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!)
R.  Deo grátias. R.  Thanks be to God.
November is the month of the Holy Souls in Purgatory since 1888;
2022
23,658  Lives Saved Since 2007 
 
 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary

CAUSES OF SAINTS

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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

November 24
165 Medioláni sancti Protásii Epíscopi, At Milan, St. Protase, bishop, who defended the cause of Athanasius before Emperor Constans in the Council of Sardica.  Having sustained many labours for the church entrusted to him and for religion, he departed this life to go to the Lord.
1591 St John Of The Cross- Doctor Of The Church At twenty-one he took the religious habit among the Carmelite friars at Medina, receiving the name of John-of-St-Matthias. The graces, which he received from the holy Mysteries, gave him a desire of greater retirement,  Miracles
1661 translation of relics of St Protase and St Gervais

3 Attitudes Born of Faith
Faith in the Resurrection should bring Christians to three key attitudes, says Pope Benedict XVI.
The first attitude is the certainty that Jesus has risen, is with the Father, and because of that, is with us forever. "Because of this, we are secure and free of fear," the Pontiff said.
The second attitude for a faith-filled Christian is the certainty that Christ "is with me," he said.
And the third attitude, according to the Holy Father is:
"The Judge who returns [...] has left us the task of living in this world according to his way of living." Benedict XVI
Bad Choice Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)
The U.S. bishops assailed the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) as "bad legislation" that would divide the country. Cardinal Francis George, the president of the U.S. episcopal conference,
said this in a statement published on behalf of the bishops.
Pledging to work with the Obama administration on various issues, the cardinal reminded the president-elect that a "good state protects the lives of all." But Cardinal George warned that under the FOCA,
"Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial-birth abortion and protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion."

 Your life consists in drawing nearer to God. To do this you must endeavor to detach yourself from visible things
and remember that in a short time they will be taken from you. -- Blessed John of Avila, Doctor of the Church


November 24 - Our Lady of Montserrat (Spain, 1535) I went during the night to the altar of the Temple
   Saint Elizabeth, a Benedictine nun from the Schoenau monastery, received this revelation from the Virgin, related by St Bonaventure: "After my parents left me in the Temple, I made a resolution in my heart to take God as my father, and I often wondered what I could do to please him. I also made vows to remain virgin and possess nothing on this earth. I placed my whole will in the hands of God."
   She added: "Of all the divine precepts, the one I constantly beheld was that of love: You shall love the Lord our God. I would go in the middle of the night to the altar of the Temple to ask for the grace of being able to follow the precepts of the Law. I longed for the birth of the Redeemer's mother and eagerly entreated God to preserve my eyes so that I might see her, my tongue so that I might praise her, my hands and feet so that I might serve her, my knees so that I might worship the true Son of God in her womb."
   To which Elizabeth replied: "But my Queen, weren't you already full of grace and virtue?" The Blessed Virgin answered, "You should know that I considered myself to be the vilest creature and most unworthy of divine grace. Therefore I never ceased to ask for virtue and grace."
Excerpt from Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church The Glories of Mary - Saint Paul Publisher 1997

God Wishes to Honor His Mother in this Way November 24 -- Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Italy)
One asks many things to God," Nicephorus observed, "and one doesn't obtain them.
One asks many things to Mary and one obtains them. Why is that?
It isn't that Mary is more powerful than God; but that God wishes to honor his Mother in this way.
St Alphonsus of Liguori The Glories of Mary - St Paul 1997 - p.86
   165      Medioláni  sancti Protásii Epíscopi, 
   300 St. Chrysogonus Martyr beheaded at Aquileia
   303 St. Firmina A Roman virgin martyr in Umbria, Italy
   303 St. Felicissimus Martyr of Perugia, Italy
 The Nun Mastridia lived in Alexandria vow of virginity dwelt in unceasing prayer fasts and silence finished her life in works for the Lord
 The Holy Great Martyr Catherine visions of Mary and Jesus martyred for her faith
   309 St. Crescentian Martyr on Rack with Cyriacus
   361 St. Alexander Martyr in Corinth
   385 St. Romanus of Le Mans  priest in Gaul
5th v. St. Portian, In the territory of Auvergne, abbot renowned for miracles in the time of King Theodoric.
   601 St. Colman of Cloyne born in Munster St. Columba's teacher
   615 St. Columban greatest of the Irish missionaries who worked on the European continent
7th v. St. Bieuzy Martyr of Brittany
7th v. St. Leopardinus  Abbot and martyr
         St. Marinus Benedictine martyr slain by Saracens Chandor, France
  700 St. Eanfleda Daughter of King St. Edwin and St. Ethelberga of Kent
  731 St. Marinus of Maurienne hermit near the monastery of Chandor death by the Saracens OSB M (AC)
  856 St. Flora & Mary Christian martyrs of Cordoba
1232 Blessed Balsamus of Cava "the gem of the priesthood and the crown of prelates", OSB Abbot (AC)
1239 Blessed Conrad of Frisach died at Magdeburg while singing the Psalm, Cantate Domino canticum novum OP
1239 The Holy Martyr Mercurius of Smolensk saintly soldier secret ascetic life strict fasting chaste nights at prayer 
spiritually preparing to suffer for Christ Mercurius appeared to church warden promising Smolensk people constant help intervention in sorrow struggle
14th v. Saint Mercurius of Kiev Caves pursued asceticism deep spiritual friendship with St Paisius
           Sancti Joánnis a Cruce Presbyteri, Confessóris et Ecclesiásticæ Doctóris, sanctæ Terésiæ in Carmelitárum
                     reformatióne sócii, cujus dies natális décimo nono Kaléndas Januárii recensétur.
1591 St John Of The Cross- Doctor Of The Church At twenty-one he took the religious habit among the Carmelite friars at Medina, receiving the name of John-of-St-Matthias. After his profession he asked for and was granted permission to follow the original Carmelite rule, without the mitigations approved by various popes and then accepted in all the friaries. It was John’s desire to be a lay brother, but this was refused him. He had given satisfaction in his course of theological studies, and in 1567 he was promoted to the priesthood. The graces, which he received from the holy Mysteries, gave him a desire of greater retirement, for which purpose he deliberated with himself about entering the order of the Carthusians. Miracles
1823-1856 Blessed Martyrs of China and Cochin-China beatified in 1900 (AC)
1823 Bl. Thaddeus Lieu Chinse martyr native
1838 St. Vincent Diem martyr Vietnamese
1838 St. Peter Domoulin Born Peter Khoa Vincent Diem  Vietnam martyrs
1840 St. Anthony Nam-Quynh Vietnamese martyr physician
        St. Andrew Dun-Lac
1856 Bl. Lawrence PeMan China  Martyr disciple of Blessed Augustine Chapdelaine
1862 Dominican Martyrs by King Tu-Duc in Central Tonkin Vietnam
1798 until 1861 Martyrs of Vietnam Several groups of martyrs called the Martyrs of Annam who were slain for the faith in Vietnam  Over 5,000!

