Saint of the Month

May 2019: Saint Rita of Cascia

Death: May 22, 1457

Feast Day: May 22

Patron Saint of Hopeless or Impossible Causes

EARLY LIFE
Rita was born in the year 1381 in the village of Roccaporena, near Cascia , Italy . Her parents, Antonio and Amata Lotti, considered her birth a very special gift from God, for Rita was born to them as they were already advancing in age. As a young girl Rita frequently visited the convent of the Augustinian Nuns in Cascia and dreamed of one day joining their community. Her parents, however, had promised her in marriage, according to the custom of the day, to Paolo Mancini, a good man of strong and impetuous character. Rita accepted her parents’ decision, resolved to see this as God’s will for her.

MARRIED LIFE
The young couple was joined in marriage and soon twin boys were born to them. Rita found herself occupied with the typical concerns of a wife, mother, and homemaker of Roccaporena, while Paolo was employed as a watchman for the town. In Cascia, as elsewhere, a great rivalry existed between two popular political factions, the Guelphs, and the Ghibellines. As a minor official of the town, Paolo often found himself drawn into the conflict, and the strain that this caused probably accounts for the tension, which he sometimes brought into the Mancini household. By her prayer, patience, and affection, however, Rita was able to ease the stress and worry her husband experienced, but she was not able to shield him altogether from the dangers to which society exposed him.

DEATH OF HUSBAND AND SONS
One day as Paolo was returning home from work he was ambushed and killed. The pain which this unexpected and violent death inflicted upon Rita was only compounded by the fear she felt that her two teenage sons, moved by the unwritten law of the “vendetta,” would seek to avenge their father’s death. Rita’s only recourse was to prayer and persuasion. As it happened, the death of both boys from natural causes a short time later removed them from physical and spiritual danger. Despite her great burden she could still thank God that they had died in peace, free of the poison of murder to which hatred and revenge might have otherwise drawn them.

THE GIFT OF THE THORN
At the age of thirty-six Rita pledged to follow the ancient Rule of Saint Augustine. For the next forty years she gave herself wholeheartedly to prayer and works of charity, striving especially to preserve peace and harmony among the citizens of Cascia. With a pure love she wanted more and more to be intimately joined to the redemptive suffering of Jesus, and this desire of hers was satisfied in an extraordinary way. One day when she was about sixty years of age, she was meditating before an image of Christ crucified, as she was long accustomed to doing. Suddenly a small wound appeared on her forehead, as though a thorn from the crown that encircled Christ’s head had loosed itself and penetrated her own flesh. For the next fifteen years she bore this external sign of stigmatization and union with the Lord. In spite of the pain she constantly experienced, she offered herself courageously for the physical and spiritual well being of others. During the last four years of her life Rita was confined to bed and was able to eat so little that she was practically sustained on the Eucharist alone. She was, nevertheless, an inspiration to her sisters in religion and to all who came to visit her, by her patience and joyful disposition despite her great suffering.

THE ROSE
One of those who visited her some few months before her death — a relative from her hometown of Roccaporena — was privileged to witness firsthand the extraordinary things wrought by Rita’s requests. When asked whether she had any special desires, Rita asked only that a rose from the garden of her parents’ home be brought to her. It was a small favor to ask, but quite an impossible one to grant in the month of January! Nevertheless, on returning home the woman discovered, to her amazement, a single brightly-colored blossom on the bush where the nun said it would be. Picking it, she returned immediately to the monastery and presented it to Rita who gave thanks to God for this sign of love. Thus, the saint of the thorn became the saint of the rose, and she whose impossible requests were granted her became the advocate of all those whose own requests seem impossible as well. As she breathed her last, Rita’s final words to the sisters who gathered around her were, “Remain in the holy love of Jesus. Remain in obedience to the holy Roman Church. Remain in peace and fraternal charity.”

DEATH
Having faithfully and lovingly responded to God’s many invitations to her in the course of her seventy-six years, Rita returned to God in peace on May 22, 1457. Her body, which has remained incorrupt over the centuries, is venerated today in the shrine of Cascia, which bears her name. Her feast is observed on the anniversary of her death, 22 May.

https://st-rita.org/the-story-of-st-rita-of-cascia/

April 2019: Saint Julie Billiart

Feast Day: April 8
Birth: July 12, 1751
Died: April 8, 1816
Founded and was the first Superior General of the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

St. Julie (Julia) Billiart was born in 1751 and died in 1816. As a child, playing "school" was Julie's favorite game. When she was sixteen, to help support her family, she began to teach "for real". She sat on a haystack during the noon recess and told the biblical parables to the workers. Julie carried on this mission of teaching throughout her life, and the Congregation she founded continues her work.

Julie was the fifth of seven children. She attended a little one room school in Cuvilly. She enjoyed all of her studies, but she was particularly attracted to the religion lessons taught by the parish priest. Recognizing something "special" in Julie, the priest secretly allowed her to make her First Communion at the age of nine, when the normal age at that time, was thirteen. She learned to make short mental prayers and to develop a great love for Jesus in the Eucharist.

A murder attempt on her father shocked her nervous system badly. A period of extremely poor heath for Julie began, and was to last for thirty years. For twenty-two of these years she was completely paralyzed. All of her sufferings and pain she offered up to God.

When the French Revolution broke out, Julie offered her home as a hiding place for loyal priests. Because of this, Julie became a hunted prey. Five times in three years she was forced to flee in secret to avoid compromising her friends who were hiding her.

At this time she was privileged to receive a vision. She saw her crucified Lord surrounded by a large group of religious women dressed in a habit she had never seen before. An inner voice told her that these would be her daughters and that she would begin an institute for the Christian education of young girls. She and a rich young woman founded the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

At Amiens, the two women and a few companions began living a religious life in 1803. In 1804, Julie was miraculously cured of her illness and walked for the first time in twenty-two years. In 1805, Julie and three companions made their profession and took their final vows. She was elected as Mother General of the young Congregation.

In 1815, Mother taxed her ever poor health by nursing the wounded and feeding the starving left from the battle of Waterloo. For the last three months of her life, she again suffered much. She died peacefully on April 8, 1816 at 64 years of age. Julie was beatified on May 13, 1906, and was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1969. Her feast day is April 8th.

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=297

March 2019: Saint Patrick

Feast Day: March 17
Patron of Ireland
Birth: 387
Death: 461

St. Patrick of Ireland is one of the world's most popular saints. He was born in Roman Britain and when he was fourteen or so, he was captured by Irish pirates during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. At the time, Ireland was a land of Druids and pagans but Patrick turned to God and wrote his memoir, The Confession. In The Confession, he wrote:

"The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was rosed, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same. I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain."

Patrick's captivity lasted until he was twenty, when he escaped after having a dream from God in which he was told to leave Ireland by going to the coast. There he found some sailors who took him back to Britain and was reunited with his family.

A few years after returning home, Patrick saw a vision he described in his memoir:

"I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: 'The Voice of the Irish.' As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near the wood of Foclut, which is beside the western sea-and they cried out, as with one voice: 'We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.'"

The vision prompted his studies for the priesthood. He was ordained by St. Germanus, the Bishop of Auxerre, whom he had studied under for years, and was later ordained a bishop and sent to take the Gospel to Ireland.

Patrick arrived in Slane, Ireland on March 25, 433. There are several legends about what happened next, with the most prominent claiming he met the chieftan of one of the druid tribes, who tried to kill him. After an intervention from God, Patrick was able to convert the chieftain and preach the Gospel throughout Ireland. There, he converted many people -eventually thousands - and he began building churches across the country.

He often used shamrocks to explain the Holy Trinity and entire kingdoms were eventually converted to Christianity after hearing Patrick's message.

Patrick preached and converted all of Ireland for 40 years. He worked many miracles and wrote of his love for God in Confessions. After years of living in poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died March 17, 461.

He died at Saul, where he had built the first Irish church. He is believed to be buried in Down Cathedral, Downpatrick. His grave was marked in 1990 with a granite stone.

In His Footsteps:
Patrick was a humble, pious, gentle man, whose love and total devotion to and trust in God should be a shining example to each of us. So complete was his trust in God, and of the importance of his mission, he feared nothing -not even death.

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=89

February 2019: Saint Peter Damian

Feast Day: February 21
Birth: 1007
Death: 1072

St. Peter Damian is one of those stern figures who seem specially raised up, like St. John Baptist, to recall men in a lax age from the error of their ways and to bring them back into the narrow path of virtue.

He was born at Ravenna and, having lost his parents when very young, he was left in the charge of a brother in whose house he was treated more like a slave than a kinsman. As soon as he was old enough he was sent to tend swine.

Another brother, who was archpriest of Ravenna, took pity on the neglected lad and undertook to have him educated. Having found a father in this brother, Peter appears to have adopted from him the surname of Damian. Damian sent the boy to school, first at Faenza and then at Parma. He proved an apt pupil and became in time a master and a professor of great ability.

He had early begun to inure himself to fasting, watching and prayer, and wore a hairshirt under his clothes to arm himself against the alurements of pleasure and the wiles of the devil. Not only did he give away much in alms, but he was seldom without some poor persons at his table, and took pleasure in serving them with his own hands. After a time Peter resolved to leave the world entirely and embrace a monastic life away from his own country.

While his mind was full of these thoughts, two religious of St. Benedict, belonging to Fonte Avellana of the Reform of St. Romuald, happened to call at the house where he lived, and he was able to learn much from them about their Rule and mode of life. This decided him and he joined their hermitage, which was then in the greatest repute. The hermits, who dwelled in pairs in separate cells, occupied themselves chiefly in prayer and reading, and lived a life of great austerity.

Peter's excessive watchings brought on a severe insomnia which was cured with difficulty, but which taught him to use more discretion. Acting upon this experience, he now devoted considerable time to Sacred studies, and became as well versed in the Holy Scriptures as he formerly had been in profane literature. By the unanimous consent of the hermits he was ordered to take upon himself the government of the Community in the event of the superior's death. Peter's extreme reluctance obliged the abbot to make it a matter of obedience. Accordingly after the abbot's decease about the year 1043, Peter assumed the direction of that holy family, which he governed with great wisdom and piety. He also founded five other hermitages in which he place Priors under his own general direction.

His chief care was to foster in his disciples the spirit of solitude, charity, and humility. Many of them became great lights of the Church, including St. Dominic Loricatus, and St. John of Lodi, his successor in the priory of the Holy Cross, who wrote St. Peter's life and at the end of his days became Bishop of Gubbio.

For years Peter Damian was much employed in the service of the Church by successive Popes, and in 1057 Stephen IX prevailed upon him to quit his desert and made him Cardinal-bishop of Ostia. Peter constantly solicited Nicholas II to grant him leave to resign his bishopric and return to the solitude, but the Pope had always refused. His successor, Alexander II, out of affection for the holy man, was prevailed upon with difficulty to consent, but reserved the power to employ him in Church matters of importance, as he might hereafter have need of his help. The saint from that time considered himself dispensed not only from the responsibility of governing his See, but from the supervision of the various religious settlements he had controlled, and reduced himself to the condition of a simple monk. In this retirement he edified the Church by his humility, penance and compunction, and labored in his writings to enforce the observance of morality and discipline.

His style is vehement, and his strictness appears in all his works - especially when he treats of the duties of the clergy and of monks. He severely rebuked the Bishop of Florence for playing a game of chess. That prelate acknowledged his amusement to be unworthy, and received the holy man's reproof meekly, submitting to do penance by reciting the psalter three times and by washing the feet of twelve poor men and giving them each a piece of money. Peter wrote a treatise to the Bishop of Besancon in which he inveighed against the custom by which the Canons of that Church sang the Divine Office seated in choir, though he allowed all to sit for the lessons. He recommended the use of the discipline as a substitute for long penitential fasts. He wrote most severely on the obligation of monks and protested against their wandering abroad, seeing that the spirit of retirement is an essential condition of their state. He complained bitterly of certain evasions whereby many palliated real infractions of their vow of poverty. He justly observed, "We can never restore primitive discipline when once it is decayed; and if we, by negligence, suffer any diminution in what remains established, future ages will never be able to repair the breach. Let us not draw upon ourselves so foul a reproach; but let us faithfully transmit to posterity the example of virtue which we have received from our forefathers."

St. Peter Damian fought simony with great vigor, and equally vigorously upheld clerical celibacy; and as he supported a severely ascetical, semi-eremitical life for monks, so he was an encourager of common life for the secular clergy. He was a man of great vehemence in all he said and did; it has been said of him that "his genius was to exhort and impel to the heroic, to praise striking achievements and to record edifying examples...an extraordinary force burns in all that he wrote".

In spite of his severity, St. Peter Damian could treat penitents with mildness and indulgence where charity and prudence required it. Henry IV, the young king of Germany, had married Bertha, daughter of Otto, Marquee of the Marches of Italy, but two years later he sought a divorce under the pretense that the marriage had never been consummated. By promises and threats he won over the archbishop of Mainz, who summoned a council for the purpose of sanctioning the annulment of the marriage; but Pope Alexander II forbade him to consent to such an injustice and chose Peter Damian as his legate to preside over the synod. The aged legate met the king and bishops at Frankfurt, laid before them the order and instructions of the Holy See, and entreated the king to pay due regard to the law of God, the Canons of the Church and his own reputation, and also to reflect seriously on the public scandal which so pernicious an example would give. The nobles likewise entreated the monarch not to stain his honor by conduct so unworthy. Henry, unable to resist this strong opposition, dropped his project of a divorce, but remained the same at heart, only hating the queen more bitterly than ever. Peter hastened back to his desert of Fonte Avellana.

Whatever austerities he prescribed for others, he practiced himself, remitting none of them even in his old age. He use to make wooden spoons and other little useful things that his hands might not be idle during the time he was not at work or at prayer. When Henry, Archbishop of Ravenna, had been excommunicated for grievous enormities, Peter was again sent by Alexander II as legate to settle the troubles. Upon his arrival at Ravenna he found that the prelate had just died, but he brought the accomplices of his crimes to a sense of their guilt and imposed on them suitable penance. This was Damian's last undertaking for the Church. As he was returning towards Rome he was arrested by an acute attack of fever in a monastery outside Faenza, and died on the eighth day of this illness, while the monks were reciting Matins round about him, on February 22, 1072.

St. Peter was one of the chief forerunners of the Hildebrandine reform in the Church. His preaching was most eloquent and his writing voluminous, and he was declared a doctor of the Church in 1828. His feast day is February 21st.

January 2019: Saint Francis de Sales

Feast Day: January 24

Patron Saint of Catholic writers, the Catholic press, the deaf, journalists, adult education

Birth: August 21, 1567

Death: December 28, 1622

Beatified By: January 8, 1661 by Pope Alexander VII

Canonized By: April 19, 1665 by Pope Alexander VII

St. Francis de Sales was born to a noble family at Chateau de Sales in the Kingdom of Savoy near Geneva, Switzerland on August 21, 1567. Francis was both intelligent and gentle. From a very early age, he desired to serve God. He knew for years he had a vocation to the priesthood, but kept it from his family. His father wanted him to enter a career in law and politics.

In 1580, Francis attended the University of Paris, and at 24-years-old, he received his doctorate in law at the University of Padua.
All the time, he never lost his passion for God. He studied theology and practiced mental prayers, but kept quiet about his devotion. To please his father, he also studied fencing and riding.

God made his will clear to Francis one day while he was riding. Francis fell from his horse three times that day. Every time he fell, the sword came out of the scabbard, and every time it came out, the sword and scabbard came to rest on the ground in the shape of the Christian cross. After much discussion and disagreement from his father, Francis was ordained to the priesthood and elected provost of the Diocese of Geneva, in 1593, by the Bishop of Geneva.

During the time of the Protestant reformation, Francis lived close to Calvinist territory. He decided he should lead an expedition to bring the 60,000 Calvinists back to the Catholic Church. For three years, he trudged through the countryside, had doors slammed in his face and rocks thrown at him. In the bitter winters, his feet froze so badly they bled as he tramped through the snow. Francis' unusual patience kept him working. No one would listen to him, no one would even open their door. So, Francis found a way to get under the door. He wrote out little pamphlets to explain true Catholic doctrine and slipped them under the doors. This is one of the first records we have of religious tracts being used to communicate the true Catholic faith to people who had fallen away from the Church.

The parents wouldn't come to him, so Francis went to the children. When the parents saw how kind he was as he played with the children, they began to talk to him. By the time Francis returned home, it is believed he brought 40,000 people to the Catholic Church.

