September 8 – Nativity of the Virgin Mary –
    Friday Saints of this Day September  08  Séptimo Idus Septémbris 

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.
September is the month of Our Lady of Sorrows since 1857
2023
22,013  Lives Saved Since 2007

Goods of the earth: use them wisely and in accord with justice and Solidarity
Government's of all nations:  fight disease and epidemics in the third world
Liberality in alms moves God to be liberal to us in the dispensations of his spiritual graces
Who hardens his heart to injuries and wants of others, shuts against himself heavens' treasury


 Pope Francis  PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR September  2023

For people living on the margins
We pray for those persons living on the margins of society, in inhumane life conditions; may they not be overlooked by institutions and never considered of lesser importance.

September 8 – Nativity of the Virgin Mary –
Our Lady of the Kneeling Woman (France, 1550) 


The highest human holiness is recognized and venerated by the Church
 The liturgical year comprises three cycles:
Sundays, the feasts of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the celebrations of the saints.
The first great feast of the cycle of the saints is that of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary,
Mother of Jesus Christ, celebrated on September 8th each year.

This feast is very old. It was celebrated very early in Constantinople and Jerusalem, but really took shape in Rome in the 7th century.
During this celebration, the faithful are placed in the presence of the highest recognized human holiness venerated by the Church: that of the Virgin Mary. The texts read and the prayers sung on this occasion aptly illuminate the meaning of the veneration that the Church has for Our Blessed Mother Mary.  www.eglise.catholique.fr
 
Natívitas beatíssimæ semper Vírginis Genitrícis Dei Maríæ.
The Nativity of the most Blessed and ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God.
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!)
September 8 - Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
 - Our Lady of the Kneeler (France, 1550)
Our Lady of the Kneeler
One Sunday, September 8th in around 1550, Louise Estivalle was on her way to mass in Azay-on-Thouet, France. She was the lady of the manor of Poupelinière and Leon de Lusivert’s widow, remarried to Mr. Darrot in 1548. On her way, she met a beggar who asked her for some bread. She took pity on him, returned in haste to the castle to collect the necessary food, which she gladly gave to the beggar. Her errand had delayed her and she rushed off without further ado.
When she was still two miles from the church, she heard the sound of the bells-it was already the time of the elevation.
She knelt down piously and as she stood up she “saw the Virgin in a dim light” holding Jesus’ inert body in her arms.

“Look towards the church, my daughter. You will see from here the celebration of the Holy Mystery,
as though you were actually present,”
 she heard the Blessed Virgin say. Louise looked up and “saw an illuminated altar and a priest raising the consecrated host”.
Later, Louise had a shrine built on the site of the apparition. Since the middle of the 16th century, believers have venerated the Virgin at this shine as “Our Lady of the Kneeler”.
 Miracle cures have been claimed and on September 11, 1908, Pius X granted a 300-day indulgence to all those who visited the shrine.
Still today, the feast day of September 8th attracts hundreds of believers.
    Excerpt from Father Laurentin’s Dictionnaire des Apparitions - Fayard 2006
Birth of Mary
         Sts. Timothy & Faustus martyrs
  362 Ss. Eusebius, Nestabus, Zeno And Nestor, Martyrs
         St. Adrian pagan officer patron of soldiers and butchers
         St. Hadrian, martyr, whose birthday is on the 4th of March.  His feast, however, is observed today, the day on which his holy body was translated to Rome.
         Ss. Ammon, Theophilus, Neoterius, and twenty-two others.
5th v. St. Kingsmark A Scottish chieftain, also called Cynfarch. He lived in Wales, where he is venerated.
  674 St Disibod zealous preacher and apostle, laboured hard to reform his flock, without success left Ireland in discouragement to missionary Germany; with 3  companions founded monastery valley of Nahe, near Bingen,
 701 St Sergius I, Pope; Sergius was an alumnus of the Roman schola cantorum, and he seems to have been actively concerned with the liturgy and its music  in particular, the Liber pontificalis states that he directed that the Agnus Dei "should be sung by clergy and people at the breaking of the Lord's body" at Mass, and he ordained that the Roman church should observe the four feasts of our Lady already kept at Constantinople, namely, her birthday, her purification, the Annunciation and her "falling alseep"... In the words of Alcuin, "a holy and most worthy successor of St Peter, second to none in piety".
  730 St. Corbinian "bear" A bishop ordained by Pope St. Gregory II
1071 St. Adela Benedictine noblewoman
1555 St. Thomas of Villanueva; Augustinian; his Birthday today; bishop from Fuentellana, Castile Spain; Many examples are recorded of St Thomas’s supernatural gifts, such as his power of healing the sick and of multiplying food, numerous miracles attributed to his intercession before and after his death; gentle and patient with sinners;  called in his lifetime “the pattern of bishops” “the almsgiver the father of the poor”,
1622 Bl. John Inamura Japanese martyr
1628 Bl. Anthony of St. Bonaventure Franciscan Spanish martyr of Japan
1628 Bl. Thomas of St. Hyacinth Japanese martyr native catechist
1628 Bl. Thomas Tomaki Japanese martyr young boy
1628 Bl. John Tomaki Japanese martyr and Dominican tertiary
1628 Bl. Dominic of Nagasaki Japanese martyr native
1628 St. James Fayashida, Blessed  Japanese martyr native
1628 Bl. Lawrence Jamada Martyr of Japan
1628 Bl. Leo Kombiogi Martyr of Japan Dominican tertiary
1628 Bl. Louis Nifaki Martyred Japanese Dominican tertiary
1628 St. Louis of Omura She Martyr of Japan
1628 St. Romanus Aybara Father of Blessed Paul Aybara and martyr
1628 Bl. Matthew Alvarez Japanese martyr native Dominican tertiary
1628 Bl. Michael Jamada Japan native martyr Dominican tertiary
1626 Bl. Michael Tomaki A thirteen-year-old Japan martyr
1628 St. Paul Aybara  Japanese martyr
1628 Bl. Paul Tomaki  young Japanese martyr
1654 St. Peter Claver, priest of the Society of Jesus and confessor; died this day; feast tomorrow
    In New Carthage in South America, St. Peter Claver, priest of the Society of Jesus and confessor.  He devoted more than forty years with wonderful mortification and exceeding charity to the service of the Negroes who had been enslaved, and with his own hand baptized in Christ almost three hundred thousand of them.  Pope Leo XIII added him to the list of the saints, and then declared him to be the special heavenly patron of all missions for the Negroes.
 
