Originally she was associated with rodents but Catholic co-opted her as the Patron Saint of the enemy of the rodent, the Cat. She also has been the Patron Saint of gardeners, the mentally ill, and travelers in her time. She is rumored to have had St. Patrick himself at her deathbed. For the 1600 she was an interesting chick.
In the past few decades, faithful Catholics (and cat lovers) have made the leap from associating Gertrude with warding off mice to associate her with cats. The idea seems to have started in the 1980s, more than 1300 years after she lived. Some sources say the first publication to link Gertrude and cats was a 1981 catalog, Metropolitan Cats, put out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Since then, the idea that Gertrude is the patron of cats—and cat owners—has spread. As saint expert Thomas Cavanaugh explains it, “St. Gertrude … is invoked against mice and rats, which has led cat lovers to assume that Gertrude was a cat person, and so the ideal patron of their favorite pet.” There are now many icons and paintings of her with a cat.
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2 comments:
HRH knew her in one of her many past lives, and says it's all true.
Who could make up her story??
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