The Holy Great Martyr Mercurius St Basil prayed to Mercurius defend Christians from apostate Julian
The angel of the Lord again appeared to St Mercurius in prison encouraging him endure every suffering for Christ
Many sick healed at his tomb;  Answered St Basil and returned from the grave to kill Julian the Apostate.
November 24 - Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Italy)   Roy H. Schoeman’s own conversion (I) 
It was early one morning in early June, during a midweek break I had given myself two or three days on Cape Cod before the crowds arrived. I was walking in the dunes between Provincetown and Truro, alone with the singing birds before the world woke up, when I, for lack of better words, “fell into heaven”. That is, I found myself most consciously and tangibly in the presence of God.
      I saw everything that I would be pleased about and everything I would regret. I also knew, from one instant to the next, that the meaning and purpose of my life was to love and serve my Lord and God; I saw how His Love enveloped and sustained me every moment of my existence; I saw how everything I did had a moral content, for good or for ill, and which mattered far more than I would ever know; I saw how everything that had ever happened in my life was the most perfect thing that could be arranged for my own good by an all-good, all-loving God, especially those things which caused me the most suffering at the time; I saw that my two greatest regrets at the moment of death would be all the time and energy I had wasted worrying about not being loved, when every moment of my existence I was held in the sea of God’s unimaginably great love, and every hour I had wasted not doing anything of value in the eyes of God.
      The answer to any question I mentally posed was instantly presented to me; in fact, I could not hold a question in my mind without already being shown the answer, with one, all-important exception - the name of this God Who was revealing Himself to me as the meaning and purpose of my life. I did not think of Him as the God of the Old Testament Whom I held in my imagination from my childhood. I prayed to know His name, to know what religion to follow to serve and worship Him properly. I remember praying, “Let me know your name - I don’t mind if you are Buddha, and I have to become a Buddhist; I don’t mind if you are Apollo, and I have to become a Roman pagan; I don’t mind if you are Krishna, and I have to become a Hindu; as long as you are not Christ and I have to become a Christian!” (…) As a result, although this God Who revealed Himself to me on the beach had heard my prayer to know His name, He also heard, and respected, my refusal to know it, too, and so gave no answer at the time to the question.
Excerpt from Roy H. Schoeman, Salvation Is from the Jews:
The Role of Judaism in Salvation History (Ignatius Press April 2003), pp. 359-360
The Twenty-fourth Day of November Martyrology of the Sacred Order of Friars Preachers
St. John of the Cross, priest, confessor, and Doctor of the Church. He was the associate of St. Teresa in the reform of Carmel.
         His birthday is mentioned on December 14. A duplex feast.
St. Chrysogonus, martyr. On the same day, the birthday of  For his unwavering confession of Christ, he endured for a prolonged period chains and
      imprisonment. By orders of Diocletian, he was brought to Aquileia, beheaded, and thrown into the sea, thus completing his martyrdom. A memory.
St. Crescentian, martyr At Rome. He is mentioned in the martyrdom of Blessed Pope Marcellus.
St. Alexander, martyr At Corinth . Under Julian the Apostate and the governor Sallust, he fought for the faith of Christ, even unto death.
St. Felicissimus, martyr. At Perugia,
St. Firmina, virgin and martyr At Ameria in Umbria. In the persecution of Diocletian,  tortured in various ways. At last, she was hung up and burned with
      flaming torches until she gave up her spotless soul to God.
Flora and Mary At Cordoba in Spain, the holy virgins and martyrs who, in the Arab persecution, after long imprisonment were put to the sword.
St. Protasius, bishop At Milan. At the Council of Sardica and in the presence of the Emperor Constans, he defended the cause of Athanasius. He died in
      the Lord, after he had performed many labors both for the Church committed to him and for religion.
St. Portianus, abbot In the province of Auvergne. He was celebrated for his miracles in the reign of King Theodoric. He has given his name both to the
      monastery of which he had charge, and to the town which afterward was built in that place.
St. Romanus, priest In the district of Blaye in Gau . The praise of his holiness is declared by the glory of his miracles.

165 Medioláni sancti Protásii Epíscopi, qui apud Constántem Imperatórem in Concílio Sardicénsi causam Athanásii deféndit, ac demum, pro Ecclésia sibi commíssa et pro religióne multis perfúnctus labóribus, migrávit ad Dóminum.
    At Milan, St. Protase, bishop, who defended the cause of Athanasius before Emperor Constans in the Council of Sardica.  Having sustained many labours for the church entrusted to him and for religion, he departed this life to go to the Lord.

166 translation of relics of St Protase and St Gervais
St. Marinus Benedictine martyr slain by Saracens Chandor, France
He was a monk at Maurienne, in Savoy, France, before becoming a hermit at Chandor.
300 St. Chrysogonus Martyr beheaded at Aquileia  one of the saints named in the canon of the Mass
Eódem die natális sancti Chrysógoni Mártyris, qui, post longa víncula et cárceres pro constantíssima Christi confessióne tolerátos, Aquiléjam, jubénte Diocletiáno, perdúctus, tandem, cæsus cápite et in mare projéctus, martyrium consummávit.
    Also, the birthday of St. Chrysogonus, martyr.  After a long imprisonment in chains for the constant confession of Christ, he was ordered by Diocletian to be taken to Aquileia, where he completed his martyrdom by being beheaded and thrown into the sea.
 304? St Chrysogonus, Martyr
Although this martyr is one of those who has the distinction of being named in the canon of the Roman Mass nothing is known of him, except that he appears to have suffered at Aquileia, and he was venerated in northern Italy. His cultus was introduced at Rome the titular church of Chrysogonus in the Trastevere is mentioned in 499, and it is called titulus Sancti Crisogoni in an inscription of 521.   According to the passio of St Anastasia (December 25) St Chrysogonus was a Roman official, who became her spiritual father. When he was imprisoned under Diocletian he continued to direct her by letter until he was sent for by the emperor at Aquileia, condemned and beheaded. His body was cast into the sea, whence it was recovered and buried by the priest St Zoilus, who lived close by in the house of SS. Agape, Chionia and Irene.

The story of St Chrysogonus forms the first part of the Passio S. Anastasiae. The Latin text has been re-edited in Delehaye’s Etude sur le légendier romain (1936), pp. 221—249, but it seems to belong to the class of hagiographical fictions (op. cit., pp. 151 seq.). It may be that the owner of the house in Rome, which was converted into a church (the titular Chrysogoni) in the fourth century, was named Chrysogonus, and that when this was mistaken for a dedication to a Saint Chrysogonus, a legend was invented which identified him with a real martyr who suffered at Aquileia. But all the sacramentaries and calendars give the date November 24, and this does not seem to have been the day assigned to theAquileian martyr. See CMH., pp. 618-619 and also J. P. Kirsch, Die römischen Titelkirchen im Altertum, pp. 108-113; M. Mesnard, La basilique de Saint-Chrysogone a Rome (1935).  

The name of this holy martyr, who was apprehended at Rome, but beheaded at Aquileia in the persecution of Dioclesian, occurs in the canon of the mass, and is mentioned in the ancient Calendar of Carthage of the fifth century, and in all Western Martyrologies since that time. The church in Rome of which he is titular saint, is mentioned in a council held by pope Symmachus, and in the epistles of St. Gregory the Great; it gives title to a cardinal priest. The head of St. Chrysogonus is shown there in a rich case, but his body is at Venice.

Chrysogonus of Aquileia M (RM) Chrysogonus, one of the saints named in the canon of the Mass, was an official at Rome who was converted to Christianity and in turn converted many others to the same faith. He is said to have been particularly close to Saint Anastasia of Sirmium and become her guide in the Christian faith, but nothing is really know about him.

The historically worthless passio of St. Anastasia says that the saint's success as a Christian missionary displeased the authorities who imprisoned him. After festering for many months in squalid conditions, Chrysogonus was beheaded during the persecutions of the Emperor Diocletian. His corpse was thrown into the sea, but rescued by a priest named Zoilus. Pope Sylvester I built a church over his tomb in the first half of the 4th century. His tomb was excavated in the early 20th century, 20 feet below the present ground level of the church of San Crisogono in Rome, where Chrysogonus has been venerated at least from the end of the 5th century.

San Crisogono contains the head of Chrysogonus and one of his arms, now proudly preserved over the high altar. On the superbly gilded and decorated ceiling of the church, which was created in the 17th century, Giovanni Guencino painted 'The Triumph of Saint Chrysogonus' (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Encyclopedia)
St. Chrysogonus is depicted as a very young knight with a shield bearing IHS. At times his corpse is shown born up by fish (Roeder).
303 St. Firmina A Roman virgin martyr in Umbria, Italy
Amériæ, in Umbria, sanctæ Firmínæ, Vírginis et Mártyris; quæ, in persecutióne Diocletiáni Imperatóris, várie cruciáta est, ac demum, suspénsa et lampádibus ardéntibus adústa, immaculátum spíritum Deo réddidit.
    At Amelia in Umbria, during the persecution of Diocletian, St. Firmina, virgin and martyr.  After being subjected to various torments, to hanging, and to burning with flaming torches, she yielded up her spirit.
Firmina of Amelia VM (RM). The Roman maiden Firmina was tortured to death at Amelia (Ameria) in Umbria, Italy, under Diocletian (Benedictines).
The Nun Mastridia lived in Alexandria vow of virginity dwelt in unceasing prayer fasts and silence finished her life in works for the Lord
The pure life of the holy virgin was beset by trials. A certain young man, attracted to her with impure desire, began to pursue her so that she could not even leave her home to go to church.  Grieving because she had unwillingly led the youth into temptation, and being zealous for his salvation, the saint invited him into her home. She sked what it was about her that made him bother her so much. He replied, "Your beautiful eyes!" Hearing this, she gouged them out with a needle she used for sewing. Thus she saved herself and the youth from temptation.
He then repented and became a monk, living as a strict ascetic.
St Mastridia finished her life in works for the Lord.
303 St. Felicissimus Martyr of Perugia, Italy
Perúsiæ sancti Felicíssimi Mártyris.    At Perugia, St. Felicissimus, martyr.
Died at Perugia, Italy. Felicissimus was probably martyred under Diocletian (Benedictines). In art St. Felicissimus is represented as an elegantly dressed young man with a book and a palm. Venerated at Perugia (Roeder).
4th v. Catherine The Holy Great Martyr possessed of a rare beauty and intellect; Again St Catherine had a vision of the Most Holy Theotokos with Her Child. Now the Lord looked tenderly at her and gave her a beautiful ring, a wondrous token of her betrothal to the Heavenly Bridegroom (This ring is still on her hand); the emperor ordered fifty of the most learned philosophers and rhetoricians of the Empire to dispute with her, but the saint got the better of the wise men, so that they came to believe in Christ themselves. St Catherine made the Sign of the Cross over the martyrs, and they bravely accepted death for Christ and were burned alive by order of the emperor.

