Meet the Saints of Saint Bede

Stephen lived during the lifetime of Jesus Christ and was martyred shortly after Jesus’s death.   He is a Protomartyr, or among the first of the Christian martyrs.
The Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6 and 7, describe Stephen’s ordination to the diaconate and his martyrdom by stoning.   Stephen was one of seven men ordained as deacons by the Apostles to care for the early Christian community, and their widows, and to organize the distribution of alms.   Acts describes Stephen as “filled with grace and power, a man who worked miracles and great signs among the people.” 
Stephen’s popularity created enemies among some of the Jewish leaders who accused him of blasphemy, and of speaking against God and Moses.   At his trial, Stephen defended himself by quoting the Jewish scriptures and defending the life and teachings of Jesus.  When Stephen concluded his defense, he saw a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of God.  He said to the crowd of Jews, "Look, I can see heaven thrown open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." That vision was taken as the final proof of blasphemy to the Jews who did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah or Son of God. For them, Jesus could not possibly be beside the Father in Heaven.  The crowd rushed upon Stephen and carried him outside of the city where they stoned him to death.   Saint Stephen’s last words were: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.  Lord, do not hold this sin against them."   
In Acts, chapters 8 and 9, Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor of the early Christians, is recorded as present at Stephen’s trial and death.   Shortly after Stephen’s martyrdom, Saul himself will encounter Jesus on the road to Damascus, convert, and become the great apostle Paul.
Symbol: Stephen is shown with the stones of his martyrdom and a martyr’s palm.
Patron Saint of Altar Servers, Bricklayers, Casket makers and Deacons
Feast Day: December 26

Lucy lived in Syracuse in Sicily and was martyred in 304 A.D. during the persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Diocletian. 
Lucy’s martyrdom is recorded in the fifth-century Acts of the Martyrs, in the Sacramentary of Pope Gregory I (Pope from 590 until his death in 604), and by the Venerable Bede (672-735) whose writing attests that devotion to Saint Lucy had spread to England by the seventh century.  Lucy’s martyrdom is described in the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine written c. 1260.  
Lucy was born to a noble family in Syracuse Sicily.   Like Cecilia, who also appears in this panel, Lucy chose to remain a virgin and dedicate her life to Christ.  Their choice stood in stark opposition to the patriarchal systems of the ancient world in which women lived under the guardianship of male relations and were passed, like property, from father to husband to son.  
The early death of Lucy’s father left Lucy and her mother without a protective male guardian.  Lucy’s mother also suffered from an incurable illness.  To protect her daughter, she arranged for Lucy to marry a wealthy Roman pagan.  Lucy prayed to Saint Agatha for deliverance from this marriage.  Agatha had also chosen to remain a virgin and to dedicate her life to Christ.  Agatha had been martyred a few years earlier in nearby Catania and many miracles were attributed to her intercession.  In a dream, Agatha promised Lucy that her mother would be cured of her illness if her mother gave Lucy’s dowry to the poor and allowed Lucy to remain a virgin and commit her life to Jesus.  
Lucy’s rejection angered the bridegroom who informed the Roman governor that Lucy was a Christian.  The governor, to punish Lucy, ordered his soldiers to take her from her home and deliver her to a brothel.  According to tradition, Lucy proved immovable -- even after the guards bound her and attached her to a team of oxen.   The guards then heaped bundles of wood around her, but the wood did not burn.  Finally, they pierced her with their swords, cutting out her eyes, and killing Lucy.  When Lucy’s body was prepared for burial her eyes had been miraculously restored.
 
Symbol:  Lucy is shown holding her eyes on a golden platter.  The name “Lucy” means light; in this picture, she also holds a flaming candle.
 Patron Saint of the blind and of anyone who suffers problems of sight or illnesses of the eyes
Feast Day: December 13
 

Dominic was born on August 8, 1170, in Castile in Spain, and died on August 6, 1221, at the age of 51 while establishing a Dominican monastery in Bologna, Italy. 
Dominic studied theology and the arts at a university in Palencia, Spain.  He is known for his charismatic preaching and for his charity to the poor.  In 1204 Pope Innocent III sent Dominic to southern France, in Languedoc, to preach to the Cathars who believed in the Albigensian heresy.  This heresy taught that all material things, including the human body, were inherently evil. 
To assist his work, Dominic gathered a group of companions and formed the Order of Preachers in 1206.  This monastery dedicated to Our Lady continues to exist in Prouille, France. 
According to Dominican tradition, in 1208 in this monastery, Dominic had a vision that the Virgin Mary handed him the Rosary.  During his prayers, Dominic had complained to the Virgin about his lack of success in converting heretics to the True Faith.  Our Lady responded that his labors were spent on barren soil, not watered by the dew of Divine grace.  She suggested that if Dominic preached the “Psalter of Mary” composed of 150 Angelic Salutations and 15 Our Fathers he would obtain an abundant harvest.
Dominic established a strict routine of prayer and discipline for monks in the Dominican Order.  The Rule was approved by Pope Innocent III at the Fourth Lateran Council and received formal written authority from his successor, Pope Honorius III, in January 1217.  A year later, the Pope established the ancient Basilica of Santa Sabina as the home in Rome of the Dominican Order of Preachers which it remains to this day.    
In 1218 Dominic established the Confraternity of the Rosary whose members pray the 15 decades of the Rosary each week.  Pope Clement VIII declared that St. Dominic established the Confraternity of the Rosary in the Church of St. Sixtus in Rome.  Pope Alexander VI in 1495, addressed St. Dominic as "the renowned preacher long ago of the Confraternity of the Rosary, and through his merits, the whole world was preserved from universal ruin."
Symbol:  Dominic holds lilies and a book; he wears a Dominican habit and his hair is cut with a tonsure; frequently Dominic is also shown receiving the rosary from the Blessed Virgin Mary
Patron Saint: of astronomers and of the innocent who are falsely accused of a crime
Feast Day: August 8
 

Sebastian died in Rome in 288 at the beginning of the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Diocletian.   Sebastian’s tomb, venerated since ancient times, lies beneath the Basilica of Saint Sebastian on the Via Appia, one of the seven pilgrim churches of Rome.  
The details of Sebastian's martyrdom are recorded by the bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose (337-397), in his sermon on Psalm 118.   Ambrose stated that Sebastian was Milanese by birth and traveled to Rome where “the persecutions were raging fiercely on account of the faith.”  Sebastian’s life and martyrdom are also described in the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine written c. 1260 A.D.  which places his birth in Narbonne in France.
In 283 Sebastian joined the Roman Army.  He distinguished himself for his excellent service and was promoted to serve in the Praetorian Guard of Emperor Diocletian. 
At this time twin brothers, Marcus and Marcellian, were imprisoned for refusing to sacrifice to the Roman gods. The brothers were deacons of the Christian Church.  Their parents visited them in prison and begged them to renounce Christianity.  Instead, Sebastian convinced both parents to convert.  Sebastian also converted various other prominent Romans, including a local prefect, and another sixteen men in the same prison, to the Christian faith. 
In 286, Sebastian was denounced as a Christian to the Emperor Diocletian who ordered him killed by tying him to a stake on a training field and used as target practice for archers.   His body was riddled with arrows, and Sebastian was left for dead.  His body was recovered by a woman named Irene whose husband, a Christian, had been a servant of Diocletian.  Irene discovered that Sebastian still lived and nursed him back to health.   Sebastian then returned to Diocletian’s palace.  When he saw the Emperor, Sebastian publicly rebuked Diocletian for his cruel persecution of Christians.  The Emperor immediately ordered Sebastian beaten to death and thrown into the sewers.   Christians retrieved his body and buried him in the catacombs.    
Sebastian is invoked as a protector against the plague and is credited with having defended Rome against the plague in 680.

Symbol:  Sebastian is tied to a tree and pierced with the arrows of his martyrdom
Patron Saint: of victims of the plague, of soldiers, of athletes, and of those who desire a saintly death
Feast Day: January 20

Saint Cecelia was born in Rome in 200 A.D. and died on November 22, 230 A.D.  She is buried in the Basilica of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome which is located on the site of the house where Cecilia lived and was martyred.
The fourth-century text, Passion of Saint Cecilia, details her life and martyrdom.  Her name entered the Sacramentary of Pope Gelasius in 496.  In the year 500, Pope Symmachus (Pope from 22 November 498 to his death on 19 July 514) held a papal council at the Basilica of Saint Cecilia.
Cecilia was born to a rich noble family in Rome.  Like Lucy who also appears in this panel, Cecilia chose to remain a virgin and dedicate her life to Christ.  When her father informed her of the marriage he had arranged to a youth named Valerian, Cecilia donned sackcloth, fasted, and prayed to the saints, angels, and virgin martyrs to guard her virginity.     
During the wedding ceremony, as the musicians played, Cecilia "sang in her heart to the Lord".  Before her marriage was consummated, Cecilia told Valerian that she had taken a vow of virginity and that an angel was protecting her and would punish him if he forced her to break her vow.  When Valerian asked to see the angel, Cecilia replied that he must first be baptized by Pope Urban I at the third milestone on the via Appia.
Following his baptism, Valerian returned to his wife and found the angel at her side holding a chaplet of roses and lilies.  Valerian’s brother also converted and together they dedicated themselves to burying the saints who were murdered by Turcius Almachius, then prefect of Rome.   The brothers were eventually arrested as Christians and martyred.
Cecilia continued to preach Christianity to the Romans and converted over four hundred people to Christianity most of whom were baptized by Pope Urban I.
Cecilia was also arrested and condemned to death in the baths.  She was shut in for one night and one day and the fires were stoked to an enormous heat, but Cecilia was not affected.  The Prefect then ordered his executioner to cut off her head.   The executioner struck her three times but did not decapitate her.  She survived, bleeding, and lived for three days.  Crowds collected her blood while she continued to preach and pray. During this time, Cecilia asked the Pope to convert her home to a church.    

Symbol: Cecilia is shown with an organ or organ pipes and a crown of roses
Patron Saint: of music and of musicians
Feast Day: November 22
 

Saints Jean de Lalande, Isaac Jogues, and Réne Goupil are among eight men venerated as the first martyr-saints of North America.   Among the sites dedicated to their memory in North America is the Martyr’s Court at Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus in the Bronx, New York and the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs located in Auriesville, New York, 9 miles from the site of their martyrdom. 

SAINT ISAAC JOGUES was born on January 10, 1607, in Orléans, France, entered the Jesuit order in 1624 and was sent as a missionary to Canada in 1636.  Traveling to the Mohawk to secure a peace treaty, he was taken captive and martyred with Saint Jean de Lalande in Ossernenon (New York State) on October 18, 1646. 

SAINT JEAN DE LALANDE was born in Normandy, France.  He arrived in Canada as a lay missionary brother with the Jesuit Order.  He accompanied Fr. Isaac Jogues on his mission to the Mohawk and was martyred in Ossernenon on October 19, 1646.

SAINT RéNE GOUPIL was born in France on May 15, 1608, and worked as a surgeon.  Unable to join the Jesuits as a novitiate because of his deafness, Goupil volunteered as a lay missionary to assist the Jesuit fathers.  He arrived at the Saint-Joseph de Sillery Mission near Quebec in 1640 where he cared for the sick and wounded at the hospital. 

In 1641 Réne Goupil accompanied Fr. Isaac Jogues on a mission to the Ojibwa tribe in Sault-Ste-Marie.  On their return travel to Quebec, the two men were captured by the Iroquois tribe on August 3, 1642, and brought as prisoners to their village at Ossernenon.  They were tortured and on September 29, 1642, Goupil was murdered by several blows of a tomahawk to his head.  Before being martyred he had professed religious vows as a Jesuit lay brother to Fr. Jogues.  

After Goupil’s death, Fr. Jogues endured 13 months of captivity by the Iroquois during which time his hands were mutilated and he lost several fingers.  Dutch Calvinists at Fort Orange in Albany arranged for his release and he fled down the Hudson River to New Amsterdam (Manhattan Island).  Fr. Jogues was the first Catholic priest to visit Manhattan Island.  His written description of the colony is part of the documentary history of New York City.  With Dutch aid, Fr. Jogues returned to France, landing on the coast of Brittany on Christmas morning in 1643.  

In 1644, Fr. Jogues returned to Canada and was sent to negotiate a peace treaty with his captors, the Iroquois tribe, in 1646.  On September 27 he began is third and last journey to the Mohawk.  Among the forty members of his mission was the lay Jesuit brother, Jean de Lalande.  The Indians considered the Jesuits sorcerers and blamed them for a blight on their crops and a sickness that broke out in their lands. 
Lalande remained with Fr. Jogues after the others in their party had fled.  The two men were captured and taken prisoner to the Mohawk village of Ossernenon.  

On October 18, 1646, Jean de Lalande was struck with a tomahawk and afterward decapitated.  The following day, October 19, Jean de Lalande was also murdered. 
 
Réne Goupil is venerated as the first Jesuit martyr of Canada and one of three martyrs of the present United States territory. 

Eight North American Martyrs were canonized by Pope Pius XI on June 29, 1930

Symbols: the saints are shown with the tomahawk of their martyrdom; Fr. Isaac Jogues wears a Jesuit habit

Patron Saint:  Réne Goupil is the patron saint of anesthetists and anesthesiologists

Feast Day of the collective eight North American Martyrs celebrated on October 19
 

Mother Théodore Guérin was born Anne-Thérèse Guèrin on October 2, 1798, in a small village in Brittany, France.  She died on May 14, 1856, in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, a village northwest of Terre Haute at the convent of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, the order which she founded upon her arrival in Indiana.  

From the age of ten, Anne-Thérèse knew that she would join a religious order and devote her life to serving God. At fifteen, her father died in an accident and she cared for her widowed mother and sister until August 18, 1823, when she entered the convent of the Sisters of Providence of Ruillé-sur-Loir, taking the name Sister Théodore. She professed her perpetual vows at the age of thirty-three on September 5, 1831, devoting herself to education in the parish school in Rennes and to ministering to the area’s poor and sick. 

Immigrants from France, Ireland, and Germany rapidly expanded the numbers of Catholics in the New World and the Church required assistance to serve their growing numbers.  Among the first acts of Bishop Hailandiére after his consecration was to ask the Sisters of Providence of Ruillé-sur-Loir to send a group of sisters to establish a ministry in Vincennes.   The Mother Superior assigned Sister Théodore to this task. She left France with five companions on July 15, 1840, traveling for two months by sea, steamboat, and stagecoach to arrive at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, on October 22, 1840. 

Guérin was a beloved mother superior and spiritual leader of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.  Within a year of her arrival, Mother Théodore had opened Saint Mary’s Academy for young women. The school later became Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, the oldest Catholic woman’s liberal arts college in the United States.   She worked with local priests to establish numerous schools in parishes throughout the diocese, including in Terre Haute, Fort Wayne, Madison, and Vincennes, two orphanages, and two free pharmacies at Vincennes and at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.  Guèrin also wrote prolifically and her journals describe in detail the extent of her and her sisters’ work on the frontier of rural America. 

Mother Théodore purchased land and built a convent which was dedicated on August 7, 1854.  She began construction of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, which was not completed until 1886, thirty years after her death at the age of 58.  

At her death, the original six sisters of the Sisters of Providence congregation in Indiana had grown to sixty-seven members, nine novices, and seven postulants.  Since its founding in 1940, more than 5,200 women have entered the Order of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, devoting themselves to educational and charitable work in Indiana and worldwide.
      
In 1907, the bishop of Indiana introduced a petition to declare Mother Théodore Guérin a saint based on her selfless service to the people of Indiana.  During the Vatican’s investigation, two people attributed miraculous cures to her intercession.  On October 15, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI canonized Saint Theodora Guérin at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square. 

Symbol: she wears the habit of her order with a crucifix around her neck
Feast Day: May 14

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American to be recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church.  She was born in 1656 in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, which was the site of the martyrdom of the first North American martyrs (panels 2 and 33) a decade earlier.   She died at the age of 24 in a Jesuit mission near Montreal, Canada on April 17, 1680.  

Tekakwitha, or “the girl who bumps into things” is her given name at birth.  She took the name Kateri, after Saint Catherine of Siena, at her baptism.  She is known as the Lily of the Mohawks.  The first account of her life was published in 1715.  Pope John Paul II beatified her as Catherine Tekakwitha on June 22, 1980; Pope Benedict XVI canonized her as Kateri Tekakwitha on October 21, 2012.    

Kateri’s mother, Tagaskouita, an Algonquin woman, was baptized as a Roman Catholic and educated by French missionaries in Trouis-Rivières, east of Montreal.   After her tribe’s defeat by the Mohawks, Tagaskouita was taken to Ossernon and became the wife of the Mohawk chief.   When Kateri was four years old, an outbreak of smallpox in Ossernon killed her mother.  Kateri survived, but the pox left her face scarred and eyesight impaired.  She covered her face to hide the scars.  As an orphan, she was raised by an uncle who was also then the Chief of the Mohawk tribe.   She became skilled at women’s arts, including preparing food from games and growing crops.  Despite pressure from the Chief, Tekawitha refused all proposals of marriage. 

When the French conquered the Mohawk tribe, the Jesuits established a mission in Auriesville, New York.  Kateri met the Jesuit missionaries and studied the catechism with the Fr. Jacques de Frémin who baptized her when she was 19 years old, on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1676.  Her village shunned her for her Catholic beliefs.  After six months, to avoid further persecution, Kateri moved to a Christian native community run by Jesuit missionaries, Kahnawake, located south of Montreal in present-day Canada.   

Kateri is said to have put thorns on her sleeping mat to repent for her sins while praying for the conversion and forgiveness of her kinsmen.  In 1679 on the Feast of the Annunciation, Kateri took a vow of chastity, becoming the first virgin among the Mohawk, stating:
For a long time, … I have consecrated myself entirely to Jesus, son of Mary, I have chosen Him for my husband and He alone will take me for his wife. 
After two years in Kahnawake, in 1680 Kateri’s health began to fail and she died in the arms of her friend, Marie-Thérèse Tegaiaguenta on Holy Wednesday, April 17, 1680.  Her last words were, “Jesus, Mary, I love you.”   After her death, the pox scars that marked her skin disappeared, and her face became clear and white.  Marie-Thérèse said that Kateri appeared to her in a dream, after her death, holding a wooden cross that shone like the sun.  In the dream, Kateri said, “I’ve come to say goodbye; I’m on my way to heaven,” and her face lifted toward heaven as if in ecstasy.

She has long been considered the honorary, if unofficial, patroness of Montreal, and the Indigenous peoples of North America.   She is considered as an ecumenical bridge between the Mohawk and European cultures.

Symbol: Native American dress, holding a cross
Feast Day: July 14
Patron Saint: of the environment and ecology, people in exile, and Native Americans
 

Saint Katharine Drexel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 26, 1858, and died on March 3, 1955, at the age of 96 in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.  After preparing as a novitiate with the Sisters of Mercy, on February 12, 1891, Katharine Drexel, with thirteen women, founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to promote human rights for Native and Black Americans through education.   She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 2000.

Mother Katharine was the second daughter of Francis Anthony Drexel, a rich banker and philanthropist, and Hannah Langstroth Drexel.  Her mother died five weeks after Katharine’s birth.  Katharine was raised by her father’s second wife, Emma Bouvier, with whom Francis Drexel had a third child, a daughter named Luisa.  The deeply religious Catholic family involved their daughters in their charitable acts towards the poorest and most abandoned people to whom they distributed food, clothing, and rent assistance twice weekly from their home in Philadelphia. 

In 1884, Katharine traveled to the west of the United States where she noted the abject poverty of the Native population.  She also visited the South and saw with sympathy the plight of blacks who, though recently freed from slavery, remained poor, illiterate, and subject to great humiliation. 

In 1885, after the deaths of her stepmother and her father, their three daughters inherited the income of their substantial estate.  They traveled to Europe and, in January of 1887, arrived in Rome where Katharine obtained an audience with Pope Leo XIII.  She asked the Pope to send a mission to help the Native American people.  To her request, the pope responded, “Perhaps you should lead that Mission?”  Mother Katharine Drexel took this papal suggestion to heart and devoted her life and her share of her family’s wealth to sustain missions in the United States to Native and Black Americans and to fund schools for their education.  

Mother Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament established one-hundred forty-five Catholic missions, fifty schools for African Americans, and twelve schools for Native Americans throughout the Southern and Western United States.  In 1910 she financed the printing of A Navaho-English Catechism of Catholic Doctrine for the Use of Navaho Children.  In 1925 Katharine Drexel founded Xavier University, in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Catholic college for African Americans with the purpose to prepare teachers.

Katharine Drexel was a woman of intense prayer and found through the Eucharist a source of love for the poor and the oppressed.  Aware of the fact that Native and African Americans lived in inferior conditions as domestics and were victims of oppression, Katharine believed that through education native and black Americans could improve their stations in life and thereby achieve racial equality in America.   With her courage and indomitable spirit, Mother Katharine confronted social injustice and racial prejudice towards minorities over one hundred years before these issues became of public interest in the United States.

Symbol: she wears the habit of her order and is shown with the Native American children whose education she advocated
Feast Day: March 3
Patron Saint: philanthropy, racial justice   
 

Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne was born in Grenoble, France, on August 29, 1769, and died on November 18, 1852, at the age of 83 in St. Charles, Missouri.  She was named after Saint Rose of Lima and the Apostle Philip.  Rose Philippine served the people of the mid-Western United States as a nun of the Society of the Sacred Heart.   She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on July 3, 1988.

Rose Philippine Duchesne was born into a prominent family of bankers and politicians.  She studied at the socially prestigious monastery of Sainte-Marie-d’en-Haut, entering the Order of Vistandine nuns in 1788.  Four years later, the monastery was destroyed during the French Revolution.  During the Reign of Terror that followed, Rose returned to live at her family’s country estate.  During this dispersion, the number of Vitandine nuns fell to three.  In 1804, Rose agreed to merge with the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus established during the Napoleonic era to educate young women.  In 1805, Rose established the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris where she opened a school and became the mistress of novices. 

In 1818 the Bishop of New Orleans sought the help of women religious to educate and evangelize the Natives and the settlers moving West into his diocese which the United States had purchased from the French fifteen years earlier.    Rose Philippine responded to the Bishop’s plea and traveled with four other Sisters to the New World.  They settled in St. Charles on the Mississippi River in the Missouri Territory which she described as “the remotest village in the world”.   The nuns of the Sacred Heart established their convent in a log cabin where they also built the first free school west of the Mississippi.  

By 1828 the Sisters of the Sacred Heart had established six communities operating schools throughout Louisiana and in Missouri.   When the Jesuits built a church in St. Charles, the Sisters conducted the school.  In 1835 they built their first brick building.

With the Jesuits, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart established a mission to the Potawatomi tribe in Eastern Kansas along Sugar Creek in 1841.   Rose Philippine joined the mission, but at 71 was unable to do much work.  Named by the Potawatomi children, “Quahkahkanumad, the Woman who Prays Always”, Rose assured the Mission’s success through her constant prayer.  She returned to St. Charles, Missouri after one year and lived in the Convent there until her death.    

Symbol: she wears the habit of her order
Feast Day: November 18
Patron Saint: of perseverance in adversity   
 

Bernard Francis Casey was born in Oak Grove, Wisconsin on November 25, 1870, and died on July 31, 1957, at the age of 85 in Detroit, Michigan.  He joined the Order of Franciscan Minor Capuchin and was known as a wonderworker for his great faith, his ability as a spiritual counselor, and his care for the sick.  Pope Francis approved his beatification which was celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Amato at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan on November 18, 2017. 

Bernard was the sixth of sixteen children born to Bernard James Casey and Ellen Elizabeth Murphy, Irish immigrant farmers.  In 1878, Bernard Francis contracted diphtheria which permanently damaged his voice; two of his siblings died of the disease that same year.  He left the family farm at the age of 12 and worked at a series of jobs in Minnesota.   After witnessing a brutal murder, he felt the call to priesthood and enrolled in the Saint Francis High School Seminary.  His calling was impeded by his limited formal education and the professors there advised him to join a religious order.  While reflecting before a statue of the Virgin Mary, he heard her tell him to “go to Detroit” where he was received into the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin on January 14, 1897.  He took the religious name of Francis Solanus, a Franciscan Spanish missionary to Peru who called the native children to prayer with his violin, an instrument that Bernard also loved to play.

In 1904 he was ordained in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a “simplex” priest, meaning that he could say Mass but was prohibited from preaching or hearing confessions.  Fr. Solanus celebrated his first Mass on July 31, 1904, in Appleton, Wisconsin with his family present.  For 20 years, Fr. Solanus served in friaries in New York: Sacred Heart, in Yonkers; St. John’s Church, near Penn Station in Manhattan, and Our Lady Queen of Angels in Harlem.

In August 1924, Fr. Solanus returned to Saint Bonaventure monastery in Detroit where he worked as the receptionist until 1945.   He conducted services for the sick on Wednesday afternoons and became known for his great compassion and for the amazing results of his meetings with visitors, who believed him instrumental in their cures.  He worked to form the Capuchin Soup Kitchen which provided food to the poor during the Great Depression.  He spent his evenings kneeling before the Eucharist.

A trademark of Fr. Solanus’s spirituality was an “Attitude of Gratitude.”  He believed that “Giving thanks is the first sign of a thinking rational creature.”  He suggested that to preserve God’s presence, one should raise your heart to Him through frequent aspirations, “Ask and it shall be given to you.” He advised to make a good intention at the beginning of each week, and frequently refer to it during its execution.  Fr. Solanus devoted himself to the sick and the poor, which includes all of us – as we all suffer both from sickness and poverty in body, mind, or spirit at one time or another. “

Fr. Solanus devoted his life to providing soup for the hungry, kind words for the troubled, and a healing touch for the ill.  Wherever he served, people would line up to speak with him.

When his health began to fail, in 1946, Fr. Solanus was transferred to the Capuchin novitiate of Saint Felix in Huntington, Indiana, where he died.  His last words spoken to the nurse at his side were “I give my soul to Jesus Christ”.  An estimated 20,000 people filed past his coffin prior to his funeral and burial at Saint Bonaventure monastery in Detroit.    Many miraculous cures are attributed to his intercession, both during his earthly life and after his death.
           
Symbol: habit of a capuchin monk
Feast Day: July 30
 

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton was born on August 28, 1774, in New York City and died on January 4, 1821, at the age of 46, in Emmitsburg, Maryland in the convent of the Sisters of Charity, the Order she founded to educate children of the poor.  Elizabeth Ann Seton was canonized by Pope Paul VI on September 14, 1975, the first person born in America to be named a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church.    

            Elizabeth Ann was the second child of Dr. Richard Bayley, a prominent surgeon, the first Professor of anatomy at Columbia College, and a French Huguenot, and her mother, Catherine Charlton Bayley, was the daughter of an Anglican priest.  She died when Elizabeth Ann was only three years old. 

At the age of nineteen, on January 25, 1794, Elizabeth Ann was married to William Magee Seton (1768-1803), then a wealthy businessman, by the Episcopal bishop of New York. The first years of her marriage were prosperous and happy.  They had five children.  The family were regular communicants at the socially prominent Trinity Church on Wall Street; the Rev. Henry Hobart was Elizabeth Ann’s spiritual director.  She became a charter member of the charity formed for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children.  The Setons’ last residence at 8 State Street in Manhattan is today the site of the Church of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary.  

Between 1798 and 1800, William Seton’s trading company lost several ships as a result of England’s blockade of France, and his company went bankrupt.  The economic stress complicated his tuberculosis and   William Seton traveled to Italy, on the advice of his doctor, with his wife, Elizabeth Ann, and their eldest daughter.   His condition rapidly deteriorated and William Seton died on December 27, 1803, a few weeks after the family landed in Livorno.  He was buried in the Old English Cemetery.  Until their return to the United States the following Spring, the widow and her daughter stayed in Livorno with the prominent FIlicchi family of Livorno.  Filippo Filicchi was Seton’s business associate and the US consul to Italy.  He and his wife, Mary Cowper from Boston, introduced Elizabeth Ann to Roman Catholicism.  She accompanied them to Mass at the Filicchi family church of Santa Caterina, the Church of San Jacopo, and the Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie (Our Lady of Graces) where Elizabeth Ann is said to have had a revelation. 

After her return to the United States, Elizabeth Ann Seton continued to correspond with Filippo Filicchi who encouraged her decision to convert to the Catholic faith.  Elizabeth Ann Seton received her first communion on March 25, 1805, at St. Peter’s church, the only Catholic church in Manhattan.  She was confirmed a year later by the only Catholic Bishop in America, the bishop of Maryland, John Carroll.  Elizabeth Ann also started an academy for young ladies to support herself and her children, but when the parents learned about her conversion to Catholicism they withdrew their daughters from the school.  

In 1809, at the invitation of the Sulpician Fathers, Elizabeth Ann Seton moved her family to Emmitsburg, Maryland where she established Saint Joseph’s Academy and Free School dedicated to the education of Catholic girls.  The Sulpician Fathers were French priests who had taken refuge in Baltimore from religious persecution during the Reign of Terror in France.   The school was the first free Catholic school in America and marked the start of the Catholic parochial school system. 

In 1810 Elizabeth Ann Seton established the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph at Emmitsburg, Maryland under the Rule created by St. Vincent de Paul for the Daughters of Charity in France.   The Order was formally ratified in 1812.  Elizabeth Ann Seton made her perpetual vows on July 19, 1813, from which time she became known as Mother Seton.  By 1818, in addition to St Joseph’s Academy, the Sisters had established two orphanages and another school.  Today six groups of sisters trace their origins to Mother Seton.

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton inspired the foundation of innumerable Catholic schools in the United States, including Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, which was founded on September 1,
1856 by James Bayley, Catholic Bishop of Newark, a cousin of Theodore Roosevelt, and a nephew of Elizabeth Ann Seton.  As of 2018, over forty churches are dedicated to her, including the church of Santa Elisabetta Anna Seton in the Piazza Lavagna, Livorno, which commemorates her connection with the FIlicchi family and Livorno.  In 2004, the 200th anniversary of his death, the body of her husband, Wiliam Magee Seton was exhumed from the English Cemetery and transferred to this church. 

Symbol: she is shown in her habit
Feast Day: January 4
Patron Saint: seafarers and widows
 

Frances Cabrini was born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano a small town near Milan, Italy on July 15, 1850; she died in Chicago, Illinois, on December 22, 1917.  She founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to care for poor children in schools and hospitals.  Frances Xavier Cabrini traveled extensively and wherever she stopped, Mother Cabrini established schools, orphanages, and hospitals.  She was canonized in 1946 by Pope Pius XII. 

Frances Xavier Cabrini was the last of thirteen children born to Agostino Cabrini and Stella Oldini.  She received a degree in education from a school run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart.  She was not permitted to join the Order after graduation because they considered her health too frail.   Instead, Frances taught in the House of Providence Orphanage in Cadagno gathering a group of women to a religious way of life.

In November 1880, when the orphanage closed, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and composed its Rule and Constitution.   At this time, she added Xavier to her name in honor of St. Francis Xavier, the missionary to the Far East, where she wished to evangelize.   Instead, Pope Leo XIII urged her to travel “not East, but West.”   

In 1889, Mother Cabrini made her first trip to the United States to minister to Italian immigrants in New York.  She organized catechism and English language classes, schools to educate the children, and orphanages. 

Mother Cabrini had a deep trust in God and was endowed with a wonderful administrative ability.   As resourceful as she was prayerful, Mother Cabrini succeeded in finding people to donate their money, time, and support for her institutions.  She saw in the principles of American democracy a way to integrate and advance Italian immigrants in society.  She promoted the emancipation of women and the capacity of feminine initiatives.  Her work is valued as a reference for modern social services. 

Mother Cabrini loved to travel; she crossed the Atlantic 23 times and founded 67 schools, hospitals, orphanages, and elder care facilities.  Cabrini College in Granada, Minnesota, and Cabrini University in Radnor, Pennsylvania are dedicated to her. She learned Spanish and crossed the Andes to reach Buenos Aires from Panama, traveling on a mule to cross mountains otherwise impassable. 

The Order of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was the first female order to undertake missionary work which had been the exclusive province of men.  The Missionary Sisters work as teachers, social workers, administrators, and members of institutional boards of trustees.  They can be found on six continents and in 15 countries.

Mother Cabrini became a naturalized American citizen in Seattle, Washington in 1909, six years after her arrival in that city.  She wrote, “This city is charmingly situated and is growing so rapidly that it will become another New York.”  Among her projects in Seattle was the foundation of Columbus (today, Cabrini) Hospital on First Hill.   The Cathedral of St. James, also on First Hill, has a shrine dedicated to her memory.   The parochial church of Sant’Angelo Lodigiano is dedicated to Sant’Antonio Abate and Saint Francesca Cabrini.  In 2010 the central train station of Milan was dedicated to her.  

Symbol: she is shown in the habit of her order
Feast Day: November 13
Patron Saint: of immigrants and hospital administrators
 

Junìpero Serra was born on the island of Mallorca in Spain, on November 24, 1713.  He died on August 28, 1784, at the age of 70, in San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, in Monterey, California, the second of nine mission churches that he founded along the Pacific Coast.  Father Junipero Serra was canonized by Pope Francis at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. on September 23, 2015.

Fra Junípero Serra is the most widely known figure who lived in pre-U.S. California. Schools, streets, freeways, and a mountain bear his name.  Fra Junìpero Serra, together with Ronald Reagan, represents California in the National Statuary Collection in the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

Born Miguel Josep Serra y Ferrer, Serra left home at the age of fifteen to study at the Franciscan convent in Palma de Mallorca.  On September 14, 1730, he took his initial vows in the Order of Friars Minor, taking the name of Brother Junipero, the simplest and most beloved companion of St. Francis.  Serra was ordained a priest in 1738.  He continued to study and obtained a doctorate in theology at the University in Palma de Mallorca where he taught until his departure for Mexico on August 20, 1749.

Serra’s transatlantic voyage lasted 99 days.  After he landed at Vera Cruz on the eastern coast of Mexico, Serra traveled by foot across the mountains to arrive at the missionary College of San Fernando near Mexico City and the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Serra became famous in the area as a dramatic and effective preacher.    One evening on a lonely and deserted road, Serra and his companion, Br. Palòu, tired and in need of rest, saw a house where they were welcomed by a mother, father, and son.  The following morning after a good night’s sleep, the brothers continued their journey.  When they told people in the area about this experience, the people assured them that no such home existed.  Serra concluded that their hosts were none other than Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, pronouncing this a “Miracle of the Holy Family”. 

The Franciscan friars were appointed to replace the Jesuits as missionaries in Mexico in 1767 by King Charles III of Spain and Fra Junìpero Serra was appointed “Father Presidente” of the missions in California, a position he held until his death.  A year later Fra Junìpero Serra established the mission of San Fernando Rey de España on the Pacific Coast of Baja California.  On July 16, 1769, Serra established the Mission of San Diego, the first of twenty-one Franciscan missions constructed in Alta California, of which he personally established nine.  The Franciscans brought people to the sacrament of Baptism which incarnated Native Americans into the Church and influenced their daily lives and morals.  The Missions became centers for the local communities.  Agricultural development, previously unknown to the native population, flourished. 

The Mission of San Diego was protected by forty soldiers and staffed by two friars, including Fra Junìpero Serra.  By March 1770 supplies began to run low and Serra was informed that if a supply ship did not arrive by March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph, the Mission at San Diego would have to be abandoned.  Serra immediately began a novena seeking the protection of St. Joseph.  At the end of the ninth day, a ship appeared on the horizon full of fresh supplies and new troops.  The Miracle of St. Joseph Novena reignited enthusiasm for the Franciscan missions.

Serra kept a voluminous record of his life and travels in California and of his correspondence with successive Viceroys, Spanish governors, and military commanders who had political authority over the missions.  In a letter of August 22, 1778, Serra wrote to the then Commander General De Croix, “Missions, Señor, missions are what this territory needs. They will provide the territory not only with what is most important, that is, the light of the Holy Gospel, but also with food for the missions themselves, for the royal presidios, which is better than what these pueblos without priests can do, …”   In 1778 Serra obtained authorization from Rome to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation.  In this year he returned to each of the missions from San Diego to San Francisco, in order to confirm all who had been baptized.  He confirmed 5,309 persons, who were with few exceptions, Native Americans converted by the Missions he established beginning in 1769.

Three years after his death his companion, Fra Francisco Palòu, wrote in his biography, Historical Account of the Life and Apostolic Labors of the Venerable Father Fray Junipero Serra: “In this northern and new California, previously inhabited only by Gentiles, [Serra] left fifteen settlements, six inhabited by Spaniards or gente de razón, and nine by full-blooded native neophytes baptized by His Reverence and his missionary companions.”  Palóu continued, Serra was a “dedicated and selfless priest, impelled only by love for all of God’s children to spread the message of salvation and civilization to the farthest corners of the globe.”  These missions remain architectural monuments that testify to Serra’s indefatigable energy in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the New World.

Symbol: he wears a Franciscan habit, behind him is the mission church of San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo, in Monterey, California, the second of nine mission churches that he founded along the Pacific Coast

Feast Day:  August 28
Patron Saint: of California, Vocations, and Hispanic Americans

John Nepomucene Neumann was born in Bohemia in Prachatit (then part of the Austrian Empire and today in the Czech Republic) on March 28, 1811.  On March 28, 1852, his 41st birthday, John Neumann was named bishop of Philadelphia, serving in this office until his death seven years later. He died of a heart attack on January 5, 1860, and was buried in the crypt of St. Peter’s, the Redemptorist church in Philadelphia, which has become a Shrine to his memory.  Bishop John Neumann was canonized on June 19, 1977, by Pope Paul VI for his personal sanctity, his devotion to Catholic education, and his commitment to personal pastoral visitation.    

John Neumann was the third of six children and evinced early a pious character and gifted intelligence.  He regularly joined his mother at daily Mass.  In 1831, he entered the Seminary in Budweis where he studied theology and languages, including English.  A priest, who knew that the diocese of New York had a desperate need for German-speaking priests, encouraged Neumann to travel to New York before his ordination.  On April 20, 1836, after raising just enough funds, Neumann embarked from Le Havre, landing in New York on the Feast of Corpus Christi.  The following day he arrived at the residence of Bishop Dubois, whose diocese served over 200,000 German Catholics with only 36 German-speaking priests.   Bishop Dubois ordained John Neumann a deacon on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist and a priest on the following day, June 25, 1836, in Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. 

Bishop Dubois assigned Neumann to the frontier of western New York where he served as pastor to about 400 German Catholic immigrants living in the 100 square miles around Niagara Falls.  There Fr. Neumann built churches, raised log schools, and taught English to the immigrant community and their children.  After six years, Fr. Neumann longed for spiritual renewal and the community of other religions.  With his Bishop’s consent, he joined the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, also known as the Redemptorists, in Baltimore on October 3, 1840.   He served parishes in Pittsburgh and Baltimore.  On February 10, 1848, John Neumann became a naturalized citizen of the United States. 

In 1852, Fr. Neumann was consecrated as the fourth bishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  As Bishop, Neumann lived simply, maintaining his vows of poverty as a Redemptorist priest.  He was known as an able administrator of a diocese previously plagued by debt and annually visited every parish in his diocese and all the religious communities, hospitals, and orphanages, examining the overall state of each institution.

As a Bishop, with his knowledge of languages, Neumann heard the confessions of his many German, Irish, and Italian immigrant parishioners.  He “knew his sheep, each and everyone.”   Responding to their needs, Bishop Neumann built eighty churches, including the first Italian language parish in Philadelphia, and he completed the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.  He established the Catholic school system with the result that parochial schools rose across America.  He published two catechisms.  Bishop Neumann also founded a religious order for women, the Third Order of St. Francis of Glen Riddle, and drafted their Rule.  He welcomed German nuns of the Sisters of Notre Dame who eventually taught in parochial schools in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, New York, Buffalo, and Philadelphia.   

Pope Pius IX called Bishop Neumann to Rome to attend the solemn promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God on December 8, 1854.  In his pastoral letter, written before his departure, Bishop Neuman wrote, “Henceforth and forever, all generations of true believers shall invoke Mary, Mother of God, as the ever-immaculate virgin, conceived without stain of original sin.”

He is called the “common man’s saint” because his greatness lay in his unwavering faith in Jesus and in Our Blessed Mother through which he met common challenges with uncommon greatness.

Symbol: he is shown wearing his Redemptorist habit with the violet zucchetto of a Bishop
Feast Day: January 5
 

Jozef De Veuster was born in Flemish Brabant in rural Belgium on January 3, 1840. Jozef joined the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (the Picpus Fathers) in Leuven taking the name Brother Damien on October 7, 1860.  In 1864 he traveled as a missionary for the Congregation to Hawaii where he was consecrated a priest at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu. 

Beginning in 1873, Fr. Damien volunteered to provide the Catholic sacraments to those suffering from leprosy (also known as Hansen’s disease) who lived in medical quarantine isolated on the eastern end of the island of Molokai.  After eleven years, Fr. Damian became infected by leprosy, sharing not only his parishioner’s marginalization from society but also their physical pain.  He died of leprosy on April 15, 1889, and was buried in the cemetery he had helped to create on Molokai.  Fr. Damien, known as the Apostle of the Lepers, was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2009.

Leprosy is thought to have arrived in Hawaii with workers from China.  In 1865, King Kamehameha V of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Legislature passed the Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy and established a medical quarantine colony for those suffering from the disease on the eastern end of the Molokai island.   When Bishop Louis Désiré Maigret sought a Catholic priest to minister to the people living in isolation from society, Fr. Damien along with three other priests volunteered. 

Fr. Damien arrived at the leper colony on Molokai on May 10, 1873, where 816 people infected with leprosy lived.  Fr. Damien worked with the residents to build a church which they dedicated to Saint Philomena.  As their priest, Fr. Damien celebrated the sacraments, taught the catechism, and preached the faith – with words and deeds. 

On Molokai, Fr. Damien helped the superintendents of the colony who were appointed by the king to organize the planting of crops to make the community self-sufficient.  He assisted in the construction of roads, schools, hospitals, and houses.  He performed routine nursing tasks, including dressing ulcers.  Fr. Damien also visited the sick, anointed the dying, built coffins, dug graves, and performed funeral masses delivering the souls of those afflicted with this earthly suffering to Jesus Christ.  After six months he wrote to his brother who had remained in Europe, “I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ.” 

For his dedicated work in the colony, King David Kalakaua bestowed on Fr. Damien the honor of “Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Kalakaua.  Crown Princess Lydia Lili’uokalani visited the colony to present the medal.   Heartbroken at the devastation to the bodies of those infected with the disease, the Crown Princess acclaimed Fr. Damien’s work on Molokai on her return. Her words inspired congregations in Europe and America, including Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant, to send food, medicine, clothing, and supplies to the colony. 

In December 1884 while drawing a bath, Damien put his foot into the scalding water, making his skin blister.  Because Fr. Damien did not feel any pain, he realized that he had contracted leprosy after 11 years on the island.  He continued to work until March 1889 when the disease confined him to his bed.  He was cared for during his last days by Sister Marianne Cope who had assisted Fr. Damien since 1883 (notes on her biography follow).  Fr Damien died of leprosy on April 15, 1889, at the age of 49.  His funeral Mass was said the following day at St. Philomena’s after which the whole colony followed the funeral cortege to the cemetery.   

In January 1936 at the request of King Leopold III of Belgium, Fr. Damien’s body was returned to Belgium and re-interred in Leuven.  After his beatification in June 1995, his right hand was returned to Hawaii and re-interred in his original grave on Molokai.   

A statue of Fr. Damien stands on the steps of the Capitol Building of the State of Hawaii and he represents Hawaii in the National Statuary Collection in the U. S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.  In celebrating Fr. Damien’s canonization on October 11, 2009, President Barak Obama cited Fr. Damien’s resolute care for those suffering from leprosy as a model for treating those suffering from the pandemic of HIV/AIDS.  In fact, several clinics throughout the USA serving HIV/AIDS patients bear Fr. Damien’s name.

