Saints
St. Helena of Constantinople – Patron Saint of Archeologists and Divorced Couples
“Believe God and He will recover thee: and direct thy way, and trust in Him. Keep His fear and grow old therein.” (Eccle siasticus, Ch. 2, v. 6.)
St. Helena of Constantinople is the patron saint of archeologists, converts, difficult marriages, and divorced couples. She is also the patron saint of converts, difficult marriages, and divorced couples. St. Helena lived from approximately 248-329.
Like most women today, women in St. Helena’s time carefully concealed their age as if it were a top state secret. One day, a curious but indiscreet gentleman asked Helena, “You are, I suppose, on the shady side of seventy are you not?” “No”, replied the woman with a smile, “I am on the sunny side, for I am on the side nearest Heaven!” What a wonderful, optimistic attitude this woman displayed, an attitude, if followed, that would bring great consolation to other women of her age bracket in a century that thinks more of dying gray hairs and face-lifts than it does of soul lifting old age, and the slowing down process which inevitably accompanies it.
Old age is a time of life that should be approached with serenity and resignation, rather than fear and a futile attempt on the part of so many women to remain the “perennial flapper”. Sad to say, altogether too many women of our Christian society have a horrible phobia about growing old. They are aware of insurance company statistics which tell them that they will probably outlive their husbands by quite a few years. They become depressed in too many instances, and for some strange reason they begin to feel that they are no longer useful to themselves, to their families or to their community.
In reality, however, they are in the most fruitful years of their lives. When women, with this outlook of depression, feel that since their bodily processes are slowing down, they must take to the rocking chair on the front porch, cease all their usual activities in their community and parish, and terminate all further intellectual pursuits, then they should look for consolation and encouragement to a woman who bridged the third and fourth centuries, with unbelievable activity and sanctity in the winter years of her life.
That woman was St. Helena of Constantinople, who did not make her debut in high society or the Catholic Faith until the age of sixty-five years, and who accomplished the outstanding deed of her career at the ripe old age of eighty!
Everyone has heard of the Emperor Constantine and his famous Edict of 313, A.D., which allowed the early Christians to come forth from the catacombs and practice their religion openly, and which, generally speaking, with some minor recurrences, freed them from the slaughterous martyrdom of the Roman coliseum. Not many people realize, however, that St. Helena was the mother of Constantine the Great, and through her inspiration and interest in the Holy Land the true cross was found at Jerusalem in the fourth century for all Christendom.
Biography of St. Helena of Constantinople
Saint Helena was born at Drepanum, a small town on the shore of the Black Sea in Bithynia, now Turkey, in the year 248 A.D. We know little about her early life, except that she worked at an inn, or a post-stable, on one of the imperial trunk roads. Early accounts of her life refer to her as a “stabularia”, which is interpreted as “barmaid”. This meant, generally, that she had to serve food and liquor to the travelers, as well as care for their horses, and perform other domestic tasks common to such hostels. These places, according to the accounts of antiquity, filled with brusque men, occasional murderous brigands, immorality and foul language sort. It was in such a place that St. Helena spent her youth.
When Saint Helena was about twenty-seven years of every were of age, a young Roman officer on his way to wage battle with Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, passed through Bithynia, stopped at the inn and met Helena. They fell in love. The officer, whose name was Constantius Chlorus, the nickname “Chlorus” meaning “Pale-Face”, married her, if the term “marriage” can be properly applied to their union. A soldier at this time could effect only a semi-marriage, that is, he could live quite honorably with one partner, but must dismiss her if he wished afterwards to marry.
At any rate, in this type of alliance, the young barmaid followed Chlorus on his military missions, and in 284 they had a son named Constantine. Marital happiness, however, was not to be the lot of Helena, as the events of the Empire later dictated. Chlorus, her husband was a brilliant soldier, who had won great victories Germany and Britain. Diocletian, who was Roman Emperor at the time, made him Governor in northern France. The Christians were still a forbidden sect, and although increasing in great numbers, they were still under persecution. History tells us that Chlorus in his area applied the edicts against them very mildly. In fact, it is related that whenever he told members of his staff to apostatize, he deliberately retained those who had refused, saying: “How could one expect fidelity from a man who has betrayed his god?