The French Still Love You Sept 08 - The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
On September 8, 1914, the feast of the Nativity of Mary, 23 year-old Marcelle Lanchon claimed to have had her first apparition of the Blessed Virgin,
in the Our Lady of the Armies Chapel, on the very same day that the Virgin also stopped the Germans on the Marne, at the gates of Paris.
The visionary, who later took the name of Marie-France when she became a consecrated virgin in the Pious Union of Worshippers of the Sacred Heart that she founded, transmitted a prayer for France:
"My Son, forgive the French, they still love you since they have never stopped loving me..."
She also gave a promise on behalf of the Virgin: "If, in union with my Divine Son, I like all the nations which he redeemed with his Blood, see how much I especially cherish your dear country... My Son wishes that you make images and statues representing me and call upon me by the name of Our Lady of France.
If someone answers this new desire of his Divine Heart, France will become particularly mine again.
I will take it forever under my maternal protection and my Son
will be happy to bestow abundant blessings on France."
Bishop Roland Gosselin, bishop of the dioceses, gave official approval of the Pious Union of Worshippers of the Sacred Heart and made it possible to print the image of "Mary Queen of France" as well as the prayer revealed during the apparitions, there was never a final canonical judgment on these facts which are a little forgotten today.
Taken from "Apparitions of Versailles"  Tequi 2005

September 8 - OUR LADY'S NATIVITY - OUR LADY OF THE HOLY CORD (Valenciennes, France) 
Our Lady of the Holy Cord Delivers the City of Valenciennes from the Plague (I)
At the beginning of the 11th century, this sudden disease--as contagious as it was merciless--ravaged Valenciennes, taking more than 8,000 victims in merely a few days. Fear reigned unchecked. Facing total decimation, so fierce was the plague, the people turned to heaven, calling the Most Blessed Virgin for help in their distress, for devotion to her had always been held in honor in that city.  At that time, a pious hermit named Bertholin lived in an oratory dedicated to the Virgin Mary, in a place called Fontenelles. Moved by compassion as he witnessed his neighbors's sufferings, Bertholin begged the Holy Mother of God to come to the rescue. Toward the end of August, the Mother of God appeared to him and said: "Go see my people in Valenciennes; announce to them that I have disarmed the hand of my Son.  The night preceding the feast of my nativity, my people will know that I have heard their cries of distress. My servants should go up on the town's ramparts, where they shall see wonderful things."
Soon after, as they crowded the fortification walls, 15,000 spectators suddenly saw the darkness dissipate and the night turn into a radiant day, while their amazed eyes contemplated a majestic queen, of entrancing beauty, surrounded by a great cortège of angels seemingly coming from the hermit's cottage and stopping above the chapel of the Neuf Bourg, which had been dedicated to the Mother of God by Charlemagne. She held a ball of scarlet cord in her hands. At a sign from their glorious queen, an angel respectfully took the end of the "celestial thread"
and, quickly flying around the city and its outskirts, he unraveled it and let the precious cord drop behind him.
Once he completed his circuit, the vision ended.
At the same moment, the contagion ceased, and those already affected were cured.

Mary's Divine Motherhood
Called in the Gospel "the Mother of Jesus," Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as "the Mother of my Lord" (Lk 1:43; Jn 2:1; 19:25; cf. Mt 13:55; et al.). In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "Mother of God" (Theotokos). Catechism of the Catholic Church 495, quoting Council of Ephesus (431): DS 251.
Mary the Mother of God
701 St Sergius I, Pope; Sergius was an alumnus of the Roman schola cantorum, and he seems to have been actively concerned with the liturgy and its music  in particular, the Liber pontificalis states that he directed that the Agnus Dei "should be sung by clergy and people at the breaking of the Lord's body" at Mass, and he ordained that the Roman church should observe the four feasts of our Lady already kept at Constantinople, namely, her birthday, her purification, the Annunciation and her "falling alseep"... In the words of Alcuin, "a holy and most worthy successor of St Peter, second to none in piety".
On Death and Life
"Man Needs Eternity -- and Every Other Hope, for Him, Is All Too Brief"
Пресвятая Богородице спаси нас!
   (Santíssima Mãe de Deus, salva-nos!)
 
CAUSES OF SAINTS April  2014

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

Acts of the Apostles

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

Birth of Mary

Birthday of The Blessed Virgin Mary
The birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary announced joy and the near approach of salvation to the lost world, and so this festival is celebrated by the Church with praise and thanksgiving. It was a mystery of holiness, distinguished by unique privileges. 
Mary was brought into the world unlike other children of Adam  not deprived of sanctifying grace and prone to sin, but pure, holy, beautiful and glorious, adorned with all the most precious graces becoming her who was chosen to he the Mother of God.
   Man was no sooner fallen in Paradise through the woman led away by Satan, than God promised another woman, whose seed should crush the serpent's head.  At the birth of the Virgin Mary the accomplishment of that promise was begun. 
To study the lessons in the life of Mary, to praise God for the graces conferred upon her and the blessings which through her He has bestowed on the world, and to recommend our necessities to so powerful an advocate, we celebrate festivals in her honour.   This of her birthday was kept first in the East. In the West we know for certain that Pope St Sergius (A.D. 687-701) ordered that four separate feasts of our Lady should be kept in Rome - the Annunciation, the Assumption, the Nativity and the "Hypapante" (i.e. the Purification). There is much probability in certain other parts of the West the Nativity was commemorated earlier.
   It is clearly entered in the Calendar of St Willibrord (c. 704), and the mention in the Auxerre Hieronyinianum (c. 6oo) is suggestive of a higher antiquity.  What strongly supports this view is the fact that a feast of the birthday of St John the Baptist was known in the time of St Augustine, probably as early as 401.  It was inevitable that when people realized that the beheading of the Baptist and his birth were honoured by two separate celebrations, the idea would suggest itself that the birth of the Mother of God ought to be similarly commemorated. Hence to the feast of her Assumption or Falling Asleep was added that of her Birthday. (Cf. the feasts of the conception of St John and of our Lady.)  The birthplace of our Lady is unknown. 
An ancient tradition favours Nazareth and this was accepted in the West but a parallel tradition named Jerusalem, and specifically the neighbourhood of the pool of Bethesda, where a crypt under the church of St Anne is now venerated as the spot where the Mother of God was herself born.
See G. Mona in the Revue bénédictine, vol. v (1888), pp. 257-264; vii (1890), pp. 260-270; and xix (1912), pp. 469-470.  See also K. A. Keliner, Heortology (1908), pp. 230-231 L. Duchesne, Christian Worship (1919), pp. 269-272; and on the birthplace, Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxii (1944), pp. 272-273.
The Church has celebrated Mary's birth since at least the sixth century. A September birth was chosen because the Eastern Church begins its Church year with September. The September 8 date helped determine the date for the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8 (nine months earlier).
Scripture does not give an account of Mary's birth. However, the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James fills in the gap. This work has no historical value, but it does reflect the development of Christian piety. According to this account, Anna and Joachim are infertile but pray for a child. They receive the promise of a child that will advance God's plan of salvation for the world. Such a story (like many biblical counterparts) stresses the special presence of God in Mary's life from the beginning.
    St. Augustine connects Mary's birth with Jesus' saving work. He tells the earth to rejoice and shine forth in the light of her birth. "She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley. Through her birth the nature inherited from our first parents is changed." The opening prayer at Mass speaks of the birth of Mary's Son as the dawn of our salvation and asks for an increase of peace.
Comment: We can see every human birth as a call for new hope in the world. The love of two human beings has joined with God in his creative work. The loving parents have shown hope in a world filled with travail. The new child has the potential to be a channel of God's love and peace to the world.  This is all true in a magnificent way in Mary. If Jesus is the perfect expression of God's love, Mary is the foreshadowing of that love. If Jesus has brought the fullness of salvation, Mary is its dawning.  Birthday celebrations bring happiness to the celebrant as well as to family and friends. Next to the birth of Jesus, Mary's birth offers the greatest possible happiness to the world. Each time we celebrate her birth we can confidently hope for an increase of peace in our hearts and in the world at large.
Quote: "Today the barren Anna claps her hands for joy, the earth radiates with light, kings sing their happiness, priests enjoy every blessing, the entire universe rejoices, for she who is queen and the Father's immaculate bride buds forth from the stem of Jesse" (adapted from Byzantine Daily Worship).
September 8, 2007  Birth of Mary
The Church has celebrated Mary's birth since at least the sixth century. A September birth was chosen because the Eastern Church begins its Church year with September. The September 8 date helped determine the date for the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8 (nine months earlier).