Symbol: he is shown wearing the habit of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary with the native people and children suffering leprosy

Feast Day May 10;
April 15, the anniversary of his death, is a minor state holiday known as Fr. Damien Day, in Hawaii;
on this date, the Episcopal Church USA celebrates Fr. Damien together with Sr. Marianne Cope

Patron Saint: of people with leprosy, the State of Hawaii and the Diocese of Honolulu
 

Stanislaw Kostka was born, the second of seven brothers, on October 28, 1550, in Rostkowo, Poland
to an ancient noble family.  He died at the age of seventeen on the night of August 14, 1568.  His holiness was acclaimed during his lifetime and Pope Benedict XIII proclaimed him a saint, together with another Jesuit novice, Aloysius Gonzaga (no. 22, below) on December 31, 1726.

When Stanislaw was fourteen, his family sent him with his older brother to Vienna where they studied at a Jesuit college.   At school, Stanislaw joined the Congregation of Saint Barbara and Our Lady.  After two years in Vienna, Stanislaw fell seriously ill.  He wished to receive the Eucharist, but the owner of the home where he stayed was a Lutheran who would not allow a Roman priest to enter the house.  According to tradition, Stanislaw prayed to his patron, Saint Barbara, who appeared to him in a vision with two angels who administered the eucharist to him.  He also had a vision of Our Lady who encouraged him to become a Jesuit priest.  After these two visions, Stanislaw decided to embrace religious life in the Society of Jesus. 

Fearful of his family’s opposition, the Jesuit fathers in Vienna hesitated to receive him.  Nonetheless, Stanislaw understood that his application would receive favorable support from the general of the Society of Jesus in Rome.  Stanislaw then left Vienna traveling to Rome, on foot, dressed as a mendicant.  He stayed for a month with Saint Peter Canisius at Dillingen and taught school. 

His family pursued him to force his return to Vienna, but their travel was beset by ill luck and Stanislaw arrived in Rome unimpeded on October 25, 1567.  In Rome St. Francis Borgia received him into the novitiate of the Jesuit order a few days after his arrival.   Stanislaw entered the Collegio Romano to study philosophy and theology. The master of novitiates, Fr. Giulio Fazio described Stanislaw as a “model student and a mirror of religious perfection.” 

After a short illness, Stanislaw died of a high fever on the night of August 14, 1568, in Rome, having prayed to the Virgin to allow him to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption with her in Heaven.   Shortly before his death, Stanislaw told a priest that he saw Mary surrounded by many angels. 

On the 450th anniversary of his death, August 15, 2018, in a letter to the Bishop of Plock, Pope Francis wrote, quoting Pope John Paul II, “The journey of his short life, begun in Rostkowo in Mazowsze, through Vienna and then to Rome, can be compared to a great cross-country race towards the goal of every Christian’s life, which is holiness.”[1]

Symbol: Lily, Jesuit habit, Most Blessed Sacrament
Patron Saint of young students
Feast day August 15

The following biography is taken from the website of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia which is sponsoring the cause of his Sainthood:
Francis (“Frank”) Joseph Parater was born into a devout Catholic family on October 10, 1897, in the city of Richmond, Virginia.  His parents were Captain Francis Joseph Parater, Sr., and his second wife, Mary Raymond.  Mary Raymond was raised as a devout Episcopalian and communicant. At her marriage, she agreed to raise any children born to them as Catholics and converted to Catholicism herself.

Frank was baptized at Saint Patrick’s Church on Church Hill.  Frank’s father was a city employee who cared for the park across from their family home and who also cared for the garden at the Monastery of the Visitation two blocks away.   Frank attended daily mass at the monastery where he served as an altar boy from the day of his first communion until he left Richmond for college.  

Frank was educated at the Xaverian Brother’s School (currently Saint Patrick’s School) and at Benedictine High School in Richmond. He graduated in 1917, top in his class and valedictorian.  In his late teens, Frank became very active in the Boy Scouts of America and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.  

In 1917, Frank began studies for the priesthood at Belmont Abbey Seminary College in North Carolina.  He continued to lead a very devout life as is detailed in the journal he kept while there. His stated goal was: “To strive by every possible means to become a pure and worthy priest, an alterus Christus [sic].” During this period, he continued to go to Mass and receive Holy Communion daily, prayed the Rosary and Memorare daily, and went to confession weekly in accord with a Rule of Life he had drawn up for himself.  He had an abiding sense that “…the Sacred Heart never fails those that love Him.”  

While at the college seminary, Frank decided to study for the diocesan priesthood because of the great need for priestly ministry in his native Virginia and to forego his desire for monastic life in favor of direct service to the people of God.

In the Fall of 1919, the Right Reverend Denis J. O’Connell, Bishop of Richmond, sent Frank to study at the Pontifical North American College in Rome where he matriculated on November 25, 1919.  In late January 1920, Frank came down with rheumatism which developed into rheumatic fever and caused him tremendous suffering.  On January 27, he was taken to the Hospital of the Blue Nuns and given the Last Rites.   With devotion and unafraid of death, he knelt on the bed and made his last communion.  On February 6, Monsignor Charles A. O’Hern, rector of the college, offered the Mass of the Sacred Heart for Frank.  Frank Parater died on February 7, 1920.  He was buried in the College Mausoleum at Campo Verano.  

In December 1919 Frank Parater had written an Act of Oblation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which was sealed and marked to be read only in the event of his death in Rome. Frank expressed his motivation for making his offering in this way:
“I have nothing to leave or to give but my life and this I have consecrated to the Sacred Heart to be used as He wills…This is what I live for and in case of death what I die for. …Since my childhood, I have wanted to die for God and my neighbor. Shall I have this grace? I do not know, but if I go on living, I shall live for this same purpose; every action of my life here is offered to God for the spread and success of the Catholic Church in Virginia. …I shall be of more service to my diocese in Heaven than I can ever be on earth.”

The Act of Oblation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was discovered after his death on February 7, 1920, by Frank Byrne, a fellow seminarian of the Diocese of Richmond.  Two popes have asked for copies of it, and it has been published in English and in the L’Osservatore Romano in Italian.
 

St. Aloysius Gonzaga was born on March 9, 1568, the eldest of seven children, at the family castle in Castiglione delle Stiviere between Brescia and Mantua in northern Italy.  He died at the age of twenty-three on June 21, 1591.  Fourteen years after his death, on October 19, 1605, Pope Paul V beatified Aloysius Gonzaga; he was canonized with another Jesuit novice, Stanislaus Kostka (no. 20, above), on December 31, 1726, by Pope Benedict XIII.

Aloysius de Gonzaga, called Luigi, was the son of Ferrante de Gonzaga (1544-1586) of the noble House of Gonzaga, Marquis of Castiglione in the Duchy of Mantua, and Marta Tana di Santena, of the noble Della Rovere family.  His mother was a lady-in-waiting to Isabel, the wife of King Philip II of Spain.  As the first-born son, Luigi was in line to inherit his father’s title and property.  To prepare him for his role, Luigi was trained as a soldier and educated in language and in the arts.   In 1576, at the age of eight, Luigi was sent to Florence with his younger brother Rodolfo to serve in the Court of Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici.  While there he fell ill with a disease of the kidneys and during his recuperation read about the lives of saints.  At the age of nine, he reputedly took a private vow of chastity.  At the age of eleven, in November 1579, the two brothers were sent to the Court of the Duke of Mantua.  Luigi reportedly was shocked both by the violence and by the frivolity that he witnessed in these noble Italian courts.

            In 1580, Luigi returned to Castiglione.  On July 22 of that year, he received his First Communion from Cardinal St. Charles Borromeo.  He taught catechism classes to boys in Castiglione and visited the houses of Capuchin friars and Barnabites in Casale Monferrato where his family spent the winter.  In 1581 his family traveled to Spain at the invitation of the Holy Roman Empress Maria of Austria, arriving in Madrid in March 1582.  Luigi and his brother became pages for her son, Infante Diego. 

At the Spanish court, Luigi had a Jesuit confessor who encouraged him to join the Order of the Society of Jesus.  After the family’s return to Italy in 1584, Luigi pursued his intention to enter the Jesuit order against his father’s wishes.  In 1585 he renounced his birthright and traveled to Rome where he stayed at the home of his cousin, Cardinal Scipione Gonzaga.  On November 25, 1585, Luigi Gonzaga was accepted into the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Rome. Luigi took his religious vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience on November 25, 1587, and began his studies in theology to prepare for ordination. 

During these years, Luigi continued to suffer from renal problems and his health deteriorated.   In 1590, Luigi had a vision in which the Archangel Gabriel told him that he would die within the year.  And, within that year, the plague broke out in Rome.  The Jesuits opened a hospital for those stricken and Luigi Gonzaga volunteered to work with the plague victims who he washed and fed and prepared to receive the sacraments.  He confessed to his spiritual director, St. Robert Bellarmine, that the sights and smells physically repulsed him, but he persevered in this work.   

By March 3, 1591, Aloysius Gonzaga himself became infected with the plague.  He had a second vision that he would die within the Octave of the feast of Corpus Christi.  In a letter to his mother on June 5, Aloysius Gonzaga wrote: “Consider again and again, most noble lady, this infinite mercy of God and be careful never to make little of it, as you undoubtedly could if you were to lament as though he were dead for one who is living in the sight of God.  There he will give you the help of his intercession much more effectively than when he was still in this life.”[1]

On June 21, 1591, St. Robert Bellarmine gave Gonzaga his last rites.  Just before midnight, Luigi Gonzaga died, his eyes fixed on the crucifix he held in his hands.  He was buried in the Church of the Most Holy Annunciation of Saint Ignatius Loyola in Rome.  His remains now rest in an urn of lapis lazuli in the Lancellotti chapel.  His head was translated to the basilica bearing his name in Castiglione delle Stiviere.  

The Carmelite mystic, St. Maria Magdalena de Pazzi, claimed to have had a vision of Aloysius Gonzaga on April 4, 1600, describing him as radiant in glory because of his interior works, a hidden martyr for his love of God. 

Symbols: he wears a black cassock and surplice, his attributes are a lily for his innocence, a cross for his piety and suffering, and a rosary for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary
Patron Saint of students, Roman Catholic youth; plague victims, AIDS sufferers, and their caregivers;  
Feast day:  June 21

Jan Berchmans was the eldest of five children born in the Barony of Diest on March 13, 1599.  He died in Rome on August 13, 1622, at the age of 22 as a novitiate in the Society of Jesus.  Berchmans was canonized by Pope Leo XIII on January 15, 1888. 

Jan Berchmans was known for his piety at an early age, rising early to serve at Mass with “great fervor.”   In 1604, the cult of Notre Dame de Montaigu (Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel, in Dutch) was approved by the Archbishop of Mechelen who published a list of miracles attributed to the Virgin’s intercession.  The history of the Shrine dated back to the 14th century when a wooden statue of the Virgin was placed on an oak tree at the top of a hill in Zirchem, located in the Barony of Diest.  Among the pilgrims to Notre Dame de Montaigu was the young Jan Berchmans, who is reported to have made various pilgrimages, reciting the rosary as he walked the few miles from his home to the Shrine. 

In 1608, when he was nine, his mother became ill with a long and serious illness.  Her son would pass several hours each day by her bedside.  When his mother died, Jan’s father entrusted his care to the local parish priest who believed that the Lord would work wonders in his soul.   After completing his schooling in Diest, he moved to Mechelen where he worked for the canons of the cathedral dedicated to Saint Rumbold and studied with the Jesuit fathers.  Upon entering the Jesuit college at Mechelen, Jan Berchmans enrolled in the Society of the Blessed Virgin and resolved to recite her Office daily.  He also made a special act of devotion to Mary that was proscribed by the director of the Society.   

On September 24, 1616, Berchmans entered the Jesuit novitiate.  After making his first vows, in Antwerp, on January 24, 1618, he traveled to Rome to study philosophy at the Collegio Romano, entering his third-year class in 1621.  In August 1621 Berchmans participated with clear commentary in a discussion of philosophy at the Greek College, then administered by the Dominicans.   However,r upon his return to the Jesuit College he was seized with Roman fever, suffered severe dysentery, and on August 13, 1621, at the age of 22, he died in Rome. 
 
Berchmans had a special appreciation for the value of ordinary things and a strong devotion to Our Lady.  To him is owed the Little Rosary of the Immaculate Conception.  

Like St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Jan Berchmans is buried at the church of Saint Ignatius in Rome.  The Jesuit college at Mechelen where Berchmans studied was relocated to Leuven, Belgium, and there, in the side altar of the Jesuit church of Saint Michel, is a silver reliquary holding his heart.   

Symbols: his hands are clasped holding a crucifix, his book of rules, and his rosary.

Patron Saint of Altar servers and like the other Jesuit novices on this panel, Saints Stanislaw Kostka (no. 20, above) and Aloysius Gonzaga (no. 22, above), Jan Berchmans is a patron saint of young students.

Feat Day on August 13, the day of his dies natalis (heavenly birth) in the Catholic Church’s Martyrologium Romanum; he is celebrated by the Society of Jesus on November 16
 

Nelson Henry Baker was born in Buffalo, New York on February 16, 1842, and died on July 29, 1936, at Lackawanna (Limestone Hill), New York at the age of 94, where he had built a minor basilica, a home for infants, a home for unwed mothers, a boys’ orphanage, a boys’ protectory, a hospital, a nurses’ home, and a grade and high school all under the patronage of an Association dedicated to Our Lady of Victory.  The parish of Our Lady of Victory and the Diocese of Buffalo support his canonization.  On January 14, 2011, Pope Benedict designated him a Venerable and authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to recognize his “heroic virtue”.  

Born the son of a Lutheran father and a Roman Catholic mother, Nelson Baker was baptized a Lutheran at birth and re-baptized in the Roman Catholic Church at the age of ten.  He spent his early years in Buffalo, NY and, after graduating from high school, joined his father and older brother working in the family’s grocery and general store.   In June of 1863, at the age of 21, Nelson was recruited to defend the State of New York against the Confederate army which, led by General Robert E. Lee, had arrived in southern Pennsylvania.  His regiment, the 74th New York, defended the bridges and an aqueduct near Harrisburg, PA forcing Confederate troops to retreat.  His conscription lasted only 30 days after which he returned to Buffalo.   On his return from battle, Nelson opened Baker and Meyer, a feed and grain business, with a friend, Joe Meyer. 

In thanksgiving for the blessings received, Nelson Baker gave generously of his time and talent to the Catholic orphanage at Limestone Hill; there he sensed a calling to become a priest.  He entered the seminary of Our Lady of the Angels in Buffalo on September 2, 1869, at the age of 27.  In May 1874 Baker joined a pilgrimage to the great Catholic shrines of Europe, including St. Peter’s, the tombs of the Apostles in Rome, and Lourdes, but what most impressed Baker was Notre-Dame des Victoires (Our Lady of Victories) on the Ile de France in Paris.  He returned to Buffalo hoping to honor Our Lady of Victories in America.

Baker was ordained a priest on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1876, at St. Joseph’s cathedral in Buffalo, NY.  His first assignment after ordination was to assist his friend, Fr. Hines, at the orphanage and protectory for boys at Limestone Hill.  The two institutions were mired in debt, a situation that as the years progressed Baker came to view as hopeless.  After six years, Baker asked for, and was granted, a sabbatical of one year, when he served in a parish in Corning, NY.   

In 1883 Baker returned to Limestone Hill as Administrator where he would remain until his death.  On his return, he withdrew his savings earned during his business career to partially pay the Institutions’ debts.  Then, he created an Association, dedicated to Our Lady of Victories, to raise money for Limestone Hill, writing letters to Catholic patrons throughout the United States seeking membership dues of twenty-five cents (25ȼ) to support the Association.  In a few years’ time, he paid off the debt and amassed sufficient funds to build a larger chapel and add two institutions. 

When natural gas was discovered in the early 1890s in the Buffalo area, Fr. Baker, after praying to Our Lady of Victories, decided to drill for natural gas under Limestone Hill.   The drillers followed Fr. Baker, as he prayed the Rosary in procession with others from the Institute.  When he stopped, he buried a small statue of Our Lady and told the men to drill at that spot.  As drilling progressed without success, the project was dubbed “Fr. Baker’s Folly”.  But, he persisted, striking a pool of natural gas at 1,137 feet in depth.  The well continues to service the needs of Limestone Hill and nearby families.

When the Erie Canal was dredged at the turn of the century, diggers discovered the bones and bodies of infants and small children who, it was supposed, had been thrown into the canal by mothers unable to provide for their care.  This sorrowful situation inspired Fr. Baker to open Our Lady of Victories Infant Home as a sanctuary for unwed mothers and their babies.  If mothers did not want to keep their children, a crib and blanket were provided beside an unlocked door to allow the women to deposit their children in need anonymously during the night.   After the home was completed in 1908, Fr. Baker made nightly rounds tucking in the children and blessing them.  By 1919 Fr. Baker added a maternity hospital nearby which grew into a 275-bed general hospital.

In 1921, when Fr. Baker was 79 years old, he began building a cathedral dedicated to his patroness, Our Lady of Victories.  Financed by Her Association the cathedral was completed in May of 1926 without Fr. Baker having to take on any debt.  Pope Benedict XV elevated it to the dignity of a minor basilica on October 3, 1926.  The year, 1926, coincided with the 50th anniversary of Fr. Baker’s consecration as a priest.

With the crash of October 1929, Our Lady of Victories Association fed the hungry, cared for the sick, and in general helped those in need in its community, earning Fr. Baker the sobriquet, “Padre of the Poor”.  

Symbol: The Basilica of Our Lady of Victories stands behind Fr. Baker
 

Mary Magdalen Bentivoglio was born Countess Annetta Bentivoglio in Rome on July 29, 1834, the twelfth child of Count Dominic Bentivoglio of Bologna who was a general in the Papal army.  After the death of her father in 1851 and her mother in 1860, Pope Pius IX, out of regard for her father’s service to the Holy See, took responsibility for her and her two remaining unmarried sisters, placing them in the Monastery of San Lorenzo in Panisperna.  San Lorenzo was a cloistered convent in which the nuns followed the Rule of St. Clare and devoted themselves to prayer.  Contessa Annetta took her vows on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4, 1865, taking the name Mary Magdalen because she had impressed the Lord Jesus himself.   

The Bentivoglio sisters lived in San Lorenzo in Panisperna in Rome for ten years.  When the monasteries were closed in 1875, during the seizure of the papal States by the Kingdom of Italy, they traveled to the United States at the invitation of Mother Ignatius Hayes, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in Little Falls, Minnesota.  Mother Ignatius hoped to establish a presence of contemplative, cloistered nuns in the United States.  Pope Pius IX appointed Mary Magdalen as abbess and her sister, Maria Constanza, as vicaress, of a new convent of nuns who would follow the Rule of the Poor Clares. 

On their arrival in New York City, on October 12, 1875, the women encountered strong resistance to their enclosed, contemplative way of life.  Their chaplain, a Franciscan friar, forbade them from continuing to Minnesota where Mother Ignatius’s invitation awaited them.  The Bishops of New York and Philadelphia needed nuns as teachers and nurses and ruled that the charism of the Poor Clares was incompatible with the American way of life.   The Franciscan Minister Provincial based in St. Louis, Missouri, rejected the offer to the sisters of a home extended by the Bishop of New Orleans.  The Franciscan Provincial instead ordered the sisters to move to Cleveland, Ohio, where they were to join a group of German nuns.  Difficulties in language and differences in their Rules of life forced the Italians to leave the German convent in Ohio.   Mother Mary Magdalen responded to these difficulties by saying, “All my life I have asked for crosses, and now that He has sent them, why should I not be glad”.  Modern Saints: Their Lives and Faces, by Ann Ball, 1991.

Mother Mary Magdalen ultimately established three convents dedicated to the charism of contemplative prayer in the United States.  The first in Omaha, Nebraska, was founded in 1878 with the help of a philanthropist, John A. Creighton.  Creighton believed in the power of their prayer, having entrusted to their prayers the hope of a childless couple.  The couple had twins.  The Bishop of Omaha welcomed the sisters but did not offer any financial support.  The convent of the Poor Clares in Omaha was officially recognized by Pope Pius IX on November 15, 1881.   In 1885, the Bentivoglio sisters founded a second convent in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Upon their return to Omaha, a nun in the Omaha convent accused the Bentivoglio sisters of personal and financial impropriety.  Her accusations forced the sisters to leave the convent that they had founded.  The sisters took refuge with the Sisters of Mercy.  They were cleared of the charges only after legal proceedings which lasted two years.  Ten years later, in 1897, Mary Magdalen left Omaha to establish a third convent of the Poor Clares in Evansville, Indiana, thanks to a bequest from a relative of a nun in the Omaha convent.   Life in Indiana was hard, as the building donated to them had no furniture and no endowment for food.  The nuns lived on the crates in which their belongings had been packed and at times subsisted on bread and water. 

Mother Mary Magdalen died in Evansville, Indiana, lying on the bare floor of the convent on August 18, 1905, at the age of 81.  At her death, the sisters in the room saw her body surrounded by a bright light and smelled the odor of floral perfume.  Soon after, many cures and favors attributed to her intercession were reported.  The sisters petitioned the Bishop of Indiana to investigate.  Mother Mary Magdalen was declared Venerable in 1932 and in 1969 the Sacred Congregation of Rome issued a decree opening the cause of her beatification.

Cornelia Connelly (née Peacock) was born in Philadelphia, PA on January 15, 1809.  She died on April 18, 1879, at the age of 70 in St. Leonard’s on the Sea in Sussex, England, where she established the first Holy Child school in England.   Cornelia Connelly founded the Society of the Holy Child of Jesus (Società del Santo Bambino Gesù) in England in 1846.   The Society is today an international community of Roman Catholic sisters approved by Pope Leo XIII which operates schools and convents in 14 countries in Europe, Africa, and the United States.  In 1992 her life and work were recognized when Saint Pope John Paul II declared her Venerable. 

When Cornelia was fourteen her mother died leaving her an orphan as her father had died five years earlier.  She lived with her half-sister Isabella until 1831 when she married the Rev. Pierce Connelly, an Episcopal priest.  Before her marriage, she was baptized into the Episcopal church. Rev. Connolly was five years her senior, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.  After their marriage, he accepted a call to be rector of the Episcopal Church in Natchez, Mississippi.  They had three children, two sons, Mercer and John Henry, and a daughter, Adeline.   Their marriage seemingly was a happy one in these early years. 

Unfortunately, Pierce Connolly was unable to maintain any vows, personal or professional.
 
In 1835, Pierce resigned from his vows as an Episcopal priest and from his parish.  He moved to Rome in order to convert to the Catholic faith.  Cornelia supported his decision and converted to the Catholic faith in New Orleans while they were awaiting passage to Italy.  In Rome, Pierce Connolly met Pope Gregory XVI and compellingly pleaded his cause for admission to the Catholic Church.  Celibacy requirements prevented, however, his ordination to the Catholic priesthood. 

The Connolly’s returned to the United States in 1838 and became teachers in a Jesuit college in Grand Cocteau, Louisiana.  A fourth child died soon after birth in the summer of 1839; in February 1840, their two-year-old son, John Henry was pushed by their dog into a vat of boiling sugar and died of burns after 43 hours in his mother’s arms.  Cornelia gave birth to their fifth child, Frank, in the spring of 1841.  In her grief at the loss of two children, Cornelia turned to Our Lady of Sorrows to whom she remained devoted for the rest of her life.
 
In 1842, Pierce Connolly left Cornelia and returned to Rome where he sought to be ordained as a Catholic priest.  As a condition of Pierce’s ordination, the Catholic church required that Cornelia consent to an official separation from their marriage vows and to Pierce’s vow of chastity.  Cornelia arrived in Rome two years later and pleaded with Pierce to reconsider the breakup of their family, but he refused.   In May 1844 Cornelia pronounced a vow of perpetual chastity releasing her husband for ordination.  Pierce was ordained a priest in the Catholic church in June 1844.  Pierce traveled to England as chaplain to Lord Shrewsbury, a Catholic nobleman whom he had met in Rome.

Cornelia, now 36 years old, was the single mother of 12-year-old Mercer, 10-year-old Adeline, and 5-year-old Frank.  To help support her family, the English Bishop Nicholas Wiseman invited Cornelia to England to educate Catholic girls.  Cornelia formed the Society of the Holy Child of Jesus with the purpose to teach young women from poor families and drew up a set of rules to regulate the lives of the women who would join her in this calling.  To avoid scandal in Protestant England, Bishop Wiseman ended the visitation rights of Pierce to Cornelia.  The Bishop sent Cornelia to live and work in a large convent at St. Mary’s Church in Derby and he insisted that she place her children in boarding school.   At St. Mary’s Cornelia ran a day school for 200 pupils and an evening school for factory women, and a Sunday school, as well as a school for novices who wished to enter the Society of the Holy Child of Jesus.  In December 1847, Cornelia took her perpetual vows as a nun and was installed as superior general of the Society. 

Earlier that year, in June 1847, Pierce Connolly abandoned the Catholic Church and his ordination vows as a Catholic priest.  He also demanded that Cornelia abandon her vow of chastity and return to him and to married life.  Cornelia refused certain that she was where God wanted her. 

In January 1848, Pierce Connolly, contesting the jurisdiction of Bishop Wiseman over his wife, removed their children from their boarding schools and denied Cornelia all contact with them until she returned to him and to their marriage.  That same year, Pierce Connolly sued Cornelia Connolly in secular English courts, seeking a writ for restitution of his conjugal rights.  Pierce Connolly omitted from his pleading that their separation was initiated by him and by his decision to convert to Catholicism and that Cornelia’s vows of chastity were made to allow Pierce to be ordained a Catholic priest.  To avoid scandal, Lord Shrewsbury asked Cornelia to leave England, but she refused stating that she would not betray her vow of chastity or the Society of the Holy Child of Jesus which she had recently founded.  Bishop Wiseman supported her decision and provided lawyers for her defense.  The case fueled the anti-Catholic fire.  On Guy Fawkes Day marchers carried effigies of Cornelia and the Catholic bishop who were denounced from Protestant pulpits.

In 1850, the Protestant judge in Connolly v. Connolly refused to recognize the laws of the Roman church and ordered Cornelia to return to Pierce and to render him conjugal rights or go to prison.    On appeal, the Privy Council held in Cornelia’s favor and ordered Pierce to pay her court costs, but she could not regain custody of her children who, under British law, were the property of their father.  She endured further sorrow when her firstborn son, Mercer died in 1853 of yellow fever in Louisiana where he had been sent by his father.  Pierce Connolly continued to persecute Cornelia throughout her life, publishing tracts against her and the Catholic church.  She stated that the Society of the Holy Child was “founded on her breaking heart.”     [Flaxman, Radegunde. A woman styled bold: the life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809–1879 (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 1991) p. 78]

Cornelia’s work became her life.  She founded several Holy Child schools in England, one in France, and another in the United States.  The schools offered poor young women a chance to expand their minds and change their lives.  Her teaching methods were radical, focusing on expanding the minds of young girls to give them a real chance in life.  In 1863 she wrote a “Book of Studies” that outlined the school’s curriculum, including the importance of the arts and outdoor activities.   
 

Frederic Baraga was born on June 29, 1797, in the duchy of Carniola, today in Trebnje, Slovenia.  He was the first bishop of the Diocese of Marquette, Michigan where he served from 1853 until 1868.  Bishop Baraga died in Marquette at 70 years of age on January 19, 1868, in the 37th year of his ministry to the native peoples of the Great Lakes.   Baraga studied Native American languages, publishing Ottawa Anamie-Misinaigan (1837), the first book written in the Ottawa language, the monumental Dictionary of the Otchipwe (Chippewa) language, and Catholic catechisms and prayer books in both languages.  His native name was Irenej Friderik Baraga.  His letters about his missionary work were published widely in Europe, inspiring many, including St. John Neumann (Panel 5, n. 17), to emigrate to the United States as missionaries.  In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared Bishop Baraga a Venerable.

Frederic Baraga was the fourth of five children born to John Nepomuc and Maria Katherine Josefa de Jencic Baraga who inherited the estate of Mala Vas and a substantial fortune.  Both his parents died young leaving Baraga an orphan at the age of 14.  He moved to Ljubljana where he lived in the house of George Dolinar, a lay professor in the diocesan seminary.   He was fluent in Slovenian, French, and German and studied Latin and Greek in school.  Baraga attended law school at the University of Vienna where he graduated in 1821.  In Vienna, he met St. Clement Maria Hofbauer who shared with him the spiritual writings of his Redemptorist founder, St. Alphonsus Liguori (panel 34).  In 1865, Bishop Baraga supported Hofbauer’s cause for sainthood in a letter to Pope Pius IX: “For three years I enjoyed the singular blessing of having as my confessor the Servant of God, a blessing I number among the greatest blessing Divine Providence has granted me during my entire life.”

With Hofbaurer’s encouragement, Frederic attended the seminary at Ljubljana and was ordained a Catholic priest on September 21, 1823, in the cathedral of St. Nicholas.  At this time he renounced his birthright and the fortune he had inherited.  He strongly opposed the heresy of Jansenism and embraced penance, poverty, and service of the poor.  Baraga wrote a prayer book in Slovenian for the Catholic laity.

In 1830, Baraga responded to a call from the Bishop of Cincinnati, Ohio, for priests to minister to a growing Catholic population.  Baraga arrived in Cincinnati on January 18, 1831.  The Bishop sent Baraga to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to minister to the large German immigrant population who had emigrated there to work in the iron and copper mines.  He also began to minister to the tribes native to the region.  His ministry allowed him to study the native languages at various missions along the shore of Lake Michigan: to the Ottawa Indians at Arbre Croche (Harbor Springs to Cross Village, Michigan), 1831-1833, and at Grand River (Grand Rapids, Michigan), 1833-1835.  In 1835 he moved north to minister to the Ojibway (Chippewa) Indians at La Pointe, Wisconsin where he stayed until 1843 when he founded a mission at L’Anse on Lake Superior. 

Baraga traveled long distances on foot and, in winter months, on snowshoes, earning the titles, “Apostle of the Lakelands” and “Snowshoe Priest”.  He catechized and baptized many, establishing communities around a church and a school.  Baraga worked to protect the Indian tribes from forced relocation.  He opposed the fur traders who enticed the Natives with whiskey and guns.  He encouraged agriculture.  Each winter his converts were a little better prepared in log homes with winter provisions from their gardens because of their industry and sober living.  His publications introduced Europeans to Native American culture.

On November 1, 1853, Pope Pius IX created the diocese of Sault Ste Marie, Michigan, and named Baraga its first Bishop.  Although he spoke eight languages fluently, Baraga had difficulty finding priests who could do the same.  He traveled twice to Europe to raise funds for his diocese.  Before leaving he wrote his first pastoral letter in English and Ojibway.  His message: stand firm in faith, adore, respect, obey and love God all the days of your life.  His remains the only pastoral letters printed in the language of the native peoples of America.

In 1866, Bishop Baraga moved the Cathedral to Marquette which was more centrally located and easier to reach by ship and train.  Due to his hard work and dedication, Bishop Baraga reported to the Holy See that his diocese rested on a firm foundation, with enough priests and churches to meet the needs of his population.    He died on the early morning of the Feast of the Holy Name, January 19, 1868, and is buried below the altar in the Cathedral of St. Peter in Marquette.    Catholics and non-Catholics wrote after his death that a Saint had lived and died in their midst.

Symbol: behind Bishop Baraga is the Mission Church of Our Savior Friend of Children (now known as Holy Angels), built by Bishop Baraga in 1856-1857 to serve the Native Americans and French Traders at Payment Landing on Sugar Island, Sault Ste Marie, Michigan.  The church is open in the summer months and was restored thanks to generous private donations, including from the Sault Tribe. 
 

Mother Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory was born in Mountjoy in Northern Ireland on January 21, 1893, and she died on her 91st birthday in 1984 at the St. Teresa Motherhouse at Avila-On-Hudson in Germantown, New York.  She founded an order of Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm.  On June 28, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI recognized her life and work and declared her Venerable. 

When she was seven years old her family left Ireland and moved to Mossend, Scotland.  Their house abutted the Holy Family Church whose pastor, Rev. Dean Cronin, was influential in Mary Angeline’s calling to religious life.  At the age of nineteen, she joined the Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor and made her novitiate in La Tour, France.  Before her departure for France, she visited Fr. Cronin who offered her a book from his shelves; Mary Angeline picked The Life of St. Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun.  After professing her vows, the Order sent Sister Mary Angeline to the United States where she arrived in November 1915.  In 1926 she was assigned to be the Superior of a Home for the Aged in Bronx, New York.  
 
Sister Mary Angeline was concerned that the European customs followed in the home did not meet the needs of the elderly in New York City.  After discussing her concerns with Patrick Hayes, Cardinal of New York, Sister Angeline withdrew from the Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor.  With the Cardinal’s blessing, she formed a new congregation of nuns within the Carmelite Order devoted to the care of the elderly and the infirm.  This is the first order of nuns organized to care solely for the aged.

Sister Mary Angeline served in the Bronx as superior general of the Carmelite order she founded until 1978.  Sister Kevin Patricia, the prioress of the sisters in the Bronx, stated “Mother always felt that it was important to reach out and clasp the hand of an aged person. It was important to have that human touch, that kindness. She would stress that if she were here today.”  

As of 2019, the Carmelite Order, founded by Sister Angeline serves in 18 elder-care facilities around the USA and in one in Ireland.
 

Henriette Delille was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 11, 1813.  Of Creole heritage, Henriette’s great-great-grandmother was a slave who arrived in the United States from West Africa.  Henriette died on November 16, 1862, at the age of 49, having established an Order of Sisters and an associated Lay Association dedicated to the Holy Family to serve black Americans, both slave and free, in New Orleans.  In 1988 Saint Pope John Paul II named her a Servant of God.  In 1997 the United States Catholic Bishops unanimously endorsed her cause for sainthood.  On March 27, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Venerable.  Miracles attributed to her are under medical scrutiny; if she is canonized Henriette DeLille will become the first U.S. native-born African American saint.

Henriette’s mother, Marie-Josèphe Diaz, was a free woman of color born in New Orleans and her father, Jean-Baptiste Lille Sarpy was born in Fumel, France.  Because of restrictions on interracial marriages, theirs was a common-law union.  They lived in the French Quarter near St. Louis Cathedral.   Henriette’s sister, Cecile Bonile, followed her mother in a common law marriage with a wealthy Austrian, Samuel Hart, and her descendants are in touch with members of the Order of the Holy Family.  Funeral records found in 2004 may indicate that Henriette had two sons both of whom died before the age of three.  However, Henriette, raised as a Roman Catholic in the French tradition, rejected marriage and from her childhood followed a religious path. 

In 1827 when she was 14 Henriette became a teaching assistant to Sister Marthe Frontier at the school she founded for children of color, teaching slave children when such education was prohibited by law.  In 1834, Henriette was confirmed in the Catholic faith.  When Henriette was 24 years old, she had a religious experience, writing on the flyleaf of a book about the Eucharist, “Je crois en Dieu.  J’espère en Dieu.  J’aime. Je v [eux] vivre et mourir pour Dieu.”  [“I believe in God.  I hope in God.  I love.  I want to live and die for God.”]

In 1836, with two friends, Juliette Gaudin, and Josephine Charles, Henriette drew up rules for a small unrecognized congregation called The Sisters of the Congregation of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The order, composed of seven Creole women and one French woman, was formed to nurse the sick, care for orphans and the poor, and to instruct free and enslaved children and adults.   Records of St. Mary’s Church, St. Augustine, and St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans record her ministry to sponsor and serve as a witness for people of color in their baptisms, confirmations, and marriages. The Cathedral dedicated a prayer room in Henriette’s honor.  She catechized with Pere Etienne Rousselon at St. Augustine Church and taught at the parochial school of St. Claude.   

In 1837, Father Etienne Rousselon of New Orleans secured formal recognition of the Order under the name, Sisters of the Holy Family, and Henriette took the title Mother.  The Community was very poor and made many sacrifices to accomplish their mission.   She also established the Association of the Holy Family, a lay community of black Americans, to assist the Sisters in their calling.  The Order took into their home elderly women who needed more care than simple visitation.  In 1849 the Association built a new home, the Lafon Nursing Facility of the Holy Family, which is the oldest continuously operating Catholic nursing home in the United States. 

Henriette persevered in her calling in the face of slavery and racism.  She lived a holy, prayerful, and virtuous life.  At her death, the Order had 12 members.   They cared for the sick and the dying and served heroically during the yellow fever epidemics that struck New Orleans in 1853 and again in 1897.  Henriette was remembered as devoting herself untiringly for many years and without reserve to the religious instruction of the people of New Orleans, principally slaves.  “For the love of Jesus Christ, she made herself the humble servant of slaves.”

In 1862, the year of her death, America was in the grip of its Civil War against slavery in the South, and New Orleans was occupied by Union troops.   Even after the Civil War freed the slaves, Jim Crow laws in Louisiana disenfranchised black and colored Americans and prohibited offering them an education.  In defiance of these laws, the Sisters of the Holy Family taught black and Creole students in parochial schools. 

By 1909 the Order had grown to 150 members and operated parochial schools in New Orleans for 1,300 students.   Today, the Sisters of the Holy Family have more than 300 members who serve the poor by operating free schools for children, nursing and retirement homes in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, California, and Washington D.C., and a mission in Belize.

Patron of racial equality, gender equality, social equality, educational equity, health equity, and equanimity.

Alphonse Gallegos was born on February 20, 1931, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and died on October 6, 1991, as Auxiliary Bishop of Sacramento and Titular Bishop of the See of Sasabe in Tarragona in Spain.  He is known as the Bishop of the Barrios.   On July 8, 2016, Pope Francis named him a Venerable in recognition of the holiness of his life and of his heroic virtue.

Alphonse Gallegos was the eighth of eleven children.  The family prayed the rosary daily together and studied the catechism.  Alphonse Gallegos was born with a severe myopic condition and suffered from poor vision his entire life.  Despite multiple surgeries, his sight remained poor and he wore extremely thick glasses.  To provide better medical care and educational opportunities for him, the family moved to Watts in Los Angeles, California shortly after his birth.  Alphonse Gallegos attended Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles.  

The family attended San Miguel parish which was run by the Order of Augustinian Recollects.   Timothy Manning, then Auxiliary Bishop of California, confirmed Alphonse Gallegos and would remain a mentor to him.  At San Miguel, Alphonse Gallegos developed “a deep desire to follow the religious life.”   

In 1950 Gallegos entered the Order of Augustinian Recollects as a seminarian and professed his solemn vows three years later.   He studied at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, and graduated from Saint Thomas Aquinas College and from Saint John’s University, both in New York.  He also graduated from Loyola University in Los Angeles. 

In 1954 Gallegos moved to Tagaste Monastery in Suffern, NY.  As his vision worsened, he had difficulty reading his breviary and he prayed the rosary instead.  Despite doubts about his preparation, he was ordained a priest on May 24, 1958, because of the virtues of holiness, humility, and community spirit he demonstrated.   For the next eight years, Fr. Gallegos lived at Tagaste Monastery and worked in neighboring hospitals and religious communities.  

In 1972 Fr. Gallegos returned home and became the pastor of his childhood parish of San Miguel in Watts.  The neighborhood was predominantly African American and poor.  Riots in the 1960s had left the area divided and subject to gangs, violent crime, and poverty.  Fr. Gallegos made the local children his priority and he was active in the parish school.   On weekends, Fr. Gallegos spent time with Latino lowriders (drivers of customized cars painted with intricate colorful designs and rolling on wire-spoke wheels).   He blessed their cars and encouraged them to pursue their education and find lives outside of gangs.  He also tried to help the vulnerable elderly and expanded his ministry to the many ethnic communities in the area, including Korean, Chinese, African American, as well as Hispanic.  In 1978, he became the pastor of Cristo Rey in Glendale. Both parishes are in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.   

Cardinal Timothy Manning appointed Fr. Gallegos his advisor on Hispanic Affairs.  In 1979, he transferred to Sacramento to become the first director of the Division of Hispanic Affairs of the California Catholic Conference.  His office worked on immigration matters and migrant workers.   He was named Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Sacramento by Saint Pope John Paul II and consecrated on November 4, 1981.   In 1983 Bishop Gallegos became pastor of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

Bishop Gallegos was known for his pastoral concern for the poor and commitment to the culture of life.  His motto was “Love one another.”  His life was an example of a “good, humble, generous human being.” He was known for his charity and his ability to bring together people of all backgrounds.

Bishop Gallegos died on October 6, 1991, when he was struck by a car as he and his driver were returning to Sacramento from Gridley, CA where he had led a pro-life rosary.   More than 2000 people attended his funeral, including 300 lowriders who formed the long funeral procession.

Mother Maria Kaupas was born in Ramygala, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, on January 6, 1880. She died on April 17, 1940 in Chicago, Illinois, at the Mother House of the Order of the Sisters of Saint Casimir which she founded to educate the children of Lithuanian immigrants in the United States and to care for the sick.  On July 10, 2010, Pope Benedict SVI recognized her life and work and declared her Venerable. 

Casimira Kaupas, the name she was given at her birth, left Lithuania in 1897 when she was 17 years old, for Scranton, Pennsylvania where she worked as the companion and housekeeper of her brother, Fr. Anthony Kaupas, a priest serving the needs of Lithuanian immigrants.  In 1901, Casimira returned to Lithuania but soon realized that she was drawn to religious life.  Her brother encouraged her to return to the United States, advising her that Lithuanian Priests in the United States wanted to establish a new religious congregation dedicated to the education of children in schools being built by the Church in Pennsylvania.  To this end, Casimira began her novitiate with the Sisters of Mercy of the Holy Cross in Ingenbohl, Switzerland in 1902. 

In 1905, with her brother’s help, Jeremiah Shanahan, Bishop of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, agreed to sponsor a new congregation of sisters to be formed by Casimira and to be dedicated to education.  Mother Cyril of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Scranton agreed to help prepare her as a novitiate.  Casimira took the name Sister Maria and made her profession of religious vows on August 29, 1907.  She founded the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Casimir, the patron Saint of Lithuania.  Mother Maria immediately began teaching at Holy Cross School in Mount Carmel, PA, and other parochial schools in the area.

In 1911, the Sisters of Saint Casimir moved their mother house to Chicago, Illinois, to serve its large Lithuanian population.  When the construction of the house was completed in 1913, Sister Maria was elected the Superior General of the Order, a position she held until her death.  They staffed schools in Lithuanian parishes in Chicago.   As the Order grew, the Sisters opened parochial schools across the United States and a home mission in New Mexico.

When the 1918 influenza epidemic broke, Mother Maria began the Sisters’ ministry of health care, in addition to education.  In 1928, the Sisters of St. Casimir opened the Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago.

In 1932, Mother Maria decided to open a retreat house in Scranton, with the purpose of using the property as a country retreat for her Sisters and as a school for young Lithuanian girls.  Its mission was to nurture their Catholic religion and national heritage and encourage their entry into religious life. The Order purchased a 203-acre plot named Maple Lane Farm and worked to transform the existing buildings into a retreat and a school.  Later in the year, Cardinal Dennis Doughtery blessed the “Villa Joseph Marie” predicting that it was “… destined to grow and to…serve as a general academy.”  Former farm buildings were transformed into Regina Hall where students resided and Maria Hall where they took classes.  Harvest from the farmlands and orchards, together with the Sisters’ homemade bread, were sold to support the growing school.   

As the student population grew, the Sisters decided that they had to build a new school structure and become a traditional day school which they did in 1957.  The original simple curriculum became a premier college-preparatory high school with about 400 students and 40 faculty.  The central mission remains to welcome and educate young women.  [O'Neil Schenk, Margaret. Villa Joseph Marie: A History. Unpublished manuscript, 2000].