In the year 286, the Emperor Diocletian had begun to see that the vast expanse of the Empire was too much for one man to supervise, and so he elected a colleague, Maximian Hercules, to act as “Co-Augustus” or “Co-Emperor”. Even this proved to be inadequate, and in 293, the two “Co-Emperors” associated with themselves two “Caesars”, as they called them. One was Galerius and the other was Chlorus, Helena’s husband, who was then delegated to rule Spain, Gaul and Britain. Marriage was to tie this group more closely together, and so Chlorus was ordered to marry Theodora, the daughter of the “Co-Emperor”, Maximian Hercules.
Helena, accordingly, was divorced by her husband and sent away. She was about forty-five years of age, when this tragedy in her life occurred, and apparently for the next twenty years or so, she lived in exile, very probably at Trier, now Treves. During this period she saw practically nothing of her son, Constantine, and one can imagine her great loneliness for him and for the husband whom she really loved.
Saint Helena – Patron Saint of Difficult Marriages
During this time of exile for Helena, when from all accounts she lived in fairly comfortable surroundings, Constantine, her son, married and had a son, Crispus, for whom Helena eventually developed an adamant devotion. As far as the affairs of the Empire were concerned, Diocletian had grown quite old, and together with Maximian Hercules, he finally abdicated. Accordingly, the two “Caesars”, Galerius and Chlorus, Helena’s divorced husband, became “Co- Emperors”. Galerius, who had always hated Chlorus, had persuaded Diocletian to no two debauchees as “Caesars”, which action heightened the bad feeling between the two Co-Emper ors. Constantius Chlorus was in Britain at this time and Galerius managed to keep Constantine at Rome as sort of a “prisoner-guest”.
Constantine, however, managed to flee to Britain, where he was present at his father’s death bed at York, in 306. There, after Chlorus’ death, the Roman troops instantly proclaimed Constantine as “Emperor”. In addition to the trouble already brewing at Rome, this caused great confusion in the Empire, and at one time there were six men calling themselves Emperor. One of these, Maxentius, gave his daughter, Fausta, as wife for Constantine, thus eliminating his first wife and son. Helena, still in exile, seeing her own history repeated, developed even a more fierce affection for her grandson.
Constantine resolved to march on him, but to attack Rome seemed almost sacrilegious. He consulted the Roman gods but their apparent answers were ambiguous. Then he dreamt one night that if he took the cross of the Christian God for his standard, he would conquer. This was done, as history attests, and he conquered Rome, becoming the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Although the records are somewhat confused, it is fairly certain that Constantine believed that the Christian God had given him victory. Constantine was tolerant of the Christians, as his edict of 313 indicates, but he, himself, was by no means a devout Christian. In fact, Constantine was not baptized until the very end of his life and then by an unconventional bishop.
At this particular time, many discussions began to arise in the early Church about doctrinal questions. At the same time, dangerous heresies began to rear their ugly heads, and the stark, simple fact that Jesus of Nazareth had died upon a cross for all mankind was being placed somewhat in the back ground by certain so-called intellectuals at Athens, Carthage, Alexandria, and Ephesus, who made every effort to reduce and even eliminate this central fact of Christianity from their new elite beliefs.
St. Helena of Constantinople – Christian Convert at Age Sixty Five
At this crucial moment in Christian history, there came out of northern retirement and exile, a lonely but determined woman in her middle sixties, named Helena, who was destined by Almighty God to turn the eyes of the world back to the Cross of Christ, and renew their fervor in that great doctrine of their salvation.
When he became ruler of the Roman Empire, Constantine called all his relatives to Rome, and naturally, the foremost of these was his mother, Helena, who was then about sixty-five years of age. Constantine proclaimed her “Augusta”, or Empress Dowager, and he had coins struck in her honor which were distributed throughout the entire Empire.
There is some slight contradiction about what prompted Helena to embrace Christianity at this late time in her life. One version, given by certain writers states that Constantine urged her to embrace the Christianity which he himself had adopted. Since it is not certain that Constantine was actually baptized until much later in life, it is difficult to see how this explanation of her conversion can be fully accepted. Evelyn other writers feel certain that she became a Christian by her own study and decision at Trier, and that she was probably instructed by Lactantius, the tutor of her grandson. There is no doubt, however, that Constantine was all in favor of his mother’s con version to Christianity, which did occur at this late date, for he was certainly approving of Christianity.