Daughter of Constus, the governor of Alexandrian Egypt during the reign of the emperor Maximian (305-313). Living in the capital, the center of Hellenistic knowledge, and possessed of a rare beauty and intellect, Catherine received an excellent education, studying the works of the greatest philosophers and teachers of antiquity. Young men from the most worthy families of the empire sought the hand of the beautiful Catherine, but she was not interested in any of them. She told her parents that she would enter into marriage only with someone who surpassed her in nobility, wealth, comeliness and wisdom.

Catherine's mother, a secret Christian, sent her to her own spiritual Father, a saintly Elder living in a cave outside the city, for advice. After listening to Catherine, the Elder said that he knew of a Youth who surpassed her in everything. "His countenance is more radiant than the shining of the sun, and all of creation is governed by His wisdom. His riches are given to all the nations of the world, yet they never diminish. His compassion is unequaled."

This description of the Heavenly Bridegroom produced in the soul of the holy maiden an ardent desire to see Him. "If you do as I tell you," said the monk, "you will gaze upon the countenance of this illustrious man." In parting, the Elder handed Catherine an icon of the Theotokos with the divine Child Jesus on Her arm and told her to pray with faith to the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of the Heavenly Bridegroom, and She would hear Catherine and grant her heart's desire.

Catherine prayed all night and was permitted to see the Most Holy Virgin, Who said Her Divine Son, "Behold Thy handmaiden Catherine, how fair and virtuous she is." But the Child turned His face away from her saying, "No, she is ugly and unbelieving. She is a foolish pauper, and I cannot bear to look at her until she forsakes her impiety."

Catherine returned again to the Elder deeply saddened, and told him what she had seen in the dream. He lovingly received her, instructed her in the faith of Christ, admonished her to preserve her purity and integrity and to pray unceasingly. She then received the Mystery of holy Baptism from him. Again St Catherine had a vision of the Most Holy Theotokos with Her Child. Now the Lord looked tenderly at her and gave her a beautiful ring, a wondrous token of her betrothal to the Heavenly Bridegroom (This ring is still on her hand).

At that time the emperor Maximian was in Alexandria for a pagan festival. Therefore, the celebration was especially splendid and crowded. The cries of the sacrificial animals, the smoke and the smell of the sacrifices, the endless blazing of fires, and the bustling crowds at the arenas defiled the city of Alexandria. Human victims also were brought, the confessors of Christ, those who would not deny Him under torture. They were condemned to death in the fire. The saint's love for the Christian martyrs and her fervent desire to ease their sufferings compelled Catherine to speak to the pagan priest and to the emperor Maximian.

Introducing herself, the saint confessed her faith in the One True God and with wisdom exposed the errors of the pagans. The beauty of the maiden captivated the emperor. In order to convince her and to show the superiority of pagan wisdom, the emperor ordered fifty of the most learned philosophers and rhetoricians of the Empire to dispute with her, but the saint got the better of the wise men, so that they came to believe in Christ themselves. St Catherine made the Sign of the Cross over the martyrs, and they bravely accepted death for Christ and were burned alive by order of the emperor.

Maximian, no longer hoping to convince the saint, tried to entice her with the promise of riches and fame. Receiving an angry refusal, the emperor gave orders to subject the saint to terrible tortures and then throw her in prison. The Empress Augusta, who had heard much about the saint, wanted to see her. She prevailed upon the military commander Porphyrius to accompany her to the prison with a detachment of soldiers. The empress was impressed by the strong spirit of St Catherine, whose face was radiant with divine grace. The holy martyr explained the Christian teaching to them, and they were converted to Christ.

On the following day they again brought the martyr to the judgment court where, under the threat of being broken on the wheel, they urged that she renounce the Christian Faith and offer sacrifice to the gods. The saint steadfastly confessed Christ and she herself approached the wheels; but an angel smashed the instruments of execution, which shattered into pieces with many pagans standing nearby.

Having beheld this wonder, the Empress Augusta and the imperial courtier Porphyrius with 200 soldiers confessed their faith in Christ in front of everyone, and they were beheaded. Maximian again tried to entice the holy martyr, proposing marriage to her, and again he was refused. St Catherine firmly confessed her fidelity to the heavenly Bridegroom Christ, and with a prayer to Him she herself lay her head on the block beneath the executioner's sword.

The relics of St Catherine were taken by the angels to Mount Sinai. In the sixth century,, the venerable head and left hand of the holy martyr were found through a revelation and transferred with honor to a newly-constructed church of the Sinai monastery, built by the holy Emperor Justinian (November 14).
St Catherine is called upon for relief and assistance during a difficult childbirth.
Pilgrims to her monastery on Mt Sinai are given souvenir rings as a remembrance of their visit.
309 St. Crescentian Martyr with Cyriacus  Largus, Smaragdus
Romæ sancti Crescentiáni Mártyris, qui in passióne beáti Marcélli Papæ memorátur.
    At Rome, St. Crescentian, martyr, whose name is mentioned in the Acts of blessed Pope Marcellus.
 Largus, and Smaragdus in Rome. They died on the rack. Crescentian of Rome M (RM)
Crescentian suffered martyrdom under Maxentius at Rome in the company of Saints Cyriacus, Largus, Smaragdus, expiring on the rack in their presence (Benedictines).
361 St. Alexander Martyr in Corinth
Apud Corínthum sancti Alexándri Mártyris, qui sub Juliáno Apóstata et Sallústio Præside, pro Christi fide certávit usque ad mortem.
    At Corinth, St. Alexander, martyr, who fought unto death for the faith of Christ, under Julian the Apostate and the governor Sallust.
Alexander died for the faith in Corinth in the reign of Julian the Apostate
385 St. Romanus of Le Mans  priest in Gaul whose holiness is proclaimed by glorious miracles.
In castro Blávio, in Gállia, sancti Románi Presbyteri, cujus sanctitátis præcónium glória miraculórum declárat.
    In the town of Blaye in France, St. Romanus, priest, whose holiness is proclaimed by glorious miracles.
 Was remarkably successful in converting many local pagans at the mouth of the Gironde River. Among his most notable converts were many of the sailors who lived in the region.
5th v. St. Portian,  In the territory of Auvergne, an abbot who was renowned for miracles in the time of King Theodoric. His name was given to the monastery that he had governed and also the town which was later built there.
      In território Arvernénsi sancti Portiáni Abbátis, qui, sub Theodoríco Rege, miráculis cláruit; cujus étiam nomen índitum mansit tam monastério cui Sanctus ipse præfuit, quam óppido quod in eódem loco póstea constrúctum fuit.
500 Kenan of Damleag first bishop in Ireland to build his own cathedral (Damleag or Duleek in Meath) of stone B (AC)
(also known as Cianan, Kea, Kay, Quay)
Kenan was an Irish bishop, who with Saint Patrick, was a disciple of Saint Martin of Tours. He was the first bishop in Ireland to build his own cathedral (Damleag or Duleek in Meath) of stone. His writing was acknowledged by Saint Patrick to be better than his own (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
 615 St. Columban greatest of the Irish missionaries who worked on the European continent
Columban was the greatest of the Irish missionaries who worked on the European continent. As a young {b.543?} man he was greatly tormented by temptations of the flesh, and sought the advice of a religious woman who had lived a hermit’s life for years. He saw in her answer a call to leave the world. He went first to a monk on an island in Lough Erne, then to the great monastic seat of learning at Bangor.

