We know very little more about him for sure. But stories and legends about
him were formed, embroidered and added to over the centuries. The New Catholic Encyclopedia tells us the famous legend about
him in which he carries the Christ Child on his shoulders while crossing a river.
Butler’s Lives of the Saints, edited by Herbert Thurston, S.J.,
and Donald Attwater, says the legends about Christopher led to the belief that, if a person
looked on an image of the saint, he or she would suffer no harm that day. Consequently,
a statue or image of St. Christopher was often found at the church door.
That and the Christ Child story may explain why St. Christopher became
the patron of travelers and why his statue is placed on the dashboard of many automobiles.
The liturgical celebration of Christopher’s feast was eliminated
in the 1969 revision of the Roman Calendar. Prime targets
in the reduction were saints with dubious legends and facts.
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