Mary Mother of GOD
Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum.
And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
Пресвятая Богородице спаси нас!  (Santíssima Mãe de Deus, salva-nos!)
RDeo grátias. R.  Thanks be to God.
June is the month of the Sacred Heart since 1873;
2023
22,600  Lives Saved Since 2007

Our Bartholomew Family Prayer List
Joyful Mystery on Monday Saturday   Glorius Mystery on Sunday Wednesday
   Sorrowful Mystery on Friday Tuesday   Luminous Mystery on Thursday Veterens of War 

Six to Be Canonized on Feast of Christ the King 
  The saints are a “cloud of witnesses over our head”,
showing us life of Christian perfection is possible.

Virgin_of_Tenderness_from_Pskov_Caves
The Pskov Caves Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God, named the "Tenderness" (1542), is famous particularly for the defense of Pskov and the Pskov Caves monastery from the army of Stephen Bathory in 1581.
Its celebration is also on 5/21, 8/26, & 9/7


Saints John Fisher, Bishop, Martyr and Thomas More, Martyr
Many holy martyrs commemoration of who concealed themselves in mountains and caverns, joyfully underwent martyrdom for the name of Christ: At Nicomedia
 
257 Saint Felix a priest in Tuscany, scourged to death under emperors Valerian and Gallienus
 262 Saint Agrippina martyr, whose shrine is venerated as a site of miracles

 362 Saint John of Rome Roman priest beheaded persecution of Julian the Apostate; head enshrined in San Silvestro in Capita, and martyrdom recorded in several legends that include miracles and prophecy.
 493 St Moelray Abbot of Nendrum Monastery, baptized by St. Patrick. instructed Sts. Finian Colman
 679 Saint Etheldreda (Audrey) 7 day high tide founded abbey of Ely, lived austere life body incorrupt
769 Saint James Bishop of Toul, France, from 756 died in Dijon praying before tomb of Saint Benignus, after pilgrimage to Rome.
1113 Blessed Felix of Cîteaux, OSB Cist. (PC). Felix named in Cistercian menologies as a beatus
1213 Blessed Mary (Marie) d'Oignies turned their house into a leper hospital, and tended the sick miraculously "see the Blessed Sacrament", Widow (AC) able to discern the past history of relics (hierognosis, psychometry).
1343 Blessed Thomas Corsini a Servite lay-brother, spent life collecting alms for abbey. favored by many visions (Benedictines),
1480 Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God  church celebrates miracle led to saving Moscow from invasion of Khan Achmed 1480

1860 Saint Joseph Cafasso a brilliant lecturer in moral theology at the Institute of Saint Franics; a popular teacher, actively opposed Jansenism, and fought state intrusion into Church affairs; made a deep impression on his young priest students with his holiness and insistence on discipline and high standards ministered to prisoners,

Our Bartholomew Family Prayer List
Joyful Mystery on Monday Saturday   Glorius Mystery on Sunday Wednesday
   Sorrowful Mystery on Friday Tuesday   Luminous Mystery on Thursday Veterens of War

Acts of the Apostles

Nine First Fridays Devotion to the Sacred Heart From the writings of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
How do I start the Five First Saturdays?
Mary Mother of GOD
15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary
.

The woman who demonstrates diligence in everything she does will be praised.  Mary said to the angel, "But how can this come about?" (Lk 1:34).How could this fact come to pass? I want to know, before I answer you.
This diligence is a wonderful thing.  
Whence you find in Ecclesiastics, "The diligent woman will be praised."
Excerpt from Bernardine of Siena, Prediche volgari sul Campo di Siena 1427, sermon 30; ed. Dalcorno, 2:877-78



The Birth of Our Lady of the Cape (II) June 23 - Our Lady Justinienne at Carthage (6th C.)
The ceremony took place on June 22, 1888, in which Blessed Frederic Jansoone gave the sermon with these prophetic words: "From henceforth, this sanctuary shall belong to Mary.
Pilgrims shall come from every parish, from every family in the diocese and from every diocese in Canada."

The statue of the Holy Virgin from the side chapel was placed above the main altar and, in the evening at about seven o'clock, Father Desilets, Father Jansoon and Mr. Pierre Lacroix, a disabled man, entered to pray the Virgin.
Then something extraordinary happened: "... the statue of the Virgin, whose eyes were completely lowered suddenly opened; the Virgin stared straight at the men. The effect was difficult to comprehend: the face was flooded with light from the sun shining through a window, lighting up the whole sanctuary. The eyes were dark, well formed and in harmony with the whole of the face. The Virgin's gaze was that of a living person; its expression was one of sternness mingled with sadness. This phenomenon lasted about five to ten minutes."
Father Jansoon vowed later that the Virgin's gaze had transformed his life. And the little church has become today the great Shrine of Our Lady of the Cape that welcomes thousands and thousands of pilgrims...
Official Sanctuary Site  www.sanctuaire-ndc.ca/newspaper.html

Mary Mother of GOD 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary

June 23 – Madonna del Ardesio (Italy, 1607) 
 
The luminous example that your soul needs
A child imitates his mother in all things, even in doing difficult or dangerous things, not at all because he idolizes her, but simply because he trusts and loves her. He takes the medicine he sees her take, and would even follow her into prison.
Mary is the luminous example that your soul needs. Conform yourself to her as a model.
The triune God cannot fashion greater holiness than that.

Even though Mary is a model of discretion and modesty, she is always ready to serve: she does not put herself forward or raise her voice, but she is always by Jesus' side. Her whole life is offered to the Lord, the same Lord who is present within us.
François-Xavier Cardinal NGUYEN VAN THUAN
Sur le chemin de l'espérance (The Road to Hope), Le Sarment, Fayard 1991 

 
Mary's Divine Motherhood
Called in the Gospel "the Mother of Jesus," Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as "the Mother of my Lord" (Lk 1:43; Jn 2:1; 19:25; cf. Mt 13:55; et al.). In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity.
Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "Mother of God" (Theotokos).

Catechism of the Catholic Church 495, quoting the Council of Ephesus (431): DS 251.

Morning Prayer and Hymn   Meditation of the Day Prayer for Priests
June 23 - Madonna del Ardesio (Italy, 1607)  Milady Diligence
The Blessed Virgin was always accompanied by Milady Diligence. She kept the whole house in order. And whatever she did, she did it with such love and order that even when eating, she ate in an orderly way, up to the time for bed.
She did everything at the time ordained for it.

Learn, O maiden, to do with order and love whatever you have to do. If your task is to cook or sweep or to govern the household goods, or anything else, do it with diligence. Learn from Mary. This is how she acted when the angel said to her: "Look! You are to conceive a son, and must call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High" (Lk 1:31). (...)
Mary said to the angel, "But how can this come about?" (Lk 1:34).
How could this fact come to pass? I want to know, before I answer you.
This diligence is a wonderful thing. Whence you find in Ecclesiastics,
"The diligent woman will be praised."
The woman who demonstrates diligence in everything she does will be praised.

Excerpt from Bernardine of Siena, Prediche volgari sul Campo di Siena 1427, sermon 30; ed. Dalcorno, 2:877-78
Mary the Mother of God
         St. Abba Nofer the Anchorite Departure of           
Many holy martyrs
commemoration of who concealed themselves in mountains and caverns, joyfully underwent martyrdom for the name of Christ: At Nicomedia
 
257 Saint Felix a priest in Tuscany, who was scourged to death under emperors Valerian and Gallienus (Benedictines).
 262 Saint Agrippina martyr, whose shrine is venerated as a site of miracles
 300 Saint Eustochius a convert, In the city of Lystra St Eustochius converted his nephew Gaius and all his household, among which included the children Probus, Lollias and Urban. The Holy Martyrs suffered; did not deny Christ
 304 Zeno and his slave Zenas At Philadelphia in Arabia, the holy martyrs.  When the latter kissed the chains of his master, begging to be a partner in his torments, arrested by soldiers, received the crown of martyrdom with him.
 306 Saints Aristokles, Demetrius der Diakon und Athanasius der Lektor Orthodoxe Kirche: 23. Juni oder 20. Juni
 362 Saint John of Rome Roman priest beheaded during persecution of Julian the Apostate; head enshrined in San Silvestro in Capita, and martyrdom recorded in several legends that include miracles and prophecy.
 435 Saint Johannes Cassian Er wurde Mönch in einem Kloster bei Bethlehem, reiste dann 390 mit seinem Gefährten Germanus nach Ägypten, wo er sieben Jahre bei den Einsiedlern und Asketen der Nitriawüste undin der Skete-Wüste lebte gegen die Nestorianer gegen die Pelagianer
 493 Saint Moelray Abbot of Nendrum Monastery, baptized by St. Patrick. A native of Ireland, Moelray, also called Moeliai, instructed Sts. Finian and Colman
 538 Saint Theophilus the Penitent or Theophilus of Adana
 679 Saint Etheldreda (Audrey) heaven sent seven day high tide founded the great abbey of Ely, where she lived an austere life body was found incorrupt
707 Saint Hiduiphus Monastic founder and husband of Saint Aye When Saint Aye entered a convent, Hidulphus became a monk at Lobbes Abbey, Belgium, which he had co-founded.
769 Saint James Bishop of Toul, France, from 756 died in Dijon while praying before the tomb of Saint Benignus, after making a pilgrimage to Rome.
1076 Saint Lietbertus s a noble who became bishop in 1051-founder of Cambrai, France  built the church and monastery of the Holy Sepulcher
1113 Blessed Felix of Cîteaux, OSB Cist. (PC). Felix is named in the Cistercian menologies as a beatus (Benedictines).
1136 Saint
Peter of Juilly Benedictine monk and preacher; originally from England, a friend of St. Stephen Harding and companion at Molesme; miracle worker
1194 Blessed Lanfranc Beccaria, OSB Vall. B (AC)
1213 Blessed Mary (Marie) d'Oignies turned their house into a leper hospital, and tended the sick miraculously "see the Blessed Sacrament", Widow (AC) able to discern the past history of relics (hierognosis, psychometry).
13th v. Saint Walhere Martyred  a parish priest in the Walloon district of Belgium killed by a profligate priest whom he was exhorting to reform his life
1343 Blessed Thomas Corsini a Servite lay-brother, who spent his live collecting alms for the abbey. He was favored by many visions (Benedictines), OSM (AC)
1480 Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God Today the church celebrates the miracle which led to the saving of Moscow from the invasion of Khan Achmed in 1480
1496 Blessed Peter James of Pesaro, OSA (AC) cultus approved by Pope Pius IX. Peter James was an Augustinian friar in Saint Nicholas's at Pesaro (Benedictines).
1535 Saint John Fisher is usually associated with Erasmus, Thomas More and other Renaissance humanists. His life, therefore, did not have the external simplicity found in the lives of some saints. Rather, he was a man of learning, associated with the intellectuals and political leaders of his day. He was interested in the contemporary culture and eventually became chancellor at Cambridge
1535 St. Thomas More Martyr (Patron of Lawyers) 1516 wrote "Utopia" refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of England
1545 Saint Artemius of Verkola Holy Righteous a light over the place where the incorrupt body holy relics were shown to be a source of numerous healings
1588  The Zaonikievsk Icon of the Mother of God was found in the year 1588 by the Vologda peasant Ilarion -- the future Monk Joseph of Zaonikievsk.
1581 The Pskov Caves Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God, named the "Tenderness" (1542), is famous particularly for the defense of Pskov and the Pskov Caves monastery from the army of Stephen Bathory in 1581.
1608 Saint Thomas Garnet English Jesuit martyr nephew of the Jesuit Henry Garnet studied for the priesthood at Saint Omer, France, and Valladolid, Spain. Initially ordained as a secular priest, hejoined the Jesuits in 1604 and worked to advance the Catholic cause in Warwick until his arrest in 1606. He was exiled after months of torture but returned in 1607 and soon arrested refused to take the Oath of Supremacy
1714 Saint Herman, Archbishop of Kazan
1860 Saint Joseph Cafasso a brilliant lecturer in moral theology at the Institute of Saint Franics; a popular teacher, actively opposed Jansenism, and fought state intrusion into Church affairs; made a deep impression on his young priest students with his holiness and insistence on discipline and high standards ministered to prisoners, working to improve their terrible conditions. He met Don Bosco in 1827 and the two became close friends. It was through Joseph's encouragement that Bosco decided his vocation was working with boys.  Joseph was his adviser, worked closely with him in his foundations, and convinced others to fund and found religious institutes and charitable organizations:   His funeral was preached by Saint John Bosco.


 The Vigil of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.
Vigília Nativitátis sancti Joánnis Baptístæ.      The Vigil of St. John Baptist.
Departure of St. Abba Nofer the Anchorite.
On this day, the ascetic father, Abba Nofer the Anchorite, departed at a good old age, and of a glorious memory, in the desert of Upper Egypt. The grace of God had moved St. Paphnoute (Paphnutius), and he longed to see the servants of God, the Anchorites. He saw many of them, among them St. Abba Nofer, and wrote their biographies.

He said that once he went into the desert and found a well of water and a palm tree. Then he saw the saint coming to him, naked, and the hair of his head and beard covered his body. When St. Paphnutius saw him, he was afraid and thought that he was a spirit. Saint Abba Nofer encouraged him, made the sign of the cross, and prayed the Lord's prayer, then said to him, "Welcome O Paphnoute." When he called him by his name, St. Paphnutius calmed down. They prayed together, then sat, and talked about the greatness and goodness of God.

St. Paphnutius asked Abba Nofer to tell him about his life and how he came to that place. Abba Nofer replied, "I was in a monastery wherein lived holy and righteous monks. I heard them talking about the greatness of those anchorites who dwelled in the desert and their good virtues. I said to them, 'Are there any who are better than you?' They said to me, 'Yes, those anchorites who dwell in the wilderness. We live near the world, if we are sorrowful or sad, we find someone to console us; if we are sick, we find someone to visit and treat us; if we are naked, we find someone to clothe us. Those who live in the wilderness lack all these things.' When I heard that from them, my heart became anxious.

"When the night came, I took a little bread and I went out from the monastery. Then I prayed to the Lord Christ and asked Him to guide me to the place where I was to live. The Lord facilitated my way and I found a holy and righteous man. I dwelt with him, and he taught me all about the life and the ways of the hermits and the anchorites. After I came to this place, I found a palm tree, and a well. The tree bore twelve clusters of dates each year. One cluster of dates is enough food for me for a month, and I drink water from this well. I have lived here for sixty years during which I have never seen the face of a man except yours."

While they were talking together the angel of the Lord came down, and told St. Abba Nofer that his departure was near. Straightway, his color changed and became like fire, then he bowed his knees and worshipped God. After he embraced St. Paphnutius, he delivered up his pure soul. St. Paphnutius wrapped him, and buried him in his cave. St. Paphnutius wished to live in the place of Abba Nofer. But after he had buried him, the palm tree dried and fell down and the water of the well dried up. That happened by the Will of God, so St. Paphnoute would return to the world and tell us about the holy hermits that he had seen.
May their prayers be with us and Glory be to god forever. Amen.
Nicomedíæ commemorátio plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum, qui, témpore Diocletiáni, in móntibus et spelúncis laténtes, pro Christi nómine martyrium læto ánimo subiérunt.
   
Commemoration of many holy martyrs who concealed themselves in mountains and caverns, but joyfully underwent martyrdom for the name of Christ: At Nicomedia, in the time of Diocletian.

 257 Saint Felix was a priest in Tuscany, who was scourged to death under emperors Valerian and Gallienus (Benedictines).
Sútrii, in Túscia, sancti Felícis Presbyteri, cujus os támdiu jussit Túrcius Præféctus lápide contúndi, donec ipse Felix emítteret spíritum.
   
St. Felix, priest At Sutri in Tuscany.  By the command of the prefect Turcius, he was struck on the mouth with a stone until he breathed no more.
262 Saint Agrippina martyr, whose shrine is venerated as a site of miracles
Item Romæ sanctæ Agrippínæ, Vírginis et Mártyris, quæ sub Valeriáno Imperatóre martyrium consummávit.  Ipsíus autem corpus, in Sicíliam translátum ac Menis cónditum, multis miráculis corúscat.
    Also at Rome, St. Agrippina, virgin and martyr, under the emperor Valerian.  Her body was taken to Sicily, where it works many miracles.
Agrippina (von Mineo) Orthodoxe Kirche: 23. Juni {Agrippina wurde Patronin von Mineo und 310 wurde eine erste Kirche mit ihrem Namen errichtet}
ST AGRIPPINA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR (A.D. 262 ?)
ST AGRIPPINA is a virgin martyr greatly honoured in Sicily and, to a lesser degree, in Greece. Nothing is known of her true history, her reputed acts in the Greek Menaia are quite unreliable and no evidence is forthcoming of any cultus of early date. She is believed to have been a maiden of high degree who was beheaded or scourged to death in Rome during the reign of Valerian or in the persecution under Diocletian. Three women, Bassa, Paula and Agathonice, afterwards conveyed her body to Mineo, in Sicily, for burial. Through it many miracles were wrought, including the cure of sick persons and demoniacs. The Greeks claim that the saint's relics were translated from Sicily to Constantinople-presumably to save them from profanation by the infidels. St Agrippina is invoked against evil spirits, leprosy and thunderstorms.
The account in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. v, furnishes little beyond some extracts from the Menaia, with a suspicious narrative in Latin of the translation to Sicily. The Annus Graeco-Slavicus of Martynov bears testimony to her later Cultus, and there is a short story of her martyrdom in the Synaxary of Constantinople; see Delehaye's edition, ce. 704-706. From this we learn that she was honoured on June 23, on which day also she is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology. 

Agrippina is believed to have come from a good Roman family. She was caught up in the persecutions instituted by Emperor Valerian or Diocletian and was beheaded or scourged. Her body was taken to Mineo, Sicily, by three devout Christian women. The gravesite became a popular pilgrimage destination, noted for miracles through Agrippina's intercession.

The Holy Martyr Agrippina, was by birth a Roman. She did not wish to enter into marriage, and totally dedicated her life to God. During the time of persecution against Christians under the emperor Valerian (253-259) the saint went before the court and bravely confessed her faith in Christ, for which she was given over to torture. They beat the holy virgin with sticks so severely that her bones broke. Afterwards they put St Agrippina in chains, but an angel freed her from her bonds.
The holy confessor died from the tortures she endured. The Christians Bassa, Paula and Agathonike secretly took the body of the holy martyr and transported it to Sicily, where many miracles were worked at her grave. In the eleventh century the relics of the holy Martyr Agrippina were transferred to Constantinople.

Agrippina (von Mineo) Orthodoxe Kirche: 23. Juni
Agrippina von RomAgrippina lebte im 3. Jahrhundert in Rom. In Viten wird sie als schöne blonde Prinzessin beschrieben. Unter Kaiser Valerian wurde sie verhaftet und gefoltert. Da sie standhaft blieb und von Christus nicht lassen wollte, wurde sie weiter gefoltert und starb an den Torturen. Als Todesjahr werden 256 und 262 angegeben.
Drei Freundinnen - Bassa, Paula und Agathonike (Gedenktag 10.8.) - brachten den Leichnam Agrippinas von Rom nach Mineo (Sizilien). Während der Reise sollen sich zahlreiche Wunder ereignet haben. Agrippina wurde Patronin von Mineo und 310 wurde eine erste Kirche mit ihrem Namen errichtet. In Mineo und anderen Gemeinden wird ihrer Anfang August gedacht. Ihre Freundinnen erlitten später das Martyrium in Karthago.

The Holy Martyr Agrippina (June 23) SerbianOrthodoxChurch.net
    St Agrippina was born and brought up in Rome. She trained herself from childhood to live by the Gospel, expelling the stench of the passions from her heart with the sweet-smelling perfume of purity and chastity. She was betrothed to Christ the Lord, and suffered as a bride of Christ in the reign of the Emperor Valerian. She endured beating with staves until her bones were crushed. An angel of the Lord appeared to her to strengthen her, until she surrendered her soul to God under fresh tortures. Her friends, Vassa, Paula and Agathonica, took her relics to the island of Sicily and buried them there. A church was later built there in her name, where countless miracles were wrought over her relics. She entered into eternal rest and was crowned with glory in the year 275.