The Mother Maria Kaupas Center in Mount Carmel, PA, in the Divine Redeemer Parish in the Diocese of Harrisburg honors the life and work of Mother Maria Kaupas with a ministry of community service.

Augustus Tolton was born in Missouri in 1854 into a family of slaves.  Rejected by every seminary in the United States because he was black, Fr. Tolton was accepted in 1880 at the Pontifical Urban College under the Society for the Propaganda of the Faith in Rome.  He was ordained a Catholic priest at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in 1886 and returned to Illinois to serve the black community in his first parish in Quincy,
Illinois.  He died of a heat stroke in Chicago on July 8, 1897, at the age of 43.  On June 12, 2019, Pope Francis recognized his life and work and declared him Venerable. 

A Slave Heritage in Missouri.  Fr. Tolton’s parents were slaves, the property of Catholic families who lived on adjoining farms in Missouri, and were baptized by their respective Catholic owners.  Their owners, the Elliots, and the Hagers, by contract, permitted his mother, Martha Jane Chisley, and his father, Peter Paul Tolton, to enter into a Catholic marriage.   The contract further provided that the Eliots would provide a slave cabin for their family home; that Peter Paul would remain the slave of the Hager family; and that Martha Jean and all of the children born of the marriage would become the property of the Elliot family.  The Toltons had three children, Charles (b. 1853), Augustus (b. 1854), and Anne (b. 1859).  Baptismal records show that Augustus was baptized on April 1, 1854 “a child, property of Stephen Elliot”; Savilla Elliot was his sponsor in baptism.   

Escape to Illinois, a Free State.  With the outbreak of the Civil War, Peter Paul Tolton ran away from the Hager farm and joined the Union Army.   Martha Jane escaped from the Elliot farm shortly after with their three children, Charles then 8, Augustus, then 7, and Anne, then only 2.   They traveled 20 miles on foot to Hannibal, Missouri, where a row boat carried them across the Mississippi River into Illinois, a Free State.  Augustus remembered how Confederate soldiers in Hannibal tried to arrest them.  Even with assistance from Union soldiers stationed in Hannibal, the Confederates shot at them during their trip across the wide river to Illinois. On landing in Illinois, Martha Jean and her children traveled another 20 miles on foot to Quincy where a community of run-away slaves lived.     

In Quincy the family stayed with a kind widow, Mrs. Davis, who had a daughter and who cared for the children after Martha Jane found work in the Harris tobacco factory.  When Augustus was 9, he and his older brother, Charles, also worked in the factory, turning tobacco leaves into fine cigars.  A year later, Charles caught pneumonia in the factory and died. When the Civil War ended, Martha Jane learned that her husband, Peter Paul, had died from dysentery on a battlefield in Arkansas, leaving Martha Jane a widow with two children, Augustus and Anne.

Catholics in Quincy, Illinois.  In Quincy, the children attended St. Boniface Catholic Church and Martha Jane wanted to enroll Augustus in the parish school.  The all-white parent body opposed his admission and petitioned the Bishop that he be removed from the class.  He then went to a newly formed Negro School. The students, largely mulatto, made fun of Augustus who at 14 years old, very tall and very black, was placed with the youngest children because he could neither read nor write.  Martha Jane then moved to another Catholic parish, St. Peter’s, run by an Irish priest, Fr. Peter McGirr.   Knowing of Augustus’ problems in school, Fr. McGirr insisted that Augustus attend his parish school operated by the Sisters of Notre Dame.  Fr. McGIrr guaranteed Martha Jane that Augustus would have no trouble.  Augustus remembered the School fondly, “As long as I was in that school, I was safe.  Everyone was kind to me.  I learned the alphabet, spelling, reading, and arithmetic.”  He also memorized the Latin Mass and began to serve Mass.   He continued to work in the tobacco factory, but his devotion was such that he served daily Mass before going to work. And, Augustus began to discuss the possibility of ordination with Fr. McGirr. 

Seminary and Ordination in Rome.  Although the Bishop of Illinois agreed to pay for his seminary training, no seminary in the United States would accept a Negro candidate.  Neither would the St Joseph Society for Foreign Mission in London.  In desperation, Fr. McGirr and his friend, Fr. Richart, O.F.M., wrote to the superior general of the Franciscans in Rome.  They described Augustus as 26 years old, a reverent acolyte, a devoted son, a faithful worker, a diligent student, and a zealous lay apostle.  After months of waiting, Augustus was accepted as a seminarian at the Pontifical Urban College under the Society for the Propaganda of the Faith in Rome. The College, founded by Pope Urban VIII in 1624, drew students from foreign lands to be trained as priests, take holy orders, and return to their homelands as missionaries.  Cardinal Saint John Henry Newman (1801-1890) is among its prominent alumni.

On February 15, 1880, Augustus left Quincy taking the train to Chicago and on to Jersey City, from where his ship would sail to LeHavre, France.  He traveled with $50 from the Bishop, $10 from the Franciscans, and a letter to be presented to the Cardinal on arrival in Rome.  During his six years in seminary, Fr. Francis Ostrop of Carlinville, Illinois sent Augustus money for books and supplies.  On the ship, he traveled with several other friars.  He arrived in Rome on March 12, 1880. 

Augustus enjoyed Rome and used the opportunity to learn the geography, history, and languages of the many cultures.  He attended papal ceremonies of Pope Leo XIII, visited the 600 churches of Rome, and learned its architecture by making sketches in his notebook.  He learned to play the accordion and played Negro Spirituals.  On April 24, 1886, at the age of 31, Augustus Tolton was ordained a priest at St. John Lateran in Rome.  Fr. Augustus intended to be a missionary in Africa, but Cardinal Giovanni Simeoni decided to send Fr. Tolton back to Quincy, Illinois.  “America,” the Cardinal said, “has been called the most enlightened nation in the world.  We shall see if it deserves that honor.  If the United States has never before seen a black priest, it must see one now.”  

Fr. Tolton celebrated his first Mass at the Basilica of St. Peter’s and then sailed home. 

Return to Quincy as a Parish Priest.  On July 6, 1886, Fr. Tolton celebrated his first Mass in America at St. Benedict the Moor in New York City.  Fr. McGirr planned a joyous celebration for Fr. Tolton’s arrival in Quincy where he said his first mass at St. Peter’s. Hundreds of people stood in line for his blessing and Fr. Tolton thanked the priest, the sisters, and his mother, who had given him encouragement. 

Fr. Tolton was installed as pastor of St. Joseph’s, in Quincy, living with his mother near St. Joseph’s School which served the extremely poor black community.   The students who attended the Negro School also received shoes, clothes, and food.  “Good Father Gus” was known for his musical talents which included playing the organ and for his beautiful singing voice.  He quickly became famous for the eloquence of his sermons. His talents attracted a large congregation and the church was integrated.  The white congregants at St. Joseph’s supported the parish and the Negro school which also received money from St. Boniface, the church that had repudiated the young Augustus Tolton. 

In 1887, a new priest, Fr. Michael Weiss, was appointed to St. Boniface.  He immediately blamed Fr. Tolton for the large debt he inherited and was jealous of the white parishioners who worshipped in Fr. Tolton’s congregation.   He taunted his fellow cleric with racist slurs and convinced the Bishop to bar Fr. Tolton from ministering to white people.   The Bishop did worse: he closed St. Joseph’s Church and instructed Fr. Tolton to leave Quincy, which he did on December 19, 1889.

A Black Parish in Chicago, Illinois.  Fr. Tolton arrived in Chicago in the week before Christmas 1889.  The Archbishop appointed him pastor of St. Augustine Parish with “full pastoral jurisdiction over all Negro Catholics in Chicago.”  The parish met in the basement of St. Mary’s church.  Eventually, Fr. Tolton transferred to a storefront church which he named, St. Monica’s Chapel.  His mother and his sister joined him in a Rectory nearby and nineteen black parishioners from Quincy also moved to Chicago to worship at St. Monica’s.  Assisted by donations from Katherine Drexel (see Panel 3), among others, Fr. Tolton succeeded in beginning the construction of a church building for his parish which, by 1891, had six hundred parishioners. 

His parishioners struggled with poverty and Fr. Tolton shared their poverty “with ardent charity and self-denying zeal.”  A priest from Dubuque, Iowa who lived with Fr. Tolton and his mother during the summer of 1896 recalled that “They lived in a poorly furnished but very clean house.  The meals were simple affairs….  On the wall directly behind Father’s place hung a large black rosary.  As soon as the evening meal was over, Fr. Toltan would rise and take the beads from the wall.  He kissed the large crucifix reverently.  We all knelt on the bare floor while the Negro priest, in a low voice, led the prayers with deliberate slowness and with unmistakable fervor.” 

Fr. Tolton died on the streets of Chicago of a heat stroke on July 8, 1897, at the age of 43.  At his specific request, Fr. Tolton was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery in Quincy, Illinois where he received his First Communion and his Confirmation, where he served Mass and where his vocation was nourished.  A large crowd, including both white and black parishioners, attended his funeral and the cortege to the cemetery was four blocks long.

Source: They Called Him Father Gus: The Life and Times of Augustine Tolton, First Black Priest in the USA, by Fr. Roy Bauer, https://www.dio.org/uploads/files/Tolton/Resources/Father_Gus.pdf

Symbols:  Fr. Tolton wore the vestments he received at Seminary in Rome: the black cassock and black biretta of a seminarian, and, because the seminary had a special connection to the Pope, he also wore a red sash around his waist and a red tassel on the biretta and the missionary cross around his neck he received at his ordination as a priest. 

Patron: racial and educational and social equality
 

Mother Mary Theresa Dudzik was born in Plocicz, in western Poland on August 30, 1860.  She died on September 20, 1918, in Chicago, Illinois.  Mother Mary Theresa formed the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago on December 8, 1894, to aid the elderly and those in need, the first religious order founded in the city of Chicago.  On March 26, 1994, Saint Pope John Paul II recognized the heroic virtues evident in her life and named her a Venerable.

Josephine Dudzik, the name she was given at her birth, was baptized and made her first communion at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Kamien Krajenski, Poland.   The Dudzik family moved to America and settled in Chicago in 1881 when Josephine was 21.  They joined the large Polish immigrant community in the northwest side of Chicago and attended St. Stanislaus Kostka (see Panel 6) Church. 

After the death of her father, Josephine, and her mother lived alone.  Josephine was moved by the poverty of the aged, poor, and orphaned who she met in her neighborhood.  She tried to help them, even sheltering some in her own home.  She served them tea and cakes and taught them how to pray.  She said, “I felt the misery and suffering of others, and it seemed to me, that I could not love Jesus, or even expect Heaven if I were concerned only about myself.”

In Chicago, Josephine prayed to help the poor and needy.  She joined the Third Order Secular of St. Francis.  The order strengthened her will to serve others.   During the severe financial crisis of 1893, her pastor at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Fr. Barzynski, helped her to form a religious community dedicated to a common life of prayer, labor, and service to poor girls and needy women.  She promised to care for this community in times of difficulty as well as in times of prosperity.   On December 8, 1894, with four other Polish women, she took her religious vows and changed her name to Mary Theresa.  They formed the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago.  Mother Mary Theresa Dudzik was their Foundress and religious superior.

The Franciscan Sisters of Chicago followed the Rule of St. Francis: “Observe the Holy Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ living in obedience, in chastity, without owning anything of your own.”  The spirit of St. Francis taught her and her sisters to love all human beings as her brothers and sisters and to celebrate each day joyfully as God’s gift.   The sisters rose at 4:30 am to pray and meditate.  Mother Mary Theresa had a deep devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and believed intensely that the Liturgy of the Eucharist, meditation, and prayer were essential to union with Christ.  They sewed, washed, and ironed clothes, mended church linens, cleaned the rectory, and cared for the priests.  Through these labors, the sisters brought in money to buy food and supplies for the old and infirm residents in their homes. 

Through hard work and faith in the generosity of God’s mercy, the sisters built the St. Joseph Home for the Aged and Crippled in 1898 and St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum in 1899, both in Chicago.  She taught obedience through her actions, spending the last years of her life working in the laundry, in the garden, and in sewing church linens.  

Following a long and painful illness from malignant cancer, Mother Mary Theresa received the last rites of the Church and died on September 20, 1918, surrounded by her Sisters gathered in prayer.  At her death the Order numbered 160 women.   Her remains were brought to the mother house of the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago from St. Adalbert’s Cemetery in 1972 and placed in a granite sarcophagus in the Sacred Heart of Jesus chapel.

Last year, on December 8, 2019, the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago celebrated their 125th Anniversary.  The Order continues to serve the people through education and service to the elderly and the poor and the sick and to many Catholic parishes. 
 

Pierre Toussaint was born a slave in the French colony of Saint-Domingue on June 25, 1766.  He died a free man at the age of 87 in New York City on June 30, 1853.  Raised a Catholic, Pierre attended Mass daily throughout his life.   In 1968, Cardinal Terence Cooke supported Toussaint for sainthood because of his selfless acts of charity, helping orphans, immigrants, and the poor.  The Cardinal exhumed Toussaint’s body and reinterred him in the crypt below the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the first layman so honored.  In 1996, Pope John Paul II recognized his life and work and declared him Venerable. 

Pierre was born on the Artibonite plantation to Ursule, a slave owned by the Bérard family.  His father’s name is not known.  Pierre was educated by Bérard family tutors and raised as a Catholic.  He was trained as a house slave.   

In 1878, the Bérard family left the Caribbean island and moved to New York City taking five slaves, including Pierre and his sister, Rosalie, after the revolt of the Haitian slaves and free people of color formed the nation of Haiti.   The Bérard family lost much wealth on their flight and, upon arriving in New York, Jean Bérard, his master, apprenticed Pierre to a French hairdresser.  When Jean died trying to reclaim his wealth a short time later, Pierre became the sole support of Madame Bérard, his master’s widow.
  
Through his new profession of hairdressing, Pierre learned English and made contacts with upper echelons of New York society.   Pierre and his sister, Rosalie, remained house slaves even after Madame Bérard re-married to another Caribbean planter, Monsieur Nicolas, but Madame Bérard made her second husband promise to free Pierre after her death which Monsieur Nicolas did when Pierre was 45 years old.   At this time, Pierre adopted his surname in honor of Touissant L’Ouverture, the leader of the slave revolt against the French colonists which established the nation of Haiti.  “Like Caesar Hope of Virginia, Pierre chose his name to express the merger of two identities, one that reflected white expectations and one that reflected his personal aspirations.”  From D. Douglas W. Bristol, Jr.  Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom, JHU Press 2020.

Toussaint’s popularity as a hairdresser among New York’s top society grew and so did his earnings.  He saved his money and purchased the freedom of his sister, Rosalie.    He also purchased the freedom of Juliette Noel, a slave who was 20 years his junior.  In 1811, Toussaint married Juliette Noel.  The three continued to live at the Nicolas home for four years until the Nicolas family left New York and moved to the South.  Pierre and Juliette Toussaint adopted Euphemia, his sister’s daughter, after Rosalie died, raising Euphemia as their own child.

Pierre Toussaint’s business as a hairdresser prospered.  He attended daily Mass for 66 years at Saint Peter’s in New York.  He bought a house on Franklin Street where the Toussaints sheltered orphans and fostered numerous boys in succession.  They supported them in getting an education and in learning a trade.  He would then find some of their jobs through his connections in the City.   Pierre and Juliette organized a credit bureau, an employment agency, and a refuge for priests and destitute travelers.  Because Pierre spoke French and English new immigrants turned to him for help.  He would arrange the sales of their goods to raise money for them to live on.  During the cholera epidemic, he crossed barricades to nurse patients. 

Pierre and Juliette Noel became leading members of New York society.  They gave generously and contributed to, and raised money for, the building of Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Mulberry Street.  He was also a benefactor of the first Catholic School for black children in New York City at St. Vincent de Paul on Canal Street.  

Euphemia died of tuberculosis, like her mother, and before her adoptive parents.  Juliette died in 1851.  Two years later, Pierre died on June 30, 1853, and was buried next to his wife in the cemetery of Old St. Patrick’s Church on Mott Street.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois, on May 8, 1895.  He died at the age of 84 on December 9, 1979, in New York City.   Sheen was a prolific writer of books and articles on Catholic life and faith.  Called the “golden voice” by Time Magazine, his radio and television broadcasts spanned four decades and reached millions of people.  Pope Benedict XVI recognized his heroic virtues and declared him Venerable in 2012. 

Baptized John Peter Sheen, he decided to use his mother’s maiden name, Fulton, when his family moved from rural Illinois to Peoria.   He developed an interest in the priesthood as an altar server at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria.  After graduating college, Sheen completed Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.  He was ordained a priest on September 20, 1919, at the Cathedral in Peoria.  In 1923, Sheen graduated with a Doctor of Theology from Catholic University in Washington, D.C.  Sheen completed his studies in Rome at Saint Thomas Aquinas International Pontifical Institute “Angelicum”.   After graduation, Sheen taught theology at Catholic University until 1950.

From 1930 until 1950, Sheen hosted The Catholic Hour on NBC radio.  The transmission had a public of over four million people.  In 1950, Sheen celebrated the first televised Mass which opened the path to a weekly television show that aired on NBC for seven years every Tuesday evening at 8:00 pm.  Called Life is Worth Living, Sheen spoke to a live television audience standing before shelves filled with books and a statue of the Madonna and Child.  The show had over 30 million viewers.  In 1952 Sheen won an Emmy Award as the most exceptional television personality.  Accepting the award, Sheen thanked his co-writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 

Pope Pius XII nominated Sheen as titular bishop of Cesariana and Auxiliary Bishop of New York on May 28, 1951; positions he held until 1966.  He was so ordained at the Basilica of San Giovanni e Paolo in Rome.  Bishop Sheen participated in the Second Vatican Council.  

From 1958 until 1966, Sheen was the national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.   His final program, The Fulton Sheen Show, aired from 1961 until 1968 at which point, at the height of his popularity, Sheen retired from public life.  His resignation in 1966 from the society was forced by Francis Joseph Spellman (b. May 4, 1889 - d. December 2, 1967), the powerful Cardinal of New York, who arranged for Sheen’s transfer to, and appointment as Bishop of, the Diocese of Rochester in upstate New York.   In his preface to the 2008 edition of Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, the Catholic journalist Raymond Arroyo hypothesized that Cardinal Spellman wanted at least a portion of the Bishop’s earnings to be donated to the Diocese of New York.  Instead, during his tenure, Sheen donated over $10 million of his earnings to and raised hundreds of millions of dollars for, the Society.   

As Bishop of Rochester, Sheen created the Ecumenical Housing Foundation for the urban poor.  At the end of July 1967, Sheen took the contrary position to Cardinal Spellman and denounced the War in Vietnam. 
On October 6, 1969, a month after he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination, Sheen retired as Bishop of Rochester.  Pope Paul VI elevated him to Archbishop of Newport, a ceremonial title, and allowed him to return to New York City to continue his writing.  On October 2, 1979, two months before his death, Pope John Paul II visited Sheen at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and said, “You have written and spoken well of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Church.”

On December 9, 1979, shortly after an operation on his heart at Lenox Hill Hospital, Archbishop Sheen died in his private apartments in the presence of the Holy Sacrament.  He is buried in the crypt of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.  
 

Fr. Patrick Peyton was born in Attymass, County Mayo, Ireland, on January 9, 1909.  He died, holding a rosary, at the age of 83 on June 3, 1992, in San Pedro, California.  His rallies to pray the rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary earned him the nickname, the “Rosary Priest.”  On December 8, 2017, Pope Francis recognized his heroic virtues and declared him Venerable. 

Patrick Joseph Peyton was born the sixth son of nine children living on a subsistence farm in Ireland.  As a youth, he helped his father work the farm.  His elder sisters emigrated to find work in America and encouraged Patrick to join them.  Patrick and his brother Tom sailed for America on May 13, 1928.  Before their departure, their father dedicated them to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and their mother entrusted them to the care of Our Lady.  They settled with their sisters in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Both found work at St Peter’s Cathedral in Scranton and both became priests. 

Patrick obtained a B.A. degree at Notre Dame and pursued a graduate degree in theology at Catholic University.  In his second year, Patrick was diagnosed with tuberculosis and languished for a year with the disease in the infirmary of Notre Dame.   At a priest’s instruction, Peyton prayed a Rosary novena at the end of which he was cured by Our Lady’s intercession.  After his ordination on June 15, 1941, Patrick dedicated himself to Our Lady and to spreading the practice of the family Rosary.  

Fr. Peyton began the Family Rosary Crusade from his first parish in Albany, New York.  Radio broadcasts followed.  In a 1946 radio broadcast, Fr. Peyton declared that “The rosary is the offensive weapon that will destroy Communism and the great evil that seeks to destroy the faith.”  By 1948, Fr. Peyton began to travel around the world, hosting Rosary Rallies.  His message was to draw people into a deeper relationship with Mary and family prayer.  

During a priesthood that lasted over fifty years, Fr. Peyton preached to an estimated 28 million people, using radio, film, television, and the help of celebrities like Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and James Cagney, to reach a global audience.  Among his best-remembered phrases are: “The family that prays together stays together” and “A world at prayer is a world at peace.”

By his death on June 3, 1992, Fr. Peyton had produced more than 600 television and radio shows and three feature-length films on the life of Christ, divided into the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious mysteries of the Rosary.   Six months after his death, on December 8, 1992, in Manila, Philippines, Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin celebrated the Golden Jubilee of the Family Rosary Crusade. 

Fr. Peyton worked with the rich and the poor, the famous and the ignored, to promote prayer in the world.  His work continues through the Holy Cross Family Ministries which includes the Family Rosary and the Family Theater Productions.  
 

Fr. Félix Varela y Morales was born in Havana, Cuba, on November 20, 1788.  He died in St. Augustine, Florida, at the age of 64 on February 18, 1853.  Exiled from Cuba in 1823 for demanding the abolition of slavery and self-rule for Spain’s colonies, Fr. Varela served for thirty years in the Archdiocese of New York as vicar-general and advocate for Irish immigrants. On April 8, 2012, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints recognized his life as worthy of praise and declared him Venerable. 

Félix Varela grew up in St. Augustine, Florida where he moved after his mother died in childbirth.  He was raised by his grandfather, Lieutenant Bartolomé Morales, a commander of military forces in Spanish Florida.  He returned to Havana as a teenager where he attended San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary and the University of Havana.  At the age of 23 Félix was ordained in the Cathedral of Havana.   He joined the faculty of the seminary and taught philosophy, physics, and chemistry, distinguishing himself as a man of culture and learning with his publication of Miscelánea filosófica.

In 1821, Fr. Varela was elected to represent Cuba in the Spanish Parliament in Madrid.   He joined a petition for the independence of Latin America and published an essay arguing for the abolition of slavery in Cuba.  When King Ferdinand VII returned to power in Spain in 1823, Fr. Varela was sentenced to death for his positions against Spanish policies.  Before his arrest, Fr. Varela fled to Gibraltar and then to the United States.

Fr. Varela settled in New York City in 1823 and worked for the next 30 years in the Archdiocese of New York where in 1837 he was named Vicar General of the Diocese of New York, which at the time included all of New York State and northern New Jersey.  In this role, he assisted the large influx of immigrants to the United States, and especially those from Ireland.
 
In New York, Fr. Varela founded El Habanero, the first Spanish-language newspaper in the United States, and he published many essays on religious tolerance, the importance of education, and the need for cooperation between the Spanish and English-speaking communities.   In 1827, in what is today known as Chinatown, Fr. Varela founded the Church of the Immigrants, today known as the Church of the Transfiguration, which is home to his memorial.   

Fr. Varela was a theological consultant to the committee of American bishops who drew up the Baltimore Catechism, which remained the standard teaching tool for Catholic children in the United States for a century, until the 1960s.  For his work, he was awarded a Doctorate of Theology by St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 1848, Fr. Varela retired to St. Augustine Florida where he died five years later.   Sixty years after his death his body was returned to Cuba where it was buried in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana. 
 

Fr. Michael McGivney was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on August 12, 1852.  He died two days after his 38th birthday in Hartford, Connecticut in 1890.   He is known as the founder of the benevolent order of the Knights of Columbus.  On March 15, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI declared him a Venerable Servant of God and was beatified in Hartford on October 31, 2020. 

Michael McGivney was the oldest of six children born to Irish immigrant parents in Waterbury, Connecticut.  At the age of 13, he left school to work in a brass factory to support his family.  Three years later, he traveled to Quebec, Canada, with the pastor of his Catholic Church and entered the College of St. Hyacinthe to prepare for admission to Our Lady of Angels Seminary, in Niagara Falls, New York.   After Seminary, Michael McGivney enrolled in St. Mary’s College in Montreal which was run by the Jesuit Order.  He later transferred to St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland where, after four years, he graduated on December 22, 1877, and was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of the Assumption in Baltimore by Archbishop James Gibbons that same day. 

Fr. McGivney began his ministry as a curate at St. Mary’s Church, New Haven, Connecticut on Christmas Day 1877.  At St Mary’s he worked with the youth, holding catechism classes, and organizing an abstinence society to fight alcoholism.  In 1881 he began working with laymen to form a fraternal benevolent society to strengthen their religious faith and to provide for the financial needs of immigrant families who found themselves in financial difficulties caused by the illness or death of the family breadwinner.  This eventually led to the creation of the Knights of Columbus which held its initial organizational meeting in New Haven on February 7, 1882.   On March 29, 1882, the Connecticut legislature granted a charter to the Knights of Columbus as a legal corporation.  The Order’s principles were “Unity” and “Charity”, “Fraternity” and “Patriotism” were added later. 

When he died eight years later, the Knights of Columbus had fifty-seven councils, all of which sent representatives to his funeral at which the Bishop of Hartford presided and more than 70 priests from the Diocese of Connecticut attended.
Today the Knights of Columbus is a global service order with membership limited to practicing Catholic men.  Since its foundation, the Knights have opposed religious prejudice, particularly against Catholics.  The Knights support refugee relief, Catholic education, local parishes, and diocese, and promote the Catholic position against same-sex marriage, abortion, and birth control.  As of 2019, the Knights had nearly 2,000,000 members in over 16,000 councils worldwide.

To mark their hundredth anniversary in 1982, the Knights of Columbus brought the remains of Father McGivney from Waterbury back to St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, where he had founded the Order.
 

Emil Joseph Kapaun was born on April 20, 1916 in Pilsen, Kansas, and died on May 23, 1951 at the age of 35 in a prisoner of war camp in Pyoktong, North Korea.  His body was never recovered.   Fr. Kapaun served in the United States Army in the Pacific Theater, Burma campaign, during the Second World War, and in the Korean War.  During the Battle of Unsan in North Korea fought against Chinese troops on November 1-2, 1950, Fr. Kapaun distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism, patriotism, and selfless service.  On April 11, 2013, the 60^th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, President Barak Obama posthumously awarded Fr. Kapaun the Medal of Honor for his ministry to the men who he called “his boys”.  In his remarks, President Obama said, “Fr. Kapaun was an American soldier who never fired a gun, but who wielded the most important weapon of all: his readiness to die so that others could live.”  In 1993, Pope John Paul II named him a Servant of God.   

Emil Kapaun was the son of Enos and Elizabeth Kapaun, Czech immigrant farmers on the Kansas plain outside of Pilsen.   He attended Pilsen High School and Conception Abbey and Kenrick Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.   On June 9, 1940, Emil was ordained a priest in Newman University in Wichita, Kansas.  He served as a priest in his home parish of St. John Nepomucene in the Wichita Diocese and as pastor to the Herington Army Airfield near Herington, Kansas. 

In August 1944, Fr. Kapaun entered the US Army Chaplain School at Ft. Devins, Massachusetts.  After graduation he was sent to India where he served in the Burma Theater from April 1945 to May 1946.  He ministered to US soldiers and to local missions, traveling nearly 2,000 miles a month by jeep or plane.  He was released from active duty on July 1946 with the rank of Captain.  He earned a Master of Arts degree in education at Catholic University under the GI Bill.  In December 1949, he resumed his army chaplaincy at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.  

In January 1950, Fr. Kapaun became chaplain of the 8^th Cavalry Regiment, 1^st Cavalry Division, at their base in Japan.    Less than a month after North Korea invaded South Korea, on July 15, 1950, the regiment landed in Korea.  He accompanied the troops through months of fighting, earning a reputation for bravery as he rescued the wounded and the dead, ministered to the living by performing baptisms, hearing confessions, and offering Holy Communion and celebrating Mass on an altar set up on the front end of a Jeep.  

Fr. Kapaun accompanied the regiment as it pressed north, crossing the 38^th parallel on October 9, and capturing Pyongyang, 50 miles from the Chinese border.  On November 1, 1950, the Chinese sent 20,000 troops in a surprise attack at Unsan in North Korea.  During the Battle of Unsan, Fr. Kapaun moved from foxhole to foxhole under direct enemy fire, providing comfort and reassurance to the outnumbered soldiers.   He exposed himself to enemy fire as he recovered the bodies of wounded men, dragging them to safety.   When the commanders ordered the troops to evacuate, Fr. Kapaun stayed and tended to the wounded and the dying.  On November 2, 1950, Fr. Kapaun with those few remaining in his regiment were taken prisoner.  When he saw a Chinese officer with his weapon drawn to kill a wounded US soldier, Fr. Kapaun left his captor and stood between the Chinese officer to save the wounded US soldier’s life.  The Chinese forced the soldiers to walk 87 miles to a prison camp in North Korea.  Fr. Kapaun helped the wounded soldier whose life he had saved on that forced march and he encouraged the soldiers to help each other.  That soldier, Herbert A. Miller, sat in the front row at the White House ceremony when Fr. Kapaun was awarded the Medal of Freedom.  He said, “There is no other man like him, this side of heaven.”

Inside the dismal prisoner of war camp, Fr. Kapaun risked his life caring for the sick, foraging for food to feed the starving and for cover to protect the troops from the freezing cold.  He fashioned makeshift pots to boil their water to prevent dysentery.   He washed their clothes and tended to their wounds.  During the North Korean re-education programs, Fr. Kapaun patiently rejected every statement put forth by the instructors.  

At night he led the prisoners in prayer, said the Rosary, and administered the sacraments. His prayers convinced the soldiers to share and sustained their faith and their humanity.  One said his mere presence could turn a mud hut into a cathedral.

On Sunday, March 25, 1951, Fr. Kapaun celebrated Easter Mass although it was expressly prohibited.  As the sun rose, Fr. Kapaun held up a crucifix he had made from sticks.   He led the prisoners in the Lord’s Prayer and America the Beautiful, so loudly that other prisoners could hear and join in the service.  Their voices filed the Valley with song and prayer.  Fr. Kapaun offered the prisoners faith that they could be delivered from evil and make it home, that even in the midst of misery and despair, there was the hope of eternal truth, and that even in hell there was a touch of the divine.     

The guards ridiculed his faith and on at least one occasion brutally punished him, forcing him to stand outside for twenty-four hours, naked, in the freezing cold.  The brutality took its toll.  

On May 21, 1951, Fr. Kapaun, overcome by dysentery and pneumonia and too frail to walk, was transferred to a “death house” over the protests of his men.  On the stretcher as he left his men, Fr. Kapaun blessed his guards and asked God’s forgiveness for his captors.  He made his fellow prisoners promise to keep their faith.  He said that he was going where he had always wanted to go and that when he got there, he would pray for them.  Two days later he died, his body buried in a mass grave. 

Nearly two years later, the Korean War ended.  The prisoners, steeled by his example, had survived.  On their first day of freedom, Fr. Kapaun’s “boys” left camp carrying a four-foot high crucifix that they had carved from collected firewood, using radio wire for the crown of thorns.  They made it as a tribute to the chaplain who had touched their souls and saved their lives.  They remember him as a shepherd in combat boots, a saint, and a blessing of God.

Symbols: Chaplain cross, combat boots, Mass vestments, the Rosary

Feast Day celebrated on May 23 

Patron of Military chaplains

Robert Vincent Capodanno was born on February 13, 1929 in Staten Island, New York.  He was killed on September 4, 1967 at the age of 38 helping the wounded and dying in the battle of Thang Binh, Que Son Valley, South Vietnam.   In a ceremony on January 7, 1969, President Lyndon Johnson awarded Fr. Capodanno posthumously the Medal of Honor in recognition of his heroic actions above and beyond the call of duty and selfless sacrifice.  The first chapel bearing his name was dedicated on Hill 51 in the Que Son Valley, Vietnam, on the site where Fr Capodanno had constructed a chapel made of palm leaves and bamboo.  On May 21, 2006, Fr. Capodanno was designated a Servant of God.

Robert Vincent was the tenth and youngest child of Vincent Robert (Sr.) and Rachel Basile Capodanno, Italian immigrants.  His father died on his tenth birthday.   He studied at Curtis High School and frequently attended daily Mass before classes.   During a retreat in his first year at Fordham University, Robert Vincent determined he had a calling to the priesthood.  In 1949 he entered the Maryknoll Missionary Seminary in Ossining, New York and was ordained a priest on June 14, 1958.

Fr. Capodanno’s first assignment was in Taiwan where he served for six years in a parish and as a missionary to aboriginal mountain people.  He learned the difficult Hakka Chinese language while he administered the sacraments, taught native catechists, and distributed food and medicine. 

On his return to the United States he requested to serve as a military chaplain in Vietnam. On December 28, 1965 Fr. Capodanno was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Navy Chaplain Corps. After completing Officer Candidate School, In April 1966 during Holy Week he was assigned to the 1^st Battalion, 7^th Marines, 1^st Marine Division in South Vietnam.   He served both the young, enlisted troops and in the medical battalion for one year.  He lived, ate, and slept with this unit.  He established libraries, organized outreach to local villagers, reassured the weary, heard confessions and administered the sacraments.  After a one-month leave, he returned to Vietnam for a second tour.   He was widely known for his willingness to share the hardships of war and for “radiating Christ” to those around him.

On September 4, 1967 at 4:30 am during Operation Swift his division encountered a large North Vietnamese Army unit of 2,500 men near the village of Dong Son.  By 9:14 am 26 Marines were confirmed dead and the commander requested further reinforcements.  Fr. Capodanno went among the wounded and the dying Marines giving medical aid and administering the last rites.  Despite multiple wounds to his hands, arms and legs from an exploding mortar, Fr. Capodanno refused medical evacuation.  He directed corpsmen with calm vigor and offered constant encouragement.  When he saw a seriously wounded Navy corpsman in the direct line of fire of an enemy machine gun, Fr. Capodanno rushed to his aid.   Within inches from his goal, Fr. Capodanno was killed by machine gun fire.   His body was recovered and interred in his family’s plot in St. Peter’s Cemetery on Staten Island.  

Hehàka Sàpa was born on December 1, 1863 in Little Powder River which is today part of Wyoming.   He died on August 19, 1950 on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota at about 84 years of age.   For the last twenty years of his life, he worked as a catechist of the Roman Catholic Church in the Diocese of Rapid City, South Dakota.  He arranged for the baptism of hundreds of Sioux and other Native Americans, preaching Christianity in their native tongue.   On the petition of his Diocese, in November 2017, Nicholas Black Elk was designated as a Servant of God for his work to share the Gospel with Native people and to harmonize the Christian faith with the Lakota culture.  

Nicholas Black Elk was born into an Oglala Lakota family.  His ancestors were medicine men and healers.  When he was 9 years old, he became very ill during which he had various visions which were interpreted as seeing the unity of all life.  

Black Elk participated in the two epic battles fought by the Native tribes against the US Army.  In the Battle of Little Big Horn in the Crow Reservation in southeast Montana Territory (June 25-26, 1876) also called Custer’s Last Stand, the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho people defeated the US Army.  Black Elk was 12 years old when Custer led 700 soldiers against a combined force of Native warriors led by Crazy Horse.  Black Elk, a cousin of Crazy Horse, fought on behalf of the Native tribes.   In his memoirs, Black Elk recalled scalping a wounded US soldier, stating “I was not sorry at all.  I was happy.”  In the Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota (December 29, 1890), the US Army fought Lakota warriors at the end of which 250 tribesmen and 25 US soldiers died.   When the US Army was sent to disarm the Lakota, Black Elk joined the native warriors who charged the soldiers.   He also helped to rescue some wounded members of his tribe. 

Between 1887 and 1889, Black Elk traveled to England, France, and Germany where he performed Native dances with traveling troupes, including Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.  He performed for Queen Victoria and was among the crowd that celebrated her Jubilee.  He learned English and studied the “white man’s way of life”.  

In 1892, Black Elk married Katie War Bonnet.  She converted to Roman Catholicism and their three children were baptized as Catholics.   After Katie’s death in 1904, Black Elk, then in his 40s, converted to Roman Catholicism.  Baptized on the Feast of St. Nicholas, he took his saint’s name.   Nicholas Black Elk became a catechist, teaching others about Christianity.  Nicholas Black Elk married again in 1905 to Anna Briggs White, a widow with two daughters.  They had three other children who were also baptized and raised Catholic, because “they had to live in this world.” By all accounts after his baptism, he lived a model Christian life. 

In the early 1930s ethnologists John Neihardt and Joseph Epes Brown recorded their conversations with Nicholas Black Elk, publishing them in Black Elk Speaks.   Nicholas Black Elk discussed his religious views, visions, and the events of his life.   His son, Ben, translated the stories into English and his daughter Enid arranged them in chronological order.   First published in 1932, Black Elk Speaks was republished most recently in 2008 by State University of New York.  In 1947, working with Joseph Epes Brown, he published The Sacred Pipe to record the seven sacred rites of the Sioux.  

According to John Neilhardt’s daughter, Hilda, Nicholas Black Elk stated on his death bed that “The only thing I really believe is the pipe religion.”  His granddaughter, Charlotte, does not believe that he should be sanctified because she doubts that he ever held Catholic beliefs.  But, his grandson, George Looks Twice said that Black Elk practiced both his native religion and Catholicism; praying with the pipe as well as the rosary; participating in the Lakota ceremonies as well as the Mass.  

In 1980, the US Congress created the Black Elk Wilderness in the Black Hill National Forest and re-named Harney Peak as Black Elk Peak, the highest point in South Dakota.  Both honor his memory as a spiritual man attached to the Oglala land.  

Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn Heights, New York, on November 8, 1897.  She died at the age of 83 in Maryhouse on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, on November 29, 1980.  A later convert to Catholicism, Day had a life-long compassion for the poor and the homeless.  She was also a convinced feminist and pacifist.  A prolific writer and social activist, Day started the Catholic Worker Movement which provided a social program for the material welfare, as well as the spiritual needs, of the working class, the poor, and the homeless.   

Pope John Paul II in March 2000 granted permission to the Archdiocese of New York to open her cause allowing her to be called a Servant of God.   On September 24, 2015, Pope Francis became the first Pope to address a joint session of the United States Congress.   In his speech he mentioned four Americans who worked to change the world for the better: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr, Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day.  Of Day he said, “Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith and the example of the Saints.”

Dorothy Day was born into a middle-class family.  Her father, John Day, was a journalist and his work took the family from New York, to San Francisco to Chicago.  Her parents, nominal Christians, allowed Dorothy to attend the Episcopal Church in Lincoln Park, Chicago, where Dorothy was baptized and confirmed in that church in 1911.   Dorothy spent two years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She then moved to New York and settled on the Lower East Side at the age of 18.   There she met Eugene O’Neill who she credited with producing “an intensification of the religious sense in me”.  Day was an avid reader which bolstered her passion for social activism.

Her early life was chaotic and troubled.  She had various affairs and lovers; in February 1921 she had an abortion that she described as “the great tragedy” of her life.  Abbie Hoffman called her the “original hippie”.    In 1925, again pregnant, Day moved to Florida to be with her mother.  Her daughter, Tamar Teresa, was born on March 4, 1926.  During her pregnancy, Day explored Catholicism causing her to separate from the child’s father who was not interested in religion or in parenthood.   Their daughter was baptized in the Catholic Church in July 1927 and Dorothy Day was baptized six months’ later, on December 28, 1927.  

After the crash of 1929, Day worked as a journalist and marched for worker’s rights and looked for Catholic leadership for works of mercy.    At the height of the Great Depression, Dorothy Day together with Peter Maurin, a Catholic with some theology training, began publishing The Catholic Worker on May 1, 1933. Priced at one cent, The Catholic Worker has been published continuously ever since.   Its publication was supported by a $1 donation from Sister Peter Claver, for whom a Catholic Worker house was later named.   The Catholic Worker covered strikes, explored working conditions especially for women and African Americans, and advocated federal child labor laws.   It also took a rigorously pacifist position, breaking with the “just war” position of the Catholic Church, opposing the Church’s alliance with Franco in the Spanish Civil War and opposing American intervention in World War II.  The Catholic Worker presented a Christian response to The Daily Worker, a communist publication which was atheistic and advocated class hatred and violent revolution.  

In the 1960s, Day supported the nationalist policies of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Ho Chi Minh in Viet Nam.  She supported Cesar Chavez’s movement of farm workers in California.   At one point she wrote, “It is not just Vietnam, but South Africa, Nigeria, the Congo Indonesia, all of Latin America… “what are all these Americans doing all over the world so far from our own shores?”  Her positions put her frequently at odds with the Catholic hierarchy, especially with the powerful Cardinal Spellman of New York.  

Day expanded the Catholic Worker beyond publishing and established a “house of hospitality” to provide shelter, food, and clothing to the poor of the Lower East Side.  She then created a series of farms for communal living of which more than 30 independent but affiliated Catholic Worker communities were founded by 1941.

In the early 1940s, Day professed as a Benedictine oblate at St. Procopius Abbey in Lisle, Illinois.  She followed this spiritual practice for the rest of her life.

In 1952, Day published her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, of which a reviewer in The New York Times on January 17, 1960 wrote: “The autobiography well and thoughtfully told of a girl with conventional upstate New York background whose concern for her neighbors, especially the unfortunate, carried her into the woman’s suffrage movement, socialism, the IWW, communism and the Church of Rome where she became a co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement.”   In 1963, Day published Loaves and Fishes, her account of the Catholic Worker movement.

In 1971 the Interracial Council of the Catholic Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, gave Day their Pacem in Terris award; in 1972, the University of Notre Dame awarded her its Laetare Medal; in 1976, Franciscan University of Steubenville awarded her its Poverello Medal, together with Mother Teresa who Day had traveled to India to meet earlier in 1971.  In 1972 the Jesuit magazine America marked her 75^th birthday by devoting an entire issue to Day and the Catholic Worker movement.   In 1974 Boston’s Paulist Center Community named her the first recipient of their Isaac Hecker Award given to a person committed to building a more just and peaceful world.

In Day’s last public appearance on August 6, 1976, she was invited to speak at a service honoring the US Armed Forces in Philadelphia as part of the Bicentennial celebrations of the United States.  She spoke about reconciliation and penance and castigated the organizers for failing to recognize that the date, August 6, was the anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  

Day died of a heart attack on November 29, 1980.    Cardinal Terence Cooke, of New York, attended her funeral at the Church of the Nativity, her local parish, and later celebrated her memorial Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Her daughter, Tamar, by then the mother of nine children, was at her side as was her father, with whom Day had remained lifelong friends.

Sister Thea Bowman was born on December 29, 1937 in Yazoo City, Mississippi.  She died on March 30, 1990 at the age of 52 in Canton, Mississippi.  Sister Thea, an educator and scholar, was the only African American sister in the Franciscan Order of Perpetual Adoration.   She evangelized, and advocated for, African Americans in the Roman Catholic Church.  Sister Thea assisted in the production of an African American Catholic hymnal and helped to establish the National Black Sisters Conference to support African Americans in Catholic religious institutes.  On the petition of her diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, Sister Thea Bowman was declared a “servant of God”; Bishop Joseph Kopacz opened the investigation of her sainthood at a special Mass celebrated at the Cathedral of St. Peter Apostle on November 18, 2018.  

