Patron Saint against epilepsy

[No-brainer]

As a convert to the Catholic Church about 15+ years ago, I am always looking for spiritual aids as I go through life.
I just came across this in another forum:

Saint Vitus
Martyr.
Patron Saint against epilepsy.
Reportedly one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages.
Vitus is also known as Guy, Veit and Vito,
According to legend, Vitus was the only son of a pagan Sicilian senator named Hylas. When he was twelve years old, he became a Christian through the efforts of his tutor, Saint Modestus, the husband of his nurse Saint Crescentia..
He proved to be such a dedicated Christian that he was taken to the governor of Sicily who tried unsuccessfully to compel him to abandon the faith. Vitus fled to Lucania with Saint Modestus and Saint Crescentia and then to Rome.
In Rome, they were captured and subjected to various tortures. The legend goes that during a storm in which temples were destroyed, they were freed by an angel who guided them back to Lucania where they were eventually martyred in 303 by being boiled in oil.
According to Dictionary of Saints by John J. Delaney, a great devotion to Saint Vitus developed in Germany when his relics were translated to Saxony in 836. He is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and is the patron of those suffering from epilepsy, those afflicted with "Saint Vitus dance", an ailment which was named after him, dancers and actors. He is also a protector against storms.
Saint Vitus
Pray for us!

 

[PragueClaret]

St.Valentine is also a patron saint of epilepsy, but I think he is too busy with being the patron saint of tacky greetings cards as well !

 

[Cint]

And don't forget St. Paul............

In old Ireland, epilepsy was known as "St. Paul's Disease". Read the rest of the story from http://www.epilepsiemuseum.de/alt/paulusen.html

The name points to the centuries-old assumption that the Apostle suffered from epilepsy.

To support this view, people usually point to Saint Paul's experience on the road to Damascus, reported in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament (Acts 9, 3-9), in which Paul, or Saul as he was known before his conversion to Christianity, is reported to have a fit similar to an epileptic seizure: '...suddenly a light from the sky flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him: ''Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?''...Saul got up from the ground and opened his eyes, but he could not see a thing... For three days he was not able to see, and during that time he did not eat or drink anything.'

Saul's sudden fall, the fact that he first lay motionless on the ground but was then able to get up unaided, led people very early on to suspect that this dramatic incident might have been caused by a grand mal seizure. In more recent times, this opinion has found support from the fact that sight impediment-including temporary blindness lasting from several hours to several days-has been observed as being a symptom or result of an epileptic seizure and has been mentioned in many case reports.

In his letters St Paul occasionally gives discreet hints about his 'physical ailment', by which he perhaps means a chronic illness. In the second letter to the Corinthians, for instance, he states: 'But to keep me from being puffed up with pride... I was given a painful physical ailment, which acts as Satan's messenger to beat me and keep me from being proud.' (2 Corinthians, 12,7). In his letter to the Galatians, Paul again describes his physical weakness: 'You remember why I preached the gospel to you the first time; it was because I was ill. But even though my physical condition was a great trial to you, you did not despise or reject me.' (Galatians 4, 13-14) In ancient times people used to spit at 'epileptics', either out of disgust or in order to ward off what they thought to be the 'contagious matter' (epilepsy as 'morbus insputatus': the illness at which one spits).

 

[C0urt]

saint Christopher to i think.

we have a posse