. John of Avila visited him and told him he should think of helping others rather than feeling sorry for himself. He set up a house where he could care for the poor and sick but at first his history of mental health issues went against him, but eventually gained the sympathy of priests in the area. It’s also said that Angels visited his house and assisted as well.

9. He began to gain followers and in due course they organised to become the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, with a mission to care for the sick all over the world. Today the order has a presence in 53 countries, and operates more than 300 hospitals.

10. He died of pneumonia after plunging into a river to save a young man from drowning. He was 55 years old. His body was moved a few times but now rests in a basilica which was originally built as a church especially to house his relics.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

17 January: St Anthony the Great

Today is the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. Anthony was born in Koma in Lower Egypt. His parents were wealthy. They died when he was about 20, leaving him all their property and responsibility for taking care of his sister.

2. Soon after that, he felt a call to put into practice Matthew 19: 21, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven." He gave away land to his neighbours and sold everything else, giving the proceeds to charity. He placed his sister in a nunnery and went off to live an ascetic life.

3. He is sometimes said to be the first person to live an ascetic life in the wilderness, but there were others before him. In fact, for the first few years he was the disciple of another hermit.

4. He’s also considered the father of monastic living. Although he isolated himself and refused to see the pilgrims who came to visit him, he had followers who set up camp near the old Roman fort Anthony lived in, and formed a community of sorts. Eventually he gave in to their requests for guidance and spent a few years teaching them. He wrote one of the first rule books for monasteries.

5. It’s said he ate nothing but Bread, Salt and Water, usually just once a day after sunset, and sometimes fasted for days at a time. When he emerged from his solitary home, however, he didn’t look emaciated but was a picture of health.

6. There are numerous legends about how the Devil tempted Anthony. He’s said to have battled, not only with boredom and laziness but with Devil sent hallucinations of women, and actual demons appearing as wild animals which would attack and nearly kill him.

7. His fame spread so far that Emperor Constantine once wrote to him and asked him to pray for himself and his family.

8. Saint Anthony is the patron of Animals, farmers, butchers, the poor, basket makers, brushmakers, gravediggers, and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome.

9. He is often invoked against infectious skin diseases such as ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles, which were sometimes referred to as Saint Anthony's fire.

10. He lived to the grand old age of 105. When he sensed he would soon die, he left a will with his disciples regarding who should inherit his possessions: a staff and two sheepskin cloaks. He asked to be buried in a grave next to his cell.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

15 October: St Teresa of Ávila

Today is the feast day of St Teresa of Ávila, who is one of just four female Doctors of the Church. 10 facts about her:

1. She was born on 28 March 1515 and given the name Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada. Her father, Alonso Sánchez de Cepeda, was a successful wool merchant and one of the richest men in Ávila. Her mother, Beatriz de Ahumada y Cuevas, was his second wife. She was the fifth of twelve children, two of whom were half siblings from her father’s first marriage.

2. Teresa was brought up as a Christian, and as a child seemed to display hints of sainthood to come – she and her brother Rodrigo liked to read about the lives of saints and at the age of seven, she ran away with him; the plan was to run away to the “land of the Moors” in the hope that they’d get their heads chopped off and become martyrs. They didn’t, however, get very far. Her uncle happened to spot the two runaways just outside the city walls and brought them home.

3. As a teen, Teresa was more interested in reading romances than in religion. Her mother died when she was 14. Her brothers left home around then and headed to the Americas as was common at the time. Teresa, by all accounts, became a bit of a problem to her father, a grief stricken and rebellious teenager. When she was 15, he packed her off to an Augustinian convent to complete her education.

4. While Teresa enjoyed her time at the convent, she wasn’t that keen on becoming a nun at first. When she did choose religious life, at the age of 20, it was likely more of a rebellion against marriage as the only other choice and the perception that nuns had more freedom than wives. She chose a particularly easy going convent, the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation. Her father didn’t approve. Perhaps he wanted to marry her off, but equally it might have been because, as a pious man, he’d have preferred her to join a stricter order. Another possible factor was that the convent had been built over a Jewish burial ground, and Teresa’s ancestors were Jewish.

5. For many years, Teresa struggled with the religious life. She wrote that she "tried as hard as I could to keep Jesus Christ present within me....My imagination is so dull that I had no talent for imagining or coming up with great theological thoughts."

6. Then she caught malaria. After a seizure, the other nuns believed she was dead and even dug her grave, but after four days she recovered, but was never quite the same again. She suffered from paralysis for several years and her health was never good again. It was during this time that she started to experience the religious visions which had eluded her before, and she began to practice austerity.

