I adore a good, crispy bacon sandwich, as do lots of other people. Today’s story is of a woman so renowned for her bacon and bread that she ended up being canonised. Her name was St Blath of Kildare, and you could call her the patron saint of the bacon butty!
We know very little about this Irish saint, whose feast-day is on 29th January. She was a follower of St Brigid, who became one of the most famous of the Irish saints. Blath, though, was a lay-sister in Brigid’s monastery in Kildare, a humble woman who worked as the cook. She dried and salted meat, baked bread, milked cows, roasted meat and made stews for the monks and nuns.
It wasn’t an easy job, because Brigid was committed to the care of the poor, who regularly visited the monastery looking for food. What they had had to stretch a long way, which isn’t always an easy task.
Blath was known for her personal piety, and her deep dependence on God. He rewarded her with miracles – butter and bread given away to the poor would be miraculously replenished in her larder, and stray dogs would appear bearing flitches of bacon for her. Once, eight travelling bishops turned up, famished from their journey. Brigid told Blath to give them some milk to drink, and then to prepare food for them – but the milk had all been used that day, and there was nothing left. Praying hard, Blath approached one of the cows, and began to milk – and her pail was instantly filled with rich, creamy milk, so satisfying that the bishops didn’t need food afterwards, and declared it the best they had ever had. There was a little left over to give to just one or two beggars, but the milk was miraculously multiplied until a whole crowd had drunk their fill.
It is said that Blath (also known as “Flora”, because her name meant “flower” in Irish) was a quiet and humble woman, and no one would have known about these miracles had the beggars at the monastery door not let others know. She died in 523AD, in the same year as her Abbess, Brigid, and is recorded in the lists of the Irish saints.
Most saint lists give little information about Blath, but one thing they all agree on – the bacon and bread she produced for the table were better than a banquet elsewhere. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and Blath’s bacon sandwiches were good enough that she was seen as holy, so, next time you make yourself a bacon sandwich, remember Blath, the cook whose food was so good she had to be canonised, and whose bacon sandwiches were better than a king’s feast!
Strange Saints 