Our Lady of Sorrows
Festum Septem Dolórum ejúsdem beatíssimæ Vírginis Maríæ.
The feast of the Seven Sorrows of the same most Blessed Virgin Mary.
For a while there were two feasts in honor of the Sorrowful Mother: one going back to the 15th century, the other to the 17th century. For a while both were celebrated by the universal Church: one on the Friday before Palm Sunday, the other in September.
The principal biblical references to Mary's sorrows are in Luke 2:35 and John 19:26-27.
The Lucan passage is Simeon's prediction about a sword piercing Mary's soul; the Johannine passage relates Jesus' words to Mary and to the beloved disciple.
Many early Church writers interpret the sword as Mary's sorrows, especially as she saw Jesus die on the cross. Thus, the two passages are brought together as prediction and fulfillment.
St. Ambrose in particular sees Mary as a sorrowful yet powerful figure at the cross.

Mary stood fearlessly at the cross while others fled.
Mary looked on her Son's wounds with pity, but saw in them the salvation of the world. As Jesus hung on the cross,
Mary did not fear to be killed but offered herself to her persecutors.

Comment: John's account of Jesus' death is highly symbolic.
When Jesus gives the beloved disciple to Mary, we are invited to appreciate Mary's role in the Church: She symbolizes the Church; the beloved disciple represents all believers. As Mary mothered Jesus, now mother to all his followers. Furthermore, as Jesus died, he handed over his Spirit. Mary and the Spirit cooperate in begetting new children of God—almost an echo of Luke's account of Jesus' conception. Christians can trust that they will continue to experience the caring presence of Mary and Jesus' Spirit throughout their lives and throughout history.

Quote: "At the cross her station keeping, Stood the mournful mother weeping, Close to Jesus to the last. Through her heart, his sorrow sharing, All his bitter anguish bearing, Now at length the sword has passed." (Stabat Mater)

The Seven Sorrows of The Blessed Virgin Mary
Twice during the year the Western church commemorates the sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the Friday in Passion week and again on this September 14. The first is the older feast, instituted at Cologne and elsewhere during the fifteenth century. It was then called the Commemoration of the Distress and Sorrow of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and had in view specifically our Lady’s suffering during the passion of her divine Son. When the feast was extended to the whole Western church in 1727 under the title of the Seven Sorrows, the original reference of the Mass and Office to the Crucifixion was retained, and the commemoration is still called the Compassion of our Lady in some calendars e.g. those of the Benedictines and Dominicans, as it was in many places before the eighteenth century.
In the, middle ages there was a popular devotion to the five joys of Mary, and this was soon complemented by another in honour of five of her sorrows at the Passion. Later, these were fixed at seven, and extended back from Calvary to embrace her whole life. The Servite friars, who from their beginning had a particular devotion to the sufferings of Mary, were in 1668 granted a feast for the third Sunday in September on which these Seven Sorrows should be commemorated, and this feast also was extended to the Western church in 1814. For long there were several different ways of enumerating these mysteries, but since the composition of the liturgical office they have been fixed by the responsories at Matins as
(i) The prophecy of holy Simeon. “There was a man named Simeon, and this man was just and devout; and he said unto Mary: “Thine own soul also a sword shall pierce.” (ii) The flight into Egypt. “Arise, and take the Child and His mother and fly into Egypt; and be there until I shall tell thee.” (iii) The three days’ disappearance of the boy Jesus. “Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee, sorrowing.” (iv) The painful progress to Calvary. “And bearing His own cross He went forth. And there followed Him a great multitude of people, and of women who bewailed and lamented Him.” (v) The crucifixion. “And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, they crucified Him there. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother.” (vi) The taking down from the cross. “Joseph of Arimathea begged the body of Jesus. And taking it down from the cross His mother received it into her arms.” (vii) The entombment. “What a sadness of heart was thine, Mother of sorrows, when Joseph wrapped Him in fine linen and laid Him in a sepulchre.”

