1st v. St. Felix and Constantia Martyrs of Nocera Italy slain in the persecution conducted by Emperor Nero

Rufinus and Rufinian MM (RM)

Item sanctórum Mártyrum Rufíni et Rufiniáni fratrum. Also, the holy martyrs Rufinus and Rufinian, brothers.

Two brothers who were martyred at same time and place (Benedictines).

Saint Straton M (RM)
Eódem die pássio sancti Stratónis, qui pro Christo, ad duas árbores ligátus atque discérptus, martyrium consummávit.
On the same day, St. Strato, who ended his martyrdom for Christ by being tied to two trees and torn asunder.
Saint Straton was bound between to trees that were bent toward each other. When they were allowed to recoil, he was torn apart (Benedictines).

303 Dorotheus (Dorothea), Peter, and Gorgonius (Goroon) members of imperial court favorite eunuchs of Diocletian & body guard officials at Nicomedia M (RM)
Nicomedíæ pássio sanctórum Mártyrum Doróthei et Gorgónii, qui, cum essent apud Diocletiánum Augústum honóres amplíssimos consecúti, et persecutiónem, quam ille Christiánis inferébat, detestaréntur, præsénte eo, jussi sunt primo appéndi, et flagris toto córpore laniári; deínde, viscéribus pelle nudátis, acéto et sale perfúndi, sicque assári in cratícula; atque ad últimum, láqueo necári. Interjécto autem témpore, beáti Gorgónii corpus Romam delátus fuit, ac via Latína pósitum, et inde ad Basílicam sancti Petri translátum.
At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs Dorothy and Gorgonius. The greatest honours had been conferred on them by Emperor Diocletian, but as they detested the cruelty which he exercised against the Christians, they were by his order hung up in his presence and lacerated with whips. Then, having the skin torn off from their bodies and vinegar and salt poured over them, they were burned on a gridiron, and finally strangled. After some time the body of blessed Gorgonius was brought to Rome and deposited on the Latin Way. From there it was transferred to the basilica of St. Peter.

feast day formerly March 12 on which day it is still celebrated in the East.

The martyrdom of Saints Dorotheus, Peter, and Gorgonius was recorded by their contemporary Eusebius of Caesarea (History of the Church, viii, 6). They were members of the imperial court- -favorite eunuchs of Emperor Diocletian and officials of his body guard at Nicomedia. Dorotheus was the first chamberlain; the other two, under-chamberlains. They sacrificed their fine place to remain faithful to their baptismal promises.
When the palace at Nicomedia was set ablaze, perhaps at the instigation of Galerius, the Christians were unjustly blamed, including these three Christian men. They were cruelly tortured, and at length Gorgonius and Dorotheus were hanged. Peter, who had refused to sacrifice, was hung up naked in the air, and brutally whipped. When his flesh was so torn that the bones were exposed, the executioners poured salt and vinegar into his wounds. Then he was broiled on a gridiron, but he remained resolute, and died while still being tortured. Diocletian had the bodies cast into the sea, so that the Christians could not collect their relics (Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Husenbeth).

Hyacinth, Alexander, and Tiburtus martyred in the Sabine country MM (RM)
In Sabínis, trigésimo ab Urbe milliário, sanctórum Mártyrum Hyacínthi, Alexándri et Tibúrtii.
Among the Sabines, thirty miles from Rome, the holy martyrs Hyacinth, Alexander, and Tiburtius.
This trio of saints are said to have been martyred in the Sabine country, about 30 miles from Rome (Benedictines).

320 St. Severian An Armenian martyr
Sebáste, in Arménia, sancti Severiáni, qui, cum Licínii Imperatóris esset miles, et Quadragínta Mártyres in cárcere deténtos frequens visitáret, hinc, jussu Lysiæ Præsidis, saxo ad pedes ligáto suspénsus est, ac, verbéribus cæsus et flagris laniátus, in torméntis réddidit spíritum.
At Sebaste in Armenia, St. Severian, a soldier of Emperor Licinius. For frequently visiting the Forty Martyrs in prison, he was suspended in the air with a stone tied to his feet by order of the governor Lysias, and being scourged and torn with whips, yielded up his soul in the midst of his torments.
put to death under Emperor Licinius Licinianus. He was a senator who witnessed the martyrdom of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste and subsequently proclaimed his devotion to the Christian faith. Condemned for being a Christian, he was tortured to death by having iron rakes dragged across his body.

439 St. Isaac the Great Armenian monk 440 Saint Isaac (Sahak) I the Great B descendent of Saint Gregory the Illuminator son of Patriarch (Katholikos) Saint Nerses the Great of Armenia (AC) Born c. 350; died at Ashtishat, Armenia

439 ST ISAAC, OR SAHAK, I, KATHOLIKOS OF THE ARMENIANS
AT the end of the fourth century the state of matrimony was still not a bar to the episcopate in the Armenian church, and St Isaac was the son of the katholikos St Nerses I (though he was probably a widower when ordained). There were indeed families in which the episcopate was hereditary, and Isaac himself was the great-great-great-grandson of St Gregory the Enlightener; to abolish this abuse and do away with married bishops was to be part of Isaac’s work.
He studied at Constantinople, where he married. After the death of his wife he became a monk and devoted himself to learning. When Isaac was called to rule the Armenian church both it and the nation were in a very critical state. The two divisions of Armenia were nominally ruled by princes subject to their Byzantine and Persian masters. Some years previously the successor of St Nerses I had repudiated the dependence of his church on Caesarea, of which St Basil was at that time the metropolitan, and the Armenians were in consequence regarded as being more or less in schism. Though St Isaac found a small pro-Caesarean party he disregarded it, and got himself recognized at Constantinople as primate of the Armenian church, which would appear to be an appeal to the imperial power as against the rights of his true patriarch at Antioch. This bold move no doubt was partly due to Persian pressure, but it ushered in a period of some ecclesiastical progress, which was joined with the beginning of the golden age of Armenian letters. His father Nerses had begun the reform of his church by bringing it more into line with Byzantine custom and law, and Isaac completed this work. Byzantine canon law was strictly enforced, which meant the end of married bishops, and Isaac was in fact the last of the house of St Gregory the Enlightener to rule over the church which is sometimes called after him “Gregorian”.

Monasticism began to flourish, schools and hospitals were established, and churches destroyed by the Persians rebuilt. Isaac had to contend on the one hand with the influence of Persian paganism and on the other with those Christians who resented the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline.

When Theodosius II came to the throne of Constantinople in the year 408 he adopted the policy of promoting Greek influence throughout Armenia by encouraging the diffusion of Christianity, and he gave invaluable support to the undertakings of St Isaac who, faced with Greek ambitions in the small Byzantine part of his territory and the absolute forbiddance of Greek language and culture in all the rest of it, made this disparity a unity by taking elements from both Byzantine and Syrian sources and giving them an Armenian dress. For this purpose it was necessary to provide an Armenian alphabet, which was done by St Mesrop. The first literary work undertaken was a translation of the Bible.

The Armenian version of the Old Testament is valuable for biblical scholars, and several of the translations of other books are of importance because the originals are now lost; by the time of Isaac’s death the Armenians already had the works of Greek and Syrian doctors in their own tongue, and the beginnings of a native literature had been made. He also contributed to the formation of the national liturgy from that of Caesarea, now represented by the Byzantine “St Basil”.

In the year 428 the Persians drove out the Armenian tributary prince, and Isaac, whose leaning towards Christian Byzantium was notorious, was driven into retirement in the western corner of the country. There is a story that the Emperor Theodosius told his general Anatolius to build the city of Theodosiopolis (Karin, Erzerum) to shelter the fugitive bishop, but that city has a much older origin and had already been renamed in honour of the emperor thirteen years before. After some years he was invited to return to his see, but did not at once do so, appointing a vicar in his stead. Upon his death Isaac resumed the government, but he was now very old and could not for that reason attend the Council of Ephesus, whose acts he accepted in 435. He seems to have retained the first Armenian ecclesiastical centre at Ashtishat as his see, in which place he died at the age of about ninety-two. He is named in the great intercession of the Armenian Mass, and is called “the Great”.

The principal sources are Moses of Rhoren, Lazarus of Pharp and other chronicles which may be consulted in Langlois, Collection des historiens de l’Arménie, vol. ii. Among modern books Sahak is frequently referred to both in F. Tournebize, Histoire politique et religieuse de l’Arménie (1901) and in S. Weber, Die Katholische Kirche in Armenien (1903). See also F. C. Conybeare, “The Armenian Canons of St Sahak”, in the American Journal of Theology, 1898, pp. 828—848.

Saint Isaac, descendent of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, was the son of Patriarch (Katholikos) Saint Nerses the Great of Armenia. After studying in Constantinople, he married. Upon the death of his wife, he became a monk. In 390, he was consecrated patriarch of Armenia.
He secured metropolitan rights for the Armenian Church from Constantinople in order to end its long dependence upon the Church of Caesarea in Cappadocia. In all practical terms, Isaac was both the spiritual and civil ruler of the country. He ended the practice of married bishops, enforced Byzantine canon law, fought Persian paganism, built churches and schools, and encouraged the growth of monasticism.
He supported Saint Mesrop in the creation of an Armenian orthographic system and helped him to translate a large portion of the Bible into Armenian.
Isaac also supported the translation of the Greek and Syrian doctors into the vernacular and initiated the creation of a national liturgy. His efforts can be said to have launched Armenian literature. Saint Isaac's opposition to Nestorianism and his contacts with the imperial court at Constantinople led to his being forced into retirement in 428, when the Persians invaded part of his territory. He returned to the cathedra at Ashtishat when he was very old. Isaac is considered the founder of the Armenia Church (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, White).
He was the son of Catholicos St. Nerses I of Armenia. He studied at Constantinople, married, and on the early death of his wife became a monk. He was appointed Catholicos of Armenia in 390 and secured from Constantinople recognition of the metropolitan rights of the Armenian Church, thus terminating its long dependence on the Church of Caesarea in Cappodocia.
He at once began to reform the Armenian Church. He ended the practice of married bishops, enforced Byzantine canon law, encouraged monasticism, built churches and schools, and fought Persian paganism.
He supported St. Mesrop in his creation of an Armenian alphabet, helped to promote the translation of the Bible and the works of the Greek and Syrian doctors into Armenian, and was responsible for establishing a national liturgy and the beginnings of Armenian literature. He was driven into retirement in 428 when the Persians conquered part of his territory but returned at an advanced age to rule again from his See at Ashtishat, where he died in the year 439. He was the founder of the Armenian Church and is sometimes called Sahak in Armenia.

556 Saint Ciaran of Clonmacnoise 1/12 Apostles of Ireland his holiness spread abroad: miraculous events
In monastério Cluanénsi, in Hibérnia, sancti Queráni, Presbyteri et Abbátis.
In the monastery of Clonmacnoise in Ireland, St. Kiaran, priest and abbot.
(the Younger, Cluain Mocca Nois), Abbot (AC) (also known as Kieran, Kyran, Ceran, Queran)
Born in Connacht, Ireland, c. 516; died at Clonmacnoise, c. 556. Saint Ciaran is one of the 12 Apostles of Ireland.
Born into a Meath family of pre-Celtic descent, Saint Ciaran was the son of the carpenter Beoit. As a boy he left home with a dun cow for company in order to be trained for the monastic life in Saint Finnian's monastery at Clonard. At Clonard he taught the daughter of the king of Cuala because he was considered the most learned monk in the abbey.