300 Eustochius a convert, In the city of Lystra St Eustochius converted his nephew Gaius and all his household, among which included the children Probus, Lollias and Urban. The Holy Martyrs suffered s did not deny Christ during the time of a persecution under the emperor Maximian (286-310).
St Eustochius was a pagan priest, but seeing the unyielding courage of the Christian martyrs, and the miracles worked by them, he converted to Christ. He went to Bishop Eudoxius of Antioch, was baptized by him, and was ordained to the priesthood. In the city of Lystra St Eustochius converted his nephew Gaius and all his household, among which included the children Probus, Lollias and Urban. Soldiers of the emperor arrested St Eustochius and took him for trial, but tortures could not turn Eustochius from his faith. They then sent the saint to the governor Agrippinus in the Galatian city of Ancyra. The newly-converted Gaius was also sent with him with his household. All of them, even the women and children, underwent fierce torture, but the martyrs did not deny Christ and so were beheaded.

  The Holy Martyrs Eustochius and Gains, and those with them (June 23)  SerbianOrthodoxChurch.net
    Eustochius was a pagan priest in the time of the Emperor Maximian, but, seeing the heroism of the Christian martyrs, he cast off his paganism and was baptised by Eudoxius, Bishop of Antioch. Gradually Eustochius brought his kinsfolk to the Christian faith, and his kinsman Gains was baptised together with his three children: Probus, Lollias and Urban. All these, and some others with them, were brought before the judge, tortured and beheaded in Lystra for the sake of their faith in Christ the Lord, and thus their souls entered into His immortal Kingdom.

Philadelphíæ, in Arábia, sanctórum Mártyrum Zenónis, ejúsque servi Zenæ.  Hic dómini sui vincti caténas exósculans, eúmque rogans ut se in torméntis partícipem dignarétur habére, a milítibus tentus est, et cum ipso dómino parem martyrii corónam accépit.
304 Zeno and his slave Zenas At Philadelphia in Arabia, the holy martyrs.  When the latter kissed the chains of his master, begging to be a partner in his torments, he was arrested by the soldiers, and received the crown of martyrdom with him.
Zeno and Zenas MM (RM) Martyrs beheaded under Diocletian. Zeno was a rich citizen of Philadelphia near the Dead Sea; Zenas was one of the slaves who he had emancipated, but who had remained with Zeno. He had renounced all his possessions, including his slaves whom he freed (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

306 Aristokles, Demetrius der Diakon und Athanasius der Lektor Orthodoxe Kirche: 23. Juni oder 20. Juni
Aristokles war Presbyter in Zypern während der Verfolgungen unter Kaiser Diokletian. Er missionierte in den Bergen Kretas und sammelte die zerstreut lebenden Christen. Als die Verfolgungen zunahmen, verbarg er sich. In einer Vision forderte Gott ihn auf nach Salamina zu gehen und dort das Wort zu verkünden. Aristokles traf in der Kirche St. Barnabas den Diakon Demetrius und den Lektor Athanasius. Er berichtete ihnen von seiner Vision und beide beschlossen, mit Aristokles zusammen ds Evangelium zu verkünden. Nach einer Quelle konnten die drei wieder Gottesdienste in St. Barnabas abhalten und unter der heidnischen Bevölkerung missionieren und Menschen für den christlichen Glauben gewinnen. Letztlich führte aber ihr offenes Auftreten zur Verhaftung und Hinrichtung (um 306).

362 Saint John of Rome The Roman priest beheaded during the persecution of Julian the Apostate. His head has been enshrined in San Silvestro in Capita, and his martyrdom was recorded in several legends that include miracles and prophecy.
Romæ sancti Joánnis Presbyteri, qui, sub Juliáno Apóstata, via Salária véteri, ante simulácrum Solis decollátus est, et corpus ejus a beáto Concórdio Presbytero juxta Mártyrum Concília sepúltum.
    At Rome, in the reign of Julian the Apostate, St. John, a priest who was beheaded on the old Salarian Way before an idol of the sun.  His body was buried near those of other martyrs by the blessed priest Concordius.

John of Rome M (RM). The Roman priest John was beheaded during the persecution of Julian the Apostate. The relic venerated as the head of Saint John the Baptist at San Silvestro in Capite (the English church in Rome) is more likely belongs to this priest (Benedictines).

435 Johannes Cassian Er wurde Mönch in einem Kloster bei Bethlehem, reiste dann 390 mit seinem Gefährten Germanus nach Ägypten, wo er sieben Jahre bei den Einsiedlern und Asketen der Nitriawüste undin der Skete-Wüste lebte gegen die Nestorianer gegen die Pelagianer
Orthodoxe Kirche: 29. (28.) Februar  Katholische Kirche: 23. Juni

Johannes Cassian wurde wohl in Scythia minor (Rumänien) geboren (andere Quellen geben Südfrankreich an). Er wurde Mönch in einem Kloster bei Bethlehem, reiste dann 390 mit seinem Gefährten Germanus nach Ägypten, wo er sieben Jahre bei den Einsiedlern und Asketen der Nitriawüste undin der Skete-Wüste lebte. 397 kehrte er nach Bethlehem zurück und lebte hier drei Jahre als Einsiedler. Dann ging er nach Konstantinopel, wo Johannes Chrysostomus ihn zum Diakon weihte. Er ging dann nach Rom und, nachdem er zum Priester geweiht worden war, nach Gallien. Bei Massilia (Marseille) gründete er ein Mönchskloster (St. Viktor) und ein Nonnenkloster. Auf Bitten des Bischofs schrieb Johannes mehrere Bücher über das mönchische Leben, ausgehend von den Erfahrungen der orthodoxen Einsiedler und Mönche. Er prägte damit maßgebend die Entwicklung des anbendländischen Mönchtums. 431 schrieb Johannes auf Wunsch des späteren Papstes Leo des Großen ein großes Werk gegen die Nestorianer. Nachdem Prosper von Aquitanien ihn als Pelagianer verdächtigte, schrieb Johannes Cassian kurz vor seinem Tode auch noch eine Schrift gegen die Pelagianer. Er starb 435.

493 St. Moelray Abbot of Nendrum Monastery, baptized by St. Patrick. A native of Ireland, Moelray, also called Moeliai, instructed Sts. Finian and Colman.
Moeliai (Moelray) of Nendrum, Abbot (AC) Born in Ireland; died c. 493. Saint Moeliai was baptized by Saint Patrick, who appointed him abbot over Nendrum, where he had Saints Finian and Colman among his disciples (Benedictines).

538 Saint Theophilus the Penitent or Theophilus of Adana
An Orthodox cleric in the sixth century Church who is said to have made a deal with the devil to gain an ecclesiastical position. His story is significant as it is the oldest story of a pact with the Devil and was an inspiration for the Faust legend. His feast day is February 4.  Eutyches, who claimed to be an eyewitness of the events, is the first to record Theophilus's story. Although Theophilus is considered to be an historical personage, the tale associated with him  
The Tale of Theophilus's Repentance (June 23)  SerbianOrthodoxChurch.net
    Consumed with envy towards his bishop, this man gave his soul to the devil and set down in writing his rejection of Christ and of His holy Mother. He then repented of his deed and wept bitterly, imploring the Mother of God for forgiveness. After forty days of fasting and tearful prayer, he received back the paper on which he had written his denial, and which he had given to the devil. He went to the church and openly confessed his sin to the bishop and the people. When the bishop had spoken the words of forgiveness and given him Communion, Theophilus's face shone like the sun. Here is an example of how the merciful Lord not only forgives the sins of all those who repent, but also makes them into saints. is of an apocryphal nature.

679 Saint Ethedlreda (Audrey) heaven sent seven day high tide founded the great abbey of Ely, where she lived an austere life body was found incorrupt
In monastério Elyénsi, in Británnia, sanctæ Ediltrúdis, Regínæ et Vírginis, quæ sanctitáte et miráculis clara migrávit ad Dóminum.  Ipsíus autem corpus, úndecim post annis, invéntum est incorrúptum.
    In England, in the monastery of Ely, St. Etheldreda, queen and virgin, who departed for heaven with a great renown for sanctity and miracles.  Her body was found without corruption eleven years afterwards. {and 500 years later still incorrupt}
{see history of Saint Etheldreda's Church in London:  Ely Productions circa 1992 Video by Father Kit Cunningham }

Etheldreda von Ely Orthodoxe, Katholische und Anglikanische Kirche: 23. Juni

ST ETHELDREDA, OR AUDREY, ABBESS OF ELY, WIDOW     (A.D. 679)
To judge from the great number of churches dedicated in her honour in England, St Etheldreda (Aethelthryth), otherwise called Audrey, must have been the most popular of all the Anglo-Saxon women saints. She was the daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles, and the sister of St Sexburga, St Ethelburga and St Withburga. The place of her birth was Exning in Suffolk. In compliance with the wishes of her parents she married one Tonbert, with whom, it is said, she lived in perpetual continence. Three years after her marriage she lost her husband. She seems then to have retired to the island of Ely, which she had received as her marriage gift. There, for five years, she led a secluded life of prayer. But her hand was again sought in marriage, and again she yielded to the representations of her relatives. Her second bridegroom was Egfrid, the younger son of Oswy, king of Northumbria. He was a mere boy at the time and seems to have been quite content that they should live as brother and sister. But with the passage of years, when Egfrid was grown to manhood and had become a powerful monarch, he became dissatisfied, and urged that Etheldreda should become his wife in more than name.
She refused, because she had long since vowed her virginity to God. Both parties appealed to St Wilfrid of York, Egfrid going so far as to offer him presents if he would persuade Etheldreda to fall in with his wishes. St Wilfrid, however, was on her side, and by his advice she withdrew to the convent of Coldingham, where she received the veil from Egfrid's aunt, St Ebba. A year later she retired to Ely; and there, about the year 672 she founded a double monastery, over which she ruled until her death. Her manner of life was very austere: except on great festivals, or when she was ill, she ate only once a day: and instead of the linen worn by women of high degree she dressed in rough woollen clothing. After Matins, which were sung at midnight, she did not retire like the other nuns, but remained in church in prayer until the morning. Endowed with the gift of prophecy, she not only foretold the pestilence of which she was to die, but also the exact number of her religious who would be carried off by it. Etheldreda herself, died on June 23, 679, and in accordance with her own instructions she was buried in a simple wooden coffin. Sixteen years later her body was found to be incorrupt.
The shrine of St Etheldreda became a great centre of devotion on account of the many miracles reported to have been wrought by her relics and by linen cloths which had rested on her coffin. Her remains have long since perished, but the empty shrine is still shown in Ely cathedral. The word tawdry, a corruption of St Audrey, was originally applied to the cheap necklaces and other trumpery exposed for sale at St Audrey's great annual fair. Her feast is still observed in several English dioceses.
Most of the references made to St Etheldreda in Bede, and by Thomas of Ely in the Liber Eliensis, etc., have been printed in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. v. There are difficulties about the chronology, for which see C. Plummer's notes to his edition of Bede, vol. ii, pp. 234-240. Full accounts are also given in DNB., vol. xviii, pp. 19-21, and in DCB., vol. ii, pp. 220-222.
   Around 640, there was an English princess named Ethelreda, but she was known as Audrey. She married once, but was widowed after three years, and it was said that the marriage was never consummated. She had taken a perpetual vow of virginity, but married again, this time for reasons of state. Her young husband soon grew tired of living as brother and sister and began to make advances on her. She continually refused. He eventually attempted to bribe the local bishop, Saint Wilfrid of York, to release Audrey from her vows.

   Saint Wilfrid refused, and helped Audrey escape. She fled south, with her husband following. They reached a promontory known as Colbert's Head, where a heaven sent seven day high tide separated the two. Eventually, Audrey's husband left and married someone more willing, while Audrey took the veil, and founded the great abbey of Ely, where she lived an austere life. She eventually died of an enormous and unsightly tumor on her neck, which she gratefully accepted as Divine retribution for all the necklaces she had worn in her early years. Throughout the Middle Ages, a festival, "Saint Audrey's Fair", was held at Ely on her feast day. The exceptional shodiness of the merchandise, especially the neckerchiefs, contributed to the English language the word "tawdry", a corruption of "Saint Audrey: " she died of the plague.
   According the Saint Bede, when her tomb was opened by her sister Saint Sexburga, her successor as abbess at Ely Abbey, ten (or 16) years after her death, her body was found incorrupt and the tumor had healed

Etheldreda von Ely Orthodoxe, Katholische und Anglikanische Kirche: 23. Juni
Etheldreda (Edeltraud) war eine Tochter des Königs Anna von Mercia. Sie war mit einem schottischen Fürsten verheirtatet, lebte aber mit ihm in einer jSoefsehe und zog sich nach seinem Tod auf die Insel Ely (bei Cambridge) zurück. Sie wurde mit König Egfrid von Northumberland verheiratet. lebte 12 Jahre mit ihm in Enthaltsamkeit und wurde dann Nonne in Coldingham. 673 gründete sie in Essex das Kloster Ely, dessen erste Äbtissin sie auch wurde. Sie starb am 23.6.679 an der Pest. Ihr Leichnam wurde 695 unversehrt gefunden und in der Klosterkirche von Ely beigesetzt.

707 Saint Hiduiphus Monastic founder and husband of Saint Aye When Saint Aye entered a convent, Hidulphus became a monk at Lobbes Abbey, Belgium, which he had co-founded.
Also called Hidulf. He was the count of Hainault, in Belgium, and a courtier in the royal household of Austrasia. When Saint Aye entered a convent, Hidulphus became a monk at Lobbes Abbey, Belgium, which he had co-founded.
Hidulphus (Hydulphus) of Lobbes, OSB (AC). Count Hidulphus of Hainault was a courtier of the Austrasian king and husband of Saint Agia.
By mutual agreement they separated to lead religious lives and Hidulphus entered the Lobbes monastery, which he had previously helped to found (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
769 Saint James Bishop of Toul, France, from 756 died in Dijon while praying before the tomb of Saint Benignus, after making a pilgrimage to Rome.
Bishop of Toul, France, from 756. Prior to his elevation to the episcopacy in 756, Bishop James of Toul was a monk of Hornbach Abbey in the diocese of Metz. He did much to further the work of the Benedictines. He is believed to have been born in Haute Marne. James died in Dijon while praying before the tomb of Saint Benignus, after making a pilgrimage to Rome.

James of Toul B (AC) Born at Bertigny, Haute Marne, France; died at Dijon, 769. Prior to his elevation to the episcopacy in 756, Bishop James of Toul was a monk of Hornbach Abbey in the diocese of Metz. He did much to further the work of the Benedictines before his death while praying in front of the tomb of Saint Benignus on his return from a pilgrimage to Rome (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

1076 Lietbertus a noble who became bishop in 1051-founder of Cambrai, France  built the church and monastery of the Holy Sepulcher
ST LIETBERTUS, OR LIBERT, BISHOP OF CAMBRAI (A.D. 1076)
ST LIETBERTUS, Liebert or Liebert came of a noble Brabantine family and was the nephew of Gerard, bishop of Cambrai, by whom he was educated and under whom he afterwards served as archdeacon, provost, and in other capacities. Upon the death of his uncle in 1051, he was elected his successor by the clergy and people. The nomination having been ratified by the Emperor St Henry, Lietbertus was ordained priest at Chalon and consecrated bishop by his metropolitan at Rheims. He proved a true father to his people, not only labouring with untiring zeal for their spiritual welfare, but also defending them from the extortions and oppression of the castellan of Cambrai.
In 1054 Lietbertus set forth on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, accompanied by a number of people. They had reached Laodicea when they learnt to their dismay that the Saracens had closed the Holy Sepulchre to Christians and that it was dangerous for them to travel in Palestine. Many of the pilgrims accordingly returned home, but St Lietbertus and others resolved to persevere. Contrary winds, however, drove their ship to Cyprus, and the sailors, who were afraid of falling into the hands of pirates, brought them back to Laodicea. Other difficulties supervening, the pilgrims were compelled to abandon the enterprise without having set eyes on the Holy Land. After his return to Cambrai, St Lietbertus consoled himself by building a monastery and church to which he gave the name of the Holy Sepulchre. To Rodulphus, a monk of that monastery, we owe an almost contemporary history of the founder. The bishop from thenceforth devoted his days to his pastoral duties, and often at night went barefoot to the churches to pray for his people. His virtues won for him the admiration of every man of goodwill, but his strenuous opposition to evil made him some bitter enemies. On one occasion he was seized and carried off to a prison in the Castle of Oisy by the castellan of Cambrai, Hugh, whom he had excommunicated for his outrageous conduct. He was rescued by Arnulf, count of Flanders, and shortly afterwards Hugh was driven out of Cambrai, to the great relief of the citizens. One last service St Lietbertus is said to have rendered at the very close of his twenty years' episcopate. The town was about to be attacked by raiders when the bishop, who was already, very ill, caused himself to be carried in a litter into the enemy's camp, and by his impressive appearance and his eloquence-and his threatssucceeded in inducing the invaders to retire without striking a blow. St Lietbertus died on June 23, 1076.
The monk Rodulphus has elaborated a biography of St Libert from the Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium, adding fresh materials of his own. The texts are published in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. v, and in Pertz, MGH., Scriptores, vol. vii, pp. 489-497 and 528-538.

Sometimes called Liébert or Libert. He was a noble who became bishop in 1051. In 1054, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, discovering that the holy city was in the hands of Saracens. Returning to Cambrai, Libert built the church and monastery of the Holy Sepulcher. He was exiled by the nobleman Hugh of Cambrai and cruelly persecuted.