Scripture does not give an account of Mary's birth. However, the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James fills in the gap. This work has no historical value, but it does reflect the development of Christian piety. According to this account, Anna and Joachim are infertile but pray for a child. They receive the promise of a child that will advance God's plan of salvation for the world.
Such a story (like many biblical counterparts) stresses the special presence of God in Mary's life from the beginning.

St. Augustine connects Mary's birth with Jesus' saving work. He tells the earth to rejoice and shine forth in the light of her birth.
 "She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley. Through her birth the nature inherited from our first parents is changed."
The opening prayer at Mass speaks of the birth of Mary's Son as the dawn of our salvation and asks for an increase of peace.
362 Ss. Eusebius, Nestabus, Zeno And Nestor, Martyrs
Gazæ, in Palæstína, sanctórum Mártyrum fratrum Eusébii, Néstabi et Zenónis; qui, témpore Juliáni Apóstatæ, irruénte in eos turba Gentílium, discérpti atque necáti sunt.
    At Gaza in Palestine, in the time of Julian the Apostate, the holy martyrs Eusebius, Nestabus, and Zeno, brothers, who were torn to pieces by a multitude of pagans that rushed upon them.
Ibídem sancti Néstoris Mártyris, qui sub eódem Juliáno, ab iísdem Gentílibus furéntibus sævíssime cruciátus, emísit spíritum.
    In the same place, and under the same Julian, St. Nestor, martyr, who breathed his last after being most cruelly tortured by the same furious heathen.
In the reign of Julian the Apostate, Eusebius, Nestabus and Zeno, three Christian brothers who were said to have been concerned in the destruction of a heathen temple at Gaza, were carried to prison and scourged.  Afterwards the mob in the amphitheatre loudly demanded the punishment of the sacrilegious criminals.  It soon became a tumult, and the people worked themselves into such a ferment that they ran to the prison, which they forced open and, taking out the three brothers, began to drag them about, bruising them against the pavement, and striking them with sticks, stones, or anything that came to hand.   The very women, quitting their work, ran the points of their spindles into them, and the cooks took the kettles off the fire, poured scalding water upon them, and pierced them with their spits. After the martyrs were thus mangled and their skulls so broken that the ground was smeared with their brains, they were dragged out of the city to the place where dead beasts were thrown.  Here the people lighted a fire, burned the bodies, and mingled the bones that remained with those of the camels and asses, that it might not be easy for the Christians to distinguish them. 
But a certain woman came by night and was able to pick out some of their remains, which she conveyed to another Zeno, a relative of the martyrs, who had fled to Majuma.  He kept the relics carefully until, in the reign of Theodosius, he was made bishop; he then built a church and buried them therein.  With these three brothers there was taken a young man named Nestor, who suffered imprisonment and scourging as they had done. But as the rioters were dragging him through the street, some took compassion on him on account of his personal beauty and they left him lying outside the gate. 
He died of his wounds soon after in the house of Zeno, who afterwards buried his body with the others.
The whole of this story is based upon the church historian, Sozomen (bk v, ch. 9).  The relevant text with a commentary is given in the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iii.
Tortured during the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate, he was in such frightful condition at the time he was taken to the place of execution that the crowd demanded he be allowed to die at the roadside. Nestor died in the home of a Christian.
Sts. Timothy & Faustus martyrs executed in Antioch (modern Turkey), in some unknown year.
Antiochíæ sanctórum Timóthei et Fausti Mártyrum.    At Antioch, the Saints Timothy and Faustus, martyrs.
304 St. Adrian (Hadrian) patron of soldiers and butchers
Sancti Hadriáni Mártyris; cujus dies natális quarto Nonas Mártii recensétur, sed festívitas hac die, qua sacrum ejus corpus Romam translátum fuit, potíssime celebrátur.
    St. Hadrian, martyr, whose birthday is on the 4th of March.  His feast, however, is observed today, the day on which his holy body was translated to Rome.
 SS. ADRIAN AND NATALIA, MARTYRS
The acta of St Adrian in the romantic and written-up form in which we have them relate that he was a pagan officer at the imperial court at Nicomedia.  He was present at the scourging and ill-treatment of twenty-three Christians, and at the sight of their constancy in suffering Adrian moved to come forward and say, "Count me in with these men, for I also am a Christian".  He was at once arrested and imprisoned, and word was brought to his young wife Natalia, who was herself a Christian and to whom he had been married for only thirteen months.  She hurried to the prison and kissed the chains which bound her husband, saying, " You are blessed, Adrian, for you have found the riches which your father and mother did not leave to you, and which the wealthy themselves have need of in the day when neither father nor mother nor children nor friends nor earthly goods are of any avail ".  She recommended him to the care and instruction of his fellows, and then Adrian sent her home, promising to let her know how things went with him. When he knew that the time of his passion was at hand, Adrian bribed his gaoler to let him go and take leave of his wife.  When someone told her that he was approaching the house, Natalia jumped to the conclusion that he saved himself by apostasy and shut the door in his face.  He explained what had happened and that the other prisoners were hostages for his return, and then they embraced and kissed and Natalia returned with him to the prison. She stayed there a week, waiting on the confessors and dressing their wounds, till Adrian was brought before the emperor and refused to sacrifice. Then he was scourged and carried back to prison.
  Meanwhile other women had come to help look after the sufferers, and when the emperor heard it he forbade that they should be allowed.  Whereupon Natalia cropped her hair, put on male clothes, and bribed her way into the gaol like any other man and she asked Adrian that when he was in the glory of Heaven he should pray for her that she might live sinless in the world and soon follow him out of it. The martyrs were sentenced to have their limbs broken, and Natalia asked that her husband might suffer first and so be spared the trial of seeing the agony of the others. When he was dragged to the block she herself disposed his legs and arms thereon, and knelt by while the bones were crushed with blows; his feet and hands were cut off, and so he died. Natalia hid one of the severed hands in her clothes, and when the bodies of the martyrs were heaped up to be consumed with fire she had to he restrained from jumping in among them.
  A sudden storm of rain putting the fire out, the Christians of Nicomedia were able to gather together many relics of St Adrian and his companions, which were taken to Argyropolis, on the Bosphorus near Byzantium, and there buried. Some months after St Natalia decided to follow them, for she was being persecuted by an imperial official at Nicomedia who wanted to marry her. So she went aboard ship, taking her precious relic, the hand of Adrian ; and soon after arriving at Argyropolis she died in peace and was buried with the martyrs, among whom she is reckoned. The Roman Martyrology gives March 4 as the day of the death of St Adrian and December a of St Natalia, today being the anniversary of the alleged translation of their relics to Rome.  St Adrian was one of the great popular martyrs of the past, a patron of soldiers and butchers and invoked against plagues.
There is an Adrian, martyr at Nicomedia, mentioned on March 4, and the Roman Martyrology takes for granted his identity with the saint here spoken of.  Tillemont, it is true, was of this opinion but the Bollandists, who print the so-called acts both in Latin and Greek in their third volume for September, strongly urge that the two Nicomedian Adrians are different cf. too, the Roman Martyrology on August 26 and the Acta Sanctorum,
August, vol. v, pp. 808-811.  Both martyrs are alleged to have suffered at Nicornedia, and their remains are said to have been taken to Argyropolis  but Adrian, the husband of Natalia, is stated to have been put to death under Diocletian, the other under Licinius, and the rest of their stories is entirely different.  S. Salaville has discussed the matter very patiently in DHG., vol. i, cc. 608-611.  All that we can be sure of is that there was an early and very considerable cultus of an Adrian, martyr of Nicomedia, both in East and West.

