Evidence based

Post date: May 29, 2013 8:56:16 AM

Today I was writing an email to my management team and was saying they didn't need to be a martyr to arthritis. To keep up my reputation for evidence based information I did the search on patron saints of arthritis. I found there are two patron saints - James the Greater (Peter's brother) but more interesting was St Alphonsus - an Italian bishop from the 1500s. Alphie, my new pet name for St Alphonsus Liguori, had apparently been a bit of a child prodigy and was a lawyer before he was 20. Decided after a few years of lawyering that it was hard to do Gods work as a lawyer so he gave it up and started up a monastery. Then he got rheumatoid arthritis and was nearly 50 years disabled. Apparently at times he couldn't even lift his head.

Anyway Alphie died with RA and was later canonised

Has been patron saint of arthritis ever since.

So now you know why we don't need another martyr for arthritis