After many years of seclusion and prayer, he traveled to Gaul with 12 companion missionaries. They won wide respect for the rigor of their discipline, their preaching, and their commitment to charity and religious life in a time characterized by clerical slackness and civil strife. Columban established several monasteries in Europe which became centers of religion and culture.

Like all saints, he met opposition. Ultimately he had to appeal to the pope against complaints of Frankish bishops, for vindication of his orthodoxy and approval of Irish customs. He reproved the king for his licentious life, insisting that he marry. Since this threatened the power of the queen mother, Columban was ordered deported back to Ireland. His ship ran aground in a storm, and he continued his work in Europe, ultimately arriving in Italy, where he found favor with the king of the Lombards. In his last years he established the famous monastery of Bobbio, where he died.
His writings include a treatise on penance and against Arianism, sermons, poetry and his monastic rule.
Comment:   Now that public sexual license is approaching the extreme, we need the Church's jolting memory of a young man as concerned about chastity as Columban. And now that the comfort-captured Western world stands in tragic contrast to starving millions, we need the challenge to austerity and discipline of a group of Irish monks. They were too strict, we say; they went too far. How far shall we go?
Quote:   Writing to the pope about a doctrinal controversy in Lombardy, Columban said: “We Irish, living in the farthest parts of the earth, are followers of St. Peter and St. Paul and of the disciples who wrote down the sacred canon under the Holy Spirit. We accept nothing outside this evangelical and apostolic teaching.... I confess I am grieved by the bad repute of the chair of St. Peter in this country.... Though Rome is great and known afar, she is great and honored with us only because of this chair.... Look after the peace of the Church, stand between your sheep and the wolves.”
601 St. Colman of Cloyne born in Munster St. Columba's teacher
St. Colman of Cloyne, Ireland, son of Lenin. He became a poet and later, royal bard at Cashel. He was baptized by St. Brendan when he was fifty years old with the name Colman. He was ordained, and was reputed to be St. Columba's teacher. He became the first bishop of Cloyne, of which he is patron, in eastern Cork.
He was endowed with extraordinary poetic powers, being styled by his contemporaries "Royal Bard of Munster". The Ardrigh of Ireland gave him Cloyne, in the present County Cork, for his cathedral abbey, in 560, and he laboured for more than forty years in his extensive diocese. Several of his Irish poems are still extant, notably a metrical panegyric on St. Brendan. Colgan mentions a metrical life of St. Senan by him.
Another St. Colman is also venerated on the same day, as recorded by St. Aengus in his "Felire": —
    Mac Lenine the most excellent
    With Colman of Duth-chuilleann.

6th v, ST COLMAN OF CLOYNE, BISHOP

St. Colman Mac Lenine {Mac Lenine the most excellent}

Saint Colman Mac Lenine, founder and patron of the See of Cloyne, born in Munster, c. 510; died 24 November, 601.

He was endowed with extraordinary poetic powers, being styled by his contemporaries "Royal Bard of Munster". The Ardrigh of Ireland gave him Cloyne, in the present County Cork, for his cathedral abbey, in 560, and he laboured for more than forty years in his extensive diocese. Several of his Irish poems are still extant, notably a metrical panegyric on St. Brendan. Colgan mentions a metrical life of St. Senan by him. His feast is observed on 24 November. Another St. Colman is also venerated on the same day, as recorded by St. Aengus in his "Felire": — With Colman of Duth-chuilleann.

COLMAN OF CLOYNE, the “sun-bright bard”, was son of Lenin, born in Munster near the beginning of the sixth century. 

He was a poet of great skill and became royal bard (that is, chronicler and genealogist as well as poet laureate) at Cashel. He was nearly fifty years old before he became a Christian, and the circumstances of his conversion are said to have been as follows. St Brendan came to Cashel to help in the settlement of a dispute about the succession, and while he was there the grave and relics of St Ailbhe were found. Colman took part in this discovery, and St Brendan observed that hands, which had been hallowed by the touch of such holy remains, should not remain the hands of a pagan. So the bard was baptized by Brendan, and received from him the name of Colman, which was extraordinarily common in the early Irish church. In the Life of St Columba of Terryglass we hear that the boy Columba was given to the care of this Colman, who taught him to read. Having been ordained priest and afterwards consecrated bishop, St Colman preached in Limerick and the eastern pans of Cork, where he was granted land for a church at Cloyne, of which he is venerated as the first bishop. The feast of this St Colman is kept throughout Ireland.

There seems to be an absolute dearth of biographical material. An article by “J. C.” in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeol. Soc., vol. xvi (1910), pp. 132—140, serves only to reveal the penury of data. But St Colman is mentioned in the Félire of Oengus under November 24, and there is a good paper on him by R. Thurneysen, “Colman mac Lenene und Senchan Torpeist”, in Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, vol. xix (1933), pp. 193-209.

Colman of Cloyne B (AC)(also known as Colman MacLenini)Born in Munster, Ireland, 522-530; died c. 600; cultus approved 1903. Son of Lenin, he became a poet and later royal bard at Cashel. The job of bard entailed the roles not only poet and musician, but also chronicler and genealogist. It is said that he became a Christian after rescuing from a lake the stolen shrine of Saint Ailbhe.

And what does this have to do with conversion? Saint Brendan came to Cashel to resolve a dispute. While he was there the grave and relics of Saint Ailbhe were discovered. Colman took part in that finding. Saint Brendan said that hands that had been sanctified by touching such holy remains should not remain the hands of a pagan. So it happened that at age 50 Colman was baptized Colman by Saint Brendan.

Thereafter, he embraced the monastic life, was ordained, and preached in Limerick and Cork. In the Life of Saint Columba of Terryglass, Colman is said to have been Saint Columba's teacher and guardian. Late in life he founded the church of Cloyne and became its first bishop. Colman is the patron saint of Cloyne in eastern Cork (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Montague, Walsh).
7th v. St. Bieuzy Martyr of Brittany
A native of Britam followed St. Gildas to Brittany France There he was martyred.  While Bieuzy was a native of Britain, he is venerated in Brittany to which he followed Saint Gildas. (Benedictines).
700 St. Eanfleda Daughter of King St. Edwin and St. Ethelberga of Kent
 St. Paulinus baptized her as an infant. A supporter of St. Wilfrid, Eanfleda became a Benedictine nun at Whitby as a widow. Her daughter, St. Elfieda, was abbess there

Eanfleda of Whitby, OSB Widow (AC). Eanfleda, daughter of King Saint Edwin of Northumbria and his wife Saint Ethelburga of Kent, baptized as an infant by Saint Paulinus. She was a great benefactress of Saint Wilfrid. In her widowhood she became a nun at Whitby under her own daughter, Saint Elfleda (Benedictines).
7th v. St. Leopardinus  Abbot and martyr 
He was the abbot of the monastery of St. Symphorian in Vivaris, France. Assassins killed him.
Leopardinus of Vivaris, Abbot M (AC). Monk and abbot of the monastery of St. Symphorian of Vivaris in the province of Berry, France. He perished at the hands of assassins and was forthwith venerated as a martyr (Benedictines).
731 Marinus of Maurienne hermit near the monastery of Chandor death by the Saracens OSB M (AC)
Born in Italy; Marinus became a Benedictine at Maurienne in Savoy, and afterwards a hermit near the monastery of Chandor, where he was put to death by the Saracens (Benedictines).
856 St. Flora & Mary Christian martyrs of Cordoba Spain.
Córdubæ, in Hispánia, sanctárum Vírginum et Mártyrum Floræ et Maríæ; quæ, post diutúrnos cárceres, in persecutióne Arábica, gládio interémptæ sunt.
    At Cordova in Spain, the holy virgins and martyrs Flora and Mary, who after a long imprisonment were slain with the sword in the Arab persecution.