For the next fifteen years, St. Helena, who had been repudiated and cast aside by her husband when he had to marry another to further his political career, a woman who had been a pagan for sixty-five years, lived a most ardent and devout Christian life. Saint Helena could look back on her early days when she was an insignificant barmaid in the midst of transient vice, her life in semi-barbarian military camps for a number of years, her twenty years of lonely if luxurious exile, and then finally see her triumphant return as Empress Dowager of the great Roman Empire.
In our present standards, this woman would have been retired, collecting Social Security at her age of sixty-five, but this remarkable woman in the twilight of her life upon earth, embraced Christianity, and embarked upon a most startling and active career for the Church, more than any figure of such prominence in early Christianity had yet done. She took advantage of her son’s permission to draw on the imperial treasury, and she contributed lavishly to the poor and the destitute. She invited to dine in her palace young women consecrated to God by the vow of virginity, and she, herself, waited upon them. Even in her grandest days, we are told, she would go to church dressed in the simplest garb, so she would be indistinguishable from the rest of the faithful.
Perhaps if Helena had not been inspired by God to make one historical journey to the Holy Land, at the very end of her life when she was eighty years old, she might merely have died a good old woman and never have been canonized a saint. She might have continued living as a humble and charitable woman of advanced years in the midst of a dissolute court until her death, revered by all for her piety and goodness, and undoubtedly welcomed by Almighty God as a thoroughly virtuous woman. But there came to her a call to perform an outstanding act, which was to bring her fame in the Christian world and a place in the calendar of the saints.
At this particular time, the conditions of the Holy Places had become abominable, and a pagan colony had been built over Jerusalem. A temple dedicated to Venus had been erected over Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, while the traditional Cave at Bethlehem had been buried beneath a territory sacred to the Roman god, Adonis. After the Council of Nicea, Constantine decreed that this deplorable desecration be corrected and directions were given that a basilica be erected over the Holy Sepulchre.
At this time, Saint Helena, then approaching her eightieth birthday went to Palestine in person with her son’s approval, bearing finances and further directives for the betterment of the Holy Places. This must have been an arduous journey for a woman of her years. It must be remembered, too, that there were no luxury liners or comfortable train compartments in those days! She was welcomed with wild acclaim at Jerusalem, and there she gave orders for the building of two basilicas, one at Mt. Olivet and another at Bethlehem. Tradition tells us that the following year, through excavations in the vicinity of Calvary, and with the aid of St. Macarius, the relics of the true Cross were found and given to the entire Christian world for veneration.
The True Cross was uplifted everywhere in Rome and throughout the Empire, and once again, in an age of skepticism and heresy, there was asserted in a dramatic fashion the central dogma of our Faith that was in danger of neglect and false interpretation. The aged Empress returned to Rome from Jerusalem, and her life’s work was done – the one great deed, which God had called upon her to perform. After so stormy and lengthy a life, she died in peace, and was mourned by the Empire in the year 328 A.D.
Legacy of St. Helena of Constantinople
There are many salutary lessons to be learned from the life of this great Saint, a life filled with love, loss, and adventure – a career that ran the gamut from tavern to tiara – the saga of St. Helena, one that would truly make the extravagant movies and novel seem insignificant.
The society in which we live completely accepts civil divorce and remarriage, which we Catholics will never accept. In this aspect it is not too far removed from the society in which St. Helena found her early unhappiness, the pagan society of Rome and Constantinople. She is the model for women who have the misfortune of an unhappy marriage, women, perhaps, who have been deserted by their husbands, as Helena was, women who are divorced against their opposition by unfaithful husband bands, or separated even with Church permission from unbearable and brutal mates.
St. Helena shows in her life how fortitude and courageous piety can still bring about a happy and productive old age even in the face of rejected love and devotion. For the neglected wife and the neglected mother, which she was for so many years, she teaches the woman of our age and in every walk of life, how to pick up the pieces of a broken heart and start all over again. There is a well-known saying that “life begins at forty”.