According to legend Adrian was a pagan officer at the imperial court of Nicomedia. Impressed by the courage of a group of Christians who were being tortured, he declared himself a Christian and was imprisoned with them and suffered excruciating tortures before he was put to death. His young wife, Natalia, who was present at his death, comforted him in his agony, recovered one of his severed hands, and took it to Argyropolis near Constantinople, where she fled to escape the importunities of an imperial official of Nicomedia who wanted to marry her.
She died there peacefully on December 1. Adrian is the patron of soldiers and butchers.
St. Adrian of Nicomedia (St. Hadrian), 4 March, and with his wife Natalia on 26 August (and 8 September), and their thirty-three Companion Martyrs:
also called Saint Hadrian of Nicomedia, (in Latin: Sanctus Adrianus Nicomediae) was martyred at Nicomedia on March 4, 303 or 304 A. D.

Martyrs Adrian and Natalia were married in their youth for one year prior to their martyrdom, and lived in Nicomedia during the time of the emperor Galerius Maximian (305-311 AD). The emperor promised a reward to whoever would inform on Christians to bring them to trial. Then the denunciations began, and twenty-three Christians were captured in a cave near Nicomedia. They were tortured, urged to worship idols, and then brought before the Praetor, in order to record their names and responses.

Adrian, the head of the Praetorium (Herculian Guard), watched as these people suffered with such courage for their faith. Seeing how firmly and fearlessly they confessed Christ, asked, "What rewards do you expect from your God for your suffering?" The martyrs replied, "Such rewards as we are not able to describe, nor can your mind comprehend". St Adrian told the scribes, "Write my name down also, for I am a Christian and I die gladly for Christ God".

The scribes reported this to the emperor, who summoned St Adrian and asked, "Really, have you gone mad, that you want to die? Come, cross out your name from the list and offer sacrifice to the gods, asking their forgiveness". St Adrian answered, "I have not lost my mind, but rather have I found it". Maximian then ordered Adrian to be thrown into prison.

St Adrian’s wife, St Natalia, knowing that her husband was to suffer for Christ, rejoiced, since she herself was secretly a Christian. She hastened to the prison and encouraged her husband saying, "You are blessed, my lord, because you have believed in Christ. You have obtained a great treasure. Do not regret anything earthly, neither beauty, nor youth (Adrian was then 28 years of age), nor riches. Everything worldly is dust and ashes. Only faith and good deeds are pleasing to God".

On the pledge of the other martyrs, they released St Adrian from prison to tell his wife about the day of his execution. At first St Natalia thought that he had renounced Christ and thus had been set free and she did not want to let him into the house. The Saint persuaded his wife that he had not fled from martyrdom, but rather had come to give her the news of the day of his execution.

St Adrian was cruelly tortured. The emperor advised the Saint to have pity on himself and call on the gods, but the martyr answered, "Let your gods say what blessings they promise me, and then I shall worship them, but if they cannot do this, then why should I worship them?" St Natalia did not cease to encourage her husband. She asked him also to pray to God for her, that they would not force her into marriage with a pagan after his death.

The executioner ordered the hands and the legs of the Saints to be broken on the anvil. St Natalia, fearing that her husband would hesitate on seeing the sufferings of the other martyrs, asked the executioner to begin with him, and permit her to put his hands and legs on the anvil herself.

They wanted to burn the bodies of the Saints, but a storm arose and the fire went out. Many of the executioners even were struck by lightning. St Natalia took the hand of her husband and kept it at home. Soon an army commander asked the emperor's approval to wed St Natalia, who was both young and rich. However, she hid herself away in Byzantium. St Adrian appeared to her in a dream and said that she would soon be at rest in the Lord. The martyr, worn out by her former suffering, in fact soon fell asleep in the Lord.

St. Adrian is protector against the plague, and patron of old soldiers, arms dealers, butchers and communications phenomena. He was the chief military saint of Northern Europe for many ages, second only to St. George, and is much revered in Flanders, Germany and the north of France. He is usually represented armed, with an anvil in his hands or at his feet.
Alexandríæ sanctórum Mártyrum Ammónis, Theóphili, Neotérii et aliórum vigínti duórum.
    At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Ammon, Theophilus, Neoterius, and twenty-two others.
5th v. 475 St. Kingsmark A Scottish chieftain, also called Cynfarch. He lived in Wales, where he is venerated.
674 St Disibod zealous preacher and apostle, laboured hard to reform his flock, without success left Ireland in discouragement to missionary Germany; with 3 companions founded monastery in the valley of the Nahe, near Bingen,

He is said to have been an Irishman and a bishop in his own country.  He was a zealous preacher and apostle, and he laboured hard to reform his flock, but without success and about the middle of the seventh century he left Ireland in discouragement to be a missionary in Germany. With three companions he eventually founded a monastery on a bill in the valley of the Nahe, near Bingen, which became known from its founder as Disibodenberg or Diessenberg (Mans Disibodi), and from thence ministered and worked wonders among the surrounding inhabitants. During the twelfth century this monastery was rebuilt by Benedictine monks from the abbey of Hirschau, and in an adjoining building was a community of nuns presided over by St Hildegard.  After she had removed to the Rupertsberg, the abbot of Mount St Disibod asked her to write a life of the holy founder of his monastery, and this she did in 1170.  The contents of this Life of St Disibod were, like nearly everything St Hildegard wrote, attributed to revelation in her visions but most of the so-called biography is taken up with moral and scriptural disquisitions, and the few alleged facts about St Disibod are simply the traditions then current in his monastery and of very little worth.  There is, in fact, practically nothing known certainly about him.
See the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iii, where St Hildegard's mystical dissertation is reproduced. Falk has devoted an article to St Disibod in DerKatholik, of Mainz, vol. i (1880), pp. 541-547. Wattenhach declares that down to the eleventh century nothing was known of St Disibod but his name. He is mentioned neither in the Félire of Oengus nor the Martyrology of Tallaght, nor in the Roman Martyrology.
700 St. Disibod An Irish bishop
also called Disen or Disibode. Discouraged by his lack of success as a missionary in Ireland, he went to Germany, where he founded a monastery on a hill near Bingen, called Disibodenburg. St. Hildegard of Bingen resided there in time.