Lietbertus of Cambrai B (AC) (also known as Libert, Liberat). Saint Libert, a Brabançon nobleman, was raised to the see of Cambrai in 1051 and held that position until his death. He took some of his flock on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but failed to reach it. On his return he built Holy Sepulchre Abbey and other religious foundations. He excommunicated the lord of Cambrai and for that reason was brutally persecuted (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

1113 Blessed Felix of Cîteaux, OSB Cist. (PC). Felix is named in Cistercian menologies as a beatus (Benedictines).
1136 St. Peter of Juilly Benedictine monk and preacher; originally from England, a friend of St. Stephen Harding and was his companion at Molesme.
BD PETER OF JULLY (A.D. 1136)
ALTHOUGH he was English by birth and by descent, this Peter is always associated with Jully in Champagne, where his last years were spent. A pious lad of good family, he studied theology in his native land until the death of his parents. He then went to France, probably to continue his studies in Paris, or in one of the great provincial schools. There he became intimate with another young Englishman, St Stephen Harding, who shared his spiritual aspirations. They both wished to dedicate themselves to the service of God, and, in order to discover His will concerning them, they made a pilgrimage to Rome together. On the return journey, as they passed through Burgundy, they stayed at the Cistercian abbey of Molesme, at that time in its primitive simplicity and austerity. Stephen was so impressed by what he saw that he decided to remain at Molesme, but Peter proceeded on his way. After a time, however, he returned, and received the habit and at a later date presumably-holy orders. He led a most edifying life, acquiring great local fame as a preacher and wonder-worker. Not far from the monastery, at Juilly, or Jully-les-Nonnains, there was a convent which was subject to Molesme, which had as its prioress St Bernard's sister, Bd Humbelina. When their chaplain died the nuns asked if they might have Peter in his place, and the abbot consented. Under his spiritual direction and Humbelina's care the community made rapid progress in the path of perfection. Bd Peter supported Humbelina during her last illness and was beside her when she died. He did not long survive her.
In the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. v, the Bollandists have published the Latin biography of Bd Peter, which seems to have been written about a century after his death.
Later, he was named confessor and chaplain to the nuns of Juilly les Nonnais who were under the care of St. Humbeline, sister of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.
Peter of Juilly, OSB (AC) Born in England; died at Juilly, 1136. Saint Peter was a friend of Saint Stephen Harding at Molesme. He was chaplain and confessor to the Benedictine nuns of Juilly-les- Nonnais, which was subject to Molesme. Here Saint Bernard's sister, Saint Humbeline, was abbess. Peter is described as a wonder-worker and great preacher (Benedictines).
Peter also possessed a reputation for being a brilliant preacher and a miracle worker
1184 Benedict the Bridge-Builder shepherd Eighteen miracles took place body found incorrupt 500 yrs (AC)
(also known as Bénezet, Benet, Benoît)
Born at Hermillon, Savoy (or in the Ardenne), France, c. 1163;
The children's song "Sur le pont d'Avignon" concerns the bridge built by Bénezet, a local shepherd boy, a bridge rebuilt in the 14th and 17th centuries. The legend still dances on the arches that collapsed so suddenly. From the broken fragment of the original bridge over the raging waters, people still throw a shower of flowers into the river during the Rhône festivals. For Avignon retains a tender love for its broken bridge and Bénezet. Bénezet, shepherd over the waves, as Fréderic Mistral says, built this magnificent bridge by the order of God in a vision; after 700 years, his memory still stands guard over the arches which live on, albeit half-dead.
   According to a legend, the bridge was built without difficulties, at least not of a financial character. In fact, while still a child, Bénezet once saw a poor Jewish woman who was being tormented by a flea which the hump on her back prevented her from reaching and some street urchins who were laughing at her contortions. Bénezet ran to her assistance. After scattering the boys, he found and crushed the offending flea.
   In her gratitude the rheumy-eyed, hunch-backed old woman blessed Bénezet and predicted that he would do great things later in life. In order to help him realize them, she told him where the cache containing the treasure of the Jews lay. Time passed. Bénezet, the little shepherd, hardly thought about the treasure, nor did he indulge in any ambitious dreams. He was simply a 15-year-old shepherd concerned about his flock.
    One day, the sun suddenly went into hiding: a solar eclipse always frightens the flocks and their guardians. A voice as sweet as honey spoke to him amid the darkness: "In the name of Christ, Bénezet, go as far as the Rhône to Avignon and build a bridge there," the voice bade him.
   Now, it may sound strange that God would ask for a bridge to be built or that it would be a reason for canonization. In the Middle Ages, however, the construction and repair of bridges was regarded as a work of mercy. Perhaps the child simply had pity for the many who drowned in the rushing waters. I think it is more likely that he was indeed called by God.
Responding to the voice, the child objected that he could not leave his flocks unattended.
"I will watch over them," said the voice, "I'll send you an angel for a guide."

   Leaving his sheep, Bénezet set out for the spot that had been designated to him--just as other shepherds, one night, had trustingly set out for Bethlehem. Soon he met the angel whom only he could see, and also arrived at the river Rhône. He had to cross it. The Jewish ferryman picked Bénezet's pocket clean. The lad only had three pennies to his name, but after cursing him, the ferryman finally took him on board and the boat left. But where to? Bénezet asked himself, while remaining utterly calm.
    Finally, he arrived at the bishop's palace, where he sought the prelate's blessing and help. Build a bridge? The bishop swelled with indignation and sent little Bénezet to the magistrate promising him that he would be flayed and his hands and feet chopped off as was done to impostors in those days. But the angel, inside the young man's heart, said: "Go!"
The magistrate took a dim view of the matter:
       "You, the lowliest of the low, you who don't own an acre in the sun, you want to build a bridge there where Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Charlemagne himself have been helpers? So be it! Do you see this stone embedded in the palace courtyard? Well pull it out and carry it there and I'll believe you! Call the people to watch this spectacle. But if you fail..."

   
The invisible angel in Bénezet's heart smiled. As calm and self-assured as ever, about 1177, the little shepherd boy extracted this block of stone that weighed a hundred quintals and upon laying it in the bed of the river, he said, "This will be the first stone of the foundations!"
   Delirium seized the crowd of onlookers. There were shouts of "Miracle! Miracle!" Immediately, in keeping with the rule, the blind again saw the light of day, the deaf again heard hosannahs, the crippled suddenly walked straight and the hunch-backed heard their vertebrae crack, stretch, and straighten out! Eighteen miracles took place, according to the legend.
The magistrate, sobbing in remorse, gave 300 sous for the building of the bridge, the crowd volunteered 5,000 more. The treasure of the Jews must have done the rest, because the bridge soon rose, proudly, between the waters and the sky.
    Alas! Bénezet did not live to see the bridge finished. He died in 1184--because his mission had been accomplished. The last stone was laid two years after his death. The bridge was adorned with a chapel dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron of mariners, in which Saint Benedict's relics were enshrined until 1669 when a flood washed away part of the bridge.
    His coffin was recovered and his body found to be incorrupt--500 years after his death--even the bowels were perfectly sound, and the color of the eyes lively and sprightly, though, through the dampness of the situation, the iron bars about it were much damaged with rust. It was translated to Avignon cathedral and moved again to the Celestine church of Saint Didier.

Even now when coming down the major water-way of the Rhône you will see the man at the prow and the crew in the boats passing by the broken bridge where Saint Bénezet wrought his miracle, salute the shepherd boy who became a saint and Saint Nicholas, the saint of long-standing. After all, two saints are not too much for the taming of these waters among the treacherous, and even for taming the sky overhead, where the mistral blows, churning up powerful, angry waves.
     Contemporary sources record the principal episodes of Saint Benedict's life, and an episcopal inquiry was conducted shortly after his death (1230) (Attwater2, Benedictines, Coulson, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Gill, Husenbeth, Walsh).
     In art, Saint Benedict is portrayed as a boy carrying a large stone on his shoulder (Roeder). He is venerated as the patron of Avignon (Coulson, Roeder).
1194 Blessed Lanfranc Beccaria, OSB Vall. B (AC) actively engaged in resisting the attempts of the civil authorities to lay hands on the property of the Church.
BD LANFRANC, BISHOP OF PAVIA (A.D. 1194)
LANFRANC was a member of the Beccaria family and a native of Grupello, a village near Pavia, in Lombardy. Although by nature a man of peace, yet during the greater part of his fifteen years' episcopate he was actively engaged in resisting the attempts of the civil authorities to lay hands on the property of the Church. On one occasion, in the thick of the fray, he disappeared temporarily into the Vallombrosan monastery of San Sepolcro, there to seek strength and guidance; and his return was followed by a cessation of hostilities. The peace did not last long, for the city fathers soon put forward the demand that a large proportion of ecclesiastical revenues should be ceded to them for the strengthening of the fortifications of Pavia, and the bishop absolutely refused. As they proved unable to overcome his resistance, they declared it to be a penal offence for anyone to bake his bread or to supply him with food. Thus faced with starvation he left the city and made his way to Rome, where he laid his case before Pope Clement III, who threatened the rulers of Pavia with his censure, but advised the bishop to return to his diocese. This Bd Lanfranc was the more ready to do because a man of approved piety, Saracen Salimbene, had recently become chief magistrate, and for a time ruler of the city. The bishop re-entered Pavia amid general acclamations, and all was peace and amity. When, however, the old claims were revived Lanfranc felt himself unable to resume the struggle. He decided to resign and enter the Vallombrosan Order, but before he could carry out his intentions he fell ill and died. His feast is kept at Pavia, where Lanfranc of Canterbury also was born.
His life was written by Bernard Balbi, his successor in the see of Pavia, who was a famous canonist. See the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. v, where the life is printed in full.
Born near Pavia, Italy. In 1178, Lanfranc was elevated to bishop of Pavia. His episcopate was troubled by heretics and rapacious civil magistrates. He left the city and joined the monks of San Sepolcro, but was recalled. At the time of his death he had determined to become a Vallumbrosian (Benedictines).
1213 Blessed Mary (Marie) d'Oignies turned their house into a leper hospital, and tended the sick miraculously "see the Blessed Sacrament", Widow (AC) able to discern the past history of relics (hierognosis, psychometry).
BD MARY OF OIGNIES, VIRGIN     (A.D. 1213)
THE life of Mary of Oignies was written by Cardinal James de Vitry, who had been her friend, her disciple, and probably at one time her confessor. It was through her influence that he had been led to take holy orders; but, when expatiating upon her virtues, he warns his readers that her example is not one to be recommended for general imitation.
She was born of wealthy parents at Nivelles in Brabant, and, though all her aspirations were directed towards the religious life, her parents as soon as she was fourteen gave her in marriage to a worthy young man of good position. If they anticipated that he would induce her to adopt a more conventional outlook, they were soon disillusioned; for Mary, young as she was, acquired a great ascendancy over her husband.
At her persuasion he consented not only that they should undertake to live in continency, but also that her house should be turned into a hospital for lepers. The young couple nursed their patients with their own hands, sometimes sitting up with them all night, and distributed alms so lavishly and indiscriminately as to call forth the remonstrances of relations on both sides.
These activities did not prevent Mary from practising great austerities. She used the discipline freely, wore a rough rope-girdle next to her skin, and stinted herself of food and sleep. We are told that throughout an exceptionally rigorous winter, from Martinmas until Easter, she spent every night in a church, lying on the bare ground without extra wraps of any kind, and that she never suffered as much as a headache in consequence. In her home, when engaged in spinning or other sedentary manual work, she did her best to avoid distractions by keeping before her an open psalter, upon which she could cast her eyes from time to time. Her biographer lays stress on her abnormal tearfulness, which he and others regarded as a spiritual grace. Even if in these days we should be more disposed to treat it as the physical reaction from the nervous strain to which she subjected her body, it must not be forgotten that the gift of tears was deemed by many to be a mark of true compunction of heart. To the present time a set of collects, pro petitione lacrymarum, stands in the Roman Missal, and St Ignatius Loyola, from a fragment still preserved of his spiritual diary, evidently regarded the days on which he did not shed tears during Mass as a time of desolation when God, so to speak, averted His face. Mary herself maintained that weeping relieved and refreshed her.
The fame of the sanctity of the holy ascetic attracted many visitors, few of whom left her without being edified and helped by her admonitions or counsels; but a few years before her death she felt the call to retire into solitude. With the consent of her husband she accordingly left Willambroux, and took up her residence in a cell close beside the Austin canons' monastery at Oignies. She had in the past had many visions and ecstasies; now she seemed to be constantly surrounded by the denizens of Heaven. She died at the age of thirty-eight, on June 23, 1213, after a long and painful illness, which she had long foreseen.
What is perhaps most remarkable about Mary of Oignies is the fact that she and a group of mystics in the Netherlands, notably the Beguines, seem to have anticipated by some few years that change in the spirit of Catholic devotion which is commonly considered to date from the Franciscan movement. Cardinal James de Vitry, in his preface to the Life of Bd Mary, appeals to Bishop Fulk of Toulouse, who had himself been an eye-witness of the extraordinary wave of affective piety of which Belgium was then the nucleus. He undoubtedly had Mary of Oignies most prominently in mind when he addressed Bishop Fulk in these terms:
I well remember your speaking to me of having left the Egypt of your own diocese, and after passing over a weary desert, of your finding in the country of Liege the promised land....You found, too, as I have heard you say with joy, many holy women amongst us, who mourned more over one venial sin than the people of your own country would have done over a thousand mortal ones ...You saw large bands of these holy women, despising earthly delights and the riches of this world through their longing desire after a heavenly kingdom, and clinging to the Eternal Spouse by the bands of poverty and humility. You found them earning a poor subsistence by the work of their hands, and though their parents abounded in wealth, yet preferring to forget their own people and their father's house, and endure the straits of poverty, rather than enjoy ill-gotten affluence.
A tender devotion to the passion of our Lord was specially characteristic of the movement, and it must be remembered that when Mary wept so copiously that, as Vitry says, "her steps might be traced in the church she was walking in by her tears on the pavement", these tears, so he goes on to tell us, "were poured forth from the wine-press of the Passion", and that “from this time she could not for a long while either look at a crucifix, or speak of the Passion, or even hear others speak of it, without fainting".
Equally remarkable was that anticipation of devotion to our Lord's real presence in the Blessed Sacrament of which, up to this date, there is little trace in the devotional literature. But of Mary of Oignies James de Vitry says: "Sometimes she was permitted to take rest in her cell; but at other times, especially when some great festival was approaching, she could find no rest except in the presence of Christ in the church."
Further, any doubt which might be felt as to the meaning of the words, "in the presence of Christ in the church", seems to be dispelled by an examination of that other brief account of Mary of Oignies, written by Thomas of Cantimpré, which the Bollandists have printed as an appendix to James de Vitry's biography. In this other narrative reference is made to a very wealthy man who was in some sense a convert of Mary's. She told him, we learn, at a time when he was in great spiritual distress, "to go into the church near by"; whereupon he obeyed, and "falling on his knees before the holy altar, directed his mental gaze intently upon the pyx containing the Body of Christ, which hung above it". It then seemed to him in a sort of vision that the pyx three times over moved from its place, came through the air in his direction where he knelt praying, and remained stationary close in front of him. When this happened for the third time, he was rapt out of his senses and held secret communion with God.
The following passage, bearing in mind the date to which it belongs, is in many ways interesting :
Mary's comfort and great delight, till she arrived at the land of promise, was the manna of life which comes down from Heaven. The sacred Bread strengthened her heart, and the heavenly Wine inebriated and gladdened her soul. She was filled with the holy food of Christ's flesh, and His life-giving blood cleansed and purified her. This was the only comfort she could not endure to be without. To receive Christ's body was the same thing with her as to live, and to die was, in her mind, to be separated from her Lord by not partaking of his Blessed Sacrament.... The saying, "Unless a man eat the Flesh...", so far from being a hard one to her, as it was to the Jews, was most sweet and comforting; since she experienced not only all interior delight and consolation from receiving Him, but even a sensible sweetness in her mouth, like the taste of honey....And as her thirst for the life-giving Blood of her Lord was so great that she could not bear it, she sometimes entreated that, at least, the bare chalice might be left on the altar after Mass, that she might feast her sight with it.
Mary was also one of the earliest mystics of whom are recorded, in some detail, examples of what we should now be tempted to call psychic gifts. She is said to have known, in certain cases, what was taking place at a distance, she had strange premonitions about the future, and she was believed to be able to discern the past history of relics (hierognosis, psychometry). James de Vitry was undoubtedly speaking of himself when he related her inexplicable knowledge of the details of what passed when "a friend of hers" was ordained in Paris.
It is important to remember that James de Vitry is a most reliable witness. Not only had he spent some five years, from 1208 to her death in 1213, in Mary's company, but his whole career and his writings prove him to have been a man of scrupulous integrity and of sober judgement. He always regarded Mary as his spiritual mother, and considered himself to have been highly honoured by the fact that she looked upon him as her special “preacher" and identified herself with his apostolic work. The biography of Mary seems to have been written shortly after her death and before James became a cardinal, but he retained his devotion to her and to Oignies until the end of his days. She always declared that he had been given to her in answer to her prayers that since she, on account of her sex, could not teach the faithful and draw them to God, she might do it by deputy. There was certainly a great bond between them, and during her last sickness she prayed for him continually, begging first of all that God would so preserve him that when he came to die she might offer up his soul as one which God had entrusted to her and which she restored with usury. She mentioned all the trials and temptations and even the sins of "her preacher", which he had formerly been guilty of, and then prayed God to keep him from such for the time to come. The prior, who knew his conscience from hearing his confessions, heard her repeat all this; so he went to him and asked him whether he had told the saint all his sins, for, he added, in the course of her singing she has related all that you have done, just as if she had read it out of a book. "Singing" refers to the extraordinary rapture of Mary's last days when she spoke in Romance rhythmical prose, or possibly verse.
Even the physical conditions under which she lived were extraordinary. Thus we are told that “in the depth of winter she needed no material fire to keep off the cold, but even when the frost was so severe as to turn all the water into ice, she, wonderful to say, burned so in spirit that her body partook of the warmth of her soul, especially in time of prayer; so that sometimes she even perspired, and her clothes were scented with a sweet aromatic fragrance. Oftentimes also the smell of her clothes was like the smell of incense, while prayers were ascending from the thurible of her heart."
One would suspect such statements, if they depended merely on tradition.
But James de Vitry was there himself, and he was undoubtedly a devout and honest man, who told the truth fearlessly.
Practically speaking all that is known of the life of Mary of Oignies will be found in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. v. To the text of the biography by Cardinal James de Vitry the Bollandists have appended a certain supplementary notice by Thomas de Cantimpré. There is an excellent translation of Vitry printed in the Oratorian series of Lives of the Saints: it is included in the second volume of the Life of St Jane Frances de Chantal (1852). See also P. Funk Jakob van Vitry (1909), pp. 113-130; and on Oignies, U. Berlière, Monasticon BeIge, vol. i, pp. 451-452. Further, there is an article in The Month, June, 1922, pp. 526-537, by Fr Thurston, from which much of what is written above has been borrowed. An important study of Mary by R. Hanon de Louvet was reviewed in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxxi (1953), pp. 481-485. Bd Mary had influence on the founding of the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross (Crosiers) by Theodore of Celles, at Clair-Lieu, near Huy, in 1211.

Born at Nivelles, Belgium, c. 1177; died in Oignies, Belgium, in 1213. Marie d'Oignies was only 14 when she married, but she persuaded her husband not to consummate the marriage. They lived together as brother and sister. They then turned their house into a leper hospital, and tended the sick there. Finally, Marie became a recluse in a cell near the church of Oignies, where she was favored by supernatural charismata. In a near contemporary biography, Marie d'Oignes, is said to have had a similar intense contemplation of the Passion 12 years before that of St. Francis. Wounds were detected on her body when it was washed at her death; however, it is not possible to know whether these were self- inflicted or of mystical origin. Marie could miraculously "see the Blessed Sacrament"


Marie's relics were placed in a silver shrine behind the altar at Oignies, a monastery of canons regular in the diocese of Namur. He vita was written by Cardinal James of Vitry, once a canon regular in that monastery, afterwards bishop of Acon in Palestine, and later of Tusculum. Her name is inserted in the calendars of several churches in Flanders, in some of which she has been honored with an office (Benedictines, Harrison, Martindale).

In art, Blessed Marie is pictured as a recluse visited by an angel. She may sometimes be shown (1) with an angel by her side; (2) spinning or praying in her cell; (3) interceding for the souls in purgatory; or (4) as the Virgin spreads her mantle over her to protect her from rain (Roeder).
She is invoked by women in childbirth and against fever (Roeder).
13th v. Saint Walhere Martyred  a parish priest in the Walloon district of Belgium killed by a profligate priest whom he was exhorting to reform his life
He was serving as a priest when murdered by a fellow cleric over the latter's failures in the religious life. He is renowned in Dinant.   Saint Walhere was a parish priest in the Walloon district of Belgium. While crossing a river in a boat, he was attacked and killed by a profligate priest whom he was exhorting to reform his life. He is venerated primarily at Dinant (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
Walhere of Dinant M (AC)
13th century? Saint Walhere was a parish priest in the Walloon district of Belgium. While crossing a river in a boat, he was attacked and killed by a profligate priest whom he was exhorting to reform his life. He is venerated primarily at Dinant (Benedictines, Encyclopedia)
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1343 Blessed Thomas Corsini a Servite lay-brother, who spent his live collecting alms for the abbey. He was favored by many visions (Benedictines), OSM (AC)
BD THOMAS CORSINI (A.D. 1345)
THERE is little to record about Bd Thomas Corsini: his life was as uneventful as it was edifying. A native of Orvieto, and a man of education, he was led to join the Servants of Mary by a vision in which he beheld the Mother of God and was invited by her to fight under her banner. At first he hesitated-doubting whether he might not be the victim of a mere hallucination-but when the vision was repeated he concluded that a call had come to him from on high. He promptly obeyed by seeking for admission into the local Servite community. Out of humility he took the habit of a lay-brother, and out of humility he subsequently refused to qualify himself for the priesthood. He chose for himself the office of begging for alms or of attendant upon the brother questor in his daily mendicant rounds. Bd Thomas was endowed with many spiritual graces and gifts, and many miracles were attributed to him. The best-known of these is that when a poor woman was expecting her confinement and expressed to him a longing for some fresh figs, he, though the month was January, went into the garden and found on a tree three ripe figs in perfect condition which he plucked and took to her. Bd Thomas died in 1345, and was beatified in 1768.
See A. Giani, Annales Ord. Servorum B.M.V., vol. i, pp. 281-282; and also Spörr, Lebensbilder aus dem Serviten Orden (1892).
Born at Orvieto, Italy; beatified in 1768. Thomas Corsini was a Servite lay-brother, who spent his live collecting alms for the abbey. He was favored by many visions (Benedictines).
Vladimir_Theotokos_Saving_Moscow_from_Khan_Achmed
1480 Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God Today the church celebrates the miracle which led to the saving of Moscow from the invasion of Khan Achmed in 1480.
The Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos is also commemorated on May 21 and August 26.