556 St Kieran, Or Ciaran, Abbot Of Clonmacnois
Kieran of Clonmacnois, sometimes called “the Younger” to distinguish him from St Kieran of Saighir, was born in Roscommon or Westmeath. His father Beoit was a cartwright, but he is also called a carpenter, like the ostensible father of our Lord. Kieran was said to have died at the age of thirty-three (though he was probably older) and other parallels to the life of Christ can be found in his legends. It has been suggested that these were unconscious inventions on the part of simple people impressed by the holiness of Kieran’s character. His mother was named Darerca and belonged to the tribe of the Glasraige, granddaughter of a bard called Glas, and both families may have been of pre-Celtic blood. Owing to oppression by his chieftain, Beoit fled from Antrim into Connacht, and there Kieran was born, one of seven children.

Several fabulous incidents are told of his boyhood, as that he revivified a dead horse, changed water into honey, and played a practical joke on his mother. She was dyeing and turned him out of the house, “for it was thought unbecoming that males should be in the house when garments were being dyed”.[* Ingenious explanations and suggestions have been made about this statement. But need it be anything more than the gloss of a monastic writer who did not realize that hard-worked housewives don’t want boys messing around when they are busy?] Kieran was annoyed, and “May there be a dun stripe on them”, he exclaimed. The clothes came out of the blue dye with a dun stripe accordingly, and they were put in again. This tine they came out white. But at the third dyeing Kieran had recovered his temper, and the dye was so blue that not only the clothes but also dogs, cats and trees that it came into contact with were turned blue.

Kieran had some teaching from the deacon Uis at Fuerty, and when he was about fifteen he asked his parents to give him a cow for his support, that he might go to the school of St Finnian at Clonard. Darerca refused, so he blessed one of the cows and she followed him for the rest of his life, the Dun Cow of Kieran.

At Clonard he was one of those twelve holy ones afterwards known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland (see St Finnian, December 12) and at this time was the greatest among them, for whereas the others had to grind their own corn every day, angels would come and grind it for Kieran. St Finnian esteemed him above the rest, so that all the others except Colmcille were jealous of him, and ‘when the daughter of the king of Cuala was sent to learn to read, her instruction was confided to St Kieran. So indifferent was he to her person that it was said that he saw nothing but her feet.

When the time came for St Kieran to leave Clonard, Finnian wanted to give up his place to him, but the young disciple refused. “Leave not your monastery for any save God only”, he said, “seeing He has favoured you above us all.” Then he departed and made his way to the Arans, where St Enda still ruled on Inishmore. Here he lived for seven years, and became so skilful at threshing and winnowing that not a grain of corn could be seen in the chaff-heaps. Then one day Enda and Kieran saw a vision of a great tree growing beside a river in the middle of Ireland, whose branches overhung the sea, laden with fruit which the birds pecked. And Enda said:
“That tree is yourself, for you are great before God and man and Ireland shall be full of your honour. It shall be protected under your shadow and many shall be satisfied with the grace of your fasting and your prayer. Go, therefore, at the word of God to the shore of the stream and found a church there.”
Then Kieran arose and left Aran and came to Scattery Island, where he visited St Senan who gave him a new cloak, a kindness which Kieran afterwards repaid by floating another cloak down the Shannon to Senan. Afterwards he proceeded on his journey towards the middle of Ireland and came to a place called Isel where he stayed in a monastery for a time, but had to leave because the monks complained that his excessive generosity left them nothing. He followed a stag, which led him to Lough Ree, above Athlone, where he went across to Inis Aingin (Hare Island) and lived in the monastery there. His holiness and the number of his disciples excited the envy of a priest, called Daniel and said to be a Briton, who tried to get him expelled, but Kieran won him over by the gift of a golden cup, as a token of his good will. At last he set out on his journey again, having eight companions.

He was urged to settle at a beautiful place called Ard Manntain, but he refused, saying, “If we live here we shall have much of the riches of the world, and few souls will go from us to Heaven”. But when they came to the grassy ridge of Ard Tiprat, on the west bank of the Shannon in Offaly, Kieran said: “We will stay here, for there shall be many souls going to Heaven from this place, and God and man shall visit it for ever.” To Diarmaid MacCerrbeoil was promised the high-kingship of Ireland, and together with St Kieran he planted on his land the first post of the monastery that was to be famous as Clonmacnois. One account says that as they were about to plant the post a wizard, who feared for his authority, said, “This is not a good hour for beginning, for the sign of the hour is contrary to the beginnings of building”. To which St Kieran made reply: “Wizard, I fix this post into the ground against your sign. I care nothing for the art of wizards, but do all my works in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ.”

The rest of the records of Kieran are anecdotes concerning his virtues and the miracles to which they gave rise; one of them, about that “boy of great wit but mischievous and wanton”, Crichidh of Cluain, has already been told in the life of St Kieran of Ossory (March 5). There is extant a “law” or monastic rule attributed to St Kieran the Younger which consists of moral and ascetical precepts of a very severe kind; it is probably not of his authorship but accurately represents the spirit that obtained in his and other early Irish monasteries, a spirit of austerity that has characterized Gaelic religion down to our own day. According to his lives, St Kieran lived to govern his monastery only seven months. When the time of his death was near he asked to be carried out to the Little Hill. Then he looked up at the heavens and said, “Awful is this road upward.” “Not for you is it awful”, replied his monks. “Indeed, I do not know”, said he, “that I have transgressed any of the commandments of God, yet even David the son of Jesse and Paul the Apostle dreaded this way.” They made to take away a stone from under him for his greater comfort, but he stopped them. “Put it under my shoulders”, he said, ‘He that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.’”—Then angels filled the space between Heaven and earth to receive his soul.”

The account of the death of St Kieran is one of the few almost certainly authentic stories in his vitae, but is immediately followed by the statement that he came to life for the space of twenty-four hours to converse with St Kevin of Glendalough. Clonmacnois remained his living monument for many centuries, the chief school of Ireland and the burial place of princes. During the evil days of the ninth and tenth centuries its monks must often have called to mind the question put by their predecessors to their dying founder who had prophesied persecution. “What shall we do in that time? Is it by your relics we shall stay, or go elsewhere?” and his reply: “Arise and leave my bones as the bones of a deer are left in the sun. For it is better for you to live with me in Heaven than to stay here with my relics.” Under the form Queranus the name of St Kieran figures in the Roman Martyrology, and his feast is kept throughout Ireland.

Four short lives of St Kieran have been preserved to us, three in Latin and one in Irish. The first Latin life has been critically edited by C. Plummer in VSH. with occasional illustrations from the others ; the Irish life was made accessible by Whitley Stokes in his Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore. But translations of all these with much other matter may be found in the admirable little volume of R. A. S. Macalister, The Latin and Irish Lives of Ciaran (1921). See also the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iii ; J. Ryan, Irish Monasticism ; J. F. Kenney, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland, vol. i ; and L. Gougaud, Christianity in Celtic Lands (1932). For the cutting short of Kieran’s life, and his elegy on it, see Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxix (1951), pp. 102—106.

About 534, he migrated to Inishmore in the Aran Islands, where he spent seven years learning from Saint Enda and was ordained priest. He left after having a vision that Enda interpreted for him. Ciaran travelled slowly eastward, first Scattery Island where he learned from Saint Senan, then to Isel in the center of Ireland. He was forced to leave here because of his excessive charity and moved on to Inis Aingin (Hare Island).

He left there with eight companions and eventually settled at Clonmacnoise on the Shannon River south of Athlone in the West Meath, where he built Clonmacnoise monastery. He gave his monks an extremely austere rule, known as the Law of Kieran. The saint is said to have lived only seven months after founding the great school of Clonmacnoise, dying at the age of 34. Clonmacnoise may have been one of the most famous in Ireland, attracting students from throughout the country. When Pope John Paul II visited Ireland, it was the only school that he visited. The monastery survived many invasions and raids until 1552, and there are still many notable ruins remaining from its early days. Although Ciaran's shrine was plundered several times during the medieval period, the Clonmacnoise crozier remains in the National Museum in Dublin.

Various legends, some outlandish, are told of Ciaran. One relates that a fox's whelp would carry his lessons to Ciaran's master until it was old enough to eat the satchel containing the saint's writings. Another says that the other Irish saints were so jealous of him that they fasted and prayed that he might die young--hardly to be given any credit. (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Macalister, Montague).

The following stories derive from the Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae as translated by Plummer, which includes the moving account of his death:
The abbot Ciaran "was like a burning lamp, of charity so rare that not only did the fervor and devotion of his pitiful heart go out to the relieving of the hunger of men, but he showed himself tireless in caring for the dumb beasts in their necessity. . . ."
Ciaran left Saint Senan to live for a time with his brethren Luchen, abbot, and Odran, prior, at Isel Monastery, where he was appointed almoner. One day "Ciaran was reading out of doors in the graveyard in the sun, when he suddenly spied some weary travellers going into the guest house; and hurriedly getting up, he forgot his book, and it lay open out of doors until the morrow.

"Meantime, as he busied himself settling his guests in their quarters and bathing their feet and eagerly tending them, the night fell. In that same night there fell great rains; but by God's will the open book was found dry and sound; not a drop of rain had fallen upon it, and all the ground round about it was damp. For which Saint Ciaran and his brethren gave Christ praise...
"One day, when Saint Ciaran was working in the field, there came to him a poor man asking for alms. At that very hour a chariot with two horses had been brought in offering to Saint Ciaran by a certain lord, the son of Crimthann, King of Connaught; and these horses and chariot gave Ciaran to this poor man.
"Now Saint Ciaran's brothers could not endure the vastness of his charity, for every day he divided their substance among the poor, and so they said to him, 'Brother, depart from us; for we cannot live in the same place with thee and feed and keep our brethren for God, because of thy unbounded lavishness.' To whom Saint Ciaran made reply: 'If I had remained in this place, it would not have been Isel (that is, the low-lying): not low but high, but great and honorable.'
"And with that Saint Ciaran blessed his brothers, and taking his wallet with his books on his shoulder, he set out from thence. And when he had gone a little way from the place, there met him on the path a stag, awaiting him in all gentleness; and Saint Ciaran set his wallet on his back, and wherever the stag went, the blessed Ciaran followed him. And the stag came to Lough Ree, which is in the east of Connaught, and stood over against Hare Island, which is in the lake.
"Then Saint Ciaran knew that God had called him to that island; and blessing the stag, he sent him away, and went to that island and dwelt there. And the fame of his holiness spread abroad, and from far and near good men came together to him, and Saint Ciaran made them his monks...
"And one day as they rowed across, Saint Ciaran's gospel which a brother was holding carelessly fell into the lake, and for a great while it lay under the waters and was not found. But one summer day the cows came into the lake, to cool themselves in the water from the great heat of the sun; and when they were coming out from it, the leather wallet in which the Gospel had been put had caught about the foot of one of the cows, and so the cow dragged the wallet with her back to dry land; and inside the sodden leather the book of the Gospel was found, clean and dry and shining white, with no trace of damp, as if it had been hidden in a library. For which Saint Ciaran rejoiced, and his brethren with him...
"And after these things came a man of Munster...Donnan by name, to Saint, Ciaran dwelling on Hare Island. And to him one day Saint Ciaran said, 'What seek you, my father, in these parts?' And Saint Donnan replied, 'Master, I seek a place to abide in, where I may serve Christ in exile.'
"Then said Saint Ciaran, 'Abide, father, in this place; for I shall go to some other; I know that this is not the place of my resurrection.' Then Saint Ciaran gave Hare Island with his household goods to Saint Donnan, and came to a place called Ard Mantain on the River Shannon; but he would not dwell in that place, and said, 'I will not to dwell in this place, for here there will be a great plenty of the things of this world, and worldly delight; and heard would it be for the souls of my disciples to go to heaven, if I should live here, for the place belongs to the men of this world.'

