Synaxis Meme
Serge of A conservative blog for peace has "[o]pen[ed] this up to anybody who’d like to play:" MEME: All Saints of You. Huw Raphael:

We are then able to assemble, as it were, our own personal synaxis (gathering together) of saints. What are yours, and why?

Here is my "own personal synaxis:" (top five)

Saint Andrew the Apostle, my patron. My parents gave me this middle name as Methodists. I was received into the Catholic Church on November 30th, his feast day. "The First-Called" and brother of Peter, he is of extreme importance in the Christian East.

Saint Andrew Kim Taegon, the patron of this blog. I came into the Church here in Korea. This saint was Korea's first Catholc priest and protomartyr. Had it not been for this Andrew, his companions, and the 10,000 Korean martyrs of the XIXth Century, the Catholic Church would not be what it is today (Sanguis martyrum, semen christianorum est), and I might not be a Catholic.

Saint Athanasius, my son's patron: the Champion of Orthodoxy, Holy Hierarch, and Pillar of the Church. Without him, many of us might be Arians, or even Muslims. The Latin phrase "Athanasius contra mundum" sums up his battle against popular opinion, and serves as a warning not be a slave of one's times especially in matters of Faith.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Apostle of Consecration to Mary, Auschwitz Prisoner #16670. Before following the injunction of Our Lord and laying down his life for his friend in a Nazi starvation chamber, Saint Max spent some time in this part of the world, in one of my favorite cities, Nagasaki. He was the Martyr of the XXth Century.

Saint Flannery O'Connor. Of course, she is not canonized and her biting humor and acid personality might prevent her from ever being so. [About the Eucharist she famously said, "If it's just a symbol, to hell with it."] My devotion to her is, of course, entirely personal. She was an uncompromised Catholic, an alien both in her Protestant "Christ-haunted" South and in pagan literary circles. She suffered from debilitating Lupus, and walked on crutches during the last years of her life. My reading of her works has coincided with some important events in my daughter's life, and I pray every evening for Saint Flannery's intercessions for my daughter's walking.

As Serge notes, "The Mother of God is of course in a hyperdulic category unto herself." Among all the titles by which we venerate the Holy Theotokos, I am especially drawn to this one: "Our Lady of Guadalupe, Empress of All the Americas." I visited her shrine outside of Mexico City twice, both times as a pre-Catholic: once as a backbacker in search of indigenous America, once on my honeymoon. I believe these two pre-pilgrimages had something to do with my conversion to the Church her Son established. Under this title she is also the patroness of children, and I have witnessed her protection over my daughter. Also, as a child of the New World, I am especially devoted to her. Call me un guadalupano yanqui if you will.

Runners-up include Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Blessed Charles of Austria, and three Francises: Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Francis de Sales.

At the risk of polluting the sacred with the profane, I will include synaxes in each of three of my other passions, politics, literature, music:

Political thought: Russell Kirk (1918–1994), Orestes Brownson (1803–1876), Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), and José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955).

Literature: Flannery O'Connor, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Aldous Huxley.

Music: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (?1525-1594), Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906 - 1975), and Antônio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994).

I extend Serge's open-ended tag, inviting Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican readers to tackle the first part and secular readers to do the same with my latter embellishment, and to feel free to embellish on their own. I'd especially like to hear from Corpus Meum, eclexys, and Adam Goldsmith.

If you take up the invitation, please leave a note in the comments to the post; the blogless may use the same as a platform.