7. This led to a desire to reform the Carmelite order. Teresa felt the order had lost its way a bit, and should return to a life of contemplation and prayer; that the nuns should stop wearing shoes and spend more time in the convent praying and less in the community. At the age of 43, she decided to found a new convent, St. Joseph's, based on these ideals. It wasn’t a popular move, however. Her fellow nuns thought she should spend more time raising money for the convent she was already in, and the local community weren’t happy either. She was denounced by many and even became a person of interest to the Spanish Inquisition. It was partly the threat of the Inquisition which motivated her to write her life story, knowing it was likely a matter of life or death. She had to qualify any profound religious insights with "But what do I know? I'm just a wretched woman." However, it worked, and after reading the book, the Inquisition cleared her.

8. She was known for her sense of humour. One of her famous quotes is “Lord, save us from gloomy saints." Another, uttered one day when she was having a hard time, was a comment to God Himself: “If this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder why You have so few of them!"

9. She died at the age of 67, just at the time Catholic Europe was making the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. She probably died in the early hours of what would have been 5 October, but because of the calendar change, her death took place on 15 October, hence that is her feast day.

10. St Teresa of Ávila is patron of Spain, sick people (especially those who suffer from headaches), people in religious orders, chess, people ridiculed for their piety, and Lacemakers.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

5 January: Saint Simon Stylites

Today is the feast day of St Simeon Stylites. Here are 10 facts about him.

1. So, what is this saint famous for? Basically, for spending 36 years living on a small platform on top of a pillar in Syria.

2. His name comes from the Greek word for pillar, “Style”.

3. Western Christians celebrate his feast today but he has other feast days, too: 1 September in the Eastern Orthodox Church, 27 July in the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Monday after second Sunday of the Exaltation of the Cross in the Armenian Apostolic Church, and in the Coptic Orthodox church which uses a different calendar, 29 Pashons.

4. He was born in a town called Sis, which was in what is now Turkey. His father was a shepherd.

5. He entered a monastery as a teenager and immediately took on himself a regime of austerity that was too extreme even for the monks, so they threw him out. He then went to live in a hut. He stayed there about 18 months. It was here that he started to gain a following after not eating or drinking for the whole of Lent. This was hailed as a miracle.

6. Then he sought out an even smaller space on what is now the Sheik Barakat Mountain, just 20 metres in diameter. He wanted to dedicate his life to prayer and devotion but was constantly interrupted by people asking his advice or wanting him to pray for them. It was to escape these constant interruptions that he started living on a series of pillars. They got higher and higher off the ground until his last one, which was 15 metres/50 feet off the ground.

7. He got his food from small boys from the village who would climb up the pillar and give him flat breads and goats’ milk.

8. Even so, he wasn’t entirely isolated. People would still come from miles around to see him and some would climb up on ladders in order to talk to him. Sometimes he would preach sermons to the crowds below. He wrote letters, too, some of which survive to this day.

9. He died on 2 September 459; his body was found bent in prayer. He was buried near his pillar. A number of other extremely austere Christians copied him, including at least two more called Simon.

10. A large church was built in his honour, around the site where his pillar stood. The base of the style or column on which Simeon stood in in the centre of four basilicas built from an octagonal court towards the four points of the compass, forming a cross. The building was called the Qalaat Semaan ("the Fortress of Simeon") and the ruins are still there, although it’s said to have been hit by a Russian missile in 2016.

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

22 November: Saint Cecilia of Rome

Today is the feast day of St Cecilia, also known as Cecilia of Rome. 10 things you might not know about her:

1. She is the patron saint of Music, organ builders, luthiers, singers, musicians and poets.

2. Her story goes that she made a vow of virginity, but her parents wanted to marry her off to a pagan nobleman named Valerian. At her wedding, she sat apart and sang to God in her heart, hence her patronage of music.

3. When Valerian came to her on their wedding night, wanting his conjugal rights, Cecilia told him she was being watched over by an Angel who would punish him if he had sex with her, but love him if he didn’t. Valerian demanded that she show him the angel. She said he’d be able to see it if he went to the third milestone on the Via Appia to be baptized by Pope Urban I. He did as she said, and could indeed see an angel then, standing beside his wife, crowning her with Roses and lilies.

4. Cecilia was martyred along with Valerian and his brother, at the hands of the prefect Turcius Almachius. Cecilia was struck three times on the neck with a sword, but lived for three more days.

5. As she died, she asked the Pope to convert her house into a church. The church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is reputedly built on the site of the house.

6. Geoffrey Chaucer retells the story of Cecilia in The Second Nun's Tale in The Canterbury Tales. She has even featured in Carry on films. She is mentioned in Carry On Abroad as a group of monks search for her tomb with an elixir named after her.

7. It’s possible Cecilia wasn’t actually her name at all. The name "Cecilia" was applied to Roman women from the plebeian clan of the Caecilii. Hence the meanings of the name suggested by Chaucer (lily of heaven, the way for the blind, contemplation of heaven) could be completely made up.

