Saint of the Day – 10 August – St Deusdedit the Cobbler (6th Century) Confessor, Layman

Saint of the Day – 10 August – St Deusdedit the Cobbler (6th Century) Confessor, Layman – Deusdedit was a poor layman shoemaker in 6th Century Rome, Italy. Patronages – shoemakers, of the poor. His name meaning, “dedicated to God.”

The Roman Martyrology reads of him today: “At Rome, the holy Confessor Deusdedit, a working man, who gave to the poor, every Saturday, whatever he had earned during the week.”

We have little information of Deusdedit except that which St Gregory the Great (540-604) left us, having lived in the same years and been the Pope at the time that this holy shoemaker visited St Peter’s on Saturdays. Besides this we know nothing further of his life.

There was a pious shoemaker named Deusdedit, in Rome [so Gregory tells us]. Every Saturday he took his week’s earnings to the courtyard of the Shrine of St Peter in the Vatican, Rome. With these hard-earned wages, he gave alms to the poor who assembled at the Shrine.

The result of the cobbler’s charity was revealed in a vision to a pious person praying nearby. The vision was of a house being built in Heaven. But this building occurred only on Saturdays. For Saturday was the day on which Deusdedit went to St Peter’s to give alms to the poor.

The house was the cobbler’s “Mansion” in Heaven, built by the “Treasure” which he had transferred to Heaven every Saturday through his gifts to the poor.

A similar vision revealed that these Mansions are Treasure Houses in themselves – for they are built with bricks of pure gold!