Much has been written about the gradual evolution of this consecrated number of our Lady’s sorrows or “Dolours”, but the subject is by no means been exhausted. One of the most valuable contributions to the history is an article in the Analecta Bollandiana (vol. xii, 1893, pp. 333—352), under the title “La Vierge aux Sept Glaives”, written in reply to a foolish attempt of the folklorist H. Gaidoz to connect the devotion with a Chaldean cylinder at the British Museum. It bears a representation of the Assyrian goddess Istar; around this is a sort of trophy of arms, which can be resolved into seven separate weapons. The coincidence is by no means striking in itself, and there is not a shadow of evidence to suggest any link between Assyria and this very late western devotion. We know for certain that in the Middle Ages recognition of five joys and then of seven preceded any specified numbering of our Lady’s sorrows. Moreover, before a settled convention was arrived at we hear occasionally of nine joys, fifteen sorrows, or twenty-seven sorrows, etc. On all this consult S. Beissel, Geschichte der Verehrung Marias in Deutschland, vol. i (1909), pp. 404-413, and, on the liturgical commemoration, vol. ii of the same work (1910), pp. 364—367. Further information as to the local observance of the feast in the past is afforded by Holweck, Calendarium liturgicum festorum…(1925). Although its general observance was then quite new, Benedict XIV’s commission advocated the removal of this feast from the general calendar.

90 Nicomedes of Rome priest refused to aposate M (RM)
Romæ, via Nomentána, natális beáti Nicomédis, Presbyteri et Mártyris, qui, cum díceret compelléntibus se sacrificáre: « Ego non sacrífico nisi Deo omnipoténti, qui regnat in cælis », plumbátis diutíssime cæsus est, atque in eo torménto migrávit ad Dóminum.
At Rome, on the Via Nomentana, the birthday of blessed Nicomedes, priest and martyr. Because he said to those who would compel him to sacrifice: "I offer sacrifice only to the omnipotent God who reigneth in heaven," he was for a long time scourged with leaded whips, and thus passed to the Lord.
The Emperor Constantine Copronymus thought that the relics of the saints and martyrs were worthless objects, and that anyone who collected the bones of the holy ones was a fool. He therefore set about finding as many of these sacred remains as he could and throwing them into the sea.

Pope Saint Paschal I, who was elected in 817, 32 years after the emperor's death, disagreed. Whereas Constantine Copronymus had got rid of saintly bones, Paschal I conceived it as his duty to find as many replacements as possible. The church of Santa Prassede in Rome is filled with all that he collected, their names inscribed on marble tablets close by the sanctuary.

Among them are the earthly remains of Saint Nicomedes, brought in 817 from their catacomb on the Via Nomentina. Nicomedes had been a priest, at a time when Christians had to keep their faith secret or risk death. His own beliefs came to light when he bravely obtained the bones of another martyr, Saint Felicula, to give them Christian burial.

Nicomedes was given the chance of apostatizing by offering sacrifice to heathen gods. "I sacrifice only to the almighty God who rules over us all from heaven," was Nicomedes' response. Nicomedes had signed his own death warrant. He was beaten with whips that had been made crueller by means of lead lining and, under this torture, died.

The saint's body was thrown into the Tiber, so that the Christians could not burial it. Justus, Another Christian, boldly rescued it and placed the corpse in a tomb on the Via Nomentina, just outside the Porta Pia. And there it remained until 817 (Bentley).

In art, Saint Nicomedes is depicted as an early Christian priest with a club set with spikes (Roeder) .

St Nicomedes, Martyr
Nicomedes was a martyr of the Roman church who was buried in a catacomb on the Via Nomentana, just outside the Porta Pia. There was a church dedicated in his honour, and there is good evidence of his early cultus. The Roman Martyrology says that, on saying to those who tried to make him sacrifice, “I do not sacrifice except to the almighty God who reigns in Heaven, he was for a long time beaten with leaded whips and under this torture passed to the Lord”. But this is derived from an account of him in the worthless acta of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, wherein he is represented as a priest who buried the body of St Felicula, was arrested and put to death, and his body thrown into the Tiber whence it was recovered by the deacon Justus. Another recension of his passion makes him suffer in the third-fourth century, under the Emperor Maximian. His catacomb was discovered in 1864.

It is curious that the name of Nicomedes does not occur in the Roman list, Depositio martyrum, of 354 but the Itineraries, as well as the Sacramentaries, authenticate his early cultus in Rome. Evidence is been set out in Delehaye’s CMH, p. 510.