8. As patron saint of music, numerous music festivals have been held in her honour. The first known was held at Évreux, Normandy in 1570. She has also been inspiration for composers from Henry Purcell, Handel and Gounod to Benjamin Britten, whose birthday is on her feast day. He wrote Hymn to St Cecilia, based on a poem by WH Auden. Even pop music has a tribute to her. Paul Simon has suggested that the Simon and Garfunkel hit Cecilia is about her, and the song might therefore be about the frustration of fleeting inspiration in songwriting and the vagaries of musical fame.

9. The famous luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume produces a line of Violins and violas under the name St. Cécile.

10. She has appeared on a UK banknote. She appears in miniature, under Worcester Cathedral, on the back of the old £20 note featuring Sir Edward Elgar.

Latest

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

5 November: Saint Elizabeth

Today is the feast day of Saint Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. 10 things to know about her:

1. Elizabeth’s name means "God is faithful."

2. Her story is told in the beginning of Luke’s gospel.

3. A “daughter of Aaron” she was married to a priest named Zechariah. According to the Bible, the couple were "righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless".

4. They had no children, and Elizabeth was getting on in years. So when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and told him Elizabeth was going to have a son, Zechariah didn’t believe it. As a punishment, Zechariah lost his voice and couldn’t talk again until his son was born.

5. Elizabeth was a “relative” possibly a cousin, of The Virgin Mary.

6. During her pregnancy, Elizabeth went to visit Mary and the story goes that John leapt in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary spoke.

7. Elizabeth announced that Mary and her unborn child were blessed, and this proclamation forms part of the Catholic Hail Mary.

8. Elizabeth is mentioned in several books of the Apocrypha, especially the Protevangelion of James, which tells of the birth of her son, the murder of Zechariah, and her and miraculous escape with John during the Massacre of the Innocents.

9. She also gets a mention in the Qur'an and is revered by Muslims as a wise, pious and believing woman who, was exalted by God to a high station. She is not, however, mentioned by name in the Qur'an.

10. Elizabeth is the patron of pregnant women and her feast day is November 5. She is also commemorated on 30 March in Eastern Orthodox Church and in the Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican traditions on 5 September.

NEW!!

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

Paperback

E book

28 October: Adam and Eve

According to the biblical calculations of Archbishop James Ussher, it was on this date in 4004BC that Adam and Eve were created. 10 facts about Adam and Eve:

1. Adam’s name is generally taken to mean man, or mankind. It is closely related to a word in Hebrew which means dust, hence he is named after the stuff he was made from.

2. Eve’s name derives from the Hebrew name ‘Chavah’, which means to give life.

3. Chances are you know the story that Eve was tempted by the serpent to eat an Apple, giving her the knowledge of good and evil which she then shared with Adam, disobeying a direct order from God not to eat the fruit. However, in The Bible, there’s no actual mention of the fruit being an apple. Genesis 2:17 only refers to it as the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So why do we always assume it’s an apple? Well, it’s probably a lost in translation thing. The Latin word for evil is “malum” but the same word also means apple, and at some point the two were blended together.

4. In the Old Testament, after the creation story, Adam and Eve are only mentioned one more time, a genealogical reference in I Chronicles 1:1.

5. Adam lived to the grand old age of 930. Nobody knows how old Eve was when she died.

6. How many children did they have? Accounts vary. The Genesis story only mentions three, Abel, who was killed by Cain, and Seth. Other traditions say there were six, the aforementioned three plus another son and two daughters whose names were Azura, Awan and Luluwa. Islamic tradition states that Eve eventually bore 20 sets of twins, and Adam had 40,000 offspring before he died.

7. Both Adam and Eve are recognised as saints. They share a feast day on 24 December, which has been celebrated since Medieval times. The date was chosen for them because it’s the day before Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Adam is the patron saint of gardeners and tailors.

8. Their punishment for eating the fruit was to be banished from the Garden of Eden where their every need was catered for. Adam’s punishment was that he had to toil for his food now, and Eve’s was childbirth and being subservient to Adam.

9. Mark Twain wrote humorous and satirical diaries for Adam and Eve, entitled Eve's Diary and The Private Life of Adam and Eve, which were published posthumously.

10. In science, there’s evidence we all descended from common ancestors. These common ancestors have been called the Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve.

NEW!!

Beta

(Combat Team Series #2)

Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?

Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.

Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream. 

Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.

Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.

Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.