He forged wonderful alliances with Pope Clement VIII and Henry IV of France, and in 1601 Francis joined Henry IV on a diplomatic mission. He was to give Lenten sermons at the Chapel Royal. Henry grew attached to Francis and saw him as a "rare bird" who was devout, knowledgeable and a gentleman.

In 1602, Bishop Granier died and Francis was consecrated Bishop of Geneva, although he continued to reside in Annecy. He only set foot in the city of Geneva twice -- once when the Pope sent him to try to convert Calvin's successor, Beza, and another when he traveled through it.

In 1604, Francis took one of the most important steps in his life -- the step toward extraordinary holiness and mystical union with God.

In Dijon, Francis saw a widow listening closely to his sermon -- a woman he had seen already in a dream. Jane de Chantal was a dedicated Catholic Christian on her own, as Francis was, but it was only when they became friends they began to become saints. Jane wanted him to take over her spiritual direction, but, not surprisingly, Francis wanted to wait. "I had to know fully what God himself wanted. I had to be sure that everything in this should be done as though his hand had done it." Jane was on a path to mystical union with God and, in directing her, Francis was compelled to follow her and become a mystic himself.

Years after working with Jane, he made up his mind to form a new religious community. In 1610, he founded The Order of Visitation.

Francis was overworked and often ill because of his constant load of preaching, visiting, and instruction -- even catechizing a deaf man so he could take first Communion. He believed the first duty of a bishop was spiritual direction and wrote to Jane, "So many have come to me that I might serve them, leaving me no time to think of myself. However, I assure you that I do feel deep-down- within-me, God be praised. For the truth is that this kind of work is infinitely profitable to me." For him active work did not weaken his spiritual inner peace but strengthened it.

He gave spiritual direction to most people through letters, which attested to his remarkable patience. "I have more than fifty letters to answer. If I tried to hurry over it all, I would be lost. So, I intend neither to hurry or to worry. This evening, I shall answer as many as I can. Tomorrow I shall do the same and so I shall go on until I have finished."

During this time, it was wrongly thought that achieving real holiness of life was a task reserved for only for the clergy and those in religious life, and not for lay men and women. In addition, that only contemplatives, people who withdraw from active participation in the world, could really achieve holiness. Francis insisted that every Christian was called to holiness and sanctity, lived within their own state in life. In holding that belief, he reflected the teaching of Jesus and the early Church Fathers.

Francis laid the groundwork for the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on what is now called the universal call to holiness. It reaffirms the teaching of Jesus and the early Church that every Baptized Christian is called to sanctity, no matter what their career or state in life. In every career and state in life, Christians can become more and more like Jesus Christ. That is, after all, what holiness really means.

Francis gave spiritual direction to lay people who were living real lives in the real world. He had proven with his own life that people could grow in holiness while involved in a very active occupation. He also recognized that Christian marriage and family life is itself a call to holiness.

His most famous book, INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE, was written for ordinary lay people in 1608, not just the clergy and religious. Written originally as letters, it became an instant success all over Europe -- though some clergy rejected the notion that lay men and women could achieve holiness in the experience of their daily life. Some tore it up because Francis encouraged dancing and jokes!

For Francis, the love of God was like romantic love. He said, "The thoughts of those moved by natural human love are almost completely fastened on the beloved, their hearts are filled with passion for it, and their mouths full of its praises. When it is gone, they express their feelings in letters, and can't pass by a tree without carving the name of their beloved in its bark. Thus, to those who love God can never stop thinking about him, longing for him, aspiring to him, and speaking about him. If they could, they would engrave the name of Jesus on the hearts of all humankind."

The key to love of God was prayer.

"By turning your eyes on God in meditation, your whole soul will be filled with God. Begin all your prayers in the presence of God." For busy people living in the world, he advised, "Retire at various times into the solitude of your own heart, even while outwardly engaged in discussions or transactions with others and talk to God."

The test of prayer was a person's actions.

"To be an angel in prayer and a beast in one's relations with people is to go lame on both legs."

He believed the worst sin was to judge someone or to gossip about them. Even if we say we do it out of love we're still doing it to look better ourselves. We should be as gentle and forgiving with ourselves as we should be with others.

As he became older and more ill he said, "I have to drive myself but the more I try the slower I go." He wanted to be a hermit but he was more in demand than ever. The Pope needed him, then a princess, then Louis XIII. "Now I really feel that I am only attached to the earth by one foot..." He died on December 28, 1622, after giving a nun his last word of advice: "Humility."

St. Francis de Sales was beatified on January 8, 1661 and canonized on April 19, 1665 by Pope Alexander VII. He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1877.

He is often featured with the Heart of Jesus and a Crown of Thorns.

In 1923, Pope Pius XI named St. Francis de Sales the patron saint of Catholic writers and the Catholic press because of the tracts and books he wrote. He is also the patron saint of the deaf, journalists, adult education, and the Sisters of St. Joseph. His feast day is celebrated on January 24.

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=51

December 2018: Saint Nicholas

Feast Day: December 6

Patron of Sailors, Children, Bakers, Pawnbrokers, Greece, Apulia, Sicily, Russia and Loraine

The great veneration with which St. Nicholas has been honored for many ages and the number of altars and churches all over the world that are dedicated in his memory are testimonials to his wonderful holiness and the glory he enjoys with God. As an episcopal see, and his childhood church falling vacant, the holy Nicholas was chosen bishop, and in that station became famous by his extraordinary piety and zeal and by his many astonishing miracles. The Greek histories of his life agree he suffered an imprisonment of the faith and made a glorious confession in the latter part of the persecution raised by Dioletian, and that he was present at the Council of Nicaea and there condemned Arianism. It is said that St. Nicholas died in Myra, and was buried in his cathedral.

St. Nicholas' episcopate at Myra during the fourth century is really all that appears indubitable authentic, according to Alban Butler, an English Roman Catholic priest from the 1700s. This is not for lack of material, beginning with the life attributed to the monk who died in 847 as St. Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople. Nevertheless, the universal popularity of the saint for so many centuries requires that some account of the legends surrounding his life should be given.

St. Nicholas, also known as "Nikolaos of Myra," was a fourth century saint and Greek bishop of Myra. Nicholas was born in Asia Minor in the Roman Empire as an only child to Christian parents. Nicholas would take nourishment only once on Wednesdays and Fridays, and that in the evening according to the canons. "He was exceedingly well brought up by his parents and trod piously in their footsteps. The child, watched over by the church, enlightened his mind and encouraged his thirst for sincere and true religion." Both of his parents tragically died during an epidemic when he was a young man, leaving him well off, but to be raised by his uncle - the Bishop of Patara. Nicholas was determined to devote his inheritance to works of charity, and his uncle mentored him as a reader and later ordained him as a presbyter (priest).

An opportunity soon arose for St. Nicholas and his inheritance. A citizen of Patara had lost all his money, and needed to support his three daughters who could not find husbands because of their poverty; so the wretched man was going to give them over to prostitution. Nicholas became informed of this, and thus took a bag of gold and threw it into an open window of the man's house in the night. Here was a dowry for the eldest girl and she was soon duly married. At intervals Nicholas did the same for the second and the third; at the last time the father was on the watch, recognized his benefactor and overwhelmed Nicholas with his gratitude. It would appear that the three purses represented in pictures, came to be mistaken for the heads of three children and so they gave rise to the absurd story of the children, resuscitated by the saint, who had been killed by an innkeeper and pickled in a brine-tub.

Coming to the city of Myra when the clergy and people of the province were in session to elect a new bishop, St. Nicholas was indicated by God as the man they should choose. This was during the time of persecutions in the beginning of the fourth century and "as he [Nicholas] was the chief priest of the Christians of this town and preached the truths of faith with a holy liberty, the divine Nicholas was seized by the magistrates, tortured, then chained and thrown into prison with many other Christians. But when the great and religious Constantine, chosen by God, assumed the imperial diadem of the Romans, the prisoners were released from their bonds and with them the illustrious Nicholas, who when he was set at liberty returned to Myra."

St. Methodius asserts that "thanks to the teaching of St. Nicholas the metropolis of Myra alone was untouched by the filth of the Arian heresy, which it firmly rejected as death-dealing poison," but says nothing of his presence at the Council of Nicaea in 325.

According to other traditions St. Nicholas was not only there during the Council of Nicaea in 325, but so far forgot himself as to give the heresiarch Arius a slap in the face. The conciliar fathers deprived him of his episcopal insignia and committed him to prison; but our Lord and His Mother appeared there and restored to him both his liberty and his office.

As against Arianism so against paganism, St. Nicholas was tireless and often took strong measures: among other temples he destroyed was that of Artemis, the principal in the district, and the evil spirits fled howling before him. He was the guardian of his people as well in temporal affairs. The governor Eustathius had taken a bribe to condemn to death three innocent men. At the time fixed for their execution Nicholas came to the place, stayed the hands of the executioner, and released the prisoners. Then he turned to Eustathiujs and did not cease to reproach him until he admitted his crime and expressed his penitence.

St. Nicholas' presence was found in a separate occasion involving three imperial officers simply on their way to duty in Phrygia. When the men were back again in Constantinople, the jealousy of the prefect Ablavius caused them to be imprisoned on false charges and an order for their death was procured from the Emperor Constantine. When the officers heard this they remembered the example they had witnessed of the powerful love of justice of the Bishop of Myra and they prayed to God that through his merits and by his mercy they might yet be saved. That night St. Nicholas appeared in a dream to Constantine, and told him with threats to release the three innocent men, and Ablavius experienced the same thing. In the morning the Emperor and the prefect compared notes, and the condemned men were sent for and questioned. When he heard they had called on the name of the Nicholas of Myra who appeared to him, Constantine set them free and sent them to the bishop with a letter asking him not to threaten him any more, but to pray for the peace of the world. For a long time, this has been the most famous miracle of St. Nicholas, and at the time of St. Methodius was the only thing generally known about him.

The accounts are unanimous that St. Nicholas died and was buried in his episcopal city of Myra, and by the time of Justinian, there was a basilica built in his honor at Constantinople.

An anonymous Greek wrote in the tenth century that, "the West as well as the East acclaims and glorifies him. Wherever there are people, in the country and the town, in the villages, in the isles, in the furthest parts of the earth, his name is revered and churches are built in his honor. Images of him are set up, panegyrics preached and festivals celebrated. All Christians, young and old, men and women, boys and girls, reverence his memory and call upon his protection. And his favors, which know no limit of time and continue from age to age, are poured out over all the earth; the Scythians know them, as do the Indians and the barbarians, the Africans as well as the Italians." When Myra and its great shrine finally passed into the hands of the Saracens, several Italian cities saw this as an opportunity to acquire the relics of St. Nicholas for themselves. There was great competition for them between Venice and Bari.

Bari won and the relics were carried off under the noses of the lawful Greek custodians and their Mohammedan masters. On May 9, 1087 St. Nicholas' relics safely landed in Bari, a not inappropriate home seeing that Apulia in those days still had large Greek colonies. A new church was built to shelter the relics and the pope, Bd. Urban II, was present at their enshrining.

Devotion to St. Nicholas has been present in the West long before his relics were brought to Italy, but this happening greatly increased his veneration among the people, and miracles were as freely attributed to his intercession in Europe as they had been in Asia.

St. Nicholas is celebrated as the patron saint of several classes of people, especially, in the East, of sailors and in the West of children. The first of these patronage is most likely due to the legend that during his lifetime, he appeared to storm tossed mariners who invoked his aid off the coast of Lycia and brought them safely to port. Sailors in the Aegean and Ionian seas, following a common Eastern custom, had their "star of St. Nicholas" and wished one another a good voyage in the phrase "May St. Nicholas hold the tiller."

The legend of the "three children" is credited to his patronage of children and various observances, ecclesiastical and secular, connected there with; such were the boy bishop and especially in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, the giving of presents in his name at Christmas time.

This custom in England is not a survival from Catholic times. It was popularized in America by the Dutch Protestants of New Amsterdam who converted the popish saint into a Nordic magician (Santa Claus = Sint Klaes = Saint Nicholas) and was introduced into this country by Bret Harte. It is not the only "good old English custom" which, however good, is not "old English," at any rate in its present form. The deliverance of the three imperial officers naturally caused St. Nicholas to be invoked by and on behalf of prisoners and captives, and many miracles of his intervention are recorded in the middle ages.

Curiously enough, the greatest popularity of St. Nicholas is found neither in the eastern Mediterranean nor north-western Europe, great as that was, but in Russia. With St. Andred the Apostle, he is patron of the nation, and the Russian Orthodox Church even observes the feast of his translation; so many Russian pilgrims came to Bari before the revolution that their government supported a church, hospital and hospice there.

He is also the patron saint of Greece, Apulia, Sicily and Loraine, and of many citiesand dioceses (including Galway) and churches innumerable. At Rome the basilica of St. Nicholas in the Jail of Tully (in Carcere) was founded between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh centuries. He is named in the preparation of the Byzantine Mass. St. Nicholas became recognized as a saint long before the Roman Catholic Church began the regular canonizing procedures in the late 10th century. Therefore, he does not have a specific date of canonization, rather records of him exist in a gradual spread until his stories became widely known and celebrated. St. Nicholas' feast day is December 6.

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=371

November 2018: Venerable Jeanne Mance

Born: November 12, 1606

Died: June 18, 1673

Declared Venerable: November 7, 2014

Jeanne Mance was a French nurse and settler of New France. She arrived in New France two years after the Ursuline nuns came to Quebec. Among the founders of Montreal in 1642, she established its first hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, in 1645. She returned twice to France to seek financial support for the hospital. After providing most of the care directly for years, in 1657 she recruited three sisters of the Religieuses hospitalières de Saint-Joseph, and continued to direct operations of the hospital.

Jeanne Mance was born into a bourgeois family in Langres, in Haute-Marne, France. She was the daughter of Catherine Émonnot and Charles Mance, a prosecutor for the king in Langres, an important diocese in the northern Burgundy. After her mother died prematurely, Jeanne cared for eleven brothers and sisters. She went on to care for victims of the Thirty Years War and the plague.

At age 34, while on a pilgrimage to Troyes in Champagne, Mance discovered her missionary calling. She decided to go to New France in North America, then in the first stages of colonization by the French. She was supported by Anne of Austria, the wife of King Louis XIII, and by the Jesuits. She was not interested in marriage in Nouvelle-France.

Mance was a member of the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal; its goal was to convert the natives and found a hospital in Montreal similar to the one in Quebec.

Charles Lallemant recruited Jeanne Mance for the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal. Mance embarked from La Rochelle on May 9, 1641, on a crossing of the Atlantic that took three months. After wintering in Quebec, she and Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve arrived at the Island of Montreal in the spring of 1642. They founded the new city on May 17, 1642, on land granted by the Governor. That same year Mance began operating a hospital in her home.

Three years later (1645), with a donation of 6000 francs by Angélique Bullion, she opened a hospital on Rue Saint-Paul. She directed its operations for 17 years. A new stone structure was built in 1688, and others have been built since then.

In 1650 Mance visited France and returned with 22,000 livres of money set aside by Mme de Bullion for the hospital. On her return to Montreal, she found that the attacks of the Iroquois threatened the colony. She loaned the hospital money to M. de Maisonneuve, who returned to France to organize a force of one hundred men for the colony's defense.

Mance made a second trip to France in 1657 to seek financial assistance for the hospital. At the same time, she secured three Hospital Sisters of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph from the convent of La Fleche in Anjou: Judith Moreau de Bresoles, Catherine Mace, and Marie Maillet. They had a difficult passage on the return, made worse by an outbreak of the plague on board, but all four women survived. While Mgr. de Laval tried to retain the sisters at Quebec for that hospital, they eventually reached Montreal in October 1659.

With the help of the new sisters, Mance was able to ensure the continued operations of the hospital. For the rest of her years, she lived more quietly.

She died in 1673 after a long illness and was buried in the church of the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. While the church and her house were destroyed in 1696 for redevelopment, her work was carried on by the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph. The three nuns she had recruited in 1659 served as hospital administrators. Two centuries later, in 1861 the hospital was moved to the foot of Mount Royal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Mance

October 2018: Saint Faustina Kowalska

Feast Day: October 5

Patron of Mercy

Birth: 1905

Death: 1938

Beatified By: Pope John Paul II on April 18, 1993

Canonized By: Pope John Paul II on April 30, 2000

Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament was born as Helena Kowalska, in Glogowiec, Leczyca County, north-west of Lódz in Poland on August 25, 1905. She was the third of 10 children to a poor and religious family.