Bertha Elizabeth Bowman was the only child of Theon, a physician whose father had been a slave, and Mary Esther, a teacher whose mother has been a teacher and principal of a school.  Although her parents were practicing Methodists, they sent Thea to the Holy Child of Jesus School in Canton, Mississippi as soon as the sisters of the Order of Perpetual Adoration established the mission school.  “Because my mother wanted me to have a chance in life…” Sister Thea recalled.  From her teachers she developed a desire to become a Roman Catholic and a calling to religious life attracted by the Order’s service to the poor and the needy.   At age 15, Thea left her home in Mississippi and travelled to La Crosse, Wisconsin, the mother house of the Order of Perpetual Adoration, despite the misgivings of her parents who did not believe that the all-white Order would welcome her as a black woman.  She studied to become a teacher at Viterbo College in LaCrosse while preparing to enter the St. Rose Convent.  

Bertha entered the Order of Perpetual Adoration in 1953; in 1956 she took the name Sister Thea ("of God").  Sister Thea received a doctorate in English Language, Literature, and Linguistics from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.   She taught grade school, high school and college in La Crosse, WI, Canton, MS and at the Catholic University of America in DC.  Rooted in her cultural traditions and her faith, Sister Thea came to understand all education as religious education.  She helped children to grow in awareness of their gifts, their cultural heritage, and their heritage as children of God.

Returning to Mississippi in 1978 to help care for her aging parents, Sister Thea was appointed to direct the Office of Intercultural Affairs for the Diocese of Jackson by Bishop Joseph Bernard Brunini.  She was a founding faculty member of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans.

Sister Thea Bowman was a highly acclaimed evangelist, singer and writer who lived her life with the joy of the Gospel, enduring faith, and persevering prayer even in the midst of racial prejudice, cultural insensitivity and debilitating illness. Her personal holiness witnessed to the faith and endurance of her ancestors, the hope expressed in spirituals, compassion for the poor and marginalized, her devotion to the Eucharist, and the radical love embodied by St. Francis of Assisi. Asked how she made sense of suffering, she answered, “I don’t make sense of suffering. I try to make sense of life…I try each day to see God’s will…”

Sister Thea evangelized and catechized through song, dance, poetry, drama, and story, communicating joy, freedom, and pride.  Renowned for her preaching, Sister Thea took her message nationwide, speaking at 100 venues a year until spreading cancer slowed her.  Music was especially important to her. She would gather or bring a choir with her and often burst into song during her presentations.  In addition to her writings, her music resulted in two recordings, “Sister Thea: Songs of My People” and “’Round the Glory Manger: Christmas Spirituals.”

In 1984, she lost both of her parents and was diagnosed with breast cancer.   Sister Thea continued a rigorous schedule of speaking engagements.  She wore a traditional African dress with a head scarf to cover the loss of her hair.    In 1989 she addressed the US Council of Bishops at Seton Hall University in East Orange, NJ, , arriving in a wheelchair.   She told the Bishops that the Church was her “home” and her “family of families”.  She explained what it meant to be African American and Catholic, highlighting the history of African Americans in the United States and of her people’s special heritage.  She urged the Bishops to evangelize in the African American community, to promote inclusivity and full participation of African Americans in the Church leadership.   She emphasized the importance of a Catholic education to African American children.  When she finished, Sister Thea invited the Bishops to hold hands with their arms crossed and to sing with her the spiritual “We Shall Overcome”, touching their hearts and their souls. 

When asked by her dear friend, Father John Ford, what he should say at her funeral, Sister Thea responded: “Tell them what Sojourner Truth said about her eventual death, ‘I’m not going to die. I’m going home like a shooting star.’” She did, peacefully at 5 o’clock in the morning of March 30, 1990, in Canton, Mississippi. Sister Thea said that she wanted inscribed on her tombstone the simple, yet profound words: “She tried.” “I want people to remember that I tried to love the Lord and that I tried to love them…” She was buried beside her parents and an uncle at the Elmwood cemetery in Memphis, Tenn.

Across the United States, schools, an education foundation to assist needy students attend Catholic universities, housing units for the poor and elderly, and a health clinic for the marginalized are named in her honor.  

Source: www.sistertheabowman.com, the official website for her cause for canonization

‘We unite ourselves with Christ’s redemptive work when we reconcile, when we make peace, when we share the good news that God is in our lives, when we reflect to our brothers and sisters God’s healing, God’s forgiveness, God’s unconditional love.’
 — Sister Thea Bowman

This is a snapshot of Canton, Mississippi, in Sister Thea's own words:

“Of the 18 states south of the Mason Dixon Line, I have visited only seven, and even in my home state, I have neither traveled nor observed extensively. But one little Deep South city I have known intimately and its people I have dearly loved. Of it and of them I shall tell you.

The place is Canton, a town of about 8,000, half of whose population is Negro. Its climate is moderate with a nine-month's season of growth and pasturage. Extensive heating and housing are not required. The average winter temperature is 53.6 degrees, but short spells of bitter cold are experienced, as are days of summer-like heat. Moisture is usually adequate, and magnolias, azaleas, camellias, oleander, crepe myrtle, and wisteria grace the city's streets.

Canton is an architectural conglomeration. Stately antebellum mansions of white Confederate descendants contrast sharply with ultramodern residences, neat bungalows and the small, dilapidated, almost uninhabitable dwellings of the very poor. Segregation is an invulnerable tradition. Whites have their streets and residential sections, as have the Negroes, and except for purposes of business, there is scant intercourse between the races. For this reason, the only people in Canton of whom I could hope to write are the Negroes. I lived across the road from white folks, shopped at their stores, passed them on the streets, but there was never a single southern white that I really knew….

What the white folks tell us is so much nonsense 'You can't have equal schools because you don't pay equal taxes. You don't pay equal taxes because you can't have equal jobs. You can't get paying jobs because you aren't educated, and if you are educated you're black, so what's the difference.' That's the vicious circle aspect of many a Cantonian Negro's existence. People who have not paying jobs, no matter how strong their backs, how lofty their ambitions, how sterling their ideals, cannot, simply cannot, better their conditions.

Many of the younger generation, really qualified to hold good positions and lead their people, become disgusted and leave the South for distant parts where they can work hard, rear their families without constant stress and live decent normal lives. Their desertion, which one can in no way censure, does nothing to better the Negro's position in Canton. My people need leaders, prudent, capable and strong. They are not clamoring for integration, but they want equal rights-jobs, educational facilities, equitable public services. Those who are able join the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], giving financial support to their attempts to secure justice for our race. Some few complain, others pray, more simply wait.

Politically, we can do nothing. We cannot serve as senator, representative, jurist, policeman, constable or county clerk. Mississippi has granted Negroes the right to vote, but their voting is discouraged. I lived through the days when Senator Bilbo paraded up and down Main Street-his resolve to keep "niggers" away from the polls. I was not old enough to vote, but I am old enough to remember the Bilbo cartoons that plagued our papers and my elders' conversations of deceit, trickery and violence used against Negroes at Mississippi polls …

One thing that will ever strike me as an anomaly is this: Though most of Canton's white inhabitants professedly look upon their dark skinned brothers as an inferior breed, they pride themselves on the number and efficiency of the Negro servants they hire to clean their homes, cook their food and rear their children. Some wealthy families hire a Negro maid, laundress, gardener, housekeeper, one or more 'nurses' for the children, one or more cooks. Uniformed servants in starched white, black, or blue, with dainty aprons and frilly collars are a familiar early morning sight.

Negro servants are always made to feel like servants. They are hired help. They use the servant's entrance, eat their meals alone, refrain from conversation with visitors, respond to requests with a little bow and a polite 'Yes, Ma'am,' do their work silently and well. Southern etiquette demands that this be so, and neither servants nor masters would wish things differently. In some cases, Negro servants work in a family for generations and are passed on like treasured heirlooms. But in other instances, people, forced by necessity to take the first jobs available, are unmercifully exploited. Wages are low-sometimes less than 15 cents an hour, and work is all too strenuous ….

My people have more than their share of unwed mothers and what most amazes outsiders is that these girls and women are not social outcasts. They rear their own children and many eventually marry. Why are unwed mothers so common? One can only conjecture. Maybe it is a foggy conception of the moral law, maybe a hangover from slave days when men and women were mated like cattle or the later age of common law love, maybe a demonstration of the fact that when human beings are denied normal and licit pleasures they descend to those which are natural but illegitimate.

Through the centuries my people have been a starry-eyed happy people of hope-hope for the future and for better days.”

Notes from unpublished work by Charlene Smith, FSPA and John Feister. c.2008.

https://www.biola.edu/talbot/ce20/database/thea-bowman

Miriam Teresa Demjnaovich was born on March 26, 1901 in Bayonne and died at the age of 26 on May 8, 1927 at Convent Station (Morristown), both in the State of New Jersey.   Her saintly life, her striving for perfection in her religious life, her spiritual writings and the favors received by others after her death through her intercession, encouraged the Sisters of Charity to petition Rome for permission to open a cause for her beatification.  In 1945, the Bishop of the Diocese of Paterson, in which the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity is located, began the process of discernment.    On May 10, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed her a Venerable together with Bishop Frederic Baraga (see Panel 7).    Sister Miriam was beatified on October 4, 2014 by Cardinal Angelo Amato in at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Newark, NJ.  

Miriam was the seventh child of Alexander Demjanovich and Johanna Suchy, Rutherian immigrants from what is today Slovakia.  She received Baptism, Chrismation, and First Holy Communion in the Ruthenian Rite of the Catholic Church at St Joseph the Baptist Parish.  Growing up beside the oil refineries of Bayonne, she graduated from public high school in 1917.  She stayed home to nurse her mother who became ill and eventually died from influenza during the epidemic of 1918.  Miriam then entered the College of Saint Elizabeth at Convent Station, graduating with a major in literature in June 1923.  During her time in college, Miriam exhibited genuine humility, piety, and a strong devotion to the rosary.  After graduation, she taught at the Academy of Saint Aloysius in Jersey City while she discerned her vocation.   

Encouraged by her brother Charles, a Roman Catholic priest, Miriam entered the teaching order of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth and received her religious habit on May 17, 1925.   As a postulant and novice, Miriam taught at the Academy of Saint Elizabeth in Convent Station.  At the suggestion of her Spiritual Director, she turned her twenty-six conferences regarding her novitiate and striving for spiritual perfection into a book entitled Greater Perfection.  She became ill in November 1926 with physical and nervous exhaustion and acute appendicitis.  Her final vows were made in articulo mortis (in danger of death) before an appendectomy operation took her life on May 8, 1927.    

Stanley Francis Rother was born on March 27, 1935 in Okarche, Oklahoma.  He was murdered at the age of 46 in his Rectory in Santiago Atitlan, Guatamala, on July 28, 1981.   His death, for which no one was held responsible, shocked the Catholic world.    His Cause for Canonization was opened by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City in 2007; on Dec. 1, 2016, Pope Francis officially recognized Father Rother as a martyr for the faith, the first US born priest to be so beatified.  The Rite of Beatification was held on Sept. 23, 2017, in downtown Oklahoma City, attended by more than 20,000 people from around the world.

Stanley Rother was the eldest child of Franz and Gertrude Rother and raised doing the chores required of a child on a farm.  Stanley attended Holy Trinity Catholic Church and School, played sports, and was an altar server.   After high school, Stanly attended Assumption Seminary in San Antonio, Texas, completing his studies at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.   He was ordained a priest on May 25, 1963 and returned to Oklahoma where Fr. Rother served as associate pastor for five years in his home parish.  

In 1968, Fr. Rother joined the staff of the Oklahoma diocese’s mission in Santiago Atitlan, Guatamala.  He served the native tribe of the Tz’utujil, descendants of the Mayans.   Father Rother learned Spanish and the Tz’utujil language in Guatemala. He celebrated Mass in their language and helped translate the New Testament.
 
 Among the Tz’utujil, Father Rother was surrounded by extreme poverty.  The people lived in one-room huts and grew what they could on small plots of land. He ministered to his parishioners in their homes: eating with them, visiting the sick and aiding them with medical issues. He put his farming skills to use by helping them in the fields, bringing in different crops, and building an irrigation system.
 
 While he served in Guatemala, a civil war raged between the military government forces and the guerrillas. The Catholic Church was caught in the middle as a result of the church’s insistence on catechizing and educating the people. During this conflict, thousands of Catholics were killed. Eventually, Father Rother’s name appeared on a death list. For his safety and that of his associate, Father Rother returned home to Oklahoma. He did not stay long, however.  Fr. Rother was determined to return to his people, stating “the shepherd cannot run.” He returned to Santiago Atitlan to continue the work of the mission.
 
 Within a few months, three men entered the rectory around 1 a.m. on July 28, 1981 and executed Father Rother.  The people of Santiago Atitlan mourned the loss of their leader and friend.  Although his body was returned to Oklahoma, his people requested that Father Rother’s heart be kept in Guatemala where it remains enshrined today.
 

See website of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City: https://archokc.org/stanleyrother

Father Francis Xavier Seelos was born on January 11, 1819 in Füssen in Bavaria, Germany.  He died on October 4, 1867 at the age of 48 in New Orleans, Louisiana, from yellow fever which he contracted ministering to the victims of this disease.  Fr. Seelos, a Redemptorist priest who worked as a missionary in the United States, was beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 9, 2000. 

Francis Xavier was one of twelve children born to Mang Seelos and Franziska Schwarzenbach.  He was baptized in his parish church of St. Mang and studied at the Institute of Saint Stephen in Augsburg.  He attended university in Munich where he studied philosophy.  He entered seminary on September 19, 1842, having been called to the priesthood since childhood.  On November 22, 1842, he entered the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists, see St. Alphonsus Liguori Panel 34) in Altöttling with the express desire to work as a missionary to German immigrants in the United States.   He sailed from LeHavre, France, arriving in New York on April 20, 1843 where he completed his novitiate and theological studies.   Seelos was ordained a priest in the Redemptorist Church of St. James in Baltimore, Maryland.

Fr. Seelos’s first assignment was at St. Philomena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a curate, assistant pastor, and Novice Master under St. John Neumann (Panel 5).  Of the Saint, Fr. Seelos said “he introduced me to the active life…and guided me as spiritual director and confessor.”  

Fr. Seelos spoke English fluently as well as German and French and heard confessions in these languages.  His availability and innate kindness made him popular among the faithful.  He lived simply and preached with a clarity understood regardless of education, culture or background.  Fr. Seelos was described as a man with a constant smile and a generous heart, especially towards the needy and marginalized.  In all he did, Fr. Seelos maintained a deep devotion to Our Lady. 

In 1854 Fr. Seelos was transferred to Maryland and appointed, in 1854, pastor of St. Alphonsus Church in Baltimore; in 1857, Prefect of Students at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Cumberland; and in 1862, Pastor and Prefect for Students at St. Mary’s in Annapolis.  He believed that this ministry was fundamental for the growth of the Christian community in the parish.  He was prudently attentive to his students and conscious of their doctrinal formation.   While in Annapolis, Fr. Seelos met with President Abraham Lincoln to urge him to excuse seminarians from military service during the Civil War.  In 1860, Fr. Seelos was proposed as a candidate for the office of Bishop of Pittsburgh, but Pope Pius IX excused him from this responsibility.  

Beginning in 1863, Fr. Seelos dedicated himself to the life of an itinerant missionary preaching in English and in German to congregations in Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.  In 1866, he was assigned as Pastor of the Church of St. Mary of the Assumption in New Orleans, Louisiana.  After caring for victims of yellow fever there, Fr. Seelos contracted the disease of which he died on October 4, 1867.  His shrine is maintained in St. Mary’s Church of the Assumption, the first German Catholic Church in Louisiana.  

https://seelos.org/biography/

Feast Day: October 5

1. Father Luis De Quiros (m. February 4, 1571)
2. Scholastic Baptista Mendez (m. February 4, 1571)
3. Father Juan Baptista De Segura (m. February 9, 1571)
4. Scholastic Gabriel de Solis  (m. February 4, 1571)
5. Scholastic Cristobal Redondo (m. February 9, 1571)
6. Brother Pedro Linares (m. February 9, 1571)
7. Brother Gabriel Gomez (m. February 9, 1571)
8. Brother Sancho Zeballos (m. February 9, 1571)

On September 10th, 1570, thirty-seven years before the English settled Jamestown, a Spanish ship entered La Bahia de la Madre de Dios (the Bay of the Mother of God, today known as Chesapeake Bay) and deposited eight Jesuit missionaries on the shores of Ajacan (as the natives called Virginia).  Led by Father Juan Baptista de Segura, Vice-Provincial of the Jesuits in Florida, the group included the Jesuit Fr. Luis de Quiros, three Jesuit brothers, three novice brothers, and Alonso de Olmos, their altar server.   An Indian convert, Don Luis, acted as their guide and translator.

The Jesuits made their camp near the Indian village of Axacam which they named St. Mary’s Mission.  Previously believed to be located at Queen’s Creek near the York River, recent research indicates that St. Mary’s Mission was located where the Diascund Creek meets the Chickahominy River.  Both sites are near Jamestown, Virginia.

In 1953, Clifford M. Lewis, S.J. and Albert J. Loomie, S.J. published an account of the mission based on primary source material, including the record of the martyrdom of the eight missionaries as told by the only survivor, the fourteen year old Spanish boy, Alonso de Olmos.  His eye-witness testimony was written down by Fr. Juan Rogel who led the expedition to relieve the Jesuit missionaries in August 1572.   Fr. Rogel was based in St. Augustine, Florida, which had been established as a Spanish mission in 1565.  He had visited previous missions established by the Spanish as far north as Santa Elena (today Port Royal, South Carolina).   

The Jesuits landed without a military escort because, perhaps naively, Fr. De Segura had refused the protection of a military garrison.  Missionaries had come to believe that a chief problem in converting the Native populations to Christianity was the deplorable conduct of the Spanish colonial soldiers.   Correspondence between missionaries and their superiors in Spain lamented the drunkenness, physical abuse and sexual harassment of the Spanish soldiers.   Fr. De Segura also had trusted the assurances of the Indian convert, Don Luis, to protect him and his brothers.  

Don Luis was the son of an Algonkian chief in Ajacan.  Captured by the Spaniards in 1560 and taken to Spain, Don Luis was instructed by the Jesuits in the Catholic faith and baptized in honor of Luis de Velasco, the viceroy of Spain and his sponsor in baptism.  Don Luis told Fr. Segura that his uncle was a powerful chief who would welcome the mission and would provide material assistance for the Jesuits when they arrived.  Based on his assurances the Jesuits brought little food or other supplies from their final stop at Santa Elena.  Instead Br. Juan de la Carrera, a Jesuit missionary, supplied the mission with religious articles, including chalices, monstrances, and vestments for Mass.   Br. Carrera wrote that Fr. De Segura’s plans were “holy and sincere” but he warned that “Don Luis appeared to be a liar and a clever talker” who would abandon the missionaries, betray his promises and return to his tribe.  

In the only surviving correspondence sent via the captain who delivered the missionaries to Virginia, Fr. Quiros wrote that Don Luis had not remembered the exact location of his tribe.  When the Jesuits eventually contacted the Algonkians, the tribe believed that Don Luis was “raised from the dead”.   The natives, taller and fairer skinned than other tribes, were not as wealthy as Don Luis had led the Jesuits to believe.  In fact, contrary to the assurances of Don Luis, their existence was quite primitive.  Their clothing consisted of animal skins while others wore almost nothing except skirts made from grass or leaves.  The Algonkians had no knowledge of crop cultivation, harvest of storage.  In winter months they survived on berries and roots, until the earth itself provided food.

After the Spanish ship departed, Don Luis quickly lost the veneer of Christian civilization that he had acquired in Spain. He abandoned the missionaries, returning to live with the Natives in his uncle's village, about a day and a half away from where the mission had made camp.    Despite their lack of food or supplies, the Jesuits persisted in their mission. They set up a school for Indian boys and a chapel for daily Mass. The three novices made their professions into the Society of Jesus, the first recorded religious professions in the United States. 

The little community bartered with other villages trading copper and tin for maize until the beginning of February when word reached Fr. Segura that Don Luis had completely abandoned Christianity, had taken multiple wives and was living a Native “dissolute” lifestyle.  Fr. Segura sent several messages to Don Luis begging him to reform without response.   Fr. Segura then sent 

three of his companions, Fr. Luis Quiros and Brothers Gabriel de Solis and Brother Juan Baptista, to the village to speak with the chief and to persuade Don Luis to return to the mission.   Don Luis agreed.

After the three Jesuits left the village and, as they were walking to St. Mary’s Mission, Don Luis appeared on the road with a band of warriors.   He sent an arrow through the heart of Fr. Quiros and murdered the others.   

The Native warriors then hurried to Fr. Segura's encampment.  Don Luis stealthily confiscated all the tools and hatchets, leaving the Spaniards defenseless.   Don Luis assigned one native to each Spaniard, ensuring that they would be killed all at once without being able to combine in self-defense.  Br. Carrera, who had such grave premonitions about the mission the year before, said that the "wretched and perverse Don Luis attacked Father Baptista... to pay him back for the many kindnesses shown him." Fr. Segura lay ill in his hut on a grass mat. When his former Indian protégé entered, the priest greeted him joyfully: "You are very welcome, Don Luis!" The Indian replied with a series of axe blows to Segura's head and body. The other Jesuits were similarly dealt with. One of them, Br. Cristobal Redondo, was in the kitchen. He was described in disposition and speech as being "more of an angel than a man." When his appointed murderer suddenly appeared and wounded him, he cried out: "Help me, my Fathers, they are going to kill me." But it was too late.  

Alonso was held back by Don Luis's brother who hid the boy in a nearby hut.  He was possibly spared because he was only a youth and not an ordained religious.  Don Luis regretted this as Alonso was an eye-witness to the massacre, but Alonso managed to escape to a rival chief who lived close to the main coast of the Bay.   There Alonso waited over a year until the relief expedition arrived in August 1572, by which time he had nearly forgotten his own language. 

A Spanish supply ship arrived on the James River several months after the massacre.  The sailors saw some Indians on the shore dressed in Jesuit cassocks and vestments with patens around their necks, drinking from the gold chalices.  The Spaniards engaged the Indians and took some prisoners, from whom they discovered that Don Luis had led the tribe to murder the entire mission, with only the boy Alonso taken prisoner.  Enraged, the Spanish colonists in Florida made a northern expedition the following year, 1572.  They arrested Don Luis’s uncle, the chief, and several other members of the tribe.   The Spaniards demanded the release of Alonso and the delivery of Don Luis for punishment.  Both demands were ignored.  However, Alonso managed to escape by swimming from shore to the Spanish ship.   Don Luis was never heard from again. 

Thus, ended the Spanish attempts to settle in Virginia, and the first Jesuit mission in the New World. 

In 2002, the Diocese of Richmond opened the cause for the canonization of the Spanish Jesuit Martyrs of Virginia.  Fr. Russell E. Smith who learned of the martyrs as a boy growing up in Williamsburg, Va, is the postulator for the martyrs’ canonization.  The Virginia Historical Society and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities have lent scholarly support for evidence of the Spanish Mission.  St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in New Kent County has been designated by the Diocese as the new Shrine for the Jesuit Martyrs upon their anticipated canonization.   

Sources: 

Matthew M. Anger, “Spanish Martyrs for Virginia”, Seattle Catholic, August 30, 2003.  

Clifford M. Lewis, S.J. and Albert J. Loomie, S.J. The Spanish Jesuit Mission in Virginia, 1570-1572 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Virginia Historical Society, 1953).

Unum Sanctum Catholicam; http://www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/79-history/169-jesuit-martyrs-of-virginia.html

The life of John called the Baptist is recorded in all four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and in The Antiquities of the Jews, written by Flavius Josephus (c. 37 – c.100 AD), a Roman Jewish historian, c. 94 AD.  The Church celebrates John’s birthday on June 24^th, being 6 months earlier than that of Jesus, as recorded by Luke (1:36), in Judea in a place called Ein Kerem.  

Luke (1:5) begins his Gospel with John’s conception, thereby dating the beginning of the Christian Era to John when “Herod was king of Judea.”  John’s parents, Zachariah, a priest of the Temple, and his wife, a daughter of Aaron, named Elizabeth, are according to Luke, righteous before God, but elderly and childless because Elizabeth was barren.  Consequently, John’s conception, exactly like that of Jesus, was miraculous – only the Angel appeared to the man, Zachariah.  The Angel announced to Zachariah that his son would be named John and would be “filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb, to go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah”.  John’ purpose, according to the Angel, was “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”    

Luke (1:26-38) specifically links John’s conception directly to the conception of Jesus by Mary.  After the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive and bear the Son of the Most High, named Jesus, the Angel continued, “And behold, your cousin Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing will be impossible for God.”  

According to Luke, Mary left her home in Nazareth immediately after the Angel’s appearance.  It was John, true to his calling, who confirmed the Angel’s words to Mary when he “leapt” in his mother’s womb when he recognized His Lord in Mary’s womb.   Both Elizabeth and Mary understood the importance of this moment, and Mary recites the Magnificat, identifying the enormity of Her calling.  

Mary and Elizabeth each carried a miraculous child, and each nurtured their child’s respective ministries.  John’s ministry according to his father, Zachariah, was to go before the Lord and prepare His ways, to be a prophet of the Most High (Luke 1:68-79).  As John grew, he became strong in spirit and remained in the wilderness until his ministry became “manifest in Israel” (Luke 1:80).  Again, Luke specifies with great particularity the date when John’s ministry became manifest: in “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, when Herod was tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip was tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene and when Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests.”

John’s early life is recorded by all four synoptic Gospels, being the first chapters of Mark and John and the third chapters of Matthew and Luke.   All four report that John was preaching in the wilderness a baptism of repentance.  John called himself “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.   Make straight the way of the Lord.”   All four Gospels report that John attracted many followers among the Jews beyond the Jordan where he baptized with water.  All four report that John denied being the Messiah, instead identifying another whose shoes John said he was unworthy to tie.  

Matthew (3:13-17); Mark (1:9-11); Luke (3:21-22) and John 1 (29-34) then record the Baptism of Jesus by John, the descent of the Holy Spirit as Jesus rose from the waters of baptism, and the voice that came from Heaven stating, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  

Only the Gospel of John (1:35-35) records John as identifying Jesus to John’s disciples with the words, “Behold the Lamb of God”.   These words are recalled in Panel 22, which shows John pointing to the Host held by Saint Tarcisius.

John’s imprisonment by Herod follows quickly in all four Gospels (Matthew 4:12; Mark 1:14, Luke 4: 14, and John 4:1-3).  John remains in prison as Jesus’s public ministry expands.   Only Matthew (11:7-19) records Jesus’s testimony about John, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Luke (3:19-20) records that John was imprisoned by Herod the Tetrarch, because John reproved Herod for the evils he had done including marrying Herodias, his brother Phillip’s wife.  Only Matthew 14:3-12 and Mark 6:17-29 continue to record Herod’s banquet, Salome’s dance, and John’s death by beheading at the behest of Herodias, Salome’s mother.    This places the date of John’s death to the middle years of Jesus’s public ministry, c.31 - 32 AD.   

Josephus (Book 18, chapter 5:2) wrote that John was a good man who offered baptism as a means to purify the body and to obtain remission of sins.   Josephus wrote that Herod Antipas imprisoned and put John to death in the fortress of Machaerus.  Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great (c. 72 BC  - 1 AD) who ruled Judea on behalf of the Roman emperors, Julius and Augustus Caesar, when John and Jesus were born (Matthew 2:1).   

Only Luke (23:6-12) describes that the same Herod Antipas who murdered John also presided over one of the trials of Jesus during His Passion.  Luke writes that Herod Antipas questioned, accused, and mocked Jesus before sending Jesus back to Pilate to have Him Crucified.  Herod Antipas was exiled in 39 AD by the then Roman Emperor Caligula. 

The church commemorates the death of John the Baptist on August 29.    After John’s death, references to John in the Gospels cease.

Symbol: John wears a camel-skin robe, holds a cross and/or a lamb with a scroll on which is written “Ecce agnus dei” (Behold the Lamb of God)

Patron:  of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John of Jerusalem, of the country of Malta, and of the towns of Florence, Cesena, Turin, and Genoa in Italy, and of San Juan in Puerto Rico

Feast Day:  June 24 – Birth of John the Baptist; August 29 – Death of John the Baptist

Peter Julian Eymard was born in La Mure d-Isère near Grenoble, France, on February 4, 1811, and died there on August 1, 1868, at 57 years of age.  He founded two religious orders devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, one for men and the other for women.   Beatified by Pope Pius XI on July 12, 1925, Peter Julian Eymard was consecrated a Saint on December 9, 1962, by Pope John XXIII (Panel 31) at the conclusion of the first session of the Second Vatican Council.

Peter Julian Eymard was born to a blacksmith in the French Alps.  A sickly child, Peter suffered from weakness of the lungs and migraine headaches.   From his youth, he had an intense devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, visiting all of the Marian shrines in France during his lifetime.   When his mother died in 1828, Peter Julian sought to enter the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, but his ill health prevented his entry.  After his father’s death in 1833, Eymard entered the seminary of the Diocese of Grenoble and was ordained a priest on July 20, 1934.   

Eymard worked as a parish priest in various farming communities in the French Alps.  Few people attended Mass, the churches were dilapidated and the rectories in poor repair.  When Eymard arrived, he revitalized the parish, but ultimately decided that he was not interested in parish life.  

On August 20, 1837, Peter Juilan Eymard entered the Society of Mary seminary at Lyon and made his profession of faith to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Eucharist in 1840.  He rose to the position of Provincial in charge of a lay group dedicated to Marian spirituality which counted St. John Vianney (Panel 15) as a member.   During his travels through France, Eymard met with members of the Association of Nocturnal Adorers who established perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the Basilica of Our Lady of Victories (the cathedral which inspired Venerable Fr. Nelson Baker, Panel 7)   

At the Shrine of Our Lady of Fourviere, on January 21, 1851, Peter Julian committed himself to form a Marian community dedicated to devotion of the Blessed Sacrament as atonement for the sacrileges committed against the Blessed Sacrament.   Five years later, on May 13, 1856, Peter Julian Eymard, together with his friend, Fr. Raymond de Cuers, founded the Society of the Blessed Sacrament.  

On January 6, 1857, the two priests established a public exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in a run-down building at 114 rue d’Enfer in Paris.  The Congregation worked with children in Paris and prepared them for First Communion.   They also invited non-practicing Catholics to confession and to begin to receive Communion again.  The French sculptor, Auguste Rodin, entered the Congregation as a lay brother, after receiving confession and counsel from Fr. Eymard.  He later made a sculpture of the Saint.

Fr. Eymard was a tireless promoter of frequent communion.  “Holy communion should be, above all, the aim of Christian life…Every pious exercise that does not have some relationship with holy communion is not directed towards its main goal.”  To receive the Eucharist in communion fruitfully is an action that changes one’s life.  “Our Lord comes into us sacramentally in order to live there spiritually….He who receives holy communion, while previously he had just an idea of God, now he sees him, recognizes him at the holy Mass.”

Peter Julian Eymard was convinced that the power of prayer flowing from the Eucharist transforms lives.  He believed that Eucharistic adoration nourishes our faith, orients our commitment, and directs our apostolic activity “so that Christ’s reign may come, and the glory of God will be revealed to the world.”   (Rule of Life, #1)   He encouraged daily prayer directed toward four Eurcharistic attitudes:  Adoration, Thanksgiving, Forgiveness, and Intercession.  “The secret of true prayer is to discover God’s action and plans in His love for us!”   

Peter Julian Eymard is quoted as saying, “You take Communion to become holy, not because you already are.”

On January 10, 1969, Pope Paul VI (Panel 14) issued a Letter to the Superior General of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, praising the function of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass and declaring all those who do so make their Eucharistic Adoration in the name of the Church.  

Quotes from Saint Peter Julian Eymard, The Man & His Spirituality, by Flavio Fumagalli, SSS (Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, Emmanuel Publishing, 1999)

Symbol: Eucharist, Monstrance, Eucharistic Adoration, Cope, Humeral Veil,

Patron:  Eucharistic Congress, Real Presence, Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, Servants of the Blessed Sacrament

Feast Day: August 2

Tarcisius lived in Rome during the Christian persecutions under Emperor Valerian (253-259 AD).  He was a young acolyte or altar server, who was martyred in the Roman Forum bringing the Eucharist to prisoners and the sick during the persecution of Christians.    He was buried among the early Christian martyrs in the Catacombs of Rome over which the Church of San Silvestro in Capite stands today. 

At the right of the entrance to San Silvestro in Capite is an inscription in stone that dates to the 8^th century.  The inscription, taken from an earlier writing of Pope Damasus I (366 – 384 AD), is the only record of Tarcisius’s life and reads:

Whoever you are who read this, know that equal merit must go to two men, to whom after they have won their reward, Pope Damasus is giving their titles.  Stephen, the faithful Levite, stoned by the Jewish people, was the first to snatch the trophy of martyrdom from his enemy.  Tarcisius, when carrying the Blessed Sacrament, though injured, preferred to give up his life rather than yield the Sacred Species to rabid dogs.  

St Stephen (Panel 1) was a deacon whose life and martyrdom are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6 to 9.  Tarcisius lived some two hundred years later but was beaten to death for those same beliefs in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

Symbol: a young man holding the Host,  

Patron:  Altar servers and first communicants

Feast Day: August 15

Maria Faustina Kowalska was born on August 25, 1905, in Glogowiec, Poland.  She died in Krakow, Poland, on October 5, 1938, at the age of thirty-three.   Throughout her life, Maria Faustina had visions of Jesus and conversations with Him which she noted in her diary, published as The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska Divine Mercy in My Soul.  She is venerated throughout the world as the Apostle of the Divine Mercy.   She was canonized by Pope John Paul II (Panel 27) on April 30, 2000.

Born Helen Kowalska, the third of ten children, into a peasant family, she says she was called to the religious life during Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament when she was seven years old.  Her family prohibited her from entering a convent after finishing elementary school because they needed her salary as a housekeeper to help support their family.    

Her first vision of Jesus occurred at a dance in Lodz which Helen, then 19, attended with her sister, Natalia.   At the dance, a suffering Jesus instructed Helen to enter a convent in Warsaw, Poland.  Helen left Lodz immediately traveling to Warsaw by train without a suitcase or asking her parent’s permission.  When she arrived at Warsaw, she had only the dress she had worn to the dance.  In Warsaw she went to Mass at the first church she found near the train station.   She asked the parish priest for directions to a convent.   Several convents rejected her because she was poor and had little education.   After a few weeks of searching, the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy permitted her entry, on the condition that she pay for her religious habit.   Helen worked as a housemaid, depositing the money she earned with the convent to meet this financial obligation.   

On April 30, 1926, when she was 20 years old, Helen entered the convent in the habit she had purchased with her servants wages.  He novitiate ended in 1928.  She took the name, Sister Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament.   

Her second vision occurred in a convent in Plock, after she had recovered from a serious illness.  On the night of Sunday February 22, 1931, Maria Faustina had a vision of Jesus wearing a white garment with red and pale rays emanating from his heart.  She wrote that Jesus told her to

“Paint an image according to the pattern that you see, with the signature “Jesus I trust in You”.  I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel and then throughout the world.  I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish.”

Jesus also told her that he wanted this image to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter which He wished to be celebrated as the Feast of Mercy.

In May 1933, Sister Faustina was sent to Vilnius, Lithuania, where she lived for three years, working as a gardener.  In Vilnius she met Fr. Michael Sopocko, who was a professor of theology at the Vilnius University as well as confessor for Maria Faustina’s Convent.   When he heard Maria Faustina’s confession about her visions, he asked her to be evaluated by a psychiatrist who declared her of sound mind.    Fr. Sopocko encouraged Sister Faustina to keep a diary to record her conversations with Jesus.  

The first Divine Mercy image was produced after a meeting between Sister Faustina and Fr. Soposko in January 1934, by an artist at Vilnius University, Eugene Kazimierowski.   The image was displayed on April 28, 1935, the second Sunday of Easter, at a Mass celebrated by the Archbishop of Vilnius in the Gate of Dawn Church.  

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy was written by Sister Faustina based on a vision on September 13, 1935.   Sister Faustina was told that the purpose of the Chaplet was to pray for mercy, to trust in Christ’s mercy, and to show mercy to others.  

Sister Faustina was transferred to a Convent in Warsaw in March of 1936.  In that same year, Fr. Sopocko wrote the first brochure about the Divine Mercy under the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Vilnius.  The image of the Divine Mercy appears on its cover.  Fr. Sopocko became the main promoter of Sister Faustina’s visions when Sister Faustina became ill again with tuberculosis.   She spent the last years of her life in a sanatorium in Pradnik, Krakow where she prayed, recited the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and kept her diary.  

In a vision on March 23, 1937, Sister Faustina wrote that the feast of Divine Mercy would be celebrated by large crowds in her chapel and also by the Pope in Rome.  Additional pamphlets with the prayers and image of the Divine Mercy were published in 1937 with the support of Sister Faustina’s Superior.   

Sister Faustina predicted that “there will be a war, a terrible, terrible war” and asked the nuns to pray for Poland.  That war began in 1939, a year after Sister Faustina’s death.  The devotion to the Divine Mercy became a source of strength for the people of Poland during the tragedy of World War II.  

Sister Faustina died in the Convent in Krakow at the age of 33 on October 5, 1928.  She is buried in Krakow in the Basilica of Divine Mercy.  

Symbol: habit of the Order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy

Patron:  Divine Mercy

Feast Day:  October 5

Francisco Luis Febres-Cordero y Muñoz was born on November 7, 1854, in Cuenca, Azuay, Ecuador; he died in Barcelona, Spain at the age of 55 on February 9, 1910.   He joined the Brothers of the Christian Schools, known as the LaSalle Brothers, taking as his religious name, Miguel.   Beatified by Pope Paul VI on October 30, 1944, Brother Miguel was canonized by Saint Pope John Paul II on October 21, 1984, in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Francisco Luis Febres-Cordero y Muñoz was born into a wealthy and politically prominent family.   His feet deformed from birth left him unable to stand or to walk without crutches.  When he was five years old, he had a vision of the Mary, Mother of God, and his feet were cured.  Three years later, his life was saved from an attack by a wild bull.  He was educated by his mother, until her death when he was nine.  After which he was cared for by his stepmother who enrolled him in a school in Cuenca that was run by the Brothers of the Christian Schools.  The Order was devoted to the education of youth, beginning with the least fortunate.  Their lives were devoted exclusively to teaching and the Brothers renounced the priesthood.    

Despite the opposition of his father, when he was sixteen, Francisco joined the Brothers of the Christian Schools as a lay brother and received his habit on the Feast of the Annunciation, 1868.    He took as his religious name, Miguel.   Miguel taught at the school run by the Brothers in Quito for nearly forty years.  He published his textbook which became a standard text in Ecuador.  He also wrote Spanish grammars, teaching manuals, philosophy texts, poems, and catechisms.  Brother Miguel received international renown worldwide as an educator and was elected to the educational academy of Ecuador in 1892 and later in France and in Venezuela.

In 1888 Brother Miguel represented the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Rome when Pope Leo XIII beatified their founder, John Baptist de la Salle.  For his Order, Brother Miguel conducted retreats, prepared children for their First Communion, and served as novice director between 1901 and 1904.  In 1905, he was called to Belgium where the mother house of the LaSalle Brothers relocated after they were expelled from France the year before.  In Belgium, Brother Miguel translated texts written by LaSalle from French into Spanish.  Brother Miguel also taught courses, prepared texts and directed teaching.  While in Belgium, Brother Miguel’s health began to fail, and the Order transferred him to Barcelona where he died of pneumonia in 1910.  

Brother Miguel was acclaimed for the joyful simplicity of his life.  As a catechist he brought many to the Catholic faith.   

The cause for his beatification was opened in Ecuador, and Pope Pius XI declared Brother Miguel a Servant of God in November 13, 1935.  In 1927, his body was exhumed, found incorrupt, and transferred to Quito Ecuador because of the desecrations to Catholic cemeteries during the Spanish Civil War.   Today, many faithful visit his tomb in the House of the Lasalle Brothers in Quito.  

Symbols: wears a cassock of the Brothers of the Christian Schools  

Feast Day: February 9

Patron: Brothers of the Christian Schools, Ecuador, Teachers, Writers

Verena (Maria Bernarda) Bütler was born in Auw, Switzerland, on May 28, 1848.  She died just before her 76^th birthday, on May 19, 1924.  Founder of the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Maria Bernarda worked in both Ecuador and in Colombia.    Of Mary HeShe was declared a Servant of God by Pope John Paul II on October 29. 1995, and was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 12, 2008.  

Verena was the fourth of eight children born to Henry and Catherine Bütler, who were farmers.  They brought up their children to love God and their neighbor.   As a child Maria enjoyed excellent health and was happy, intelligent, and generous by nature.  As early as her First Communion when she was seven years old, Maria had a strong devotion to the Eucharist which was the foundation of her spiritual life.    

When she graduated from elementary school as fourteen, Maria helped her parents on their farm.  Four years later, she was called to consecrated life, encouraged by her parish priest.  She entered the Franciscan Monastery of Mary Help of Sinners in San Gallo, Switzerland.   There she received the Franciscan habit on May 4, 1868, taking the name Sister Maria Bernarda of the Sacred Heart of May.  A year later she took her religious vows to serve Jesus in the contemplative life, which she described as “to adore, to praise, to bless, and to thank Jesus in the tabernacle at all times, during work and in all moments of daily life.”  

She began working in the monastery’s garden, but quickly rose to become Superior of the Convent.  Her religious zeal attracted many vocations, and she came to believe that her love of Christ called her missionary service.  The opportunity presented itself with an invitation from the then German Bishop of Portoviejo in Ecuador to open a mission in his diocese.  With the blessing of her bishop, Sister Maria Bernarda and six companions left Switzerland for Ecuador on June 19, 1888 under the auspices of a new religious congregation called the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.  

On their arrival, Sister Maria Bernarda opened a monastery in Chone, with an infirmary and a school for children.  Despite the abject poverty, torrid climate, and risks to their health, Sister Maria Bernarda devoted her community to prayer and to learning the local language and culture.  The sisters devoted themselves to care for the poor and local families.   As the new congregation grew, two additional houses devoted to Saint Anne were added.  

In 1895, the government forced the Catholic religious to leave Ecuador.  At the invitation of the Bishop of Cartagena, Maria Bernarda and fifteen sisters relocated to Colombia of August 2 of that year.    The sisters continued their mission to prayer and to the poor of Colombia.   Mother Maria Bernarda died in Cartagena, Colombia, on May 18, 1924.  The archbishop presided at her funeral which was attended by many in the city.   Various miracles have been attributed to her intercession.

See:  Antonio Borrelli, Santi e beati, http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/92293

Symbols: a Franciscan habit   

Mariana de Paredes Flores y Granobles y Jaramillo was born in Quito, then part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, on October 31, 1618.  Mariana of Jesus is known as the Lily of Quito because a white lily sprang up and bloomed from her blood on the day that Mariana died at the age of twenty-seven, in Quito, on May 26, 1645.  Soon after her death, the Jesuits, her niece, and even King Charles II of Spain, sponsored her canonization.  They collected and presented evidence of her life of sanctity, her virtues, and her miracles, but because of the vicissitudes of the Jesuit order, Mariana of Jesus was not declared a Servant of God until January 11, 1817 by Pope Pius IX.   She was finally canonized by Pope Pius XII on July 9, 1950. 

Mariana was born into a noble family.   Her father was Jerònimo de Paredes Flores y Granobles, a nobleman of Toledo, Spain, and her mother a descendant of one of the leading Conquistadors.  The youngest of eight children, Mariana was orphaned at the age of four.  She was raised by her older sister, Jeronima, and her husband, Cosme de Caso, who was her legal guardian.  