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11 August: St Clare of Assisi

Today is the feast day of St Clare of Assisi. 10 facts about her:

1. Her name at birth was Chiara Offreduccio. Her parents were Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Ortolana. The family were wealthy and lived in a palace in Assisi.
2. Her family would almost certainly have been looking to marry her off, but when she was a teenager she attended a service where St Francis was preaching. She declared to him that she wanted to live a religious life and asked for his help. She left her home that evening to meet him at the chapel of the Porziuncula. There, she changed into a habit and had her Hair cut off.
3. Francis placed Clare in the convent of the Benedictine nuns of San Paulo, near Bastia. Her father came to try and force her to go home but she resisted, clinging to the altar. St Francis moved her then to another Benedictine monastery away from her family.
4. Well, most of them, anyway. Her sister Catarina also became a nun and joined her there. She took the name Agnes and would later become a saint herself.
5. After a while a small house was built for the sisters next to the church. They were joined by a few other women who became known as the "Poor Ladies of San Damiano". They lived a simple life of poverty, austerity and seclusion from the world, and would later evolve into the Poor Clares.
6. Clare wrote their Rule of Life, making her the first woman to write a set of monastic guidelines.
7. She died on 11 August 1253 at the age of 59, following a long period of poor health. Her last words were, "Blessed be You, O God, for having created me."
8. At her funeral, Pope Innocent IV insisted the friars perform the Office for the Virgin Saints as opposed to the Office for the Dead. This was a sign that she would be fast-tracked to sainthood. She was canonised on 26 September 1255 by Pope Alexander IV.
9. In art, she is usually pictured as she was when she warded off the invading army of Frederick II, holding a sacred container, a lamp and wearing a nun's habit.
10. She is patron of eye disease, goldsmiths, laundry, bicycle messengers, good weather, needleworkers, Remote viewing, Extrasensory perception and the Philippines. In later life, she was often too ill to go to Mass but according to legend, the service would be miraculously projected onto the wall of her room so she could see and hear it from her bed. It was because of this that Pope Pius XII designated Clare as the patron saint of television in 1958.

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• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
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• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

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If you like quirky tales.

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2 June: St Elmo

Today is the feast day of Saint Elmo (the one with the fire). 10 facts about him and his fire:

1. He was also known as Erasmus of Formia, and was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.
2. He was a bishop in Italy at the time of Diocletian's persecution of Christians. He ran away and hid in the mountains for seven years, until an angel appeared to him and told him it was time to go home.
3. On the way, St Elmo encountered soldiers who tortured him and threw him in prison but an Angel helped him escape. During his journey he openly confessed to being a Christian and converted people. This soon came to the notice of the emperor, who became determined that St Elmo must die.
4. There were numerous attempts to kill him including putting him in a barrel full of spikes and rolling him downhill, but an angel healed him of those wounds. He was beaten and whipped, coated with pitch and set alight, and thrown into a dungeon where it was intended he'd starve to death, but an angel let him out. Finally, his abdomen was slit open and his intestines wound around a windlass. This was apparently beyond the capabilities even of an angel to heal, and he died.
5. He is patron of sailors, possibly because he was preaching one time when a thunderbolt struck the ground near him, and he simply carried on. Sailors, being in particular danger from sudden Lightning strikes, took this as a sign and adopted him as their patron.
6. He is also patron of Fort St. Elmo, (Malta), women in labour, and is invoked against colic in children, intestinal ailments and diseases and cattle pest.
7. So what is St Elmo's Fire, then? It's a weather phenomenon which happens when there is a strong electric charge in the atmosphere such as during a thunderstorm or a volcanic eruption. It's caused by luminous plasma and appears as a blue or violet glow, and tends to appear around tall, pointy structures like spires, chimneys and the masts of ships. It may also be seen on aircraft wings or nose cones. Sometimes it even appears around leaves and grass, and at the tips of cattle horns. It's often accompanied by a hissing or buzzing sound and may be a sign of an imminent lightning strike.
8. Some sailors attribute Saint Elmo's fire to other saints. Welsh sailors call it "candles of St David" and Russian sailor call them the lights of St Nicholas or St Peter. They were also sometimes called St. Helen's or St. Hermes' fire. It was usually interpreted by mariners as a good omen, and a sign St Elmo (or David or Nicholas or Peter) was protecting them. In the Philippines, however, the opposite is true. There, they call it santelmo and believe it is a sign of accidents or serious arguments. Shakespeare gave it a negative connotation in his play, The Tempest – evidence of the tempest inflicted by Ariel.
9. Some famous sailors in both fact and fiction have observed it. They include Charles Darwin, Ferdinand Magellan, Starbuck in Moby Dick, and Tintin. Jules Verne, in his novel Journey to the Centre of the Earth, describes the fire occurring while sailing during a subterranean electrical storm.
10. Then there's the 1985 film which was based around a bunch of friends who had recently graduated and were adjusting to life in the adult world. They used to meet in St Elmo's Bar, which gave its name to the movie despite the studio hating the name and angling to have it named something more mundane, like The Real World. The theme song St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) was written by John Parr and David Foster and was inspired by the story of athlete Rick Hansen—who was travelling the world in his wheelchair in his Man in Motion Tour to promote awareness of spinal cord injury. 

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.