2nd v. Melitina of Marcianopolis overthrew idol M (RM)

Marcianópoli, in Thrácia, sanctæ Melitínæ Mártyris, quæ, sub Antoníno Imperatóre et Antíocho Præside, cum ad Gentílium fana semel et íterum ducta esset, atque idóla semper corrúerent, ídeo suspénsa et laniáta est, ac demum cápite plexa.
At Marcianapolis in Thrace, St. Melitina, a martyr, in the time of Emperor Antoninus and the governor Antiochus. She was twice led to the temples of the heathens, and since the idols fell to the ground each time, she was hanged and torn, and finally beheaded.
Died mid-2nd century. Marcianopolis (Bulgaria) Saint Melitina, like Saints Maximus, Theodore, and Scelpiodotus was martyred in that ancient town under Antoninus Pius. Her relics were moved to the island of Lemnos (Benedictines). In art, Saint Melitina is depicted as a maiden with a sword; the idol she overthrew lays near her. She is venerated on Lemnos (Roeder).

177 St. Valerian massacre martyrs of Lyons with bishop St. Pothinus took place during the persecutions of Marcus Aurelius in the year 177
In território Cabillonénsi sancti Valeriáni Mártyris, quem Priscus Præses, suspénsum et gravi ungulárum laceratióne cruciátum, tandem, cum in Christi confessióne vidéret immóbilem ac læto ánimo in ejus láudibus permanéntem, gládio animadvérti præcépit.
In the diocese of Chalons, St. Valerian, martyr, who was suspended on high by the governor Priscus, and tortured with iron hooks. Remaining immovable in the confession of Christ, and continuing joyfully to praise him, he was struck with the sword by order of the same magistrate.

Valerian of Lyons M (RM) Died 178. Saint Valerian was a companion of the ancient Bishop Saint Pothinus of Lyons. Valerian succeeded in escaping from prison, but was captured at Tournus near Autun while preaching to the people. He was beheaded (Benedictines).

Marcellus, a priest, we are told, by Divine intervention, managed to escape to Chalon-sur-Saone, where he was given shelter. His host was a pagan, and seeing him offer incense before images of Mars, Mercury, and Minerva, Marcellus remonstrated with and converted him.
While journeying toward the North, the priest fell in with the governor Priscus, who asked him to a celebration at his house. Marcellus accepted the invitation, but when he found that Priscus was preparing to fulfill religious rites, he asked to be excused on the ground that he was a Christian. This raised an outcry, and the bystanders tried to kill Marcellus there and then by tying him to the tops of two young trees in tension and then letting them fly apart. The governor ordered him to make an act of worship before an image of Saturn. He refused, whereupon he was buried up to his middle in the earth on the banks of the Saone, and died in three days of exposure and starvation. Butler mentions with St. Marcellus, the martyr St. Valerian who is named in the Roman Martyrology on September 15th. He is said to have escaped from prison at the same time as Marcellus, and was beheaded for the Faith at Tournus, near Autun.

257 Saint Acacius the Confessor Uncovering of the relics of Bishop of Melitene, Armenia.

Lived during the Decian persecution. Arrested as a Christian, St Acacius was brought before the governor Marcianus, who ordered that he be tortured. He was not put to death, but was set free after a while, bearing the wounds of Christ on his body. He died in peace.

St Acacius the Confessor is also commemorated on March 31. He should not be confused with another St Acacius of Melitene (April 17) who lived in the fifth century.

Theodotus The Holy Martyr suffered with Sts Maximus, Asklepiodote, at the beginning of the fourth century under the emperor Maximian Galerius (305-311). Eminent citizens of the city of Marcianopolis, Maximus and Asklepiodote led a devout Christian life. By their example they brought many to faith in Christ and to holy Baptism.
Hadrianópoli, in Thrácia, sanctórum Mártyrum Máximi, Theodóri et Asclepiódoti; qui sub Maximiáno Imperatóre coronáti sunt.
At Adrianople in Thrace, the holy martyrs Maximus, Theodore, and Asclepiodotus, who were crowned under Emperor Maximian.

During the persecution Tiris, the governor of Thrace, went around the city subject to him and persecuted those believing in Christ. He summoned Maximus and Asklepiodote before him and demanded they abandon the Christian Faith. When the martyrs refused, he ordered that they be beaten.

Then a certain pious man named Theodotus, began to reproach the governor for his inhumanity and cruelty. They seized him also, and hanging him on a tree, they tortured him with iron hooks. After this, they threw the three martyrs into prison. Tiris traveled for two weeks more and took the holy martyrs along with him.

In the city of Adrianopolis he put them to still greater tortures, commanding that their bodies be scorched with white-hot plates. In the midst of their suffering they heard a Voice from Heaven encouraging them to persevere. After several days of torture they threw the martyrs to be eaten by wild beasts in the circus, but instead the she-bear released upon Sts Maximus and Theodotus began to cuddle up to them.

