Novena to St. Christopher (Patron of Travelers)

St. Christopher (3rd century) is the patron saint of travelers, drivers, mariners, ferrymen, mountaineers, and increasingly of all who undertake any journey. The Greek name Christophoros means 'Christ-bearer.' The hagiographic legend recorded most famously by Jacobus de Voragine in the thirteenth-century Golden Legend portrays him as a giant of a man who served a local king, then sought to serve the most powerful master in the world. Told that Christ was the most powerful, he sought Christ by working at a riverbank carrying travelers across a dangerous ford. One day he carried a child across; the child grew heavier and heavier until Christopher staggered under the weight, then revealed Himself: 'You have carried not only the world but Him who made it.' The story explains both the name 'Christ-bearer' and the iconography (Christopher as giant carrying the child Jesus on his shoulder). Christopher is named in the Roman Martyrology for July 25 — a martyr of Lycia under Decius (c. 251 AD) — but the legendary material was so layered over the historical figure that the 1969 Roman Calendar reform removed his feast from the universal Catholic calendar (it remains in local and regional calendars and his patronage is intact). Removal from the universal calendar did not diminish his popular Catholic veneration — St. Christopher medals remain among the most widely-distributed Catholic medals in the world, especially among drivers and travelers. The novena to St. Christopher is appropriate for: long-distance travel of any kind (air, sea, road), the safety of teenage drivers, military deployments, missionary journeys, the safety of mariners and pilots professionally, and the patient companionship of those whose work requires constant travel.