St. Disibod
Irish bishop and patron of Disenberg (Disibodenberg), born c. 619; died 8 July, 700. His life was written in 1170 by St. Hildegarde, from her visions. St. Disibod journeyed to the Continent about the year 653, and settled in the valley of the Nahe, not far from Bingen. His labours continued during the latter half of the seventh century, and, though he led the life of an anchorite, he had a numerous community, who built bee-hive cells, in the Irish fashion, on the eastern slopes of the mountain. Before his death he had the happiness of seeing a church erected, served by a colony of monks following the Rule of St. Columba, and he was elected abbot-bishop, the monastery being named Mount Disibod, subsequently Disenberg, in the Diocese of Mainz. Numerous miracles are recorded of the saint. Some authors are of the opinion that his death really took place on 8 Sept., whilst the date 8 July is that of the translation of his relics in the year 754, St. Boniface being present.
701 St Sergius I, Pope; Sergius was an alumnus of the Roman schola cantorum, and he seems to have been actively concerned with the liturgy and its music  in particular, the Liber pontificalis states that he directed that the Agnus Dei "should be sung by clergy and people at the breaking of the Lord's body" at Mass, and he ordained that the Roman church should observe the four feasts of our Lady already kept at Constantinople, namely, her birthday, her purification, the Annunciation and her "falling alseep"... In the words of Alcuin, "a holy and most worthy successor of St Peter, second to none in piety".
Romæ sancti Sérgii Primi, Papæ et Confessóris.
      At Rome, St. Sergius I, pope and confessor.
During the long last illness of Pope Conon his archdeacon, Paschal, offered a big bribe to the imperial exarch John to secure his own succession to the papal chair. When Conon died in 687 the exarch accordingly brought about Paschal's nomination by a faction, to whom a majority opposed the archpriest Theodore; whereupon both were set aside and the priest Sergius canonically elected. John, who had come to Rome to look after his own interests, gave his approval to Sergius-but not until he received from him the sum of money which had been offered by Paschal. Here was no question of simony, but rather of extortion. Sergius had been freely elected and he paid only under strong protest.The man who became pope in such distressing circumstances was a Syrian, son of an Antiochene merchant, brought up in Palermo.
The earlier years of his pontificate were disturbed by troubles arising out of the Council in Trullo (Concllium Quinisextum), which was convened at Constantinople to supplement the acts of the fifth and sixth oecumenical councils by drawing up some canons of discipline.  Over two hundred bishops were present, all orientals except one, and they enacted 102 canons, some of which were inspired by a certain hostility to and defiance of the West. The mischief of this gathering was that it professed to legislate, not for the East alone, but for the whole Church; when the emperor, Justinian II, in 693 sent its acts for the pope to approve for the Western church, Sergius refused to sign them. So the emperor sent the commandant of his bodyguard, one Zachary, to fetch the recalcitrant pontiff to Constantinople. Sergius appealed to the exarch, and the citizens of Rome, reinforced by troops from Ravenna, gathered in force and made a violent demonstration. Zachary was terrified, fled to Sergius for protection, and hid in the pope's bed.  Sergius went out to pacify the people (not, we may suspect, without some quiet feeling of amusement), but they would not disperse until the gallant soldier from Constantinople had been taken from his refuge and escorted from the city. Doubtless this affair would have had serious consequences for Sergius, but Justinian II was deposed soon after. Nor does it appear that any Roman pontiff has done much more about the canons of Quinisextum than tacitly to approve them for the Eastern church.
It was during this pontificate that there arrived in Rome the king of the West Saxons, Caedwalla, who had "quitted his crown for the sake of the Lord and His everlasting kingdom", as has been narrated herein under April 20. St Sergius baptized him on the vigil of Easter in 689.
The pope had other contacts with England, and in 695 he consecrated the Northumbrian St Willibrord bishop and gave every encouragement to his mission in Friesland. St Sergius received a deputation of monks from St Ceolfrid, to whom he granted confirmation of the privileges of their abbey of Wearmouth and Jarrow, and in 701 the pope wrote to Ceolfrid asking him to send "that religious servant of God, Bede, a priest of your monastery" to Rome, as he was in need of the advice of learned men. Sergius promised that Bede should be returned as soon as the business was done, but it is certain he did not go, for St Bede himself tells us that he never left his monastery.
Sergius was an alumnus of the Roman schola cantorum, and he seems to have been actively concerned with the liturgy and its music  in particular, the Liber pontificalis states that he directed that the Agnus Dei "should be sung by clergy and people at the breaking of the Lord's body" at Mass, and he ordained that the Roman church should observe the four feasts of our Lady already kept at Constantinople, namely, her birthday, her purification, the Annunciation and her "falling alseep".
The personal character of St Sergius I can be judged only by his public acts and the tradition of the Church, wherein he appears, in the words of Alcuin, "a holy and most worthy successor of St Peter, second to none in piety". He died in the year 701, and was buried in St Peter's.
An entry "Sergii Papae Romae" under September 7 in the first hand of the Calendar of St Willibrord serves as a terminus a quo from which to date that document. It also proves that the cultus must have begun immediately after the pope's death. The Liber Pontificalis, with Duchesne's notes, and the letters calendared in Jaffe' are of primary importance as sources; but Sergius belongs to ecclesiastical history. See, however, the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iii Grisar, Geschichte Roms und der Papste and especially Mgr Mann, Lives of the Popes, vol. i, part 2, pp. 77-104.
730 St. Corbinian "bear" A bishop ordained by Pope St. Gregory II
Frisíngæ sancti Corbiniáni, qui fuit primus ejúsdem civitátis Epíscopus.  Hic, a sancto Gregório Secúndo Pontífice ordinátus et ad prædicándum Evangélium missus, úberes fructus in Gállia et Germánia rétulit, ac demum, virtútibus et miráculis clarus, in pace quiévit.
    At Freisingen, St. Corbinian, first bishop of that city.  Being consecrated by Pope Gregory II and sent to preach the Gospel, he reaped abundant fruits in France and Germany, and finally rested in peace, renowned for virtues and miracles.
725 St Corbinian, Bishop
This early apostle of Bavaria was born at Châtres, near Melun, in France.   He was baptized Waldegiso after his father, but his mother afterwards changed his name to Corbinian, after herself.
   He lived as a recluse for fourteen years in a cell which he built near a chapel in the same place.  The fame of his sanctity, which was increased by the occurrence of several miracles and the prudence of the advice which he gave in spiritual matters, made his name famous, and he admitted several persons to form themselves into a religious community under his discipline.  The distraction which this gave him made him think of seeking some new place where he might live in obscurity, and he determined to go to Rome. While crossing the Brenner occurred the legendary incident which gave the saint his emblem of a bear. A bear attacked and killed Corbinian's pack-horse, so he ordered his servant to put the leading-rein and pack on the bear.  Which was done, and they proceeded, and with the tamed bear arrived at Rome.  But not before a certain lord at Trent had stolen the saint's best horse, and another at Pavia stolen his second best.  Retribution soon overtook both these thieves, for the one died and the other lost forty-two of his own horses from elephantiasis.
  Pope St. Gregory II sent Corbinian, who may already have been a bishop, to preach in Bavaria, where he put himself under the protection of Duke Grimoald. After having much increased the number of the Christians, he fixed his headquarters at Freising, in Upper Bavaria, which, howeyer, did not become a regular episcopal see till St Boniface made it such in 739.
  St Corbinian discovered his patron Grimoald, though a Christian, defied discipline of the Church by marrying his brother's widow, Biltrudis.  Corbinian refused to have anything to do with the duke until they separated.  But the lady Biltrudis was not at all satisfied and pursued Corbinian with persecution in the hope that he would allow her to be reinstated; she abused him as a foreign interloper, specifically, a British bishop -which of course he wasn't. At length she even conspired to have him murdered. The saint took refuge at Meran, and remained in semi-exile until Grimoald (who had rejoined the lady) was killed in battle shortly after and Biltrudis was carried off by the Franks. He was then recalled by Grimoald's successor, and continued his missionary work throughout Bavaria.
Corbinian was buried at a monastery he founded at Obermais, at Meran, but his body was brought to Freising in 765 by Aribo, his second successor and biographer.
Ariho says that St Corbinian was a man easily aroused to anger, and a story in illustration is told concerning a woman of Freising who was reported to deal in black magic.  Meeting her one day in the street carrying some meat he asked what she was about, and was told that she was going to try and cure a sick man by her art. Corbinian jumped off his horse, gave the woman a sound thrashing with his own hands, and gave the meat away to the poor.
Of Corbinian we have an excellent medieval life by Arbeo or Aribo, who lived in the same century and was one of his successors at Freising. This biography was afterwards interpolated with legendary incidents, the episode of the bear, for example, being one of the additions. After editing the genuine text in the fourth and sixth volumes of MGH., Scriptores Merov., Bruno Krusch produced a very handy edition (1920) in usum scholarum. See also the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. ii.
An evangelist to Germany. Born in 670, Corbinian, a Frank, lived as a hermit for fourteen years. While going to Rome, he was sent by the pope to Friesling, in Bavaria, Germany, as a bishop. There he denounced the incestuous marriage of the local duke, Grimoald, to his brother’s widow. Grimoald persecuted him in return. The duchess tried to kill him, and he fled.
His symbol is the bear, because when a bear killed his pack horse, Corbinian made it carry his load.
1071 St. Adela Benedictine noblewoman
Adela was the wife of Count Baldwin IV of Flanders. When the count died, she entered the Benedictines, receiving the habit from Pope Alexander II. Retiring to the Benedictine convent near Ypres, Adela served as a nun until her death.
1555 St. Thomas of Villanueva Augustinian bishop from Fuentellana, Castile Spain; Many examples are recorded of St Thomas’s supernatural gifts, such as his power of healing the sick and of multiplying food, and numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession both before and after his death.
He was the son of a miller; studied at the University of Alcala, earned a licentiate in theology, and became a professor there at the age of twenty-six. He declined the chair of philosophy at the university of Salamanca and instead entered the Augustinian Canons in Salamanca in 1516. Ordained in 1520, he served as prior of several houses in Salamanca, Burgos, and Valladolid, as provincial of Andalusia and Castile, and then court chaplain to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (r. 1519-1556). During his time as provincial of Castile, he dispatched the first Augustinian missionaries to the New World. They subsequently helped evangelize the area of modern Mexico. He was offered but declined the see of Granada, but accepted appointment as archbishop of Valencia in 1544. As the see had been vacant for nearly a century, Thomas devoted much effort to restoring the spiritual and material life of the archdiocese. He was also deeply committed to the needs of the poor. He held the post of grand almoner of the poor, founded colleges for the children of new converts and the poor, organized priests for service among the Moors, and was renowned for his personal saintliness and austerities. While he did not attend the sessions of the Council of Trent, he was an ardent promoter of the Tridentine reforms throughout Spain.