Faustina first felt a calling to the religious life when she was just seven-years-old and attended the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. After finishing her schooling, Faustina wanted to immediately join a convent. However, her parents refused to let her.

Instead, at 16-years-old, Faustina became a housekeeper to help her parents and support herself.

In 1924, Faustina experienced her first vision of Jesus. While at a dance with her sister, Natalia, Faustina saw a suffering Jesus and then went to a Cathedral. According to Faustina, Jesus instructed her to leave for Warsaw immediately and join a convent.

Faustina packed her bags at once and departed the following morning. When she arrived in Warsaw, she entered Saint James Church in Warsaw, the first church she came across, and attended Mass.

While in Warsaw, Faustina approached many different convents, but was turned away every time. She was judged on her appearances and sometimes rejected for poverty.

Finally, the mother superior for the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy decided to take in Faustina on the condition that she could pay for her own religious habit. Working as a housekeeper, Faustina began to save her money and make deposits to the Convent.

On April 30, 1926, at 20-years-old, she finally received her habit and took the religious name of Sister Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament and in 1928, she took her first religious vows as a nun.

Over the next year, Faustina traveled convents as a cook. In May 1930 she arrived in Plock, Poland. Soon after, she began to show the first signs of her illness and was sent away to rest. Several months later, Faustina returned to the convent.

On February 22, 1931, Faustina was visited by Jesus, who presented himself as the "King of Divine Mercy" wearing a white garment with red and pale rays coming from his heart. She was asked to become the apostle and secretary of God's mercy, a model of how to be merciful to others, and an instrument for reemphasizing God's plan of mercy for the world.

In her diary, Faustina writes: "In the evening, when I was in my cell, I became aware of the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand was raised in blessing, the other was touching the garment at the breast. From the opening of the garment at the breast there came forth two large rays, one red and the other pale. In silence I gazed intently at the Lord; my soul was overwhelmed with fear, but also with great joy. After a while Jesus said to me, 'paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the inscription: Jesus, I trust in You.'"

Faustina also describes during that same message, Jesus explained he wanted the Divine Mercy image to be "solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter; that Sunday is to be the Feast of Mercy."

Faustina, not knowing how to paint, asked around her Plock convent for help but was denied. It wasn't until three years later, in 1934, that the first painting of the image was created by Eugene Kazimierowski.

In 1932, Faustina returned to Warsaw. On May 1, 1933 she took her final vows in Lagiewniki and became a perpetual sister of Our Lady of Mercy.

After taking her vows, Faustina was transferred to Vilnius, where she met Father Michael Sopocko, the appointed confessor to the nuns. During her first confession with Sopocko, Faustina told him about her conversations with Jesus and his plan for her. Father Sopocko insisted she be evaluated by a psychiatrist. Faustina passed all the required tests and was determined sane, leading Sopocko to support her religious efforts.

Sopocko encouraged her to start keeping a diary and to record all of her conversations with Jesus. Faustina told Sopocko about the Divine Mercy image and it was Sopocko who introduced her to Kazimierowski, the artist of the first Divine Mercy painting.

According to Faustina's diary, on Good Friday, April 19, 1935, Jesus told her he wanted the Divine Mercy image publically honored. On April 26, 1935, Father Sopocko delivered the very first sermon on the Divine Mercy.

In September 1935, Faustina wrote about her vision of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, used to obtain mercy, trust in Christ's mercy and to show mercy to others.

During the following year, Faustina attempted to set up a new congregation for Divine Mercy, but was reminded that she was perpetually vowed to her current order and sent back to Warsaw. She reported Jesus said to her, "My Daughter, do whatever is within your power to spread devotion to My Divine Mercy, I will make up for what you lack."

In 1936, Faustina fell ill again. She moved to the sanatorium in Pradnik, Krakow and continued to spend most of her time in prayer.

In July 1937, the first holy cards with the Divine Mercy image were created and Faustina provided instructions for the Novena of Divine Mercy, which she reported was a message from Jesus. Throughout the rest of 1937, the Divine Mercy image continued to be promoted and grow in popularity.

Faustina's health significantly deteriorated by the end of 1937. Her visions intensified and she was said to be looking forward to the end of her life. On October 5, 1938, Faustina passed away. She was buried on October 7 and currently rests at the Basilica of Divine Mercy in Krakow, Poland.

Her entire life, in imitation of Christ's, was to be a sacrifice - a life lived for others. At the Divine Lord's request, she willingly offered her personal sufferings in union with Him to atone for the sins of others. In her daily life she was to become a doer of mercy, bringing joy and peace to others, and by writing about God's mercy, she was to encourage others to trust in Him and thus prepare the world for His coming again.

Her special devotion to Mary Immaculate and to the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation gave her the strength to bear all her sufferings as an offering to God on behalf of the Church and those in special need, especially great sinners and the dying.

The message of mercy that Sister Faustina received is now being spread throughout the world; her diary, Divine Mercy in my Soul, has become the handbook for devotion to the Divine Mercy.

In 1965, Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla, who would later become Pope John Paul II, opened up the first investigations into Faustina's life and virtues. He submitted a number of documents on her life to the Vatican and requested the official beatification process to start.

One of his documents noted the case of Maureen Digan of Massachusetts. In March 1981, Digan reported she was healed from Lymphedema after praying at Faustina's tomb. She explained, while there, she heard a voice saying "ask for my help and I will help you," and her pain stopped. After returning to the United States, five different doctors all reported she was healed with no medical explanation. In 1992, the Vatican declared Digan's case miraculous.

St. Faustina Kowalska was beatified on April 18, 1993 and canonized on April 30, 2000, both by Pope St. John Paul II. Her feast day is celebrated on October 5 and she is the patron saint of Mercy.

September 2018: Saint Hildegard of Bingen

Feast Day: September 17

Birth: 1098

Death: September 17, 1179

St. Hildegard, also known as St. Hildegard of Bingen and Sibyl of the Rhine, is a Doctor of the Church. She was also a writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, and German Benedictine abbess. She was born around 1098 to a noble family as the youngest of ten children.

Her parents had promised their sick daughter to God, so they placed her in care of a Benedictine nun, Blessed Jutta, in the Diocese of Speyer at 8-years-old. She was taught how to read and sing the Latin psalms. Her holiness and strong piety made her adored by all who met her. It is said, from this young age, Hildegard began experiencing her visions.

When Hildegard turned 18, she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of St. Disibodenberg. After Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard was elected superior.

Her unique nature and strong devotion to the Holy Spirit attracted many novices to the convent. The rapid growth alarmed Hildegard. She soon moved on with eighteen other sisters to found a new Benedictine house near Bingen in 1148 and later establish a convent in Eibingen in 1165. She believed this was Divine command.

Hildegard quickly became recognized for her immense knowledge of all things faithful, music and natural science, with knowledge of herbs and medicinal arts, despite never having any formal education and not knowing how to write.

Much of her insight is believed to have been communicated by God himself through her frequent visions. At first, Hildegard did not want to make her visions public, but she would confide in her spiritual director. He passed on the knowledge to his abbot, who decided to assign a monk to document everything Hildegard saw.

Her accounts were later submitted to the bishop, who acknowledged them as being truly from God. Her visions were then brought to Pope Eugenius III with a favorable conclusion.

Hildegard's fame began to spread all throughout Europe. People traveled near and far to hear her speak and to seek help from her, even those who were not common people paid Hildegard a visit.

For remainder of her life, Hildegard continued her writings. Her principle work is called Scivias. Twenty-six of her visions and their meanings are recorded. Hildegarde wrote on many other subjects, too. Her works included commentaries on the Gospels, the Athanasian Creed, and the Rule of St. Benedict, as well as Lives of the Saints and a medical work on the well-being of the body.

Hildegard also became an important person in the history of music. There are more chant compositions surviving by St. Hildegard than any other medieval composer.

The last year of St. Hildegard's life was difficult for her and her convent. Going against the wishes of diocesan authorities, Hildegard refused to remove the body of a young man buried in the cemetery attached to her convent. The boy had previously been excommunicated, but since he received his last sacraments before dying, Hildegard felt he had been reconciled to the Church.

Her actions forced her convent to be placed under an interdict by the Bishop and chapter of Mainz. Months would pass before the interdict was lifted and Hildegard died on September 17, 1179, before the interdict was lifted. She was buried in the church of Rupertsburg. When the convent was destroyed in 1632, her relics were moved to Cologne and then to Eibingen.

After her death, she became even more venerated than she was in her life. According to her biographer, Theodoric, she was always a saint and through her intercession, many miracles occurred.

St. Hildegard became one of the first people the Roman canonization process was officially applied to. It took quite some time in the beginning stages, so she remained beatified.

On May 10, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI gave St. Hildegard an equivalent canonization, and laid down the groundwork for naming her a Doctor of the Church. Five months later, she officially became a Doctor of the Church, making her the fourth woman of 35 saints to be given that title by the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI called Hildegard, "perennially relevant" and "an authentic teacher of theology and a profound scholar of natural science and music."

St. Hildegard's feast day is celebrated on September 17.

AUGUST 2018: Saint Roch

Feast Day: August 16

Died: 1327

Patron Saint of: Dogs

Saint Roch is one, among many other saints, whose actual history is crowded with legend and therefore it is almost impossible to deduce whether legend is historically accurate or completely off base. However, Saint Roch was historically a French noble. Legend claims that he was marked from birth by a red cross on his chest which grew as he did. Furthermore, as an infant he fasted when his mother fasted which usually meant fasting at least once a week and on those days only feeding once.

Clearly Saint Roch began his holy life at a very young age. Unfortunately both his parents died by the time he was twenty and therefore he sold all of his possessions and traveled to Rome where he cared for plague victims in Italy. He was known for miraculous cures either by touch or the Sign of the Cross. Eventually he contracted the plague himself and therefore ran off to the woods to die.

Saint Roch was surprised by Count Gothard’s hunting dog which brought him food and licked his wounds which began to heal. Furthermore, a spring arose out of the ground where he lay which gave him a constant supply of clean water, certainly a rarity in Rome at the time. After returning to health, he ventured back to his home in Montpellier where was accussed of being a spy and was imprisoned by his uncle who failed to recognize him. He then lived in prison for 5 years with an angel caring for him until he died in 1327.

Cult of St. Roch
After his death, miracles taking place by his intercession became increasingly more popular which resulted in a cult becoming developed around him. The Church of San Rocco was built in Venice, Italy quickly after his death and today holds many of his relics. Intercession to Saint Roch increased ten-fold after the Fathers of the Council of Constance of 1414 ordered public prayers and processions for the saint which immediately ended a plague in Constance. Saint Roch’s feast day is August 16th and typically involves a procession of a Saint Roch statue.

Fun St. Roch Facts

St. Roch is the patron against plague, cholera, and skin rashes.
He is the patron of dogs, and 15 cities/towns in Italy.
St. Roch is typically presented with a dog feeding him and a nasty knee wound.
St. Roch never revealed that he had noble blood while he was in prison because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. After his death, people discovered who he was by the birth mark cross on his chest.
A powerful archconfraternity of Saint Roch still exists today and flourishes.

https://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/saint-roch-patron-saint-dogs/

JULY 2018: Saint Mary Magdalene

Feast Day: July 22

Patron of contemplative life, converts, glove makers, hairdressers, penitent sinners, people ridiculed for their piety, perfumeries, pharmacists, sexual temptation, tanners, women

St. Mary Magdalene is one of the greatest saints of the Bible and a legendary example of God's mercy and grace. The precise dates of her birth and death are unknown, but we do know she was present with Christ during his public ministry, death and resurrection. She is mentioned at least a dozen times in the Gospels.

Mary Magdalene has long been regarded as a prostitute or sexually immoral in western Christianity, but this is not supported in the scriptures. It is believed she was a Jewish woman who lived among Gentiles, living as they did.

The Gospels agree that Mary was originally a great sinner. Jesus cast seven demons out of her when he met her. After this, she told several women she associated with and these women also became followers.

There is also debate over if Mary Magdalene is the same unnamed women, a sinner, who weeps and washes Jesus' feet with her hair in the Gospel of John. Scholars are skeptical this is the same person.

Despite the scholarly dispute over her background, what she did in her subsequent life, after meeting Jesus, is much more significant. She was certainly a sinner whom Jesus saved, giving us an example of how no person is beyond the saving grace of God.

During Jesus' ministry, it is believed that Mary Magdalene followed him, part of a semi-permanent entourage who served Jesus and his Disciples.

Mary likely watched the crucifixion from a distance along with the other women who followed Christ during His ministry. Mary was present when Christ rose from the dead, visiting his tomb to anoint his body only to find the stone rolled away and Christ, very much alive, sitting at the place they laid Him. She was the first witness to His resurrection.

After the death of Christ, a legend states that she remained among the early Christians. After fourteen years, she was allegedly put into a boat by Jews, along with several other saints of the early Church, and set adrift without sails or oars. The boat landed in southern France, where she spent the remaining years of her life living in solitude, in a cave.

St. Mary Magdalene's feast day is July 22. She is the patroness of converts, repentant sinners, sexual temptation, pharmacists, tanners and women, and many other places and causes.

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=83

June 2018: Blessed Yolanda of Hungary

Birth: 1235 Esztergom, Hungary

Death: June 11, 1298 Gniezno, Poland

Feast Day – June 11

Blessed Yolanda of Hungary was the daughter of Bela IV, King of Hungary. Her mother, Mary, was the daughter of the Greek emperor of Constantinople. In the year 1240, when Yolanda was scarcely five years old, she arrived at the court of Poland. Her elder sister, Blessed Kinga (Cunigunda), who was married to the duke of Poland, had asked to supervise the child's education. Under such a mistress, Yolanda grew not only in age, but also in virtue and grace before God and men.

When Yolanda arrived at young womanhood, she was married to Boleslaus, the duke of Greater Poland. But the young duchess was not enamored of the glory and pleasure of this world. It was a greater pleasure for her to do good in her elevated position. Like a true sovereign, she came to the assistance of the poor and sick, the widows and the orphans. She and her husband built hospitals, convents, and churches, and she was so great an inspiration to him in everything that was good and pleasing to God, that he received the surname of the Pious.

But Boleslaus was soon to receive the reward of his piety in heaven. After his death and after two of her daughters were married, Yolanda and her third daughter left all the glamor and riches of the world and withdrew to the convent of the Poor Clares at Sandec, where, devoted to prayer and mortification, she led a life entirely hidden in Christ. Disturbances resulting from war compelled her after a time to move to the convent at Gniezno, which she herself, assisted by her last consort, had founded.

In spite of the reluctance to which her humility prompted her, she was advanced to the position of abbess. So successfully did she guide her sisters by word and by example in the practice of all the religious virtues that the convent flourished like a new garden of God. Even beyond the walls of the cloister she did very much good, so that the fame of the holy abbess spread far and wide.

Notwithstanding all her fame, Blessed Yolanda of Hungary remained entirely devoted to the interior life, as her vocation required. Her favorite devotion was meditation on the sufferings of Christ, during which the Divine Savior once manifested Himself to her under the appearance of the Crucified to announce to her that He would soon lead her to glory.

Attacked by a serious illness, Yolanda asked to receive the last sacraments. Then she admonished her spiritual daughters to persevere in fidelity to the holy rule, and departed blessedly in the Lord in 1298.

After her death Yolanda appeared in wondrous glory, together with St Stanislaus the bishop, to the sick abbess and restored her health. Many other miracles occurred at her grave down to our own time.

Pope Leo XII, in 1827, approved the veneration given to her.

*from: The Franciscan Book of Saints, ed. by Marion Habig, ofm.
https://www.roman-catholic-saints.com/blessed-yolanda-of-hungary.html

She was the sister of Saint Margaret of Hungary and Saint Kinga (Cunegunda). One of her paternal aunts was the great Franciscan saint, Elizabeth of Hungary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yolanda_of_Poland

May 2018: Saint Peregrine Laziosi

Feast Day: May 1

Patron of Cancer Victims

Birth: 1260

Death: 1345

Peregrine Laziosi was born of a wealthy family at Forli, Italy, in 1260. As a youth he was active in politics as a member of the anti-papal party. During one uprising, which the Pope sent St. Philip Benizi to mediate, Philip was struck in the face by Peregrine. When Philip offered the other cheek, Peregrine was so overcome that he repented and converted to Catholicism. Following the instructions of the Virgin Mary received in a vision, Peregrine went to Siena and joined the Servites. It is believed that he never allowed himself to sit down for thirty years, while as far as possible, observing silence and solitude. Sometime later, Peregrine was sent to Forli to found a new house of the Servite Order. An ideal priest, he had a reputation for fervent preaching and being a good confessor. When he was afflicted with cancer of the foot and amputation had been decided upon, he spent the night before the operation, in prayer. The following morning he was completely cured. This miracle caused his reputation to become widespread. He died in 1345 at the age of eighty-five, and he was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. St. Peregrine, like St. Paul, was in open defiance of the Church as a youth. Once given the grace of conversion he became one of the great saints of his time. His great fervor and qualities as a confessor brought many back to the true Faith. Afflicted with cancer, Peregrine turned to God and was richly rewarded for his Faith, enabling him over many years to lead others to the truth. He is the patron of cancer patients.