"And thereafter Saint Ciaran left that place and came to the place which was called of old Ard Tiprat, but is now called Clonmacnoise. And coming to the place he said: 'Here shall I dwell; for many souls shall go forth from this place to the Kingdom of God; and in this place shall my resurrection be.' So there the blessed Ciaran lived with his disciples, and began to found a great monastery there; and many found all sides came to him, and his parish spread about him far; and the name of Saint Ciaran was famous throughout all Ireland. And a famous and holy city rose in that place to the honor of Saint Ciaran, and its name was Clonmacnoise...and in it whether they be kings or princes, the chiefs of the sons of Niall and of Connaught are buried beside Saint Ciaran there...
"So for one year did our most holy patron Saint Ciaran dwell in his city of Clonmacnoise. And when he knew that the day of his death was drawing nigh, he prophesied, weeping, of the future evils that would fall after his day upon that place; and said that their life would be a poor thing. Then said the brethren: 'Father, what shall we do in the day of these calamities? Shall we abide here beside thy relics? Or shall we seek another place?'
"To whom Saint Ciaran said: 'Haste ye to some other place of peace, and leave my relics as it might be the dry bones of a stag on the mountain. Better for you that your life should be with my spirit in heaven, than that ye should abide dishonored beside my bones upon earth.'
"And when the hour of his departing drew nigh he bade them carry him out of doors from the house, and gazing up at the sky said, 'Steep is that road; and it must needs be.' The brethren said to him, 'Father, we know that nothing is hard for thee: but for us feeble folk, there is sore dread in this hour.'
"And again brought back into the house he lifted up his hand and blessed his people and his clergy, and having received the sacrifice of the Lord, on the ninth day of September he gave up the ghost, in the thirty-third year of his age" (Plummer).
St. Kieran the Younger Abbot Clonmacnois
was born in Connacht, Ireland. He was the son of Beoit, a carpenter. He studied at St. Finnian's school at Clonard and taught the daughter of the king of Cuala, as he was considered the most learned monk at Clonard. Kieran spent seven years at Inishmore on Aran with St. Enda and then went to a monastery in the center of Ireland called Isel.
Forced to leave by the monks because of what they considered his excessive charity, he spent some time on Inis Aingin (Hare Island) and with eight companions, migrated to a spot on the bank of the Shannon river in Offaly, where he built a monastery that became the famous Clonmacnois, reknowned for centuries as the great center of Irish learning, and was its Abbot. Many extravagant miracles and tales are told of Kieran, who is one of the twelve apostles of Ireland.
He is often called St. Kieran the Younger to distinguish him from St. Kieran of Saighir.

650 St. Osmanna Benedictine nun originally from Ireland journeyed to Brittany where she lived as a hermitess.
also called Argariarga, she was originally from Ireland but journeyed to Brittany where she lived as a hermitess.
Osmanna (Argariarga) of Brieuc V (AC)
Saint Osmanna was descended from an illustrious Irish family. She migrated to Brittany in northern France to live as a consecrated virgin and served God with fervor in solitude until her death near Saint Brieuc. Until the Reformation, her relics were enshrined in a chapel under her patronage in the abbatial church of Saint Denys near Paris; but some of them were dispersed by the Calvinists in 1567 (Benedictines, Husenbeth).

670 St. Omer Benedictine bishop miracle worker

In territorio Tarvanénsi, in Gállia, sancti Audomári Epíscopi.
In the territory of Terouanne, St. Omer, bishop.

670 ST AUDOMARUS, OR OMER, BISHOP OF THÉR0UANNE

THE name of St Audomarus is more familiar to English readers in its French form of Omer, on account of the famous penal-times Jesuit college in the then episcopal city of Saint-Omer; a college which afterwards came into the hands of the secular clergy, over which Alban Butler presided for a time, and at which he died. The place of Omer’s birth was not far from Coutances. The thoughts of his parents were wholly taken up in him, and his education was their chief care. He made the most happy progress, and his father upon the death of his wife accompanied his son to the monastery of Luxeuil. St Eustace, who had succeeded St Columban, the founder, in the government of that house, received them kindly, and they made their religious profession together. The humility, obedience, devotion and purity of manners which shone forth in Omer distinguished him among his brethren even in that house of saints.
After some twenty years from his becoming a monk, Thérouanne, the capital of the Morini, stood in need of a zealous pastor; that country, which contained what is now called the Pas-de-Calais, was overrun with vice and error, so that King Dagobert was looking for a person well qualified to establish the faith and practice of the gospel in that district. St Omer was pointed out as capable for this arduous employment, and proposed to the king by St Achaire, Bishop of Noyon and Tournai, so about 637 Omer, who had been happy and content in his retreat, was suddenly called on to leave his solitude. Upon receiving the command, he cried out, “How great is the difference between the secure harbour in which I now enjoy calm, and that tempestuous ocean into which I am pushed, against my will and destitute of experience”.

The first undertaking of his pastoral care was to re-establish the faith in its purity among the few Christians he found, whose reformation was a task no less difficult than the conversion of idolaters. Yet such was the success of his labours that he left his diocese almost equal to those that were most flourishing in France. His sermons were full of a fire which could scarcely be resisted, but his exemplary life preached still more powerfully; for it encouraged others to spend themselves freely in feeding the poor, comforting the sick, reconciling enemies, and serving everyone without any other view than that of their salvation and the glory of God. This was the character of the holy bishop and his fellow labourers who were employed under his direction. The chief among these were St Mommolinus, St Bertrand, and St Bertinus, monks whom St Omer invited to his assistance from Luxeuil, and whose association with him has been related in the life of the third-named on the 5^th of this month. St Omer founded with them the monastery of Sithiu, which became one of the greatest seminaries of sacred learning in France. The lives of St Omer recount a number of not very convincing miracles attributed to him. In his old age he was blind some years before his death, but that infliction made no abatement in his pastoral concern for his flock. The third and least reliable biography says that when St Aubert, Bishop of Arras, translated the relics of St Vedast to the monastery which he had built in his honour, St Omer was present and recovered his sight for a short time on that occasion. St Omer died probably soon after 670.

The least unsatisfactory Life of St Omer is that already referred to in the bibliographical note to St Bertinus, on September 5. The edition of that text by W. Levison, there spoken of, is accompanied by a discussion of the relations between the different lives printed in the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iii.

Also called Audomarus, he was born 595 in the region surrounding Constance, France, and, upon the death of his parents, he entered the monastery of Luxeuil under St. Eustace. In 637, after twenty years in the community, he was named bishop of Therouanne, and implemented numerous reforms for the diocese including caring for the sick and poor. He was assisted in his work by monks from Luxeuil and founded the monastery of Sithiu, which gained prominence as one of the religious centers of France. It was around Sithiu’s monastery that the town of Saint Omer developed.
Audomarus (Omer) of Thérouanne, OSB B (RM) Born in Coutances, France, c. 595; died September 9, c. 670. Saint Omer was the only son of wealthy and noble parents, Friulph and Domitilla, whose only thoughts were for the benefit of their son-- both secular and spiritual. Upon the death of Domitilla, Friulph sold his estate, and distributed the entire proceeds among the poor. Thereafter, Friulph and Omer were welcomed by Abbot Saint Eustasius to Luxeuil monastery near Besançon, where they were both professed.
Omer was distinguished by his humility, obedience, and devotion. Within a short time his reputation for sanctity became widely known. After spending more than 20 years at Luxeuil, Saint Omer was nominated by Bishop Saint Acharius of Noyon-Tournai and appointed by King Dagobert to be bishop of Thérouanne, a diocese sadly in need of evangelization than then encompassed the Pas-de-Calais and Flanders. The choice was applauded by the king, bishops, and nobility, but not by Saint Omer.

Upon receiving notification, he cried out: "How great is the difference between the secure harbor in which I now enjoy a sweet calm, and that tempestuous ocean into which I am pushed, against my will, and destitute of experience!" Without listening to his humble objections, the deputies presented him to the bishops, who consecrated him at the end of 637.

Omer succeeded in making inroads with the Morini, where others before him had failed or been stopped: Saints Fuscian, Victoricus, and Gentian as well as Quintinus had brought the Gospel to them but were martyred; Saint Victricius of Rouen had worked among them but lacked enough pastors during the incursions of the barbarians to keep the people from falling back into heathenism; and in the 6th century, Saint Remigius sent Antimund and Adelbert to evangelize them. The work of completing the conversion of the Morini was left to Saint Omer.

He began this task as always--with prayer--and completed it by dedicating himself totally to the mission. He destroyed pagan idols and temples and patiently instructed the people. His first priority was to bolster the faith of the few Christians that he found. His own zeal, piety, and good works drew others to the faith, as did his eloquent preaching that emphasized disinterested service and reconciliation. He also enlisted the service of other holy monks from Luxeuil, including Saints Mommolinus, Bertrand, and Bertin. They literally covered the district with abbeys that served as centers for their missionary activities. Omer himself was the co-founder of Sithiu (Sithin), around which grew the town now known as Saint-Omer.

The author of his life recounts many miracles performed by Omer. In his old age he was blind (from at least 663), but that did not stop him from tending to his flock. When Bishop Saint Aubert of Arras-Cambrai translated the relics of Saint Redact in 667 from the cathedral to the monastery which he had built in his honor, Saint Omer assisted and recovered his sight for a short time on that occasion. His body was buried by Saint Bertin at our Lady's church, which is now the cathedral (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Husenbeth).

In art, Saint Omer is portrayed by a stream in episcopal vestments holding a bunch of grapes. At his feet, a man saved from drowning and a casket of relics. He may also be shown with Saint Bertin (Roeder). He is venerated at Saint Omer (Sithiu) and Luxeuil (Roeder).

8th v. St. Bettelin Hermit practiced the most austere penances and lived a life of continual prayer in the forest
also called Bertram, a disciple of St. Guthlac.