ST THOMAS OF VILLANOVA, ARCHBISHOP OF VALENCIA (A.D. 1555)
ST THOMAS, a glory of the Church of Spain, born at Fuentellana in Castile in 1488, but received his surname from Villanueva de los Infantes, a town where he was brought up. His parents were also originally of Villanueva; the father was a miller; their state was not affluent, but solid, and their charitable disposition was the most valuable part of their son's inheritance. At sixteen he was sent to the University of Alcalá, and pursued studies there with success.  He became master of arts and licentiate in theology and, after ten years at Alcalá, was made professor of philosophy in that city, being then twenty-six. Among those who attended his lectures was the famous Dominic Soto.
  In 1516 Thomas joined the Augustinian friars at Salamanca, and his behaviour in the novitiate showed he had been long inured to austerities, to renouncing his own will, and to the exercise of contemplation. In 1518 he was promoted to priestly orders and employed in preaching and taught a course of divinity in his convent. His textbooks were Peter Lombard and Aquinas.  Students from the university soon sought permission to attend his lectures. He was exceptionally clear-headed, with a firm and solid judgement, but always had to cope with absent mindedness and a poor memory. He was afterwards prior in several places, and particularly solicitous for those friars who were sick.  He would often tell his religious that the infirmary was like the bush of Moses, where he who devotes himself to the sick will assuredly find God among the thorns with which he is surrounded.
  In 1533, while provincial of Castile, he sent the first band of Augustinians to the Americas, where they established their order as missionaries in Mexico. Thomas fell into frequent raptures at prayer, especially at Mass; and though he endeavoured to hide such graces he was not able to do it: his face after the holy Sacrifice shone, and as it were dazzled the eyes of those that beheld him.
Preaching once in the cathedral-church at Burgos, reproving the vices and ingratitude of sinners, he held in his hand a crucifix and cried out, "Christians, look here"-and he was not able to go on, being ravished in an ecstasy. Once while addressing a community at the clothing of a novice he was rapt and speechless for a quarter of an hour. When he recovered himself he said : "Brethren, I beg your pardon. I have a weak heart and I feel ashamed of being so often overcome on these occasions. I will try to repair my fault."
  Whilst St Thomas was performing visitation of his convents, he was nominated by the Emperor Charles V to the archhishopric of Granada, and commanded to go to Toledo. He obeyed; but undertook the journey with no other object than that of declining the dignity, in which he succeeded.  When, some years later, Don George of Austria resigned the archbishopric of Valencia, the emperor thought of not offering St Thomas this see because he knew how grievous a trial it would he to him. He therefore, it is said, ordered his secretary to draw up a letter of nomination in favour of a certain religious of the Order of St Jerome. Afterwards, finding that the secretary had put down the name of Brother Thomas of Villanova, he asked the reason. The secretary answered that he thought he had heard his name, but would rectify the mistake. "By no means", said Charles. "This has happened by a particular providence of God. Let us therefore follow His will." So he signed the appointment for St Thomas and it was forthwith sent to Valladolid, where he was prior. The saint used all means possible to excuse himself, but had to accept the appointment and was consecrated at Valladolid. Thomas set out very early next morning for Valencia. His mother, who had converted her house into a hospital for the use of the poor and sick, had asked him to take Villanueva on the way; but Thomas applied literally the words of the gospel, "a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife", and hastened direct to the see with which he was now wedded, convinced that his office obliged him to postpone all other considerations to that of going to the flock committed to his care (later on he spent a month's holiday with his mother at Liria).
  He travelled on foot in his monastic habit (which was very old) with the hat he had worn ever since his profession, accompanied by one religious and two servants. Upon his arrival at Valencia he retired to an Augustinian friary where he spent several days in penance and prayer to beg the grace of God by which he might be enabled worthily to acquit himself of his charge.
  He took possession of his cathedral on first day of year 1545 amidst rejoicings of the people. The chapter, in consideration of his poverty, made him a present of four thousand crowns towards furnishing his house, which he accepted in a humble manner and thanked them for their kindness, hut he immediately sent the money to the great hospital with an order to lay it out in repairing the house and for the use of the patients. He explained to the canons that "our Lord will be better served and glorified by your money being spent on the poor in the hospital, who need it so much, than if it had been used by me.
 What does a poor friar like myself want with furniture.