St. Helena proved for the woman of every century that life very often begins after forty, and she herself started her fabulous career at the age of sixty-five. She is the perfect example for the modern woman that you are as young as you feel, and that, despite your advanced years in life, you can still do great things for yourselves spiritually and for Christ and His Church. St. Helena is truly the symbol of sanctity in advanced years, and proof of the fact that the one great deed which God wants from us might very well be sought by Him at this venerable time of our life
When we look upon the life of St. Helena of Constantinople a holy and determined woman even while approaching the golden years, perhaps it occurs to us that, generally speaking, there are two kinds of old age. One represents an outlook, or mental attitude, that has become distrustful or cynical, after participating in the great adventures of this life. This type of person has not grasped that restful confidence or trust she should have in Almighty God, and indeed is to be pitied for her doubtfulness and dismay.
The other kind of old age reviews its career as a wonderful school, in which sweet and bitter lessons have been learned, but during which a definite preparation has been made for the mellow years and for a triumphant life beyond. This is the type that keeps in mind the saying of Our Divine Lord: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”
St. Helena – A Symbol of Sanctity
Clare Boothe Luce, in the Introduction of her 1993 publication, “Saints for Now”, wrote a very significant fast that we can meditate upon in the life of this aged saint and in our own lives: St. Thomas Aquinas’ accomplishments were stupendous in volume. But a single unique deed has been known to earn a saint an enduring place in history.
St. Helena, for example, demonstrates the tremendous significance-in Heaven and on Earth of even one holy act. Let her be invoked for aid by all those self-pitying souls who moan that their lives are meaningless, because Providence has cheated them not only of opportunities, advancements, careers,-but, most subtle self-deception-the chance to be useful to others.” This is indeed the lesson to be learned from Helena’s life by the aged or aging heiresses of Helena’s holiness in our day and age. It can be learned from many other sources as well. This lesson of the sanctity of one great deed was evident in the life of St. Elizabeth who in her advanced years gave birth to John the Baptist, in the one great act of St. Simon of Cyrene who helped Christ carry His Cross, St. Veronica who wiped His holy face, and St. Joseph of Arimathea who gave Him His final resting place.
Whatever our age might be, we never cease being useful to Almighty God, and the opportunity of attaining sanctity in God’s sight by a singular deed of outstanding bravery or selflessness might still await us. The majority of lives are like the ordinary trees that we see. First comes the buds, then the blossom, and at last the fruit appears. Advanced age for the ardent and realistic Catholic woman, who keeps her mind keen to the events of the world and the affairs of her divinely founded Church, will never be a futile period of life, but one that can bear much fruit.
If she is blessed with an abundance of this world’s wealth, she can give large donations for the propagation of her Faith. This might be her one great deed of charity. For other women along in years, it might mean raising grandchildren who have been suddenly orphaned by death; seeking and keeping employment after years of staying at home, when a husband dies: suffering some sudden and perhaps terminal illness with heroic courage, concealing her pain from a saddened and devoted family.
Whatever this problem or opportunity for greatness might be, if her life is spiritually inspired, she should be able to cope with it. These times for great actions are multiplied too, in the chance she now has to become actively associated with the Sodality, the Legion of Mary and other parochial, as well as diocesan, groups of women so devoted to the cause of Christ.
Like the good thief upon the Cross, who became converted and hired as a laborer in the vineyard at the eleventh hour of his life in one great deed, a supreme act of Faith, St. Helena of Constantinople became a convert in the eleventh hour of her life, and she teaches every Catholic woman that it is never too late for holiness. From her life we learn the all-important lesson, that no matter how old or young we are, Almighty God wants something personal and unique from each and every one of us, something for which we alone were created, and which we, alone, can accomplish with His help and grace.
St. Helena is the patron saint of difficult marriages, divorced people, converts, and archaeologists. Her Feast Day is August 18.
Prayers to St. Helena of Constantinople
Prayer of Intercession to St. Helena of Constantinople
O Lord Jesus Christ, you revealed the hiding place of your cross to blessed Helena, in order to enrich the Church with this priceless treasure. Crank that the ransom you paid on the tree of life may win for us the reward of everlasting happiness, through the intercession of this saint, who lives and rules with God the Father. (From the Mass of St. Helena, August 18, Daily Missal of the Mystical Body.)
Daily Prayer to St. Helena of Constantinople
Pray for us as we give thanks to Jesus for giving his life on a Cross so that we could be saved. Have mercy on us, O Lord.
St. Helena Prayer of Thanksgiving
Most Merciful God, who blessed your servant Helena with such grace and devotion to you that she venerated the very footsteps of our Savior; Grant unto us the same grace that, aided by her prayers and example, we also may always behold your glory in the cross of your Son. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.