Commemoration of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God (June 23) SerbianOrthodoxChurch.net
    When the Tartar king, Ahmet, lay siege to Moscow, Prince Ivan Vasillievitch came with troops to defend the city. Although this prince's forces were smaller in number and weaker than the Tartar army, they yet emerged victorious, for an indescribable terror fell on the Tartars and they ran off in confusion in all directions. All attributed this unexpected success to the icon of the most holy Mother of God, for the whole people had begged her aid for deliverance from the Tartars. This day, June 23rd, is set aside in the land of Russia for the commemoration of this miracle.

1496 Blessed Peter James of Pesaro, OSA (AC) cultus approved by Pope Pius IX. Peter James was an Augustinian friar in Saint Nicholas's at Pesaro (Benedictines).
1535 St. John Fisher is usually associated with Erasmus, Thomas More and other Renaissance humanists. His life, therefore, did not have the external simplicity found in the lives of some saints. Rather, he was a man of learning, associated with the intellectuals and political leaders of his day. He was interested in the contemporary culture and eventually became chancellor at Cambridge
John Fisher Katholische Kirche: 22. Juni Anglikanische Kirche: 6. Juli
ST JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER AND CARDINAL, MARTYR (A.D. 1535)
BEVERLEY, in Yorkshire, from which one St John, in the eighth century, derived his surname, was the native place nearly eight hundred years later of another and perhaps a greater, viz. St John Fisher, bishop, cardinal and martyr. Born in 1469, the son of a small mercer who died when his children were very young, John Fisher was sent to Cambridge University at the age of fourteen. There he distinguished himself greatly in his studies, was elected a fellow of Michaelhouse (since merged into Trinity), and was ordained priest by special permission when he was only twenty-two. He became successively senior proctor, doctor of divinity, master of Michaelhouse, and vice-chancellor of the university. In 1502 he resigned his mastership to become the chaplain of the king's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby. She appears first to have made his acquaintance seven years earlier, when as senior proctor he had visited the court at Greenwich on business; and, like everyone else who knew him, she WdS deeply impressed by his scholarship and by his sanctity. She was herself a capable and learned woman of great wealth, who, during the lifetime of three husbands, had been involved in many political intrigues: now finally a widow, she vowed to dedicate her remaining years to God under the direction of Dr Fisher.
Under his guidance she made a noble use of her fortune. By founding Christ's College and St John's College, Cambridge, to supersede earlier and decadent institutions; by establishing there, as well as at Oxford, a Lady Margaret divinity chair, and by other princely gifts, she has come to be regarded-and justly so-as the greatest benefactress Cambridge has ever known. The university's debt to St John Fisher is not so universally recognized. When he went to Cambridge its scholarship had sunk to a low ebb: no Greek or Hebrew was taught, and the library had been reduced to 300 volumes. Not only did all the administrative work in connection with Lady Margaret's benefactions fall upon his shoulders during her life and after her death, but he did much, entirely on his own initiative, to foster learning in the university. He endowed scholarships, he re-introduced Greek and Hebrew into the curriculum, and he brought Erasmus over to teach and to lecture.
In 1504 he was elected chancellor of the University of Cambridge-a post which he continued to hold until his death. Later in that same year King Henry VII nominated him to the bishopric of Rochester, although he was only thirty-five years of age. He accepted with reluctance an office which added the cares of a diocese to his work for Cambridge. Nevertheless, he carried out his pastoral duties with a zeal and thoroughness exceptional in those days. He held visitations, administered confirmation, disciplined his clergy, visited the sick poor in their hovels, distributed alms with his own hands, and exercised generous hospitality. Moreover, he found time to write books and to continue his studies. He was forty-eight when he began to learn Greek, and fifty-one when he started upon Hebrew. The sermons he preached in 1509 for the funerals of Henry VII and of Lady Margaret Beaufort have been preserved to us. Both of them are recognized as English classics of the period; that on the king is particularly remarkable as a noble and sincere tribute to the memory of a sovereign, with little trace of the exaggerated and adulatory language almost universally employed in such circumstances. St John Fisher's private life was most austere: he limited his sleep to four hours, used the discipline freely and, though his fare was of the scantiest, he kept a skull before him at meal-times to remind himself of death. Books were his one earthly pleasure: and, with a view to bequeathing his books to Cambridge, he formed a library which was among the finest in Europe.
Personal ambition he had none and, when offered preferment in the shape of wealthier sees, he refused them, saying that “he would not leave his poor old wife for the richest widow in England". Because of his learning and eloquence, he was specially selected to preach against Lutheranism when it was found to be making headway-particularly in London and in the universities. He also wrote four weighty volumes against Luther which can claim the distinction of being the first books to be published in refutation of the new doctrines. These and other literary works helped to spread his fame abroad as well as at home. But when a Carthusian monk afterwards congratulated him on the service he had thus rendered to the Church, he expressed his regret that the time he had devoted to writing had not been spent in prayer: prayer, he thought, would have done more good and was of greater merit. Such was the man whom the Emperor Charles V's ambassador described as "the paragon of Christian bishops for learning and holiness", concerning whom young King Henry VIII was wont to boast that no other prince or kingdom had so distinguished a prelate. With unclouded vision John Fisher apprehended the evils of the time and the dangers that threatened the Church of God. He was himself a reformer, but of abuses and evils, not a deformer of religious truth. At a synod called by Cardinal Wolsey in 1518 he boldly protested against the worldliness, the laxity and the vanity of the higher clergy, the greater part of whom had won their preferments through secular service to the state or by private interest. Because, unlike them, he was not trying to serve two masters, he had no hesitation, some nine years later, in upholding the validity of King Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon when other men in high office were temporizing or yielding.
He was chosen to be one of the queen's counsellors in the nullity suit begun before Cardinal Campeggio at Blackfriars in 1529, and he proved to be her ablest champion. In an eloquent speech before the court he demonstrated that the marriage was valid and that it could be dissolved by no power, human or divine, winding up with the reminder that the Baptist of old had died in defence of the marriage tie. To his arguments, embodied in literary form and presented to the king, Henry sent a furious reply, which with Fisher's marginal comments may still be seen at the Record Office. Shortly afterwards the case was recalled to Rome and Fisher's immediate connection with it ceased. He had upheld the sanctity of marriage: he now became the champion of the rights of the Church and the supremacy of the Pope. As a member of the House of Lords he denounced the measures against the clergy which were being forced through the Commons: "With them", he exclaimed, "is nothing but Down with the Church! ,,, He uttered another great protest in Convocation when that assembly was called upon to agree that Henry VIII was head of the Church in England. To him it was due that the words "So far as the law of Christ allows" were added to the form of assent that was eventually signed, but he regarded even that as too much in the nature of a compromise.
The warnings of friends and the threats of his enemies were not necessary to bring home to Bishop Fisher the danger he now ran by his opposition to the ruling powers. Twice already he had suffered short terms of imprisonment, at least one attempt was made to poison him, and on another occasion a shot fired from across the river penetrated his library window. Then came an unsuccessful effort on the part of Thomas Cromwell to connect him with the affair of Elizabeth Barton, the "Holy Maid of Kent". Eventually the passage into law of the bill of succession provided his enemies with the means of securing his downfall. He was summoned to Lambeth to subscribe to it, although he was so ill that he fainted on the road between Rochester and London. To the actual succession he would have been willing to agree, but he absolutely refused to take the oath in the form presented because it was so worded as to make it practically an oath of supremacy. "Not that I condemn any other men's conscience", he had written to Cromwell. "Their conscience may save them, and mine must save me." For the other bishops took the oath. John of Rochester was immediately arrested and conveyed to the Tower.
An act of attainder of misprision of treason was then passed against the prisoner; he was declared to be degraded from his office and his see was pronounced vacant. He was sixty-six years of age, but so reduced by physical ill-health, by his austerities, and by all he had gone through that he looked more like a man of eighty-six. His wasted body, we are told, could scarcely bear the weight of his clothes. Three years earlier Cardinal Pole had reckoned him a dying man, and he afterwards expressed his wonder that Fisher should have survived the ordeal of a ten-months' imprisonment in the Bell Tower. In November 1534, a second act of attainder was passed upon him, but he still lingered on in prison. By sending him the cardinal's hat, six months later, Pope Paul III infuriated Henry VIII and hastened the end. "Let the pope send him a hat", the king exclaimed, "I will so provide that whensoever it cometh he shall wear it on his shoulders, for head he shall have none to set it on." After that the result of his so-called trial was a foregone conclusion, for the king's will was law. Though some of the judges wept when the sentence was declared, John Fisher was condemned to death on June 17, 1535.
Five days later, at five in the morning, he was roused with the intelligence that he was to be executed that day. He asked to be allowed to rest a little longer and he slept soundly for two hours. He then dressed, putting on a fur tippet "to keep me warm for the while until the very time of execution"; then he took his little New Testament, and, with great difficulty owing to his excessive weakness, went down the steps to the entrance from whence he was conveyed in a chair to the Tower gate. There, as he leant against a wall before proceeding to the place of execution, he opened his book with a prayer for some word of comfort. The first words he saw were, it is said, those spoken by our Lord before His passion; "This is life everlasting that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee upon the earth; I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do." Thus fortified, he walked up Tower Hill, mounted the scaffold unassisted, and in the customary terms pardoned his executioner. As he stood up to address the crowd his tall emaciated figure made him appear like a living skeleton. With a clear voice he said that he was dying for the faith of Christ's holy Catholic Church, and he asked the people to pray that he might be steadfast to the end. After he had recited the Te Deum and the psalm In te Domine speravi, he was blindfolded, and with one blow from the axe his head was severed from his body. Henry's vindictive spirit pursued the martyr even beyond his death. His body, after lying exposed all day, was thrust without shroud or rites into a hole in All Hallows Barking churchyard, and his head was impaled for fourteen days on London Bridge with the heads of the Carthusian martyrs, seeming "as though it had been alive, looking upon the people coming into London". A fortnight later it was thrown into the river, to make room for More's.
In May 1935, almost exactly four hundred years after his death, John Fisher was solemnly numbered among the saints, together with his friend and fellow martyr, Sir Thomas More; and on July 9 the feast of these two martyrs is kept together throughout England and Wales, and in the Scottish diocese of Dunkeld.
It might be said that to a very large extent the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, published by the Record Office, supply the best materials for the life of St John Fisher, but there is also an important biography written by one who was in part a contemporary. In 1891-93 an accurate edition of it, based upon a collation of the available manuscripts and of the Latin translation, was produced by the Bollandist, Fr van Ortroy, and printed in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. x and vol. xii. Another text was printed in 1915 by the Early English Text Society. Both these preserved the original spelling, but in 1935 an edition for popular perusal with modernized spelling was brought out, together with an excellent introduction and occasional notes, by Fr Philip Hughes. The author of this biography was not, as was for a long time supposed, Richard Hall, though it was he who made the Latin version, but, most probably, Dr John Young, vice-chancellor of Cambridge in Mary's reign. It seems to have been written some time after 1567. But nearly all the materials available for Fisher's life have been utilized in the great work of Fr T. Bridgett; his Life of john Fisher (3rd ed., 1902) is extremely thorough, discerning and spiritual, altogether a model biography. See also the admirable lecture of E. A. Benians, entitled John Fisher (1935); N. M. Wilby's popular sketch (1929); R. L. Smith, John Fisher and Thomas More (1935). The E.E.T.S. has published Bishop Fisher's English Works (pt. i, ed. J. E. B. Mayor, 1876; pt. ii, ed. R. Bayne, 1915).
John Fisher is usually associated with Erasmus, Thomas More and other Renaissance humanists. His life, therefore, did not have the external simplicity found in the lives of some saints. Rather, he was a man of learning, associated with the intellectuals and political leaders of his day. He was interested in the contemporary culture and eventually became chancellor at Cambridge. He had been made a bishop at 35, and one of his interests was raising the standard of preaching in England. Fisher himself was an accomplished preacher and writer. His sermons on the penitential psalms were reprinted seven times before his death. With the coming of Lutheranism, he was drawn into controversy. His eight books against heresy gave him a leading position among European theologians.
b. 1469
In 1521 he was asked to study the problem of Henry VIII’s marriage. He incurred Henry’s anger by defending the validity of the king’s marriage with Catherine and later by rejecting Henry’s claim to be the supreme head of the Church of England.
In an attempt to be rid of him, Henry first had him accused of not reporting all the “revelations” of the nun of Kent, Elizabeth Barton. John was summoned, in feeble health, to take the oath to the new Act of Succession. He and Thomas More refused because the Act presumed the legality of Henry’s divorce and his claim to be head of the English Church. They were sent to the Tower of London, where Fisher remained 14 months without trial. They were finally sentenced to life imprisonment and loss of goods .
When the two were called to further interrogations, they remained silent. Fisher was tricked, on the supposition he was speaking privately as a priest, and declared again that the king was not supreme head. The king, further angered that the pope had made John Fisher a cardinal, had him brought to trial on the charge of high treason. He was condemned and executed, his body left to lie all day on the scaffold and his head hung on London Bridge. More was executed two weeks later.
Comment: Today many questions are raised about Christians' and priests' active involvement in social issues. John Fisher remained faithful to his calling as a bishop. He strongly upheld the teachings of the Church; the very cause of his martyrdom was his loyalty to Rome. He was involved in the cultural enrichment circles as well as in the political struggles of his time. This involvement caused him to question the moral conduct of the leadership of his country. "The Church has the right, indeed the duty, to proclaim justice on the social, national and international level, and to denounce instances of injustice, when the fundamental rights of man and his very salvation demand it" (Justice in the World, 1971 Synod of Bishops).
Quote:  Erasmus said of John Fisher: "He is the one man at this time who is incomparable for uprightness of life, for learning and for greatness of soul."
John Fisher Katholische Kirche: 22. Juni Anglikanische Kirche: 6. Juli
John Fisher wurde um 1469 in Beverley geboren. Er studierte in Cambridge, wurde zum Priester geweiht und 1503 Professor der Theologie und 1504 Kanzler der Universität. Ebenfalls 1504 wurde er zum Bischof von Rochester ernannt. Seine antireformatorischen Schriften wurden auf dem Konzil von Trient gerne genutzt. Als Fisher die Ehescheidung von Heinrich VIII. öffentlich verurteilte, zog er den Haß des Königs auf sich. Als er den Sukzessionseid verweigerte, wurde er des Hochverrats angeklagt und 1534 eingekerkert. 1535 wurde er zum Kardinal ernannt und einen Monat später am 22.6.1535 enthauptet .
1535 St. Thomas More Martyr (Patron of Lawyers) 1516 wrote "Utopia" refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of England
Londíni in Anglia, sancti Joánnis Fisher, Epíscopi Roffénsis et Cardinális, qui pro fide cathólica et Románi Pontificis primátu, jubénte Henríco Octávo Rege, decollátus est.
    At London in England, on Tower Hill, St. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester and cardinal of the Holy Roman Church.  For the defence of the Catholic faith and the primacy of the Roman Pontiff he was beheaded by order of King Henry VIII.