    It is often said that "Honours change manners", but St Thomas kept not only the same humility of heart but as much as possible the same exterior marks of contempt of himself. He even kept for some years the very habit which he brought from his monastery, which he sometimes mended himself as he had been wont to do. One of his canons, surprising him one day at this, said he wondered he could so employ his time which a tailor would save him for a trifle.
The archbishop replied that he was still a friar and that that trifle would feed some poor man.
 Ordinarily he wore such clothes that his canons and domestics were ashamed of him. When he was pressed by them to put himself into a dress suitable to his dignity his answer was, "Gentlemen, I am much obliged to you for the care you take of my person, but really I do not see how my dress as a religious interferes with my dignity as archbishop. You know well enough that my position and duties are quite independent of my clothes, and consist in taking care of the souls committed to me." The canons eventually induced him to cast away his cloth hat and wear one of silk. He used afterwards sometimes to show this hat and say merrily, "Behold my episcopal dignity. My masters the canons judged it necessary that I should wear this silk hat that I might be numbered among the archbishops."
  St Thomas discharged all the duties of a good pastor and visited the churches of his diocese, preaching everywhere in the towns and villages with zeal and affection. His sermons were followed by a wonderful change in the lives of men, so that one might say he was a new apostle or prophet raised by God to reform the people.  He assembled a provincial council (the first for many years) wherein with the help of his fellow bishops he made ordinances to abolish the abuses he had taken notice of in his visitation of his clergy.  To effect that of his own chapter cost him much difficulty and time. At all times he had recourse to the tabernacle to learn the will of God.  He often spent long hours in his oratory and, perceiving that his servants were unwilling to disturb him at his devotions when persons came to consult him, he gave them strict instructions that as soon as anyone asked for him they should immediately call him, without making the visitor wait.
  There came to St Thomas's door every day several hundred poor people, and each received an alms, which was ordinarily a meal with a cup of wine and a piece of money. He took destitute orphans under his particular care, and for the eleven years that he was archbishop not one poor maiden was married who was not helped by his charity. To his porters, to make them more keen in finding children that were exposed by their parents, he gave a crown for every foundling they brought him. When in 1550 pirates had plundered a coast town in his diocese the archbishop immediately sent four thousand ducats and cloth worth as much more to furnish the inhabitants with necessaries and to ransom the captives.
  Like many good men before and since, St Thomas was remonstrated with because a number of those whom he relieved were idle fellows who abused his kindness.
 "If", he replied, "there are vagabonds and work-shy people here it is for the governor and the prefect of police to deal with them: that is their duty. Mine is to assist and relieve those who come to my door."
  Nor was he only the support of the poor himself, but he encouraged the great lords and all that were rich to make their importance seen not in their luxury and display but by becoming the protectors of their vassals and by their liberality to the necessitous. He exhorted them to be richer in mercy and charity than they were in earthly possessions. "Answer me, sinner," he would say, "what can you purchase with your money better or more necessary than the redemption of your sins?" At other times: "If you desire that God should hear your prayers, hear the voice of the poor. If you desire that God should forestall your wants, prevent those of the indigent without waiting for them to ask you. Especially anticipate the necessities of those who are ashamed to beg; to make these ask an alms is to make them buy it."
     St Thomas was always averse from using the coercive weapons of the Church in bringing sinners to reason before methods of appeal and persuasion had beentried to the utmost. Of a theologian and canonist who objected to the archbishop’s delay in taking threatened strong measures to put down concubinage, he said
   "He is without doubt a good man, but one of those fervent ones mentioned by St Paul as having zeal without knowledge. Is the good man aware of the care and pains I have taken to correct those against whom he fulminates?...Let him inquire whether St Augustine and St John Chrysostom used anathemas and excommunication to stop the drunkenness and blasphemy which were so common among the people under their care. No! For they were too wise and prudent. They did not think it right to exchange a little good for a great evil by inconsiderately using their authority and so exciting the aversion of those whose good will they wanted to gain in order to influence them for good.”
   He invited a canon, in whom he had long tried in vain to procure an amendment of life, to come and stay in his own house under pretext of preparing to go on an errand to Rome for the archbishop. Part of the preparation was to consist of a good confession. At the end of one, of two, of three months, the business for Rome was still not ready and all the time the canon was having unobtrusively put before him the fruits and benefits of penance. At the end of six months he left the saint’s house a changed man, his friends all supposing he had just returned from Rome.
   Another priest of irregular life upon being rebuked abused St Thomas to his face and left his presence in a rage. “Do not stop him,” said the archbishop to his chaplains, “ it is my fault. My remonstrances were a little too rough.”
   St Thomas wished to extend the same sort of methods to the nuevos Cristianos or Moriscos, Moors who were converted to Christianity but whose conversion was often unreal or who lapsed into apostasy and so were brought under the brutal jurisdiction of the Spanish Inquisition. He was never able to achieve much for them in his large diocese, but he induced the emperor to provide a fund to support special priests for work among them and himself founded a college for the children of the newly converted.
   He also founded a college for poor scholars at his old university at Alcalá, and then, having scruples at having expended money outside his own diocese, he endowed another at Valencia. His material charity was equalled by his charity of judgement. Detraction he abhorred and he would always defend the cause of the absent. “Sir”, he would say, “you do not look at this from a right point of view. You are wrong, because he may have had a good intention. For myself, I believe that he had.”
   Many examples are recorded of St Thomas’s supernatural gifts, such as his power of healing the sick and of multiplying food, and numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession both before and after his death.
   It is not known for certain why St Thomas did not attend the Council of Trent.  He was represented there by the bishop of Huesca, and most of the Castilian bishops consulted with him before they left.
   He impressed on them that it was at least as necessary for the council to legislate for an internal reformation in the Church as against the Lutheran heresy, and made two interesting suggestions neither of which was in fact acted upon.
  One was that all benefices having the cure of souls should he filled by incumbents native of the place, so far as possible and providing they were well qualified, especially in rural districts.
  The other was that the ancient canon which forbade the translation of a bishop from one see to another should be re-enforced. The idea of the union of a bishop with his see as with a bride was always present to the saint, and he lived in perpetual concern for the proper discharge of his own episcopal duties. “I was never so much afraid”, he would say, “of being excluded from the number of the elect as since I have been a bishop.”
 Several times he petitioned for leave to resign, and God was pleased at length to hear his prayer by calling him to Himself. He was seized by angina pectoris in August. Having commanded all the money then in his possession to be distributed among the poor, he ordered all goods to be given to the rector of his college, except the bed on which he lay. He gave this bed to the gaoler for the use of prisoners, but borrowed it of him till such time as he should no longer require it.

