Skip to main content
There's a Saint for That! Search

St. Bernard of Menthon

Feast 05-28

Patron of

About

Saint Bernard of Menthon, also called Bernard of Aosta or Bernard of Montjoux, was an eleventh-century priest from the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps. Renouncing a marriage arranged by his noble family, he was ordained and devoted his life to the service of travellers crossing the perilous alpine passes. On the Great St Bernard Pass, more than eight thousand feet above sea level, he founded a hospice to shelter pilgrims and wayfarers caught in the snow.

Around this hospice he established the Canons Regular of the Hospitaller Congregation of Great Saint Bernard, a community whose canons and lay brothers tended the stranded and buried travellers. The famous rescue dogs later bred by the canons took their name from the pass and its patron. Bernard travelled widely, preaching in the Alps and opposing local superstitions. He died around 1081 and is honoured as the apostle of the Alps and the patron of mountaineers and skiers.

travelers, travel, journeys, trips, traveling, voyages, traveling abroad, road trips, tourists, traveling safely, mountaineers, mountain climbing, climbers, alpinists, mountaineering, rock climbing, himalayan, alps, skiers, skiing, ski, winter sports, downhill skiing, cross-country skiing, snow skiing, the poor, poor, the poor people, poverty, poor people, the impoverished, the needy, the destitute, the less fortunate, the underprivileged, the poor and needy

Suggested prayer

O God, who sent your servant Bernard to the heights of the Alps to shelter pilgrims and rescue the perishing, grant through his intercession that we may be guides to those who wander and a refuge for those in danger. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sources

Other saints to pray to

For travelers