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=237

April 2018: Blessed Anacleto Gonzalez Flores

Feast Day: April 1

Birth: 1888

Death: 1927

Beatified By: November 2005, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico by
Pope Benedict XVI

Anacleto González Flores was born on 13 July 1888 in Tepatitlán, Jalisco, Mexico. He was greatly involved in social and religious activities and was an enthusiastic member of the Catholic Association of Young Mexicans (ACJM). He taught classes in catechism, was dedicated to works of charity and wrote articles and books with a Christian spirit. In 1922 he married María Concepción Guerrero and they had two children. By 1926, the situation in Mexico had worsened and Anacleto, who up until this time had advocated passive, non-violent resistance, joined the cause of the National League for the Defence of Religious Freedom upon learning of the murder of four members of the ACJM. In January 1927 guerrilla warfare spread throughout Jalisco and from his many hiding places Anacleto wrote and sent bulletins and studied major strategies. The young man was captured on the morning of 1 April 1927 in the home of the Vargas González family, along with the two Vargas brothers. He was taken to the Colorado jail, where his torture included being hung by his thumbs until his fingers were dislocated and having the bottom of his feet slashed. He refused, however, to supply his captors with any information. José Anacleto González Flores was condemned to death and was shot together with the Vargas González brothers and Luis Padilla Gómez on that same day, 1 April 1927.

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=5668

March 2018: Saint Frances of Rome

Feastday: March 9

Birth: 1384

Death: 1440

Frances was born in the city of Rome in 1384 to a wealthy, noble family. From her mother she inherited a quiet manner and a pious devotion to God. From her father, however, she inherited a strong will. She decided at eleven that she knew what God wanted for her -- she was going to be a nun.

And that's where her will ran right up against her father's. He told Frances she was far too young to know her mind -- but not too young to be married. He had already promised her in marriage to the son of another wealthy family. In Rome at that time a father's word was law; a father could even sell his children into slavery or order them killed.

Frances probably felt that's what he was doing by forcing her to marry. But just as he wouldn't listen to her, Frances wouldn't listen to him. She stubbornly prayed to God to prevent the marriage until her confessor pointed out, "Are you crying because you want to do God's will or because you want God to do your will?"

She gave in to the marriage -- reluctantly. It was difficult for people to understand her objection. Her future husband Lorenzo Ponziani was noble, wealthy, a good person and he really cared for her. An ideal match -- except for someone who was determined to be a bride of Christ.

Then her nightmare began. This quiet, shy thirteen year old was thrust into the whirl of parties and banquets that accompanied a wedding. Her mother-in-law Cecilia loved to entertain and expected her new daughter-in-law to enjoy the revelry of her social life too. Fasting and scourging were far easier than this torture God now asked her to face.

Frances collapsed from the strain. For months she lay close to death, unable to eat or move or speak.

At her worst, she had a vision of St. Alexis. The son of a noble family, Alexis had run away to beg rather than marry. After years of begging he was so unrecognizable that when he returned home his own father thought he was just another beggar and made him sleep under the stairs. In her own way, Frances must have felt unrecognized by her family -- they couldn't see how she wanted to give up everything for Jesus. St. Alexis told her God was giving her an important choice: Did she want to recover or not?

It's hard for us to understand why a thirteen-year-old would want to die but Frances was miserable. Finally, she whispered, "God's will is mine." The hardest words she could have said -- but the right words to set her on the road to sanctity.

St. Alexis replied, "Then you will live to glorify His Name." Her recovery was immediate and complete. Lorenzo became even more devoted to her after this -- he was even a little in awe of her because of what she'd been through.

But her problems did not disappear. Her mother-in-law still expected her to entertain and go on visits with her. Look at Frances' sister-in-law Vannozza --happily going through the rounds of parties, dressing up, playing cards. Why couldn't Frances be more like Vannozza?

In a house where she lived with her husband, his parents, his brother and his brother's family, she felt all alone. And that's why Vannozza found her crying bitterly in the garden one day. When Frances poured out her heart to Vannozza and it turned out that this sister-in-law had wanted to live a life devoted to the Lord too. What Frances had written off as frivolity was just Vannozza's natural easy-going and joyful manner. They became close friends and worked out a program of devout practices and services to work together.

They decided their obligations to their family came first. For Frances that meant dressing up to her rank, making visits and receiving visits -- and most importantly doing it gladly. But the two spiritual friends went to mass together, visited prisons, served in hospitals and set up a secret chapel in an abandoned tower of their palace where they prayed together.

But it wasn't fashionable for noblewomen to help the poor and people gossiped about two girls out alone on the streets. Cecilia suffered under the laughter of her friends and yelled at her daughters-in-law to stop theirs spiritual practices. When that didn't work Cecilia then appealed to her sons, but Lorenzo refused to interfere with Frances' charity.

The beginning of the fifteenth century brought the birth of her first son, Battista, after John the Baptist. We might expect that the grief of losing her mother-in-law soon after might have been mixed with relief -- no more pressure to live in society. But a household as large as the Ponziani's needed someone to run it. Everyone thought that sixteen-year-old Frances was best qualified to take her mother-in-law's place. She was thrust even more deeply into society and worldly duties. Her family was right, though -- she was an excellent administrator and a fair and pleasant employer.

After two more children were born to her -- a boy, Giovanni Evangelista, and a girl, Agnes -- a flood brought disease and famine to Rome. Frances gave orders that no one asking for alms would be turned away and she and Vannozza went out to the poor with corn, wine, oil and clothing. Her father-in-law, furious that she was giving away their supplies during a famine, took the keys of the granary and wine cellar away from her.

Then just to make sure she wouldn't have a chance to give away more, he sold off their extra corn, leaving just enough for the family, and all but one cask of wine. The two noblewomen went out to the streets to beg instead.

Finally Frances was so desperate for food to give to the poor she went to the now empty corn loft and sifted through the straw searching for a few leftover kernels of corn. After she left Lorenzo came in and was stunned to find the previously empty granary filled with yellow corn. Frances drew wine out of their one cask until one day her father in law went down and found it empty. Everyone screamed at Frances. After saying a prayer, she led them to cellar, turned the spigot on the empty cask, and out flowed the most wonderful wine. These incidents completely converted Lorenzo and her father-in-law.

Having her husband and father-in-law completely on her side meant she could do what she always wanted. She immediately sold her jewels and clothes and distributed money to the needy. She started wearing a dress of coarse green cloth.

Civil war came to Rome -- this was a time of popes and antipopes and Rome became a battleground. At one point there were three men claiming to be pope. One of them sent a cruel governor, Count Troja, to conquer Rome. Lorenzo was seriously wounded and his brother was arrested. Troja sent word that Lorenzo's brother would be executed unless he had Battista, Frances's son and heir of the family, as a hostage. As long as Troja had Battista he knew the Ponzianis would stop fighting.

When Frances heard this she grabbed Battista by the hand and fled. On the street, she ran into her spiritual adviser Don Andrew who told her she was choosing the wrong way and ordered her to trust God. Slowly she turned around and made her way to Capitol Hill where Count Troja was waiting. As she and Battista walked the streets, crowds of people tried to block her way or grab Battista from her to save him. After giving him up, Frances ran to a church to weep and pray.

As soon as she left, Troja had put Battista on a soldier's horse -- but every horse they tried refused to move. Finally the governor gave in to God's wishes. Frances was still kneeling before the altar when she felt Battista's little arms around her.

But the troubles were not over. Frances was left alone against the attackers when she sent Lorenzo out of Rome to avoid capture. Drunken invaders broke into her house, tortured and killed the servants, demolished the palace, literally tore it apart and smashed everything. And this time God did not intervene -- Battista was taken to Naples. Yet this kidnapping probably saved Battista's life because soon a plague hit -- a plague that took the lives of many including Frances' nine-year-old son Evangelista.

At this point, her house in ruins, her husband gone, one son dead, one son a hostage, she could have given up. She looked around, cleared out the wreckage of the house and turned it into a makeshift hospital and a shelter for the homeless.

One year after his death Evangelista came to her in a vision and told her that Agnes was going to die too. In return God was granting her a special grace by sending an archangel to be her guardian angel for the rest of her life. She would always been able to see him. A constant companion and spiritual adviser, he once commanded her to stop her severe penances (eating only bread and water and wearing a hair shirt). "You should understand by now," the angel told her, "that the God who made your body and gave it to your soul as a servant never intended that the spirit should ruin the flesh and return it to him despoiled."

Finally the wars were over and Battista and her husband returned home. But though her son came back a charming young man her husband returned broken in mind and body. Probably the hardest work of healing Frances had to do in her life was to restore Lorenzo back to his old self.

When Battista married a pretty young woman named Mabilia, Frances expected to find someone to share in the management of the household. But Mabilia wanted none of it. She was as opposite of Frances as Frances had been of her mother-in- law. Mabilia wanted to party and ridiculed Frances in public for her shabby green dress, her habits, and her standards. One day in the middle of yelling at her, Mabilia suddenly turned pale and fainted, crying, "Oh my pride, my dreadful pride." Frances nursed her back to health and healed their differences as well. A converted Mabilia did her best to imitate Frances after that.

With Lorenzo's support and respect, Frances started a lay order of women attached to the Benedictines called the Oblates of Mary. The women lived in the world but pledged to offer themselves to God and serve the poor. Eventually they bought a house where the widowed members could live in community.

Frances nursed Lorenzo until he died. His last words to her were, "I feel as if my whole life has been one beautiful dream of purest happiness. God has given me so much in your love." After his death, Frances moved into the house with the other Oblates and was made superior. At 52 she had the life she dreamed of when she was eleven. She had been right in discerning her original vocation -- she just had the timing wrong. God had had other plans for her in between.

Frances died four years later. Her last words were "The angel has finished his task -- he beckons me to follow him."

February 2018: Saint Valentine

Feast Day: February 14

Patron of Love, Young People, Happy Marriages

Death: 269

Saint Valentine, officially known as Saint Valentine of Rome, is a third-century Roman saint widely celebrated on February 14 and commonly associated with "courtly love."

Although not much of St. Valentine's life is reliably known, and whether or not the stories involve two different saints by the same name is also not officially decided, it is highly agreed that St. Valentine was martyred and then buried on the Via Flaminia to the north of Rome.

In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed St. Valentine from the General Roman Calendar, because so little is known about him. However, the church still recognizes him as a saint, listing him in the February 14 spot of Roman Martyrolgy.

The legends attributed to the mysterious saint are as inconsistent as the actual identification of the man.

One common story about St. Valentine is that in one point of his life, as the former Bishop of Terni, Narnia and Amelia, he was on house arrest with Judge Asterius. While discussing religion and faith with the Judge, Valentine pledged the validity of Jesus. The judge immediately put Valentine and his faith to the test.

St. Valentine was presented with the judge's blind daughter and told to restore her sight. If he succeeded, the judge vowed to do anything for Valentine. Placing his hands onto her eyes, Valentine restored the child's vision.

Judge Asterius was humbled and obeyed Valentine's requests. Asterius broke all the idols around his house, fasted for three days and became baptized, along with his family and entire 44 member household. The now faithful judge then freed all of his Christian inmates.

St. Valentine was later arrested again for continuing to try to convert people to Christianity. He was sent to Rome under the emperor Claudius Gothicus (Claudius II). According to the popular hagiographical identity, and what is believed to be the first representation of St. Valentine, the Nuremberg Chronicle, St. Valentine was a Roman priest martyred during Claudius' reign. The story tells that St. Valentine was imprisoned for marrying Christian couples and aiding Christians being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Both acts were considered serious crimes. A relationship between the saint and emperor began to grow, until Valentine attempted to convince Claudius of Christianity. Claudius became raged and sentenced Valentine to death, commanding him to renounce his faith or be beaten with clubs and beheaded.

St. Valentine refused to renounce his faith and Christianity and was executed outside the Flaminian Gate on February 14, 269. However, other tales of St. Valentine's life claim he was executed either in the year 269, 270, 273 or 280. Other depictions of St. Valentine's arrests tell that he secretly married couples so husbands wouldn't have to go to war. Another variation of the legend of St. Valentine says he refused to sacrifice to pagan gods, was imprisoned and while imprisoned he healed the jailer's blind daughter. On the day of his execution, he left the girl a note signed, "Your Valentine."

Pope Julius I is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole in his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate now called Porta del Popolo, formerly, Porta Valetini.

The romantic nature of Valentine's Day may have derived during the Middle Ages, when it was believed that birds paired couples in mid-February. According to English 18th-century antiquarians Alban Butler and Francis Douce, Valentine's Day was most likely created to overpower the pagan holiday, Lupercalia.

Although the exact origin of the holiday is not widely agreed upon, it is widely recognized as a day for love, devotion and romance.

Whoever he was, Valentine did really exist, because archaeologists have unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to St. Valentine. In 496 AD Pope Gelasius marked February 14th as a celebration in honor of his martyrdom.

Relics of St. Valentine can be found all over the world. A flower-crowned skull of St. Valentine can be found in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. In 1836, other relics were exhumed from the catacombs of Saint Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina and were identified as Valentine's. These were transported for a special Mass dedicated to those young and in love.

Fr. John Spratt received a gift from Pope Gregory XVI in 1836 containing a "small vessel tinged" with St. Valentine's blood. This gift now stands placed in Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin, Ireland.

Other alleged relics were found in Prague in the Church of St Peter and Paul at Vysehrad; in the parish church of St. Mary's Assumption in Chelmno Poland; at the reliquary of Roquemaure in France; in the Stephansdom in Vienna; in Balzan in Malta and also in Blessed John Duns Scotus' church in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland.

St. Valentine is the Patron Saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers, and young people. He is represented in pictures with birds and roses and his feast day is celebrated on February 14.

January 2018: Saint Genevieve

FEAST DAY: JANUARY 3

PATRON OF PARIS

BIRTH: 422

DEATH: 512

St. Genevieve was a fair and courageous peasant girl who was born around 422 in Nanterre, France, to a man named Severus and a woman named Gerontia.

When Genevieve was only seven-years-old, St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre visited Nanterre on his way to Britain. While he was there, many people flocked to receive his blessing. The young Genevieve stood amid a crowd which had gathered around the man of God who singled her out and foretold her future sanctity. At her request, the holy Bishop led her to a church, accompanied by all the faithful, and consecrated her to God as a virgin.

The next day, Germanus asked Genevieve if she had remembered the promise she made to God. She did and proclaimed she would always fulfill it faithfully. He presented her with a cross engraved brass medal to always wear around her neck, as a reminder of the consecration she made of herself to God. He ordered her to never wear any other bracelets, necklaces or jewelry, to avoid falling into vanity.

Encouraged by Germanus, Genevieve dedicated her life to prayer, practices of devotion and a acts of penance. When she was only 15-years-old, she met with the Bishop of Paris and asked to become a nun. From this moment, she also began praying continuously and fasting, eating only twice a week, as a sign of her complete dedication to the Lord.

The signs of the working of the Holy Spirit accompanying this holy young woman included miracles and spiritually inspired predictions. She frequently had visions of heavenly angels and saints. However, when she shared those visions and experiences of the Lord, people began to turn against her. They called her a hypocrite and accused her of being a false visionary. In fact, they were determined to drown her in a lake of fire. However, the Bishop Germanus intervened and silenced those who were accusing her of false statements, and persecuting her.

Genevieve was appointed by the Bishop to look after the welfare of the consecrated virgins. She did so faithfully and helped to lead them into a greater degree of holiness as they grew closer to the Lord Jesus.

Genevieve had a great influence over Childeric, the King of Gaul who overtook Paris. During a time when Paris suffered with great famine, Genevieve traveled by boat to Troyes and brought back several boats full of corn. Although he was a pagan, Childeric respected her and spared the lives of several prisoners on her behalf.