 On September 8 the end was at hand. He ordered Mass to be offered in his presence, and after the consecration recited the psalm In te, Domine, speravi after the priest’s communion he said that verse, “Into thy hands, 0 Lord, I commend my spirit”, at which words he rendered his soul into the hands of God, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. He was buried, according to his desire, in the church of the Austin friars at Valencia and he was canonized in 1618. St Thomas of Villanova was called in his lifetime “the pattern of bishops” “the almsgiver the father of the poor”, and nothing can be more vehement or more tender than his exhortation to divine love. “Wonderful beneficence” he cries, “ God promises us Heaven for the recompense of His love. Is not His love itself the greatest reward, the most desirable, the most lovely, and the most sweet blessing Yet a further recompense, and so immense a recompense, waits upon it. Wonderful goodness. I Thou givest thy love, and for this thy love thou bestowest on us Paradise.”
In setting out history of St Thomas of Villanova (Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. v) Bollandists translated the Spanish life by Miguel Salon, a contemporary who, after a first biography published 1588, utilized materials furnished by the canonization processes to produce a more complete work in 1620. They also printed the memoir by his friend and fellow Augustinian, Bishop Juan de Mufiatones. This had been prefixed to an edition of St Thomas of Villanova’s sermons, etc., which Munatones edited in 1581. Some other sources, including a summary of the depositions in the Valencia and Castile processes, were also available, and these are used in the Bollandist prolegomena and annotations. The whole is supplemented by a notice of the saint’s relics and miracles. Not much fresh biographical material seems to have added to our knowledge since the Bollandists published their account in 1755. There is a brief sketch by Quevedo y Villegas, which was translated into English through a French channel for the Oratorian series in 1847. There is also a German life by Poes! (1860), and one in French by Dabert (1878). The writings of St Thomas of Villanova, however, have been collected and more carefully edited, and some translated into other languages.
1622 Bl. John Inamura Japanese martyr.
who died at Nagasaki with Blessed John Tomaki for refusing to deny the Christian faith. They were beatified in 1867.
1628 St. Paul Aybara  Japanese martyr
A convert to Catholicism, he became a Dominican tertiary and a catechist. He was beheaded by Japanese authorities at Nagasaki with Blessed John Tomaki and St. Paul Tomaki. 
1628 Bl. Thomas Tomaki Japanese martyr young boy  
he was beheaded with his father, Blessed John Tomaki, and three brothers.
1628 Bl. Thomas of St. Hyacinth Japanese martyr native catechist
he assisted the Dominican mission in Japan until his arrest by authorities. He was burned alive with Blessed Dominic Castellet and other companions.
1628 Bl. Anthony of St. Bonaventure Franciscan Spanish martyr of Japan.
Anthony was born in 1588 in Tuy, Galicia, Spain, and was educated in Salamanca. After entering the Franciscan Order, he was sent to the Philippines and ordained in Manila. After ordination, Anthony was sent to Japan, where he brought almost three thousand lapsed Catholics back to the Church before he was arrested. Anthony was burned alive in Nagasaki.
1628 Bl. Dominic of Nagasaki Japanese martyr native
Arrested, this Japanese received the Franciscan habit from Blessed Anthony of St. Bonaventure in the prison of Omura, Japan. He was burned alive at Nagasaki. Dominic was beatified in 1867.
1628 St. James Fayashida, Blessed  Japanese martyr native.
he became a Christian and entered the Dominicans as a tertiary. He was beheaded at Nagasaki.
1628 Bl. John Tomaki Japanese martyr and Dominican tertiary.
He was the father of four sons, also martyred at Nagasaki.
1628 Bl. Lawrence Jamada Martyr of Japan.
He was the son of Blessed Michael Jamada and a Dominican tertiary. Lawrence was beheaded at Nagasaki, Japan, and beatified in 1867.
1628 Bl. Leo Kombiogi Martyr of Japan Dominican tertiary.
he was beheaded at Nagasaki, Japan. Leo was beatified in 1867.
1628 Bl. Louis Nifaki Martyred Japanese Dominican tertiary.
Arrested for sheltering missionaries. Louis was beheaded at Nagasaki, Japan, with his sons, Francis and Dominic. He was beatified in 1867.
1628 St. Louis of Omura She Martyr of Japan.  
She was a Japanese who was arrested for being a Christian. Louise was martyred at Omura, Japan.
1628 St. Romanus Aybara Father of Blessed Paul Aybara and martyr.
A Japanese layman and Dominican tertiary, he was beheaded at Nagasaki. He was beatified in 1867.
1628 Bl. Matthew Alvarez Japanese martyr native Dominican tertiary.
he was beheaded at Nagasaki in the anti-Christian persecutions. He was beatified in 1867.
1628 Bl. Michael Jamada Japan native martyr Dominican tertiary of Japan.
Michael converted and became an outstanding Catholic. He was arrested for aiding foreign missionaries and was beheaded at Nagasaki. Pope Pius IX beatified him in 1867.
1626 Bl. Michael Tomaki A thirteen-year-old Japan martyr.
He was beheaded at Nagasaki with his father, Blessed John Tomaki, and his three brothers. Michael was beatified in 1867.
1628 Bl. Paul Tomaki  young Japanese martyr.
Paul was the son of Blessed John Tomaki. With his father, three brothers, and St. Paul Aybara, he was beheaded at Nagasaki. He was beatified in 1867.
1654 St. Peter Claver, priest of the Society of Jesus and confessor; died this day.
    In New Carthage in South America, St. Peter Claver, priest of the Society of Jesus and confessor.  He devoted more than forty years with wonderful mortification and exceeding charity to the service of the Negroes who had been enslaved, and with his own hand baptized in Christ almost three hundred thousand of them.  Pope Leo XIII added him to the list of the saints, and then declared him to be the special heavenly patron of all missions for the Negroes.
Carthágine nova, in Ameríca meridionáli, sancti Petri Claver, Sacerdótis e Societáte Jesu et Confessóris; qui mira sui abnegatióne et exímia caritáte Nigrítis in servitútem abdúctis, annos ámplius quadragínta, óperam impéndens, tercénta fere eórum míllia Christo sua ipse manu regenerávit; et a Leóne Décimo tértio, Pontífice Máximo, in Sanctórum númerum relátus est, ad dein étiam cæléstis Patrónus peculiáris sacrárum ad Nigrítas Missiónum constitútus et declarátus.


THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 59

Blessed are the undefiled in the way: who imitate the Mother of God.

Blessed are the imitators of her humility: blessed are the sharers in her charity.

Blessed are the searchers into her virtues: blessed are they who are conformed to her image.

Blessed are they who venerate her conception and her birth: blessed are they who devoutly serve her.

Blessed are they who have hope and confidence in her: blessed are they who receive through her eternal happiness.

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).
LINKS:
Marian Apparitions (over 2000)  India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes Feb 11- July 16, Loreto, Italy 1858 
China Marian shrines May 23, 1995 Zarvintisya Ukraine Lourdes Kenya national Marian shrine    Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798  
Links to Related Marian Websites  Angels and Archangels
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Apostles  Roman Catholic Popes  Purgatory  Uniates, 59 2023