851 Ss. Flora And Mary, Virgins And Martyrs
In the reign of Abdur Rahman II, king of the Moors at Cordova in Spain, Flora, being of Mohammedan birth by her father but secretly brought up in the Christian faith by her mother, was impeached by her own brother before the judge of the city. This magistrate had her scourged brutally, and then put her into the hands of her brother that he might overcome her resolution. Later she made her escape and took shelter with a sister. Having lain concealed some time, she ventured back to Cordova and prayed publicly in the church of St Acisclus the martyr. There she met with Mary, sister to a deacon who had lately received the crown of martyrdom, and they agreed to give themselves up as Christians to the magistrate, by whose order they were confined where no one had access to them but some loose women. St Eulogius, who was at that time detained in another prison, wrote them an exhortation to martyrdom, in which he told them that no involuntary infamy could harm their souls and that to yield temporarily in hope of better things must not be considered.
   The two girls were eventually beheaded together, declaring they would intercede in Heaven for the release of St Eulogius and the other brethren; and they were in fact set free a week later. 

These Spanish martyrs belong to the group of whom we know practically nothing but what has been recorded in the narrative of St Eulogius, which may be most conveniently consulted in Migne, PL., vol. cxv, cc. 835—845. 

  Flora was raised a Christian in secret by her mother, who was married to a Muslim. Betrayed by her brother, she was beaten and given to him to abuse because of her faith. Escaping, Flora met Mary, the sister of a martyred deacon. They surrendered to Muslim authorities and were placed in a brothel. Still clinging to the faith, Flora and Mary were beheaded.

Flora and Mary VM (RM). The story of Flora and Mary is told by Saint Eulogius of Cordova in his Exhortation to Martyrdom. Flora was the daughter of an Islamic father, born in Cordova, Spain, and secretly raised a Christian by her mother.

Flora was betrayed by her brother, scourged, and put into his custody that he might persuade her to apostatize. She escaped, but later while praying in St. Acislus Church she met Mary, sister of a deacon who had been martyred, and they both decided defiantly to give themselves up to the magistrate as Christians. The magistrate locked them up in a cell, threatening to sell them to a brothel if they did not defy Christ. St. Eulogius wrote to them, "They threaten you with a shameful slavery, but do not fear: no harm can touch your souls whatever infamy in inflicted on your bodies." When their ordeal failed to shake their constancy, they were beheaded by order of Abderrahman (Abd ar-Rahman) II (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia).

Flora and Mary are depicted as two maidens beheaded by Moors; flowers spring from Flora's severed head. Venerated at Cordova (Roeder).
14th v. Saint Mercurius of Kiev Caves pursued asceticism deep spiritual friendship with St Paisius
in the Farther Caves in the fourteenth century, and was strict in fasting. During his lifetime St Mercurius had a deep spiritual friendship with St Paisius, and when they died, they were buried in the same grave.

The November 24 commemoration of the saint is made because of his namesake, the holy Great Martyr Mercurius. He is also remembered on August 28, the Synaxis of the Saints of the Far Caves; and on the second Sunday of Great Lent, the Synaxis of all the monastic Fathers of the Kiev Caves.
1232 Blessed Balsamus of Cava "gem of the priesthood and the crown of prelates" OSB Abbot (AC)
cultus approved 1928. The tenth abbot of Cava (1208- 1232) is described by John of Capua, as "the gem of the priesthood and the crown of prelates" (Benedictines).
1239 Blessed Conrad of Frisach died at Magdeburg while singing the Psalm, Cantate Domino canticum novum OP (PC)
Died in Magdeburg, Germany. A doctor at the university of Bologna whom Saint Dominic received into the order and sent to Germany. He died at Magdeburg while singing the Psalm, Cantate Domino canticum novum (Sing a new song unto the Lord) (Benedictines).
1239 The Holy Martyr Mercurius of Smolensk saintly soldier secret ascetic life strict fasting chaste nights at prayer spiritually preparing to suffer for Christ St Mercurius appeared to church warden promising Smolensk people constant help and intervention in every sorrow and struggle
Slav by birth, probably from Moravia, the descendant of a princely line. Brought up in Orthodoxy, St Mercurius in zeal for the true Faith left his own native land for Russia, where he served in the army of the Prince of Smolensk. The saintly soldier secretly led an ascetic life. He was strict in fasting, he was chaste, spending his nights at prayer, and spiritually preparing himself to suffer for Christ.

 In the year 1239 a horde of Tatars [Mongols], already having laid waste to many Russian cities, appeared in the vicinity of Smolensk and set up camp 25 versts away at Dolgomost, threatening to destroy the city and its holy places.

A church warden, praying by night in the Smolensk cathedral before a wonderworking icon of the Theotokos, heard the voice of the Queen of Heaven commanding him to find the holy warrior and say to him: "Mercurius, go forth into battle, for the Sovereign Lady summons you."
The soldier went himself to the cathedral and heard the voice of the All-Pure Virgin, sending him to fight the enemy and promising him heavenly assistance.

The warrior of Christ set off that very night to the Tatar camp at Dolgomost. He fought there with the leader of the Tatar army, a giant possessed of immense strength. He killed him and entered into single-combat with the enemy host. Invoking the name of the Lord and of the All-Pure Theotokos, the holy warrior destroyed many of the enemy.
The Tatar warriors watched with terror as lightning-bearing men and a radiant Woman aided St Mercurius in the fight.
Unable to stand against the warrior of Christ, they retreated in flight. St Mercurius was himself killed in the battle by the son of the Tatar giant he had killed.

The inhabitants of Smolensk, saved through the miraculous intervention of the Lord and the Most Holy Theotokos, reverently buried the body of the soldier-martyr in the cathedral of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos. Soon after his death, St Mercurius appeared in a vision to the church warden and ordered that his armor be hung over his grave, promising the Smolensk people constant help and intervention in every sorrow and struggle.
Even today the sandals of the holy Martyr Mercurius are still preserved in the Smolensk cathedral church.
His Feast was established at the end of the sixteenth century, and in 1509 the inhabitants of Smolensk were already calling him their special patron.
1562 Saint Simon of Soiga belonged to the Komel disciples of St Sergius of Radonezh
He was born at Solvychegodsk, and was tonsured at the Komel monastery under St Cornelius (May 19). He passed through his obediences with such ascetics and disciples of Cornelius of Komel as Gennadius of Liubimsk (January 23), Cyril of New Lake (February 4), Herodion of Iloezersk (September 28), Adrian of Poshekhonsk (March 5), Laurence of Komel (May 16).

After the death of his mentor St Cornelius, St Simon was, for a certain time, the companion of St Longinus (February 10), the founder of the Koryazhemsk monastery, and went with him to dwell in the wilderness. After this he settled at the River Soiga, 60 versts from Koryazhma. There he established a church in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord, consecrated on May 17, 1541. After founding a monastery by this church, the saint was chosen igumen by the brethren.

St Simon died on November 24, 1562 and was buried in the monastery he founded, in the church dedicated to the holy Great Martyr Catherine, whose Feast is also observed on November 24.
1591 St John Of The Cross- Doctor Of The Church

At twenty-one he took the religious habit among the Carmelite friars at Medina, receiving the name of John-of-St-Matthias. After his profession he asked for and was granted permission to follow the original Carmelite rule, without the mitigations approved by various popes and then accepted in all the friaries. It was John’s desire to be a lay brother, but this was refused him. He had given satisfaction in his course of theological studies, and in 1567 he was promoted to the priesthood. The graces, which he received from the holy Mysteries, gave him a desire of greater retirement, for which purpose he deliberated with himself about entering the order of the Carthusians. Miracles

Sancti Joánnis a Cruce Presbyteri, Confessóris et Ecclesiásticæ Doctóris, sanctæ Terésiæ in Carmelitárum reformatióne sócii, cujus dies natális décimo nono Kaléndas Januárii recensétur.
    St. John of the Cross, priest and confessor, and doctor of the Church, companion of St. Teresa in the reform of Carmel, and whose birthday is the 14th of December.
Gonzalo De Yepes belonged to a good Toledan family, but having married “beneath him” he was disinherited and had to earn his living as a silk-weaver. On his death his wife, Catherine Alvarez, was left destitute with three children, of whom John, born at Fontiveros in Old Castile 1542, was the youngest. He went to a poor-school at Medina del Campo and was then apprenticed to a weaver, but he showed no aptitude for the trade and was taken on as a servant by the governor of the hospital at Medina.