She also had an effect on King Clovis. He listened to her advice and under her request, he granted freedom to several of his prisoners.

When Attila and his army of Huns came upon Paris, the Parisian Christians were prepared to run, but Genevieve spoke to them and convinced them to stay within their homes, fast and pray to the Lord. She assured them they would have the protection of Heaven. Her prediction came true as Attila suddenly changed his path and turned away from Paris.

Genevieve died at 89-years-old on January 3, 512.

Shortly after she was buried, the people built a small church over her tomb, asking for the intercession of Saints Peter and Paul. Although her tomb remains there and can still be seen today, it is empty.

Her relics were encased by St. Eligius in a handmade gold and silver shrine around 630. Over the years, the Normans destroyed the church several times. Once it was rebuilt around 856, St. Genevieve's relics were returned and miracles began happening, making this church famous all throughout France.

Paris experienced proof of Genevieve's intercession on many occasions. The most famous occurrence was the miracle of Des Ardens, or the burning fever. In 1129, a violent fever swept through the city, and doctors couldn't stop the people from dying. The shrine of Genevieve was carried in a procession to the cathedral, and during the ceremony, those who touched her shrine were healed by the power of the Lord. Throughout the whole town, no one else became sick, all the ill recovered and only three people died.

Pope Innocent visited the city the following year and asked that an annual festival be held in commemoration of the miracle every year on November 26. His goal, as is always the case with such practices, was to keep their faith alive by reminding the faithful that the Lord always works in the lives of those who pray and draw close to Him.

St. Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris. She is depicted dressed in a long flowing gown with a mantle covering her shoulders and is often shown with a loaf of bread, representing her generosity toward those in need. Her feast day is celebrated on January 3.

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=120

December 2017: Saint Bibiana

FEAST DAY: DECEMBER 2

St. Bibiana, Virgin and Martyr (Feast day - December 2nd) Other than the name, nothing is known for certain about this saint. However, we have the following account from a later tradition.

In the year 363, Julian the Apostate made Apronianus Governor of Rome. St. Bibiana suffered in the persecution started by him. She was the daughter of Christians, Flavian, a Roman knight, and Dafrosa, his wife. Flavian was tortured and sent into exile, where he died of his wounds. Dafrosa was beheaded, and their two daughters, Bibiana and Demetria, were stripped of their possessions and left to suffer poverty. However, they remained in their house, spending their time in fasting and prayer.

Apronianus, seeing that hunger and want had no effect upon them, summoned them. Demetria, after confessing her Faith, fell dead at the feet of the tyrant. St. Bibiana was reserved for greater sufferings. She was placed in the hands of a wicked woman called Rufina, who in vain endeavored to seduce her. She used blows as well as persuasion, but the Christian virgin remained faithful.

Enraged at the constancy of this saintly virgin, Apronianus ordered her to be tied to a pillar and beaten with scourges, laden with lead plummets, until she expired. The saint endured the torments with joy, and died under the blows inflicted by the hands of the executioner.

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=168

November 2017: Saint Catherine Laboure

Feast Day: November 28

Beatified By: May 28, 1933 by Pope Pius XI

Canonized By: July 27, 1947 by Pope Pius XII

St. Catherine Laboure, virgin, was born on May 2, 1806. At an early age she entered the community of the Daughters of Charity, in Paris, France. Three times in 1830 the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Catherine Laboure, who then was a twenty-four year old novice.

On July 18, the first apparition occurred in the community's motherhouse. St. Catherine beheld a lady seated on the right side of the sanctuary. When St. Catherine approached her, the heavenly visitor told her how to act in time of trial and pointed to the altar as the source of all consolation. Promising to entrust St. Catherine with a mission which would cause her great suffering, the lady also predicted the anticlerical revolt which occurred at Paris in 1870.

On November 27, the lady showed St. Catherine the medal of the Immaculate Conception, now universally known as the "Miraculous Medal." She commissioned St. Catherine to have one made, and to spread devotion to this medal. At that time, only her spiritual director, Father Aladel, knew of the apparitions. Forty-five years later, St. Catherine spoke fully of the apparitions to one of her superiors. She died on December 31, 1876, and was canonized on July 27, 1947. Her feast day is November 28.

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=266

October 2017: Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

Feast Day: October 17
Birth: 1647
Death: 1690

Daughter of Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn, Margaret was born on July 22, at L'Hautecour, Burgundy, France, was sent to the Poor Clares school at Charolles on the death of her father, a notary, when she was eight years old. She was bedridden for five years with rheumatic fever until she was fifteen and early developed a devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. She refused marriage, and in 1671 she entered the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial and was professed the next year. From the time she was twenty, she experienced visions of Christ, and on December 27, 1673, she began a series of revelations that were to continue over the next year and a half. In them Christ informed her that she was His chosen instrument to spread devotion to His Sacred Heart, instructed her in a devotion that was to become known as the Nine Fridays and the Holy Hour, and asked that the feast of the Sacred Heart be established.

Rebuffed by her superior, Mother de Saumaise, in her efforts to follow the instruction she had received in the visions, she eventually won her over but was unable to convince a group of theologians of the validity of her apparitions, nor was she any more successful with many of the members of her community. She received the support of Blessed Claude La Colombiere, the community's confessor for a time, who declared that the visions were genuine. In 1683, opposition in the community ended when Mother Melin was elected Superior and named Margaret Mary her assistant. She later became Novice Mistress, saw the convent observe the feast of the Sacred Heart privately beginning in 1686, and two years later, a chapel was built at the Paray-le-Monial to honor the Sacred Heart; soon observation of the feast of the Sacred Heart spread to other Visitation convents. Margaret Mary died at the Paray-le-Monial on October 17, and was canonized in 1920. She, St. John Eudes, and Blessed Claude La Colombiere are called the "Saints of the Sacred Heart"; the devotion was officially recognized and approved by Pope Clement XIII in 1765, seventy-five years after her death. Her feast day is observed on October 17.

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=443

September 2017: Saint Theresa of Calcutta

Feast Day: September 5
Patron of World Youth Day
Birth: 1910
Death: 1997
Beatified By: Pope John Paul II
Canonized: September 4, 2016

The remarkable woman who would be known as Mother Theresa began life named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Born on August 26, 1910 in Skopje, she was the youngest child born to Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu, Receiving her First Communion at the age of five, she was confirmed in November 1916. Her father died while she was only eight years old leaving her family in financial straits.

Gonxha's religious formation was assisted by the vibrant Jesuit parish of the Sacred Heart in which she was very involved as a youth.

Subsequently moved to pursue missionary work, Gonxha left her home in September 1928 at the age of 18 to join the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as the Sisters of Loreto, in Ireland. She received the name Sister Mary Teresa after St. Therese of Lisieux. In December of 1929, she departed for her first trip to India, arriving in Calcutta. After making her First Profession of Vows in May 1931, Sister Teresa was assigned to the Loreto Entally community in Calcutta and taught at St. Mary's School for girls.

Sister Teresa made her Final Profession of Vows, On May 24, 1937, becoming, as she said, the "spouse of Jesus" for "all eternity." From that time on she was called Mother Teresa.

She continued teaching at St. Mary's and in 1944 became the school's principal. Mother Teresa's twenty years in Loreto were filled with profound happiness. Noted for her charity, unselfishness and courage, her capacity for hard work and a natural talent for organization, she lived out her consecration to Jesus, in the midst of her companions, with fidelity and joy.

It was on September 10, 1946 during a train ride from Calcutta to Darjeeling for her annual retreat, Mother Teresa received her "inspiration, her call within a call." On that day, in a way she would never explain, Jesus' thirst for love and for souls took hold of her heart and the desire to satiate His thirst became the driving force of her life.

By means of interior locutions and visions, Jesus revealed to her the desire of His heart for "victims of love" who would "radiate His love on souls." "Come be My light," He begged her. "I cannot go alone."

Jesus revealed His pain at the neglect of the poor, His sorrow at their ignorance of Him and His longing for their love. He asked Mother Teresa to establish a religious community, Missionaries of Charity, dedicated to the service of the poorest of the poor.

Nearly two years of testing and discernment passed before Mother Teresa received permission to begin. On August 17, 1948, she dressed for the first time in a white, blue-bordered sari and passed through the gates of her beloved Loreto convent to enter the world of the poor.

After a short course with the Medical Mission Sisters in Patna, Mother Teresa returned to Calcutta and found temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the Poor. On December 21, she went for the first time to the slums. She visited families, washed the sores of some children, cared for an old man lying sick on the road and nursed a woman dying of hunger and tuberculosis. She started each day with communion then went out, rosary in her hand, to find and serve Him amongst "the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for." After some months, she was joined, one by one, by her former students.

On October 7, 1950 the new congregation of the Missionaries of Charity was officially established in the Archdiocese of Calcutta. By the early 1960s, Mother Teresa began to send her Sisters to other parts of India. The Decree of Praise granted to the Congregation by Pope Paul VI in February 1965 encouraged her to open a house in Venezuela. It was soon followed by foundations in Rome and Tanzania and, eventually, on every continent. Starting in 1980 and continuing through the 1990s, Mother Teresa opened houses in almost all of the communist countries, including the former Soviet Union, Albania and Cuba.

In order to respond better to both the physical and spiritual needs of the poor, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity Brothers in 1963, in 1976 the contemplative branch of the Sisters, in 1979 the Contemplative Brothers, and in 1984 the Missionaries of Charity Fathers.

Mother Theresa's inspiration was not limited to those with religious vocations. She formed the Co-Workers of Mother Teresa and the Sick and Suffering Co-Workers, people of many faiths and nationalities with who she shared her spirit of prayer, simplicity, sacrifice and her apostolate of humble works of love.

This spirit later inspired the Lay Missionaries of Charity. In answer to the requests of many priests, in 1981 Mother Teresa also began the Corpus Christi Movement for Priests as a "little way of holiness" for those who desire to share in her charisma and spirit.

During the years of rapid growth the world began to turn its eyes towards Mother Teresa and the work she had started. Numerous awards, beginning with the Indian Padmashri Award in 1962 and notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, honored her work, while an increasingly interested media began to follow her activities. She received both prizes and attention 'for the glory of God and in the name of the poor."

There was a heroic side of this great woman that was revealed only after her death. Hidden from all eyes, even from those closest to her, was her interior life marked by an experience of a deep, painful and abiding feeling of being separated from God, even rejected by Him, along with an ever increasing longing for His love. She called her inner experience, the darkness. The "painful night" of her soul, which began around the time she started her work for the poor and continued to the end of her life, led Mother Teresa to an ever more profound union with God. Through the darkness she mystically participated in the thirst of Jesus, in His painful and burning longing for love, and she shared in the interior desolation of the poor.

In spite of increasingly severe health problems towards the end of her life, Mother Teresa continued to govern her Society and respond to the needs of the poor and the Church. By 1997, Mother Teresa's Sisters numbered nearly 4,000 members and were established in 610 foundations in 123 countries of the world. In March 1997 she blessed her newly-elected successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity and then made one more trip abroad. After meeting Pope John Paul II for the last time, she returned to Calcutta and spent her final weeks receiving visitors and instructing her Sisters.

On September 5, Mother Teresa's earthly life came to an end. She was given the honor of a state funeral by the Government of India and her body was buried in the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity. Her tomb quickly became a place of pilgrimage and prayer for people of all faiths, rich and poor alike.

Mother Teresa left a testament of unshakable faith, invincible hope and extraordinary charity. Her response to Jesus' plea, "Come be My light," made her a Missionary of Charity, a "mother to the poor," a symbol of compassion to the world, and a living witness to the thirsting love of God. As a testament to her most remarkable life, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization. On December 20, 2002 he approved the decrees of her heroic virtues and miracles.

Mother Teresa was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19, 2003.

On the occasion of her beatification, the Missionaries of Charity issued the following statement:
"We, the Missionaries of Charity, give thanks and praise to God that our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has officially recognized the holiness of our mother, Mother Teresa, and approved the miracle obtained through her intercession. We are filled with joy in anticipation of the Beatification that will take place in Rome on Mission Sunday, 19 October 2003, the closest Sunday to the 25th anniversary of the Holy Father's Pontificate and the end of the Year of the Rosary.

"Today, after three and a half years of investigation and study, the Church confirms that Mother heroically lived the Christian life and that God has lifted her up as both a model of holiness and an intercessor for all.

"Mother is a symbol of love and compassion. When Mother was with us, we were witnesses to her shining example of all the Christian virtues. Her life of loving service to the poor has inspired many to follow the same path. Her witness and message are cherished by those of every religion as a sign that "God still loves the world today." For the past five years since Mother's death, people have sought her help and have experienced God's love for them through her prayers. Every day, pilgrims from India and around the world come to pray at her tomb and many more follow her example of humble service of love to the most needy, beginning in their own families.

"Mother often said, 'Holiness is not the luxury of the few, it is a simple duty for each one of us. May her example help us to strive for holiness: to love God, to respect and love every human person created by God in His own image and in whom He dwells, and to care for our poor and suffering brethren. May all the sick, the suffering, and those who seek God's help find a friend and intercessor in Mother."

Canonization of Saint Theresa of Calcutta - September 4, 2016

Following her beatification, a long wait for a second miracle then followed. On December 17, 2015 Pope Francis announced a second miracle had been attributed to the intercession of Mother Teresa. The miracle involved a Brazilian man who was afflicted with tumors who was miraculously cured. This cleared the way for Mother Teresa's canonization.

Mother Teresa will be canonized on September 4, 2016 by Pope Francis.

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=5611

August 2017: Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Feast Day: August 14
Patron of drug addicts, prisoners, families, and the pro-life movement
Birth: January 8, 1894
Death: August 14, 1941
Beatified By: By Pope Paul VI on October 17, 1971
Canonized By: By Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982

St. Maximilian Kolbe was born as Raymund Kolbe on January 8, 1894, in the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. He was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar and a martyr in the German death Camp of Auschwitz during World War II.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was very active in promoting the Immaculate Virgin Mary and is known as the Apostle of Consecration to Mary. Much of his life was strongly influenced by a vision he had of the Virgin Mary when he was 12.

"That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both."

One year after his vision, Kolbe and his elder brother, Francis joined the Conventual Franciscans. In 1910, Kolbe was given the religious name Maximilian, after being allowed to enter the novitiate, and in 1911, he professed his first vows.

At the age of 21, Kolbe earned a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He would also earn a doctorate in theology by the time he was 28.

St. Maximilian Kolbe organized the Militia Immaculata (Army of the Immaculate One) after witnessing demonstrations against Pope St. Pius X and Benedict XV. His goal was to work for the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Church, specifically, the Freemasons and he would so with the intercession of Mary.

In 1918, he was ordained a priest and continued his work of promoting Mary throughout Poland. Over the next several years, Kolbe took on publishing. He founded a monthly periodical titled, "Rycerz Niepokalanej" (Knight of the Immaculate). He also operated a religious publishing press and founded a new Conventual Franciscan monastery at Niepokalanow, which became a major religious publishing center.

Kolbe also founded monasteries in both Japan and India. To this day, the monastery in Japan remains prominent in the Roman Catholic Church in Japan.

In 1936, Kolbe's poor health forced him to return home to Poland, and once the WWII invasion by Germany began, he became one of the only brothers to remain in the monastery. He opened up a temporary hospital to aid those in need. When his town was captured, Kolbe was sent to prison but released three months later.

Kolbe refused to sign a document that would recognize him as a German citizen with his German ancestry and continued to work in his monastery, providing shelter for refugees - including hiding 2,000 Jews from German persecution. After receiving permission to continue his religious publishing, Kolbe's monastery acted as a publishing house again and issued many anti-Nazi German publications.

On February 17, 1941, the monastery was shut down; Kolbe was arrested by the German Gestapo and taken to the Pawiak prison. Three months later, he was transferred to Auschwitz.

Never abandoning his priesthood, Kolbe was the victim to severe violence and harassment. Toward the end of his second month in Auschwitz, men were chosen to face death by starvation to warn against escapes. Kolbe was not chosen but volunteered to take the place of a man with a family.

It is said during the last days of his life Kolbe led prayers to Our Lady with the prisoners and remained calm. He was the last of the group to remain alive, after two weeks of dehydration and starvation. The guards gave him a lethal injection of carbolic acid. The stories tell that he raised his left arm and calmly awaited death.

