Feast Day of St. John Nepomucen

​     You’re most likely to see a statue of him near rivers and bridges.  He is known as the patron saint of water, bridges, and of farmers who have fields they want to protect against floods. He is often found near wells and springs, watching that they not dry out.  He is also considered the patron saint of the drowning with his statue erected at sites of a drowning.  Today, May 16, is the feast day of St. Jan Nepomucen. (Święty Jan Nepomucen).
 
     Born in Nepomuc, Bohemia near Prague, St. John was and ardent minister who was murdered by King Wenceslaus IV when he refused to reveal what he had been told in confession.  The king ordered that his hands and feet be bound and weighed down with rocks and thrown into from a bridge into the Vlatva River in Prague in the middle of the night.  The year of his death was 1393. The cult of St. John Nepomucen began to spread in Prague soon after his tragic death. 

    In 1638, even before his beatification, a statue of St. John Nepomucen was erected on the Charles Bridge in Prague.  The figure depicts the saint standing in priest’s clothes consisting of a cassock, surplice and stole, his head covered with a traditional priest’s biret and a nimbus of five stars surrounding the head.  In one arm he cradles a crucifix and in the other holds a palm, the traditional symbol of martyrdom.   It is this image that is the most widely reproduced of St. John Nepomucen throughout all of Poland .
   The Jesuits promoted St. John Nepomucen throughout the known continents as the patron saint of a good confession. He is patron saint of confessors and those who wish to control their tongue from excessive talking so he is sometimes depicted with a finger against his lips in the traditional symbol of silence or sometimes holding a padlock.  Sometimes he holds an open prayer book in both hands. 

     Considering the great number of shrines dedicated to this saint, it is clear he is much loved and venerated in Poland.

Top photo: Wikipedia. Lower photo: by author in Baranow Sandomierski, Poland

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