8th v. ST BETTELIN
IN the history of Croyland which bears the name of the eleventh-century abbot Ingulf, though compiled after his time, we are told that the great hermit St Guthlac had four disciples, who led penitential lives in separate cells not far from their director in the midst of the fens of Lincolnshire. These were Cissa, Egbert, Tatwin and Bettelin (Beccelin, Berthelm). The last-named, after he had overcome a temptation which once came to him while shaving St Guthlac to cut his throat and succeed to his authority, became of all others the most dear to his master. When St Guthlac was near death he counselled Bettelin with such wisdom that "he never before or after heard the like", and in his last moments sent him with a loving message to his sister, St Pega. St Bettelin and his companions lived on at Croyland under Kenulf, first abbot of the monastery founded there by King Ethelbald of Mercia, and there died and were buried.
St Bettelin (or another) was honoured as patron of the town of Stafford, which boasted his relics. But the story of his life as told by the chronicler Capgrave is, as Alban Butler says, "of no authority". It is, in fact, popular fiction, according to which Bettelin was a son of the ruler of Stafford who went on a visit to Ireland. There he fell in love with a princess, who ran away with him to England. While making their way through a forest the princess was overtaken by the pains of childbirth, and Bettelin hurried away to try and find a midwife. While he was gone the girl was found by a pack of hungry wolves, and Bettelin returned only to find them tearing her to pieces. The loss of his bride and baby in so terrible a fashion drove Bettelin to offer himself to God in a solitary life, and he became an anchorite near Stafford. On the death of his father he was induced to leave his cell to help in driving off a usurping invader, which he did by the assistance of an angel sent from Heaven to oppose the demon who led the opposing forces. Then Bettelin returned to his cell and lived there for the rest of his days.

Very little seems to be known of St Bettelin or Berthelm. In the Acta Sanctorum an account is printed from a manuscript source which is in substance identical with that preserved by Capgrave in the Nova Legenda Angliae. See also Stanton's Menology, pp. 389 and 666. Felix, the early writer on St Guthlac, mentions his disciple Bettelin by name; the Stafford story seems to be concerned with a St Berthelme whose relics were venerated at Fécamp: A. M. Zimmermann, Kalendarium benedictinum, vol. ii, p. 564; iii, p. 94; iv, p. 75.

1478 BD SERAPHINA SFORZA, WIDOW
SHE was born at Urbino about the year 1432, the daughter of Guy, Count of Montefeltro, by his second wife, Catherine Colonna. In baptism she received the name of Sueva. Her parents died while she was a child, she was sent to Rome to be brought up in the household of her uncle, Prince Colonna, and at the age of about sixteen she was joined in marriage to Alexander Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. This man was a widower, with two children, and for some years she lived very happily with her husband. Then he was called away to take up arms on behalf of his brother, the duke of Milan, leaving his estate to the care of Sueva, and his absence was prolonged. On his return, none the better man for so long a period of campaigning and absence from home, Alexander began an intrigue with a woman called Pacifica, the wife of a local physician. Sueva used all the means at her disposal to win her husband hack, but with so little success that he added physical cruelty and insult to unfaithfulness. He even tried to poison her, and thence-forward the unhappy woman gave up active efforts towards reconciliation, and confined herself to prayer and quietness. This served only to irritate Alexander, and he at last drove her from the house with violence, telling her to take herself off to some convent.

Sueva was received as a guest by the Poor Clares of the convent of Corpus Christi, where she lived the life of the nuns eventually she was clothed and took the name of Seraphina. This was exactly what Alexander wanted, and, feeling himself free, he went from bad to worse Pacifica was flaunted about Pesaro as though she were his lawful wife, and she even had the insolence to visit the convent wearing Sueva’s jewels. Sister Seraphina was an exemplary nun and she did not forget her obligations to her husband. She never ceased to pray and offer her penances for his conversion, and before his death in 1473 her desire was fulfilled.

That is the substance of Bd Seraphina’s story as it is commonly told. Unhappily further research in contemporary evidence suggests that at the time of her leaving the world she was not so entirely an innocent victim as has been assumed. Even if her husband’s charges of unfaithfulness were false, there is some evidence that she was privy to a plot against him. We find ourselves very much in the Italian beau monde of the quattrocento. But Sueva entered the convent in 1457, when she was twenty-five years old, and whatever she may have had to repent of she had more than twenty years in which to grow holy in the living of a most austere religious rule. This she did, and the local cultus of Bd Seraphina was approved by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754.

There is an anonymous life printed with prolegomena in the Acta Sanctorurn, September, vol. iii. But in 1903 B. Feliciangeli published his study, Sulla monacazione di Sueva Montefeltro-Sforza, Ricerche, which made public certain new documents, throwing fresh light on the subject. This evidence was unknown to such earlier biographers as Mgr Alegiani and Léon, L’Auréole Séraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iii, pp. 114—120. The problem is discussed by Fr Van Ortroy in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxiv (‘905), pp. 311—313.

He lived in Croyland, England, and is listed as the patron of the town of Stafford. Remains of his shrine are at 11am, Staffordshire. Legend claims he was a noble who married an Irish princess who went into labor and gave birth in the forest while he went for help. Wolves ate her and the child in his absence. Bettelin and companions lived under the auspices of Croyland Monastery, founded by King Ethelbald of Mercia.
Bettelin of Croyland, OSB Hermit (AC) (also known as Beccelin, Bertelin, Berthelm, Bertram, Bethlin, Bethelm)
8th century. Saint Bettelin, a disciple of Saint Guthlac, was a hermit who practiced the most austere penances and lived a life of continual prayer in the forest near Stafford, England. He received counsel from his master on his deathbed and was present at his burial. After the death of Guthlac, Bettelin and his companions continued to live at Croyland under Kenulphus, its first abbot.
There are unreliable legends about Bettelin, including a later one that he had to overcome temptation to cut Guthlac's throat while shaving him. They also say that Bettelin was the son of a local ruler who fell in love with a princess during a visit to Ireland. On their return to England, she died a terrible death. He left her in the forest when she was overcome by labor pains, while he had gone in search of a midwife. During his absence she was torn to pieces by ravenous wolves. Thereafter, Bettelin became a hermit. Another legends relates that Saint Bettelin left his hermitage to drive off invaders with the help of an angel, before returning to his cell to die.

Some of his relics may have been translated to Stafford before the plunder and burning of Croyland by the Danes. He is the patron of Stafford, in which his relics were kept with great veneration (Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Husenbeth) .

690 St. Hyacinth Martyr with Alexander and Tiburtius. They died near Rome.

988 St. Wilfrida Benedictine abbess
also listed as Wuifritha. The mother of St. Edith of Wilton by King Edgar (r. 957-975) outside of the bounds of marriage, she retired to the convent of Wilton after Edith's birth, receiving the veil from St. Ethelwald. She became a nun to atone for her actions with the king. She was exemplary as a nun, so much so that she became abbess.
(also known as Wulfritha, Wulfthryth)
Saint Wilfrida was a novice at the convent of Wilton when she caught the eye of the King Saint Edgar the Peaceful, who had been rejected by her cousin, Saint Wulfhilda. She became his concubine and bore his daughter, Saint Edith of Wilton, out of wedlock. Shortly after Edith's birth, she returned to Wilton with her child. There she took the veil at the hands of Saint Ethelwold. As a nun, and later as abbess, Wilfrida did penance and made ample amends for the irregularity of her liaison with Edgar (Benedictines, Farmer).

WuIfhilda (d.c. 1000) +. Probably a member of the Anglo-Saxon nobility, she was much sought after by King Edgar (r. 957-975) for her hand in marriage while a novice at Wilton Abbey. She refused his proposal and finally won his permission to become a nun. She eventually became abbess of the convents of Barking and Ilorton, serving from 993 as abbess of both houses.
Wulfhilda of Barking, OSB Abbess (AC)
Died c. 980-1000; other feasts include that of her translation on September 2, c. 1030 (with the relics of Saints Hildelith and Ethelburga), as well as on March 7 and September 23 at Barking.
Saint Wulfhilda was raised in the abbey of Wilton. When she was a novice, King Saint Edgar sought her hand in marriage, but she had a vocation that was irrevocable. Her aunt, Abbess Wenfleda of Wherwell, invited the young novice to become her successor, but it was just a ploy to lure her from Wilton. When she arrived at Wherwell, she found the king waiting for her and her aunt willing to allow him to seduce her. Wulfhilda escaped through the drains despite the chaperons inside and the guards outside the convent. The king pursued her back to Wilton and caught her in the cloister, but she escaped his grasp and took refuge in the sanctuary among the altars and relics. Thereafter Edgar renounced his claim on her and took her cousin Saint Wilfrida as his mistress instead.

Wulfhilda went on to found and serve as the first abbess of the convent of Horton in Dorsetshire. Later she was appointed abbess of the convent of Barking, which had been restored by King Edgar and endowed with several churches in Wessex towns. During this period she was credited with several miracles, including the multiplication of drinks when King Edgar, Saint Ethelwold, and a naval officer from Sandwich visited the abbey.

After Edgar's death, his widowed queen, Elfrida (Ælfthryth), conspired with some of Wulfhilda's nuns, to drive her out of Barking. She retired to Horton for the next 20 years until she was recalled to Barking by King Ethelred. For the last seven years of her life, Wulfhilda served as abbess of both Horton and Barking. Goscelin wrote her vita within 60 years of her death. Her cultus has always been a local one (Benedictines, Farmer).

1139 Blessed Gaufridus of Savigny spread the new Benedictine congregation to 29 houses in Normandy OSB Abbot (AC)
Gaufridus succeeded Blessed Vitalis as abbot of Savigny about 1122, and spread the new Benedictine congregation to 29 houses in Normandy, England, and Ireland (Benedictines).

1175 Blessed Mary de la Cabeza, Widow the irreproachable wife of Saint Isidore the Farmer (AC)
Born at Torrejon, Spain; died at Caraquiz, Spain; cultus approve in 1697. Blessed Mary was the irreproachable wife of Saint Isidore the Farmer. After his death, she retired to Caraquiz (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

1478 Blessed Seraphina Sforza, Poor Clare V (AC)
Born at Urbino, Italy, 1434; died in Pesaro, Italy beatified in 1754. Seraphina was the daughter of Count Guido of Urbino, lord of Gubbio. In 1448, she married Duke Alexander Sforza of Pesaro, who treated her with contempt and finally threw her out. She took refuge in the convent of the Poor Clares, where she was professed and later became abbess (Benedictines).

1478 BD SERAPIIINA SFORZA, Widow
SHE was born at Urbino about the year 1432, the daughter of Guy, Count of Montefeltro, by his second wife, Catherine Colonna. In baptism she received the name of Sueva. Her parents died while she was a child, she was sent to Rome to be brought up in the household of her uncle, Prince Colonna, and at the age of about sixteen she was joined in marriage to Alexander Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. This man was a widower, with two children, and for some years she lived very happily with her husband. Then he was called away to take up arms on behalf of his brother, the duke of Milan, leaving his estate to the care of Sueva, and his absence was prolonged. On his return, none the better man for so long a period of campaigning and absence from home, Alexander began an intrigue with a woman called Pacifica, the wife of a local physician. Sueva used all the means at her disposal to win her husband back, but with so little success that he added physical cruelty and insult to unfaithfulness. He even tried to poison her, and thence-forward the unhappy woman gave up active efforts towards reconciliation, and confined herself to prayer and quietness.This served only to irritate Alexander, and he at last drove her from the house with violence, telling her to take herself off to some convent.