St Asklepiodote was tied to a bull, but she seemed to be rooted to the spot, and did not budge. Tiris resumed the journey and stopped in the village of Saltis before reaching the city of Philippopolis. Again he urged the martyrs to renounce Christ. When they refused, he ordered them to be beheaded.

God's wrath overtook him when a bolt of lightning struck him as he sat upon the judgment seat.

310 Maximus, Theodore, and Scelpiodotus born in Marcianopolis (now in Bulgaria) MM (RM).
Hadrianópoli, in Thrácia, sanctórum Mártyrum Máximi, Theodóri et Asclepiódoti; qui sub Maximiáno Imperatóre coronáti sunt.
At Adrianople in Thrace, the holy martyrs Maximus, Theodore, and Asclepiodotus, who were crowned under Emperor Maximian.
These three martyrs were born in Marcianopolis (now in Bulgaria) and suffered at Adrianopolis (Benedictines).

362 Porphyrius the Actor declares Christian on stage with Julian the Apostate in audience M (RM)
Item sancti Porphyrii mimi, qui, coram Juliáno Apóstata, per jocum suscípiens baptísmum, Dei virtúte derepénte mutátur, et Christiánum se esse profitétur; ac mox, ipsíus Imperatóris mandáto secúri percússus, martyrio coronátur.
Also, St. Porphyry, a comedian, who was baptized in jest in the presence of Julian the Apostate, but was suddenly converted by the power of God and declared himself a Christian. By order of the emperor he was thereupon struck with an axe, and thus crowned with martyrdom.
The story of Saint Porphyrius is similar to that of several other saints. He was a horse trader and an actor, who was converted to the faith while burlesquing the Sacrament of Baptism on stage. He suddenly declared himself a Christian in front of the audience, which included Julian the Apostate, and was immediately slain (Benedictines). In art, Saint Porphyrius is portrayed as he declares himself a Christian on stage with Julian the Apostate in the audience (Roeder).

The Holy Martyr Porphyrius suffered during the reign of Julian the Apostate (361-363). Porphyrius was an actor and on the emperor's birthday he was performing a role at the theater, where he was supposed to mock the mystery of holy Baptism.

During the play Porphyrius was immersed in water and said: "The servant of God, Porphyrius, is baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Through divine grace, he emerged from the water and confessed himself a Christian. Julian ordered him to be tortured, and after the torments, to be beheaded. This took place in the city of Ephesus in the year 361.

The Novonikita Icon is one of the ancient icons of the Mother of God. It appeared to the holy Great Martyr Nikita (+ 372). St Nikita was a former soldier and disciple of Theophilus, Bishop of the Goths. Prior to his Baptism, Nikita saw a Child in a dream, holding His Cross in His hand. He awoke and pondered the meaning of the vision for a long time.

A certain Christian girl by the name of Juliana, inspired by God, told the youth that he should look at his own chest. To his unspeakable astonishment he discovered there an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos with the Pre-eternal Christ Child, standing on His Mother's knees and holding the Cross in His hand.

"This is the same image I saw in the dream," cried St Nikita. The appearance of the icon produced such an effect on him that he quickly received holy Baptism. Soon there was a persecution against Christians, and St Nikita received a martyr's crown, together with a number of other confessors.

378 Nicetas the Goth (the Great) M (RM)
Eódem die sancti Nicétæ Gothi, qui ab Athanaríco Rege, ob cathólicam fidem, jussus est igne combúri.
On the same day, St. Nicetas, a Goth, who was burned alive for the Catholic faith by order of King Athanaric.
Saint Sabas and Nicetas are the two most renowned martyrs among the Goths. It is interesting to note that Nicetas, an Ostrogoth born along the Danube, should rightly be considered a heretic, yet he is listed in the Roman Martyrology. Through no fault of his own, he and many of his kinsmen and neighbors were converted to Christianity by the Arian Ulphilas. In good faith, he was also ordained as an Arian priest. But doctrinal differences are often forgotten in the name of Jesus. Nicetas was martyred by King Athanaric, in his attempt to eradicate the name of Christ from his territory bordering on the Roman Empire.
About 370, Athanaric began a systematic persecution. He caused an idol to be carried in a chariot through all the towns and villages he suspected were sheltering Christians. Those who refused to adore were put to death, usually by burning the Christians with their children in the houses or those assembled together in churches. At other times they were stabbed at the foot of the altar. Nicetas was burnt to death.
His body was taken to Mopsuestia in Cilicia, which is why his name is especially remember in the East (Attwater, Benedictines, Husenbeth).