ST THOMAS MORE, MARTYR (A.D. 1535)
AT either end of the medieval monarchy in England stands the figure of a great martyr: one gave his life to make the Church in this country safe from royal aggression for three hundred and fifty years, the other in a vain effort to save it from the like aggression; each was named Thomas, each was chancellor of the realm, each was a royal favourite who loved God more than his king; the coincidence is remarkable, though on closer examination the resemblance seems suddenly to end: yet the contrast is after all largely one of difference in timebetween the late twelfth century and the full tide of the Renaissance-and in status; Thomas Becket was a churchman, Thomas More a layman.
More's father was Sir John More, barrister-at-Iaw and judge, and he was born of his first wife Agnes, daughter of Thomas Grainger, in Milk Street, Cheapside, on February 6, 1478. He was sent as a child to St Antony's School in Threadneedle Street, and at thirteen was received into the household of Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had sufficient opinion of his promise to send him to Oxford, where he was entered at Canterbury College (afterwards absorbed into Christ Church). Sir John was strict with his son, allowed him money only against bills for necessaries, and with nothing for himself; if young Thomas grumbled about this (and no doubt he did), he afterwards saw the sense of it: it had kept him out of mischief and he was not tempted away from the studies which he loved. But his father called him home when he had been only two years at the university. In February 1496, being now eighteen, he was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn; he was called to the bar in 1501, and in 1504 he entered Parliament. He was already bosom friends with Erasmus, Dean Colet was his confessor, he made Latin epigrams from the Greek Anthology with William Lilly, lectured on St Augustine's de Civitate Dei at St Lawrence Jewry. He was a brilliant and successful young man and popular.
On the other hand, he was for a time very seriously perturbed about his vocation in life. For four years he lived at the London Charterhouse, and was indubitably drawn to the Carthusian life; alternatively, the possibility of becoming a Friar Minor engaged his attention. But he could find no assurance of his calling either to the monastic life or the secular priesthood; to be an unworthy priest was the last thing he wanted; and so in the early part of 1505 he married. Nevertheless, though a man of the world in the good sense of that expression, he had none of that contempt for asceticism which characterized so many at the Renaissance: from somewhere about his eighteenth year he wore a hair-shirt (to the amusement of his daughter-in-law, Anne Cresacre), and used the discipline on Fridays and vigils; he assisted at Mass every day and daily recited the Little Office. "I never saw anyone", says Erasmus, "so indifferent about food....Otherwise, he has no aversion from what gives harmless pleasure to the body."
Thomas More's first wife, "uxorcula Mori", as he called her, was Jane, the eldest daughter of John Colt of Nether-hall in Essex. We learn from his son-inlaw, William Roper, that More's mind "most served him to the second daughter, for that he thought her the fairest and best favoured, yet when he considered that it would be both great grief and some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister preferred before her in marriage, he then, of a certain pity, framed his fancy toward her, and soon after married her". That, surely, was an act of pietas rather than pity and is worth recording both for what it tells about More and also as an instructive example of the shifting standards of what may be required of an English gentleman. They were happy together, and they had four children, Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecilia and John. More's household was a seat of learning and accomplishment which, from its lack of dilettantism, would today be dubbed "highbrow"; he was all for educating women, not from any doctrinaire feminism, but as a reasonable thing, recommended by the prudent and holy ancients, such as St Jerome and St Augustine, "not to speak of the rest". All the family and servants met together for night-prayers, and at meals a pericope from the Scriptures, with a short commentary, was read aloud by one of the children: this done, discussion and jesting followed; but cards and dicing he forbade in his house. He endowed a chapel in his parish church of Chelsea, and even when chancellor would sing in the choir, dressed in a surplice. "More was used, whenever in his house or in the village he lived in there was a woman in labour, to begin praying, and so continue until news was brought him that the delivery had come happily to pass....He used himself to go through the back lanes and inquire into the state of poor families...He often invited to his table his poorer neighbours, receiving them...familiarly and joyously; he rarely invited the rich, and scarcely ever the nobility" (Stapleton, Tres Thomae). But if the rich and great were rarely seen at his house, such men as Grocyn, Linacre, Colet, Lilly, Fisher, the religious and learned, not only of London but from the continent as well, were ever-welcome visitors, and no one was more frequent or more welcome than Desiderius Erasmus. Attempts have been made to misrepresent this friendship: some Protestants by maximizing the alleged unorthodoxy of Erasmus, some Catholics by minimizing the warmth of the friendship. There is no testimony better than More's own: "For had I found with Erasmus my darling the shrewd intent and purpose that I find in Tyndale, Erasmus my darling should be no more my darling. But I find in Erasmus my darling that he detesteth and abhorreth the errors and heresies that Tyndale plainly teacheth and abideth by, and therefore Erasmus my darling shall be my darling still."
During his first period of married life More lived in Bucklersbury, in the parish of St Peter Walbrook. In 1509 Henry VII died. More had led the opposition in Parliament to this king's monetary exactions, and his success had caused his father to be imprisoned in the Tower and fined £100. The accession of Henry VIII was to mean an accession of worldly fortune to the young lawyer, and in the next year it was presaged by his being elected a reader of Lincoln's Inn and appointed undersheriff of the City of London; but almost at the same time the "little Utopia of his own" was abruptly shaken: his beloved wife, Jane Colt, died. Within a few weeks he had married another, Alice Middleton. Quite a lot of nonsense has been written about this second and so quick marriage, but the position is clear. More was a man of sense as well as of sensibility, and he had four young children on his hands: so he married a widow, seven years older than himself, an experienced housewife, talkative, kindly and full of unimaginative common sense. Some writers have tried to see a double martyrdom for More: but it is no reproach to Mistress Alice that she could not live up to her second husband; she was no Xanthippe, and probably his only real complaint (ifhe can be imagined complaining) would be that she did not appreciate his jokes-an undeniable trial of patience. More now moved from Bucklersbury to Crosby Place, in what was then Bishopsgate Street Within; he did not go to his new house in Chelsea until some twelve years later.
In 1516 he finished writing Utopia. This is not the place to discuss the significance of that book; it is enough to say with Sir Sidney Lee that, "More's practical opinion on religion and politics must be sought elsewhere than in the Utopia". The king and Wolsey were now determined to have More's services at court; if the idea was not repugnant to him, he was at least unwilling: he knew too much about kings and courts, and that the good life was not there. But he did not refuse, and he received a rapid succession of preferments till he became, in October 1529, lord chancellor, in succession to the disgraced Wolsey. Contemporary records enable us to see Sir Thomas from two different sides at this period. Erasmus wrote: "In serious matters no man's advice is more prized, while if the king wishes to recreate himself, no man's conversation is gayer. Often there are deep and intricate matters that demand a grave and prudent judge. More unravels them in such a way that he satisfies both sides. No one, however, has ever prevailed on him to receive a gift for his decision. Happy the commonwealth where kings appoint such officials! His elevation has brought with it no pride...You would say that he had been appointed the public guardian of all those in need." From a yet more intimate knowledge, the Carthusian John Bouge wrote in 1535 : "Item, as for Sir Thomas More, he was my parishioner at London...This Mr More was my ghostly child; in his confession [he used] to be so pure, so clean, with great study, deliberation and devotion, I never heard many such. A gentleman of great learning both in law, art, and divinity...." Yet Sir Thomas was as good a courtier as a Christian man and a saint can be, and that does not mean to say he was not a very good one. Nor yet was the friendship with Henry VIII one-sided:  More retained his master's familiar affection, and never failed in it-but he had no illusions about him: "Son Roper, I may tell thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would win him a castle in France, it should not fail to go."
At the time when he was appointed lord chancellor, Sir Thomas More was engaged in writing against Protestantism, and particularly in opposition to Tyndale. Though some complained at the time that his controversial writing was insufficiently solemn, and others have complained since that it was insufficiently refined, his tone was much more moderate than was usual in the sixteenth centruy; "integrity and uprightness" characterized his polemics, and he always preferred ridicule to denunciation when sober and pitiless argument would not serve. But if More had the best of the argument, Tyndale was the better writer: More could not match his clear, terse English and perfect phrasing; he took six pages to say what Tyndale could say in one. Statements to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no doubt that More's attitude towards heretics was one of scrupulous fairness and notable moderation. It was to heresy and not the persons of heretics that he was opposed and "of all that ever came in my hand for heresy, as help me God, saving (as I said) the sure keeping of them...had never any of them any stripe or stroke given them, so much as a fillip on the forehead."
It is interesting, too, to read his view of the then acute question of free circulation of vernacular Bibles.
He advocated the dissemination of certain books thereof, but the reading of others should be at the discretion of each individual's ordinary, who would probably "suffer some to read the Acts of the Apostles, whom he would not suffer to meddle with the Apocalypse": just as "a father doth by his discretion appoint which of his children may for his sadness [i.e. seriousness] keep a knife to cut his meat, and which shall for his wantonness have his knife taken from him for cutting of his fingers. And thus am I bold, without prejudice of other men's judgement, to show you my mind in this matter, how the Scripture might without great peril, and not without great profit, be brought into our tongue and taken to lay men and women both, not yet meaning thereby but that the whole Bible might for my mind be suffered to be spread abroad in English...Among [the clergy] I have perceived some of the greatest and of the best of their own minds well inclinable thereto."
When King Henry VIII imposed on the clergy the acknowledgement of himself as "Protector and Supreme Head of the Church of England", to which Convocation managed to add, "so far as the law of Christ allows", More, according to Chapuys, the ambassador of the emperor, wished to resign his office, but was persuaded to retain it and also to give his attention to Henry's" great matter". This was the petition for a declaration of nullity ab initio of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, commonly called in English history the king's " divorce". The matter was involved, both as to the facts and the law, and was one in which men of good-will might well disagree; More upheld the validity of the marriage, but was allowed at his own wish to stand aside from the controversy. When in March 1531 he had to announce the then state of the case to the Houses of Parliament, he was asked for and refused to give his own opinion. But the position was fast becoming impossible. In 1532 the king proposed to forbid the clergy to prosecute heretics or to hold any meeting without his permission, and in May a parliamentary bill was introduced to withhold from the Holy See the firstfruits of bishoprics (annates); Sir Thomas opposed all these measures openly, and the king was greatly angered. On May 16 he accepted his chancellor's resignation, after he had held office for less than three years.
The loss of his official salary reduced More to little better than poverty; he had drastically to reduce his household and state, and gathering his family around him he explained the position to them in a good-humoured statement, ending up, "then may we yet with bags and wallets go a-begging together, and hoping that for pity some good folk will give us their charity, at every man's door to sing Salve regin " and so still keep company and be merry together". For eighteen months he lived very quietly, engaging himself in writing, and he refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn. His enemies missed no opportunity to harass him, as when they implicated him in the case of Elizabeth Barton, the "Holy Maid of Kent", and caused his name to be included in her bill of attainder, for misprision of treason; but the Lords wished to hear him in his own defence, which did not suit the king and he withdrew the charge. But the time was soon at hand. On March 30, 1534, the Act of Succession provided for the taking of an oath by the king's subjects recognizing succession to the throne in the offspring of Henry and Anne Boleyn; to which were later added particulars that his union with Catherine of Aragon had been no true marriage, that his union with Anne Boleyn was a true marriage, and repudiating the authority of "any foreign authority, prince or potentate". To oppose the act was high treason, and only a week before Pope Clement VII had pronounced the marriage of Henry and Catherine to be valid. Many Catholics took the oath with the reservation "so far as it be not contrary to the law of God". On April 13 Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were tendered the oath before the commission at Lambeth; they refused it. Thomas was committed to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster. Cranmer advised the king to compromise, but he would not; so the oath was again tendered and again refused, and More was imprisoned in the Tower-in itself an illegal proceeding on the part of the commissioners, for the proffered oath did not agree with the statute.
During the fifteen months that Thomas was in the Tower two things stand out, his quiet serenity under so unjust a captivity and his tender love for his eldest daughter, Margaret. The two are seen together in his letters to and recorded conversations with her there, as in the beautiful passage quoted by Roper, ending, "I find no cause, I thank God, Meg, to reckon myself in worse case here than at home, for methinks God maketh me a wanton and setteth me on His lap and dandleth me". The efforts of his family to induce him to come to terms with the king were fruitless; his custody was made more rigorous and visitors forbidden, so he began to write the Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, the best of his spiritual works, in which a French writer, the Abbe Bremond, sees a forerunner of St Francis de Sales, and an Englishman, the late W. H. Hutton, of Jeremy Taylor. In November he was attainted of misprision of treason and, but for a small pension from the Order of St John of Jerusalem, rendered penniless by forfeiture of the lands formerly granted by the Crown; Lady More had to sell her clothes to buy necessaries for him, and twice in vain petitioned the king for his release, pleading his sickness and poverty. On February I, 1535, the Acts of Supremacy came into operation, which gave the title of "only supreme head of the Church of England" to the king and made it treason to deny it. In April Cromwell came to ask More his opinion of this bill, but he would not give one. On May 4 his daughter visited him for the last time, and together they watched the first three Carthusian monks and their companions go to martyrdom: "Lo I dost thou not see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage?...Whereas thy silly father, Meg, that like a most wicked caitiff hath passed forth the whole course of his miserable life most sinfully, God, thinking him not so worthy so soon to come to that eternal felicity, leaveth him here yet still in the world further to be plagued and turmoiled with misery." When a few days later Cromwell and others again examined him on the statute and taunted him for his silence, he replied: "1 have not been a man of such holy living as I might be bold to offer myself to death, lest God for my presumption might suffer me to fall."
On June 19 the second three Carthusians suffered, and on the 22nd, the feast of St Alban, protomartyr of Britain, St John Fisher was beheaded on Tower Hill. Nine days later St Thomas More was indicted and tried in Westminster Hall; he was very weak from illness and long captivity, and was permitted to sit during the proceedings. The charge was that he had in divers ways opposed the Act of Supremacy in conversation with the members of the council who had visited him in prison and in an alleged conversation with Rich, the solicitor general. St Thomas maintained that he had always kept silence on the subject and that Rich was swearing falsely; and he reminded the jury that, "Ye must understand that, in things touching conscience, every true and good subject is more bound to have respect to his said conscience and to his soul than to any other thing in all the world beside...". He was found guilty and condemned to death. Then at last he spoke, categorically denying that "a temporal lord could or ought to be head of the spirituality", and ending that, as St Paul had persecuted St Stephen "and yet be they now both twain holy saints in Heaven, and shall continue there friends for ever, so I verily trust, and shall therefore right heartily pray, that though your lordships have now here on earth been judges of my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in Heaven merrily all meet together to everlasting salvation". On his way back to the Tower he said farewell to his son and daughter, most movingly described by Roper, and the martyr referred to it four days later in a last letter which he sent to her with his hair-shirt (most of which relic is now in the care of the Austin canonesses at Newton Abbot, founded at Louvain by the daughter of More's adopted child, Margaret Clement): "I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no desire to look to worldly courtesy."
Early on Tuesday, July 6, Sir Thomas Pope came to warn him that he was to die that day at nine o'clock (the king had commuted the sentence from hanging and quartering to beheading); whereupon St Thomas thanked him, said he would pray for the king, and comforted his weeping friend. He then put on his best clothes, walked quietly to Tower Hill, speaking to sundry persons on the way, and mounted the scaffold, with a jest for the lieutenant. He invoked the prayers of the people, protested that he died for the Holy Catholic Church and was "the king's good servant-but God's first", and said the psalm Miserere; he kissed and encouraged the headsman, covered his own eyes and adjusted his beard, and so was beheaded at one stroke. He was fifty-seven years old.
His body was buried somewhere in the church of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower; his head, after being exposed on London Bridge, was begged by Margaret Roper and laid in the Roper vault in the church of St Dunstan, outside the West Gate of Canterbury, beneath the floor at the east end of the south aisle.
More was equivalently beatified with other English martyrs in 1886, and canonized in 1935. But, as has been pointed out more than once, had he never met his death as he did he would have been a good candidate for canonization as a confessor. Some saints have attained their honours by redeeming an indifferent or even sinful life by martyrdom; not so Thomas More. He was from first to last a holy man, living in the spirit of his own prayer: "Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with thee: not for the avoiding of the calamities of this wicked world, nor so much for the avoiding of the pains of Purgatory, nor of the pains of Hell neither, nor so much for the attaining of the joys of Heaven in respect of mine own commodity, as even for a very love of thee." And this when his ways were cast, not in the cloister, but in the ordinary places of the world-home and family, among scholars and lawyers, in tribunals, council-chambers, and royal courts.
The earliest formal biography of St Thomas More, that by Nicholas Harpsfield, has been edited by E. V. Hitchcock and R. W. Chambers (1932), and that by his son-in-law, Wm. Roper, by E. V. Hitchcock (1935), both published by the E.E.T.S. The first printed life was Thomas Stapleton's in Tres Thomae (1588; Eng. trans., 1928). The very valuable life by  "Ro: Ba:" (c. 1599) was edited by Miss Hitchcock, Mgr Hallett and Prof. A. W. Reed in 1950 (E.E.T.S.). A fourth life, by his great-grandson, Cresacre More, appeared before 1631. An edition of his English Works, ed. W. E. Campbell and others, is in progress ; The Dialogue...concerning Tyndale (with valuable supplementary matter) and the Early Works are issued. A. Taft edited the Apologye for the E.E.T.S. (1930); it contains in text and notes much useful detail bearing on More's dealings with heretics. Father Bridgett's Life of Sir Thomas More (1891), with his supplementary booklets, still remain the fullest source of information for the reader who is not a specialist; but the best general life of all is R. W. Chambers's Thomas More (1935) j cf. review in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. liv (1936), p. 245. There are shorter recent biographies by J. Clayton, C. Hollis, D. Sargent, T. Maynard and others; and an excellent work by E. E. Reynolds (1953). More's Correspondence has been edited by E. F. Rogers (Princeton, 1947). But the bibliography of More is very long.
    St. Thomas More was born at London in 1478. After a thorough grounding in religion and the classics, he entered Oxford to study law. Upon leaving the university he embarked on a legal career which took him to Parliament. In 1505, he married his beloved Jane Colt who bore him four children, and when she died at a young age, he married a widow, Alice Middleton, to be a mother for his young children. A wit and a reformer, this learned man numbered Bishops and scholars among his friends, and by 1516 wrote his world-famous book "Utopia".
    He attracted the attention of Henry VIII who appointed him to a succession of high posts and missions, and finally made him Lord Chancellor in 1529. However, he resigned in 1532, at the height of his career and reputation, when Henry persisted in holding his own opinions regarding marriage and the supremacy of the Pope. The rest of his life was spent in writing mostly in defense of the Church.
    In 1534, with his close friend, St. John Fisher, he refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of England and was confined to the Tower. Fifteen months later, and nine days after St. John Fisher's execution, he was tried and convicted of treason. He told the court that he could not go against his conscience and wished his judges that "we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to everlasting salvation." And on the scaffold, he told the crowd of spectators that he was dying as "the King's good servant-but God's first." He was beheaded on July 6, 1535.
Thomas More M (RM) Born in London, England, 1478; died there in 1535; canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1935 as the "Martyr of the Papacy"; feast day formerly on July 6.
"If I am distracted, Holy Communion helps me become recollected. If opportunities are offered by each day to offend my God, I arm myself anew each day for the combat by reception of the Eucharist.
If I am in need of special light and prudence in order to discharge my burdensome duties,
I draw nigh to my Savior and seek counsel and light from Him." --Saint Thomas More

"These things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us Thy grace to labor for." --Saint Thomas More.
"It is a shorter thing and sooner done, to write heresies, than to answer them." --Saint Thomas More.
Thomas More studied at Canterbury Hall, Oxford, and read law at the Inns of Court, being called to the bar in 1501. Thomas was happiest in the bosom of his family--three generations living under one roof in Chelsea, and the congenial group of poets, scientists, and humanists that often gathered in his home, rather than at court.
Henry VIII was a man of rare personal magnetism; even Sir Thomas yielded to his charm. Thomas's daughter Margaret married Roper, who writes of More's friendship with Henry VIII: when the king had finished his devotions on holy days, he would talk to More about diverse matters, often far into the night. More often dined with the king and queen. Thomas would try to get two days per month to spend with his family, but he would be recalled to court. So Thomas tried to change his disposition before the king to be less likable, until the king started to come to Chelsea with Thomas and to be merry there. He recognized early that Henry's whims might prove dangerous to Thomas's health and life.
    More had considered the priesthood in his youth, and of joining the Franciscans, but his confessor advised against it. In 1505, he married Jane Colt, though it is said he preferred her younger sister. She bore him four children: Margaret (married Roper); Elizabeth, Cecily, and John. In the evening, Jane would study for an hour or two because Thomas wished her to be a scholar, or she would sing or play the clavichord. Jane died in 1510.
Soon after Jane's death, he married Alice Middleton, an older woman. Margaret, the eldest child, was five. Alice was unlearned, but had a great sense of humor. Thomas scolded her for her vanity and she reproached him for his lack of ambition.  More cared strongly for his children and their education, especially for Margaret. His home was a menagerie of birds, monkeys, foxes, ferrets, weasels, etc.
   More rose rapidly in public life despite his lack of ambition. He was a renowned lawyer and elected to Parliament in 1504 (at age 22). In 1510, he was appointed Undersheriff of London; 1518, Secretary to Henry VIII; 1521, he was knighted; 1523, chosen Speaker of Parliament; 1529, Lord Chancellor in succession to Cardinal Wolsey. Nevertheless, he continued to read, study, and write, and is known more as a scholar than as a jurist. Yet he was realistic and wrote in Utopia (1516), "philosophy had no place among kings....it is not possible for all things to be well, unless all men were good, which I think will not be this good many years."
He had a horror of luxury and worldly pomp. He found the lies and flatteries of court nauseating. It wearied him to be constantly at the King's command. He felt the scholars life was conducive to a virtuous life of piety toward God and service of his neighbor.
Virtue and religion were the supreme concerns of his life. He considered pride the chief danger of education. Education should inculcate a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly possessions, along with a spirit of gentleness.
During Henry's reign, 12,000 people were put to death for theft.  Thomas as Chancellor was hesitant to apply the death penalty to heretics.
More was a leader of the humanists, champion of the study of Greek and Latin classics, sympathetic to the Renaissance, and an advocate of needed Church reform; yet he was grounded in the Catholic tradition of the Middle Ages. He was also a friend of Erasmus. In 1527,
Erasmus wrote in a letter, "I wrote the Praise of Folly in times of peace;
I should never have written it if I had foreseen this tempest" of the Reformation.