Sueva was received as a guest by the Poor Clares of the convent of Corpus Christi, where she lived the life of the nuns; eventually she was clothed and took the name of Seraphina. This was exactly what Alexander wanted, and, feeling himself free, he went from bad to worse; Pacifica was flaunted about Pesaro as though she were his lawful wife, and she even had the insolence to visit the convent wearing Sueva’s jewels. Sister Seraphina was an exemplary nun and she did not forget her obligations to her husband. She never ceased to pray and offer her penances for his conversion, and before his death in 1473 her desire was fulfilled.

That is the substance of Bd Seraphina’s story as it is commonly told. Unhappily further research in contemporary evidence suggests that at the time of her leaving the world she was not so entirely an innocent victim as has been assumed. Even if her husband’s charges of unfaithfulness were false, there is some evidence that she was privy to a plot against him. We find ourselves very much in the Italian beau monde of the quattrocento. But Sueva entered the convent in 1457, when she was twenty-five years old, and whatever she may have had to repent of she had more than twenty years in which to grow holy in the living of a most austere religious rule. This she did, and the local cultus of Bd Seraphina was approved by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754.

There is an anonymous life printed with prolegomena in the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iii. But in 1903 B. Feliciangeli published his study, Sulla monacazione di Suez’a Montefeltro-Sforza, Ricerche, which made public certain new documents, throwing fresh light on the subject. This evidence was unknown to such earlier biographers as Mgr Alegiani and Leon, Auréole Séraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iii, pp. 114—120. The problem is discussed by Fr Van Ortroy in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. XXIV (1905), pp. 311—313.

1503 BD LOUISA OF SAVOY, WIDOW
THE very high, mighty and illustrious lady, Madame Louisa of Savoy, who was destined by God to become a humble nun of the Poor Clares, was born in 1461, the daughter of Bd Amadeus IX, Duke of Savoy, grand-daughter through her mother Yolande of King Charles VII of France, niece of King Louis XI, and cousin to St Joan of Valois. Her father died before she was nine and she was admirably brought up by her mother and showed from a very early age indications of spiritual qualities out of the ordinary; Catherine de Saulx, one of her maids-of-honour, wrote that “she was so sweet and generous, debonair and gracious, that she gave affection to everyone and was engaging and charming to all”.

At the age of eighteen she married Hugh de Châlons, Lord of Nozeroy, a man as good as he was wealthy and powerful, and together they set themselves to live a truly Christian life. Both by example and precept they set a high standard for all living on their estates, and their house seemed a monastery by contrast with many noble establishments of that time; loose swearing and profanity was particularly discouraged, and Madame Louisa provides the first recorded example of a poor-box into which every person who indulged in bad language had to put a contribution: but men had to kiss the ground because that was a more effective deterrent for them.

Louisa exercised a wide charity towards the sick and needy, widows and orphans, and especially lepers, and she used to say of the dances and shows that took place in her house that they were like mushrooms, “of which the best are not worth much”.

After nine years of wedded happiness her husband died, and, having no children, Louisa began to prepare to retire from the world. It took two years to set her affairs in order, during which time she wore the Franciscan tertiary habit and learned to recite the Divine Office, getting up at midnight for Matins. Every Friday she took the discipline, she distributed her fortune, and overcame, or disregarded, the objections of her relatives and friends, Then with her two maids-of-honour, Catherine de Saulx and Charlotte de Saint-Maurice, she was admitted to the Poor Clare convent of Orbe, which monastery had been founded by the mother of Hugh de Châlons and occupied with a community by St Colette in 1427.

Bd Louisa had been a model for maids, for wives and for widows, and henceforward was to he an exemplary religious. As with so many of high birth, her humility, was sincere and unaffected: if she was to wash dishes, help in the kitchen, sweep the cloisters, well; if she was to be an abbess, well also. In this office she was especially solicitous in the service of the friars of her order, and any whose journeyings took them past the convent were always most carefully looked after: the presence of the fathers and brothers was a blessing from God, and nothing would lack that was required for the sons of “our blessed father, Monseigneur St Francis”. The ancient cultus of this servant of God, who was called to Him when only forty-two years old, was approved in 1839.

There is a life by Catherine de Saulx, who had been lady-in-waiting to Louisa and who followed her into the convent at Orbe. This was edited with annotations, etc., by A. M. Jeanneret (1860). See also F. Jeunet and J. H. Thorin, Vie de Ia bse Louise de Savoie (1884), and cf. Revue des questions historiques, t. xxi, pp. 335—336. In the English translation of Leon, Auréole Séraphique, Bd Louisa occurs in vol. iii, pp. 267—271. E. Fedelini produced a slight sketch of Les bienheureux de la maison de Savoie (1925), in which Bd Louisa finds a place.

1515 St. Joseph of Volokolamsk Abbot who ruled Borovsk Abbey Russia
and Volokolamsk, Russia. He was known for his austerities and charity.
Joseph of Volokolamsk Born in Lithuania, c. 1439; died 1515; canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1578. Joseph Sanin, a man of imposing personality and intellectual ability, became abbot of Borovsk in 1477.
Like many reformers before and after him, he found his brothers less the willing to change. It became such an unbearable situation that Joseph left them and founded a new community near Volokolamsk. Joseph saw the role of the monastery as that of supporting social work in the area, under the direction of the local secular authorities. This was a totally different concept than that of another saintly reformer, Nilus of Sora. During a church council in Moscow in 1503, Saint Joseph's vision for monastic life won out over that of Saint Nilus, an important step for the future of the Russian Church (Attwater).

1654 Peter Claver, SJ Priest unable to abolish the slave trade (RM) Sometimes St Peter would spend almost the whole day in the great square of the city, where the four principal streets met, preaching to all who would stop to listen, he became the apostle of Cartagena as well as of the Negroes, and in so huge a work was aided by God with those gifts that particularly pertain to apostles, of miracles, of prophecy, and of reading hearts.
Born 1581 "Jesus Christ, Son of God, you will be my father and my mother and all my good. I love you much. I am sorry for having sinned against you. Lord, I love you much, much, much."
--Saint Peter Claver.
Saint Peter Claver was unable to abolish the slave trade, but he did what he could to mitigate its horrors by bringing them the consolations of religion and ministering to their bodily wants. He landed in Cartagena (Colombia) in 1610 and for forty years strove to alleviate their lot, with true apostolic fervor, declaring himself "the slave of the Negroes forever."

1654 ST PETER CLAVER
In the United States of America, this is the principal feast for this date.

IF to England belongs the honour of having begun the work of abolishing the slave-trade in 1815, it was she also who, in the person of such national heroes as Sir John Hawkins, played a great part in establishing that trade between Africa and the New World in the sixteenth century. And of the heroes who in the intervening period devoted their lives to the interests of the victims of this nefarious exploitation, the most were from countries which had not received the enlightenment of the Reformers.
Among them none was greater than St Peter Claver, a native of that Spain whose history in his time is represented for most Englishmen solely by the buccancering of an unscrupulous imperialism and the fantastic cruelty of an ecclesiastical inquisition. He was born at Verdu, in Catalonia, about 1581, and as he showed fine qualities of mind and spirit was destined for the Church and sent to study at the University of Barcelona. Here he graduated with distinction and, after receiving minor orders, determined to offer himself to the Society of Jesus.
He was received into the novitiate of Tarragona at the age of twenty, and was sent to the college of Montesione at Palma, in Majorca. Here he met St Alphonsus Rodriguez, who was porter in the college, though with a reputation far above his humble office, and this meeting was to set the direction of Peter Claver’s life. He studied the science of the saints at the feet of the lay-brother, and Alphonsus conceived a corresponding regard for the capabilities of the young scholastic, and saw in him a man fit for a new, arduous and neglected work. He fired him with the idea of going to the help of the many who were without spiritual ministrations in the colonies of the New World.

In after years St Peter Claver said that St Alphonsus had actually foretold to him that he would go and the very place wherein he would work. Moved by the fervour of these exhortations Peter Claver approached his provincial, offering himself for the West Indies, and was told that his vocation would be decided in due course by his superiors. He was sent to Barcelona for his theology and after two years was, at his further request, chosen to represent the province of Aragon on the mission of Spanish Jesuits being sent to New Granada. He left Spain for ever in April 1610, and after a wearisome voyage landed with his companions at Cartagena, in what is now the republic of Colombia. Thence he went to the Jesuit house of Santa Fe to complete his theological studies, and was employed as well as sacristan, porter, infirmarian and cook, and was sent for his tertianship to the new house of the Society at Tunja. He returned to Cartagena in 1615 and was there ordained priest.

By this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly a hundred years, and the port of Cartagena was one of its principal centres, being conveniently situated as a clearing-house. The trade had recently been given a considerable impetus, for the local Indians were not physically fitted to work in the gold and silver mines, and there was a big demand for Negroes from Angola and the Congo. These were bought in West Africa for four crowns a head, or bartered for goods, and sold in America for two hundred crowns. The conditions under which they were conveyed across the Atlantic were so foul and inhuman as to be beyond belief, and it was reckoned that there would be a loss in each cargo by death during the six or seven weeks’ voyage of at least a third; but in spite of this an average of ten thousand living slaves was landed in Cartagena every year. In spite of the condemnation of this great crime by Pope Paul III and by many lesser authorities, this “supreme villainy”, as slave-trading was designated by Pius IX, continued to flourish; all that most of the owners did in response to the voice of the Church was to have their slaves baptized. They received no religious instruction or ministration, no alleviation of their physical condition, so that the sacrament of baptism became to them a very sign and symbol of their oppression and wretchedness. The clergy were practically powerless; all they could do was to protest and to devote themselves to the utmost to individual ministration, corporal and material, among the tens of thousands of suffering human beings. They had no charitable funds at their disposal, no plaudits from well-disposed audiences; they were hampered and discouraged by the owners and often rebuffed by the Negroes themselves.

At the time of Father Claver’s ordination the leader in this work was Father Alfonso de Sandoval, a great Jesuit missionary who spent forty years in the service of the slaves, and after working under him Peter Claver declared himself “the slave of the Negroes for ever”.

Although by nature shy and without self-confidence, he threw himself into the work, and pursued it not with unreliable enthusiasm but with method and organization. He enlisted bands of assistants, whether by money, goods or services, and as soon as a slave-ship entered the port he went to wait on its living freight. The slaves were disembarked and shut up in the yards where crowds came to watch them, “idle gazers”, wrote Father de Sandoval, “drawn thither by curiosity and careful not to come too close”. Hundreds of men who had been for several weeks shut up without even the care given to cattle in the ship’s hold were now, well, ill or dying, herded together in a confined space in a climate that was unwholesome from damp heat. So horrible was the scene and revolting the conditions that a friend who came with Father Claver once could never face it again, and of Father de Sandoval himself it was written in one of the “relations” of his province that, “when he heard a vessel of Negroes was come into port he was at once covered with a cold sweat and death-like pallor at the recollection of the indescribable fatigue and unspeakable work on the previous like occasions. The experience and practice of years never accustomed him to it.”