St. Maximilian Kolbe died on August 14 and his remains were cremated on August 15, the same day as the Assumption of Mary feast day.

Recognized as the Servant of God, Kolbe was beatified as a "Confessor of the Faith" on October 17, 1971 by Pope Paul VI and canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982. Pope John Paul II declared Kolbe not a confessor, but a martyr.

Kolbe's is often depicted in a prison uniform and with a needle being injected into an arm. He is the patron saint of drug addicts, prisoners, families, and the pro-life movement and his feast day is celebrated on August 14.

July 2017: Saint Christopher

Feast Day: July 25
Patron of bachelors, transportation, traveling, storms, epilepsy, gardeners, holy death, and toothache
Death: 251

Saint Christopher is one of the most popular Catholic Christian heroes of the Faith. He is a saint, indeed listed as a martyr. He may have also been named Reprobus. He apparently died under the Roman Emperor Decius, in 251 AD. Most Catholics refer to him as Saint Christopher anyway, and his medals and the popular devotions to him are among the most common in Catholic piety.

Other than his listing as a martyr, there are no primary sources referring to St. Christopher, only stories and traditions which have been passed down.

According to these accounts, St. Christopher was extremely tall, and by some accounts he was even a giant! He was surely a man of significant physical stature. But, more importantly, he was a spiritual giant and a sure model and inspiration for the Christian faithful.

Christopher decided one day that he wanted to serve the greatest king he could. He presented himself before his local ruler and entered service, until he noticed the king cross himself at the mention of the devil, revealing that the king believed the Devil to have more power.

St. Christopher then decided to serve the Devil. During his search, he encountered a band of thieves, whose leader referred to himself as the Devil. But when this leader avoided a Christian cross out of fear, St. Christopher learned there was someone even more powerful than the Devil.

St. Christopher found a hermit who taught him all about Christ, the King of Kings. The hermit suggested that he spend his life in prayer and fasting, a thing which St. Christopher, a large and probably often hungry man found difficult, he objected. The hermit suggested he then find something else that would please Christ. St. Christopher offered to work at a nearby river, and help travelers across. The fording was dangerous and many with less strength people had drowned. The hermit advised St. Christopher this would please Christ.

One day, a child approached St. Christopher by the river and asked to be helped across. St. Christopher obliged. However, as he entered midstream, the river rose and the child's weight grew and became extremely heavy. It was only by great exertion that St. Christopher safely delivered the child to the other side.

When St. Christopher asked the child why he was so heavy, the child explained that He was the Christ and when St. Christopher carried Him, he also carried the weight of the whole world on his shoulders. The child then vanished.

Other legends state that St. Christopher traveled after this experience and evangelized thousands of people. Arriving in Lycia in Asia Minor, and witnessing to Christians there who were being martyred. At that time, St. Christopher was detained and ordered to offer a sacrifice to the emperor. When he refused, it was decided to attempt to persuade him with money and women. Two women were sent to seduce him, but instead he converted them to Christianity.

After this, it was decided to have him killed, but various attempts to assassinate him failed. Eventually, he was arrested and beheaded.

The name "Christopher" means Christ-bearer, and may allude to the legend of the man carrying the Christ Child across the river. Saint Christopher also did not become popularized in the Church until the 7th century, about three centuries after his supposed death. We know of his popularity because around the 7th century, churches and monasteries began to be named after him. This adds credibility to the supposition that St. Christopher was merely a legendary figure and not a real person.
There is also speculation that St. Christopher could have also been confused with St. Menas, an Egyptian saint. Both Christopher and Menas are referred to as "Christ bearers" and are patrons of travelers.

St. Christopher is the patron saint of travelers and of children. His feast day is July 25. Because he is not officially recognized by the Church, he has no date of beatification or canonization. Despite these technicalities, it is widely thought that he was real and that he continues to intercede on behalf of Christians, especially children, today.

June 2017: Saint Mother Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala

Feast Day: June 24
Birth: 1878
Death: 1963
Beatified By: 25 April 2004 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized By: 12 May 2013 by Pope Francis

Saint Mother Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala was co-founder of the Congregation of the Handmaids of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the Poor, and was the first mother superior of the congregation. She was beautified by Pope John Paul II on April 25, 2004, and will be canonized on May 12, 2013.

Maria was born on April 27, 1878 in Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico. Her father, Fortino, ran a religious goods store situated in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan. She had a special devotion to the Lady and she made frequent prayers in the basilica.

As a young woman, she made plans to marry, however she ended these plans as she felt called to religious life.

She then pursued religious life and co-founded a new congregation on October 13, 1901, known as the Handmaids of St. Margret Mary Alacoque and the Poor. Maria spent most of her time serving as a nurse and as the Mother Superior General of the congregation.

The Congregation grew rapidly and served ever more people. However, she was also devoted to poverty, saying that only by being poor can one be with the poor. She sometimes begged for money on the street to help meet the needs of the Congregation and the patients they served.

The sisters of the Congregation also served in nearby parishes and teaching catechism.

During the Mexican Revolution, a time of great persecution for the Catholic Church which lasted from 1911 to 1936, Mother Maria hid priests and even the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Guadalajara in her hospital, saving them from their enemies.

Maria led the Congregation as it grew to 11 foundations in Mexico. Since her death on June 24, 1963, the Congregation has grown to include 22 houses in five different countries, with the most in Mexico.

Maria was declared venerable on Pope John Paul II on July 1, 2000, and beautified on April 25, 2004. She was canonized by Pope Francis on May 12, 2013.

May 2017: Saint Isidore the Farmer

Feast Day: May 15

Patron of National Rural Conference in the United States

St. Isidore was born at Madrid, Spain, in the latter half of the 12th century. For the greater part of his life he was employed as a laborer on a farm outside the city. Many marvelous happenings accompanied his lifelong work in the fields and continued long after his holy death. He was favored with celestial visions and, it is said, the angels sometimes helped him in his work in the fields. St. Isidore was canonized in 1622.

In 1947, he was proclaimed the patron of the National Rural Conference in the United States. He is the patron of farmers, and his feast day is May 15th.

Prayer : God, through the intercession of St. Isidore, the holy Farmer, grant that we may overcome all feelings of pride. May we always serve You with that humility which pleases You, through his merits and example.

April 2017: Blessed Marie-Anne Blondin

Feast Day: April 18

Birth: 1809

Death: 1890

Beatified by: Pope John Paul II

Esther Blondin, in religion "Sister Marie Anne", was born in Terrebonne (Quebec, Canada) on April 18, 1809, in a family of deeply Christian farmers. From her mother she inherited a piety centered on Divine Providence and the Eucharist and, from her father, a deep faith and a strong patience in suffering. Esther and her family were victims of illiteracy so common in French Canadian milieux of the nineteenth century. Still an illiterate at the age of 22, Esther worked as a domestic in the Convent of the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, that had been recently opened in her own village. A year later, she registered as a boarder in order to learn to read and write. She then became a novice in the Congregation but had to leave, due to ill health.

In 1833, Esther became a teacher in the parochial school of Vaudreuil. Little by little, she found out that one of the causes of this illiteracy was due to a certain Church ruling that forbade that girls be taught by men and that boys be taught by women. Unable to finance two schools, many parish priests chose to have none. In 1848, under an irresistible call of the Spirit, Esther presented to her Bishop, Ignace Bourget, a plan she long cherished: that of founding a religious congregation "for the education of poor country children, both girls and boys in the same schools". A rather new project for the time! It even seemed quite rash and contrary to the established order. Since the State was in favor of such schools, Bishop Bourget authorized a modest attempt so as to avoid a greater evil.

The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Anne was founded in Vaudreuil on September 8, 1850. Esther, now named "Mother Marie Anne", became its first superior. The rapid growth of this young Community soon required larger quarters. During the Summer of 1853, Bishop Ignace Bourget transferred the Motherhouse to Saint Jacques de l'Achigan. The new chaplain, Father Louis Adolphe Marechal, interfered in an abusive way in the private life of the Community. During the Foundress' absence, Father changed the pupils' boarding fees. Should he be away for a while, he asked that the Sisters await his return to go to confession. After a year of this existing conflict between the chaplain and the Foundress, the latter being anxious to protect the rights of her Community, Bishop Bourget asked Mother Marie Anne, on August 18, 1854, "to resign". He called for elections and warned Mother Marie Anne "not to accept the superiorship, even if her sisters wanted to reelect her". Even though she could be reelected, according to the Rule of the Community, Mother Marie Anne obeyed her Bishop whom she considered God's instrument. And she wrote: "As for me, my Lord, I bless Divine Providence a thousand times for the maternal care she shows me in making me walk the way of tribulations and crosses".

Mother Marie Anne, having been named Directress at Saint Genevieve Convent, became the target of attacks from the Motherhouse authorities, influenced by the dictatorship of Father Marechal. Under the pretext of poor administration, Mother Marie Anne was recalled to the Motherhouse in 1858, with the Bishop's warning: "take means so that she will not be a nuisance to anyone." From this new destitution and until her death on January 2, 1890, Mother Marie Anne was kept away from administrative responsibilities. She was even kept away from the General Council deliberations when the 1872 and 1878 elections reelected her. Assigned to mostly hidden work in the laundry and ironing room, she led a life of total self-denial and thus ensured the growth of the Congregation. Behold the paradox of an influence which some wanted to nullify! In the Motherhouse basement laundry room in Lachine, where she spent her days, many generations of novices received from the Foundress a true example of obedience and humility, imbued with authentic relationships which ensure true fraternal charity. To a novice who asked her one day why she, the Foundress, was kept aside in such lowly work, she simply replied with kindness : "The deeper a tree sinks its roots into the soil, the greater are its chances of growing and producing fruit".

The attitude of Mother Marie Anne, who was a victim of so many injustices, allows us to bring out the evangelical sense she gave to events in her life. Just as Jesus Christ, who passionately worked for the Glory of His Father, so too Mother Marie Anne sought only God's Glory in all she did. "The greater Glory of God" was the aim she herself gave her Community. "To make God known to the young who have not the happiness of knowing Him" was for her a privileged way of working for the Glory of God. Deprived of her most legitimate rights, and robbed of all her personal letters with her bishop, she offered no resistance and she expected, from the infinite goodness of God, the solution to the matter. She was convinced that "He will know well, in his Wisdom, how to discern the false from the true and to reward each one according to his deeds".

Prevented from being called "Mother" by those in authority, Mother Marie Anne did not jealously hold on to her title of Foundress; rather she chose annihilation, just like Jesus, "her crucified Love", so that her Community might live. However, she did not renounce her mission of spiritual mother of her Community. She offered herself to God in order "to expiate all the sins which were committed in the Community"; and she daily prayed Saint Anne "to bestow on her spiritual daughters the virtues so necessary for Christian educators".

Like any prophet invested with a mission of salvation, Mother Marie Anne lived persecution by forgiving without restriction, convinced that "there is more happiness in forgiving than in revenge". This evangelical forgiveness, guarantee of "the peace of soul which she held most precious", was ultimately proven on her death bed when she asked her superior to call for Father Marechal "for the edification of the Sisters".

As she felt the end approaching, Mother Marie Anne left to her daughters her spiritual testament in these words which are a resume of her whole life : "May Holy Eucharist and perfect abandonment to God's Will be your heaven on earth". She then peacefully passed away at the Motherhouse of Lachine, on January 2, 1890, "happy to go to the Good God" she had served all her life.

Biography Provided By: The Vatican
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=7489

March 2017: Saints Perpetua & Felicity

Feast Day: March 7

Death: 203

Patron of Mothers, Expectant Mothers, Ranchers and Butchers.

Saint Perpetua and Felicity were Christian martyrs who lived during the early persecution of the Church in Africa by the Emperor Severus.

With details concerning the lives of many early martyrs unclear and often based on legend, we are fortunate to have the actual record of the courage of Perpetua and Felicity from the hand of Perpetua herself, her teacher Saturus, and others who knew them. This account, known as "The Passion of St. Perpetua, St. Felicitas, and their Companions," was so popular in the early centuries that it was read during liturgies.

In the year 203, Vivia Perpetua, a well-educated noblewoman, made the decision to follow the path of her mother and become a Christian, although she knew it could mean her death during the persecutions ordered by the Emperor Severus. Her surviving brother (another brother had died when he was seven) followed her leadership and became a catechumen as well, meaning he would receive instruction from a Catechist in the Catholic Christian faith and be prepared for Baptism.

Her pagan father was frantic with worry and tried to talk her out of her decision. At 22-years-old, the well-educated, high-spirited woman had every reason to want to live -- including a baby son whom she was still nursing. We know she was married, but since her husband is never mentioned, many historians assume she was already a widow.

Perpetua's answer was simple and clear. Pointing to a water jug, she asked her father, "See that pot lying there? Can you call it by any other name than what it is?"

Her father answered, "Of course not." Perpetua responded, "Neither can I call myself by any other name than what I am -- a Christian."

This answer upset her father and he attacked her. Perpetua reports that after that incident she was glad to be separated from him for a few days -- even though that separation was the result of her arrest and imprisonment.

Perpetua was arrested with four other catechumens, including two slaves, Felicity and Revocatus, and Saturninus and Secundulus. Their instructor in the faith, Saturus, chose to share their punishment and was also imprisoned.

Perpetua was baptized before taken to prison. She was known for her gift of "the Lord's speech" and receiving messages from God. She tells us that at the time of her baptism she was told to pray for nothing but endurance in the face of her trials.

The prison was so crowded with people that the heat was suffocating. There was no light anywhere and Perpetua "had never known such darkness."

The soldiers who arrested and guarded them pushed and shoved them without any concern. Perpetua had no trouble admitting she was very afraid, but during all this horror her most excruciating pain came from being separated from her baby.

The young slave Felicity, was even worse off, for Felicity suffered the stifling heat, overcrowding and rough handling, all while being eight months pregnant.

Two deacons who ministered to the prisoners paid the guards to place the martyrs in a better part of the prison. There, her mother and brother were able to visit Perpetua and bring her baby to her.

When she received permission for her baby to stay with her she recalled, "my prison suddenly became a palace for me." Once more her father came to her, begging her to give in, kissing her hands, and throwing himself at her feet. She told him, "We lie not in our own power but in the power of God."

When she and the others were taken to be examined and sentenced, her father followed, pleading with her and the judge. The judge, out of pity, also tried to get Perpetua to change her mind, but when she stood fast, she was sentenced with the others to be thrown to the wild beasts in the arena.

Perpetua recanted how her brother spoke to her, "Lady sister, you are now greatly honored, so greatly that you may well pray for a vision to show you whether suffering or release is in store for you." Perpetua, who spoke to the Lord often, told her brother she would tell him what happened the next day.

While she prayed, Perpetua was shown a golden ladder of the highest length, reaching up to heaven. On the sides of the ladder were swords, lances, hooks and daggers so that if anyone did not climb looking up on Heaven, they would be severely injured. At the bottom of the ladder laid a large dragon to try to scare those journeying up away from Heaven.

Perpetua first saw Saturus go up. After he reached the top of the ladder he said, "Perpetua, I wait for you, but take care that the dragon does not bite you." To which she replied, "In the name of Jesus Christ, he will not hurt me," and the dragon put his down his head.

Perpetua traveled up the ladder and saw a beautiful vast garden with a tall man with white hair dressed like a shepherd and milking sheep. 'Thou art well come, my child," he said to Perpetua, giving her some of the curds from the milk. She ate and all those around her said, "Amen."

Perpetua woke from her dream with a sweet taste still in her mouth. At once, she told her brother what happened and together, they understood they must suffer.

Meanwhile, Felicity was also in torment. It was against the law for pregnant women to be executed. To kill a child in the womb was shedding innocent and sacred blood. Felicity was afraid that she would not give birth before the day set for their martyrdom and her companions would go on their journey without her. Her friends also didn't want to leave so "good a comrade" behind.

Two days before the execution, Felicity went into a painful labor. The guards made fun of her, insulting her by saying, "If you think you suffer now, how will stand it when you face the wild beasts?" Felicity answered them calmly, "Now I'm the one who is suffering, but in the arena, another will be in me suffering for me because I will be suffering for him."

She gave birth to a healthy girl who was adopted and raised by one of the Christian women of Carthage.

The officers of the prison began to recognize the power of the Christians and the strength and leadership of Perpetua. In some cases, this helped the Christians: the warden let them have visitors -- and later became a believer. But in other cases, it caused superstitious terror, as when one officer refused to let them get cleaned up on the day they were going to die for fear they'd try some sort of spell.

