St. Fabian

I love how God takes "nobodies" and makes them "somebodies". But for a man to be an obscure layman one day and Pope the next, well, that's remarkable even among the saints.

There he was -- the future Pope St. Fabian -- among the crowds of the faithful who had come to Rome in the year 236 to witness the process of choosing a new Pope. All of a sudden, as we're told by Eusebius, a dove descended from the ceiling and landed on Fabian's head "as clear imitation of the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove upon the Savior".

Would it be too irreverent to suggest that this phenomenon blew everyone away? This, obviously, was one of the times when petitions for a sign from heaven were answered emphatically. Here is your sign, Church. (Wonder if Bill Engvall knows about this one?)

So Fabian, who was (he thought) just visiting Rome to see who its new bishop would be, ended up occupying the chair himself. We know that God gives us what we need to carry out our calling when we say "yes" to Him ... and so it was for Fabian, who shepherded the Church through a relatively peaceful time between periods of persecution and died a martyr.

Today, January 20, is Pope St. Fabian's feast day.