Into these yards or sheds St Peter Claver plunged, with medicines and food, bread, brandy, lemons, tobacco to distribute among the Negroes, some of whom were too frightened, others too ill, to accept them. “We must speak to them with our hands, before we try to speak to them with our lips”, Claver would say. When he came upon any who were dying he baptized them, and then sought out all babies born on the voyage that he might baptize them. During the time that the Negroes spent in the sheds, penned so closely that they had to sleep almost upon one another and freely handed on their diseases, St Peter Claver cared for the bodies of the sick and the souls of all.

Unlike many, even among the clergy, he did not consider that ignorance of their languages absolved him from the obligation of instructing them in the truths of religion and morals and bringing to their degraded spirits the consolation of the words of Christ. He had a band of seven interpreters, one of whom spoke four Negro dialects, and with their help he taught the slaves and prepared them for baptism, not only in groups but individually; for they were too backward and slow and the language difficulty too great for him to make himself understood otherwise. He made use of pictures, showing our Lord suffering on the cross for them and popes, princes and other great ones of the “white men” standing by and rejoicing at the baptism of a Negro; above all did he try to instil in them some degree of self-respect, to give them at least some idea that as redeemed human beings they had dignity and worth, even if as slaves they were outcast and despised. Not otherwise could he hope to arouse in them a shame and contrition for their vices more perfect than that evoked by the picture of Hell which he held up as a warning. He showed them that they were loved even more than they were abused, and that that divine love must not be outraged by evil ways, by cruelty and lust. Each one had to be taken apart and drilled, time and again, even in so simple a matter as making the sign of the cross or in learning the prayer of love and repentance that each had to know: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, thou shalt be my Father and my Mother and all my good. I love thee much. I am sorry for having sinned against thee. Lord, I love thee much, much, much.”

How difficult was his task in teaching is shown by the fact that at baptism each batch of ten catechumens was given the same name—to help them to remember it. It is estimated that in forty years St Peter Claver thus instructed and baptized over 300,000 slaves. When there was time and opportunity he took the same trouble to teach them how properly to use the sacrament of penance, and in one year is said to have heard the confessions of more than five thousand. He never tired of persuading them from the occasions of sin or of urging the owners to care for the souls of the slaves; he became so great a moral force in Cartagena that a story is told of a Negro frightening off a harlot who was pestering him in the street by saying, “Look!” “Here comes Father Claver”.

When the slaves were at length allotted and sent off to the mines and plantations, St Peter could only appeal to them for the last time with renewed earnestness, for he would he able to keep in touch with only a very few of them. He had a steady confidence that God would care for them and, not his least difference from some social-reformers of a later age, he did not regard the most brutal of the slave-owners as despicable barbarians, beyond the mercy or might of God. They also had souls to he saved, no less than the Negroes, and to the masters St Peter appealed for physical and spiritual justice, for their own sakes no less than for that of their slaves. To the cynical mind the trust of the saint in the goodness of human nature must seem naif, and no doubt could he have known he would have been far more often disappointed than not. But the conclusion cannot he avoided that only the worst of the Spanish masters can he compared for iniquity with, say, the English slave-owners of Jamaica in the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, whose physical cruelty was no less than fiendish and moral indifference diabolical. The laws of Spain at least provided for the marriage of slaves, forbade their separation from their families, and defended them from unjust seizure after liberation. St Peter Claver did all he could to provide for the observance of these laws, and every spring after Easter he would make a tour of those plantations nearer Cartagena in order to see how his Negroes were getting on. He was not always well received. The masters complained that he wasted the slaves’ time with his preaching, praying and hymn-singing; their wives complained that after the Negroes had been to Mass it was impossible to enter the church and when they misbehaved Father Claver was blamed. “What sort of a man must I be, that I cannot do a little good without causing so much confusion?” he asked himself. But he was not deterred, not even when the ecclesiastical authorities lent too willing an ear to the complaints of his critics.

Many of the stories both of the heroism and of the miraculous powers of St Peter Claver concern his nursing of sick and diseased Negroes, in circumstances often that no one else, black or white, could face, but he found time to care for other sufferers besides slaves. There were two hospitals in Cartagena, one for general cases, served by the Brothers of St. John-of-God; this was St Sebastian’s and another, of St Lazarus, for lepers and those suffering from the complaint called “St Antony’s Fire”. Both these he visited every week, waiting on the patients in their material needs and bringing hardened sinners to penitence.

He also exercised an apostolate among the Protestant traders, sailors and others whom he found therein, and brought about the conversion of an Anglican dignitary, represented to be an archdeacon of London, whom he met when visiting prisoners-of-war on a ship in the harbour. Temporal considerations stood in the way of his being then reconciled, but he was taken ill and removed to St Sebastian’s, where before he died he was received into the Church by Father Claver. A number of other Englishmen followed his example. Claver was less successful in his efforts to make converts among the Mohammedans who came to Cartagena, who, as his biographer remarks, “are well known to be of all people in the world the most obstinate in their errors”, but he brought a number of Moors and Turks to the faith, though one held out for thirty years before succumbing, and even then a vision of our Lady was required to convince him. Father Claver was also in particular request to minister to condemned criminals, and it is said that not one was executed at Cartagena during his lifetime without his being present to console him; under his influence the most hardened and defiant would spend their last hours in prayer and sorrow for their sins. But many more, uncondemned by man, would seek him out in the confessional, where he had sometimes to spend fifteen hours at a stretch, reproving, advising, encouraging, absolving.

His country missions in the spring, during which he refused as much as possible the hospitality of the planters and owners and lodged in the quarters of the slaves, were succeeded in the autumn by a mission among the traders and seamen, who landed at Cartagena in great numbers at that season and further increased the vice and disorder of the port. Sometimes St Peter would spend almost the whole day in the great square of the city, where the four principal streets met, preaching to all who would stop to listen, he became the apostle of Cartagena as well as of the Negroes, and in so huge a work was aided by God with those gifts that particularly pertain to apostles, of miracles, of prophecy, and of reading hearts.

Few saints carried out their active work in more repulsive circumstances than did he, but these mortifications of the flesh were not enough ; he continuously used penitential instruments of the most severe description, and would pray alone in his cell with a crown of thorns pressed to his head and a heavy cross weighing down his shoulders. He avoided the most innocent gratification of his senses, lest such should divert him from his path of self-imposed martyrdom; never would he extend to himself the indulgence and kindness he had for others. Once when commended for his apostolic zeal, he replied, “It ought to be so, but there is nothing but self-indulgence in it; it is the result of my enthusiastic and impetuous temperament. If it were not for this work, I should be a nuisance to myself and to everybody else.” And he put down his apparent indifference to handling loathsome diseases to lack of sensibility “if being a saint consists in having no taste and having a strong stomach, I admit that I may be one.”

In the year 1650 St Peter Claver went to preach the jubilee among the Negroes along the coast, but sickness attacked his emaciated and weakened body, and he was recalled to the residence at Cartagena. But here a virulent epidemic had begun to show itself, and one of the first to be attacked among the Jesuits was the debilitated missionary, so that his death seemed at hand. After receiving the last sacraments he recovered, but he was a broken man. For the rest of his life pain hardly left him, and a trembling in his limbs made it impossible for him to celebrate Mass. He perforce became almost entirely inactive, but would sometimes hear confessions, especially of his dear friend Doña Isabella de Urbina, who had always generously supported his work with her money. Occasionally he would be carried to a hospital, a dying prisoner, or other sick person, and once when a cargo arrived of slaves from a tribe which had not been seen in Cartagena for thirty years his old strength returned; he was taken around till he found an interpreter who spoke their tongue, then baptized all the children, and gave brief instructions to the adults. Otherwise he remained in his cell, not only inactive but even forgotten and neglected; the numbers in the house were much reduced, and those who remained were fully occupied in coping with the confusion and duties imposed by the spreading plague, but even so their indifference to the saint is surprising. Doña Isabella and her sister remained faithful to him, doubtless his old helper, Brother Nicholas Gonzalez, visited him when he could. For the rest, St Peter Claver was left in the hands of a young Negro, who was impatient and rough with the old man, and sometimes left him nearly helpless for days on end without any attention whatever.

Once the authorities woke up to his existence, when a complaint was laid that Father Claver was in the habit of re-baptizing Negroes. This, of course, he had never done, except conditionally in cases of doubt, but he was nevertheless forbidden to baptize in future. “It behoves me” he once wrote, “always to imitate the example of the ass. When he is evilly spoken of, he is dumb. When he is starved, he is dumb. When he is overloaded, he is dumb. When he is despised and neglected, he is still dumb. He never complains in any circumstances, for he is only an ass. So also must God’s servant be: ‘Ut jumentum factus sum apud te.’”

In the summer of 1654 Father Diego Ramirez Farina arrived in Cartagena from Spain with a commission from the king to work among the Negroes. St Peter Claver was overjoyed and dragged himself from his bed to greet his successor. He shortly afterwards heard the confession of Doña Isabella, and told her it was for the last time, and on September 6, after assisting at Mass and receiving communion, he said to Nicholas Gonzalez, “I am going to die”. That same evening he was taken very ill and became comatose. The rumour of his approaching end spread round the city, everyone suddenly remembered the saint again, and numbers came to kiss his hands before it was too late; his cell was stripped of everything that could be carried off as a relic.

St Peter Claver never fully recovered consciousness, and died two days later on the birthday of our Lady, September 8 1654. The civil authorities who had looked askance at his solicitude for mere Negro slaves, and the clergy, who had called his zeal indiscreet and his energy wasted, now vied with one another to honour his memory. The city magistrates ordered that he should be buried at the public expense with great pomp, and the vicar general of the diocese officiated at the funeral.

The Negroes and Indians arranged for a Mass of their own, to which the Spanish authorities were invited the church was ablaze with lights, a special choir sang, and an oration was delivered by the treasurer of the church of Popayan, than whom “no other preacher was more diffuse on the virtues, holiness, heroism and stupendous miracles of Father Claver”. St Peter Claver was never again forgotten and his fame spread throughout the world: he was canonized at the same time as his friend St Alphonsus Rodriguez in 1888, and he was declared by Pope Leo XIII patron of all missionary enterprises among Negroes, in whatever part of the world. His feast is observed throughout the United States.

