Today September 7

There are many minor saints today as well, but we are going to go with St. Clodoald, better known as Cloud. This poor boy. He had some sadness and some gladness in his life. First the gladness. He was raised in Paris by his grandmother, St. Clotilda, who had by her patient and holy example converted her husband Clovis, king of the pagan Franks. She taught the three orphaned sons of her son Clodomir (who died battling his cousin, Gondomar -- a name worthy of Tolkien, if you ask me) their catechism with great warmth and affection. Now the sadness: during the reign of the regent, Cloud's uncle Childebert, he and his brother Clotaire plotted to kill the three nephews, the true heirs to the crown. One they stabbed, one they nearly spared (he'd run to the arms of his Uncle Childebert, who melted, but then was dragged from his arms by Clotaire and stabbed in the throat), and one, the youngest, Cloud, escaped to a monastery in Provence. There he remained until he came of age, when he could rightfully have tried to assert his rights to the crown. But he chose to retire to a hermitage along the Seine, which is now called Saint-Cloud (and where Napoleon had his court, or one of them, I believe). He was never ordained, nor officially professed, so I guess we could call him a layman, though he lived the life of a monk. The rules of hermitage being different in those (early) days, he did venture out to teach the people their faith. And he is the patron of nail-makers. His name is a pun on the French word clou (nail), and thus the association. St. Cloud, pray for us.