St Nicetas The Goth, Martyr (Ad. 375)
Saints Sabas and Nicetas are the two most renowned martyrs among the Goths. The former is honoured on April 12, the latter, whom the Greeks place in the class of the “great martyrs”, is commemorated on this day. He was a Goth, born near the banks of the Danube, and converted to the faith in his youth by Ulfilas, a great missionary among those people, and translator of the Bible into the Gothic tongue. He ordained Nicetas priest. In the year 372 Athanaric, king of the Eastern Goths who bordered upon the Roman Empire toward Thrace, raised a persecution against the Christians, occasioned by ill treatment by the Roman authorities of a number of Goths who had taken refuge in Moldavia from the Huns. By his order an idol was carried in a chariot through all the towns and villages where it was suspected that any Christians lived, and all who refused to worship it were put to death. The usual method of the persecutors was to burn the Christians with their children in their houses or in the churches where they were assembled together. In the army of martyrs that glorified God on this occasion, St Nicetas sealed his faith and obedience with his blood, and triumphing over sin passed to eternal glory by the death of fire. His relics were taken to Mopsuestia in Cilicia and there enshrined, whence it came about that this Visigothic martyr is venerated throughout the Byzantine and Syrian churches, On September 12 the feast is observed at Venice of another ST NICETAS, a martyr under Diocletian.

The Greek text of the passio of St Nicetas, as presented by the Metaphrast, was printed with a commentary in the Acta, Sanctorum, September, vol. v. But in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxi (1912), pp. 209—215, the earlier original of this account has been critically edited, with a commentary, which occupies pp. 281—287 of the same volume.

390 Albinus (Aubin, Alpin) of Lyons B built the church of Saint Stephen (RM)

Lugdúni, in Gállia, sancti Albíni Epíscopi. At Lyons in France, St. Albinus, bishop.

Succeeded Saint Justus as Lyons bishop; built church of Saint Stephen and chose it as his cathedral (Benedictines).

460 Mamilian of Palermo B exiled to Tuscany by the Arian king Genseric (AC)
Bishop Mamilian of Palermo, Sicily, was exiled to Tuscany by the Arian king Genseric. His relics were returned to Palermo, where they are venerated (Benedictines).

475 Saint Gerasimus; lived in the Thebaid, then wilderness near the Jordan river where he built a monastery and became renowned for the virtue of his life; During 5 days no cooked food was eaten only small amount of dried bread, roots and water brought from the monastery; Saturdays and Sundays all monks went to monastery attend Divine Liturgy receive Holy Communion, then served cooked food and a little wine at the refectory; work completed during week given to the abbot. On Sunday, afternoon each monk departed once again for his solitary cell in the wilderness, taking only a little bread, roots, a vessel of water and palm branches to weave baskets.
   Born in the province of Lycia in the southern part of Asia Minor. His parents were wealthy, prosperous people. From a very early age St. Gerasimus developed a great love of God and, as he grew older, he found he had little in common with other young people of his own age, whw were only interested in having fun. He realized that the world and an attachment to it only brought many needless cares and sufferings, so he yearned to serve God and to be pleasing to Him.

    Thus it was that St. Gerasimus became a monk and departed for the desert of Egypt, to the region known as the Thebaid. He spent some time there, growing in Spiritual strength and wisdom, and then he again returned to his native province of Lycia. Later, towards the end of the reign of the holy Emperor Theodosius the Younger (who ruled from 408-450), he went to Palestine, where he settled in the wilderness near the Jordan river. There he built a monastery and became renowned for the virtue of his life.