He stopped there for seven years, already practising bodily austerities, and continuing his studies in the college of the Jesuits. At twenty-one he took the religious habit among the Carmelite friars at Medina, receiving the name of John-of-St-Matthias. After his profession he asked for and was granted permission to follow the original Carmelite rule, without the mitigations approved by various popes and then accepted in all the friaries. It was John’s desire to be a lay brother, but this was refused him. He had given satisfaction in his course of theological studies, and in 1567 he was promoted to the priesthood. The graces, which he received from the holy Mysteries, gave him a desire of greater retirement, for which purpose he deliberated with himself about entering the order of the Carthusians.

St Teresa was then establishing her reformation of the Carmelites and, coming to Medina del Campo, heard of Brother John. Whereupon she desired to see him, admired his spirit, and told him that God had called him to sanctify himself in the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel; that she had received authority from the prior general to found two reformed houses of men and that he himself should be the first instrument of so great a work.

    Soon after the first monastery of discalced (i.e. barefooted) Carmelite friars was established in a small and dilapidated house at Duruelo. St John entered this new Bethlehem in a perfect spirit of sacrifice, and two others, who renewed their profession on Advent Sunday, 1568, St John taking the new religious name of John-of-the-Cross, joined about two months after. It was a prophetic choice. The fame of the sanctity of this obscure house spread, and St Teresa soon established a second at Pastrana, a third at Mancera, whither she translated that from Duruelo, and in 1570 a fourth, at Alcalá, a college of the university, of which John was made rector.

   His example inspired the religious with a perfect spirit of solitude, humility and mortification, but Almighty God, to purify his heart from all natural weaknesses and attachments, made him pass through the most severe interior and exterior trials.

St John, after tasting the first joys of contemplation, found himself deprived of all sensible devotion. This spiritual dryness was followed by interior trouble of mind, scruples and a disrelish of spiritual exercises, and, while the Devil assaulted him with violent temptations, men persecuted him by calumnies. The most terrible of all these pains was that of scrupulosity and interior desolation, which he describes in his book called The Dark Night of the Soul. This again was succeeded by another more grievous trial of spiritual darkness, accompanied with interior pain and temptations in which God seemed to have forsaken him. But in the calm, which followed this terrible tempest, he was wonderfully repaid with divine love and new light. On one occasion an unrestrained young woman of considerable attraction subjected St John to a barefaced attempt. Instead of the burning brand that St Thomas Aquinas used on a like occasion, John used gentle words to persuade her of the error of her ways. By like means but in other circumstances he got the better of another lady, whose temper was so fierce that she was known as Robert the Devil.

 In 1571 St Teresa undertook, under obedience, the office of prioress of the unreformed convent of the Incarnation at Avila, and she sent for St John to be its spiritual director and confessor. “He is doing great things here”, she wrote to her sister, and to Philip II. “The people take him for a saint in my opinion he is one, and has been all his life”. He was sought out by seculars as well as religi­ous, and God confirmed his ministry by evident miracles.
But grave troubles were arising between the Discalced and the Mitigated Carmelites.
  The old friars looked on this reformation, though undertaken with the licence and approbation of the prior general given to St Teresa, as a rebellion against their order. On the other hand, some of the Discalced were tactless and exceeded their powers and rights. Moreover, the prior general, the general chapter and the papal nuncios pursued confusing and contradictory policies respectively. At length, in 1577, the provincial of Castile ordered St John to return to his original friary at Medina. He refused, on the ground that he held his office from the papal nuncio and not from the order. Whereupon armed men were sent, who broke open his door and carried him off. Knowing the veneration people at Avila had for him, they removed him to Toledo, where he was pressed to abandon the reform. When he refused he was locked up in a small cell that had practically no light, and treated in a way that shows only too clearly how little, nearly sixteen hundred years after the Incarnation, the spirit of Jesus Christ had penetrated into the hearts of many who claimed His name.

St John’s cell measured some ten feet by six, and the one window was so small and high up that he had to stand on a stool by it to see to read his office. He was bloodily beaten—he bore the marks to his dying day—publicly in chapter, by order of Jerome Tostado, vicar general of the Carmelites in Spain and a Consultor of the Inquisition. St John’s were all those sufferings described in St Teresa’s “Sixth Mansion”—insults, slanders, physical pain, agony of soul and temptation to give in. But, “Do not be surprised”, he said in after years, “if I show a great love of suffering; God gave me a high idea of its value when I was in prison at Toledo”. And his immediate answer was his earliest poems, a voice crying in the wilderness:

Ah! I Where art thou gone hiding
My Love, and leavest me alone with moaning
Fleet as the deer thou fleddest
When thou hadst me sore stricken,
And thou art gone. I follow thee with outcry.

In the intolerable atmosphere of the cell, stinking in the summer heat, the prior Maldonato visited Brother John on the eve of the Assumption, stirring him up with his foot as he lay prostrate. John apologized for the weakness that did not allow him to get up more promptly when his superior entered.
“You were very absorbed,” said Maldonato,” What were you thinking about?”
I was thinking,” replied John, “that it is our Lady’s feast tomorrow, and what a happiness it would be to say Mass.”
“Not in my time,” retorted the prior.

On the night of the feast-day the Mother of God appeared to her suffering servant. “Be patient, my son,” she seemed to say, “Your trials will soon be over,” A few days later she appeared again, and showed him in vision a window overlooking the river Tagus. “You will go out that way”, she said, “and I will help you.” And so it happened, nine months after his imprisonment began, that John had his opportunity when he was allowed a few minutes exercise. He walked through the building, looking for that window; he recognized it, and went back to his cell. He had already begun to loosen the screws of the door lock that night he broke if off and, though two visiting friars were sleeping close by the window, he let himself down from it on a rope of twisted coverlets and clothes. The rope was too short, he fell down the ramparts to the river bank, picked himself up unhurt, and followed a dog which jumped into an adjoining courtyard. And so he got away, with attendant circumstances that on the face of it appear miraculous.* {*Prescinding from the methods used, it should be borne in mind that juridically opponents of St John had a case. There was a conflict of jurisdiction, but from their point of view Friar John came within the provision in Bd John Soreth’s constitutions concerning rebels, fugitives and the like.}

John made his way to the reformed friary of Beas de Segura and then to the near-by hermitage of Monte Calvario. In 1579 he became head of the college at Baeza, and in 1581 he was chosen prior of Los Martires, near Granada.

   Though the male founder and spiritual leader of the Discalced friars he took little part during these years, when their continued existence hung in the balance, in negotiations and events which led up to the establishment of a separate province for the Discalced in 1580. Instead he began those writings which have made him  a doctor of the Church in mystical theology. In his teaching he was a faithful follower of ancient tradition human life on earth is ordered to an end, which is the perfection of charity and transformation in God, by love. Contemplation is not an end in itself, it does not stop at understanding, but it is for love and for union with God by love, and ultimately involves the experience itself of that union towards which everything is ordered. “There is no better or more necessary work than love”, he says. “We have been created for love.” “God uses nothing but love.” “As love is the union of the Father with the Son, so it is of the human soul with God.”

It is by love that contemplation is attained, and since this love is produced by faith—which alone can bridge the gulf between our understanding and the infinity of God—it is a living and lived faith that is the principle of mystical experience. Such traditional doctrine St John was never wearied of inculcating in his own lofty way and burning words; but that he was at the same time a characteristic son of his age and country a glance at his own design for a “crucifixion” (now preserved in the Carmelite convent at Avila) at once shows. Sometimes the austerities, which he practised, seemed to exceed bounds; he only slept two or three hours in a night, employing the rest in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Three things he frequently asked of God that he might not pass one day of his life without suffering something, that he might not die in office, and that he might end his life in humiliation and contempt.
   His confidence in God earned miraculous supplies for his monasteries, which firm confidence in divine providence he called the patrimony of the poor. He was frequently so absorbed in God that he was obliged to do violence to himself to treat of temporal affairs. This love appeared in a certain brightness, which was seen in his countenance on many occasions, especially when he came from the altar. His heart seemed a fire of love that could not be contained within his breast, but showed itself by these exterior marks. By experience in spiritual things and an extraordinary light of the Holy Ghost he had the gift of discerning spirits, and could not be easily imposed upon in what came from God.