Like St. Rosa of Lima (panel 28) Mariana was drawn to a reclusive, ascetic life, which she lived out within the confines of her home.  She refused her brother-in-law’s suggestion that she move to a convent.   Instead, Mariana centered her spiritual life in the nearby church run by Jesuit fathers.   There she participated in the Sodality of Our Lady and attended daily Mass.   Mariana fasted constantly, sustaining herself on the Eucharist.   At the suggestion of her Jesuit priest, Mariana entered the Third Order of Saint Francis, taking as her religious name, Mariana of Jesus.  

Mariana of Jesus possessed an ecstatic gift of prayer.  At times, she was able to predict the future, reading  events as they passed before her eyes.  She understood secrets of the heart and cured diseases by a sign of the Cross or a sprinkling with Holy Water.   At least once, she was reported to have raised a dead person to life.   During the 1645 earthquake and epidemics in Quito, she publicly offered herself as a victim for the city and died shortly thereafter.  At her funeral celebrated in her parish church, the priest emphasized her bodily mortification which preferred holiness to beauty and virtue to ostentation.

Both the Franciscans and the Jesuits claim her as a saint of their Order.  Mariana of Jesus is buried in the Jesuit church in Quito, Ecuador, and various miracles have been attributed to her intercession.      

Symbols: a lily, a black cassock embroidered with the Christogram of IHS

Feast Day: May 26

Patron: Ecuador, Americas, bodily ills, orphans and people rejected by religious orders, the sick

Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moràn was born on October 29, 1832, in the town of San Giuseppe di Nobol, in Ecuador.   She died on December 8, 1832, in Lima, Peru at the age of thirty-seven.  She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 25, 1882.  After the requisite two miracles were presented and approved, Narcisa of Jesus was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 12, 2008.   

Narcisa was the sixth of nine children born into a family of rural landowners.  He had a strong devotion to the Blessed Mariana de Jesus and to Saint Jacinto of Poland.   She was six when her mother died, and  Narcisa learned to cook and to sew.  Her older sister taught her to read and to write.  Narcisa turned a small room into the family home into a chapel.  She adopted Mariana of Jesus Paredes y Flores as her patron and strove to imitate her life.

Narcisa was tall, blond with blue eyes, strong and agile.  When her father died in January 1852, Narcisa moved to Guayaquil where she lived with her cousins who were of noble descent.   To support herself, Narcisa became a seamstress.   She also began her mission to care for the poor, the sick, and abandoned children.    

In June, 1868, Narcisa moved to Lima, Peru, where she lived in the Dominican convent at Patroncinio.   She did not profess religious vows instead remained a Third Order Dominican.   In the Convent she initiated a life of silent prayer and contemplation, fasting and penitence.  She fasted on bread and water and took the Eucharist as her sole form of nourishment.   

In late September 1869, Narcisa of Jesus developed a high fever and she died before mid-night on December 8 when the nun caring for her reported that a sweet odor filled her room.   Her death occurred on day that the First Vatican Council opened.  

Her body was exhumed in 1955, found uncorrupted, and transferred to Ecuador.   Her tomb is in the Santuario de Santa Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moràn, in Nobol, Ecuador where Narcisa was born.  

Symbols:  a cross and a bible, violets 

Feast Day: December 8

Patron:   

Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdàmez was born on August 15, 1917, in Ciudad Barrios, in El Salvador.  He was assassinated while celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Hospital of Divine Providence on March 24, 1980, in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.   The Captain of the Police, Alvaro Rafel Saracia, was condemned for his death, which was ordered by the extreme right-wing politician and death squad leader, Roberto D’Aubuisson, according to the Truth Commission for El Salvador, created by the United Nations. 

Pope Francis recognized Archbishop Romero as a martyr in odium fidei (for hatred of the faith) on February 3, 2015; and canonized Romero on October 14, 2018.  At this ceremony, Pope Francis stated, “His ministry was distinguished by his particular attention to the poorest and most marginalized.” For the ceremony, the Pope wore the bloodstained cincture that Romero had worn when he was killed.   Archbishop Jose Luis Escobar Alas of El Salvador has petitioned the Vatican to have Romero declared a Doctor of the Church.

Oscar was one of eight children.  Trained by his father to join him as a carpenter, Oscar instead was called to be a priest.  At thirteen, he entered seminary after which he transferred to the Gregorian University in Rome where he earned a degree cum laude in Theology in 1941.   He was ordained a priest on April 4, 1942, in Rome where he began studies for his doctorate in theology.   In 1943, Oscar was recalled to El Salvador, traveling home with a fellow priest.  

For over twenty years, Fr. Oscar Romero served as a parish priest in San Miguel, El Salvador where he encouraged a devotion to Our Lady of Peace.  In 1964, he became rector of the inter-diocesan seminary in San Salvador.  Two years later, Fr. Romero was appointed Secretary to the Bishops Conference for El Salvador and director of the archdiocesan newspaper Orientaciòn.  In 1974, Fr. Romero became Bishop of the Diocese of Santiago de Maria, a poor rural region.  Three years later, on February 23, 1977, Oscar Romero became the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador.

Less than a month later, on March 12, 1977, his friend, the Jesuit Fr. Rutilio Grande, who worked among the poor, was assassinated.  Romero said, “When I looked at Rutilio lying there, dead, I thought, if they killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.”  On the Sunday after Fr. Rutilio’s murder, Archbishop Romero summoned all priests and people to a single Mass which he celebrated in the plaza at the front of the Cathedral.  There he began his campaign of social activism, preaching to a crowd of over 100,000 during which the Archbishop spoke about justice and denounced human rights abuses and persecutions of priests and of the Church.

Archbishop Romero suspended all participation in official government ceremonies until the assassins of Fr. Rutilio Grande were brought to justice.  He opened a diocesan legal aid office to document the numerous killings and disappearances of the Salvadoran people.  The office offered pastoral support to the families of those affected.   Archbishop Romero built up an enormous following of Salvadorans through broadcasting his weekly sermons on the church’s station, listing disappearances, tortures, murders, and acts of repression by the government every Sunday. 

Archbishop Romero spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations, and torture.   Hailed as an inspiration for Liberation Theology, Romero believed that God identifies with the poor and the needy.  “Love for the poor runs through the Bible like a golden thread; … Romero found God in the poor.” (Martin Maier, Oscar Romero, 2008, p. 3)   Liberation Theologians, following Romero, argue that the Church should become more politically engaged on behalf of justice and human rights because Christ Himself advocated for the poor, the oppressed, the weak, the widows and the orphans, and the stranger.  

Notwithstanding their persecution and murder of Catholic priests and religious who advocated for the poor, Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI), at the time head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, refused to condemn the right-wing political elite who controlled the government and the wealth of Latin America.  Instead, he officially condemned Liberation Theology as Marxist.  Saint Pope John Paul II (Panel 27) encouraged Romero to maintain unity with the South American bishops who, at the time, opposed Liberation Theology, as did the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Maria Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis). 

In 1979, the Revolutionary Government Junta came to power in El Salvador amidst a wave of human rights abuses by paramilitary right-wing groups.  The escalation of violence led to the Salvadoran Civil War.  Romero criticized the United States for giving military aid to the new government.  Archbishop Romero wrote to President Jimmy Carter in February 1980 warning that increased military aid would sharpen the injustice and political repression inflicted on the people, who struggled for their most basic human rights.  President Carter ignored Archbishop Romero’s pleas.

On February 2, 1980, Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, gave Romero an award for his humanitarian efforts.  in his speech of acceptance, Archbishop Romero stated that since 1977, more than 50 priests had been attacked, six were murdered, some of whom tortured, and others expelled.  Catholic radio stations and educational institutions were attacked, even bombed.   Parish communities were raided.   Nuns, catechists, even lay ministers, were threatened, arrested, tortured, and murdered, numbering in the hundreds and thousands.    Romero said that the Salvadoran government only terrorized, assassinated, and persecuted that part of the Church that worked on behalf of the poor.

On March 23, 1980, the Archbishop preached on the radio urging Salvadoran soldiers to obey the higher law of God, “Do not kill”.   The following day, as Romero celebrated Mass in the chapel at Hospital de la Divina Providencia which specialized in oncology and care for the terminally ill, a gunman stepped out of a red automobile and fired one bullet through the open door of the chapel, striking Romero in the heart.   

Romero’s funeral at the Cathedral of San Salvador on March 30, 1980, was attended by an estimated 250,000 people, including dignitaries from all over the world.  In the middle of the ceremony, smoke bombs exploded on the streets and rifle shots came from surrounding buildings.  At least fifty people participating in the funeral mass were killed.  Romero was buried in a crypt beneath the Cathedral.   

The people of El Salvador, notwithstanding the continued opposition to Romero and to his beliefs by the Salvadoran government, venerated him as a saint.  Latin American church groups proclaimed Archbishop Romero as the unofficial patron saint of the Americas.  Catholics in El Salvador refer to him as “San Romero”, although Romero’s beatification remained stopped by the Vatican for years, until Pope Benedict XVI on December 20, 2012, re-opened the proceedings.  By the time that Jorge Maria Bergoglio became Pope Francis, his papacy advocated justice for the poor and a more equitable distribution of world resources.   

Archbishop Romero is the first saint born in El Salvador and the first Archbishop martyred in the Americas.   Romero’s sanctity is recognized in the calendars of the Lutheran and Anglican Churches.   In July 1998, Queen Elizabeth II of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury inaugurated a statue of Oscar Romero, one of ten 20^th century martyrs with a statue in the Westminster Abbey.

In 2010 the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 24 as the “International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and the Dignity of Victim” in recognition of Romero’s defense of the human rights of the most vulnerable people and his opposition to all forms of violence.  

[see: Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Arnulfo-Romero; Vatican News, Remembering Oscar Romero on the Fortieth Anniversary of his Death, https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2020-03/oscar-romero-forty-years-assassination-anniversary0.html] 

Symbols: Oscar Romero wears a bishp’s habit and holds a martyr’s palm  

Feast Day: October 24 

Patron: of the Americas and of El Salvador 

Ezequiel Moreno y Diaz was born on April 9, 1848, in Alfaro, La Rioja, Spain and he died on August 19, 1906, in Monteguido, Navarro in Spain.  A zealous Jesuit priest, Fr. Moreno was a missionary in The Phillippines and a bishop in Colombia until he contracted cancer of the palate and returned to Spain.  After his death many remissions and cures of cancer were attributed to his intercession.  Pope Paul VI beatified Fr. Moreno on November 1, 1975; he was canonized by Pope Saint John Paul II in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on October 11, 1992, on the V Centenary of the Americas.

When he was sixteen, Ezequiel entered the monastery of the Recoletos in Montegudo, in Navarra, Spain in Montegudo, on September 21, 1864.  A year later, he took his solemn vows and entered the Order of Augustinian Recollects.  He lived in the monastery for six years until he was sent as part of a mission to the Philippines.  

Ezequiel arrived in Manila, The Philippines, on February 10, 1870.   Two years later, he was ordained as a priest by the Archbishop of Manila where he worked as a missionary for 15 years.   Ezequiel’s first mission was in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro, where he learned the Tagalog language.  During this mission he became a Military Chaplain to a penal colony.  There he fell ill with malaria, forcing him to return to Manila.  On his recovery, Fr. Moreno served successively in three separate towns, Las Piñas, Santo Tomàs, and Imus – Bacoor in Cavite, where he preached, cared for the poor, and the sick, even during the 1881 plague of cholera.   In 1885, Fr. Moreno was appointed Prior of the Augustinian Recollect Monastery in Monteagudo.  

In 1888, Fr. Moreno transferred to Colombia in South America where he was charged to restore the Mission of the Augustinian Recollect Order in that country.   In 1893, Fr. Moreno was named Apostolic Vicar of Casanare and Bishop of Pasto (in 1896).  Fr. Moreno was known for his charity to the faithful of the diocese and for his apostolic zeal.  

In 1906, Fr. Moreno became ill with cancer of the palatte.   He returned to the Monastery of Monteagudo in Navarra, Spain, where his mission had begun.  Fr. Moreno died of the cancer at the age of fifty-eight.  

Many sufferers have experienced a remission or even a cure of their illness through their prayers for the intercession of St. Ezekiel:   

“Loving God, in St. Ezekiel Moreno you have given us a model of courage in times of suffering. I turn to you at this moment of my life for strength. Grant, through the intercession of St. Ezekiel, that I may receive your healing comfort and be restored to health of mind and body, should it be your holy will. I also offer this prayer for those who are suffering from cancer and other life-threatening diseases, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

            Amen

See: biography on the website of the Augustinian Recollects, https://www.stritascentre.org/novena-prayer-to-saint-ezekiel-moreno 

Symbols: Ezequiel wears the habit of his Order of Augustinian Recollects 

Feast Day: August 19

Patron:  Cancer patients

Peter Claver was born on June 26, 1580, in Verdù, Catalonia, Spain.   He died on September 8, 1654, in Cartagena, then part of the New Kingdom of Granada, Spanish Empire.   Claver arrived in Cartagena as a Jesuit missionary 1610 at the age of thirty.  At the port, Claver saw multitudes of Africans in shocking physical condition being unloaded off boats and transferred to pens where they were to be sold.   Cartagena was a hub for slave trading, selling then an estimated 10,000 Africans a year.   Claver dedicated his life and his ministry to these people of Africa.   At his final profession as a Jesuit in 1622, Claver vowed to be a “slave to the Africans forever” (Peter Claver, aethiopum semper servus).  Known as the Apostle of Cartagena, Claver was canonized in Rome by Pope Leo XIII on January 15, 1888.    

Peter Claver was born into a pious Catholic farming family in the Catalan village of Verdù near Barcelona.   He studied at the University of Barcelona for two years and then determined that he was born to “dedicate himself to the service of God until death on the understanding that “he was like a slave”.   When he was 20, Peter entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) to become a missionary to the New World.  He arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1610.  

Although Pope Paul III and Pope Urban VIII had both issued papal decrees prohibiting slavery, their condemnations were ignored by slavers whose lucrative businesses continued to flourish because Africans were deemed more suitable than the local indigenous population to work in the gold and silver mines in Colombia.   

In Cartagena, Peter met Alonso de Sandoval who had devoted himself to serving the slaves before Claver arrived.  Sandoval had learned the languages, customs, and beliefs of the Africans, which he published in a book on his return to Seville in 1627.     

Sandoval visited the slaves where they worked, but Claver met the slave ships as soon as they landed.  Boarding the ships, he entered the filthy and diseased holds to care for, and minister to, the badly treated bodies.  He lent his cloak to any in need and a legend arose that anyone who wore his cloak received the grace of a lifetime of health.  After the slaves were unloaded into pens, Claver continued his ministry with medicine, food, bread, and lemons.  

After the slaves were sold, Claver did not desert this flock.   When the season for the arrival of the slave boats ended, Claver traveled through Colombia to visit the slaves where they lived to give them spiritual consolation.  In his forty years of ministry, Claver catechized and baptized 300,000 slaves.  He also preached to the sailors and slave traders, and to the slave owners, teaching them that the slaves were fellow Christians and that all people must be treated humanely.    When he traveled, he stayed in the slave quarters, not in the homes of the slave owners.  By the moral force of his personality, Claver slowly improved the life of the slaves in Colombia. 

Peter Claver died in the Jesuit monastery in Cartagena after a long illness, forgotten and neglected by his brothers and by the city magistrates who had considered him a nuisance for his advocacy for slaves.  At his funeral, his superiors and his government were amazed by the crowd of those he baptized who came to pay their last respects to this kind and gentle soul.  

Symbols: Peter Claver wears a Jesuit habit and carries a cross

Feast Day: September 9

Patron:  Colombia, Slaves, race relations, ministry to African Americans, and seafarers 

See: Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South, Mark A. Lamport, ed., Vol. 2, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, p. 177.  

Laura Montoya Upequi was born on May 26, 1874, in Jericò, Antioquia, Colombia and she died on October 21, 1949, in Medellin, after a long illness.  Laura Montoya Upegul formed the Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and St. Catherine of Siena to evangelize indigenous people and to win them to Christ.   Today the Missionary Sisters are present in 19 countries throughout the Americas, Africa, and Europe.   Mother Laura was beatified by Saint Pope John Paul II on April 25, 2014, and canonized by Pope Francis on Mary 12, 2013, in the piazza in front of the Basilica of St. Peter’s.

Laura was born in a small village in Colombia to a pious couple, Juan de la Cruz Montoya and Dolores Upegui.  She was baptized immediately because her mother refused to see the baby until after her baptism.  The parish priest chose her name, Maria Laura di Gesù.  When Laura was 2 years old, her father was killed, a victim of the Colombian Civil War of 1876.   His death left the family without financial resources and her mother returned to her parent’s home.  Her mother provided her family with their religious and academic education because they lived far from any school.  

When Laura turned 16, she was sent to Medellin to be trained as an elementary school teacher at the Normale de Institutoras.  To support herself Laura worked with the mentally ill in a nearby asylum.  Even though she had no formal primary education, Laura did well academically.   After graduation she taught in Antioquia schools and with natives in the Uraba and Sarare regions, imparting to her students both her academic knowledge and her faith in the Gospel.     

During this period, Laura felt an increasing desire to enter religious life.  She also became aware of the miserable living conditions of the indigenous population in Colombia.   Although she felt drawn to the cloistered life of Carmelite nuns, Mother Laura discovered that her greater calling was to evangelize the native people to overcome the racial discrimination that they suffered.  Laura found support for her missionary calling to spread the Gospel to the “farthest corners of the earth” from Monsignor Mazimilliano Crespo, Bishop of Santa Fe de Antioquia.   In 1914, the Bishop blessed the new religious order called “Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and St. Catherine of Siena.” 

Accepting in advance the sacrifices, humiliations, and trials that would arise, Laura left Medellin accompanied by four women, including her mother, Dolores.    On May 19, 1914, just before her fortieth birthday, the “Laurite Missionaries of the Indians” went to live in the remote area of Dabeiba among the native tribes.  As Mother Laura, she composed a set of rules for herself and her companions to identify their call to serve God among the Native population and to live a balance between apostolic and contemplative life.   Her mission revolutionized the concept of missionary evangelization in Latin America with the “pedagogy of love.”  Mother Laura devoted herself to “become an Indian with the Indians to win them all for Christ”.

Although she was confined to a wheelchair for the last nine years of her life, Mother Laura continued to animate her congregation with the force of her personality.  At her death at the age of seventy-five, the Laurites numbered nearly 500 sisters and 100 novitiates, serving twenty-two indigenous populations.  

Symbols: Mother Laura wears the habit of her order

Feast Day: October 21

Patron: Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and St. Catherine of Siena, people suffering from racial discrimination, Orphans 

José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros was born on October 26, 1864, in Isnotù, Trujillo, in Venezuela.  He died at the age of 54 on June 20, 1919, in Caracas, Venezuela.   Approximately 20,000 people attended his funeral, a quarter of the population of Caracas at the time.  He is nationally known as “the doctor of the poor” for his self-less treatment of the poor, caring for them and donating their medicine without charge.   In 1949 the Venezuelan Conference of Catholic Bishops began the process of his canonization.   In June 2020, the Vatican recognized as miraculous the recovery of a teenage girl shot in the head, attributable to his intervention.   In a ceremony held on April 30, 2021, at Saint Peter’s, José Gregorio Hernandez Cisneros was beatified by Pope Francis. 

José Gregorio was the eldest of seven children born to Benigno Maria Hernandez Manzaneda and his wife, Josefa Antonia Cisneros Mansilla.   His father was a pharmacist and sold livestock.   In 1878, José Gregorio traveled to Caracas to study medicine, graduating in 1882 from Colegio Villegas with a degree in philosophy and in 1888 from Universidad Central di Venezuela with a degree in medicine.  He then traveled to Europe, studying in Paris, Berlin, Madrid, and finally in New York, where he pursued further studies in bacteriology, pathology, microbiology, and physiology.  He became a renowned bacteriologist and published numerous medical texts.

After his return to Venezuela in 1891, he became a leading doctor at the Hospital José Maria Vargas.   Doctor Hernandez taught medicine and cared for patients, including especially the poor of Caracas.  “He believed that medicine was a priesthood of human pain,” Luis Razetti, a prominent Venezuelan doctor and friend of Hernández, once said.

Jose Gregorio also had a strong religious vocation, between 1908 and 1913, Hernandez traveled to Lucca and to Rome, enrolling in the American Pio School of Rome, seeking ordination as a priest.  Unfortunately, poor health prevented his ordination.  Instead, he became a secular Franciscan and returned to Venezuela.  

With the arrival of the Spanish flu in Venezuela in 1918, Hernandez attended the contagious in Caracas.  He died in 1919 after being struck by a car.  He was buried in La Candelaria Catholic Church in Caracas.   Cardinal Baltazar Porras of Caracas underlined the significance of his beatification during the present COVID 19 pandemic, which has stricken the world like the Spanish flu of 1918.  This doctor is a “balm to people living through this [new] terrible crisis”, Bishop Porras said.  

She was born Amabile Lucia Visintainer on December 16, 1865 in Vigolo Vattaro today in the Trentino, in Italy, but then part of Südtirol in the Austria-Hungarian empire.   She died in Ipiranga, Sao Paolo, Brazil on July 9, 1942.  When she founded the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, Amabile took the name Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus.  Pope John Paul II canonized Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus on May 19, 2002, the first female saint from Brazil.  

Like many poor European families at the end of the 19^th century, the Visintainer emigrated to the New World when Amabile was 10 years old.  They settled with about 100 other families from their village in the town of Nova Trenta, in Brazil, which they named for the Trentino region from whence they came.  Amabile was very pious, even as a child, and after receiving her Holy Communion at the age of 12 she taught Catechism, visited the sick and cleaned the chapel built by the immigrants on their arrival.  

Amabile followed the spiritual direction of the Jesuits under Fr. Luigi Rossi.  When she was 25, with her friend, Virginia Rosa Nicolodì, Amabile consecrated herself to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady and   moved into a home where they cared for a woman dying of cancer.  The Ignatian spirituality enlivened their faith.  Five years later, in 1890, the two were joined by a third friend.  The three women sought the approval of the local bishop to form the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception.  At its formation, Amabile professed her religious vows and took as her religious name, Pauline of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus.   The holiness of their lives and their apostolic zeal despite the difficulties in which they lived attracted other companions.  The congregation elected Pauline as their Superior General. 

In 1903, Pauline moved the center of the Congregation to Ipiranga, Sao Paolo, where she built a convent.  The Congregation created a home to care for the elderly, for orphans, and for children of former slaves who had been freed in Brazil in 1888.   Pauline was removed as Superior General in 1909 by a new Arcbishop who sent her to work with the sick at the Hospice of Saint Vincent de Paul.  She bore the suffering of this exile from her congregation with prayer and work which she accepted so that the Congregation would endure.  She accepted the Archbishop’s decree and from that moment until her death, Pauline humbled herself, “living and dying as an underling…”  The Congregation grew and today the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception are present in South America, Africa, and Europe.  

She returned to the convent in Ipiranga in 1918 and lived a hidden life of prayer and assistance to infirm Sisters.   Pope Pius XI acknowledged her as the Venerable Mother Foundress of the Congregation in 1933.  When the Congregation celebrated its 50^th anniversary, Pauline wrote her Spiritual Testament, “Be humble.  Trust always and a great deal in divine Providence; never never must you let yourselves be discouraged, despite contrary winds...”   She herself had an unlimited trust in God, and a passionate love for Jesus present in the Eucharist, and a filial devotion to Mary Immaculate and trust in “our good Saint Joseph”. 

Pauline died after much suffering from diabetes at the age of 77 on July 9, 1942. She is buried in the Shrine of St. Paulina in Nova Trento with her family.   

Symbols: habit of the Congregation of the Little Sisters of the Immaculate Conception 

Feast Day: July 9

Patron:  those who suffer from diabetes

https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2002/documents/ns_lit_doc_20020519_paulina_en.html

The Martyrs of Natal are a group of nearly 100 Portuguese Catholics who were murdered in two separate raids by Dutch Calvinists in 1645 in the state of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil.    The attacks were part of a larger conflict, called the Portuguese Restoration War, in which the Dutch contested Portuguese colonial possessions in the Americas, in Africa, in India, and in the Far East.  In Brazil, the Dutch sought to acquire the Portuguese colonies in this northern region, which was rich in sugar cane plantations and in minerals.    The conflict had a religious component as the Dutch promoted anti-Catholic Calvinism among the local indigenous tribes in their effort to defeat the Portuguese settlers.  The Portuguese finally succeeded in ousting the Dutch from Brazil in 1654.  

Fr. André de Soveral was born in the state of Sao Paolo, Brazil in 1572.  He joined the Society of Jesus in 1593 and studied Latin, theology, and the native languages of northern Brazil at the Jesuit college in Bahia.  In 1606, André de Soveral was sent by the Jesuits as a missionary to the native tribes living in the state of Rio Grande do Norte.  He left the Jesuits after a year to be ordained a diocesan priest.  In 1614, Fr. Soveral was assigned to the parish of Our Lady of the Candles or of the Purification in Cunhaù.  In the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Cunhaù was a prosperous settlement, the site of a sugar cane mill and a plant to manufacture replacement parts for the mill.  

Fr. Ambròsio Francisco Ferro was born in the Azores, in Portugal, at an unknown date.   He emigrated to Brazil with his family as a child, settling in the Rio Grande do Norte area of Brazil.  Ambrosio attended seminary and was ordained a diocesan priest.  In 1636, Fr. Ambrosio was assigned to serve in his family’s parish dedicated to Our Lady of the Presentation in Natal, located on the Uruaqu River, also in the State of Rio Grande do Norte.  

The only other Catholic parish in the area was near Cunhaù and served by Fr. André de Soveral.  As priests serving in the same diocese, they likely knew each other.   

On July 16, 1645, a Sunday, Fr. Soveral was celebrating Mass for 69 people in the parish church.   Just before the consecration of the Eucharist, Dutch soldiers, accompanied by warriors from the Tapulas and Patiguari tribes, attacked the worshippers, killing them all; Fr. Soveral died of his wounds as he prayed the prayers for the dying over the corpses.   

Parishioners of Our Lady of the Presentation, in the neighboring town of Natal, terrified by the massacre that had befallen their Catholic brothers and sisters, took refuge, as a group, in a local fort.  It did not protect them.  

On October 3, 1645, about two hundred armed men, including native warriors and Dutch soldiers, led by the Calvinist convert, Antonio Parapaba, attacked the Catholic community in the fort where they had taken refuge to gather for Mass.  The soldiers led the parishioners to the banks of the Uruaqu River and then hacked them to death.  At least thirty individuals, including women and children, and Fr. Ambrosio Francisco Ferro who had been celebrating Mass died in the massacre.  

During the October 3 attack, Mateus Moreira, as he was being pierced in his heart he cried out “Praise be the Blessed Sacrament” before he bled to death from his wounds.  He is pictured on this panel as representative of the nearly 100 lay martyrs only some of whose names are known:

                On July 16, 1645, in addition to Fr. André de Soveral, Domingos Carvalho, and 68 other worshippers whose names remain unknown, died.

                On October 3, 1645, in addition to Fr. Ambròsio Francisco Ferro and Mateus Moreira, and twenty eight others died, of these martyrs the following was recorded:

Antonio Vilela Cid, a landowner born in Spain, and married to Fr. Ferro’s sister, 

Estavao Machado de Miranda, and his two young daughters, Estavo was the son-in-law of Antonio Vilela Cid, and, through him, related by marriage to Fr. Ferro

Antonio Vilela, his son and his daughter, 

Antonio Baracho, who was tortured, tied to a tree, his tongue and genitalia cut out, and then burned with a hot iron  

Simao Correia, 

Joao da Silveira, 

José de Porto, 

Francsico de Bastos, 

Manuel Rodrigues de Moura and his wife, 

the minor daughter of Francisco Dias.

Joao Martins and seven members of his family, 

Joao Lostau Navarro, a fisherman on the Uruaqu river, 

Diogo Pereira, 

Vicente de Souza Pereira, 

Francisco Mendes Pereira, 

http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/93258

On March 5, 2000, in St Peter’s Square, the Martyrs of Natal were beatified as a group by Pope John Paul II who confirmed that they had been killed “in odium fidei” or in hatred of the faith.   On March 14, 2017, a gathering of Cardinals formally waived the requirement for miracles to prove the martyrs’ sainthood.  Pope Francis formalized the canonization of the Martyrs of Natal as saints of the Catholic Church on October 15, 2017.  

Symbols: Fathers Soveral and Ferro wear the habits of diocesan priests, Mateo Moreira is in layman’s garb, they carry the palm branches of martyrdom  

Feast Day: October 3

Patron:  Natal and the State of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil, preachers and missionaries 

Antonio de Sant’Anna Galvao was born in Guaratinguetà in Brazil on May 13, 1739, and died in Sao Paolo, in Brazil on December 23, 1822.  A member of the Franciscan Order, Frei Galvao was known throughout Brazil for his power to heal.  He was canonized in Sao Paolo on May 11, 2007, by Pope Benedict XVI, becoming the first person born in Brazil to be named a Saint.  A crowd of over 800,000 people attended the Mass of Canonization.

Antonio was born into prominent and wealthy family of Portuguese immigrants.  His father was active in commerce and politics in Brazil.  At 13, Antonio was enrolled in the Jesuit College in Bahia.    After four years of study, Antonio wished to become a priest in the Order, but because of persecutions against Jesuits at the time, his father encouraged him to join the Franciscans instead.  On April 16, 1761, Antonio entered the Franciscan Friary of St. Bonaventure in Rio de Janeiro, taking as his religious name, Antonio de Sant’Ana.   He was ordained a Franciscan priest on July 11, 1762, at the age of 23.  He returned to Sao Paolo and entered the college of San Francesco where he continued his studies in theology and philosophy.  On March 9, 1766, he made a spiritual submission as a “servant and slave” to the Blessed Mother. 

In Sao Paolo he served as confessor to the Recollection of Saint Teresa of Avila (Panel 31).  There he met, Helena Maria of the Holy Spirit, a religious who had multiple visions.  In one such vision, Jesus asked the nun to establish a hermitage for girls who wished to live a cloistered life, in common but not under religious vows.  Galvao worked with the Franciscan Order and, on February 2, 1774, founded a hermitage dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Divine Providence (the Recolhimento de Nossa Senhora da Conceicao da Divina Providencia).  When Sister Helena died suddenly only a year later, Frei Galvao became the superior of the community of recluses who lived in the Hermitage. 

The following year, the government ordered the closure of religious houses.  The recluse women living in the Hermitage refused to leave.  With the support of the Bishop of Sao Paolo, the Hermitage remained open, and Frei Galvao continued as its superior.  As the number of recluses grew, Frei Galvao enlarged the Hermitage and built a church, which was dedicated on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1802.  He remained a popular superior and any attempts to transfer him met with stiff resistance by the recluses.  

In 1798 Frei Galvao was named Guardian of St. Francis Friary in Sao Paulo.  In 1811, he founded the St Clare Friary in Sorocaba, Brazil.  

Throughout his life, Frei Galvao was recognized as a man of intense prayer with healing powers.  He healed many people by giving them a “paper pill”, that is, a rolled piece of paper on which he wrote in Latin, the phrase, “After childbirth thou didst remain a Virgin, O Mother of God, intercede for us.”

Frei Galvao returned to Sao Paolo in 1812 and obtained permission to live inside the Hermitage until his death ten years later.  He is buried in the Monastery of Light, in Sao Paolo, Brazil.  His tomb is a destination for pilgrims; at least two miraculous cures are attributed to his intercession.     

In 1929, the Hermitage became a monastery for the Order of the Immaculate Conception.  The Church and Hermitage were declared part of the Patrimony of Humanity by UNESCO in 1988 and today serves as the Museum of the Sacred Arts of Sao Paolo.    

Symbols: Frei Galvao wears a Franciscan habit  

Feast Day: December 23

Patron: World Youth Day of 2013

https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20070511_frei-galvao_it.html

Joseph de Anchieta Llarena was born on March 19, 1534, in San Cristòbal de La Laguna in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain and died June 9, 1597, in Rerifiba (today Anchieta), in the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil.   A Jesuit missionary, known as the Apostle of Brazil, Anchieta significantly influenced the early history of Portuguese colonization of Brazil.  Pope Francis canonized Joseph de Anchieta on April 3, 2014, in St Peter’s Square, dispensing with standard canonization procedures.   Joseph de Anchieta is the second native of the Canary Islands to be canonized after Peter of Saint Joseph Betancourt (Panel 26) 

Joseph was the third of ten children born into the noble Basque de Anchieta family.  His father had emigrated to the Canary Islands from Spain and was in some way related to Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits).  Joseph’s mother was born on the Canary Islands; her grandfather, Sebastiàn de Llarena, was a convert from the Jewish faith in Castile and an emigree to the Canary Islands. 

When Joseph was 14, he entered the Royal College of Arts in Coimbra in Portugal.  Three years later, on May 1, 1551, he began his novitiate in the Jesuit Order.  He had a facility with language and learned Portuguese and Latin in addition to his native Spanish.  In Coimbra Joseph contracted a serious articular bone tuberculosis which caused a serious curvature of his spine.  The Order, believing that the climate in Brazil would be salubrious for his health, sent Joseph to Brazil in 1553 with the third group of Jesuit missionaries sent to evangelize the Portuguese colony.   After a perilous voyage, Joseph landed in Sao Vincente, a port in southern Brazil on the Atlantic Ocean.  

Soon after their arrival, twelve Jesuits, including Joseph de Anchieta and Manuel da Nòbrega, traveled north, crossing the Serra do Mar mountains, to reach a plateau called Piratininga by the native Tupi tribe.  The plateau was on a flood plain around the Tieté river, so called because of the fish that were left to dry in the sun once the flooded river receded (in the native Tupi language, pira means fish and tininga means drying).  The rich fluvial plain had agricultural potential and was surrounded by navigable rivers.  The Jesuits arrived on January 25, 1554, the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul.   They celebrated Mass and established a small mission called Colégio de Sao Paulo de Piratininga.  From the mission named for Saint Paul, the Jesuits set about to evangelize the natives and convert them to Christianity. 

Today the mission stands at the heart of the present city of Sao Paolo, which credits Fr. Joseph de Archieta with the city’s foundation.  In a letter to the Jesuit Order, Fr. Joseph wrote that the settlement of Sao Paolo by the Portuguese occurred in 1560 after a visit of Mem de Sà, Governor General of Brazil, who transferred the Captaincy of Sao Vicente to the Mission.   The Mission, located on a steep hill and adjacent to a large wetland, offered better protection from attacks by indigenous tribes.   

At Sao Paolo, Joseph had his first contact with the Tapuia natives.  As he taught the natives Portuguese and Latin, Fr. Joseph learned the Tupi language and began to transcribe the Tupi language into the Latin alphabet and to develop rules of grammar.  This would prove to be a life-long project.  

Joseph was ordained a priest at the age of 32 in 1566.   In the Jesuit tradition, Anichieta wrote numerous reports in the form of letters to his superiors.  Lucid and detailed, Fr. Joseph’s letters continue to inform contemporary knowledge of pre-Colonial Brazil and of the daily life and customs of the indigenous people.  Fr. Joseph described the native tradition as patrilineal, because the natives believed that women were bags in which children grow, and polygamous, which in turn produced a dense network of interrelationships among the people and across tribes.  He also described how sorcerers and even cannibalism played a role in native culture. Fr. Joseph and his companion, Nòbrega, also wrote to the Governor General of Brazil at various times to protest the treatment of the natives by the Portuguese authorities, although he did recognize that at time violence might be necessary.  

During the early years, the Sao Paolo mission was attacked several times by native tribes.  In 1555, the French had established a settlement on Guanabara Bay, on the Atlantic Coast, 264 miles northeast of Sao Vicente and Sao Paolo.   The French Protestants contested Portuguese Catholic control of the natural resources of Brazil.  Beginning in 1560, the Portuguese decided to force the French to abandon their settlement.    The French enlisted the support of the Tamoyo Confederation, a coalition of native tribes, based between Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, also on the coast, against the Portuguese, and encouraged the native attacks against the Sao Paolo mission.  

Because of his knowledge of the Tupi language, Anchieta was sent to negotiate a peace agreement with the Tamoyo Confederation.  He traveled with Nòbrega to the village of Iperoig in Ubatuba, located on the Atlantic coast north of Sao Paolo and Sao Vicente.  The two Jesuits were taken hostage and remained with the tribe as their prisoners for five months.  Anchieta and Nòbrega established a peace between the Portuguese and the Tamoyo Confederation which allowed the Portuguese led by Estacio De Sà, the nephew of the Governor General Mem De Sà, to expel the French from Brazil in a final battle on January 20, 1567.  

After their release, in 1565, Anchieta also traveled with the Portuguese troops led by Estacio De Sà the nephew of north along the Atlantic Coast.  On March 1, 1565, Estacio De Sà established the ramparts of a Portuguese settlement on Guanabara Bay, at the foot of Pao de Açucar.  Joseph de Anchieta dedicated the settlement to Saint Sebastian. It was called Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro.  As a result, Joseph de Anchieta is remembered as the founder of the city of Rio de Janeiro, as well.  

After their release Manuel da Nòbrega was named Director of the Colégio de Sao Paulo de Piratininga.  When Manuel da Nòbrega retired in 1570, Anchieta replaced him.   Seven years later, in 1577, Fr. Joseph was appointed the fourth Superior General of the Jesuit Order and Provincial Superior in Brazil.   

In these roles, to consolidate the Jesuit missions in Brazil, Anichieta traveled continuously between Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Sao Vicente (Espirito Santo) and Sao Paulo.  The Tupi called him “abarebebe” or “flying holy priest” because he walked the coastal path twice a month.  Along his route he stopped to give sermons and to rest in towns along the way.  Following his footsteps, pilgrims follow his path, making it a New World Camino de Santiago.    

Fr. Joseph de Anchieta continued to write.  During the five months he lived at Ubatuba, Fr. Joseph composed a poem to the Virgin Mary, writing the verses in the sand and memorizing them until he returned to San Vincente and was able to write them down.  Anchieta wrote “Dialogues of the faith”, a catechism for the instruction of Indians in Christian doctrine, in their native tongue.  Fr. Joseph also wrote numerous plays in Tupi, as well as in Portuguese, Spanish, and Latin for amateur performers in villages to teach the Christian Gospel stories, its culture, morals and illustrate the Saint’s feast days.  For his enormous written contribution to the communication between cultures and to the history of the land and of the Catholic faith in Brazil, Fr. Joseph is known as the “father of Brazilian literature”.   

Fr. Joseph de Anchieta retired in 1591 because of illness and died in Reritiba (today called Anchieta) on June 9, 1591.   During his retirement, Fr. Joseph published, Arte de gramàtica da lingoa mais usada na costa do Brasil.  The grammar transcribed the Old Tupi language spoken by most of the indigenous people of Brazil, created a Tupi – Portuguese dictionary, and established rules of grammar for the Tupi language.  It is still in use today.  

Symbols: holds the Gospel Book, Crucifix and Cane 

Feast Day: June 9

Patron: with Our Lady of Aparecida, Joseph of Anchieta is the patron of Brazil, of Catechists, sufferers of scoliosis, and of World Youth Day 2013 held in Rio de Janeiro

Antonio Maria Claret y Clarà was born in Sallent, in Catalonia in the province of Barcelona in Spain, on December 23, 1807; he died in exile from Spain in Fontfroide, in Narbonne, on the opposite side of the Pyrenees in France, on October 24, 1870, when he was sixty-two years old.  Known as the “spiritual father of Cuba”, Antonio Maria Claret served as Archbishop of Cuba, from 1850 to 1857.  At 42, Fr. Claret founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, called the Claretians.  A renowned preacher, a gifted confessor, a mystic, and a social reformer who advocated for the poor, Antonio Maria Claret was also the confessor of Queen Isabella II of Spain.  Archbishop Claret was canonized by Pope Pius XII on May 7, 1950, in Rome.  

The fifth child of a wool merchant, Antonio was baptized on Christmas morning, 1807.   At the age of 12 Antonio joined his father’s business as a weaver, a trade he continued to study at the Institute of La Lonja in Barcelona.   

Growing up, Antonio spent hours at the ancient Sanctuary of Our Lady, la Mare de Déu de Fucimanya, near his home in Sallent.   At 20, he left his father’s business and entered the diocesan seminary at Vic, located in Catalonia, equidistant from Barcelona and the Pyrenees, in 1829.  He was ordained a priest on the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua, June 13, 1835.  He celebrated his first Mass in his parish church at Sallent.    

Fr. Claret soon earned a reputation as an eloquent preacher in both the Spanish and Catalan languages.   After Mass he heard confessions, becoming known as an able confessor with a clear ability to discern consciences.  In 1839, he traveled to Rome to study with the Jesuits.   There he discovered the Treatise on the True Devotion by Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, through which Fr. Claret offered himself to Mary.  

On his return to Spain, Antonio was appointed Apostolic Missionary to Catalonia.  He traveled through the large diocese on foot, giving as many as ten sermons a day.  His preaching attracted large crowds which, in turn, earned him the enmity of anti-clerical government officials.   Because of threats to his life, in 1848 Antonio was transferred to the Canary Islands where he preached in the piazza in front of the church, heard confessions, and offered spiritual retreats.  That same year he founded a religious publishing house and bookstore in Barcelona.    

On the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, July 16, 1849, Fr. Claret founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Barcelona, called the Claretian Missionaries.  

The following year, Pope Pius IX appointed Fr. Claret Archbishop of Santiago, Cuba.  Before leaving for Cuba, he made three separate pilgrimages to the Spanish Sanctuaries dedicated to Mary; la Mare de Déu de Fucimanya, near his home in Sallent, Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza, and the Virgin of Montserrat, in Catalonia.  He was consecrated Archbishop of Santiago, Cuba, on the Feast of the Holy Rosary, October 7, 1850.

In Cuba, Archbishop Claret reorganized the clergy strengthening clerical discipline; he visited every parish in the diocese and built a hospital and numerous schools.  As Archbishop, Fr. Claret denounced racism, taught the black slaves, defended the oppressed, and established numerous trade schools for disadvantaged children and credit unions for use by the poor.  In 1855 with Maria Antonia Paris, the Archbishop founded the Congregation of Teaching Sisters of Mary Immaculate (the Claretian Missionary Sisters), the first women’s religious institute in Cuba.     

Fr. Claret’s reputation as an exceptional preacher continued.  While preaching his body would become transfigured and he would levitate up to six feet off the ground.  Many saw a supernatural light emanate from him as he said Mass.  He reportedly stopped a series of earthquakes in Cuba by kneeling with his hands on the ground and praying.  Again, his saintliness attracted anti-clerical opposition.   In 1855 an assassin attacked the archbishop stabbing him in the throat.  Despite the loss of much blood, he survived albeit disfigured. 

In February 1857, Queen Isabella II requested that Archbishop Claret return to Spain to become her confessor.   He did so on the condition that he would reside away from the palace and be exempt from court functions.  He also served as rector of the Royal Monastery at El Escorial, restoring it to its ancient splendor, and founding a college, a seminary a university and a society of chaplains.  

Monsignor Claret, the title he held after his return from Cuba, had many visions of Jesus and Mary.  In one, on September 23, 1859, at 7:30 am, Jesus told him that he would fly across the earth to preach the immense chastisements soon to come.  These included three judgments of God which were to fall upon the world: first, a series of horrifying wars; second, four archdemons who will incite a love of pleasure, money, false reasoning, and a will separated from God; and third, the scourge of Communism.  Jesus repeated this warning during Mass, stating that the greatest foe of humanity would be Communism.   

To comfort the priest, on August 26, 1861, Jesus granted Msgr. Claret the grace of conserving the Sacramental Species within his heart, meaning that he preserved incorruptible from Communion to Communion the precious Body and Blood of Christ, becoming a human tabernacle.   When doubt plagued him, Mary reaffirmed this message.  During Mass on the following Christmas Eve, the Blessed Virgin placed the Child Jesus in his arms, which Sisters of Perpetual Adoration there present, witnessed.    

