2-sided Stained Glass Window of St. Fiacre (M 059) Garden Flag

Also available as a less costly, one-sided variant + Add a finishing touch to your garden with a St. Fiacre of Breuil garden flag from Saints_Aplenty on Zazzle! St. Fiacre is the principal patron of gardeners. + Born in Ireland c. 600, St. Fiacre was raised in a monastery. Seventh-century Irish monasteries were not only renowned for their holiness but for being seats of culture and learning. Having taken vows as a monk, St. Fiacre took a special interest in cultivating medicinal herbs and using them to cure the sick. At some point later in his monastic career, he was ordained priest and became abbot of his own establishment. Meanwhile, his fame as a healer grew. And, so did the crowds seeking cures. Feeling the need for greater solitude in which to live out his vocation, St. Fiacre fled to France. Laying his cause before the understanding Bishop of Meaux, St. Faro, St. Fiacre was granted as much land as he could entrench in a day. Dragging his cane or a spade behind him to leave a very shallow “ditch”, St. Fiacre claimed enough acreage to eventually establish a hermitage, an herb garden, a vegetable plot, an oratory dedicated to the Blessed Virgin with the first recorded Mary Garden, and a hospice for travelers. St. Fiacre died of natural causes in 670. + In this stained glass window, St. Fiacre, dressed as a tonsured monk, is isolated against a light blue field. Older and wearing a forked beard, his eyes are raised to heaven. He wears sandals, a simple dark brown cowl, and a matching robe belted with a cord. The habit resembles that of the centuries later Franciscan order. Arms crossed in front of his body, his hands rest on the shaft of a gardening spade, his principal attribute. At the bottom left grows a thistle- or artichoke-like plant. + In addition to his principal patronage of gardeners, St. Fiacre is patron saint of cab drivers (an origin story for another day!). + Feast: August 30 + Image Credit (M 059): Antique image of St. Fiacre in stained glass, 19th-century window in the Eglise Notre-Dame, Bar-le-Duc, France. From WikiMedia Commons under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.