Perpetua immediately spoke up, "We're supposed to die in honor of Ceasar's birthday. Wouldn't it look better for you if we looked better?" The officer blushed with shame at her reproach and started to treat them better.

There was a feast the day before the games, so that the crowd could see the martyrs and make fun of them. But the martyrs turned this all around by laughing at the crowd for not being Christians and exhorting them to follow their example.

The four new Christians and their teacher went to the arena (the fifth, Secundulus, had died in prison) with joy and calm. Perpetua in usual high spirits met the eyes of everyone along the way. We are told she walked with "shining steps as the true wife of Christ, the darling of God."

When those at the arena tried to force Perpetua and the rest to dress in robes dedicated to their gods, Perpetua challenged her executioners. "We came to die out of our own free will so we wouldn't lose our freedom to worship our God. We gave you our lives so that we wouldn't have to worship your gods." She and the others were allowed to keep their clothes.

The men were attacked by bears, leopards, and wild boars. The women were stripped to face a rabid heifer. The two were thrown out and attacked, but the crowd cried out they had had enough. The women were removed and clothed again. Perpetua and Felicity were thrown back into the arena to face the gladiators.

Perpetua called out to her brother and other Christians, "Stand fast in the faith, and love one another. Do not let our sufferings be a stumbling block to you."

Perpetua and Felicity stood side by side and were killed by sword at Carthage in the Roman province of Africa.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity are the patron saints of mothers, expectant mothers, ranchers and butchers. Their feast day is celebrated on March 7.

In Their Footsteps:
Perpetua said that she couldn't call herself any other name but Christian. Write down a list of names and designations that people could call you. Is Christian high on that list? How can you help make your name as Christian be more important? Live today as if that was the only name you could be called by.

Prayer:
Saints Perpetua and Felicity, watch over all mothers and children who are separated from each other because of war or persecution. Show a special care to mothers who are imprisoned and guide them to follow your example of faith and courage. Amen

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=48

February 2017: Blessed Maria Caridad Brader

Feast Day: February 27

Birth: August 14, 1860

Death: February 27, 1943

Beatified by: Pope John Paul II

Caritas Brader (Mary Josephine Caroline) (1860-1943), Foundress of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate. Mary Josephine Caroline was born in Kaltbrunn, St Gallen, Switzerland, on 14 August 1860 and was baptized the next day.

She was an unusually intelligent child. Her mother raised this child with loving care, giving her a sound Christian faith. She received an intense love for Jesus Christ and devotion to Our Lady. Aware of her daughter's talents and ability, her mother took pains to give her a good education. At school in Kaltbrunn she shone in the elementary grades. At the Maria Hilf Institute in Alstätten, run by Sisters of the Third Order Regular of St Francis, she was the first of the intermediate classes.
When all the world lay at her feet, to entice her, she followed Christ's call and decided to embrace the religious life. At first, her mother predictably opposed this decision, since she was a widow and Mary Josephine was her only child.

On 1 October 1880 she entered the enclosed Franciscan convent of Maria Hilf. On 1 March 1881 she was clothed with the Franciscan habit and was given the name of "Mary Charity of the Love of the Holy Spirit". On 22 August 1882, she professed her religious vows. Because of the high standard of her education, she was designated to teach at the convent school.

At the end of the 19th century, it became possible for cloistered nuns to engage in apostolic activity outside their monastery so that they could undertake missionary work. Missionary bishops visited convents in search of sisters who felt called to work in mission lands.

Bishop Pietro Schumacher of Portoviejo, Ecuador, a zealous missionary of St Vincent de Paul, wrote to the religious of Maria Hilf, asking for volunteers to work as missionaries in his diocese. The religious replied enthusiastically, and one of those most eager to be a missionary was Sr Caritas Brader. Blessed Maria Bernarda Bütler, superior of the convent, who was to head the group of six missionaries, chose Sr Caritas as one of them, saying: "Sr Caritas will go to the missionary foundation; she is supremely generous, shows no reluctance to any sacrifice, and with her extraordinary practical sense and education will be able to render great services to the mission".

On 19 June 1888 Sr Caritas and her companions set out for Chone, Ecuador. In 1893, after catechizing countless groups of children, she was sent to the foundation in Tůquerres, Colombia.

There she showed her missionary zeal: she loved the locals and spared no efforts to reach them, braving the wild breakers of the ocean, the tangled undergrowth of the jungle, and the intense cold of the high plateaux. Her zeal knew no bounds. She was concerned above all with the poor, the outcast and those who did not yet know the Gospel.

To face the urgent need for more missionaries in the vast field of the apostolate, with the backing of the Geman Fr Reinaldo Herbrand, she founded the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate. The Congregation was first made up of young Swiss girls who followed the example of Mother Caritas. They were immediately joined by local vocations, above all from Colombia, who swelled the ranks of the new Congregation and allowed it to spread to several countries.

In her apostolic activity, Mother Caritas took care to combine contemplation and action. She encouraged her daughters to acquire effective academic qualifications, but without permitting the spirit of holy prayer and devotion to be extinguished, "Do not forget", she told them, "that the better educated, the greater the skills the educator possesses, the more she will be able to do for our holy religion and the glory of God, especially when virtue is the vanguard of her knowledge. The more intense and visible her external activity, the deeper and more fervent her interior life must be".

She focused the apostolate mainly on the education of the poor and the marginalized, wherever need called.
Her great love for Jesus in the Eucharist prompted her to ask and obtain permission for Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the convent. She left this most sacred treasure to the Congregation along with great respect for priests. During adoration, Mother Caritas received light and strength for the apostolate. She taught the sisters to "see God's will in everything, and to do His will with joy, out of love of Him", hence the motto of her life : "It is His will".

She was Superior General of the Congregation from 1893-1919 and from 1928-1940. In 1933, she had the joy of receiving pontifical approval of the Congregation.

On 27 February 1943, she died in Pasto, Colombia. As soon as her death became known, people streamed to venerate her mortal remains, asking for her intercession and hoping for some relic. Her grave has become the destination of constant pilgrimages. The most precious relic she left to her daughters was Franciscan poverty, a constant in her governance. As a missionary in Chone, she lived the same poverty as the people she had gone there to evangelize and instruct. Indeed, she was determined that the Congregation always preserve this poverty and trust in divine providence.

Biography Provided By: The Vatican (http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=7424)

January 2017: Saint Zygmunt Gorazdowski

Feast Day: January 1

Birth: November 1, 1845

Death: January 1, 1920

Zygmunt Gorazdowski was born on 1 November 1845 in Sanok, Ukraine. His family lived their Catholic faith most seriously, and Zygmunt grew up in this deeply religious environment that was not exempt from trials and suffering.

As a child, Zygmunt was afflicted with a lung ailment; this, however, did not prevent him from considering the needs of others and offering his help where he could.

After finishing high school in Przemysl he enrolled in the faculty of law in Lviv. At the end of his second year of law studies he decided to enter the Latin Catholic Seminary in Lviv, feeling called to the priesthood.
All done for the service of the poor.

He finished his studies there and, considering his poor health, underwent two years of intensive therapy. On 21 July 1871, he was ordained a priest.

For the first six years, Fr Gorazdowski served as parish vicar and administrator at Tartakow, Wojnilow, Bukaczowce, Grod Jagelonski and Zydaczow. He gave of himself totally in carrying out his priestly duties and in works of charity.

During an outbreak of cholera in Wojnilow, Fr Zygmunt heroically did all he could to help the sick and dying, even laying out the bodies of the dead despite the great risk of contagion.

Throughout his priesthood he took great care to protect the spiritual health and growth of his parishioners, for whom he wrote and published a catechism and many other books to help parents, teachers and youth. He also began many apostolic works for the poor and suffering.

Beginning in 1877, Fr Zygmunt started a wonderful spiritual and charitable project in the Parish of St Nicholas in Lviv. He worked for 40 years there, serving in many schools and also founding the "Bonus Pastor" Association for priests.

Founder of the Sisters of St Joseph

Above all else, his charity sparkled, especially for the needy and suffering. He founded a home and soup kitchen for the needy, a health-care centre for the terminally ill and for convalescents, an institute for poor seminarians, a home for single mothers and orphans, and "St Joseph's Polish-German Catholic School".
In order to maintain and continue these works, he founded the Religious "Congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph" on 17 February 1884.

Fr Zygmunt Gorazdowski died in Lviv on 1 January 1920. Those who knew him called him the "Father of the poor and priest of the homeless".

He was beatified on 26 June 2001 by Pope John Paul II.

The Sisters of St Joseph continue in the charism entrusted to them by their Founder. They currently work in eight countries with the poor, sick and suffering, and serve in the field of education.

Biogrpahy Provided By: The Vatican

December 2016: Saint Melania

Feast Day: December 31

Birth: 383

Death: 439

St. Melania whose feast day is December 31. Melania was born to wealthy Christians, Publicola, a Roman senator, and Albina. At fourteen, she was given in marriage to Valerius Pinianus. When two of her children died soon after childbirth, her husband agreed to lead a life of continency and religious dedication.

Inheriting her father's vast wealth, Melania endowed monasteries in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine and aided churches and monasteries in Europe. To escape the barbarian invasions, she fled with her mother and husband to Tagaste in Numidia in the year 410.

In 417, all three made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and settled at Jerusalem, where Melania became a friend of St. Jerome. After the death of her mother in 431 and her husband in 432, Melania attracted disciples to her solitary way of life and built a convent, for which she was Abbess until her death on December 31, 439.

The life of St. Melania reminds us of the fleeting character of earthly wealth. We should strive to emulate her use of wealth as well as talents to further the cause of Christ.

November 2016: Saint Cecilia

Feast Day: November 22

Birth: 2nd Century

Death: 3rd Century

Patron Saint of Musicians

In the fourth century a Greek religious romance on the Loves of Cecilia and Valerian was written in glorification of virginal life with the purpose of taking the place of then popular sensual romances.

Consequently, until better evidence is produced, we conclude that Saint Cecilia was not known or venerated in Rome until about the time when Pope Gelasius (496) introduced her name into his Sacramentary.

It is said that there was a church dedicated to Saint Cecilia in Rome in the 5th century, in which Pope Symmachus held a council in 500.

The story of Saint Cecilia is not without beauty or merit. She is said to have been quite close to God and prayed often:

In the city of Rome there was a virgin named Cecilia, who came from an extremely rich family and was given in marriage to a youth named Valerian. She wore sackcloth next to her skin, fasted, and invoked the saints, angels, and virgins, beseeching them to guard her virginity.

During her wedding ceremony she was said to have sung in her heart to God and before the consummation of her nuptials, she told her husband she had taken a vow of virginity and had an angel protecting her. Valerian asked to see the angel as proof, and Cecilia told him he would have eyes to see once he traveled to the third milestone on the Via Appia (Appian Way) and was baptised by Pope Urbanus.

Following his baptism, Valerian returned to his wife and found an angel at her side. The angel then crowned Cecilia with a chaplet of roses and lilies and when Valerian's brother, Tibertius, heard of the angel and his brother's baptism, he also was baptised and together the brothers dedicated their lives to burying the saints who were murdered each day by the prefect of the city, Turcius Almachius.

Both brothers were eventually arrested and brought before the prefect where they were executed after they refused to offer a sacrifice to the gods.

As her husband and brother-in-law buried the dead, Saint Cecilia spent her time preaching and in her lifetime was able to convert over four hundred people, most of whom were baptised by Pope Urban.

Cecilia was later arrested and condemned to be suffocated in the baths. She was shut in for one night and one day, as fires were heaped up and stoked to a terrifying heat - but Cecilia did not even sweat.

When Almachius heard this, he sent an executioner to cut off her head in the baths.

The executioner struck her three times but was unable to decapitate her so he left her bleeding and she lived for three days. Crowds came to her and collected her blood while she preached to them or prayed. On the third day she died and was buried by Pope Urban and his deacons.

Saint Cecilia is regarded as the patroness of music, because she heard heavenly music in her heart on the day of her marriage, and is represented in art with an organ or organ pipes in her hand.

Officials exhumed her body in 1599 and found her to be incorrupt, the first of all incorrupt saints. She was draped in a silk veil and wore a gold embroidered dress. Officials only looked through the veil in an act of holy reverence and made no further examinations. They also reported a "mysterious and delightful flower-like odor which proceeded from the coffin."

Saint Cecilia's remains were transferred to Cecilia's titular church in Trastevere and placed under the high altar.

In 1599 Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati, nephew of Pope Gregory XIV, rebuilt the church of Saint Cecilia.

http://www.catholic.org/saints/

October 2016: Saint Marguerite d'Youville

In 1722, she married Francois d'Youville, who proved to be a selfish and indifferent husband, involved in illegal liquor trading. When Francois died eight years later, in 1730, he left Marguerite with two children and enormous debts. When she had overcome her financial difficulties, Marguerite rented a house in Montreal in 1737 where she and three companions, the first Grey Nuns, sheltered needy women. For several years, the four were slandered and persecuted, accused of being drunkards and prostitutes.

Feast Day: October 16

Birth: October 15, 1701

Death: December 23, 1771

Canonized: December 9, 1990

The first Canadian-born saint, Marie-Marguerite Dufrost de Lajemmerais was born at Varennes, Quebec, on October 15, 1701. Following the death of her father in 1708, Marguerite's family lived in poverty. Thanks to generous relatives, Marguerite was able to study at the Ursuline Convent in Quebec for two years. When she returned home she taught her five younger brothers and sisters.

In 1747, Marguerite was given charge of the colony's general hospital, which was deep in debt. Trusting in Providence, she worked hard and saved the hospital. In 1765, fire destroyed the hospital, but Marguerite rebuilt it within four years. Following a brief illness, she died on December 23, 1771. Marguerite was declared blessed in 1959 and canonized on December 9, 1990.

Text courtesy of Living with Christ - October 2016

September 2016: Blessed Emilie Tavernier-Gamelin

Feast Day: September 24

Birth: 1800

Death: 1851

Beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 7, 2001

Emilie Tavernier was born in Montreal in 1800. By the age of 28, she had endured the death of her husband and three children, drawing her closer to Our Lady of Sorrows.

Emilie devoted her life to the poor, sick, orphaned and imprisoned, setting up Houses of Providence for their care.

With the blessing of Bishop Bourget, she founded the Sisters of Providence in 1843 and became their Superior in 1844.

Her last words as she lay dying in 1851 were "humility, simplicity, charity, but above all charity." Emilie Tavernier-Gamelin was beatified on October 7, 2001.

"Do thing with passion, or not at all. Wherever you go, go with all your heart."
Blessed Emilie Tavernier-Gamelin

Text courtesy of Living with Christ - September 2016

August 2016: Saint Rose of Lima

Feast Day: August 23

Patron of Latin America and Philippines

Birth: 1586

Death: August 25, 1617

Historians remember St. Rose of Lima for her piety and chastity. Born in 1586 in Lima, Peru to Spanish colonists, and named Isabel Flores de Olivia, she was exceptionally beautiful.

Her beauty was so great that she was nicknamed "Rose," a name that remains with her to this day. According to legend, a servant had a vision where her face turned into a rose. At her confirmation in 1597, she officially took the name of Rose.

From an early age, Rose wanted to become a nun. She often prayed and fasted in secret. She performed secret penances, some of which were painful and severe. She performed daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and took daily communion.

As a young woman, her beauty began to attract suitors. To deter these men, St. Rose marred her face, rubbing it with pepper to make it blister. She cropped her hair short.

Her parents opposed her plan to take a vow of chastity. This resulted in a clash of wills, because her parents wanted her to marry. Her father eventually relented and gave her a room to herself.

St. Rose kept herself cloistered in her room, spending long periods in prayer. It was said she slept only two hours per night so as to have more time for prayer.

She quit eating meat altogether, an extreme dietary restriction for that time.

When she turned 20, she was permitted to join the Third Order of St. Dominic. She continued a life of extreme prayer, fasting and penance. On one occasion she burned her hands as a self-imposed act of penance.

She was known to wear a heavy silver crown, with spikes that could pierce her flesh. The spikes reminded her of the Crown of Thorns. At one point, one of the spikes become so lodged in her skull that the crown was removed with great difficulty.

St. Rose died in on August 25, 1617, at the age of 31. According to legend, she accurately predicted the date of her death. Her funeral was a major event attended by all the city's authorities.

Pope Clement IX beatified her in 1667 and Pope Clement X recognized her as a saint, canonizing her in 1671. Her feast day is August 23 around the world, although some countries, like Peru, celebrate her on August 30.