In the mid-1860s, the Catholic Church in Europe was assaulted by anticlerical revolutionaries.  Garibaldi seized the Papal States and proclaimed Victor Emmanuel King of a consolidated Italy; this left the Pope imprisoned within the walls of the Vatican.  The Revolution of 1868 dethroned Queen Isabella II and suppressed the Church.   Msgr. Claret and his Order of Claretian Missionaries sought refuge across the Pyrenees in France with their Queen.

In 1869, Msgr. Claret traveled to Rome to participate in the First Vatican Council, where he eloquently defended primacy of the Pope and the doctrine of Papal Infallibility.  Only a few months before his death, on February 11, 1870, the Holy See approved the Constitutions of the Claretian Order.  

After the Council, Monsignor Claret retired to the Cistercian abbey at Fontfroide, Narbonne, in southern France.   On his deathbed, Monsignor Claret repeated his instruction to his congregation to labor in the New World, stating “America is a great and fertile field, and in time more souls will enter heaven from America than from Europe.”  Clutching his Rosary and kissing the Crucifix, Monsignor Claret died on October 24, 1870.  His tombstone was inscribed with the words of the 119^th psalm, also spoken by Pope Gregory VII at his death in 1085, “I have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore, I die in exile.”  

In 1897, Msgr. Claret’s body returned to Spain.  He is buried at the Mother House of the Claretian Missionaries in Vic where he had studied at Seminary.        

Symbols: Bishop’s vestments with crozier, an open book that reads “the spirit of the Lord is upon me” (El espìritu del Señor está sobre mi)

Feast Day: October 24 

Patron:  diocese of Canary Islands, Claretian students, educators, and institutions, textile merchants, weavers, savings for the poor, Catholic Press

Three Jesuit priests, St. Roque González de Santa Cruz, St. Juan del Castillo, and St. Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo were martyred on November 15 and 17, 628, at the orders of a native shaman, inside the “reduction”, or native settlement, which they had founded between the Paraguay and Uruguay Rivers.   They were beatified on January 28, 1934, and were canonized in Asunción, Paraguay, on May 16, 1988, by Pope John Paul II during his Apostolic visit to Uruguay, Bolivia, Lima, and Paraguay.

Roque González de Santa Cruz was born in Asunción, in Paraguay, on November 17, 1576.   The son of colonists from noble Spanish families, he was fluent in both Spanish and the native Guarani language.   

Paraguay then encompassed a large territory, including modern Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina and parts of Bolivia and Brazil.  Ordained a priest in 1528 when he was 23 years old, Fr. Roque joined the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, in 1609.   

After his ordination, Bishop Lizarraga of Paraguay gave Fr. Roque González de Santa Cruz permission to establish the first native settlement for the Guarani people, called a « reduction », in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, in what is now Brazil.   In addition to evangelization, Fr. Roque wished to promote the independence of the Guarani people to become economically self-sufficient from the Spanish colonists.   He also hoped the « reductions » would protect the Guarani natives from Portuguese « Bandeirante », loosely organized bands of armed men who explored the Brazilian territory seeking gold, diamonds, and indigenous people to sell as slaves, which the Jesuits opposed.  

Juan del Castillo and Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo were a generation younger than Fr. Roque González de Santa Cruz.  Both were born in Spain; Juan del Castillo in Belmonte, near Toledo, on September 14, 1596, and Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo in Zamora, on March 10, 1598.   Juan del Castillo entered the University of Alcala to study law, but his life quickly changed course when he entered the novitiate in the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) on March 21, 1614.  Around this date, Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo was completing his novitiate as a Jesuit.  Both young men were sent as missionaries to Paraguay.  They arrived in Buenos Aires on February 15, 1617, where they completed their studies, learned the native language of the Guarani, and were ordained as priests.  

In 1626, Fr. Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo was sent to the Guaycuru mission on the opposite bank of the Paraguay River from Asunción.  His mission was to preach and facilitate the spread of the faith and to ensure decent living conditions for the indigenous people.  Fr. Juan del Castillo was sent to the mission dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady on the Yjuhi river where he was called to assist Fr. Roque González de Santa Cruz.  

In 1628, Fr. Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo visited two other Guarani missions, at Paranà and Itaipù, and then joined Fathers Juan del Castillo and Roque Gonàlez de Santa Cruz at the Yjuhi settlement.  Fr. Roque Gonàlez de Santa Cruz and Fr. Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo then left Fr. Juan del Castillo in charge of the Yjuhi settlement and moved south to establish a new « reduction » dedicated to All Saints (« Todos los Santos ») in Caarò on the eastern bank of the Uruguay River.  The local shaman opposed this settlement and ordered the missionaries to be killed.  

On November 15, 1628, Fr. Alonso Rodriguez Olmedo was attacked and killed while he was installing a new bell for the church’s steeple; Fr. Roque Gonzalez de Santa Cruz, hearing his cries, exited the church and was beaten to death by a stone mallet -- two days before his 52^nd birthday.  Their bodies were dragged to the church which was burnt with the paintings and images inside.  

Two days later, on November 17, 1628, Fr. Juan de Castillo was beaten and stoned to death as he performed his duties in the reduction of the Assumption on the Yjuhi river. 

The Jesuits continued to build « reductions », thirty in number serving almost 142,000 natives, by 1767 when the Spanish king Charles III expelled the Jesuits from Paraguay.   Between 2,000 to 7,000 people and at least 2 Jesuit priests lived in each « reduction ».  The public buildings were built of wood and laid out around a central square, including a church and a parish house, a school, a home for widows, a hospital, and warehouses.  The natives learned reading and writing and biblical texts, in both the Guarani and Spanish languages.  They were taught basic farming skills.  Each home had a small vegetable garden to produce their own food.  The settlements quickly became self-supporting, trading surplus and other productions by weavers, carpenters, and tanners with neighboring communities.   

At times the « reductions » were criticized for the rigid and severe regimentation exercised over the lives of the native population by the Jesuits.  Nonetheless, as long as the Jesuits remained in charge of the « reductions » they were considered successful.   Even the French philosophers, Jean Jacque Rousseau and Voltaire praised them.  Voltaire wrote : « The Paraguayan missions reached the highest degree of civilization to which it is possible to lead a young people.  In those missions, law was respected, morals were pure, a happy brotherliness bound men together, the useful arts and even some of the more graceful sciences flourished, and there was abundance everywhere.»  

At the Mass of their canonization in May 1988, Pope John Paul II recognized St. Roque Gonzàlez de Santa Cruz, St. Juan del Castillo, and St. Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo as tireless in responding to the call of Jesus to make disciples among all nations.   From the mouth of the Plata River to the Paraná and Uruguay rivers, they were indefatigable in preaching the love of Christ through the creation of new « reductions » which assured a dignified life for their native brothers and sisters.  In the words of the Pope, the reductions « promoted authentic development, including the cultural, spiritual, and religious dimension of man and of society … and defended the rights of the indigenous people, teaching mutual respect, through evangelization that was possible by the grace of God. »  The Pope praised the « reductions » as opening new roads to spread the faith, the work of the Jesuit fathers enabled the Guarani peoples to pass, in a few years, from a state of semi-nomadic life to a singular civilization. » 

Symbols: habits of Jesuit priests, St. Roque González de Santa Cruz holds an image of the Immaculate Conception to whom all were devoted; St. Juan del Castillo holds the spears by which they were martyred and kneels in the blood that they shed; at the feet of St. Alfonso Rodriguez Olmedo is the bell he was installing at the time of his martyrdom 

Feast Day: November 16 

Patron:  Argentina, Paraguay, native traditions

Reference: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/es/homilies/1988/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19880516_asuncion.html

Peter Betancourt was born in Vilaflor on the Island of Tenerife on March 21, 1626.   He died in Antigua, Guatemala on April 25, 1667, at the age of 41.  He formed the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem composed of Franciscan tertiaries, both men and women, who care for the poor in Antigua in the three hospitals, a school, a homeless shelter, and an inn for priests, which Peter of Saint Joseph built.   Known as “Saint Francis of Assisi of the Americas,” Saint Peter of Saint Joseph Betancourt is the first Saint born in the Canary Islands and the first saint of Guatamala.  He was canonized on July 20, 2002, in a ceremony in Guatemala City, Guatemala, by Pope John Paul II.   

Peter was born to an ancient Norman family who descended from Jean de Béthencourt, a French knight and explorer who conquered the Canary Islands for Henry III of Castile (1402-1405), although recent research indicates he also had native Canary Island ancestors.   By his birth, the family had fallen deeply into debt.  When still a boy, Peter was placed in indentured servitude to pay off his father’s debts.  By legend, during his indentured service, Peter prayed in a cave outside the city of El Médano on the south of the island where he also sheltered his flocks to protect them from pirate raids.  Today, the cave of Santo Hermano Pedro is a place of pilgrimage.

In 1649 when he was 23, Peter was freed from servitude.  He sailed to Guatemala to make a new life in a new world.  Like many emigrants before him, before his departure, Peter prayed in the Church of San Francisco de Asis located in the port city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.  

Upon reaching Havana, Cuba, Peter was without funds to continue his journey.  He found work as a sacristan for a priest who was also from Tenerife.   His earnings took him as far as Honduras.  From there, Peter walked to Antigua, Guatemala, where he eventually found work in a textile factory.  He entered a local Jesuit college with the hope of becoming a priest but was unable to complete the courses.  Peter joined the Franciscan tertiary order taking the name, Peter of Saint Joseph.    

As a Franciscan tertiary, Peter of Saint Joseph visited hospitals, jails, and worked with the young.   In 1658 he converted his small home into a hospice for the poor who had been discharged from the city hospital but who still required care.   His work attracted patrons who contributed to the building of a hospital with equipment and provisions, and eventually added a homeless shelter, a school for the poor, an oratory, and an inn for priests.  Peter of Saint Joseph placed this establishment under the patronage of Our Lady of Bethlehem.  

When other tertiaries joined his work, Peter Saint Joseph formed the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem, made up of men and women devoted to the care of the sick and the education of the poor.  By the time of his death, Peter Saint Joseph had built two additional hospitals in Antigua, Guatamala.

Peter of Saint Joseph begged for alms to support the poor, the imprisoned, to endow masses said by poor priests.  He walked the streets at night ringing a bell and begging for prayers for the souls in purgatory.  Peter of Saint Joseph is an early proponent of the devotion to the Souls in Purgatory and of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which he propounded two centuries before it was declared a dogma of the Catholic Church.      

He is buried in the Church of Saint Francis in Antigua, Guatamala.  

Symbols: He wears the habit of a Franciscan tertiary, holds a walking stick, and rings a bell 

Feast Day: April 24 

Simon bar Jonah, to whom Jesus gave the name Peter, is first recorded in Galilee in the year 30 AD. Peter died in Rome during the anti-Christian persecutions of the Roman Emperor Nero on June 29, 67 AD.  Peter, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, was present from the earliest days of His ministry, appearing over one hundred times in all four Gospel accounts, in the Acts of the Apostles, and in two epistles attributed to him. 

Simon was a fisherman from Bethsaida (John 1: 44).  When he was fishing near Capernaum on the Lake of Galilee with his brother Andrew and the sons of Zebedee, James and John, Jesus called all four to follow him. They did, at once.  (Matthew 4: 18-22; Mark 1: 15-20; Luke 5:4-11; John 1:35-42).  

He is the first to confess that Jesus is the Messiah (Matthew 16:15-16; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20) after which Jesus named him Peter “the rock (“Petrus” in Latin) on which he would build his church”.   Jesus then gave to Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven”. (Matthew 16:17-19).   This commission is believed to grant to Peter, and to his successors as Popes in Rome, the authority to bind and to forgive sins.  In the Gospel of Matthew (16:21-23) after He gives Simon the name, Peter, Jesus continues to explain His forthcoming Passion.  Peter then “rebukes Him saying “This shall never happen to you.” And, Jesus responds, “Get Thee behind me, Satan!” 

Both declarations reflect Peter’s complex character.  He was enthusiastic and impetuous in his love of the Lord (eg: Matthew 14:22-33; John 13:24) and a witness to many of the miracles performed by Jesus.  Peter is present at His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor (Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28); and it is Peter who finds the coin to pay the Roman Tribute Tax in the mouth of a fish (Matthew 17:24-27).  The Gospels do not however idealize Peter’s character.  Indeed, the Gospels go out of their way to depict his weaknesses, his fears, and his failures.  What distinguishes Peter is his articulation of his faith in Jesus as the Christ and his zealous determination, despite repeated failures, to return to the struggle.  To Peter, Jesus gave the instruction to forgive seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21, 22).   

Peter is present during the Passion, but his actions fall short, as Jesus predicted during the Last Supper (Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22; John 18).  At Gethsemane Jesus twice asked Peter to pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane, and twice Peter fell asleep while Jesus prayed.   In the Garden during the arrest of Jesus, according to John (18:10), Peter held a sword and cut the ear of a servant of the High Priest.   According to Luke (22:49-51), Jesus healed the servant’s ear and rebuked Peter.  Peter was the only Apostle to follow Jesus to the house of Caiaphas, the High Priest.  All four Gospels record that, while Jesus stood trial, Peter infamously denied he knew Jesus three times before the cock crowed at dawn, as Jesus had foreseen at the Last Supper.  Peter is not recorded as present during the Crucifixion, death, or burial of Jesus. 

After Jesus’s death, John (20:1-9) records that Peter was the first to enter the empty tomb.  In Luke (24:1-12) only Peter responded to the women, running to see for himself the empty tomb.  In his resurrection appearances, Luke (24:34) and Paul (I Corinthians 15) state that Jesus first appears to Peter.  After the Resurrection, Jesus appeared to Peter and the other Apostles while fishing on the Lake of Galilee.  When Peter recognized the Lord on the distant shore, Peter impetuously leapt into the water and swam to the Resurrected Lord.  In the final chapter of John (21; 15-17), before Jesus ascends to Heaven, Jesus asks Peter to affirm his love for Jesus three times, balancing his three denials of the Lord in the High Priest’s house during Jesus’s Passion.  Jesus named Peter as the head of the Twelve, both before (Matthew 16: 17-19; Luke 22:32) and after (John 21, 15-19) His Resurrection.   

After the Ascension Peter appears in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, with Mary, Jesus’s mother, and the other disciples, praying.  They are together in the Upper Room where they receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.   Peter and the other disciples then begin their ministry of preaching and healing.  Peter performs various miracles recorded in Acts:  at Jerusalem Peter healed the crippled beggar and many others when Peter’s shadow fell upon them (Acts 3); at Lydda, Peter healed Aeneas who was paralyzed for eight years (Acts 9:32-35); at Joppa Peter raised Tabitha from the dead (Acts 9:36-43)  Peter also caused the death of Ananias and his wife Sapphire who held back money from the gift they gave to the Lord and lied to Peter about it (Acts 5).  Peter, twice imprisoned by the Sanhedrin and once by Herod Agrippa c. 42-44 AD, is miraculously freed with the help of angels. (Acts 5, 12).

Symbols: keys of the Kingdom of God, one gold which opens heaven’s gate, one iron which locks it ; a rooster; Peter is traditionally depicted as elderly man with white hair and beard

Feast Day Cathedra of St. Peter, February 22; Feast of Sts Peter and Paul, June 29

Patron of the Papacy; fishermen, butchers, bakers, bridgebuilders, cobblers, locksmiths, horologists, among many others

Saul of Tarsus was born into a family of Pharisees in the tribe of Benjamin.  Saul of Tarsus is first recorded in Jerusalem shortly after 33 AD, the year of the Crucifixion of Jesus.  He died in Rome during the persecutions of the Emperor Nero and on the same day as St. Peter, June 29, 67 AD.  The life and missions of St Paul are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and in the twelve letters he wrote to the Christian communities he founded: Colossians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philemon, Philippians, Romans, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus. 

A “young man named Saul” is recorded as present at the stoning to death in Jerusalem of the protomartyr Stephen (Acts 7:57-60; the biography of St. Stephen appears at Panel 1).  Saul is recorded as approving of the martyrdom (Acts: 8:1).  After Stephen’s death, Saul was reported as “ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women” and committing them to prison.   (Acts 8:1.3)   

Saul was on the road to Damascus “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” when he was called by Jesus of Nazareth to be His disciple.  On the road, Saul was thrown from his horse with a vision of Jesus who identified himself with the words, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:1-9) During the vision, Saul was blinded and remained blind for three days.   His servants led Saul to the house of Ananais who Jesus had instructed in a dream to receive and to teach Saul.   After three days Saul’s sight returned, and Ananais baptized Saul as a Christian.  Saul then proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God.  St Paul wrote that he received the Gospel directly by revelation from Christ (Galatians 1:11-12)  

The first reference to Saul as Paul, the Greco-Roman form of his Hebrew name, is in Acts of the Apostles (13:9) after which he is referred to as Paul throughout the rest of the text.  

Once Paul converted, he was tireless in his preaching of the Good News.  As recorded in Acts, St Paul traveled constantly throughout Greece, Asia Minor (today Syria and Turkey) and the eastern Mediterranean to preach about Jesus in synagogues and marketplaces.  He found and encouraged numerous Christian communities.  

During his peregrinations, Paul became convinced that the Gospel should be proclaimed to the Gentiles as well as the Jews.   His conviction brought Paul into conflict with some of the Apostles who believed that Gentiles who converted to the “Way”, that is, to the belief that Jesus was the Messiah, had to follow the laws and the customs of Moses, which included the requirement that males be circumcised.  

117 and 118.  The Intersection of the Lives of Saints Peter and Paul: The Founding of the Church in Rome

Whether Gentiles had to be circumcised to enter the church of Christ was debated by the Apostles during a Council held in Jerusalem c. 49 AD, or about 16 years after the Crucifixion of Jesus.  Saints Peter and James the Major presided over the Council which was attended by Saints Paul and Barnabus.  Paul and Barnabus told the Apostles about the “signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.” (Acts 15:12).   

During the debate, Peter supported Paul and his mission to the Gentiles.  Peter, a faithful Jewish man, had been led to welcome Gentiles by the Lord in a dream in which God instructed him to proclaim the Gospel to everyone, including Gentiles.  In Peter’s dream, a voice repeated three times, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean" (Acts 10:9-16).  Peter concluded his address to the Council in Jerusalem with these words: ”We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

On the advice of Saint James the Major, the Apostles in Jerusalem accepted Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. 

The Apostles chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas to go to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas and to deliver a letter with instructions agreed upon by the Apostles.  The letter, reproduced in Acts 15:29, confirmed that Gentiles did not have to observe the rituals of the Mosaic law, including male circumcision, but should avoid sexual immorality, the eating food sacrificed to idols or meat of strangled animals.   

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul recorded a second, later, meeting with Peter.   After Peter left Jerusalem, he went to Antioch in Syria as its first bishop.  In his Letter, Paul records that he, Paul, rebuked Peter on his arrival in Antioch because Peter had “drawn back and separated himself” from the Gentiles out of fear of those who believed that only men who were circumcised could become Christians.  Paul concluded his Epistle “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything: what counts is the new creation.  Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule.” 

After travels to Rhodes and Patara, Cyprus and Tyre, Paul returned to Jerusalem (Acts 21).   There the Jewish community accused Paul of defiling the Temple and sought to have him put to death.   Despite Paul’s defense, in which he described his conversion experience, the crowd in the Temple demanded that the Romans put Paul to death (Acts 22).  When Paul defended himself before the Roman commander as a citizen of Rome, the Romans protected him from the Jews because Paul, who was born a citizen of Rome, had the right to be judged in Rome by the Caesar himself.  Paul sought to go to Rome because in a dream, the Lord told Paul that he had to testify for Jesus in Rome (Acts 23).  

After two years in a Roman prison in Caesarea, where Paul testified a third time to his conversion experience, Paul boarded a boat for Rome.  (Acts 27)   During a violent storm at sea, the boat carrying Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta.  Paul stayed in Malta for several months, healing the sick, including a child of its governor Publius.  During his time in Malta, Paul converted the Maltese to Christianity.    The Maltese preserve the memory of Paul’s presence on the island to this day.   

Paul then continued his journey to Rome where he stayed for two years.  In Rome, Paul “preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ, with boldness and without hindrance.” (Acts 28)

Peter traveled to Rome separately from Paul.  Although there is no biblical reference to Peter in Rome, Peter is traditionally considered to have served as the first Bishop of Rome from around 62 to 67 AD.   This is attested to by numerous early Church fathers, including Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-107 AD) and Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202 AD) who added that when Matthew wrote his Gospel, Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome.   

Peter’s presence and preaching in Rome is also supported by ancient tradition.  The church of San Piero a Grado at the port of Pisa is built around an ancient altar on which Peter is said to have celebrated his first Eucharist after landing on Italian soil.   The houses where Peter stayed in Rome are preserved as the most ancient Basilicas in the Eternal City: the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana stands above the house of Senator Pudente and conserves the table on which Peter celebrated the Eucharist; the Basilica of Santa Prisca stands above the house of Aquila and Priscilla; the Basilica of San Sebastiano is venerated as the domus Petri where Peter and Paul both lived; the Basilica of San Pietro in Carcere, near the Roman forum, stands above the Mamertino prison where Peter and Paul were imprisoned during the anti-Christian persecutions of Nero in 67 AD;  the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli  conserves the chains which bound the Saint.   Their two jailers, Processo and Martiniano, witnessed the miracles performed by these Apostles and asked to be baptized.  Peter with the sign of the cross, made water appear and baptized them.   The jailers opened the doors, allowing the two Apostles to escape.  

According to ancient tradition from the 2^nd century, repeated in the Roman Martyrology and the Decree of Pope Gelasius in the V century, Peter and Paul were martyred in the city of Rome under Emperor Nero on the same day, June 29, 67 AD.   Peter died by crucifixion, with his head down, according to a letter written by a successor, Pope Clement I (r. 88-99), to the Corinthians in 96 A.D.  As a Roman citizen, Paul died by beheading.

Peter was buried along the via Cornelia across the Tiber from the Eternal City on a hill called Vaticanus.   A small shrine was erected over his tomb.  St. Jerome (De viris illustribus, 392) wrote that his shrine was “venerated by the whole world.”   Between 320 and 327, the Roman Emperor Constantine built a Basilica above this Christian necropolis, placing its altar directly above Peter’s tomb.  Old St. Peter’s, as Constantine’s basilica was known, was destroyed in the 16^th century, but the main altar of the rebuilt St. Peter’s Basilica still stands above St. Peter’s remains.   

Paul was buried some two kilometers from the place of his execution on the via Ostiense.  His followers built a small shrine over his tomb.  Around 320 the Roman Emperor Constantine built a Basilica above this shrine, which was consecrated in 324 by Pope Sylvester.  The high altar of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls stands above the marble tomb of the Saint.  During archaeological excavations in 2006, a sarcophagus and bones were uncovered under the high altar. Carbon dating confirmed that the headless remains in the tomb under the high altar were of the time, and likely those, of St Paul.  The head of Saint Paul is preserved as a relic in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.   Also around 2006, archaeologists confirmed the presence in nearby catacombs of the tomb of Saint Tecla (Panel 34) a disciple of Paul who followed the Saint to Rome.  The oldest known icon of Saint Paul dating from the end of the 4^th century was found beside Saint Tecla’s tomb. 

Symbols: St Paul carries a book representing his epistles in the New Testament and a sword which is a reminder of his martyrdom.

Feast Day: Feast of Sts Peter and Paul June 29

Patron: of Missions, writers and publishers

Baptized Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, St Francis was born in Assisi around 1181; he died there on October 3, 1226.  He was canonized less than two years later, on July 16, 1228, in the city of Assisi by Pope Gregory IX.  Four years later, Francis’s body was transferred to the Basilica of San Francesco in 1230.  Francis founded the Order of Friars Minor (for men), the Order of St. Clare (for women), the Third Order of Saint Francis (for laity), and established that Franciscan Friars would have Custody of the Christian sites in the Holy Land.  He is one of the most venerated of Catholic saints.   Together with Catherine of Siena, Francis is the patron saint of Italy.

Francis’s father, Pietro di Bernardone, was a cloth merchant whose trade with France had made his fortune.  Likely in honor of this source of his wealth, Pietro changed his son’s name to Francis.  From the age of fourteen, Francis dedicated himself to his family’s business.  He was handsome, wealthy, and lived lavishly.  In the 1202 war Francis fought for the Ghibellines of Assisi against the Guelf’s of Perugia.  He was captured and imprisoned for a year, being freed only after his father paid a hefty ransom.  As he recuperated, Francis was developed a love for nature, which he called the miraculous work of God.  

In 1203, Francis left Assisi intending to join an army of Christian men to re-conquer the Holy Land in the Fourth Crusade.  Only one day into his journey, Francis fell ill at Spoleto where he spent the night in the church of San Sabino.  There he had a vision which caused him to renounce his military participation in the Crusades and to return to Assisi, radically changed.  

In 1205, while Francis was praying before a crucifix in a ruined chapel dedicated to San Damiano outside Assisi, Francis heard a voice say three times, “Francis, repair my house which as you see is in ruins.”  Francis immediately sold some of his father’s inventory and gave the earnings to the parish priest.  The priest, afraid of Pietro’s retribution, returned the money to Pietro who decided his son had gone mad.  In the hope that public embarrassment would rehabilitate his son, Pietro denounced Francis to the city consul.  Francis appealed to the bishop who held a trial in February of 1206 at the Bishop’s Palace in the presence of “all Assisi”.   After his father stated his case, Francis immediately took off all of his clothes and laid them at the bishop’s feet.  Standing naked before his father, the bishop, and the crowd of spectators, Francis said “Until now I called you father on earth, but I now say with all sincerity, Our Father who are in Heaven, because in Him I place all of my treasure and all of my faith and all of my hope.”   The bishop covered Francis with a mantle and welcomed Francis into the Church.

The first years of his conversion were characterized by prayer, service to lepers, and manual labor.  Francis chose to live a life of voluntary poverty inspired by the example of Christ.   He renounced wealth and worldly attractions and lived the joyous life of a “fool”.   Following the Gospel of Matthew, Francis chose to preach the Gospel on the streets of the world.  He restored several ruined chapels around Assisi, including San Damiano, and the Porziuncola, a small chapel located in the plain below Mount Subasio near Assisi.   Porziuncola was dedicated to St. Mary of the Angels and dated to the 4^th century.

His gentle nature, his humility, his genuine simplicity and his love of nature and of animals, attracted followers beginning with his childhood friend, Bernardo di Quintavalle. The daughter of another noble family from Assisi, Chiara Scifi, heard Francis preach in San Giorgio in Assisi and decided to follow his Rule for Franciscan men.  She founded the Order of the Poor Clares for women and wrote their Rule of Life based Francis’s teachings (see biography below).   

By 1209, Francis and twelve companions traveled to Rome where they obtained the blessing of Pope Innocent III for their “Ordo fratrum minorum” (Order of the Little Friars) which would be definitively approved by Pope Honorius III in 1223.  Through his humility and complete obedience to the Pope in Rome, Francis persuaded the wealthy and powerful in the Church to accept the Franciscan vow of poverty and service to the poor.   In 2013 the Blessed VIllano, Bishop of Gubbio, granted Francis and his followers an abandoned abbey near the Porziuncola, or Santa Maria degli Angeli.  

In 1219 Francis departed for Egypt and Palestine where the army of the Fifth Crusade had been fighting the Muslims to retain possession of the Holy Land for two years.  In Egypt Francis crossed the line between the two armies, unarmed, to preach the Gospel to the Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, nephew of Saladin.  Francis earned the Sultan’s respect, if not his conversion.   As a result, to this day, only members of the Franciscan Order are authorized to care for the Christian sites in the Holy Land.

Upon his return to Italy, at Christmas 1223, Francis created a living evocation of the birth of Jesus, which gave rise to the creche.  Between 1224 and 1226 Francis composed the poem, Canticle of Creation.  

Two years before his death, on September 14, 1224, Francis was praying on Mount Verna.  In a vision, he saw a seraphic angel on a cross.  When the vision ended, on his hands and feet and on his right chest appeared the bleeding wounds of the stigmata, replicating the places where the nails and the lance pierced the flesh of Jesus during his Passion.  In June 1226, mortally ill, Francis composed his Testament in his cell in Cortona in which he exhorted his followers to maintain the spirit of the Rule of the Order.  

Francis died in his “holy place”, the chapel of Porziuncola, where Francis had spent much of his life in prayer.  Before his burial, Saint Clare and her sisters viewed his body which was transferred in 1230 upon completion of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi.

In 2013, Jorge Maria Bergoglio chose Francis as his Pontifical name in honor of Saint Francis and his call to “rebuild his Church”.   The city of Assisi, is honored as the city of Peace, hosted four great inter-religious encounters in 1986 and 2002, with Pope John Paul II, in 2011 with Pope Benedict XVI, and in 2016 with Pope Francis.

Symbols: St Francis wears a Franciscan brown habit, holds a crucifix, and bears the stigmata, the five marks of the Passion of Christ on his breast, hands, and feet; he is also shown holding a dove as a symbol both of his love of animals and of his prayer for Peace. 

Feast Day: October 4, when the Church blesses the animals

Patron: Italy, Umbria, animals, poets, and merchants

Clare Scifi was born in Assisi on July 16, 1194 into a noble family from Assisi; she died in Assisi on August 11, 1253.   She was a follower of Saint Francis and founded the Order of the Poor Clares.  Clare wrote their Rule of Life, which was the first set of monastic guidelines written by a woman.  She was canonized in 1255 by Pope Alexander IV at the cathedral of Anagni.  On February 17, 1958, Pope Pius XII named Clare as the patron saint of television and telecommunications.

Immediately after her canonization, Tommaso da Celano wrote her biography with the intent to inspire women to follow her life of humility, poverty, and piety.  He writes that her mother, Ortolana Fiumi, encouraged her daughter in her faith, in prayer, and in the giving of alms.   Ortolana was very devout, undertaking pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land.  She joined Clare’s monastery later in life as did Clare’s two sisters.

Even as a girl, Clare disdained rich meals and extravagant dress, preferring works of charity, and caring for the poor.  She met Francis through a cousin who was one of Francis’s earliest followers.  Inspired by Francis’s preaching during lent in March 1212 at San Giogio’s in Assisi, Clare chose to follow Christ and live according to His Gospel.    

According to legend, Francis advised Clare to go to Mass on Palm Sunday and then to leave her family’s home later that evening.  Clare, accompanied by an aunt, arrived at the Porziuncola, where Francis lived with  his followers.  There, Clare cut her hair, exchanged her clothes for a simple robe and veil, and took her vows as a bride of Christ.   As long as he lived, Clare remained close to Francis and cared for him during his final illness.  

At the beginning of her religious life, Clare lived in a convent of Benedictine nuns in the nearby town of Bastia.  She refused her father’s pleas that she return home, declaring she wanted no husband but Jesus Christ.  When her sister Catarina joined her, Clare moved back to Assisi to a small dwelling adjacent to the Church of San Damiano, the ruined church repaired by Francis which had inspired his conversion.  San Damiano became the center of the Order of the Poor Clares.  Clare lived a life of manual labor and prayer, poverty and austerity, entirely secluded from the world.  The Poor Clares went barefoot, slept on the ground, ate no meat, and observed almost complete silence.  Throughout her life, Clare opposed any attempt by the Popes to weaken the Order’s commitment to radical corporate poverty.

Assisi was attacked twice in September 1240 and June 1241 by the German king Frederick II who sought the crown of Holy Roman Emperor from Pope Gregory IX.  Assisi successfully repelled both attacks and attributed its victory defeat to Clare’s prayers to the Christ in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.  Images of Clare show her holding the host in a monstrance as her shield.

Pope Innocent IV confirmed the Rule of Life for the Poor Clares on August 9, 1253.  Two days later, she died at the age of 59.  Her last wods were “Blessed be You, O God for having created me.”  The Pope presided at her funeral and immediately began her process for Canonization which was completed in two years.   Construction of the Basilica of Saint Clare in Assisi was completed in 1260 and her body was transferred to beneath its altar.  

Symbols: St Clare wears a Franciscan brown habit, holds a pyx which she showed to invading German army of Frederick II to end their attack on Assisi

Feast Day: August 11 

Patron: the city of Naples, Italy and Santa Clara, California, television and telecommunications, women who wash, iron, sew and embroider, goldsmiths, and scouts.  

Karol Jòsef Wojtyla was born in Wadowice in Poland on May 18, 1920, and died at the age of 84 on April 2, 2005 in the papal apartments in the Vatican.  Karol Jòsef Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II on October 22 in the second papal conclave of 1978.  He was the first non-Italian Pope since Adrian VI in the sixteenth century and the second longest serving Pope in history.   His long pontificate re-created a sense of stability and identity to the Catholic Church.  Pope John Paul II’s cause for canonization began one month after his death.  He was beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI on May 1, 2011 and canonized with Pope John XXIII by Pope Francis on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 27, 2014.

Karol Josef Wojtyla was the youngest of three children.  His mother and his elder siblings died when he was still a child.  At his father’s death in 1941, Wojtyla wrote he “had already lost all the people I loved”.   He attended University in Krakow, ultimately learning 15 languages.   When the Nazi’s invaded Poland in 1938, Wojtyla avoided military service, working as a manual laborer in a limestone quarry and for a chemical factory during which time he sustained serious injuries from two major accidents.  

Early in the Nazi occupation, Wojtyla was introduced to Carmelite spirituality and the Living Rosary which led to his calling to the priesthood.  He entered seminary in October 1942 with a knock on the door of the Archbishop’s Palace in Krakow, studying clandestinely as the seminary had been closed by the Nazis.  He suffered a third serious accident in 1944, and Wojtyla believed that his recovery was a confirmation of his vocation.  During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Wojtyla is credited with saving the lives of many Jewish refugees.  Yad Vashem is considering his cause to be included among the Righteous of the Nations.  Wojtyla described the 12 years of Nazi occupation as “bestiality”.   

Even as defeat of the Nazi’s became inevitable, the Gestapo rounded up over 8,000 young men in Krakow on August 6, 1944.  Wojtyla managed to escape, hiding in the Archbishop’s palace until the Germans finally left the city on January 17, 1945.   Then he worked with other students to repair the seminary.  Wojtyla was ordained a priest on All Saints’ Day 1945 and continued his studies at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome.   In 1947, Wojtyla traveled to Visit Padre Pio (See Panel 14) who heard his confession and predicted that Wojtyla would rise to the highest post in the Church. 

By the summer of 1948, Wojtyla had returned to Poland as a parish priest.  Arriving his first act was to kiss the ground, a gesture he adopted from the French Saint Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney (See Panel 14).  He also taught ethics at the university and earned a doctorate in Sacred Theology in 1954.   

On July 4, 1958, Pope Pius XII appointed Wojtyla as auxiliary bishop of Krakow.  From October 1962 through 1965, Bishop Wojtyla participated in the Second Vatican Councils.   During this time, Pope Paul VI named Wojtyla as Archbishop of Krakòw and promoted him to the College of Cardinals on June 26, 1967, naming Wojtyla titular priest of San Cesareo in Palatio.  Between 1974 and 1975, Wojtyla served the Pope as consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Laity. 

Pope Paul VI died on August 6, 1978, and Wojtyla voted with the College of Cardinals which elected his successor who took the name Pope John Paul I.   Thirty-three days later, the newly elected Pope died.  The Cardinals met for a second time beginning on October 14 and elected Wojtyla on the third ballot.  In tribute to his immediate predecessor, Wojtyla took the papal name of John Paul II.   At 58 Wojtyla was the second youngest man ever elected Pope.   

On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot and critically wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish gunman as he entered St Peter’s Square for a papal audience.  The event occurred on the day and at the hour of the first appearance of Our Lady to the children at Fatima.  Before his operation, the Pope insisted that the doctors not remove his brown scapular.   One year later during the Pope’s visit to Fatima to thank Our Lady another (unsuccessful) attempt was made on his life.    The Pope believed that his life was saved by Our Lady’s extraordinary protection and care.

As Pope, Wojtyla visited 129 different countries, attracting large crowds.  He met with many heads of state, including US Presidents Jimmy Carter (1979), Ronald Reagan (1984) and George W. Bush (2004); Queen Elizabeth II (1982), Mikhail Gorbachev (1989) and Vladimir Putin (2000).   

Pope John Paul II is credited with helping to end communism in eastern Europe by encouraging the peaceful revolution of Solidarity workers led by Lech Walesa in his native Poland.  In Prague on April 21, 1990, the pope stated that “the claim to build a world without God has been shown to be an illusion.”    He applied that teaching to capitalism, as well, repeating the Christian moral message in defense of every human person and condemning its secularism, consumerism, hedonism, and materialism.    

Pope John Paul II issued 14 papal encyclicals, including Veritatis Splendor which emphasizes the dependence of man on God and His Law, writing that true freedom depends on truth, Evangelium Vitae which re-asserts historic Catholic teaching against contraception, abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment; and Ut Unum Sint which calls for the unity of all Christians to proclaim the same truth about the Cross and reasserts the call to ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council.   His teaching was firm in favor of clerical celibacy and against the ordination of women and liberation theology (see biography of Oscar Romero, panel 24).

Pope John Paul II was a strong advocate for peace and an equitable distribution of the world’s resources; he opposed all violence.  Wojtyla publicly endorsed the Jubilee 2000 campaign in favor of world debt relief begun by the Irish rock stars, Bob Geldof and Bono.  He condemned apartheid in South Africa and supported the Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the imprisoned civil rights activist Nelson Mandela.   He opposed both US-led Gulf Wars: Gulf War I (1990-1991) against Saddam Hussein’s annexation of Kuwait, and Gulf War II which began in 2003 with a US invasion of Iraq and did not end until the withdrawal of US troops in 2011.   He described the massacre of Tutsis by Hutus in 1994 in the largely Catholic country of Rwanda as genocide.  

Pope John Paul II presided in Assisi over two World Days of Prayer for Peace hosting more than 120 representatives of different religions and denominations in gatherings spent together in prayer.  The first was held on October 27, 1986.  The second, in response to the bombings of September 11, 2001, concluded the Ecumenical Week of Prayer for Christian Unity on January 24, 2002.  He was the first Pope to pray in Jerusalem at the Wailing Wall (2000) and in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus (2000).  In 2004, the Pope hosted the Papal Concert of Reconciliation bringing together leaders of Islam with leaders of the Jewish and Catholic communities in the Vatican.

Pope John Paul II began the World Youth Day and presided over nine, including one at Luneta Park, in Manila in the Philippines in 1995 where he said Mass to between 5 and 7 million people, the largest gathering in Christian history.  

On March 25, 2000, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth in commemoration of the second millennium anniversary of the Annunciation.  Before leaving for the Holy Land, Pope John Paul II declared March 12, 2000, a Day of Prayer for forgiveness of the Sins of the Church.   Just over a year later, on November 20, 2001, the Pope issued his first apology for the abuse of children by Catholic priests and religious.  The Pope, criticized for failing to respond quickly enough to the complaints of victims of clergy abuse, summoned all of the American Cardinals to the Vatican in April 2002 and demanded that they diligently investigate accusations of abuse in the American church and to be more open and transparent when dealing with scandals.  He stated that the priesthood had no room for men who committed the appalling sin of sexual abuse.

In 2001 the pope was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which was publicly acknowledged by the Vatican in 2003.  He continued his duties despite his declining health and died in the Papal Apartments in the Vatican on April 2, 2005, shortly before his 85^th birthday.  The Requiem Mass on April 8, 2005, set world records for attendance and for the number of heads of State who honored his life.  Pope John Paul II’s tomb is in St. Peter’s Basilica, in the Chapel of Saint Sebastian between Michelangelo’s Pieta and the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. 

 Symbols: Papal vestments

Feast Day: October 22 

Patron: Krakow, Poland, World Youth Day, young Catholics, World Meeting of Families in 2015

Isabel Flores de Oliva was born on April 30, 1586 in Lima, Peru.  She died there on August 24, 1617 at the age of 31.   She took the name “Rosa” at her confirmation in 1597, from the affectionate name given to her by a servant who claimed to have seen her face transformed into a rose.   Known for her beauty, piety, and chastity, at her death roses fell from the sky.  Many miracles are attributed to her intercession, including the curing of a leper.  Her fame was such that she was canonized by Pope Clement X at St. Peter’s in Rome fifty-four years after her death on April 12, 1671, the first person born in the Western Hemisphere to be made a saint.

Rosa was one of many children born to Gaspar Flores, a member of the Spanish Imperial Army, and his wife, Maria de Oliva y Herrara, a native of Lima.   From an early age, Rosa wished to be a nun,  

but her father prohibited her from entering a convent.  He wished her to marry, but Rosa was equally determined to remain a virgin.  When men began to notice her beauty, Rosa cut off her hair and rubbed her face with peppers until it blistered.  

Rosa chose to model her life after the Dominican Saint Catherine of Siena (Panel 31).   She cloistered herself in her room, spending her time in prayer, and leaving only to attend daily Mass.  She performed secret penances and fasted three times a week, permanently abstaining from eating meat.  Rosa helped the sick and hungry in her community, even taking to caring for them in her room.  Talented as a gardener and in needlework, Rosa took her flowers to the market and sold the lace and embroidery she produced to help the poor.  

At the age of 20, Rosa was permitted to join the Third Order of St. Dominic while still living in her parent’s home.  For 11 years, Rosa wore the habit of a Dominican Tertiary.  She also wore a heavy crown of silver with spikes on the inside to emulate the Crown of Thorns worn by Christ.  She continued a life of extreme prayer, fasting and penance, sleeping only a few hours a night.  On one occasion she burned her hands as a self-imposed act of penance. 

She prophesized that she would die on August 24.   Her funeral in the Cathedral was attended by all the public authorities of Lima.  Her shrine is located inside the convent of Saint Dominic in Lima.

Symbols: habit of a Dominican Tertiary, a silver crown, roses, and the Infant Jesus

Patron of: Peru; Lima, Peru; Latin America; indigenous peoples of the Americas; Philippines; India; people ridiculed for their piety; people in need of help in resolving family quarrels; embroiderers and gardeners and florists; and places named Santa Rosa, including in California

Feast Day:  August 23

Juan Macias was born on March 2, 1585 in Ribera del Fresno, in rural Spain.  He died of natural causes at the age of 60 on September 16, 1645.  He was the gatekeeper of the Saint Mary Magdalene Dominican monastery in Lima, Peru, a post he held for over twenty years.  Om this capacity he met visitors to the monastery seeking material and spiritual assistance.  Cheerful and encouraging, Juan Macias never turned anyone away.   Beatified with his friend, Martin de Porres (see below), in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI, Juan Macias was canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI.

Born Juan de Arcas y Sànchez to poor farmers in southwestern Spain, he took the surname “Macias” from the uncle who raised him after his parents died when he was only four years old.  He helped his uncle by caring for his flock of sheep.  Juan spent those long solitary hours in the field praying the rosary.  

When he was about sixteen, Juan met a Dominican friar while attending Mass who advised him to seek God’s will for his life.  In 1619, Juan left his native land and traveled through Portugal and Spain.  In Seville, he received the opportunity to travel to South America.  After landing in Cartagena, Columbia, Juan spent four months traveling by foot through Ecuador and along the Andres foothills to arrive in Lima, Peru.  In Lima he worked for about two years with a dealer in large animals until he discerned his vocation.

On January 23, 1622, when he was about 35 years old, Juan Macias entered the Dominican priory of St. Mary Magdalene, as a lay brother.  He spent his novitiate year in prayer and penance and acts of charity.  On January 25, 1623, Juan Macias took his final vows in the Dominican Order of Preachers. 