Again, Erasmus in a letter to a monk about to leave his monastery, "...I see no one becoming better, every one becoming worse, so that I am deeply grieved that in my writings I once preached the liberty of the spirit....What I desired then was that the abatement of external ceremonies might much redound to the increase of true piety. But as it is, the ceremonies have been so destroyed that in place of them we have not the liberty of the spirit but the unbridled license of the flesh....What liberty is that which forbids us to say our prayers, and forbids us the sacrifice of the Mass?"
Thomas More did not think his Utopia, which is written in Latin, could be safely read by the multitude.
"Doubtless Christ could have caused the apostles not to sleep at all, but to stay awake, if that had been what He wished in an absolute and unqualified sense. But actually His wish was qualified by a condition -- namely that they themselves wish to do so, and wish it so effectually that each of them do his very best to comply with the outward command Christ Himself gave and to cooperate with the promptings of His inward assistance. In this way He also wishes for all men to be saved and for no one to suffer eternal torment, that is, always provided that we conform to His most loving will and do not set ourselves against it through our own willful malice. If someone stubbornly insists on doing this, God does not want to waft him off to heaven against his will, as if He were in need of our services there and could not continue His glorious reign without our support. Indeed, if He could not reign without us, He would immediately punish many offenses which now, out of consideration for us, He tolerates and overlooks for a long time to see if His kindness and patience will bring us to repent. But we meanwhile abuse this great mercy of His by adding sins to sins, thus heaping up for ourselves (as the apostle says) a treasure of wrath on the day of wrath (Rom 2:5).
"Nevertheless, such is God's kindness that even when we are negligent and slumbering on the pillow of our sins, He disturbs us from time to time, shakes us, strikes us, and does His best to wake us up by means of tribulations. But still, even though He thus proves Himself to be most loving even in His anger, most of us in our gross human stupidity misinterpret His action and imagine that such a great benefit is an injury, whereas actually (if we have any sense) we should feel bound to pray frequently and fervently that whenever we wander away from Him He may use blows to drive us back to the right way, even though we are unwilling and struggle against Him.
"Thus we must first pray that we may see the way and with the Church we must say to God, "From blindness of heart, deliver us, O Lord." And with the prophet we must say, "Teach me to do your will" and "Show me your ways and teach me your paths." Then we must intensely desire to run after you eagerly, O God, in the odor of your ointments, in the most sweet scent of your Spirit. But if we grow weary along the way (as we almost always do) and lag so far behind that we barely manage to follow at a distance, let us immediately say to God, "Take my right hand" and "Lead me along your path."
"Then if we are so overcome by weariness that we no longer have the heart to go on, if we are so soft and lazy that we are about to stop altogether, let us beg God to drag us along even as we struggle not to go. Finally, if we resist when He draws on us gently, and are stiff-necked against the will of God, against our own salvation, utterly irrational like horses and mules which have no intellects, we ought to beseech God humbly in the most fitting words of the prophet: "Hold my jaws hard, O God, with a bridle and bit when I do not draw near to you" (Ps 32:9)." --Saint Thomas More in The Sadness of Christ
1545 Artemius of Verkola Holy Righteous a light over the place where the incorrupt body holy relics were shown to be a source of numerous healings
Born in the village of Dvina Verkola around the year 1532. The son of pious parents, Artemius was a child who was courageous, meek and diligent for every good deed. On June 23, 1545 the twelve-year-old Artemius and his father were taken by surprise in a field by a thunderstorm. A clap of thunder broke right over their heads, and the child Artemius fell dead. People thought that this was a sign of God's judgment, therefore they left the body in a pine forest without a funeral, and without burial.

Some years later, the village reader beheld a light over the place where the incorrupt body of the Righteous Artemius lay. Taken to the church of St Nicholas in 1577, the holy relics were shown to be a source of numerous healings. In this village a monastery was later built, called the Verkola. In 1918, the impious Soviets chopped the holy relics into pieces and threw them into a well. The memory of St Artemius is also celebrated on October 20
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1588  The Zaonikievsk Icon of the Mother of God was found in the year 1588 by the Vologda peasant Ilarion -- the future Monk Joseph of Zaonikievsk.
After long prayers for the restoration of his lost health, there appeared to Ilarion the Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian, and they promised him healing.
Having gone to the place bidden to him by the saints, Ilarion suddenly saw amidst an extraordinary light an icon of the Mother of God.
Bowing down before it, he was healed, then accepted monasticism with the name Joseph and founded on this spot the Zaonikievsk monastery.
The icon was glorified by numerous healings.
The Monk Joseph of Zaonikievsk, was in the world Ilarion, a pious peasant from the village of Obukhovo Kubensk in the region of the Vologda gubernia. For a long time he suffered an illness of eyesight and he fervently prayed for the help of the Lord, to the MostHoly Mother of God and to the Saints, in particular the holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian.

His prayer was heard, and in 1588, by revelation of Saint Cosmas, the Monk Joseph went into the forest into a swampy place, to an icon of the Mother of God, from which he received healing. In gratitude the monk cleared a forest thicket at the place of the appearance of the wonderworking icon and built a chapel, in which he put the icon. He himself settled close by, taking the monastic form with the name of Joseph. Afterwards, with the blessing of Sainted Antonii, Bishop of Vologda, on the place of Joseph's ascetic exploits emerged the Zaonikiev monastery, called such from the name of the brigand Aniki who once dwelt in this forest. When the monastery expanded and the number of monks grew, upon the advice of the Monk Joseph, Antonii was chosen as hegumen. Joseph himself out of humility did not accept the leadership and, having concealed from the others his own strict exploits, he was perceived as a fool-for-Christ, -- he stood on his feet at prayer in his chapel, and in the fierce cold he went about barefoot.
The Monk Joseph reposed on 21 September 1612 at age 83, and was buried in the monastery founded by him.
1581 The Pskov Caves Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God, named the "Tenderness" (1542), is famous particularly for the defense of Pskov and the Pskov Caves monastery from the army of Stephen Bathory in 1581.
Its celebration is also on May 21, August 26 and October 7.

The Tenderness Icon of the Mother of God of the Pskov Lavra of the Caves is of the Eleousa (Umilenie) type
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1608 Saint Thomas Garnet English Jesuit martyr nephew of the Jesuit Henry Garnet studied for the priesthood at Saint Omer, France, and Valladolid, Spain. Initially ordained as a secular priest, hejoined the Jesuits in 1604 and worked to advance the Catholic cause in Warwick until his arrest in 1606. He was exiled after months of torture but returned in 1607 and was soon arrested refused to take the Oath of Supremacy
BD THOMAS GARNET, MARTYR (A.D. 1608)
THOMAS GARNET was the nephew of the famous Jesuit, Father Henry Garnet, and the son of Mr Richard Garnet, a faithful Catholic who had been a distinguished fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. His early education Thomas received at Horsham Grammar School, but at the age of sixteen or seventeen he was sent across the Channel to the newly opened College of St Omer. In January 1595 he and several of the other students set sail for Spain, but not till fourteen months later, after many adventures which included a term of imprisonment in England, did he succeed in reaching his destination-the English Jesuit college at Valladolid. There, at the close of his theological course, he was ordained priest. He was then sent on the English Mission with Bd Mark Barkworth. His manner of life for the next six years he described in a few words in his evidence when on trial: "I wandered from place to place to recover souls which had gone astray and were in error as to the knowledge of the true Catholic Church."
He was arrested near Warwick shortly after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, and was imprisoned first in the Gatehouse and then at Newgate. Because he had been staying in the house of Mr Ambrose Rookwood, who was implicated in the conspiracy, and because he was so closely related to Father Henry Garnet, it was hoped that important information could be extracted from him, but neither threats of the rack nor the strictest cross-examination could elicit any incriminating admission. After eight or nine months spent in a damp' cell with no better bed than the bare ground, he was deported to Flanders with some forty-six other priests. While still in England Bd Thomas had been admitted to the Society of Jesus by his uncle, and he now proceeded to Louvain for his novitiate. The following year, in September, he returned to England. Six weeks later he was betrayed by an apostate priest and rearrested.
At the Old Bailey he was charged with high treason on the ground that he had been made a priest by authority derived from Rome and that he had returned to England in defiance of the law. His priesthood he neither admitted nor denied, but he firmly refused to take the new oath of supremacy. On the evidence of three witnesses who declared that when he was in the Tower he had signed himself Thomas Garnet, Priest, he was declared guilty and was condemned to death. On the scaffold he proclaimed himself a priest and a Jesuit, explaining that he had not acknowledged this at his trial lest he should be his own accuser or oblige his judges to condemn him- against their consciences. The Earl of Essex and others tried up to the last to persuade him to save his life by taking the oath, and when the end came and the cart was drawn away they would not allow him to be cut down until it was certain that he was quite dead.
Plenty of information regarding Bd Thomas Garnet is available in Foley, REPSJ., vol. ii, PP. 475-505. See also Challoner, MMP., pp. 296-299; Pollen, Acts of English Martyrs, p. 176; and Testore, Il Primato spirituale di Pietro (1929), pp. 328-332.
He was born in Southwark, England, and studied for the priesthood at Saint Omer, France, and Valladolid, Spain. Initially ordained as a secular priest, hejoined the Jesuits in 1604 and worked to advance the Catholic cause in Warwick until his arrest in 1606. He was exiled after months of torture but returned in 1607 and was soon arrested.
At the Old Bailey he was charged with high treason on the grounds that he had been made a priest by authority derived from Rome and that he had returned to England in defiance of the law. His priesthood he neither admitted nor denied, but he firmly refused to take the Oath of Supremacy. On the evidence of three witnesses who declared that when he was in the Tower he had signed himself Thomas Garnet, Priest, he was declared guilty and was condemned to death.
 He was hanged at Tyburn. Beatified in 1929, he was canonized in 1970 and is included among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales

Thomas Garnet, SJ Priest M (AC) Born at Southwark; died 1608; beatified 1929; canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Born into a distinguished Catholic family, Thomas Garnet was the nephew of the famous Jesuit, Father Henry Garnet, and the son of Richard Garnet, a faithful Catholic who had been a distinguished fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. His early education was at Horsham Grammar School, but at the age of 16 or 17, he was sent to the newly opened College of Saint Omer in France. In January 1595, he and several of the other students set sail for Spain, but not until 14 months later, after many adventures which included a term of imprisonment in England, did he succeed in reaching Spain and the English Jesuit College at Valladolid. There, at the close of his theological course, he was ordained a priest. He was then sent on the English mission with Blessed Mark Barkworth in 1599. His manner of life for the next six years he described in a few words in his evidence when on trial: "I wandered from place to place to recover souls which had gone astray and were in error as to the knowledge of the true Catholic Church."

In 1606, the year he uncle was executed, Father Thomas Garnet was arrested near Warwick shortly after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. First he was imprisoned in the Gatehouse and then moved to Newgate. Because he had been staying in the house of Mr. Ambrose Rookwood, who was implicated in the conspiracy, and because he was so closely connected to Father Henry Garnet, it was hoped that important information could be extracted from him, but neither threats nor the strictest cross-examination could elicit any incriminating admission. After eight or nine months spent in a damp cell with no better bed than the bare ground, he was deported to Flanders with 46 other priests. While still in England Saint Thomas had been admitted to the Society of Jesus by his uncle, who was superior of the Jesuits in England, and he now proceeded to Louvain for his novitiate. The following year, in September, he returned to England. Six weeks later he was betrayed by an apostate priest and arrested again.

At the Old Bailey he was charged with high treason on the grounds that he had been made a priest by authority derived from Rome and that he had returned to England in defiance of the law. His priesthood he neither admitted nor denied, but he firmly refused to take the Oath of Supremacy. On the evidence of three witnesses who declared that when he was in the Tower he had signed himself Thomas Garnet, Priest, he was declared guilty and was condemned to death.

On the scaffold he proclaimed himself a priest and a Jesuit, explaining that he had not acknowledged this at his trial lest he should be his own accuser or oblige the judges to condemn him against their consciences. The Earl of Essex and others tried up to the last moment to persuade him to save his life by taking the oath, and when the end came and the cart was drawn away they would not allow him to be cut down until it was certain he was quite dead (Benedictines, Delaney, Walsh) .
1714 Saint Herman, Archbishop of Kazan
 Today we commemorate the second translation of the relics of .
St Herman is also commemorated on November 6 (his repose) and on September 25 (transfer of his relics in 1595).

1860    Saint Joseph Cafasso
Augústæ Taurinórum sancti Joséphi Cafásso, Sacerdótis, qui levítis pietáte et sciéntiæ augéndis atque damnátis cápite Deo conciliándis fuit illústris, et a Pio Papa Duodécimo inter sanctos Cælites adscríptus est.
  
1860   At Turin, St. Joseph Cafasso, priest, renowned for his piety and learning, and for his work with prisoners, reconciling to God those who were preparing for execution.  He was added to the number of the Saints by Pope Pius XII.


 
    "We are born to love, we live to love, and we will die to love still more." --Joseph Cafasso

Saint Joseph Cafasso a brilliant lecturer in moral theology at the Institute of Saint Franics; a popular teacher, actively opposed Jansenism, and fought state intrusion into Church affairs; made a deep impression on his young priest students with his holiness and insistence on discipline and high standards ministered to prisoners, working to improve their terrible conditions. He met Don Bosco in 1827 and the two became close friends. It was through Joseph's encouragement that Bosco decided his vocation was working with boys. Joseph was his adviser, worked closely with him in his foundations, and convinced others to fund and found religious institutes and charitable organizations;  His funeral was preached by Saint John Bosco.
Augústæ Taurinórum sancti Joséphi Cafásso, Sacerdótis, qui levítis pietáte et sciéntiæ augéndis atque damnátis cápite Deo conciliándis fuit illústris, et a Pio Papa Duodécimo inter sanctos Cælites adscríptus est.
    At Turin, St. Joseph Cafasso, priest, renowned for his piety and learning, and for his work with prisoners, reconciling to God those who were preparing for execution.  He was added to the number of the Saints by Pope Pius XII.

ST JOSEPH CAFASSO     (A.D. 1860)
IT is common for St Joseph Cafasso to be referred to as a saint of the Salesian Congregation, and this is understandable, for he was a close friend and spiritual director of St John Bosco. Nevertheless it is a mistake: St Joseph Cafasso was a secular priest, and his full and noble life was in general as deficient in external incident as is the usual lot of the pastoral clergy of the Church.

His birthplace was that of St John Bosco and of several other remarkable ecclesiastics, the small country town of Castelnuovo d' Asti in the Piedmont, where he was born in 1811. His parents, John Cafasso and Ursula Beltramo, were peasants in good circumstances, and he was the third of four children, of whom the last born, Mary Anne, was to be the mother of Canon Joseph Allamano, founder of the missionary priests of the Consolata of Turin. As a boy Joseph Cafasso made his mark at the local school, and he was always willing to help others with their lessons: years afterwards one of his mates said that there was a debt of two blackbirds still unpaid from him to Joseph for such services. His father sent him at the age of thirteen to the school at Chieri, from whence he proceeded to the seminary newly opened in the same place by the archbishop of Turin. He was the best student of his time, became prefect of the establishment during his last year, and was ordained priest in 1833, by dispensation on account of his youth.

After his ordination, together with his friend and fellow student John Allamano, Joseph Cafasso took very modest lodgings in Turin in order to pursue further theological studies. He soon became dissatisfied with the metropolitan seminary and with the university, and found his true spiritual home at the institute (convitto) attached to the church of St Francis of Assisi, founded for young priests some years before by its rector, the theologian Luigi Guala. After three years of study here Don Cafasso passed the diocesan examination with great distinction, and was straightway engaged as a lecturer at the institute by Don Guala.

When Guala asked his assistant whom to have as lecturer, the reply had been,  “Take the little one", meaning Cafasso. And that he was undersized and somewhat deformed by a twist of the spine was what was first noticed about his appearance. But his features were fine and regular, his eyes dark and clear, his hair thick and black, and from his mouth, generally lit up by a half smile, came a voice of unusual sonorousness and quality. In spite of his littleness and stoop, Don Cafasso's appearance was striking, almost majestic. His contemporaries frequently refer to St Philip Neri and St Francis de Sales when speaking of him, and they indeed seem to have been his exemplars; a serene gaiety and kindness distinguished him, and St John Bosco among others remarks on his “undisturbed tranquillity". And so it soon became talked about that the Institute of St Francis at Turin had a new lecturer who was little in body but very big in soul. His subject was moral theology, and he was not content to instruct without educating: he aimed not only to "teach things", but by enlightening and directing the understanding to enlighten and direct the heart, to present knowledge not as an abstraction but as a living flame to give life to the spirit.

Don Cafasso was also soon well known as a preacher. He was no rhetorician, for all that words came easily to him: "Jesus Christ, the Infinite Wisdom", he said to Don Bosco, "used the words and idioms that were in use among those whom He addressed. Do you the same". And there were not wanting tendencies and teachings to be fought in colloquial words to the multitude as well as in more technical terms to the young clergy. Don Cafasso was outstanding among those who destroyed the remnants of Jansenism in northern Italy, encouraging hope and humble confidence in the love and mercy of God, and fighting a morality that looked on the slightest fault as a grave sin. "When we hear confessions", he wrote, "our Lord wants us to be loving and pitiful, to be fatherly towards all who come to us, without reference to who they are or what they have done. If we repel anybody, if any soul is lost through our fault, we shall be held to account: his blood will be required at our hands." And Don Cafasso had a big part in bringing up a generation of clergy who should at all points combat and refuse to compromise with civil authorities whose idea of the church-state relationship was one of domination and interference.· [• As an exercise in abuse, Gioberti's views on the Turin institute at this time are worth quoting: "The Institute of St Francis is difficult to define. It is a college, a seminary, a monastery, a presbytery, a chapter, a penitentiary, a church, a nuisance (cura) and a court (curia), a tribunal, an academy, a bogus council, a political gang, a seditious conventicle, a business office, a police-station, a laboratory of casuistry, a seed-bed of error, a school of ignorance, a factory of lies, a web of intrigue, a nest of cheats, a warehouse of gossip, a dispensary of trifles, a selling-place of favours .... " etc., etc.]

In 1848 Don Guala died, and Don Cafasso was appointed to succeed him as rector of St Francis's church and the annexed institute. He proved no less a good superior than subordinate; and the position was not an easy one, for there were some sixty young priests, from several dioceses, of varied education and culture, and, what was important at that time and place, of differing political views. Don Cafasso made of them a single body, with one heart and mind, and if a strong hand and rigid discipline played its part in this achievement, the holiness of the new rector and his high standards did more. His love and care for young priests and inexperienced curates, and his insistence that their worst enemy was a spirit of worldliness, had a marked influence on the clergy of Piedmont, nor was his care confined to them: nuns and sisters and lay people, especially the young, all shared in his interest and solicitude. He had a remarkable intuition in dealing with penitents, and people of all kinds, high and lowly, clerical and lay, flocked to his confessional; the archdeacon of Ivrea, Mgr Francis Favero, was among those who gave personal testimony to the power of healing the broken spirit that Don Cafasso exercised.

His activities, whether in preaching and ministering to all and sundry, or in guiding and educating the young clergy, were not confined to St Francis's and the institute, and foremost among the places where he was well known was the sanctuary of St Ignatius away in the hills at Lanzo. At the suppression of the Society of Jesus, this sanctuary came into the hands of the archdiocese of Turin, and in due course Don Luigi Guala was appointed its administrator, to be succeeded at his death by Don Cafasso. He continued his predecessor's work there of preaching to pilgrims and conducting retreats for both clergy and laity, enlarging the accommodation and finishing the highway to it that Guala had begun. But of all the activities of Don Cafasso none struck the imagination of the general public more than his work for prisoners and convicts. The prisons of Turin in those days were horrible institutions, whose inmates were herded together in barbarous conditions likely still more to degrade those who suffered them. This was a challenge to Don Cafasso, and one which he accepted with both hands. The best known of his converts in these unpromising circumstances was Peter Mottino, a deserter from the army who had become the leader of a particularly notorious band of brigands. Executions took place in public, and Don Cafasso accompanied over sixty men to the scaffold in various places, no one of whom died impenitent: he called them his "hanged saints", and asked them to pray for him. Among them was General Jerome Ramorino, who had been an ordnance officer of Napoleon I and then a revolutionary soldier-of-fortune in Spain, Poland and Italy. He was condemned to death for disobedience to orders at the battle of Mortara, and when invited to make his confession on the eve of execution, replied, "My condition is not such that I am in need of that humiliation". Don Cafasso knew better and persevered and Ramorino met his death as a good Christian should.

John Bosco and Joseph Cafasso first met on a Sunday in the fall of 1827, when the first was still a lively boy and the second already tonsured. "I've seen him! I've talked to him!" announced John, when he got home. "Seen who?" asked his mother. "Joseph Cafasso. And I tell you, he's a saint." Fourteen years later Don Bosco celebrated his first Mass at the church of St Francis in Turin, and afterwards joined the institute, studying under Cafasso and sharing many of his undertakings, especially the religious instruction of boys. It was Don Cafasso who persuaded him that work for boys was his vocation. And so it came about that a Salesian, John Cagliero, could write, "We love and reverence our dear father and founder Don Bosco, but we love Joseph Cafasso no less, for he was Don Bosco's master, adviser and guide in spiritual things and in his undertakings for over twenty years; and I venture to say that the goodness, the achievement and the wisdom of Don Bosco are Don Cafasso's glory. It was through him that Don Bosco settled in Turin, through him that boys were brought together in the first Salesian oratory; the obedience, love and wisdom that he taught have borne fruit in the thousands of youngsters in Europe and Asia and Africa and America who today are being well educated for life in God's Church and in human society." Nor was St John Bosco the only beneficiary in this way. Inspiration and encouragement, help and direction, were found in St Joseph Cafasso by the Marchioness Juliet Falletti di Barolo, who founded a dozen charitable institutions, by Don John Cocchi, who devoted his life to establishing a college for artisans and other good works in Turin, by the priests Dominic Sartoris, who began the Daughters of St Clare, and Peter Merla, who cared for delinquent children, by the founders of the Sisters of the Nativity and the Daughters of St Joseph, Francis Bono and Clement Marchisio respectively, by Laurence Prinotti, who set up an institute for necessitous deaf-mutes, and by Caspar Saccarelli, who organized an establishment for the education of poor girls. All these also may be said to have contributed to the glory of St Joseph Cafasso.

