Tunnellers building a 3.1 mile tunnel under Glasgow are invoking the protection of St Barbara, nodding to a statue of her every time they go to work.
The workmen, who are building a £100m tunnel for Scottish Water, pay reverence to the saint – the patron of tunnellers and miners – each time they board the narrow-gauge train that takes them more than 100ft underground.
A spokesman for Scottish Water told the Scottish Catholic Observer: “St Barbara is the patron saint of tunnellers, and Costain, our contractor, has many experienced staff on site who have worked on projects such as the Channel Tunnel.
“Every tunneller invokes the protection of St Barbara at the start of a shift and thanks her at the end. That’s why there’s a statue of St Barbara placed at the start of the workings.
“No tunnelling project of this scale would be complete without its statue of the patron and tunnellers demand that St Barbara is present with them underground.”
According to tradition, Barbara lived near Istanbul in the 3rd century. Her father, Dioscorus, kept her in a tower with only two windows after she refused to marry the man he had chosen for her.
When Barbara converted to Christianity a third window appeared, representing the Trinity. Barbara escaped from the tower and, in one version of the legend, took refuge with silver miners in Laurium in Greece. On leaving a mine shaft she was decapitated by her father – who (according to tradition) was promptly killed by lightning.
Barbara is also the patron saint of armourers, artillerymen, military engineers and others who work with explosives. Her feast day, December 4, is sometimes celebrated on tunnelling projects with a day off work.
Old Mass held in cathedral ruins
A sung Mass in the Extraordinary Form has been celebrated in the ruins of a Catholic cathedral that fell into disrepair after the Reformation.
The Mass at the Cathedral of St Andrew last week was part of a new 60-mile pilgrimage celebrating the saint. Pilgrims walked for three days with a relic of St Andrew.
The pilgrimage was organised by the Confraternity of St Ninian.
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