Juan Macias was assigned the post of gatekeeper for the monastery where he became known for his love of the rosary and for his generosity to the poor.  Throughout his life, Juan Macias had visions of Saint John the Evangelist from whom he received advice and of the Virgin Mary.    Macias “disappeared” when he became an object of disinterested curiosity.  On the other hand, he saw many souls that his prayers and sacrifices had freed from Purgatory.

Although his nature was inclined to solitude, he spent his days caring for the sick and feeding the poor, including native peoples, the sick and invalid, orphans and widows, and those without work.  At times, the monastery fed over 200 people in a day.  Juan Macias struggled to collect the alms necessary to serve these people.   He collected donations walking the streets of Lima accompanied by a donkey.  Once the donkey learned the route, the donkey traversed the streets, alone, wearing a sign asking for donations for the poor.  At certain intervals, the donkey would stop and bray calling the people inside their houses to donate.  Juan Macias frequently encountered Martin de Porres from the neighboring Dominican convent of the Holy Rosary who also walked the streets of Lima seeking help for those in need.

His charity did not stop with material needs.  Juan Macias offered the doctrine of salvation to those who arrived at his door, correcting, exhorting, and spiritually healing souls.   His good works were born of continuous prayer and from his firm but humble certainty that God had chosen him for this mission.

Symbols: Dominican habit

Feast Day:  September 18

Turibius Alfonso de Mogrovejo was born on November 16, 1538, in Mayorga de Campos (Valladolid), Spain.  He died on March 23, 1606 as Archbishop of Lima at the age of 67 in the Convent of Saint Augustine in Saña, Peru. Turibius served as Archbishop of Lima from May 24, 1581, until his death twenty-five years later.  A charismatic preacher he baptized nearly half a million people, including three saints, Martin of Porres, Francisco Solanus and Rosa of Lima.  He reformed the archdiocese, sought to eliminate abuse and scandal among the clergy, instituted new practices to train seminarians, and advocated for the native peoples with the Spanish governors.   He was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in Rome on December 10, 1726.  Saint Pope John Paul II proclaimed him patron saint of the Latin American Episcopate in 1983.

Born the son of Spanish nobility, Turibius was a pious child with a devotion to the Blessed Virgin.  He fasted once a week and recited the rosary daily.   He received the education of a Spanish noble’s son entering college at Valladolid and then studied law at the University of Salamanca.  Recognized as a brilliant scholar, he became a professor of canon law at the University. 

King Philip II of Spain appointed Turibius Grand Inquisitor on the Inquisition Court in Granada in February 1571.   He served in this position for five years, impressing the king with his work.  His success in this office led King Philip II to nominate him for the vacancy in the Lima Archdiocese, then Ciudad de Los Reyes.   

By this date, Peru had been under Spanish domination for fifty years by a colonial government that had treated the native population, badly.  The clergy likewise suffered from inobservance of their vows and other abuses.   The Spanish conquest had impoverished the Peruvian population, materially and spiritually.

Turibius protested his nomination both to the King and to the Pope because, as a layman, he was not qualified to be a bishop.   Both ignored his objections.  Turibius was ordained a priest in Granada in 1578 and named Archbishop of Lima on May 16, 1579.  The Archbishop of Seville consecrated Turibius as bishop in August 1580 and he departed for Peru the following September. 

Turibius arrived in Peru’s seaport, Paita, on May 12, 1581.  He walked the 600 miles to Lima in order to meet the people living in his new diocese, to baptize and to evangelize them.  He learned the native languages of Quechua and Aymara.  He walked his entire archdiocese another two times, alone, and visited the most remote angles of this vast territory.  In these visits, he baptized nearly 500,000 people.   

During his episcopate, Turibius founded over a hundred parishes.  He built roads and schools as well as chapels and hospitals throughout his territory.  When the plague arrived in Peru, Turibius was among the first to aid the sick and suffering.

Turibius also reformed the lives of the diocesan priests, ending behavior considered scandalous.  He founded the first seminary in the Western Hemisphere and established convents where the priests could live.  He implemented the Council of Trent and made evangelization the core of his episcopate.  He convened three Diocesan councils and visited each parish, taking the time to inspire the clergy and the laity.   

Archbishop Turibius was known as a champion of the rights of the native peoples against the Spanish colonists.   He produced a trilingual catechism in Spanish-Quechuan-Aymara in 1584.   

He died during the last of his walking tours of the diocese in the Augustinian convent in Saña on Holy Thursday after receiving the viaticum on March 23, 1606.

Symbols: robes of a bishop 

Patron of: Peru, Lima, Latin American Bishops, Valladolid, Native rights, Scouts

Feast Day:  March 23

Francisco Solano y Jiménez was born on March 10, 1549 in Montilla, Cordoba, in Spain.  He died on July 14, 1610 in Lima, Peru.  Francisco was known as the “wonder worker of the New World” for his joyous faith that conveyed the love of God to the people of the New World.  A prayerful man who praised God through his music, he was canonized by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. 

Francisco was the third child born into a noble family in Andalusia.  He was educated by the Jesuits and popular as a student.  He entered the Order of the Friars Minor in Montilla in 1570, drawn to their charism of poverty and penance.  The community in the Franciscan convent of St. Lawrence followed a very strict regime of prayer, silence and fasting.  Francisco followed this regime throughout his life.  He professed his final vows in 1569 and was sent to the friary of Our Lady of Loreto in Seville to study in the seminary.  Francisco was ordained a priest in 1576 and worked as an itinerant preacher in the surrounding countryside.  

After his father’s death, Francisco returned to Montilla to care for his mother.  In 1583 when the plague broke out in Granada, Francisco helped tend to the sick and the dying.  Although he too fell ill, he recovered quickly.  His faith brought him joy, and he reputedly danced and sang before the image of the Madonna and Child, because in His mother’s arms, Jesus was happy.  

At the request of King Philip of Spain, the Franciscan Order sent Solanus with a group of missionary friars to preach the Gospel in the Americas.   In 1589, Francisco sailed to the New World landing in Panama where he crossed the isthmus and boarded a boat to travel to Peru.   When the boat crashed during a storm, the crew abandoned the ship, but Francisco stayed with the slaves on board.  During the three days until their rescue, Francisco evangelized and baptized the slaves, encouraging them with prayers, songs, and words of faith.  They were eventually rescued and continued on to Peru.   

For twenty years, Francisco worked to evangelize the vast region of the Tucuman (in modern Argentina and Bolivia) and in Paraguay.  He learned many native languages so that his preaching would be understood by the native population.  Francisco loved music and was Known to play the lute or the violin, singing hymns to the Virgin Mary.  Still today, in the town of Humahuaca,, at 12 noon, the copper doors of the bell tower open and a life-sized animated statue of San Francisco Solano appears to give his benediction to the crowd amassed in the village piazza.  

Like his namesake, Francisco Solanus was also known to communicate with animals.  He reputedly persuaded a wild bull to return to his pen and a swarm of grasshoppers to leave a field.

In 1601, Francisco was called to be the guardian of the Franciscan Friary in Lima, Peru, where he lived until his death ten years later.  Francisco preached against the corruption of the Spanish colonists, recalling them to their baptismal vows.  He also defended the indigenous peoples from Spanish colonial oppression.  

Like Saint Rosa of Lima, Francisco Solanus predicted the date of his death.  He died in the friary in Lima during Mass, at the moment of the consecration of the Eucharist.  His last words were “Glory to God”.  

Symbols: robes of a Franciscan friar

Patron of: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Montilla, Spain where the church of San Francesco Solano is built on the site of the house where he was born.  He is also the patron saint against earthquakes because he predicted the date of the 1619 earthquake of Trujillo, Peru. 

Feast Day:  July 14

Juan Martin de Porres was born on December 9, 1579 in Lima, Peru, where he died in the Dominican Convent of the Rosary on November 3, 1639.   During his lifetime he became known for his multiple gifts of grace and sanctity.   Many miraculous cures were attributed to him and these continued after his death.  Martin’s defiant attachment to the ideals of social justice and radical charity to the poor continue to resonate in the modern church.  Beatified with his friend Juan Macias (above) by Pope Gregory XVI in 1837, Martin de Porres was canonized by Pope John XXIII in 1962.  He is the first Saint of African descent.

Juan Martin de Porres Velazquez was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman, Don Juan de Porres, and Ana Velazquez, a freed slave of African and Native American descent.  His father abandoned the family when he was two years old, leaving his mother to support her children by taking in laundry.   Martin grew up in poverty.  When he was 12 years old, Martin was placed with a barber/surgeon where he learned to cut hair and to draw blood, care for wounds, and prepare and administer medicines.  

Under Peruvian law, descendants of Africans and Native Americans were prohibited from joining religious orders.  Nonetheless, at 15, Martin asked to be admitted to the Dominican Convent of the Holy Rosary in Lima, which received him as a servant.  Martin worked in the kitchen, in the laundry and in cleaning the Convent.   Not all of the brothers were kind: one of the novices referred to Martin as a “mulatto dog”, others mocked him for being illegitimate and descended from slaves.

Martin de Porres was devoted to the Eucharist and prayed frequently long into the night.  As the prior, Juan de Lorenzana, came to know his fidelity and his charity, he decided to ignore the law and permitted Martin to take his vows as a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic.  In 1603, at the age of 24, Martin professed his vows as a Dominica lay brother; he never became a priest.  When the Convent was in debt, he offered himself : “I am only a poor mulatto, sell me.”

When he was 34, Martin was placed in charge of the infirmary where he would work until his death twenty-five years later.   He cared for the sick and the poor, treating all people regardless of their color, race, or status.  He performed many cures both inside and outside the convent.

During an epidemic, some 60 brothers were quarantined in a remote, locked section of the convent.   Martin is said to have passed through the doors to care for them.   Other brothers reported seeing him at their bedsides without the door having been opened.   One day he brought a Native man bleeding from a knife wound to his room.  When the Prior reproved him, Martin asked his pardon:  “Forgive my error, and please instruct me, for I did not know that the precept of obedience took precedence over that of charity.”

Brothers also recorded that Martin experienced ecstasies that lifted him into the air.  They saw light surrounding him when he prayed.  He performed instantaneous cures and exhibited miraculous knowledge.  Like Saint Francis of Assisi, Martin de Porres had a remarkable rapport with animals.   

Martin begged for alms to procure necessities that the convent could not provide, frequently encountering on the streets of Lima another Dominican friar, Juan Macias, making a similar request.  He managed to feed 160 poor people each day, in addition to distributing alms to the poor.  He founded a residence for orphans and children abandoned to the city streets.  He was baptized in the same font as St. Rose of Lima and St. Francis Solanus.  

Symbols:  Dominican habit, a rosary, a crucifix, a dog, a cat and a bird eating together.

Patron: people of mixed race and those seeking racial harmony; barbers, innkeepers, public health workers 

Feast Day:  November 3  

Marie-Francoise-Thérèse Martin was born on January 2, 1873 in Alençon, France.  She died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 on September 30, 1897 in the Discalced Carmelite convent in Lisieux, France.  Her last words are her enduring testament: “My God, I love you!”  

Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus is most famous for her spiritual autobiography, Story of a Soul, published posthumously on September 30, 1898.  The book, edited by her sister, Pauline, is written in three parts: the first is a memoir of her childhood written in 1895 under obedience to Pauline, who was then Prioress of the Convent; the second is a three-page letter, written in September 1896 at the request of another sister, Marie, who asked Thérèse to set down her “little doctrine”;  the third, and final, part is a memoir of her religious life, written in June 1897, also at the request of Pauline.  In Story of a Soul, Sister Thérèse describes her spirituality as “living an ordinary life with extraordinary love”.  She wrote: “What matters in life is not great deeds, but great love.”  The wisdom and spiritual presence evidenced in this volume touched many people, quickly.  She was canonized only twenty-seven years after her death by Pope Pius XI on May 17, 1925.  On October 19, 1997, Pope John Paul II acclaimed her a Doctor of the Church, a tribute to the influence she has had on people all over the world.    

Thérèse’s parents: Thérèse was the last of nine children born to Louis Martin and Marie Azélie “Zelie” Guérin.  

Her father, Louis Joseph Aloys Stanislaus Martin was born on August 22, 1823 in Bordeaux, France.  He died at the age of 70 on July 29, 1894, near Lisieux after a series of strokes.  Her mother, Marie Azélie “Zelie” Guérin, was born on December 23, 1831 in Saint Denis sur Sarthon, and died in Alençon at the age of 45 on August 28, 1877.  

The parents of Sister Thérèse were canonized on October 18, 2015 by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square.  In his homily Pope Francis said, “The holy spouses Louis Martin and Marie-Azelie Guerin practiced Christian service in the family, creating day by day an environment of faith and love which nurtured the vocations of their daughters, among whom was Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus.  They are the first (and to date only) married couple with children to be canonized in the same ceremony.  

Louis Martin was the son of Pierre Francoise Martin, a military officer, and Marie Anne Fanny Boureau.  Raised in various French military posts, he absorbed from army life a sense of order and discipline.  When Louis was 22, he applied to enter the monastery of Augustinian Canons in the Great St. Bernard Hospice in the Alps.  The monastery offered hospitality to people crossing the St Bernard Pass and the monks braved the snow and cold to rescue stranded travelers aided by their famous dogs.  Louis admired the monks’ courage, but the monastery’s Abbot insisted that Louis learn Latin if he wished to join the monastery.  Despite his most determined efforts, Latin’s syntax and grammar baffled the young man and forced him to abandon his hope for monastic life. 

Eventually Louis studied to become a watchmaker in Rennes and Strasbourg before settling in Alençon, a small city in Normandy in northwest France.  Louis was a systematic, quiet man.  He loved his trade and enjoyed trout fishing in a nearby stream.  

Zelie Guérin was also the daughter of a military officer, Isidore Guérin, and Louise Jeanne Macé.  She described her childhood as “dismal.”  Her older sister, Marie-Louise, became a Visitandine nun.   Her brother, Isidore, became a pharmacist in Lisieux.  Zelie applied to enter the monastery of the Order of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul.  She was not accepted because of her poor health.  Zelie then moved to Alençon, a lacemaking center renowned throughout France for its exquisite lace known as Point d’Alençon.  Zelie learned to master this craft.  Creative and talented in both art and business, Zelie became a successful lacemaker.  

In Alençon in 1858, when Zelie was 26, she met Louis Martin, then 34.  Three months later, on July 13, 1858, they married in the Basilica of Notre Dame d’Alençon.  Louis and Zeilie had nine children, four of whom died as infants in the three years between 1867 and 1870.   Their deaths greatly grieved the family.  Their five surviving children were all girls, the ninth born on January 2, 1873 was weak and frail.  But she proved quite tough and survived to become a big baby “full of life and giggles”.  She was baptized two days after her birth with the name Marie-Francoise-Therese Martin.   

The Martins raised their family in a very Catholic environment, including attendance at daily 5:30 am Mass. They practiced charity, visiting the sick and elderly, and welcoming the occasional vagabond to their table.  Eventually all their daughters will become nuns.   

Thérèse recalled these early years as full of love: “All my life, God surrounded me with love…Those were sunny years of my childhood.”  Her mother adored and pampered her blond, blue-eyed, lively, and mischievous baby.   Zelie said that Thérèse was “a chosen spirit”.     

The death of Thérèse’s mother, Marie Azélie “Zelie” Guérin.  

When Thérèse was 4 years old on August 28, 1877, her mother, Zelie, died of breast cancer.   Thérèse wrote that she remembered every detail of her mother’s illness and stated that the first part of her life ended with her mother’s death.   

Three months after Zelie’s death, Louis sold her lacemaking business and their home in Alençon.  Louis moved with his five daughters to Lisieux, to be closer to Zelie’s brother, Isidore, and his family.   Lisieux was also in Normandy, in the department of Calvados.  An important city, mentioned by Julius Caesar in his Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, Lisieux has ancient Roman monuments and one of the first medieval Gothic cathedrals built in France between 1160 and 1230.  

After the family’s move to Lisieux, Thérèse entered the most painful period of her life.  She missed her mother, terribly, and demanded much attention from her father and her older sisters.   Affectionate and precociously intelligent, Thérèse could also be stubborn and get very angry when she did not get her way. 

After her mother’s death, Thérèse became timid, retiring, and excessively sensitive. Her father would take her on daily walks, during which they would visit a church to pray before the Blessed Sacrament.  This time together strengthened their special bond.  

Thérèse’s childhood.

In October 1881, Thérèse entered the Benedictine Abbey School of Notre Dame du Pre. Because of her natural intelligence she skipped a few grades.  This isolated her from her school companions.  Her older sisters remained her best friends. 

In October 1882, just after her oldest sister, Pauline, entered the Carmelite Convent, Thérèse fell seriously ill.  She suffered from headaches, fever, and hallucinations.   But doctors did not know their cause.   On May 13, 1883, she turned to the statue of the Virgin near her bed and prayed for a cure.  Suddenly Mary’s face radiated a smile and Thérèse was cured, although she continued to suffer headaches for the rest of her life.

Thérèse resolved to follow Pauline into the Carmelite Order.  When she received her first Communion on May 8, 1884, Thérèse sensed she was united with Jesus.  She gave herself to Him and He to her.  She received her first “kiss of love”.  

At the age of 14, after midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 1886, Thérèse experienced a new calm and inner conviction.  She called this “her complete conversion”.  She felt joy, the first since her mother’s death, by giving joy to her father and she decided to devote her whole life to God.   “My heart was filled with charity.   I forgot myself to please others and, in doing so, became happy myself.”  

Thérèse read The Imitation of Christ, “Turn thee with thy whole heart unto the Lord and forsake this wretched world: and thy soul shall find rest.”  She became convinced that her prayers could bring people to Christ, and she asked Jesus to give her a sign that she was right.  In the summer of 1887, a criminal, Henry Pranzini, was convicted of murdering two women and a child.  He showed no inclination to repent and refused confession.  Thérèse prayed for him and offered Masses for his soul.  On the guillotine, Pranzini took the crucifix offered to him by the priest and kissed it three times.  Thérèse wept for joy convinced that he was her first “child” and that her prayers had obtained mercy for him.

Thérèse enters the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites in Lisieux:

At 15, Thérèse again applied to enter the Carmelite Convent, and was again refused.   The priest advised her to return when she turned 21, adding, you can always appeal to the Bishop, which Thérèse did.  She told Bishop Hugonin of Bayeaux that she wished to be a nun “since the dawn of reason” and that her father supported her request.  When the Bishop took her application under advisement, Louis traveled with Thérèse and a group of French pilgrims to Rome.  On November 20, 1887, the pilgrims had an audience with Pope Leo XIII.  Although prohibited from speaking to the Pope, Thérèse flung herself at the Pope’s feet and begged his permission to enter the Carmelite convent.   The priest leading the pilgrimage said that her Bishop was considering her application and the Pope stated: “Go, you will enter if God wills it.”  She refused to leave the papal presence and had to be carried out by the papal guards.    

On April 9, 1888, when Thérèse was 15 years and 3 months old, the prioress of the Carmelite Convent in Lisieux welcomed her.  She received the habit on January 10, 1889 and took the name Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.  On September 8, 1890, Thérèse professed her vows and a great peace came over her.  She knew this was the path she was meant to follow.

The death of Thérèse’s father, Louis Martin 

Just after he bid farewell to Thérèse, Louis was stricken by dementia.  In June 1888 he wandered from his home in Lisieux and was found three days later in Le Havre.   In August 1888, after a series of strokes, Louis became paralyzed.  His daughter, Celine, cared for Louis until his death on July 29, 1894.  Celine joined her three sisters in the Carmelite convent in September 1894.  

In the Carmelite convent in Lisieux  

Sister Thérèse spent the last nine years of her life in the Carmelite Convent in Lisieux, living with twenty-six Sisters.   Many of the sisters were old, some cranky, some sick.  Almost all came from the petty bourgeois or noble classes.  Their regimen was strict, usually with one meal a day, and many hours of silence.  

Her fellow sisters recognized her as a good nun, conscientious and capable.  She worked in the sacristy, cleaned the dining room, composed short pious plays for the other Sisters, wrote poems, and lived the intense community prayer life of the cloister.  She was influenced by the writings of Saint John of the Cross and passages from the Book of Isaiah.  She meditated on the image of the Holy Face of Jesus.  

Sister Thérèse was gifted with a great intimacy with God.  Through sickness and dark nights of doubt and fear, she remained faithful to God, rooted in His merciful love.  She lived each day with an unshakable confidence in God’s love.  She believed in attending to everyone and everything with love, even those Sisters whose dispositions she found difficult.  

When her sister, Pauline, was elected Prioress on February 20, 1893, she made Sister Thérèse her assistant, placing her in charge of the novices.  Sister Thérèse stressed the importance of respect for the Rule: “each must act as if the perfection of the Order depended on her personal conduct.” 

Sister Thérèse was aware of her littleness, “It is impossible for me to grow up, so I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections.  But I want to seek out a means to go to heaven by the little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new.”  She abandoned herself to Jesus and her life became a continual acceptance of the will of the Lord.  

She loved flowers and saw herself as the “little flower of Jesus” who gave glory to God by being her beautiful little self among all the other flowers in God’s garden.  Because of this compelling analogy, she is remembered as the “little flower”.  She predicted that after her death she would spend her time in heaven doing good on earth.   “I will let fall a shower of roses.”  

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Symbols: Discalced Carmelite habit, crucifix, roses

Patron of: Missionaries, France, Russia, Alaska; The Philippines; florists and gardeners; gardeners in the Vatican; sufferers of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis; 

Feast Day of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: October 1 

Feast Day of Louis and Zelie Martin: July 12

https://www.littleflower.org/

San Luis Bertrán was born on January 1, 1526 in Valencia in Spain and died there at the age of 55 on October 9, 1581.  He was a Dominican friar who is remembered as the “Apostle of the Americas” for his baptism of tens of thousands of natives in Colombia, Panama, and the Lesser Antilles.  Saint Luis Bertrán was canonized in Rome by Pope Clement X in 1671.   

Luis was born to Juan Bertrand and Juana Angela Exarch in Valencia.  He was related, through his father, to the Dominican Saint Vincent Ferrer.   At the age of 13, despite his father’s efforts to dissuade him, Luis took his vows in the Convent of Saint Dominic (Panel 1) in Valencia on August 26, 1539.  Reportedly grave in demeanor and without any sense of humor, Luis also was said to have had a gentle disposition which made him well-liked. Although he did not distinguish himself in scholarship as other Saints of the Dominican Order, he studied assiduously.  He advanced to the priesthood and was ordained in 1547 when he was only 21 years old by the Archbishop of Valencia.   

After his ordination, Fr. Bertrán was appointed the Master of Novices at his convent in Valencia, a post he held intermittently for a total of thirty years.  When the plague broke out in 1557, he devoted himself to the sick and dying, preparing the bodies for burial, and interring them with his own hands.  

He is reputed to have been a forceful and charismatic preacher, attracting such significant crowds that the Cathedral was inadequate to accommodate all those who wished to hear him.   Eventually he preached in the public squares of Valencia.  It was likely his fame as a preacher that drew the attention of Saint Teresa of Avila (Panel 31) who sought his advice on her concerns regarding the reformation of her order.  

In 1562, when the plague ended, Fr. Bertrán decided to use his gift of preaching to convert natives in the New World.  The bull of his canonization asserts that he was favored with the gift of tongues, and while preaching in his native Spanish, Fr. Bertán was understood in the many and various languages of the native peoples.  From Cartagena in Colombia, he traveled to Panama where he baptized some 6,000 natives; in Tuberá, midway between Cartagena and the Magdalena River, baptismal records by his hand recorded that 10,000 natives were baptized.   These records showed that the baptisands continued in the faith.  He traveled to Cipacoa with similar success but, when he arrived in Paluato, he met some resistance.   Fr. Bertán then went to the province of Santa Marta where he baptized 15,000 natives and received another 1,500 individuals who traveled from Paluato to receive the baptism they had previously rejected.   

Before returning to Spain, Fr. Luis traveled to the Leeward Islands to convert the members of the Carib tribe where he had little success.  Fr. Bertán then continued through the West Indies islands, including St Vincent and St Thomas.    

Fr. Luis Bertrán returned to Spain in 1569 to plead the cause of the natives to the government in Spain.  The bull of his canonization records his efforts to defend the rights of the natives against their Spanish conquerors.  At the end of his life, he became spiritual counselor to many, including Saint Teresa of Avila.  He fell ill while preaching in the Cathedral in Valencia in 1580 and died the following year.  

Symbol: Dominican habit, chalice containing a snake which is a reference to the legend that when a native priest gave Fr. L uis a deadly draught, he drank it without any effect  

Patron Saint of Dominican Novice Masters, Colombia, Buñol, and New Granada

Feast Day: October 9

Héctor Valdivielso Sáez was born on October 31, 1910 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  He died in Turón (Mieres) Spain on October 9, 1934, just before his twenty-fourth birthday.   He was a member of the Order of the Hermanos de las Escuelas Cristianas (known as the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools or the Christian Brothers).   He took the name Benito de Jesús when entered the Order at the age of 15.  He is buried in the Monastery of Santa Maria de Bujedo, in a chapel dedicated to the eight religious martyred in Turón in 1934, the first victims of the religious persecutions during the Spanish Civil War (1931-1939).   The Turón martyrs were canonized on November 21, 1999 by Pope John Paul II.    Brother Benito de Jesus is the first Saint of the Argentine Church.

Héctor Valdivielso Sáez was born in the Barrio of Boedo to Spanish immigrant parents who arrived in Argentina from Burgos.  He was baptized on May 26, 1913 in the ancient church of San Nicolas de Bari in Buenos Aires.  He returned with his parents to Spain the following year.  In Spain he attended a local school in Briviesca.  

When Héctor was 12 years old, on August 31, 1922, he applied with his brother José for admission to the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Bujedo hoping to enter the Christian brothers, a teaching order founded in France by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle (1651-1719).   He wished to train as a missionary and return quickly to his homeland of Argentina to teach.   Héctor entered the Christian Brothers as a Novice on October 6, 1926 at which date, he received the habit and took the name Benito de Jesús.  He pronounced his first vows a year later, on October 7, 1927.   He studied in the Magisterium and then departed for college in Astorga, Leon.

In 1933, Brother Benito de Jesús was assigned to Turón.  Due to the laws of the Republic, he had to travel as a secular professor.  He spent the last year of his life in the Ancient College of La Salle de Turón in the Asturian mountains.   With the fall of the Spanish government October 4, 1934, Communist and Radical politicians sought to form a new government.  Supporters in the Asturias region encouraged local miners and manual workers to support the new Communist regime.  Among the institutions that came under attack was the Ancient College of La Salle de Turón.  

On October 5, 1934, In the College chapel, just after the Christian Brothers completed their spiritual exercises, an armed worker’s militia arrested the religious brothers and the Passionate Priest who was leading the exercises.  They were incarcerated, pending a trial in a revolutionary court.  Despite the pleas of some in the village on their behalf, all eight of the religious were killed by a firing squad near the town cemetery a few days later.  

Brother Benito de Jesus died on the same day as the opening of the Eucharistic Congress in Argentina.  The Church in Argentina marks October 9, 1934, as a moment of rebirth after which the Church in Argentina added new diocese and new parochial constructions, increased vocations, and expanded the role of the laity in the Church.

Symbol:  Habit of the Order of LaSalle Christian Brothers

Patron Saint of Argentina, Spain and the Christian Brothers 

Feast Day: October 9

Teresa de Jesús was born on July 13, 1900 in Santiago, Chile.   She died at 20 years old on April 12, 1920, in the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Los Andes.  She was a discalced Carmelite Nun and the first person born in Chile to be made a Saint.    She is the fourth Saint Teresa in the Carmelite Order, after Saints Teresa of Avila, of Florence, and of Lisieux, and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on March 21, 1993 in Rome.   

Called Juanita, she was christened Juana Enriqueta Fernandez Solar in the parish church of Santa Ana in Santiago.  The fourth of six children, she was the daughter of Miguel Fernandez and Lucia Solar.   Born into a well-off family, Juanita was educated by French nuns in the College of the Sacred Heart.  Reputed to be stubborn and vain, Juanita also lost her temper on occasion.  As a young woman she was deeply impressed by the autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (Panel 29) and, at the age of 14, she decided to dedicate her life to Jesus alone.

In September 1917, Juanita wrote to the prioress of the Convent of the Order of Discalced Carmelite Nuns expressing her desire to enter the Order. On May 7, 1919, Juanita entered the novitiate of the Discalced Carmelites in the monastery of the Holy Spirit in the township of Los Andes located a little over 50 miles from Santiago.  There she received the habit of the Discalced Carmelites on October 14, 1919 and took the name Teresa de Jesús.

She died less than a year later, from a severe case of typhus, on April 12, 1920.   She received the final sacraments on April 5, 1920.  And, because of she was “in periculo mortis” (in danger of death), she was able to profess her final religious vows on April 7, six months’ before the period of her canonical novitiate ended.  Her sister, Rebecca, entered the Monastery of Los Andes seven months’ later, on November 23, taking the name, Teresa del Divino Cuore (Teresa of the Sacred Heart).  Rebecca died in the monastery on December 31, 1942.

Teresa de Jesús de Los Andes was canonized after two miracles were verified as attributable to her intercession.  The first miracle occurred on December 4, 1983.   Héctor Uribe Carrasco, a volunteer fireman, fell off a burning roof and was electrocuted.  Declared clinically dead by the doctors, his mother prayed to Teresa de Jesús de Los Andes and placed a reliquary of hers on his chest.  Carrasco immediately showed signs of life and recovered.  The second miracle occurred on December 7, 1988.   Marcela Antunez Riveros, went on a school trip with her friends from the Colegio de las Teresianas of Las Condes.  While swimming at the “Banco Chile” stadium pool, Marcela suffered asphyxiation during a dive.  When she was pulled out of the water, after more than five minutes, she showed no signs of life.  Her friends prayed for the intercession of the Teresa de Jesús de Los Andes and Marcela immediately recovered.  Although the doctors feared brain damage, she was completely healed.    

In 1940 her body was relocated to a new chapel in the monastery where she died.  In 1988 a new sanctuary in Auco-Rinconada, Chile was built because the old monastery did not have the space to receive the approximately 230,000 pilgrims who visit the shrine annually.  Today, her body lies in the crypt of the Church consecrated to the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel.  Since 2007 the Archdiocese of Santiago has sponsored a pilgrimage for young people “From Chacabuco to Mount Carmel” during last week in October.

Symbol:  Habit of the Discalced Carmelites holding a crucifix

Patron Saint of Santiago, Chile; Los Andes, Chile; against disease, against illness, of young people

Feast Day: April 12

José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero, known as the “Gaucho Priest”, was born in Santa Rosa de Rio Primero, Argentina, on March 16, 1840.   He died at the age of 73 in Villa del Trànsito, Córdoba, Argentina, on January 26, 1914.  He is venerated for his dedication of his life to the care of the poor and the sick and is remembered for his promotion of civic projects to benefit the people in his parish.  José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero died in the “odor of sanctity” and was canonized by Pope Francis on October 16, 2016.  Of Fr. Brochero, Pope Francis said, “he dedicated himself entirely to his flock, allowing his heart to be touched by the mercy of God which he extended to all people.”  

José Gabriel was born the fourth of ten children to Ignazio Brochero and Patrona Davila.  When he was 16, he entered the Seminary of Our Lady of Loreto in Córdoba.  Two years later he attended the National University of San Carlo where he became close friends with Miguel Angel Juàrez Celman, who became president of Argentina, 1886-1890. 

At the age of 26, on November 4, 1866, José Gabriel was ordained a priest in the Cathedral of Córdoba.  He was appointed prefect of studies for his seminary and was awarded the title Master of Philosophy on November 12, 1869.    In 1875 he founded the Houses of Exercises, and in 1880 established a school for girls both in the city of Córdoba.   Beginning in the first year of his priesthood in 1867 when a cholera epidemic broke out in Córdoba, Fr. Brochero devoted all his energy to caring for the sick and dying.   

When Fr. Brochero was appointed pastor of the parish of Villa del Trànsito his parishioners included not only those in town but all those living throughout entire Valley of Traslasierra.  To serve the sacramental needs of this extended flock, Fr. Brochero traveled long distances on the back of a mule dressed in a sombrero and a poncho.  He brought with him an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, his Mass kit, and a prayer book.    

These extensive travels acquainted Fr. Brochero with the physical terrain of the Traslasierra valley.  He recognized that his parishioners who lived in distant rural areas needed to be connected to the city of Cordoba.  To this end, Fr. Brochero personally advocated with the Argentine authorities.  He requested, and obtained, courier posts, post offices, telegraphic posts, stone bridges, and a rail network – all of which served to facilitate communications between the people in the Valley of Traslasierra and the city of Córdoba.   

Fr. Brochero contracted “the leprosy that took him to his tomb,” according to his obituary, “from visiting at length and embracing the abandoned lepers in the area”.  The disease left him blind and deaf by the end of his life and forced him to retire from active ministry on February 5, 1908.  At his death, six years later, his last words were reportedly “Now I have everything ready for the journey”.  

In appreciation of his ministry in 1916 the people of the town of Villa del Transito renamed their town, “Villa Cura Brochero” in his honor.   

Symbol:  Cassock, Rosary 

Patron Saint of clergy; the seminary and the city of Còrdoba, Argentina; the diocese of Cruz del Eje 

Feast Day: March 16

Luis Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, known as Padre Hurtado, was born on January 22, 1901 in Viña del Mar, Chile.   He died in Santiago, Chile on August 18, 1952. Padre Hurtado was a Jesuit priest, a lawyer, a social worker, and a writer.  In 1945, he founded the “Hogar de Cristo” (Home of Christ) movement, which assisted over 850,000 children in need of food and shelter before his death.  His books and articles sought to instill the Church’s social teaching into the growing movement of organized labor.  Padre Hurtado’s charismatic personality attracted large support for the workers and the youth for whom he advocated.  Pope Benedict XVI canonized Padre Hurtado on October 23, 2005, making him the second person canonized from the country of Chile.   

Luis Alberto Hurtado was born into an aristocratic family of Basque ancestry.  When he was 4 years old, his father died, leaving his mother with a large estate.  Unable to manage the property, the widow was defrauded by a purported buyer who left the widow and her two small sons in abject poverty.  The family lived on the generosity of a succession of relatives, giving Hurtado a personal understanding of both homelessness and poverty.   

A scholarship allowed Luis Alberto to attend the Jesuit school of Saint Ignacio in Santiago (1909-1917).   In these years he also volunteered in the office and library of the parish of Nuestra Señora de Andacollo, in a poor section of Santiago.   He earned his legal degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in August 1923.  After graduation, he entered the Jesuit order and was sent to study theology in Córdoba, Argentina; Barcelona, Spain; and Louvain, Belgium, where he was ordained a priest on August 24, 1933.

Padre Hurtado returned to Chile in January 1936 and was named a professor of religion at the Colegio San Ignacio and at the Catholic University, both in Santiago.   In 1940, he became diocesan director of Catholic Action, serving as its national director until 1944.   In 1941 he published Is Chile a Catholic Country? demonstrating a lack of priests assigned to working class and rural areas.  He noted that nearly half of Chile’s priests were foreigners, including missionaries from the United States and Canada, who rode circuits to administer the sacraments.  Chileans, deprived of clergy, considered their devotion to the Virgin as more important than attending Mass or receiving the Eucharist.   Padre Hurtado advocated an increase in the number of Chilean priests and a better education for them.    The ruling elite immediately accused Padre Hurtado of being a Communist.

In response, Padre Hurtado founded “Hogar de Cristo” to feed and shelter children, whether abandoned or not.   He purchased a 1946 green pickup truck and drove the streets at night to find children in need of assistance.  The Hogar de Cristo remains one of the largest charities active in Chile.  

The following year he founded the Chilean Trade Union Association to train leaders and instill Christian values into the labor movement.  To promulgate the Christian values of labor, Padre Hurtado wrote Social Humanism (1947), The Christian Social Order (1947) and Trade Unions (1950) and served as confessor to the Falange Nacional, the precursor of the Christian Democratic Party.  

Padre Hurtado died of pancreatic cancer in a hospital in Santiago after a brief illness.  Newspapers issued daily bulletins on his illness and before his death he had become a national hero.   Padre Hurtado wrote: “I hold that every poor man, every vagrant, every beggar is Christ carrying his cross. And as Christ, we must love and help him. We must treat him as a brother, a human being like ourselves. If we were to start a campaign of love for the poor and homeless, we would, in a short time, do away with depressing scenes of begging, children sleeping in doorways and women with babies in their arms fainting in our streets.”   

A variety of scholarships and food pantries worldwide are named for him including in Ireland, Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; Miami, Fla; and Seattle University in Washington.   In Santiago, Chile, the Jesuits founded the Alberto Hurtado University in Santiago, conserving his legacy through its Center for Reflection and Social Action.

At the ceremony for his canonization by Pope Benedict XVI in Saint Peter’s Square in 2005, a large contingent of Chileans were present, including the president of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, who, together with other members of the Chilean government present in Rome that day, had been students of Padre Hurtado.    

Symbol:  Jesuit robes, 1946 green van 

Patron Saint of Chile; the poor; street children; social workers; Novitiate of the USA Midwest province of the Society of Jesus

Feast Day: August 18

Thomas was born in Aquino, in the province of Lazio in Italy, to a noble family in about 1225.  He died on March 7, 1274 at the Cistercian Monastery of Fossanova while travelling to the Second Council of Lyon convened by Pope Gregory X to reunite the Latin and Eastern Churches and which Thomas was to address.   Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar, an outstanding writer, a teacher of philosophy and sacred theology, and a jurist in the tradition of scholasticism.  He is the father of Thomism, in which he argued that reason is found in God.   He embraced the philosophy of Aristotle and attempted to synthesize it with Christianity.   His writings are studied as part of the core curriculum for those seeking ordination as priests and deacons.    

His father, Landulf, was a knight in the service of King Roger II of Sicily and his mother, Theodora, belonged to the noble Neapolitan Caracciolo family.  At the age of 5, Thomas began his studies at the monastery of Monte Cassino where his paternal uncle was Abbot.  He then enrolled at the studium generale (university) of Naples where he was likely introduced to the writings of Aristotle, Averroes, and Maimonides.  

At 19, Thomas joined the recently founded Dominican Order, against his family’s wishes.  His family kidnapped him while he traveled to Paris to continue his studies.  They held him prisoner in their castles for two years until he convinced them of his commitment to the Dominicans and of his fidelity to his vows of chastity and obedience.  In 1244 the family allowed Thomas to escape and to begin his studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Paris.  There he met the great scholar Saint Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), who held the Chair of Theology.  When Albertus went to teach in Cologne in 1248, Thomas went with him.  At Cologne, Thomas taught the books of the Old Testament as an apprentice professor.   In 1252, Thomas returned to Paris to obtain a master’s degree in theology.  He rose to become Regent Master of Theology.  

Thomas returned to Italy where, in 1261, he was appointed conventual lector in Orvieto with responsibility for pastoral formation of friars.  In Orvieto he wrote Summa contra Gentiles and many hymns for the Feast of Corpus Christi, including Panis Angelicus.   In February 1265, Pope Clement IV summoned Thomas to Rome to serve as papal theologian and to teach at the Roman convent of Santa Sabina where he began his most famous work, Summa Theologica.  In 1268, Thomas returned to Paris as Regent Master and finished the second part of his Summa Theologica.  

In 1272, the Dominicans called him to the post of Regent Master at the University in Naples where he began work on the third part of his Summa Theologica.  In 1273 at the Dominican convent in Naples in the chapel of St. Nicholas, after Matins, he was seen by the sacristan, Domenic of Caserta, to be levitating in prayer with tears before an icon of the crucified Christ.  Christ said to Thomas, “You have written well of me, Thomas.  What reward would you have for your labor?”  Thomas responded, “Nothing but you, Lord.”  Thomas had a second mystical experience while celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273 after which he abandoned his writing stating, “All that I have written seems like straw to me”.  As a result, his Summa Theologica remains unfinished.  

Thomas Aquinas was canonized on July 18, 1323, fifty years after his death, by Pope John XXII in Avignon.   Although no miraculous cures are attributed to his intercession, the papal commission declared that “Tot miraculis, quot articulis” (there are as many miracles in his life as articles in his Summa).  Dante in the Divine Comedy placed the glorified soul of Thomas Aquinas in the Heaven of the Sun with other great persons with religious wisdom. 

Symbol: a Dominican habit with a sun on his chest; he holds a copy of his book, Summa Theologica 

Patron Saint: of academics, scholars and learning; against storms and lighting

Feast Day: January 28, the date when his body was reburied at Toulouse

Catherine was born in Siena on March 25, 1347.  She died in Rome on April 29, 1380.  Pope Urban VI celebrated her funeral mass and burial in the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.  From a young age, Catherine was on fire with love of God and of her neighbor.  She brought peace and harmony between her fellow citizens, strenuously fought for the rights and liberty of the papacy and for the renewal of religious life.  Catherine persuaded Pope Gregory XI to end the Avignon papacy and to return to Rome.  He then entrusted her with various papal missions.  She dictated The Dialogue of Divine Providence and wrote hundreds of letters and prayers which are renowned for their spirituality and sound doctrine.  Catherine was canonized on June 29, 1461 by Pope Pius II.   Catherine of Siena follows by a few days Saint Teresa of Avila as the second woman to be declared a doctor of the church by Pope Paul VI on October 4, 1970.

Caterina was the twenty-fourth child born to Lapa Piacenti and Jacopo di Benincasa, a dyer of cloth.  When she was five years old, Catherine had her first vision of Christ seated in Glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John as she was walking home in Siena from visiting her older sister.  When she was twelve her parents began to look for an advantageous marriage for her, but Catherine declared that she had already given her life to God.  She persuaded her family through prayer and fasting to allow her to receive the habit of the Dominican tertiary order.  

The Order initially refused to accept her because she was too young and did not have the requisite dowry.  Catherine then fell mortally ill, saying only entry into the Dominican Order would cure her.  The prioress relented impressed by Catherine’s ardor.  In 1363, in the Basilica of San Domenico in Siena, Catherine received the Dominican habit of the “Mantellate.”  The sisters taught her to read and to write and to pray.  

Catherine’s way to the Lord was to assist the sick and the poor.  She generously gave food and clothing to the poor, frequently without asking the permission of her family.  She cared for the sick and for lepers primarily at the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala.  She had frequent mystical visions.  The most renowned was her mystical marriage which occurred on a night before Ash Wednesday in 1367.  Christ appeared to her accompanied by the Virgin and a multitude of Saints.  He gave Catherine a ring, visible only to her, marrying her mystically.  Beginning in 1370 she attracted a group of followers called the “bella brigiata” who helped her with her charitable works.  On Palm Sunday, 1375, in the church of Santa Cristina in Pisa before a crucifix today in Catherine’s sanctuary in that church, Catherine received the stigmata, which at her request was visible only to herself.

In the last ten years of her life she wrote over 300 letters concerning the problems of religious and societal life and morality, some critical of the Dominican Order.  In 1374 she was called to Florence to present herself to the General Chapter of the Dominicans.   There she met her biographer and spiritual director, Raymond de Capua.  In 1376 she began to correspond with Pope Gregory XI, who called her “sweet Christ on earth”.  Her letters to him concerned reform of the Church and the return of the Pope from Avignon to Rome.  To accomplish this, Catherine traveled to Avignon, arriving on June 18, 1376, where she met the Pope who left Avignon for Rome the following September.   At his death, a schism erupted, that was ended when the cardinals elected Catherine’s candidate as Pope Urban VI who resided in Rome.      

In 1377, Catherine founded a woman’s convent of strict observance outside the city of Siena. In this same year, she began to dictate The Dialogue of Divine Providence, a dialogue between a soul who rises up to God and God which was finished by November of 1378 when she was summoned to Rome by Pope Urban VI. 