In the spring of 1860 Don Cafasso foretold that death would take him during the year. He drew up a spiritual testament, enlarging on the means of preparation for a good death that he had so often expounded to retreatants at St Ignatius's, namely, a godly and upright life, detachment from the world, and love for Christ crucified. And he made a will disposing of his property, the residuary legatee of which was the rector of the Little House of Divine Providence at Turin, the foundation of St Joseph Cottolengo. Among the other legatees was St John Bosco, who received a sum of money and some land and buildings adjoining the Salesian oratory at Turin. Don Bosco was at this time having difficulties with the civil governor of Piedmont, which was a cause of worry to Don Cafasso and adversely affected his health. After hearing confessions on June 11 he retired to bed, worn out and ill. Pneumonia developed, and he died on Saturday, June 23, 1860, at the hour of the morning angelus.
Enormous crowds attended the funeral, at St Francis's and the parish church of the Holy Martyrs, where, as was fitting, St John Bosco preached. Thirty-five years later the cause of Don Cafasso was introduced in the diocesan court of Turin; and in 1947 he was canonized.
This is a case where the life of a saint has been written by a saint: Biografia del sacerdote Giuseppe Cafasso, by Don Bosco, but the standard biography is Vita del Ven. G. Cafasso, in two volumes, by Luigi Nicolis di Robilant. Adequate for all ordinary purposes is Cardinal Salotti's La Perla del Clero Italiano (1947); but it is rather verbose for English taste. There is also Canon Colombero's Vita del Servo di Dio Don Giuseppe Cafasso. See also books on St John Bosco. There still seems to be nothing in English about St Joseph Cafasso except a short reference in Hughes's Maria Mazzarello; but there is a German life by D. W. Mut (Munich, 1925).

Joseph Cafasso was born at Castelnuovo d'Asti in the Piedmont, Italy, of peasant parents. He studied at the seminary at Turin, and was ordained in 1833. He continued his theological studies at the seminary and university at Turin and then at the Institute of Saint Franics, and despite a deformed spine, became a brilliant lecturer in moral theology there. He was a popular teacher, actively opposed Jansenism, and fought state intrusion into Church affairs. He succeeded Luigi Guala as rector of the Institute in 1848 and made a deep impression on his young priest students with his holiness and insistence on discipline and high standards. He was a sought-after confessor and spiritual adviser, and ministered to prisoners, working to improve their terrible conditions. He met Don Bosco in 1827 and the two became close friends. It was through Joseph's encouragement that Bosco decided his vocation was working with boys. Joseph was his adviser, worked closely with him in his foundations, and convinced others to fund and found religious institutes and charitable organizations. Joseph died on June 23 at Turin and was canonized in 1947.

Joseph Cafasso (RM) Born at Castelnuova d'Asti, Piedmont, Italy, in 1811; died 1860; beatified in 1925; canonized in 1947; feast day formerly January 23.
Saint Joseph was born into a wealthy peasant family and educated in the seminary of Chieri. The life of Joseph Cafasso, who was ordained a priest in 1833, was written by Saint John Bosco, to whom Joseph served as teacher, adviser, and spiritual director for over twenty years. Three years later after his ordination, Cafasso was appointed professor of moral theology at the ecclesiastical college Saint Francis in Turin, which housed 60 young priests from different dioceses and of diverse political orientations. Ten years later he was appointed superior of the college, and he remained in that position until his death. He also directed a retreat house at Lanzo, but his special apostolate was to prisoners and convicts, especially those preparing for execution. Like Saint Robert Bellarmine, Father Cafasso was undersized and called "the little one," but he made his mark both as a spiritual director and a preacher. He led a very penitential life and was renowned for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and as a confessor.

From 1827, he directed John Bosco into an apostolate for boys, helped him to settle in Turin, introduced him to wealthy patrons, and came to be regarded as the second founder of the Salesians. In 1860, when he was ill with pneumonia, he made a will bequeathing his goods to Saint Joseph Cottolengo and John Bosco. His funeral, at which Bosco preached, was attended by huge crowds (Attwater, Benedictines, Farmer)
.


THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 154

I will love thee, O Lady of heaven and earth: and I will call upon thy name in the nations.

Give praise to her, ye who are troubled in heart: and she will strengthen you against your enemies.

Give to us, O Lady, the grace of thy breasts: from the dropping milk of thy sweetness refresh the inmost souls of thy children.

Honor her, O all ye religious: for she is your helper and your special advocate.

Be thou our refreshment, glorious Mother of Christ: for thou art the admirable foundation of the religious life.


Let every spirit praise Our Lady

Rejoice, ye Heavens, and be glad, O Earth: because Mary will console her servants and will have mercy on her poor.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost as it was in the beginning and will always be.

God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique, for each is the result of a new idea.  As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike. It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints. Dear Lord, grant us a spirit that is not bound by our own ideas and preferences.  Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves.
O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory. Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives.  Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts.   God calls each one of us to be a saint in order to get into heavenonly saints are allowed into heaven. The more "extravagant" graces are bestowed NOT for the benefit of the recipients so much as FOR the benefit of others.
There are over 10,000 named saints beati  from history
 and Roman Martyology Orthodox sources

Patron_Saints.html  Widowed_Saints htmIndulgences The Catholic Church in China
LINKS: Marian Shrines  
India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes 1858  China Marian shrines 1995
Kenya national Marian shrine  Loreto, Italy  Marian Apparitions (over 2000Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
 
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Widowed Saints  html
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Of_The_Apostles  Roman Catholic Popes  Purgatory  UniateChalcedon

Mary the Mother of Jesus Miracles_BLay Saints  Miraculous_IconMiraculous_Medal_Novena Patron Saints
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The great psalm of the Passion, Chapter 22, whose first verse “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Jesus pronounced on the cross, ended with the vision: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord;
and all the families of the nations shall worship before him
For kingship belongs to the LORD, the ruler over the nations. All who sleep in the earth will bow low before God; All who have gone down into the dust will kneel in homage. And I will live for the LORD; my descendants will serve you. The generation to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought.
Pope Benedict XVI to The Catholic Church In China {whole article here} 2000 years of the Catholic Church in China
The saints “a cloud of witnesses over our head”, showing us life of Christian perfection is possible.

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Saint Frances Xavier Seelos  Practical Guide to Holiness
1. Go to Mass with deepest devotion. 2. Spend a half hour to reflect upon your main failing & make resolutions to avoid it.
3. Do daily spiritual reading for at least 15 minutes, if a half hour is not possible.  4. Say the rosary every day.
5. Also daily, if at all possible, visit the Blessed Sacrament; toward evening, meditate on the Passion of Christ for a half hour, 6.  Conclude the day with evening prayer & an examination of conscience over all the faults & sins of the day.
7.  Every month make a review of the month in confession.
8. Choose a special patron every month & imitate that patron in some special virtue.
9. Precede every great feast with a novena that is nine days of devotion. 10. Try to begin & end every activity with a Hail Mary

My God, I believe, I adore, I trust and I love Thee.  I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not
O most Holy trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly.  I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He is offended, and by the infite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  I beg the conversion of poor sinners,  Fatima Prayer, Angel of Peace
The voice of the Father is heard, the Son enters the water, and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove.
THE spirit and example of the world imperceptibly instil the error into the minds of many that there is a kind of middle way of going to Heaven; and so, because the world does not live up to the gospel, they bring the gospel down to the level of the world. It is not by this example that we are to measure the Christian rule, but words and life of Christ. All His followers are commanded to labour to become perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect, and to bear His image in our hearts that we may be His children. We are obliged by the gospel to die to ourselves by fighting self-love in our hearts, by the mastery of our passions, by taking on the spirit of our Lord.
   These are the conditions under which Christ makes His promises and numbers us among His children, as is manifest from His words which the apostles have left us in their inspired writings. Here is no distinction made or foreseen between the apostles or clergy or religious and secular persons. The former, indeed, take upon themselves certain stricter obligations, as a means of accomplishing these ends more perfectly; but the law of holiness and of disengagement of the heart from the world is general and binds all the followers of Christ.
God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique each the result of a new idea.
As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike.
It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints.

Dear Lord, grant us a spirit not bound by our own ideas and preferences.
 
Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves.

O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory.
 
Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives.
Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts.
The 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary ) Revealed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan)
1.    Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces. 2.    I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary. 3.    The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies. 4.    It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things.  Oh, that soul would sanctify them by this means.  5.    The soul that recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish. 6.    Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying themselves to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune.  God will not chastise them in His justice, they shall not perish by an unprovided death; if they be just, they shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life. 7.    Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church. 8.    Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise. 9.    I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary. 10.    The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.  11.    You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary. 12.    I shall aid all those who propagate the Holy Rosary in their necessities. 13.    I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death. 14.    All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my only Son, Jesus Christ. 15.    Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.
His Holiness Aram I, current (2013) Catholicos of Cilicia of Armenians, whose See is located in Lebanese town of Antelias. The Catholicosate was founded in Sis, capital of Cilicia, in the year 1441 following the move of the Catholicosate of All Armenians back to its original See of Etchmiadzin in Armenia. The Catholicosate of Cilicia enjoyed local jurisdiction, though spiritually subject to the authority of Etchmiadzin. In 1921 the See was transferred to Aleppo in Syria, and in 1930 to Antelias.
Its jurisdiction currently extends to Syria, Cyprus, Iran and Greece.
Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac
The exact date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa {Armenian Ourhaï in Arabic Er Roha, commonly Orfa or Urfa, its present name} is not known. It is certain, however, that the Christian community was at first made up from the Jewish population of the city. According to an ancient legend, King Abgar V, Ushana, was converted by Addai, who was one of the seventy-two disciples. In fact, however, the first King of Edessa to embrace the Christian Faith was Abgar IX (c. 206) becoming official kingdom religion.
Christian council held at Edessa early as 197 (Eusebius, Hist. Ecc7V,xxiii).
In 201 the city was devastated by a great flood, and the Christian church was destroyed (“Chronicon Edessenum”, ad. an. 201).
In 232 the relics of the Apostle St. Thomas were brought from India, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written.

Under Roman domination martyrs suffered at Edessa: Sts. Scharbîl and Barsamya, under Decius; Sts. Gûrja, Schâmôna, Habib, and others under Diocletian.
 
In the meanwhile Christian priests from Edessa evangelized Eastern Mesopotamia and Persia, established the first Churches in the kingdom of the Sassanides.  Atillâtiâ, Bishop of Edessa, assisted at the Council of Nicæa (325). The “Peregrinatio Silviæ” (or Etheriæ) (ed. Gamurrini, Rome, 1887, 62 sqq.) gives an account of the many sanctuaries at Edessa about 388.
Although Hebrew had been the language of the ancient Israelite kingdom, after their return from Exile the Jews turned more and more to Aramaic, using it for parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel in the Bible. By the time of Jesus, Aramaic was the main language of Palestine, and quite a number of texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls are also written in Aramaic.
Aramaic continued to be an important language for Jews, alongside Hebrew, and parts of the Talmud are written in it.
After Arab conquests of the seventh century, Arabic quickly replaced Aramaic as the main language of those who converted to Islam, although in out of the way places, Aramaic continued as a vernacular language of Muslims.
Aramaic, however, enjoyed its greatest success in Christianity. Although the New Testament wins written in Greek, Christianity had come into existence in an Aramaic-speaking milieu, and it was the Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac, that became the literary language of a large number of Christians living in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and in the Persian Empire, further east. Over the course of the centuries the influence of the Syriac Churches spread eastwards to China (in Xian, in western China, a Chinese-Syriac inscription dated 781 is still to be seen); to southern India where the state of Kerala can boast more Christians of Syriac liturgical tradition than anywhere else in the world.

680 Shiite saint Imam Hussein, grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad Known as Ashoura and observed by Shiites across the world, the 10th day of the lunar Muslim month of Muharram: the anniversary of the 7th century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints.  Imam Hussein died in the 680 A.D. battle fought on the plains outside Karbala, a city in modern Iraq that's home to the saint's shrine.  The battle over a dispute about the leadership of the Muslim faith following Muhammad's death in 632 A.D. It is the defining event in Islam's split into Sunni and Shiite branches.  The occasion is the source of an enduring moral lesson. "He sacrificed his blood to teach us not to give in to corruption, coercion, or use of force and to seek honor and justice."  According to Shiite beliefs, Hussein and companions were denied water by enemies who controlled the nearby Euphrates.  Streets get partially covered with blood from slaughter of hundreds of cows and sheep. Volunteers cook the meat and feed it to the poor.  Hussein's martyrdom recounted through a rich body of prose, poetry and song remains an inspirational example of sacrifice to many Shiites, 10 percent of the world's estimated 1.3 billion Muslims.
Meeting of the Saints  walis (saints of Allah)
Great men covet to embrace martyrdom for a cause and principle.
So was the case with Hazrat Ali. He could have made a compromise with the evil forces of his time and, as a result, could have led a very comfortable, easy and luxurious life.  But he was not a person who would succumb to such temptations. His upbringing, his education and his training in the lap of the holy Prophet made him refuse such an offer.
Rabia Al-Basri (717–801 C.E.) She was first to set forth the doctrine of mystical love and who is widely considered to be the most important of the early Sufi poets. An elderly Shia pointed out that during his pre-Partition childhood it was quite common to find pictures and portraits of Shia icons in Imambaras across the country.
Shah Abdul Latif: The Exalted Sufi Master born 1690 in a Syed family; died 1754. In ancient times, Sindh housed the exemplary Indus Valley Civilisation with Moenjo Daro as its capital, and now, it is the land of a culture which evolved from the teachings of eminent Sufi saints. Pakistan is home to the mortal remains of many Sufi saints, the exalted among them being Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, a practitioner of the real Islam, philosopher, poet, musicologist and preacher. He presented his teaching through poetry and music - both instruments sublime - and commands a very large following, not only among Muslims but also among Hindus and Christians. Sindh culture: The Shah is synonymous with Sindh. He is the very fountainhead of Sindh's culture. His message remains as fresh as that of any present day poet, and the people of Sindh find solace from his writings. He did indeed think for Sindh. One of his prayers, in exquisite Sindhi, translates thus: “Oh God, may ever You on Sindh bestow abundance rare! Beloved! All the world let share Thy grace, and fruitful be.”
Shia Ali al-Hadi, died 868 and son Hassan al-Askari 874. These saints are the 10th and 11th of Shia's 12 most revered Imams. Baba Farid Sufi 1398 miracle, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki renowned Muslim Sufi saint scholar miracles 569 A.H. [1173 C.E.] hermit gave to poor, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti greatest mystic of his time born 533 Hijri (1138-39 A.D.), Hazrat Ghuas-e Azam, Hazrat Bu Ali Sharif, and Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia Sufi Saint Hazrath Khwaja Syed Mohammed Badshah Quadri Chisty Yamani Quadeer (RA)
1236-1325 welcomed people of all faiths & all walks of life.
801 Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya Sufi One of the most famous Islamic mystics
(b. 717). This 8th century saint was an early Sufi who had a profound influence on later Sufis, who in turn deeply influenced the European mystical love and troubadour traditions.  Rabi'a was a woman of Basra, a seaport in southern Iraq.  She was born around 717 and died in 801 (185-186).  Her biographer, the great medieval poet Attar, tells us that she was "on fire with love and longing" and that men accepted her "as a second spotless Mary" (186).  She was, he continues, “an unquestioned authority to her contemporaries" (218).
Rabi'a began her ascetic life in a small desert cell near Basra, where she lost herself in prayer and went straight to God for teaching.  As far as is known, she never studied under any master or spiritual director.  She was one of the first of the Sufis to teach that Love alone was the guide on the mystic path (222).  A later Sufi taught that there were two classes of "true believers": one class sought a master as an intermediary between them and God -- unless they could see the footsteps of the Prophet on the path before them, they would not accept the path as valid.  The second class “...did not look before them for the footprint of any of God's creatures, for they had removed all thought of what He had created from their hearts, and concerned themselves solely with God. (218)
Rabi'a was of this second kind.  She felt no reverence even for the House of God in Mecca:  "It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?" (219) One lovely spring morning a friend asked her to come outside to see the works of God.  She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker.  Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made" (219).  During an illness, a friend asked this woman if she desired anything.
"...[H]ow can you ask me such a question as 'What do I desire?'  I swear by the glory of God that for twelve years I have desired fresh dates, and you know that in Basra dates are plentiful, and I have not yet tasted them.  I am a servant (of God), and what has a servant to do with desire?" (162)
When a male friend once suggested she should pray for relief from a debilitating illness, she said,
"O Sufyan, do you not know Who it is that wills this suffering for me?  Is it not God Who wills it?  When you know this, why do you bid me ask for what is contrary to His will?  It is not  well to oppose one's Beloved." (221)
She was an ascetic.  It was her custom to pray all night, sleep briefly just before dawn, and then rise again just as dawn "tinged the sky with gold" (187).  She lived in celibacy and poverty, having renounced the world.  A friend visited her in old age and found that all she owned were a reed mat, screen, a pottery jug, and a bed of felt which doubled as her prayer-rug (186), for where she prayed all night, she also slept briefly in the pre-dawn chill.  Once her friends offered to get her a servant; she replied,
"I should be ashamed to ask for the things of this world from Him to Whom the world belongs, and how should I ask for them from those to whom it does not belong?"  (186-7)
A wealthy merchant once wanted to give her a purse of gold.  She refused it, saying that God, who sustains even those who dishonor Him, would surely sustain her, "whose soul is overflowing with love" for Him.  And she added an ethical concern as well:
"...How should I take the wealth of someone of whom I do not know whether he acquired it lawfully or not?" (187)
She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance.  She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did.  For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself.  The story is told that once a number of Sufis saw her hurrying on her way with water in one hand and a burning torch in the other.  When they asked her to explain, she said:
"I am going to light a fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell, so that both veils may vanish altogether from before the pilgrims and their purpose may be sure..." (187-188)
She was once asked where she came from.  "From that other world," she said.  "And where are you going?" she was asked.  "To that other world," she replied (219).  She taught that the spirit originated with God in "that other world" and had to return to Him in the end.  Yet if the soul were sufficiently purified, even on earth, it could look upon God unveiled in all His glory and unite with him in love.  In this quest, logic and reason were powerless.  Instead, she speaks of the "eye" of her heart which alone could apprehend Him and His mysteries (220).
Above all, she was a lover, a bhakti, like one of Krishna’s Goptis in the Hindu tradition.  Her hours of prayer were not so much devoted to intercession as to communion with her Beloved.  Through this communion, she could discover His will for her.  Many of her prayers have come down to us:
       "I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
        But my body is available for those who seek its company,
        And my body is friendly towards its guests,
        But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul."  [224]

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Mother Angelica saving souls is this beautiful womans journey  Shrine_of_The_Most_Blessed_Sacrament
Colombia was among the countries Mother Angelica visited. 
In Bogotá, a Salesian priest - Father Juan Pablo Rodriguez - brought Mother and the nuns to the Sanctuary of the Divine Infant Jesus to attend Mass.  After Mass, Father Juan Pablo took them into a small Shrine which housed the miraculous statue of the Child Jesus. Mother Angelica stood praying at the side of the statue when suddenly the miraculous image came alive and turned towards her.  Then the Child Jesus spoke with the voice of a young boy:  “Build Me a Temple and I will help those who help you.” 