After the death of St Teresa in 1582 a disagreement within the ranks of the Discalced friars themselves became more pronounced, St John favouring the moderate policy of the prior provincial, Father Jerome Gracián, against the extremist Father Nicholas Doria, who aimed at separating the Discalced completely from the old stock. After Father Nicholas himself became provincial, the chapter made St John vicar for Andalusia and he applied himself to the correction of certain abuses, especially those arising from the necessity of religious going out of their monasteries for the purpose of preaching. It was his opinion that their vocation and life was primarily contemplative. Thus opposition was raised against him. He founded more friaries, and on the expiry of his term of office went as prior to Granada. The policy of Father Nicholas had so prospered that a chapter held at Madrid in 1588 received a brief from the Holy See authorizing a further separation of the Discalced Carmelites from the Mitigated. In spite of protests the venerable Father Jerome Gracián was deprived of all authority; Father Nicholas Doria was made vicar general; and the one province was divided into six, with a Consultor for each (St John himself was one) to help him in the government of the new congregation. This innovation caused grave discontent, especially among the nuns, and the Venerable Anne-of-Jesus, then prioress at Madrid, obtained from the Holy See a brief confirming their constitutions, without reference to the vicar general. The consequent troubles were eventually composed, but at a chapter held at Whitsun 1591, St John spoke in defence both of Father Jerome Gracián and of the nuns. Father Nicholas Doria had suspected him all along of being in league with them, and he now took the opportunity of reducing St John from all offices to the status of a simple friar and sending him to the remote friary of La Peñuela. Here he spent some months, passing his days in meditation and prayer among the mountains, “for I have less to confess when I am among these rocks than when I am among men.”
But there were those who would not leave St John alone even here. When visiting Seville as vicar provincial he had had occasion to restrict the preaching activities of two friars and to recall them to the observance of their rule. They submitted at the time, but the rebuke had rankled, and now one of them, Father Diego, who had become a Consultor of the congregation, went about over the whole province making inquiries about St John’s life and conduct, trumping up accusations, and boasting that he had sufficient proofs to have him expelled from the order. Many at that time forsook him, afraid of seeming to have any dealings with him, and burnt his letters lest they might be involved in his disgrace. St John in the midst of all this was taken ill, and the provincial ordered him to leave out-of-the-way Peñuela and gave him the choice to go either to Baeza or Ubeda. The first was a convenient convent and had for prior a friend of the saint. At the other Father Francis was prior, the other person whom he had corrected with Father Diego. St John chose this house of Ubeda. The fatigue of his journey made him worse; he suffered great pain, and submitted cheerfully to several operations. But the unworthy prior treated him with inhumanity, forbade any one to see him, changed the infirmarian because he served him with tenderness, and would not allow him any but the ordinary food, refusing him even what seculars sent in for him. This state of affairs was brought to the notice of the provincial who came to Ubeda, did all he could for the saint, and reprimanded Father Francis so sharply that he was brought to repentance for his malice. After suffering acutely for nearly three months, St John died on December 14, 1591, still under the cloud which the ambition of Father Nicholas and the revengefulness of Father Diego had raised against him in the congregation of which he was co-founder and whose life he had been the first to take up.

Immediately after his death there was an outburst of recognition on all hands, and clergy and laity flocked to his funeral. His body was removed to Segovia, the last house of which he had been prior. He was canonized in 1726. St John-of-the-Cross was not learned when compared with some learned doctors, but St Teresa saw in him a most pure soul to whom God had communicated great treasures of light and whose understanding was filled from on high. Her judgement is amply borne out by his writings, principally the poems and their accompanying commentaries, the Ascent of Mount Cannel, the Dark Night of the Soul, the Living Flame of Love and a Spiritual Canticle; and its rightness was superlatively recognized by the Church when, in 1926, he was proclaimed a doctor of the Church for his mystical works. St John’s doctrine was one of ever more suffering and complete abandonment of the soul to God, and that made him harsh and hard to himself; but to others he could be kind, gentle, and forbearing, nor did he pass by or fear material things “Natural things”, he said, “are always lovely; they are the crumbs that fall from God’s table”. He lived the complete renunciation which he preached so powerfully, but, unlike so many lesser ones, he was “free as the spirit of God is free” not tending to reiterated negation and emptiness but positive and full with the fullness of divine love, God and the soul in substantial communion. He united in himself the ecstatic light of the Divine Wisdom with the shattering folly of the despised Christ.
   

Whoever wishes to arrive at an understanding of the facts, which so long impeded an adequate setting out of the history of St John-of-the-Cross, may be recommended to read the Postscript with which Father Benedict Zimmerman has enriched the translation of Father Bruno’s St Jean de la Croix (1932). The depositions taken in view of the beatification of the saint still exist at Rome in manuscript. The lives published in the first half of the seventeenth century, notably those by Joseph Quiroga and Jerome-of-St-Joseph, together with Reforma de los Descalzos, vol. i and ii, written by Francis- of- St- Mary tell us a great deal, but leave many points obscure. Besides these we have St Teresa’s correspondence and spiritual works, as well as the records of the Carmelites, and even state-papers and diplomatic despatches, for the administration of Philip XI was greatly interested in all that affected the reform of the religious orders. The most authoritative edition of the writings of St John himself in the original Spanish is that edited by Father Silverio (5 vols., 1929-31) Eng. trans. from this text by F. A. Peers (3 vol., new edn., 1953). David Lewis, revised by Fr B. Zimmerman, has also translated most of the works into English. Besides the excellent life by Father Bruno which has been based upon a very wide study of the sources, we have also an earlier life in English by D. Lewis (1897), that in Spanish by M. M. Garnica, San Juan de la Cruz (1875), and the shorter work of Mgr Demimuid, St Jean de la Croix (1916) in the collection “Les Saints”. See also J. Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix et le problème de l’expérience mystique (1931); and Father Wenceslaus, Fisonomia de un Doctor (1913); as well as a number of articles which since 1932 have appeared in Etudes Carmélitaines. See also FF. Crisogono and Lucinio, Vida y Obras de San Juan de la Cruz (1946); Father Gabriel, St John of the Cross (1946), an introduction to his works and doctrine F. A. Peers, St John of the Cross (essays; 1946) and the translations of the poems by Roy Campbell (1951) and by Peers (1948). The best popular introduction is perhaps Spirit of Flame (1943), also by Professor Peers. See also his Studies of the Spanish Mystics (2 vols. 1927-30), an important essay in his St Teresa of Jesus and Other Essays and Addresses (1953), examining the second edition (1950) the Spanish life of St John by Fr Crisogono Garrachón and A Handbook to the Life and Times of St Teresa and St John of the Cross (1954).
1823-1856 Blessed Martyrs of China and Cochin-China beatified in 1900 (AC)

Antony Quinh-Nam was born in 1768. He was a native catechist and physician of Cochin-China, who became attached to the Foreign Missions of Paris. He was imprisoned for the faith in 1838 and was strangled to death two years later.

Laurence Pe-Man was a laborer, who became a convert of Blessed Augustus Chapdelaine. He was beheaded in 1856 after being tortured at Su-Lik-Hien in the province of Kwang-Si.

Blessed Peter Dumoulin was born at Cors, diocese of Tulle, France, in 1808, and entered the seminary for Foreign Missions of Paris in 1829, being sent to Tonkin after his ordination in 1832. In 1836 he was arrested. While in prison he was appointed titular bishop and vicar apostolic of western Tonkin. Bishop Dumoulin was beheaded in 1838.