She received the Eucharist almost daily but had accustomed herself to rigorous abstinence and fasting.  At the beginning of 1380 she could neither eat nor swallow water.  Her health rapidly declined, and she died in Rome on April 29, 1380 at the age of thirty-three.   Her last words were, “Father into Your hands I commend my soul and my spirit.”

Her body is preserved in the tomb inside Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome; her uncorrupt head is preserved in the Basilica of San Domenico in Siena; her home in Siena is preserved as her Shrine.

Symbol: a Dominican tertiaries’ habit, a crown of thorns, and a lily, 

Patron Saint: of nurses, people ridiculed for their piety; against fire, sickness, and bodily illness, against sexual temptation. Catherine was named patron Saint of Rome on April 13, 1866 by Pope PIius IX; patron Saint of Italy on June 18, 1939 by Pope Pius XII; and patron Saint of Europe on October 1, 1999 by Pope John Paul II.    

Feast Day: April 29

Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in Avila in Castile, Spain, on March 29, 1515.  She died at Alba in Salamanca, Spain, on October 5, 1582.  Teresa is described as beautiful, talented, outgoing, adaptable, affectionate, and well-liked -- a womanly woman.  She is also described as wise and practical, intelligent, mystical and an energetic reformer.  During her life she was misunderstood, misjudged, and opposed in her efforts at reform, but she struggled on, courageous and faithful.   She clung to God in life and in prayer -- a holy woman.  Her writings drew from her experiences and she left a unique record of spiritual, monastic, and medical life in the 16^th century.  Her books about her spiritual experiences, including The Interior Castle and The Way of Perfection, are a foundation for the literary canon of Christian mysticism and meditation.  For her writings, the University of Salamanca granted her the title Doctor Ecclesiae during her lifetime.   Forty years after her death, Teresa was canonized on March 12, 1622 by Pope Gregory XV.  She is the first woman recognized as a doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI on September 27, 1970 for her spiritual legacy to Catholicism.

Teresa was born to Spanish nobility.   Her grandfather, Juan Sanchez de Toledo was a Converso, a Jew forced to convert to Christianity.  When Teresa’s father was a child, Juan was condemned by the Inquisition for returning to his Jewish faith, but he was not convicted.   Her father, Alsonso Sanchez de Cepeda, was a wealthy wool merchant, knighted later in life.  Her mother, Beatriz, raised her as a devout Christian.   When she was eight years old, her mother died, and Teresa became devoted to the Virgin Mary.  As a child, Teresa studied with the Augustinian nuns in Avila. 

In 1536 at the age of twenty, Teresa joined the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation.  The convent was built on land that had been a Jewish cemetery.  In the convent, she read books on contemplative and mystical prayer, including Third Spiritual Alphabet by Osuna, Tractatus de oration et meditatione by Peter of Alcantara, the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, and the Confessions by St. Augustine.    Her readings encouraged in her a zeal for mortification which made her deathly ill: she believed that only the miraculous intercession of St. Joseph cured her.

During her illness, Teresa experienced instances of religious ecstasy and developed her understanding of the ascent of the soul to union with God in four stages through penitence, meditation, contemplation, and ecstasy.   Her visions led Teresa to understand the nature of original sin and her own impotence in confronting sin without the absolute help of God.   

Accusations that her visions were diabolical led her to further mortification of the flesh.  Beginning on St. Peter’s Day, 1559, Teresa experienced almost daily visions of Jesus for two years.  In one vision, a seraph drove the fiery point of a golden lance repeatedly through her heart causing her spiritual and bodily pain.  This vision inspired the statue of the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1647-1652) in the Cornaro Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.   This vision also inspired her to imitate the life and suffering of Jesus, praying “Lord, either let me suffer or let me die.”    

The intensity of Teresa’s spiritual life placed her at odds with her sisters in the Convent who preferred the daily visits of wealthy and important visitors of high social rank.  According to Teresa, these frivolous and vacuous conversations disturbed the Convent’s liturgies and prayer life.  Her spiritual adviser, the Franciscan priest Peter of Alcantara, agreed and encouraged her instincts to reform.  In 1562, Teresa left the Convent of the Incarnation and established a reformed Carmelite convent named for St. Joseph.  Its abject poverty, strict enforcement of monastic rules and good organization impressed the bishop who supported her request for papal recognition.  In 1567, Teresa received the Carmelite General’s permission to establish new houses for the reformed order.  A younger Spanish mystic, who became St. John of the Cross, joined her movement.  Despite attacks by the un-reformed Carmelites and the Spanish Inquisition, Teresa’s movement was recognized by Pope Gregory XIII as the Order of the Discalced Carmelites in 1580.  

Death overtook Teresa as she traveled from Burgos to Alba de Tormes.  Her last words were, “My Lord, it is time to move on.  Well, then, may your will be done.  O my Lord and my Spouse, the hour that I have longed for has come.  It is time to meet one another.”

Symbol: a Carmelite habit, a pen, a crucifix, and a dove of the Holy Spirit

Patron Saint: religious, sufferers of headaches, and lacemakers.  She was named patron Saint of Spain by Pope Gregory XV in 1627. 

Feast Day: October 15

Augustine was born in Tagaste on November 13, 354 and he died on August 28, 430 as Bishop of Hippo Regius (both towns were then part of the Western Roman Empire and are today in modern Algeria).   His numerous works, including The City of God, On Christian Doctrine and The Confessions, had, and continue to have, an enormous influence on Catholic theology.  Called the greatest Christian theologian of the first millennium, Augustine was canonized by popular acclaim and was recognized as one of the original four Doctors of the Church by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298.  

Augustine Aurelius was born into an upper-class Roman family of Punic descent.  His father, Patricius, was a Roman citizen and a pagan who converted to Christianity on his deathbed.  His mother, Monica, was a devout Christian whose faith played a large role in the life and education of her son.  For her diligence in converting her son to Christianity, Monica herself became a Saint of the Catholic church.  

As a youth, Augustine studied in a Roman school where he read Latin literature.  He wrote that his first insight into the nature of sin occurred in this school when he went with some friends into a neighborhood garden and stole some pears, not because he was hungry, but because it was not permitted.   From this, he concluded that his very nature was flawed, particularly because of his enjoyment in participating in this illicit activity.  He reasoned that humans are naturally inclined to sin and in need of the grace of Christ to avoid sin.  

His success as a scholar inspired his father to send Augustine at age seventeen to Carthage to study rhetoric.   There he read Cicero’s dialogue with Hortensius, which he said left a lasting impression for a love of wisdom and a thirst for truth.  There, he was drawn to the Persian religion of Manichaeism.  

In Carthage Augustine began a relationship with a young woman who remained his lover for over fifteen years.   She gave him a son, Adeodatus, in 372, but Augustine never revealed her name which remains unknown.  His mother opposed both his attraction to Manichaeism and his relationship with this pagan woman.   

In 383, Augustine left Carthage and moved with his small family to Rome, the capital of the Empire.  In Rome, Augustine opened a school of rhetoric, but had trouble collecting tuition from his students. He applied to become a professor in Milan and was helped by the prefect of Rome, Symmachus, to obtain this post.  He intended to argue in favor of Manichaeism against the famous bishop of Milan, Ambrose, but after he met the Bishop on his arrival in Milan in 384, he developed many doubts.  Augustine wrote, “That man of God received me as a father would and welcomed my coming as a good bishop should”.  Ambrose, himself a master of rhetoric, became Augustine’s teacher and spiritual father leading him to the Christian faith.  In Milan, Augustine also became a student of the writings of Plato and Plotinus and developed a desire to live an ascetic life devoted to study, although he remained attracted to earthly passions.  

By 386, Augustine resigned his post as professor of rhetoric and sent his lover back to Africa.  Augustine, their son, and his mother, Monica, who had followed them to Italy, moved to a villa outside Milan where Augustine studied philosophy.   By Lent of 387, Augustine decided that the true philosophy was inseparable from Christianity.  He returned to Milan where, at the age of 31, Augustine converted to Christianity.  Bishop Ambrose baptized him and his son, Adeodatus, in the Cathedral of Milan on Easter Vigil, 24-25 April 387.  

The following summer, Augustine left Milan to return to Africa.  Monica died in Ostia, Italy, before sailing, and Adeodatus died soon after their return.   Augustine then decided to follow his ideal life and dedicate himself to God.  He sold his patrimony and gave the money to the poor.  He converted his family home into a monastic foundation for himself and his followers.   Augustine was ordained a priest in 391 and formed a rule of life for his followers which inspired the formation of the Augustinian Fathers.  

In 395 Augustine became Bishop of Hippo, a position he held until his death in 430.  He was an outstanding preacher and sought to convert the people of Hippo to Christianity.  In his writing, sermons and at Church Councils, Augustine defended the Catholic faith against the heresies of Manichaeism, Donatism, Pelagianism and Arianism.  As Bishop, Augustine wrote his autobiographical Confessions (397-98) and The City of God (410).  His friend, Possidius, Bishop of Calama, wrote the story of his later life, extolling Augustine’s powerful intellect, his tireless work, and his prudent stewardship of his See.  

Symbol: a bishop’s miter and cope, a pen, and a large book.  

Patron Saint: theologians, printers, brewers, and sore eyes

Feast Day: August 28

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born in a small town near Bergamo in Italy on November 25, 1881.   He died at the age of 81 on June 3, 1963 in the Vatican as Pope John XXIII and was buried in the crypt of the Basilica of Saint Peter’s.   Born poor, he died poor, bequeathing to each of his living siblings a legacy of less than $20 – his total personal fortune.   His lifetime of spiritual reflections were collected and published in a single beautiful volume called Journal of a Soul.   

Pope John XXIII is known as the “Good Pope” for his dedication to peace among nations and religions and for his openness to revitalizing the Catholic Church through his convocation of the Second Vatican Council.   On November 18, 1965, his successor, Pope Paul VI, opened his cause for canonization during the Council’s final session.   Pope John XXIII was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 3, 2000 and his body was moved from the crypt to the altar of St. Jerome inside St Peter’s Basilica.   He was canonized with Pope John Paul II by Pope Francis on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 27, 2014.

Angelo Roncalli was the eldest son of thirteen children born to a humble farming family in a small village on the foothills of the Alps.  He was destined to the priesthood, beginning at school in Bergamo and then in Rome, where he completed his studies at the Pontifical Seminary of Romano Maggiore.   During seminary he developed at veneration for the Blessed Virgin and made many pilgrimages to the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Bosco in Lecco near Milan.   At the age of 23, Roncalli was ordained a priest in August 1904 in the Church of Santa Maria Montesanto in the Piazza del Popolo in Rome.  He said his first Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.   Eventually he received a doctorate in canon law in Rome.   

Roncalli served for a year in the infantry stationed in Bergamo.  During World War I, he served as military chaplain with the rank of Lieutenant in the Italian army.  Even after Mussolini rose to power with the help of Catholic Action, Angelo Roncalli remained faithful to the anti-fascist Partito Popolare.  

Pope Pius X assigned him to serve as the personal secretary of Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi, Bishop of Bergamo, who became his spiritual guide and who named him a professor of theology in the diocesan seminary.  Randini-Tedeschi was one of the more progressive prelates in Italy and he made Roncalli aware of the social problems facing the wider Church.   Roncalli’s studies into the life of San Carlo Borromeo brought him into contact with the Milanese librarian who would become Pope Pius XI (1925 – 1939).    

Beginning in February 1925, Pope Pius XI named Roncalli to the Vatican’s diplomatic service as Apostolic Delegate, first in Bulgaria, later in Greece and finally in Turkey.  In these positions he served small Catholic communities in countries with large orthodox Christian and Islamic populations.  

At the outskirts of Vatican power, Roncalli was able to use his office to help the Jewish underground place refugees fleeing Europe.  In 1944, Roncalli lobbied the Vatican to obtain support for the establishment of the State of Israel and for Jewish immigration to Palestine.  In December 1944, Roncalli served the Pope as Apostolic Nuncio to liberated France where he negotiated the retirement of bishops who had collaborated with the Nazis.  For his service, France bestowed on him the award of Commander of the Legion of Honor.   When he became Pope, Roncalli changed the language of the Good Friday liturgy to eliminate anti-semitic description of Jews and made a confession for the Church against the sin of anti-semitism through the centuries.  In 2011 the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation recommended that Roncalli be awarded by Yad Vashem the title of “Righteous among the Nations”.

When he was 71, Roncalli was appointed as Patriarch of Venice and Cardinal-Priest of Santa Prisca.   He served in Venice from January 12, 1953 until his election as the 260^th successor to St. Peter on October 28, 1958.    Elected at the age of 77, he was a compromise candidate, expected to hold office for a short term.   

Pope John XXIII was the last pope to be crowned with the jeweled papal tiara.  The tiara was made in 1877, after the Church lost its temporal jurisdiction over the papal states to the secular government of Italy.  During the later 19^th and early 20^th century, the Italian government was strongly anti-Catholic and restricted the Popes to the confines of the Vatican, a small area measuring 121 acres across the Tiber River from the City of Rome.   

Pope John ignored the limitation on papal territorial power, reforming the Church to expand its spiritual authority.     He was the first pope since 1870 to make pastoral visits in the papal diocese of Rome, visiting children in the Bambino Gesù Hospital and inmates in the Regina Coeli prison on Christmas 1958.   On January 25, 1959 Pope John XXIII summoned an ecumenical council – the first general meeting of bishops in almost a century.   The Council began on October 11, 1962 and ended on December 8, 1962 with a second session to be held from May 12 to June 29, 1963.  Prior to the first session of the Council, Pope John visited Assisi and Loreto on October 4, 1962, to pray for the new council, becoming the first Pope to leave Rome since Pope Pius IX (1846-1878).  

The Second Vatican Council reshaped the face of Catholicism and comprehensively revised the Catholic liturgy.  Pope John instructed the bishops attending to “bring the church up to date and work for its spiritual regeneration”.  Pope John XXIII emphasized Christian unity and believed that Catholics should acknowledge their shared responsibility for the scandal of a divided Christianity.   The Pope supported Christian ecumenism, inviting observers to the Council representatives from Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant faiths.  

Pope John XXIII opened the Vatican to the world, receiving many world leaders including Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union.  During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the Pope publicly urged the United States and the Soviet Union to exercise restraint -- words appreciated by both President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev.  His encyclical, Pacem in Terris, suggested that peaceful coexistence was not only desirable but necessary if humankind were to survive.   He emphasized his role as a “suprapolitical” spiritual force.  

Pope John XXIII advocated human rights, including the rights of the unborn and the elderly.  He opposed divorce stating that marriage is an indissoluble sacrament.   He raised to Pontifical status the University of St Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.   

In 1962, Time Magazine named him Man of the Year.  On December 3, 1963, President Lyndon B Johnson awarded him the Presidential of Freedom, posthumously, stating, “He brought to all citizens of the planet a heightened sense of the dignity of the individual, of the brotherhood of man, and of the common duty to build an environment of peace for all human kind.”

Symbol: papal tiara, papal vestments   

Patron Saint: Second Vatican Council, Patriarchy of Venice, Diocese of Bergamo, Italian Army

Feast Day: October 11, the anniversary of the opening of the First Session of the Second Vatican Council

SAINT MARIE-MARGUERITE d’YOUVILLE Marie-Marguerite d’Youville was born in Varennes, Quebec, on October 15, 1701.  She died at the age of 70 on December 23, 1771 in Montreal.   She founded the Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général de Montréal, also known as the Grey Nuns. She is the first Canadian-born saint, canonized by Pope St. John Paul II on December 9, 1990.  She is called the “Mother of Universal Charity”.

Marie-Marguerite was the oldest daughter of Marie-Renée Gaultier and Christophe du Frost, who died when she was seven years old.  Despite her family’s poverty, Marie-Marguerite was able to attend school at the Ursuline Convent in Quebec City for two years before returning home to teach her younger siblings.  When she was 21, Marie-Marguerite married Francois d’Youville, a bootlegger who sold liquor to indigenous people in exchange for furs.  They had six children, four of whom died in infancy.  Her husband died in 1730 when Marie-Marguerite was 30 years old.   She educated her two surviving sons, both of whom became priests. 

On December 31, 1737 Marie-Marguerite and three other women consecrated themselves to God and promised to serve Him through caring for the poor in Montreal.  Their good intentions were mocked by the neighbors who called them “les grises” which means either “the gray women” or “the drunken women”.  Within a decade however, the women had become the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, a Catholic religious order with a rule and a formal community.   By 1747 the Sisters had obtained a charter to operate a ruined hospital in Montreal to care for the poor.   Through their efforts, this institution, known as the General Hospital of Montreal, became financially secure and its facilities were rebuilt.  The Order assumed the epithet by which they had become known, the “Gray Nuns”.

The Order operated the Hospital using enslaved labor, including both native and English soldiers who had been captured in War.   These men may have regarded their captivity as a blessing as others of their class were imprisoned and forced to endure far more difficult circumstances. 

Marie-Marguerite died in 1771 at the General Hospital in Montreal.  Her remains were relocated to her birthplace in Varennes.   Today Gray Nuns serve the poor on almost every continent, continuing Marie-Marguerite’s mission to reach out to all, especially the unfortunate, women suffering in unhappy marriages, single parents, and the poor, with love and compassion.
 
Symbols: shown in the habit of her Order
Feast Day celebrated on October 16
Patron of widows, difficult marriages, death of young children

 SAINT FRANCOIS de LAVAL Francis-Xavier de Montmorency-Laval was born in Montigny-Sur-Avre in France on April 30, 1623.  He died in Quebec on May 6, 1708.  He became the first Catholic bishop of Quebec, appointed at the age of 36 by Pope Alexander VII.  Francois de Laval is known as the “Father of the Canadian Church” and was canonized by Pope Francis on April 3, 2014.                                          

Francis-Xavier de Laval was born into a large aristocratic and pious family.  His father was Hugues de Laval, Seigneur of Montigny-sur-Avre, and his mother was Michelle de Péricard, of a family related to the hereditary crown of Normandy.  He received the tonsure and minor orders at the age of eight and in 1631 he entered the elite Jesuit College of La Flêche, where he would have learned about the Jesuit missions in Huron, Canada (Panels 2 and 33).   In 1637, Laval was appointed a canon of the Cathedral of Évreux by the bishop of Évreux and the financial stipend accompanying this position enabled Laval to complete his education in philosophy and theology at the College of Clermont in Paris. 
On May 1, 1647, at the age of 24, Laval was ordained a priest and named archdeacon of the diocese of Évreux.  He left this position to pursue missionary work with the Jesuits in Indochina and in Rome with the Propagation of the Faith.  In 1655, Laval retreated to the Hermitage in Caen, France, where he stayed for three years devoting himself to prayer, charitable works, and the administration of a monastery and two convents of nuns. 
On June 3, 1658, the Vatican appointed Laval as Vicar Apostolic to New France.  He was so consecrated by the papal nuncio in the Abbey of Saint Germain des Prés in Paris on December 8, 1658 and sailed for New France on April 13, 1659, arriving in Quebec on June 16 of that year.  When he landed the population of Quebec did not exceed 2200 souls.  
After 15 years, the Vatican named Laval the first Bishop of Quebec which he organized into diocese, establishing boundaries for parishes.  He fostered belief in the Immaculate Conception and the cult of the Holy Family and the devotion to St. Anne de Beaupre whose shrine at Beaupre he rebuilt in 1673.
Laval opposed the sale of alcohol to the natives and threatened to excommunicate those who participated in this trade.  When the governor opposed him on this issue, Laval obtained his recall by King Louis XIV who allowed Laval to suggest his replacement.  Laval nominated Chevalier de Mézy, a friend from Caen, who as governor proved a strong ally in banning the sale of alcohol to the natives.  
As Bishop of Quebec, Laval supported education.  In 1678, he founded a school for craftsmen and farmers at Saint Joachim which became the University of Quebec.  On March 26, 1663, Laval founded the Grand Séminaire in Quebec, affiliated with the Séminarie des Missions Étranères in Paris, to train boys with vocations to the priesthood.  Its first class included eight French and six native students.  Laval envisioned the Seminary as a spiritual home for Canadian priests, functioning as paymaster for their parishes and offering care for priests in their old age.  To this end, Laval donated his entire fortune to the Seminary and obtained the permission of the King to levy a tax to support this cause. 
He retired as Bishop in 1688 but remained active in the diocese with gifts of charity.  He died on May 6, 1708 in Quebec where he is buried in the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
Feast Day celebrated on May 6

SAINT MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS  Marguerite Bourgeoys was born in Troyes, France, on April 17, 1620, the sixth of twelve children.  She died in Montreal at the age of 80 on January 12, 1700, having founded schools in Montreal and in Quebec administered by sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame which she also founded.  Marguerite Bourgeoys was called the “Mother of the Colony” and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982.

At the age of 20, Marguerite Bourgeoys felt called to religious life but her applications to the Carmelites and Poor Clares were rejected.  In 1640 she joined a non-cloistered congregation of teachers attached to a convent in Troyes administered by the sister of Governor Maisonneuve of Ville Marie (Montreal).  In 1653 she sailed for Canada at the Governor’s invitation to start a school in Ville Marie, a settlement of 200 residents with a hospital and a Jesuit mission chapel.  By 1658 she had organized a boarding school for girls and recruited three women to help her.   In 1667 she organized a school for native girls on the Sulpician reserve of La Montagne.  She also organized a school of domestic arts and a school for girls in Québec.    

On July 1, 1698, she organized the women working with her at the school into a non-cloistered religious community.  In 1670, Marguerite returned to France and recruited six more young women to help her with the schools for which she obtained the authorization of King Louis XIV.   Six years later, in 1676, she established the Congregation of Notre Dame and in 1698 she obtained approval of its Rule and constitutions.  When she was 69 years old, Marguerite walked from Montreal to Quebec in response to the request of the bishop to establish a community of the sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Quebec.

She spent the last two years of her life in meditation and in prayer.  At her death, she was revered as a saint by the colonists in Canada.  The sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame now number several thousand and work in Canada, the United States and Japan. 

Feast Day celebrated on January 12
 

SAINT MARIE OF THE INCARNATION Marie Guyart was born in Tours, France, on October 28, 1599.  She died in Quebec at the age of 72 on April 30, 1672.  She established the first Ursuline Monastery in Quebec, today a National Historic Site of Canada, founded the first girl’s school in the New World, and helped to spread Christianity in Canada.   Marie learned the languages of the Montagnais, Algonquin, Huron, and Iroquois, and she wrote dictionaries and catechisms in each language, now lost.  She also wrote two autobiographies entitled Relation, and thousands of letters, many to her son, which he published after her death.  Her writings are a principal source for the history of the French colonies from 1639 to 1671, including political, commercial, religious, and interpersonal aspects of life in New France in this period.   Her statue stands in front of the Quebec parliament.  She is celebrated as a saint by the Anglican Church of Canada and was canonized by Pope Francis on April 2, 2014. 

Marie Guyart was the fourth child of Florent and Jeanne Guyart.  Her father was a silk merchant.  At the age of seven she experienced her first mystical encounter with Jesus Christ which she recounted in her book Relation (1654).  “With my eyes toward heaven I saw our Lord Jesus Christ in human form come forth and move through the air to me.  As Jesus in His wondrous majesty was approaching me, I felt my heart enveloped by His love and I began to extend my arms to embrace Him.  Then He put His arms about me, kissed me lovingly, and said, “Do you wish to belong to me?” I answered “Yes!” And, having received my consent He ascended back into Heaven.” 

When Marie wished to enter religious life at 14, her parents refused.  Instead they arranged her marriage to Claude Martin, a master silk worker, in 1617.  He died two years later, leaving her a widow at 19 with an infant son, also named Claude.  She said their marriage, though brief, was happy.  In 1627 Marie read the autobiography of Santa Teresa of Avila which, together with her visions, inspired Marie to pursue her religious vocation and to spread the Christian faith in the New World.    

In 1631 Marie entered the Ursuline Monastery in Tours where she received her religious name, Marie of the Incarnation.   She left her son, Claude, with her sister.  The twelve-year-old boy suffered greatly from this separation from his mother.  Eventually he became a Benedictine monk.  Claude corresponded with his mother throughout her life and published their correspondence after her death.   

Marie professed her vows in 1633.  At Christmas she had a vision of walking with another woman in a foreign landscape and seeing the Virgin Mary with Jesus on the roof of a distant church.  She interpreted this as a call to establish the Catholic faith in the New World.   She contacted the Jesuits in Quebec who were supportive, but her family accused her of parental neglect.   She remained adamant in her calling to evangelize the New World.

On February 19, 1639 Marie met Madeleine de la Peltrie, a devout widow, who donated her estate to the Ursuline Order to fund Marie’s mission.  Madeleine also obtained the necessary legal authority from the Jesuit Fathers and King Louis XII.  They sailed for Quebec on May 4, 1639, arriving in August 1639.  By 1642 they moved to a permanent stone building in the upper town.  When the convent burned in 1650 in an Iroquois attack, the French Ursulines urged the women to return to France.  The convent was rebuilt quickly, a blessing attributed to the Virgin Mary, allowing the Ursuline sisters to continue their mission to educate French and native girls in the basics of the Christian faith, French and Latin literature, and civility.  The native girls were encouraged to share what they learned with their tribes when they left the school.  

Feast Day celebrated on April 30

BLESSED CATHERINE de HUECK DOHERTY  Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine de Hueck Doherty was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, on August 15, 1896.  She died in Combermere, Ontario, in Canada at the age of 89 on December 14, 1985.  She was a social worker and founder of the Madonna House Apostolate.  She was a prolific writer and renowned lecturer on social justice themes.  Her awards include: the Cross of St. George for bravery on the Russian Front, the Order of St. Anna for serving in the line of duty under attack, and the Order of Canada for a lifetime of service to the underprivileged.  She is a Dame of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and was recognized by Pope John XXIII with the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, for her exceptional and outstanding work for the Church and for the Pope in 1960.  Pope John Paul II opened her cause for canonization in 2000.

Catherine was born to wealthy aristocratic parents and was baptized in their Russian Orthodox faith.  Her early life and schooling were spent outside Russia as her father was an ambassador for the Russian Tsarist government.  At 15 she married her cousin, Boris de Hueck (1889-1947).  During the First World War, Boris worked as an engineer and Catherine as a Red Cross nurse.  They barely escaped Russia after the Revolution, making their way to England and then to Canada where they arrived in 1921.  Their son, George, was born in Toronto, but their marriage did not survive long after his birth. 

On October 15, 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression, Catherine sold all her possessions following her calling to serve Christ in the poor.  After providing for her son, George, she went to live in the slums of Toronto as a lay apostle.  Like Dorothy Day, she tried to preach a radical Gospel with her life and established Friendship House, a soup kitchen that also offered Catholic education and fellowship.  Tagged as a Communist sympathizer she had to leave Toronto and close Friendship House in 1936.   She went to Europe where she encountered the Catholic Action movement. 

In 1938, at the invitation of Fr. John LaFarge, S.J., a civil rights leader in the US, Catherine opened a Friendship House at 34 West 135th Street in Harlem, New York.  While it enjoyed success with the local population and the support of Cardinals Patrick Hayes and Francis Spellman of New York, internal dissension forced her to step down as Director General in January 1947. 

On May 17, 1947, Catherine retired to Combemere, Ontario in Canada with her second husband, the American journalist, Eddie Doherty.  She served the needs of this community and established Restoration, a newspaper, and a training center for Catholic lay apostolate.  Under the guidance of Fr. John Callahan, they made an act of consecration to Jesus through Mary according to St. Louis de Montfort.  Graces abounded.  She attended a lay congress in Rome where Msgr. Montini (later Pope Paul VI) encouraged her to consider a permanent society.

On April 7, 1954, those living with Catherine in Combermere established the community of Madonna House and took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.  The Madonna House Apostolate now numbers 200 staff with 17 Madonna Houses throughout the world.

Catherine introduced the concept of poustinia, a Russian word for “desert”, where a person meets God through solitude, prayer, and fasting.  She called Madonna House sobornost, a Russiain word for “deep unity of heart and mind in the Holy Trinity – a unity beyond human capacity”.

SAINT ANDRé BESSETTE, C.S.C.  André Bessette was born in Mont-Saint Grégoire in Quebec, Canada on August 9, 1845.  He died in Montreal, Canada at the age of 91 on January 6, 1937.  He was a lay brother of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and credited with numerous miraculous healings associated with his pious devotion to Saint Joseph.   Declared venerable in 1978, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982, “Brother André” was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 17, 2010. 

Brother André was born to working class parents who moved frequently.  He was orphaned by the age of 12 and worked to support himself.  As a consequence, he had little formal education, but he had a lively faith and a strong devotion to St. Joseph. His childhood pastor sent him to the Congregation of the Holy Cross with a note that said, “I am sending you a saint”.  Despite his poor health, he entered the novitiate on December 27, 1879 and took his formal vows at the age of 28, on February 2, 1874. 
Brother André’s first assignment was as the porter at the Collège Notre-Dame in Cote-des-Neiges, Quebec.  His duties included greeting visitors and tending to their needs.  Many people began to experience physical healings after praying with Brother André.  Many people sought his prayers, but Brother André remained humble knowing that the real source of the miraculous cures was the intercession of St. Joseph.  
He saved money earned from giving haircuts at five cents apiece, earning enough to construct a simple shrine to St. Joseph across the street from the College.  The Oratory of St. Joseph opened on October 18, 1904 and Brother André became its full time caretaker.   The Orator attracted large numbers of pilgrims and thousands of miraculous cures were attributed to his intercession.  He became known as the “Miracle Man of Montreal”. 
When Brother André died on January 6, 1937, an estimated one million people paid their respects during the week that his body lay in the Oratory of St Joseph.   On March 19, 1955, a Basilica was consecrated next to the Oratory; its side chapels are filled with the crutches of people healed through St. André’s prayers.  It is the world’s largest shrine dedicated to St. Joseph. 
Prayer for the Intercession of Saint André

Lord, you have chosen Brother André
to spread devotion to Saint Joseph,
and to dedicate himself
to all those who are poor and afflicted.
Grant through his intercession
the favor that we now request ...
(state your intention)
Grant us the grace
to imitate his piety and charity,
so that, with him,
we may share the reward promised
to all who care for their neighbors out of love for you.
We make this prayer in the name of Jesus the Lord.  Amen.

SAINT CHARLES GARNIER was born in Paris, France, on May 25, 1606.  He joined the Jesuit seminary in September 1624 and was ordained a priest in 1635.   He departed for Canada on his thirtieth birthday and joined Fr. Jean de Brébeuf at the Huron mission.  Fr. Garnier devoted ten years to evangelizing the Petun tribe.  On December 7, 1649, Fr. Charles Garnier was murdered by a blow from a tomahawk during an attack by the Iroquois.
 

SAINT NOEL CHABANEL was born in Sagues, France, on February 2, 1613.  He entered the Jesuit novitiate when he was 17 and became a professor of rhetoric.  In 1643 he was sent to Canada where he studied the Algonquin language.  Three years later, Fr. Chabanel joined Fr. Charles Garnier at the mission to the Petun tribe.  On December 8, 1649, Fr. Chabanel was murdered fleeing the attack of a Huron brave who betrayed him to the Iroquois. 

SAINT ANTHONY DANIEL was born in Dieppe, France on May 27, 1601 and entered the Jesuit order in 1621.   In 1633 he accompanied Fr. Jean de Brébeuf and established the mission of Sainte Marie among the Huron people.  After learning the Huron language, Fr. Daniel translated the Our Father into the Huron native tongue.  In 1636, Fr. Daniel returned to Quebec with six Huron boys and established the first school for instruction of Huron children in Canada.  In August 1638, Fr. Daniel returned to the Huron mission called Sainte Marie, devoting the next ten years to missionary work.  On July 4, 1648, Fr. Antony Daniel was murdered after celebrating Mass during a surprise attack by the Iroquois on a small Huron village. 

SAINT GABRIEL LALEMANT was born in Paris, France, on October 3, 1610.  He was ordained a priest in the Jesuit order in 1638.  Despite poor health, Fr. Lalemant became a missionary, arriving in Quebec in September 1646 where he studied the Huron language.  In September 1646 he became the assistant to Fr. Jean de Brébeuf at the Sainte Marie mission among the Hurons.  After an attack by Iroquois warriors on a Huron settlement, Fr. Gabriel Lalemant was captured, tortured and died on March 17, 1649.
 

SAINT JEAN DE BRéBEUF was born in Condè, Normandy in France on March 25, 1593, entered the Jesuit order in 1617 and was ordained as a priest in 1622.  He arrived in Quebec, Canada, at the age of 32 in June, 1625 and is described as the leader of the French Jesuit mission to North America, proclaiming that he “would cross the great ocean to win one little soul for Our Lord!” 
In July 1626 Fr. de Brébeuf met a trading party of Huron Indians.  He traveled 900 miles along the Ottawa River and numerous smaller waterways to arrive at their Huron village.  There he lived and learned their language for three years.  He returned to Quebec in July 1629 and was evacuated with others in the French colony after the English conquest of Quebec.  Fr. de Brébeuf spent the following three years at the Jesuit College of Rouen where he took his final vows.
In 1633, Fr. de Brébeuf returned to Quebec accompanied by Fr. Anthony Daniel.  Together they returned to the Huron village and established the mission of Sainte Marie.   As required of Jesuit missionaries, Fr. de Brébeuf recorded his experiences with the Huron people.  His Relations included meditations and practical advice for future missionaries.   After an attack by Iroquois warriors on the Huron settlement, Fr. Jean de Brébeuf was captured, tortured and died on March 16, 1649.
 

Gemma Galgani was born near Lucca in Italy on March 12, 1878, and died there twenty-five years later, on April 11, 1903.   

Gemma suffered from chronic ill health throughout her life which prevented her from entering a religious order.  When able, she cared for her younger siblings, otherwise, she devoted herself to prayer, offering her sufferings to God.   For her sweet and generous disposition, she became known as the “Flower of Lucca”.

When Gemma was twenty-one years old, on June 8, 1899, she understood that an unusual grace would be granted to her.  She began to suffer intense pain and bleeding and the marks of the stigmata, appeared on her hands, her feet, and her heart.  Thereafter, each Thursday evening, Gemma would fall into a rapture and the marks of the stigmata would appear.  The bleeding would continue until Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.   When it stopped, white gashes would remain where the wounds had closed.   

Her confessor recorded the following words, among many she spoke during her frequent states of ecstasy:     
 
"Why did you suffer for me, dear Jesus? For love! The nails...the crown...the cross...all for the love of me! For You, I sacrifice everything willingly. I offer You my body with all of its weakness, and my soul with all its love."

When her ecstasy ended Gemma would return to her quiet life.  Gemma often saw her Guardian Angel and frequently sent the Angel on errands, usually to deliver a message to her confessor in Rome.   

In January 1903, Gemma was diagnosed with tuberculosis.  At the start of Holy Week, she began suffering greatly.  Gemma died on Holy Saturday at the age of 25.  At her death, according to her parish priest, “She died with a smile which remained on her lips so that I could not convince myself that she was really dead.”

Pope Pius XII canonized her on May 2, 1940, thirty-seven years after her death.   Gemma is the great-grandaunt of Carol Landon, a parishioner of St. Bede.

Symbol: Photos taken during her lifetime show Gemma next to the crucifix with the marks of the stigmata on her hands. 

Patron Saint of pharmacists and students (Gemma was a good student, reputedly at the top of her class).  She is also invoked against temptations, against the death of parents, and against tuberculosis.
 
Feast Day:  April 11

Alphonsus Maria de Liguori was born to a noble family at Marianella near Naples in Italy on September 27, 1696.   He died near Naples 91 years later, on August 1, 1787, at the stroke of the noon Angelus bell with a picture of the Blessed Mother in his hands.   

St. Alphonsus was a priest and moral theologian.  He is the founder of the Redemptorist Order and holds the title, of Doctor of Prayer, in the Church.  

Alphonsus Maria de Liguori had an exceptional education in philosophy, literature, and the arts, earning doctorates in civil and canon law.  Upon graduation, he became a lawyer in Naples.  He also worked with the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mercy caring for the incurably ill at local hospitals.  At the age of 26, he left the practice of law.  He was ordained a priest in 1726.  

As a priest, Alphonsus devoted himself to caring for the poor and most abandoned.  His “mission among the people” attracted followers with whom Alphonsus established the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, commonly known as the Redemptorists. 

Alphonsus and his brothers attracted many with their message of hope in Christ for all people.  Alphonsus preached the redeeming love of God.  “The soul’s entire holiness and perfection lies in love for Jesus Christ, our God, our highest good, our Redeemer.  Charity is the bond and safeguard of all the virtues which perfect man.”

Alphonsus wrote more than one hundred books, including his most influential, Moral Theology, which offers a guide to a moral life.   “…our whole salvation depends on prayer…For if you pray, your salvation will be secure.”

Alphonsus also had a special devotion to the Blessed Mother.  He prayed the Rosary daily, including the Litany of Our Lady, and encouraged others to pray to Her and to visit the Marian shrines to increase their love for the mother of God.  

Canonized not long after his death in 1839, Alphonsus was named a Doctor of the Church in 1950. 

Pope St. John Paul II described St. Alphonsus as a “close friend of the people, a missionary who went in search of the most abandoned souls, a founder who wanted a group which would make a radical option in favor of the lowly, a bishop whose house was open to all, and a writer who focused on what would be of benefit to people.”

Symbol:  Redemptorist habit, with a bishop’s crucifix around his neck

Patron Saint of confessors and moral theologians
 
Feast Day:  August 1

Born in Wearmouth in 673, from the age of seven, Bede lived in Benedictine monasteries in North East England.  He never traveled farther north than the monastery at the Holy Island at Lindisfarne on the Scottish coast or farther south than the cathedral city of York.  Bede died on the vigil of the Ascension of Christ, at Jarrow, on May 25, 735, shortly after he finished an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospel of John.
Bede is called the Venerable to acknowledge his wisdom, a title formalized at the Council of Aachen in 853.  A millennium later, in 1899, Pope Leo XIII declared the Venerable Bede a Doctor of the Church.   

The Venerable Bede was a Benedictine monk, a writer, and a historian. He is known as “the Father of English History” for his works, Christianity in England (729) and the first History of the English Church and People (731).   Bede’s History is the first work to date events from the time of the Incarnation, Anno Domini, and his books are a fundamental source of knowledge for English and European historians.  
Bede believed that love, rather than learning, was his life's purpose. “It is better,” he famously said, “to be a stupid and uneducated brother who, working at the good things he knows, merits life in heaven than to be one who –  though being distinguished for his learning in the Scriptures, or even holding the place of a teacher – lacks the bread of love."

At his death, Bede was buried in the monastery at Jarrow.  Two centuries later, when Vikings threatened England’s eastern coast, the monks left Jarrow and took Bede’s remains with them to their new monastery.  Today the Venerable Bede lies in Our Lady’s Chapel in the Cathedral in Durham, England.

In October 1932, Bishop Andrew Brennan dedicated the newly built parish church on the campus of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia to St. Bede.  The choice of The Venerable Bede as this parish’s patron saint highlights the Catholic origins of Christianity in England before the Reformation and the Catholic Church’s historical roots in intellectual scholarship.  It also highlights the Catholic Church’s historical roots in England whose monarchs, King William and Queen Mary, founded the College by Royal Charter in 1693.

Symbol:  wears a Benedictine habit, sits in a study with the books he has written 

Patron Saint of writers and historians
 
Feast Day:  May 25
 

Patrick was born in Roman Britain around 385 AD.   As a youth, he was taken captive to Ireland as a slave and worked as a herdsman.  After making his escape to Britain, a vision inspired him to become a priest.   Patrick was later ordained a bishop and sent to Ireland to preach the Gospel.  Patrick converted thousands to Christianity, beginning with the chiefs of the Druid tribes, through his preaching and working of many miracles.  He died on March 17, 461 at Saul, the first of many churches he built in Ireland.  His tomb today is believed to be at Downpatrick in Ireland. 

By the end of the 7th century, Patrick was revered as the patron saint of Ireland.

Patrick is known for two written works, his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus and his Confessio.   In the first, Patrick condemns Coroticus, a British Roman tyrant, whose soldiers invaded Ireland, killing and capturing many Irish Christian converts.  Patrick condemned the murders, demanded the return of those captives who survived and called on all Christians to have nothing to do with Coroticus and his soldiers unless and until they repented. 

In the Confessio, Patrick defends his years as a missionary in Ireland against a demand of British bishops that he return to Britain and answer charges of corruption, misuse of funds, and an unnamed sin he committed as a youth.  Patrick refuses their demand which was likely the result of Patrick’s earlier condemnation of Coroticus.  Instead, Patrick offers them the Confessio, or his spiritual autobiography in which Patrick relates how he came to be a missionary in Ireland.  Patrick describes his wanton youth as a British nobleman, his kidnapping by Irish pirates, his religious conversion, his escape from slavery, and his return to Ireland as a missionary.  Patrick acknowledges that his mission in Ireland required certain actions, including payments to authorities.  Throughout the Confessio, Patrick recognizes his debt to God for choosing Patrick as His instrument to bring the Gospel to the Irish people:
“I give thanks to my God tirelessly who kept me faithful in the day of trial, so that today I offer sacrifice to him confidently, the living sacrifice of my life to Christ, my Lord, who preserved me in all my troubles….Today, among heathen peoples, I praise and proclaim your name in all places, not only when things go well but also in times of stress. Whether I receive good or ill, I trust him unreservedly.” 

The Breastplate of St. Patrick in the Old Irish language is a prayer for protection, expressing Patrick’s love of, total devotion to, and trust in God. Found in many versions, all contain these words:
"Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me.   
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in the hearts of all that love me, Christ in the mouth of friend and stranger.”  

Symbol :  Bishop’s miter and crozier
Patron Saint of engineers and paralegals; his patronage is invoked against snakes and sins   
Feast Day:  March 17

The Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, written c. 180 AD, record that a young noble virgin of Iconium (Turkey) converted to Christianity after hearing the preaching of St. Paul.  Like other early female Christian saints, she became estranged from her family and her fiancé vowing to remain a virgin, “one must fear only one God and live in chastity.”

According to the Apocrypha, the Roman authorities condemned Thecla to be burned at the stake.  A miraculous storm saved her.  She left Iconium and traveled with Paul to Antioch of Pisidia where another Roman nobleman sought her sexual favors.  When she refused, he accused her of assault.  The Roman authorities again sentenced her to death by wild beasts.  Again, a miracle saved her when the female beasts protected her from the male aggressors.  Thecla traveled to Myra where she again met Paul.  She preached the Gospel in areas of Turkey to women and encouraged them to live a life of chastity.  

The Apocrypha records that when Thecla retired from preaching, she lived in a cave in Seleucia Cilicia and became a healer.  Physicians in the area, jealous of her healing powers, solicited young men to despoil her.  Again, she was miraculously saved.  Her prayers to God opened a passage through the rocks that closed behind her, saving her from their attack. 

Thecla traveled to Rome and died beside St Paul’s tomb.  

Gregory of Nyssa in a 4th-century text records that Thecla sacrificed herself by dying to the flesh, practicing great austerity, and extinguishing in herself all earthly affections so that nothing remained in her but spirit.  She is referred to in the earliest Acts of Martyrs.   The Acts of Polyeuctes (d. 259 AD) refers to Thecla and Perpetua as the inspiration for other virgin martyrs. 

A catacomb of St. Thecla on the via Ostiensis, near the burial place of St. Paul, is mentioned in 7th-century itineraries.   In 2010 technicians working for the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology announced the discovery of St. Thecla’s tomb, not far from St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, under a building belonging to an Italian insurance company.   In the ceiling of the burial chamber is a fresco, at the center is Christ as the Good Shepherd, and, in four corners, are the oldest existing fresco paintings of Sts. Peter, Paul (with the pointed beard), Andrew, and John are datable to the 4th century. 

The Eastern Church calls Thecla an Apostle and protomartyr among women.   

Symbol:  late Roman garb
Patron Saint of  
Feast Day:  September 23