St. Rose is the patroness of embroiderers, gardeners, florists, those who suffer ridicule for their piety, and people who suffer family problems.

July 2016: Saint Kinga

Feast Day: July 24

Patron of Poland & Lithuania

Birth: 1224

Death: July 24, 1292

Princess of Poland and Franciscan tertiary. Sometimes called Cunegunde, Zinga, or Kioga, she was married to Prince Boleslaus of Poland. Kinga founded a monastery at Sandez.

She was born in Esztergom, Kingdom of Hungary, the daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary and Maria Laskarina. She was a niece of Elizabeth of Hungary and great-niece of Saint Hedwig. Kinga's sisters were Saint Margaret of Hungary and blessed Jolenta of Poland. She reluctantly married Bolesław V ("the Chaste") and became princess when her husband ascended the throne as Prince of Krakow. Despite the marriage, the devout couple took up a vow of chastity. The marriage was largely arranged by and the vow of chastity patterned after that of Boleslaw's sister, blessed Salome of Krakow.

During her reign Kinga got involved in charitable works such as visiting the poor and helping the lepers. When her husband died in 1279, she sold all her material possessions and gave the money to the poor. She soon did not want any part in governing the kingdom which was left to her and decided to join the Poor Clares monastery at Sandec (Stary Sącz). She would spend the rest of her life in contemplative prayer and did not allow anyone to refer to her past role as Grand Duchess of Poland. She died on 24 July 1292, aged 68.

Pope Alexander VIII beatified Kinga in 1690. In 1695, she was made chief patroness of Poland and Lithuania. On 16 June 1999, she was canonized by Pope John Paul II.

A story has Kinga throwing her engagement ring into the Maramures salt mine in Hungary. The ring miraculously traveled along with salt deposits to Wieliczka (Poland)
where it was rediscovered. Near Saint Kinga's Chapel there are statues that depict the moment when a miner finds her ring and returns it to her. They erected a statue of Saint Kinga, patron saint of the salt miners, carved on salt in the cathedral of Saint Kinga of Poland, in the salt mine of Wieliczka in Poland, 101 meters under the surface.

June 2016: Saint Anthony of Padua

Feast Day: June 13

Patron Saint of Lost Articles

Birth: 1195

Death: 1231

Canonized by: Pope Gregory IX in 1232

Saint Anthony was born Fernando Martins in Lisbon, Portugal. He was born into a wealthy family and by the age of fifteen asked to be sent to the Augustine Abbey of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, the then capital of Portugal. During his time in the Abbey, he learned theology and Latin. Following his ordination to the priesthood, he was named guestmaster and was responsible for the abbey's hospitality.

When Franciscan friars settled a small hermitage outside Coimbra dedicated to Saint Anthony of Egypt, Fernando felt a longing to join them.

Fernando eventually received permission to leave the Abbey so he could join the new Franciscan Order. When he was admitted, he changed his name to Anthony.

Anthony then traveled to Morocco to spread God's truth, but became extremely sick and was returned to Portugal to recover. On the return voyage the ship was blown off-course and the party arrived in Sicily, from which they traveled to Tuscany. Anthony was assigned to the hermitage of San Paolo after local friars considered his health.

As he recovered, Anthony spent his time praying and studying.

An undetermined amount of time later, Dominican friars came to visit the Franciscans and there was confusion over who would present the homily. The Dominicans were known for their preaching, thus the Franciscans assumed it was they who would provide a homilist, but the Dominicans assumed the Franciscans would provide one. It was then the head of the Franciscan hermitage asked Anthony to speak on whatever the Holy Spirit told him to speak of.

Though he tried to object, Anthony delivered an eloquent and moving homily that impressed both groups. Soon, news of his eloquence reached Francis of Assisi, who held a strong distrust of the brotherhood's commitment to a life of poverty. However, in Anthony, he found a friend.

Saint Anthony Basilica Padua, Italy

In 1224, Francis entrusted his friars' pursuits of studies to Anthony. Anthony had a book of psalms that contained notes and comments to help when teaching students and, in a time when a printing press was not yet invented, he greatly valued it.

When a novice decided to leave the hermitage, he stole
Anthony's valuable book. When Anthony discovered it was missing, he prayed it would be found or returned to him.
The thief did return the book and in an extra step returned to the Order as well.

The book is said to be preserved in the Franciscan friary in Bologna today.

Anthony occasionally taught at the universities of Montpellier and Toulouse in southern France, but he performed best in the role of a preacher.

So simple and resounding was his teaching of the Catholic Faith, most unlettered and the innocent could understand his messages. It is for this reason he was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII in 1946.

Once, when St. Anthony of Padua attempted to preach the true Gospel of the Catholic Church to heretics who would not listen to him, he went out and preached his message to the fish. This was not, as liberals and naturalists have tried to say, for the instruction of the fish, but rather for the glory of God, the delight of the angels, and the easing of his own heart. When critics saw the fish begin to gather, they realized they should also listen to what Anthony had to say.

He was only 36-years-old when he died and was canonized less than one year afterward by Pope Gregory IX. Upon exhumation some 336 years after his death, his body was found to be corrupted, yet his tongue was totally incorrupt, so perfect were the teachings that had been formed upon it.
He is typically depicted with a book and the Infant Child Jesus and is commonly referred to today as the "finder of lost articles."

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=24

May 2016: Saint Joan of Arc

Feast Day: May 30

Patron of soldiers and France

Birth: January 6, 1412

Death: May 30, 1431

Canonized by: Pope Benedict XV, May 16, 1920

St. Joan of Arc is the patroness of soldiers and of France.

On January 6, 1412, Joan of Arc was born to pious parents of the French peasant class in the obscure village of Domremy, near the province of Lorraine. At a very early age, she was said to have heard the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret.

At first the messages were personal and general, but when she was 13-years-old, she was in her father's garden and had visions of Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret, each of whom told her to drive the English from French territory. They also asked that she bring the Dauphin to Reims for his coronation.

After their messages were delivered and the saints departed, Joan cried, as "they were so beautiful."

When she was sixteen-years-old, she asked her relative, Durand Lassois, to take her to Vaucouleurs, where she petitioned Robert de Baudricourt, the garrison commander, for permission to visit the French Royal Court in Chinon.

Despite Baudricourt's sarcastic response to her request, Joan returned the following January and left with the support of two of Baudricourt's soldiers: Jean de Metz and Bertrand de Poulengy.

Jean de Metz admitted Joan had confided in him, saying, "I must be at the King's side ... there will be no help if not from me. Although I would rather have remained spinning [wool] at my mother's side ... yet must I go and must I do this thing, for my Lord wills that I do so."

With Metz and Poulengy at her side, Joan met Baudricourt and predicted a military reversal at the Battle of Rouvray near Orléans, which were confirmed several days later by a messenger's report. When Baudricourt realized the distance of the battle's location and the time it would have taken Joan to make the journey, he concluded she had seen the reversal by Divine revelation, which caused him to believe her words.

Once she had Baudricourt's belief, Joan was granted an escort to Chinon through hostile Burgundian territory. For her safety, she was escorted while dressed as a male soldier, which later led to charges of cross-dressing, but her escorts viewed this as a sound precaution.

Two members of her escort confirmed they and the people of Vaucouleurs gave her the clothing and had been the ones to suggest she don the outfit.

When she arrived in the Royal Court, she met in a private conference with Charles VII and won his trust. Yolande of Aragon, Charles' mother-in-law, planned a finance relief expedition to Orléans and Joan asked to travel with the army while wearing armor, which the Royal government agreed to. They also provided Joan's armor and she depended on donations for everything she took with her.

With a donated horse, sword, banner, armor, and more, Joan arrived to Orléans and quickly turned the Anglo-French conflict into a religious war.

Charles' advisors worried Joan's claims of doing God's work could be twisted by his enemies, who could easily claim she was a sorceress, which would link his crown to works of the devil. To prevent accusations, the Dauphin ordered background inquiries and a theological exam at Poitiers to verify Joan's claims.

In April 1429, the commission of inquiry "declared her to be of irreproachable life, a good Christian, possessed of the virtues of humility, honesty and simplicity." Rather than deciding on whether or not Joan was acting on the basis of divine inspiration, theologians at Poitiers told the Dauphin there was a "favorable presumption" on the divine nature of her mission.
Charles was satisfied with the report but theologians reminded him Joan must be tested. They claimed, "[t]o doubt or abandon her without suspicion of evil would be to repudiate the Holy Spirit and to become unworthy of God's aid."
They suggested her test should be a test of her claim to lift the siege of Orléans, as she originally predicted would happen.

In response to the test, Joan arrived at Orléans on April 29, 1429, where Jean d'Orléans, the acting head of the ducal family of Orléans, ensured she was excluded from war councils and kept ignorant of battles.

During the five months prior to Joan's arrival to Orléans, the French had only attempted one offensive assault, which resulted in their defeat, but after her arrival, things began to change.

Though Joan claimed the army was always commanded by a nobleman and that she never killed anyone in battle since she preferred only to carry her banner, which she preferred "forty times" better than a sword, several noblemen claimed she greatly effected their decisions since they accepted she gave Divinely inspired advice.

On May 4, the Armagnacs captured the fortress of Saint Loup and the next day led to fortress Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, which was deserted. With Joan at the army's side, English troops approached the army to stop their advance but a cavalry charge was all it took to turn the English away without a fight.

The Armagnacs captured an English fortress build around the Les Augustins monastery and attacked the English stronghold Les Tourelles on May 7. Joan was shot with an arrow between her neck and shoulder as she held her banner outside Les Tourelles, but returned to encourage the final assault to take the fortress. The next day, the English retreated from Orléans and the siege was over.

When Joan was in Chinon and Poitiers, she had declared she would show a sign at Orléans, which many believe was the end of the siege. Following the departure of the English, prominent clergymen began to support her, including the Archbishop of Embrun and the theologian Jean Gerson, each of which wrote supportive treatises.

After the Orléans victory, Joan was able to persuade Charles VII to allow her to march into other battles to reclaim cities, each of which ended in victory. When the military supplies began to dwindle, they reached Troyes, where Brother Richard, a wandering friar, had warned the city about the end of the world and was able to convince them to plant beans, which yields an early harvest. Just as the beans ripened, Joan and the army arrived and were able to restore their supplies.

Following their march to Troyes, Joan and the French military made its way to Paris, where politicians failed to secure Duke Philip of Burgundy's agreement to a truce. Joan was present at the following battles and suffered a leg wound from a crossbow bolt. Despite one failed mission - taking La-Charité-sur-Loire" - Joan and her family were ennobled by Charles VII in reward of her actions on the battlefield.

A truce with England came following Joan's ennoblement but was quickly broken. When Joan traveled to Compičgne to help defend against an English and Burgundian siege, she was captured by Burgundian troops and held for a ransom of 10,000 livres tournois. There were several attempts to free her and Joan made many escape attempts, including jumping from her 70-foot (21m) tower, landing on the soft earth of a dry moat, but to no avail. She was eventually sold to the English for 10,000 gold coins and was then tried as a heretic and witch in a trial that violated the legal process of the time.

Clerical notary Nicolas Bailly, who was responsible to collect testimony against Joan, was unable to find any evidence against her. Without evidence, the courts lacked the grounds to initiate trial but one was opened anyway. They denied Joan the right to a legal advisor and filled the tribunal with pro-English clergy rather than meeting the medieval Church's requirement to balance the group with impartial clerics.

When the first public examination opened, Joan pointed out that the partisans were against her and she asked for "ecclesiastics of the French side" to provide balance, but her request was denied.

Jean Lemaitre, the Vice-Inquisitor of Northern France, objected to the trial from the beginning and many eyewitnesses later reported he was forced to cooperate after the English threatened to kill him. Other members of the clergy were threatened when they refused as well, so the trial continued.

The trial record includes statements from Joan that eyewitnesses later claimed astonished the court since she was an illiterate peasant who was able to escape theological traps. The most well-known exchange was when Joan was "[a]sked if she knew she was in God's grace, she answered: 'If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.'"
The question is a trap because the church doctrine was that no one could be certain of being in God's grace. If she answered yes, she would have been charged with heresy, but if she answered no, she would have been confessing her own guilt. Notary Boisguillaume later testified that "[t]hose who were interrogating her were stupefied."

Many members of the tribunal later testified important parts of the transcript were altered.

Joan was held in a secular prison guarded by English soldiers, instead of being in an ecclesiastical prison with nuns as her guards per Inquisitorial guidelines. When Joan appealed to the Council of Basel and the Pope to be placed in a proper prison, Bishop Cauchon denied her request, which would have stopped his proceeding.

While imprisoned, Joan wore military clothing so she could tie her clothing together, making it harder to be raped. There was no protection in a dress, and a few days after she started wearing one she told a tribunal member that "a great English lord had entered her prison and tried to take her by force." Following the attempted rape, Joan returned to wearing male clothing as a precaution and to raise her defenses against molestation.

Jean Massieu testified her dress had been taken by the guards and she had nothing else to wear.

When she returned to male clothing, she was given another count of heresy for cross-dressing, though it was later disputed by the inquisitor presiding over court appeals after the war. He found that cross-dressing should be evaluated based on context, including the use of clothing as protection against rape if it offered protection.

In accordance to the inquisitor's doctrine, Joan would have been justified in wearing armor on a battlefield, men's clothing in prison and dressing as a pageboy when traveling through enemy territory.

The Chronique de la Pucelle states it deterred molestation when Joan was camped in the field but she donned a dress when men's garments were unnecessary.

Clergy who testified at the posthumous appellate trial confirmed that she wore male clothing in prison to deter molestation.

Though the Poitiers record did not survive the test of time, Joan had referred the court to the Poitiers inquiry when questioned about her clothing and circumstances indicate the Poitiers clerics approved the practice. She had also kept her hair short through the military campaigns and during her imprisonment, which Inquisitor Brehal, theologian Jean Gerson and all of Joan's supporters understood was for practical reasons.

Despite the lack of incriminating evidence, Joan was condemned and sentenced to die in 1431.

Eyewitness accounts of Joan's execution by burning on May 30, 1431 describe how she was tied to a tall pillar at the Vieux-Marché in Rouen. She asked Fr. Martin Ladvenu and Fr. Isambart de la Pierre to hold a crucifix before her and an English soldier made a small cross she put in the front of her dress. After she died, the English raked the coals to expose her body so no one could spread rumors of her escaping alive, then they burned her body two more times to reduce it to ashes so no one could collect relics. After burning her body to ash, the English threw her remains into the Seine River and the executioner, Geoffroy Thérage, later said he "... greatly feared to be damned."

In 1452, during an investigation into Joan's execution, the Church declared a religious play in her honor at Orléans would let attendees gain an indulgence by making a pilgrimage to the event.

A posthumous retrial opened following the end of the war. Pope Callixtus III authorized the proceeding, which has also been called the "nullification trial," after Inquisitor-General Jean Bréhal and Joan's mother Isabelle Romée requested it.

The trial was meant to determine if Joan's condemnation was justly handled, and of course at the end of the investigation Joan received a formal appeal in November 1455 and the appellate court declared Joan innocent on July 7 1456.

Joan of Arc was a symbol of the Catholic League during the 16th century and when Félix Dupanloup was made bishop of Orléans in 1849, he pronounced a panegyric on Joan of Arc and led efforts leading to Joan of Arc's beatification in 1909. On May 16, 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized her.

Centuries after her death, Joan became known as a semi-legendary figure. There were several sources of information about her life, time on the battlefield and trials, with the main sources being chronicles.

Many women have seen Joan as a brace and active woman who operated within a religious tradition that believed a person of any class could receive a divine calling.

Joan of Arc has been depicted in several works by famous writers such as William Shakespeare (Henry VI, Part 1), Voltaire (The Maid of Orleans), Mark Twain (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc), and many many more.

Images depicting Joan of Arc often show her with short hair adorned in armor.

There are several prayers to Joan of Arc, including the "Prayer of Thanks and Gratitude to St. Joan of Arc," written by Andrea Rau:

Dear Patron Saint,
Thank you for accompanying me throughout the day, and in the work that I did. Thank you also for your guidance and your counsel. Please help me to listen to God and to you, dear Saint, that I may do what I am called to do. Please intercede on my behalf and beg God to take all my faults and turn them into virtues. I thank you for all you have done for me, and all the things you have interceded for on my behalf. Please continue to pray for me and for all the souls who need it.
St. Joan of Arc, Pray for us.
Amen.