Thus began a great adventure that would eventually result in the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, a Temple dedicated to the Divine Child Jesus, a place of refuge for all. Use this link to read a remarkable story about
The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament
Father Reardon, Editor of The Catholic Bulletin for 14 years Lover of the poor; A very Holy Man of God.
Monsignor Reardon Protonotarius Apostolicus
 
Pastor 42 years BASILICA OF SAINT MARY Minneapolis MN
America's First Basilica Largest Nave in the World
August 7, 1907-ground broke for the foundation
by Archbishop Ireland-laying cornerstone May 31, 1908
James M. Reardon Publication History of Basilica of Saint Mary 1600-1932
James M. Reardon Publication  History of the Basilica of Saint Mary 1955 {update}

Brief History of our Beloved Holy Priest Here and his published books of Catholic History in North America
Reardon, J.M. Archbishop Ireland; Prelate, Patriot, Publicist, 1838-1918.
A Memoir (St. Paul; 1919); George Anthony Belcourt Pioneer Catholic Missionary of the Northwest 1803-1874 (1955);
The Catholic Church IN THE DIOCESE OF ST. PAUL from earliest origin to centennial achievement
1362-1950 (1952);

The Church of Saint Mary of Saint Paul 1875-1922;
  (1932)
The Vikings in the American Heartland;
The Catholic Total Abstinence Society in Minnesota;
James Michael Reardon Born in Nova Scotia, 1872;  Priest, ordained by Bishop Ireland;
Member -- St. Paul Seminary faculty.
Affiliations and Indulgence Litany of Loretto in Stained glass windows here.  Nave Sacristy and Residence Here
Sanctuary
spaces between them filled with grilles of hand-forged wrought iron the
life of our Blessed Lady After the crucifixon
Apostle statues Replicas of those in St John Lateran--Christendom's earliest Basilica.
Ordered by Rome's first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, Popes' cathedral and official residence first millennium of Christian history.

The only replicas ever made:  in order from west to east {1932}.
Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel
 
It Makes No Sense
Not To Believe In GOD
THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi
  June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.
By Father John Corapi
THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi
  June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.
By Father John Corapi
Among the most important titles we have in the Catholic Church for the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our Lady of Victory and Our Lady of the Rosary. These titles can be traced back to one of the most decisive times in the history of the world and Christendom. The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7 (date of feast of Our Lady of Rosary), 1571. This proved to be the most crucial battle for the Christian forces against the radical Muslim navy of Turkey. Pope Pius V led a procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City praying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral leadership in recognizing the danger posed to Christendom by the radical Muslim forces, and in using the means necessary to defeat it. Spiritual battles require spiritual weapons, and this more than anything was a battle that had its origins in the spiritual order—a true battle between good and evil.

Today we have a similar spiritual battle in progress—a battle between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, truth and lies, life and death. If we do not soon stop the genocide of abortion in the United States, we shall run the course of all those that prove by their actions that they are enemies of God—total collapse, economic, social, and national. The moral demise of a nation results in the ultimate demise of a nation. God is not a disinterested spectator to the affairs of man. Life begins at conception. This is an unalterable formal teaching of the Catholic Church. If you do not accept this you are a heretic in plain English. A single abortion is homicide. The more than 48,000,000 abortions since Roe v. Wade in the United States constitute genocide by definition. The group singled out for death—unwanted, unborn children.

No other issue, not all other issues taken together, can constitute a proportionate reason for voting for candidates that intend to preserve and defend this holocaust of innocent human life that is abortion.

As we watch the spectacle of the world seeming to self-destruct before our eyes, we can’t help but be saddened and even frightened by so much evil run rampant. Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia, North Korea—It is all a disaster of epic proportions displayed in living color on our television screens.  These are not ordinary times and this is not business as usual. We are at a crossroads in human history and the time for Catholics and all Christians to act is now. All evil can ultimately be traced to its origin, which is moral evil. All of the political action, peace talks, international peacekeeping forces, etc. will avail nothing if the underlying sickness is not addressed. This is sin. One person at a time hearts and minds must be moved from evil to good, from lies to truth, from violence to peace.
Islam, an Arabic word that has often been defined as “to make peace,” seems like a living contradiction today. Islam is a religion of peace.  As we celebrate the birthday of Our Lady, I am proposing that each one of us pray the Rosary for peace. Prayer is what must precede all other activity if that activity is to have any chance of success. Pray for peace, pray the Rosary every day without fail.  There is a great love for Mary among Muslim people. It is not a coincidence that a little village named Fatima is where God chose to have His Mother appear in the twentieth century. Our Lady’s name appears no less than thirty times in the Koran. No other woman’s name is mentioned, not even that of Mohammed’s daughter, Fatima. In the Koran Our Lady is described as “Virgin, ever Virgin.”

Archbishop Fulton Sheen prophetically spoke of the resurgence of Islam in our day. He said it would be through the Blessed Virgin Mary that Islam would be converted. We must pray for this to happen quickly if we are to avert a horrible time of suffering for this poor, sinful world. Turn to our Mother in this time of great peril. Pray the Rosary every day. Then, and only then will there be peace, when the hearts and minds of men are changed from the inside.
Talk is weak. Prayer is strong. Pray!  God bless you, Father John Corapi

Father Corapi's Biography

Father John Corapi is what has commonly been called a late vocation. In other words, he came to the priesthood other than a young man. He was 44 years old when he was ordained. From small town boy to the Vietnam era US Army, from successful businessman in Las Vegas and Hollywood to drug addicted and homeless, to religious life and ordination to the priesthood by Pope John Paul II, to a life as a preacher of the Gospel who has reached millions with the simple message that God's Name is Mercy!

Father Corapi's academic credentials are quite extensive. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Pace University in the seventies. Then as an older man returned to the university classrooms in preparation for his life as a priest and preacher. He received all of his academic credentials for the Church with honors: a Masters degree in Sacred Scripture from Holy Apostles Seminary and Bachelor, Licentiate, and Doctorate degrees in dogmatic theology from the University of Navarre in Spain.

Father John Corapi goes to the heart of the contemporary world's many woes and wars, whether the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, or the Congo, or the natural disasters that seem to be increasing every year, the moral and spiritual war is at the basis of everything. “Our battle is not against human forces,” St. Paul asserts, “but against principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness...” (Ephesians 6:12). 
The “War to end all wars” is the moral and spiritual combat that rages in the hearts and minds of human beings. The outcome of that  unseen fight largely determines how the battle in the realm of the seen unfolds.  The title talk, “With the Moon Under Her Feet,” is taken from the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, and deals with the current threat to the world from radical Islam, and the Blessed Virgin Mary's role in the ultimate victory that will result in the conversion of Islam. Few Catholics are aware of the connection between Islam, Fatima, and Guadalupe. Presented in Father Corapi's straight-forward style, you will be both inspired and educated by him.

About Father John Corapi.
Father Corapi is a Catholic priest .
The pillars of father's preaching are basically:
Love for and a relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary 
Leading a vibrant and loving relationship with Jesus Christ
Great love and reverence for the Most Holy Eucharist from Holy Mass to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
An uncompromising love for and obedience to the Holy Father and the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church


God Bless you on your journey Father John Corapi


Records on life of Father Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, presented at Vatican
Jul 23, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The cause for canonization of Servant of God Edward Flanagan, the priest who founded Nebraska's Boys Town community for orphans and other boys, advanced Monday with the presentation of a summary of records on his life.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen to be beatified
Jul 6, 2019 - 04:00 am .- Pope Francis approved the miracle attributed to Archbishop Fulton Sheen Friday, making possible the American television catechist's beatification.

Brooklyn diocese advances sainthood cause of local priest
Jun 25, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The Bishop of Brooklyn accepted last week the findings of a nine-year diocesan investigation into the life of Monsignor Bernard John Quinn, known for fighting bigotry and serving the African American population, as part of his cause for canonization.

Fr. Augustus Tolton, former African American slave, advances toward sainthood
Jun 12, 2019 - 05:03 am .- Fr. Augustus Tolton advanced along the path to sainthood Wednesday, making the runaway slave-turned-priest one step closer to being the first black American saint.

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.
 
Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

Seven 20th-century Romanian bishops declared martyrs
Mar 19, 2019 - 12:01 pm .- Pope Francis declared Tuesday the martyrdom of seven Greek-Catholic bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
 
Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”
 
Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Algerian martyrs to be beatified in December
Sep 14, 2018 - 06:01 pm .- The Algerian bishops' conference has announced that the beatification of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in the country between 1994 and 1996, will be held Dec. 8.

Now a cardinal, Giovanni Angelo Becciu heads to congregation for saints' causes
Jun 28, 2018 - 11:41 am .- Newly-minted Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu will resign from his post as substitute of the Secretariat of State tomorrow, in anticipation of his appointment as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later this summer.

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.
 
Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.
 
Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
 
Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.
 
Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

Records on life of Father Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, presented at Vatican
Jul 23, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The cause for canonization of Servant of God Edward Flanagan, the priest who founded Nebraska's Boys Town community for orphans and other boys, advanced Monday with the presentation of a summary of records on his life.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen to be beatified
Jul 6, 2019 - 04:00 am .- Pope Francis approved the miracle attributed to Archbishop Fulton Sheen Friday, making possible the American television catechist's beatification.

Brooklyn diocese advances sainthood cause of local priest
Jun 25, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The Bishop of Brooklyn accepted last week the findings of a nine-year diocesan investigation into the life of Monsignor Bernard John Quinn, known for fighting bigotry and serving the African American population, as part of his cause for canonization.

Fr. Augustus Tolton, former African American slave, advances toward sainthood
Jun 12, 2019 - 05:03 am .- Fr. Augustus Tolton advanced along the path to sainthood Wednesday, making the runaway slave-turned-priest one step closer to being the first black American saint.

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.
 
Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

Seven 20th-century Romanian bishops declared martyrs
Mar 19, 2019 - 12:01 pm .- Pope Francis declared Tuesday the martyrdom of seven Greek-Catholic bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
 
Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”
 
Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Algerian martyrs to be beatified in December
Sep 14, 2018 - 06:01 pm .- The Algerian bishops' conference has announced that the beatification of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in the country between 1994 and 1996, will be held Dec. 8.

Now a cardinal, Giovanni Angelo Becciu heads to congregation for saints' causes
Jun 28, 2018 - 11:41 am .- Newly-minted Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu will resign from his post as substitute of the Secretariat of State tomorrow, in anticipation of his appointment as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later this summer.

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.
 
Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.
 
Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
 
Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.
 
Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

8 Martyrs Move Closer to Sainthood 8 July, 2016
Posted by ZENIT Staff on 8 July, 2016

The angel appears to Saint Monica
This morning, Pope Francis received Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato. During the audience, he authorized the promulgation of decrees concerning the following causes:

***
MIRACLES:
Miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Servant of God Luis Antonio Rosa Ormières, priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Guardian Angel; born July 4, 1809 and died on Jan. 16, 1890
MARTYRDOM:
Servants of God Antonio Arribas Hortigüela and 6 Companions, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart; killed in hatred of the Faith, Sept. 29, 1936
Servant of God Josef Mayr-Nusser, a layman; killed in hatred of the Faith, Feb. 24, 1945
HEROIC VIRTUE:

Servant of God Alfonse Gallegos of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, Titular Bishop of Sasabe, auxiliary of Sacramento; born Feb. 20, 1931 and died Oct. 6, 1991
Servant of God Rafael Sánchez García, diocesan priest; born June 14, 1911 and died on Aug. 8, 1973
Servant of God Andrés García Acosta, professed layman of the Order of Friars Minor; born Jan. 10, 1800 and died Jan. 14, 1853
Servant of God Joseph Marchetti, professed priest of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles; born Oct. 3, 1869 and died Dec. 14, 1896
Servant of God Giacomo Viale, professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, pastor of Bordighera; born Feb. 28, 1830 and died April 16, 1912
Servant of God Maria Pia of the Cross (née Maddalena Notari), foundress of the Congregation of Crucified Sisters Adorers of the Eucharist; born Dec. 2, 1847 and died on July 1, 1919
Sunday, November 23 2014 Six to Be Canonized on Feast of Christ the King.

On the List Are Lay Founder of a Hospital and Eastern Catholic Religious
VATICAN CITY, June 12, 2014 (Zenit.org) - Today, the Vatican announced that during the celebration of the feast of Christ the King on Sunday, November 23, an ordinary public consistory will be held for the canonization of the following six blesseds, who include a lay founder of a hospital for the poor, founders of religious orders, and two members of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See:
-Giovanni Antonio Farina (1803-1888), an Italian bishop who founded the Institute of the Sisters Teachers of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts
-Kuriakose Elias Chavara (1805-1871), a Syro-Malabar priest in India who founded the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate
-Ludovico of Casoria (1814-1885), an Italian Franciscan priest who founded the Gray Sisters of St. Elizabeth
-Nicola Saggio (Nicola da Longobardi, 1650-1709), an Italian oblate of the Order of Minims
-Euphrasia Eluvathingal (1877-1952), an Indian Carmelite of the Syro-Malabar Church
-Amato Ronconi (1238-1304), an Italian, Third Order Franciscan who founded a hospital for poor pilgrims

CAUSES OF SAINTS July 2015.
Pope Recognizes Heroic Virtues of Ukrainian Archbishop
Recognition Brings Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky Closer to Beatification
By Junno Arocho Esteves Rome, July 17, 2015 (ZENIT.org)
Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtues of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky. According to a communique released by the Holy See Press Office, the Holy Father met this morning with Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The Pope also recognized the heroic virtues of several religious/lay men and women from Italy, Spain, France & Mexico.
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky is considered to be one of the most influential 20th century figures in the history of the Ukrainian Church.
Enthroned as Metropolitan of Lviv in 1901, Archbishop Sheptytsky was arrested shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 by the Russians. After his imprisonment in several prisons in Russia and the Ukraine, the Archbishop was released in 1918.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic prelate was also an ardent supporter of the Jewish community in Ukraine, going so far as to learn Hebrew to better communicate with them. He also was a vocal protestor against atrocities committed by the Nazis, evidenced in his pastoral letter, "Thou Shalt Not Kill." He was also known to harbor thousands of Jews in his residence and in Greek Catholic monasteries.
Following his death in 1944, his cause for canonization was opened in 1958.
* * *
The Holy Father authorized the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees regarding the heroic virtues of:
- Servant of God Andrey Sheptytsky, O.S.B.M., major archbishop of Leopolis of the Ukrainians, metropolitan of Halyc (1865-1944);
- Servant of God Giuseppe Carraro, Bishop of Verona, Italy (1899-1980);
- Servant of God Agustin Ramirez Barba, Mexican diocesan priest and founder of the Servants of the Lord of Mercy (1881-1967);
- Servant of God Simpliciano della Nativita (ne Aniello Francesco Saverio Maresca), Italian professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Hearts (1827-1898);
- Servant of God Maria del Refugio Aguilar y Torres del Cancino, Mexican founder of the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (1866-1937);
- Servant of God Marie-Charlotte Dupouy Bordes (Marie-Teresa), French professed religious of the Society of the Religious of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (1873-1953);
- Servant of God Elisa Miceli, Italian founder of the Rural Catechist Sisters of the Sacred Heart (1904-1976);
- Servant of God Isabel Mendez Herrero (Isabel of Mary Immaculate), Spanish professed nun of the Servants of St. Joseph (1924-1953)
October 01, 2015 Vatican City, Pope Authorizes following Decrees
(ZENIT.org) By Staff Reporter
Polish Layperson Recognized as Servant of God
Pope Authorizes Decrees
Pope Francis on Wednesday authorised the Congregation for Saints' Causes to promulgate the following decrees:

MARTYRDOM
- Servant of God Valentin Palencia Marquina, Spanish diocesan priest, killed in hatred of the faith in Suances, Spain in 1937;

HEROIC VIRTUES
- Servant of God Giovanni Folci, Italian diocesan priest and founder of the Opera Divin Prigioniero (1890-1963);
- Servant of God Franciszek Blachnicki, Polish diocesan priest (1921-1987);
- Servant of God Jose Rivera Ramirez, Spanish diocesan priest (1925-1991);
- Servant of God Juan Manuel Martín del Campo, Mexican diocesan priest (1917-1996);
- Servant of God Antonio Filomeno Maria Losito, Italian professed priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (1838-1917);
- Servant of God Maria Benedetta Giuseppa Frey (nee Ersilia Penelope), Italian professed nun of the Cistercian Order (1836-1913);
- Servant of God Hanna Chrzanowska, Polish layperson, Oblate of the Ursulines of St. Benedict (1902-1973).
March 06 2016 MIRACLES authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
Pope Francis received in a private audience Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, during which he authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
MIRACLES

– Blessed Manuel González García, bishop of Palencia, Spain, founder of the Eucharistic Missionaries of Nazareth (1877-1940);
– Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity (née Elisabeth Catez), French professed religious of the Order of Discalced Carmelites (1880-1906);
– Venerable Servant of God Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus (né Henri Grialou), French professed priest of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, founder of the Secular Institute “Notre-Dame de Vie” (1894-1967);
– Venerable Servant of God María Antonia of St. Joseph (née María Antonio de Paz y Figueroa), Argentine founder of the Beaterio of the Spiritual Exercise of Buenos Aires (1730-1799);
HEROIC VIRTUE

– Servant of God Stefano Ferrando, Italian professed priest of the Salesians, bishop of Shillong, India, founder of the Congregation of Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians (1895-1978);
– Servant of God Enrico Battista Stanislao Verjus, Italian professed priest of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, coadjutor of the apostolic vicariate of New Guinea (1860-1892);
– Servant of God Giovanni Battista Quilici, Italian diocesan priest, founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Crucified (1791-1844);
– Servant of God Bernardo Mattio, Italian diocesan priest (1845-1914);
– Servant of God Quirico Pignalberi, Italian professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1891-1982);
– Servant of God Teodora Campostrini, Italian founder of the Minim Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Sorrows (1788-1860);
– Servant of God Bianca Piccolomini Clementini, Italian founder of the Company of St. Angela Merici di Siena (1875-1959);
– Servant of God María Nieves of the Holy Family (née María Nieves Sánchez y Fernández), Spanish professed religious of the Daughters of Mary of the Pious Schools (1900-1978).

April 26 2016 MIRACLES authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
Here is the full list of decrees approved by the Pope:

MIRACLES
– Blessed Alfonso Maria Fusco, diocesan priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. John the Baptist (1839-1910);
– Venerable Servant of God John Sullivan, professed priest of the Society of Jesus (1861-1933);
MARTYRDOM
– Servants of God Nikolle Vinçenc Prennushi, O.F.M., archbishop of Durres, Albania, and 37 companions killed between 1945 and 1974;
– Servants of God José Antón Gómez and three companions of the Benedictines of Madrid, Spain, killed 1936;
HEROIC VIRTUES
– Servant of God Thomas Choe Yang-Eop, diocesan priest (1821-1861);
– Servant of God Sosio Del Prete (né Vincenzo), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Congregation of the Little Servants of Christ the King (1885-1952);
– Servant of God Wenanty Katarzyniec (né Jósef), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1889-1921);
– Servant of God Maria Consiglia of the Holy Spirity (née Emilia Pasqualina Addatis), founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Addolorata, Servants of Mary (1845-1900);
– Servant of God Maria of the Incarnation (née Caterina Carrasco Tenorio), founder of the Congregation of the Franciscan Tertiary Sisters of the Flock of Mary (1840-1917);
– Servant of God , founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Family of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1851-1923);
– Servant of God Ilia Corsaro, founder of the Congregation of the Little Missionaries of the Eucharist (1897-1977);
– Servant of God Maria Montserrat Grases García, layperson of the Personal Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei (1941-1959).
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