Blessed Peter Choa and Vincent Diem were Tonkinese priests. They were strangled at Dong-Hoi in 1838 (Benedictines).
1823 Bl. Thaddeus Lieu Chinse martyr native
he was ordained a priest and served in the Chinese missions until his arrest by anti-Christian authorities. He was strangled in prison after two years of incarceration and terrible torment.
1856 Bl. Lawrence PeMan China  Martyr disciple of Blessed Augustine Chapdelaine.
 He was beheaded, and in 1900 was beatified.
1838 St. Vincent Diem martyr Vietnamese
 who was martyred at Tonkin with his companions by beheading.
1840 St. Anthony Nam-Quynh Vietnamese martyr physician.
serving as well as a catechist for the faith. In 1838, he was arrested and kept in prison for two years, then strangled. He was canonized in 1988.
1838 St. Peter Domoulin Bori Peter Khoa Vincent Diem  Vietnam martyrs
Peter Domoulin Bori was originally from France, and joined the Foreign Missions of Paris in 1829. He was assigned to Vietnam in 1832 after his ordination. Arrested in 1836, he was imprisoned and was appointed a titular bishop and vicar apostolic while incarcerated. He was beheaded, and two native priests who shared his imprisonment, Peter Khoa and Vincent Diem, were strangled. All three were canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1988.
1862 Dominican Martyrs by King Tu-Duc in Central Tonkin Vietnam 1856-1862
Christians who died in the persecution conducted by King Tu-Duc in Central Tonkin, Vietnam. Five martyrs were beatified in 1906. The following were canonized in 1988: Joseph Diaz Sanjurjo, Meichior Garcia Sampedro, Dominic Ninh, Laurence Ngon, Dominic An-Kham, Luke Cai-Thin, Joseph Cai-Ta, Dominic Mao, Vincent Tuong, Dominic Nguyen, Andrew Tuoung Dominic Nhi, Peter Da, Joseph Tuan, Peter Dung, Peter Tuan, Vincent Duong, Dominic Mau, Dominic Toai, Dominic Huyen, Joseph Tuan, Dominic Cam, Thomas Khuong, Paul Duong and Joseph Tuc. Some were or­dained priests and others Dominican tertiarie
St. Andrew Dun-Lac
Through the missionary efforts of various religious families beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing until 1866, the Vietnamese people heard the message of the gospel, and many accepted it despite persecution and even death. On June 19, 1988, Pope John Paul II canonized 117 persons martyred in the eighteenth century. Among these were ninety-six Vietnamese, eleven missionaries born in Spain and belonging to the Order of Preachers, and ten French missionaries belonging to the Paris Foreign Mission Society.
Among these saints are eight Spanish and French bishops, fifty priests (thirteen European and thirty-seven Vietnamese), and fifty-nine lay people. These martyrs gave their lives not only for the Church but for their country as well. They showed that they wanted the gospel of Christ to take root in their people and contribute to the good of their homeland.
On June 1, 1989, these holy martyrs were inscribed in the liturgical calendar of the Universal Church on November 24th.

St. Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions St. Andrew was one of 117 martyrs who met death in Vietnam between 1820 and 1862. Members of this group were beatified on four different occasions between 1900 and 1951. Now all have been canonized by Pope John Paul II.

Christianity came to Vietnam (then three separate kingdoms) through the Portuguese. Jesuits opened the first permanent mission at Da Nang in 1615. They ministered to Japanese Catholics who had been driven from Japan.
The king of one of the kingdoms banned all foreign missionaries and tried to make all Vietnamese apostatize by trampling on a crucifix. Like the priest-holes in Ireland during English persecution, many hiding places were offered in homes of the faithful.
Severe persecutions were again launched three times in the 19th century. During the six decades after 1820, between 100,000 and 300,000 Catholics were killed or subjected to great hardship. Foreign missionaries martyred in the first wave included priests of the Parish Mission Society, and Spanish Dominican priests and tertiaries.
Persecution broke out again in 1847 when the emperor suspected foreign missionaries and Vietnamese Christians of sympathizing with the rebellion of one of his sons. The last of the martyrs were 17 laypersons, one of them a 9-year-old, executed in 1862. That year a treaty with France guaranteed religious freedom to Catholics, but it did not stop all persecution.
By 1954 there were over a million and a half Catholics—about seven percent of the population—in the north. Buddhists represented about 60 percent. Persistent persecution forced some 670,000 Catholics to abandon lands, homes and possessions and flee to the south. In 1964, there were still 833,000 Catholics in the north, but many were in prison. In the south, Catholics were enjoying the first decade of religious freedom in centuries, their numbers swelled by refugees.
During the Vietnamese war, Catholics again suffered in the north, and again moved to the south in great numbers. Now the whole country is under Communist rule.
Comment:  It may help a people who associate Vietnam only with a recent war to realize that the cross has long been a part of the lives of the people of that country. Even as we ask again the unanswered questions about United States involvement and disengagement, the faith rooted in Vietnam's soil proves hardier than the forces which would destroy it.
Quote: “The Church in Vietnam is alive and vigorous, blessed with strong and faithful bishops, dedicated religious, and courageous and committed laypeople.... The Church in Vietnam is living out the gospel in a difficult and complex situation with remarkable persistence and strength” (statement of three U.S. archbishops returning from Vietnam in January 1989).
Martyrs of Vietnam Several groups of martyrs called the Martyrs of Annam who were slain for the faith in Vietnam from 1798 until 1861.

Between 1798 and 1853, sixty-four were martyred, receiving beatification in 1900. Those who died in a second group, between 1859 and 1861, were beatified in 1909. There were twenty-eight courageous men and women who died for the faith during a long period of persecution.
A Portuguese missionary arrived in Vietnam, once called Annam, Indo-China, Cochin-China, and Tonkin, in 1533. An imperial edict in Vietnam forbade Christianity, and it was not until 1615 that the Jesuits were able to establish a permanent mission there, in the central region of the country. In 1627, a Jesuit went north to establish another mission. By the time this missionary, Father Alexander de Rhodes, was expelled from the land in 1630, he had baptized 6,700 Vietnamese. In that same year the first Christian martyr was beheaded, and more were executed in 1644 and 1645 . Father Rhodes returned to Vietnam but was banished again in 1645. He then went to Paris, France, where the Paris Seminary for Foreign Missions was founded. Priests arrived in Vietnam, and the faith grew. Between 1798 and 1853, a period of intense political rivalry and civil wars, sixty-four known Christians were executed. These were beatified in 1900. In 1833, all Christians were ordered to renounce the faith, and to trample crucifixes underfoot. That edict started a persecution of great intensity that was to last for half a century. Some twenty-eight martyrs from this era were beatified in 1909. The bishop, priests, and Europeans were given “a hundred wounds,” disemboweled, beaten, and slain in many other grisly fashions. For a brief period in 1841 the persecution abated as France threatened to intervene with warships. However, in 1848, prices were placed on the heads of the missionaries by a new emperor. Two priests, Father Augustin Schoffier and Father Bonnard, were beheaded as a re­sult. In 1855, the persecution raged, and the following year wholesale massacres began. Thousands of Vietnamese Christians were martyred, as well as four bish­ops and twenty-eight Dominicans. It is estimated that between 1857 and 1862, 115 native priests, 100 Vietnamese nuns, and more than 5,000 of the faithful were martyred. Convents, churches, and schools were razed, and as many as 40,000 Catholics were dispossessed of their lands and exiled from their own regions to starve in wilderness areas. The martyrdoms ended with the Peace of 1862, brought about by the surrendering of Saigon and other regions to France and the payment of indemnities to France and Spain. It is now reported that the “Great Massacre,” the name given to the persecution of the Church in Vietnam, resulted in the following estimated deaths:

Eastern Vietnam - fifteen priests, 60 cathechists, 250 nuns, 24,000 Catholic lay men and women. Southern Vietnam - ten priests, 8,585 Catholic men and women. Southern Tonkin region - eight French missionaries, one native priest, 63 cathechists, and 400 more Christians slain - in all, an estimated 4,799 were martyred and 1,181 died of starvation. Some 10,000 Catholics were forced to flee the area. Pope John Paul II canonized 117 Martyrs of Vietnam on June 19,1988. 


THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 215

To thee, O Lady, have I lifted up my soul: in the judgment of God, by the help of thy prayers, I shall not be ashamed.

Let not my adversaries make game of me: for those who trust in thee are strengthened.

Let not the snares of death prevail against me: and the camps of the malignant not hinder my steps.

Crush their violence in thy might: and with mildness meet my soul.

Be my guide unto my fatherland: and deign to join me to thy angelic hosts.

For thy spirit is kind: thy grace fills the whole world.

Thunder, ye heavens, from above, and give praise to her: glorify her, ye earth, with all the dwellers therein.

 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 heaven:  only 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 html  Indulgences 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 2000)  Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
  Links to Related MarianWebsites  Angels and Archangels  Saints Visions of Heaven and Hell
Widowed Saints  html
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Of_The_Apostles  Roman Catholic Popes  Purgatory  Uniates  Chalcedon
Mary the Mother of Jesus Miracles_BC  Lay Saints  Miraculous_Icons  Miraculous_Medal_Novena Patron Saints
Miracles by Century 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000    1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800  1900 2000
Miracles 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000  
 1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800   1900 Lay Saints

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 Indulgences  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 Paqualina 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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