It would seem that no quite adequate life of St Peter Claver has yet seen the light, though the depositions obtained in the various “processes” conducted in view of his beatification afford a good deal of material. Perhaps the most reliable summary is that set out in chapter 8 of the 5^th volume of Astrain, Historia de la Compañia de Jesus en la Asistencia de España, pp. 479—495. The best accessible biography is probably that of J. M. Solá, Vida de San Pedro Claver (1888), which is based on the early life by J. M. Fernandez. There are a number of other lives, mostly of small compass, amongst which may be mentioned that of J. Charrau, L’Esclave des Nègres (1914); G. Ledos in “Les Saints” series (1923); Höver (in German; 1905); M. D. Petre, Aethiopum Servus (in English; 1896); and C. C. Martindale, Captains of Christ, pt iii. Claver’s story is told in fictional form by M. Farnum in Street of the Half-Moon. See Arnold Lunn, A Saint in the Slave Trade (1935).

Cartagena, which was founded by Pedro de Heredia in 1533, owed its great commercial importance to its superb harbor. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea near the most northerly point of South America, to the east of the Isthmus of Panama. It is in the tropics, about 700 miles north of the Equator.

When Peter Claver first set foot in Cartagena, he kissed the ground which was to be the scene of his future labors. He had every reason to rejoice, for the climate of Cartagena was disagreeably hot and moist, the country around was flat and marshy, the soil was barren, the necessities of life had to be imported, and in the time of Peter Claver fresh vegetables were almost unknown. In the seventeenth century Cartagena was the happy hunting ground of fever-bearing insects from tropical swamps. These, the natural disadvantages of Cartagena, might have been wasted on a robust saint, but Claver must have been consoled to feel that the fine edge of these discomforts would not be blunted by a naturally healthy constitution. He had, indeed, been warned that his delicate health might easily succumb to excessive heat.

Cartagena was the chief center for the slave trade. Slave-traders picked up slaves at four crowns a head on the coast of Guinea or Congo, and sold them for 200 crowns or more at Cartagena. The voyage lasted two months, slaves cannot live on air, even foul air, and the overheads may fairly be credited with 33 per cent or so of slaves who died en route.

Father Claver, whose life's work was to be the instruction, the conversion and the care of the Negroes who landed in Cartagena, began his ministry under the guidance of Father Alfonso de Sandoval.

Father Claver never experienced that momentary weakness which always overcame the heroic Sandoval when a slave ship was announced. The horror with which Sandoval contemplated a return to these scenes of squalid misery only serves to increase our admiration of the courage with which he conquered these very natural shrinking of the flesh.

Father Claver, on the other hand, was transported with joy when messengers announced the arrival of a fresh cargo of Africans. Indeed, he bribed the officials of Cartagena with the promise to say Mass for the intentions of whoever was first to bring him this joyful news. But there was no need for such bribes, for among the simple pleasures of life must be counted the happiness of bringing good news to a grateful recipient. The Governor himself coveted this mission, for the happiness of watching the radiant dawn of joy on the saint's face. At the words "Another slave ship" his eyes brightened, and color flooded back into his pale, emaciated cheeks.

In the intervals between the arrival of slave ships, Father Claver wandered round the town with a sack. He went from house to house, begging for little comforts for the incoming cargo. Claver enjoyed the respect of the responsible officials of the Crown in Cartagena, devout Catholics who approved warmly the work of instruction which the good Father carried on amongst the Negroes. They felt responsible for the welfare of these exiles. Such opposition as Claver encountered amongst the Spaniards came from the traders and planters, who were often inconvenienced by Claver's zeal on behalf of his black children.

The black cargo arrived in a condition of piteous terror. They were convinced that they were to be bought by merchants who needed their fat to grease the keels of ships, and their blood to dye the sails, for this was one of the favorite bedtime stories with which they had been regaled by friendly mariners during the two months' passage.

The first appearance of Father Claver was often greeted with screams of terror, but it was only a matter of moments to convince these frantic creatures that Claver was no purchaser of slave fat and slave blood. He scarcely needed the interpreters who accompanied him for this purpose for the language of love survived in the confusion of Babel, and readily translated itself into gesture. Cor ad cor loquitur ("heart speaks to heart"). Long before the interpreters had finished explaining that the story that had so terrified them was the invention of the devil, Father Claver had already soothed and comforted them by his very presence. And not only by his presence, for Claver was a practical evangelist. The biscuits, brandy, tobacco and lemons which he distributed were practical tokens of friendship. "We must," he said, "speak to them with our hands, before we try to speak to them with our lips."

After a brief talk to the Negroes on deck, Claver descended to the sick between decks. In this work he was often alone. Many of his African interpreters were unable to endure the stench and fainted at the first contact with that appalling atmosphere. Claver, however, did not recoil. Indeed, he regarded this part of his work as of special importance. Again and again he was able to impart to some poor dying wretch those elements of Christian truth which justified him in administering baptism.

It is recorded that the person of Father Claver was sometimes illumined with rays of glory as he passed through the hospital wards of Cartagena. It may well be that a radiance no less illuminating lit the dark bowels of the slave ship as Father Claver moved among the dying. There they lay in the slime, the stench and the gloom, their bodies still bleeding from the lash, their souls still suffering from insults and contempt. There they lay, and out of the depths called upon the tribal gods who had deserted them, and called in vain. Then suddenly things changed. The dying Africans saw a face bending over them, a face illumined with love, and a voice infinitely tender, and the deft movement of kind hands easing their tortured bodies, and supreme miracle his lips meeting their filthy sores in a kiss. . . . A love so divine was an unconquerable argument for the God in whom Father Claver believed.

When Father Claver returned next day he was welcomed with ecstatic cries of child-like affection.

Two or three days usually passed before arrangements at the port could be completed to allow the disembarkation of a fresh cargo of slaves. When the day of disembarkation arrived, Father Claver was always present, waiting on shore with another stock of provisions and delicacies. Sometimes he would carry the sick ashore in his own arms. Again and again in the records of his mission, we find evidences of his strength, which seemed almost supernatural. His diet would have been ridiculously inadequate for a normal man living a sedentary life. His neglect of sleep would have killed a normal man within a few years, but in spite of his contempt for all ordinary rules of health, in spite of a constitution which was none too strong at the outset of his career, he proved himself capable of outworking and out-walking and out-nursing all his colleagues. He made every effort to secure for the sick special carts, as otherwise they ran the risk of being driven forward under the lash. He did not leave them until he had seen them to their lodgings, and men said that Father Claver escorting slaves back to Cartagena reminded them of a conqueror entering Rome in triumph.

It was after the Negroes had been lodged in the magazines where they awaited their sale and ultimate disposal that Claver's real work began. In the case of the dying, Claver was satisfied if he could awaken some dim sense of contrition of sin, and some faint glimmering of understanding of the fundamental Christian belief. The healthy slaves, however, had to qualify by a course of rigid instruction for the privilege of baptism.

I have already referred to the crowded conditions of the compound in which the Negroes were stocked on disembarkation, and on the squalor and misery which was the result of the infectious diseases from which many of them were suffering. The stink of sick Negroes, confined in a limited space, often proved insupportable to Father Claver's Negro interpreters. It was in this noxious and empoisoned air that Peter Claver's greatest work was achieved.

Before the day's work began, Father Claver prepared himself by special prayers before the Blessed Sacrament and by self-inflicted austerities. He then passed through the streets of Cartagena, accompanied by his African interpreters, and bearing a staff crowned by a cross. On his shoulder he carried a bag which contained his stole and surplice, the necessities for the arrangement of an altar, and his little store of comforts and delicacies. Heavily loaded though he was, his companions found it difficult to keep up with this eager little man who dived through the crowded streets with an enthusiasm which suggested a lover hurrying to a trysting place.

On arrival, his first care was for the sick. He had a delicacy of touch in the cleansing and dressing of sores which was a true expression of his personality. After he had made the sick comfortable on their couches and given them a little wine and brandy and refreshed them with scented water, he then proceeded to collect the healthier Negroes into an open space.

In his work of instruction Claver relied freely on pictures. This method appealed effectively to the uneducated mind, and was, moreover, in accordance with the teachings of his Order, for, as we have seen, Saint Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises was constant in urging the exercitant to picture to himself sensibly the subject-matter of his meditations. His favorite picture was in the form of a triptych, in the center Christ on the Cross, his precious blood flowing from each wound into a vase, below the Cross a priest collecting this blood to baptize a faithful Negro. On the right side of the triptych a naively dramatic group of Negroes, glorious and splendidly arrayed; on the left side the wicked Negroes, hideous and deformed, surrounded by unlovely monsters.

Claver was particularly careful to make every possible arrangement for the comfort of his catechumens. He himself remained standing, even in the heat of the day, and the slave-masters, who sometimes attended these edifying ceremonies, often remonstrated with the slaves for remaining seated while their instructor stood. But Father Claver always intervened, and explained with great earnestness to the slave-masters that the slaves were the really important people at this particular performance, and that he himself was a mere cipher who was there for their convenience. Sometimes, if a Negro was so putrescent with sores as to be revolting to his neighbors, and worse still, to prevent them from concentrating their thoughts on Father Claver's instruction, he would throw his cloak over him as a screen. Again, he would often use his cloak as a cushion for the infirm. On such occasions the cloak was often withdrawn so infected and filthy as to require most drastic cleansing. Father Claver, however, was so engrossed in his work, that he would have resumed his cloak immediately had not his interpreters forcibly prevented him.

This cloak was to serve many purposes during his ministry: as a veil to disguise repulsive wounds, as a shield for leprous Negroes, as a pall for those who had died, as a pillow for the sick. The cloak was soon to acquire a legendary fame. Its very touch cured the sick and revived the dying. Men fought to come into contact with it, to tear fragments from it as relics. Indeed, before long its edge was ragged with torn shreds.

Claver's work was not confined to Cartagena. Cartagena was a slave mart, and very few slaves whom Father Claver baptized in Cartagena remained there. Now, Father Claver was determined not to lose his converts, and it was therefore his practice to conduct a series of country missions after Easter. He went from village to village, crossing mountain ranges, traversing swamps and bogs, making his way through forests. On arriving in a village he would plant a cross in the market place, and there he would await the sunset and the return from the fields of the slaves whom he had first met it might be some weeks, it might be some years before in Cartagena. The ecstatic welcome which marked these scenes of reunion were a royal recompense for the hardships of the missionary journey.

Father Claver never lost his ascendancy over the men whom he had baptized. On one occasion a mere message from him was sufficient to arrest the flight of a panic-stricken Negro population retreating in disorder from a volcano in eruption. Father Claver's messenger stopped the rout, and Father Claver's bodily presence next day transformed a terror-infected mob into a calm and orderly procession which followed him without fear round the very edge of the still active crater, on the crest of which Father Claver planted a triumphant cross.

Though Father Claver's activities were not confined to the Negroes, the "slave of the slaves" regarded himself as, above all, consecrated to their service. Proud Spaniards who sought him out had to be content with such time as he could spare from the ministrations of the Negroes. This attitude did not meet with universal approval. Spanish ladies complained that the smell of the Negroes who had attended Father Claver's daybreak Mass clung tenaciously to the church, and rendered its interior insupportable to sensitive nostrils for the remainder of the day. How could they possibly be expected to confess to Father Claver in a confessional used by Negroes and impregnated with their presence? "I quite agree," replied Father Claver, with the disarming simplicity of the saint. "I am not the proper confessor for fine ladies. You should go to some other confessor. My confessional was never meant for ladies of quality. It is too narrow for their gowns. It is only suited to poor Negresses."

But were his Spanish ladies satisfied with this reply? Not a bit. It was Father Claver to whom they wished to confess, and if the worst had come to the worst, they were prepared to use the same confessional as the Negresses. "Very well, then," replied Father Claver, meekly, "but I am afraid you must wait until all my Negresses have been absolved."

In the sight of God the white man and the Negro may be equal,
but in the sight of Father Claver the Negro had precedence every time (Lunn)

St. Peter Claver (1581-1654)
A native of Spain, young Jesuit Peter Claver left his homeland forever in 1610 to be a missionary in the colonies of the New World. He sailed into Cartagena (now in Colombia), a rich port city washed by the Caribbean. He was ordained there in 1615.
By this time the slave trade had been established in the Americas for nearly 100 years, and Cartagena was a chief center for it. Ten thousand slaves poured into the port each year after crossing the Atlantic from West Africa under conditions so foul and inhuman that an estimated one-third of the passengers died in transit. Although the practice of slave-trading was condemned by Pope Paul III and later labeled "supreme villainy" by Pius IX, it continued to flourish.

Peter Claver's predecessor, Jesuit Father Alfonso de Sandoval, had devoted himself to the service of the slaves for 40 years before Claver arrived to continue his work, declaring himself "the slave of the Negroes forever."

As soon as a slave ship entered the port, Peter Claver moved into its infested hold to minister to the ill-treated and miserable passengers. After the slaves were herded out of the ship like chained animals and shut up in nearby yards to be gazed at by the crowds, Claver plunged in among them with medicines, food, bread, brandy, lemons and tobacco. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God's saving love. During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves.

His apostolate extended beyond his care for slaves. He became a moral force, indeed, the apostle of Cartagena. He preached in the city square, gave missions to sailors and traders as well as country missions, during which he avoided, when possible, the hospitality of the planters and owners and lodged in the slave quarters instead.

After four years of sickness which forced the saint to remain inactive and largely neglected, he d ied on September 8, 1654. The city magistrates, who had previously frowned at his solicitude for the black outcasts, ordered that he should be buried at public expense and with great pomp.

He was canonized in 1888, and Pope Leo XIII declared him the worldwide patron of missionary work among black slaves.

Comment: The Holy Spirit's might and power are manifested in the striking decisions and bold actions of Peter Claver. A decision to leave one's homeland never to return reveals a gigantic act of will difficult for the contemporary mind to imagine. Peter's determination to serve forever the most abused, rejected and lowly of all people is stunningly heroic. When we measure our lives against such a man's, we become aware of our own barely used potential and of our need to open ourselves more to the jolting power of Jesus' Spirit.

Quote: Peter Claver understood that concrete service like the distributing of medicine, food or brandy to his black brothers and sisters could be as effective a communication of the word of God as mere verbal preaching. As Peter Claver often said, "We must speak to them with our hands before we try to speak to them with our lips."
In art, Saint Peter Claver is a Jesuit with a Negro (Roeder). He is the apostle of Cartagena and patron of missions to non-European nations (Roeder).

1853 Blessed Frédèric Ozanam Both mystical and practical humble no pride of intellect faught secularism and anti-clericalism in Europe
Born in Lyons, France, in 1813; beatified in 1997 by Pope John Paul II.

For the first 17 years of his life, Frédèric Ozanam saw Catholicism practiced daily by his devout parents. His father was a physician who gave his services freely to the poor. Frédèric's first enthusiasm was for philosophy, but defense of the faith became his chief intellectual concern. He studied the comparative history of religions in his leisure time, while he was a full-time law student in Paris. Both mystical and practical. Humble, no pride of intellect

In Paris, he lived with the famous scientist Ampère. His faith was tested by the secularism that surrounded him, by the unbelief. Ampère's faith created abut Ozanam an atmosphere unfavorable to doubt. His confessor Abbé Noirot really saved Ozanam by his instructions.

Ozanam worked with the publication L'Avenir, which aimed at cementing bonds between the Church and the working class, and at securing political liberty and equal rights for all people. Soon in conflict with Socialism, so aimed at the liberals. Pope disapproved, so the publication stopped in 1833.

Soon Ozanam realized that Christianity is not just an intellectual pursuit, which led him to understand there cannot be faith without works and to the founding of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Active charity throughout the rest of his life. "The defense of the faith and the love of the poor became the two master passions of his life."

1830-1850 saw the rise of secularism and anti-clericalism in Europe. Ozanam fought these trends wherever possible. In 1832, he wrote to a friend, "It is most necessary to make it clear to the student body that one can be a Catholic and have common sense, and that one can love both religion and liberty." He initiated the Lenten Conferences at Notre Dame de Paris, which were still on- going a hundred years later and are now heard on the radio.

Saint Vincent de Paul Society is not simply for works of Christian charity, but primarily for sanctification of its members. Faith only maintained by the practice of charity. Also intended for the Society to be a practical exemplification of the principles of true democracy; rights of men founded on charity, not justice. Catholic men must become the servants of the poor, giving their hearts as well as their substance. He who was given gave as much as the one who helped him. "Almsgiving is a reward for service done which has no salary." Partial payment of the debt we owe the poor. "They suffer where we do not; they serve God by suffering in a way we do not: they win for us graces from Him, which without them we would never have; they make humanity itself more like Jesus."

Ozanam maintained that almsgiving is an honor, "when it takes hold of a man and lifts him up; when it looks first and foremost to his soul,...when it leads him to real independence and makes him a truer man. Help is an honor and not a humiliation when to the gift of bread is joined a visit that comforts, a word of advice that clears away a cloud, a shake of the hand that revives a dying courage; when it treats the poor man with respect, not only as an equal, but in many ways as one above us, since he is with us as one sent by God himself, to test our justice and our charity, and by our own attitudes towards him to enable us to save our souls."

Ozanam started a new journal L'ère Nouvelle. In July 1835, Ozanam won his doctorate in law and soon felt a spiritual dryness. In 1837 his father died from a fall down a dark staircase while visiting a poor patient and Ozanam became the head of the family. Sad, he poured out his soul to a priest who responded, "Rejoice in the Lord always!" which Ozanam realized was audaciously the right response. At this time he was trying to discern his vocation. By the end of 1840, he was engaged to Amélie Soulacroix, daughter of the Rector of the University of Lyons. He left the decision of his teaching in Paris or Lyons to her and she chose Paris.

For Amélie, Frédèric was consecrated to God, a man upon whom God and the poor held prior claims. Ozanam loved and cherished his wife; she was like Dante's Beatrice, the source of truth and virtue. In his The history of civilization in the fifth century, Ozanam wrote: "Christian marriage is a double oblation, offered in two chalices...These two cups must both be full to the brim, in order that the union may be holy, and that heaven may bless it." Within one year after his marriage, he was elected to succeed Fauriel in the Sorbonne chair of comparative literature. His lectures and writings did much to make the Church more respected in the intellectual world of his day.

He was a man of unusual personal magnetism. His method of apologetic was primarily historical--he showed what the Church had done for mankind in the past, and argued from that to what it could and should do in the present. He said once in an address to working men that we work out our destinies here below, but without knowledge of the functions they will fulfill in the purposes of God. Another time: "The greatest men are those who have never drawn up in advance the plan of their lives, but have let themselves be led by the hand."

Five years after their marriage, their daughter Marie was born. Ozanam died in 1853 (age 40) when she was only eight. From: Delany, Selden P. 1950. Married Saints (Westminster, MD, The Newman Press).

Saint Gorgonius M (RM)
Saint Gorgonius is sometimes confused with the martyr of Nicomedia of the same name who is celebrated today with Saint Dorotheus. He was a martyr buried on the Via Lavicana, who was honored with an office in the sacramentary of Pope Saint Gelasius. Several reputable early historians record that Saint Chrodegang of Metz obtained his relics from Pope Paul to enrich his monastery at Gorze. Pope Saint Damasus, who died about 384, wrote an epitaph on Saint Gorgonius, which indicates that his cultus was extremely early (Farmer, Husenbeth).

ST GORGONIUS, MARTYR The Breviary is unquestionably mistaken here in identifying the Gorgonius of Nicomedia with the Gorgonius who was buried inter duos lauros on the Via Lavicana. The two martyrs were distinct, as Delehaye, Quentin and J. P. Kirsch are all agreed; and Dorotheus was associated not with the Roman Gorgonius, but with the Gorgonius of Nicomedia, of whose sufferings an account has been left by Eusebius. The martyrologist Ado was the author of the confusion, as Quentin, Martyrologes historiques, pp. 613—615, has fully demonstrated.

THE Western church today keeps the feast of St Gorgonius, who according to the Roman Martyrology and the lesson read at Matins was an official of the Emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia with his colleague Dorotheus he was put to death for protesting against the torments inflicted on a certain Christian, one Peter; and the body of Gorgonius was eventually taken to Rome, and buried on the Via Lavicana (“Latina” by mistake), between the two laurels.

There is confusion here between two martyrs, both called Gorgonius. The one buried on the Via Lavicana, the original object of today’s commemoration, was not the Gorgonius of Nicomedia, whose body was not translated to Rome. Of the first we know nothing, except that his cultus is tolerably ancient; the other, with his companions, is well attested and appears in calendars of both East and West on March 12, under which date he is noticed herein.

The Breviary is unquestionably mistaken here in identifying the Gorgonius of Nicomedia with the Gorgonius who was buried inter duos lauros on the Via Lavicana. The two martyrs were distinct, as Delehaye, Quentin and J. P. Kirsch are all agreed; and Dorotheus was associated not with the Roman Gorgonius, but with the Gorgonius of Nicomedia, of whose sufferings an account has been left by Eusebius. The martyrologist Ado was the author of the confusion, as Quentin, Martyrologes historiques, pp. 613—615, has fully demonstrated. See also the paper of Kirsch in Ehrengabe Deutscher Wissenschaft für .J. G. von Sachsen (1920), pp. 58—84 and especially CMH., pp. 497—498. Cf. 85. Peter and Gorgonius on March 12.

To Save A Life is Earthly; To Save A Soul is Eternal

THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 61

Give bountifully to thy servant, O Lady: enliven me, and I shall do thy will.

I am a sojourner on the earth: hide nothing of thy love from me.

My soul hath longed to desire thy praise: at all times.

For thou art my salvation in the Lord: who hast delivered me, one condemned to death.

What shall I give back for these things, except my whole self ? O Lady receive me.

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 Nizamuddi n 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]

To Save A Life is Earthly; Saving A Soul is Eternal Donation by mail, please send check or money order to:

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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

Index to Part I and Part II 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}.

Saints Simon (saw), Bartholomew (knife), James the Lesser (book), John (eagle), Andrew (transverse cross), Peter keys), Paul (sword), James the Greater (staff), Thomas (carpenter's square), Philip (serpent), Matthew (book), and Jude sword

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

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Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
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The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
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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
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Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
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Records on life of Father Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, presented at Vatican
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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
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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, 61 2023