     The monastery of St. Gerasimus was built approximately 25 miles from Jerusalem and about 100 vards from the Jordan River. At that time there were more than 70 desert dwellers there and St. Gerasimus established the following rule for these strugglers. Five days a week each monk was to keep silent in a solitary cell, doing simple handiwork such as weaving mats or baskets out of palm leaves. During these five days no cooked food was eaten; the only food was a small amount of dried bread, roots and water brought from the monastery. On Saturdays and Sundays all the monks went ,to the monastery to attend the Divine Liturgy and receive Holy Communion. Afterwards they were served cooked food and a little wine at the refectory. The work that had been completed during the week was given to the abbot. On Sunday, afternoon each monk departed once again for his solitary cell in the wilderness, taking only a little bread, roots, a vessel of water and palm branches to weave baskets. Each monk had only a single old robe, a mat on which to sleep and a small vessel for water. Whenever the monks left their cells, the doors were left open so that anyone could enter and take whatever he wished of the monks' few possessions. In this way they prevented any attachment to material possessions. During Great Lent St. Gerasimus ate nothing at all until the radiant day of Pascha. His bodily and spiritual strength was sustained solely by receiving the Holy Mysteries.

    Monks of his monastery were fond of recalling how a lion came to greatly love the saint and served him obediently and with great humility. One day, as St. Gerasimus was walking through the Jordan desert, he met a lion. The lion stretched out his paw and St. Cerasimus saw that it was infected and very swollen. The lion gazed pleadingly and meekly at the elder who sat down immediately to inspect the paw. He discovered that a thorn had lodged in the lion's paw and this was the cause of his suffering. The saint carefully removed the thorn, cleansed the wound of all the pus and then wrapped it with his handkerchief. From then on the lion faithfully followed the saint like a disciple. St. Gerasimus marveled at the lion's intelligence, meekness and willingness to eat bread and whatever else could be found for him. The lion was given an obedience in the monastery. The monks had a donkey which carried water from the Jordan River for the brethren. The lion was entrusted with the task of accompanying the donkey to the river and guarding it while it grazed on the riverbank.

     One day the lion fell asleep in the sun, leaving the donkey to graze peacefully. Just then an Arabian merchant happened to pass by with his caravan of camels and saw the donkey. Thinking the animal was a stray, he tied it to his line of camels and took it with him. The lion awoke and began to search for the donkey, but it was nowhere to be found. The beast returned to the monastery and went immediately to St. Gercsimus who, seeing his dejected expression, thought he had eaten the donkey and asked, "Where is the donkey?" The lion stood in silence, hanging his head in shame. The elder praised the lion for not running away after his evil deed and instructed him to do the work of the donkey from then on. The monks loaded a large barrel on the lion's hack, as they had done before with the donkey, and sent him to the river to fetch water. One day a soldier came to the monastery to pray, and seeing the lion carrying the water, took pity on him and gave the monks three gold pieces to buy another donkey. The lion once again resumed his former obedience of guarding the donkey.

      Some time later, the Arabian merchant once again passed by the Jordan on his way to sell wheat in Jerusalem. The donkey was still with him. That day, the lion happened to be near the river and as the caravan approached he recognized the donkey. Roaring loudly, he rushed towards him, frightening the merchant and his companions who fled in great terror. The lion grasped the donkey's reins in his teeth, as he had done previously, and led it together with the string of camels to the saint. When he saw the saint he roared joyously at having found the lost donkey. St. Getanimus smiled gently and told his monks that the lion had been blamed most unfairly. The lion was given the name 'Jordan' and he continued to be a most faithful 'disciple'. He was never absent from the monastery for more than five days at a time.

     St. Gerasimus departed to the Lord in the year 475 and was buried by his sorrowing brethren there in his monastery. The lion was not in the monastery at that time. When later he arrived, he began to search for the saint. ... Father Sabbatius tried to explain why it was that the elder could not be found. “Jordan, our elder has left us orphans; he has departed to the Lord." The lion was not to be comforted; he refused the food that was offered and continued searching for his St. Gerasimus, roaring in great confusion. Fr. Sabbatius and the other monks stroked Jordan gently on the back and pleaded, "The elder has gone to the Lord; he has left us!" No words or explanations could stop the sorrowful roaring of the lion. He kept searching, now in great distress. Finally Fr. Sabbatius said, "If you do not believe us, then come with us: we will show you the place where the elder rests." Jordan was led to the tomb near the church where St. Gerasimus was buried. Fr. Sabbatius explained to the lion, "We have buried our elder here." Fr. Sabbatius then fell to his knees and with a heavy heart began to weep. The Lion now realized what had happened. He gave one last mighty roar, struck his head on the ground and died on the elder's grave.

    The lion's love and devotion for St. Gerasimus is an example of the love and obedience the animals had for Adam before his fall into sin and his expulsion from Paradise. From this account we also learn how St. Gerasimus pleased the Lord, from his youth unto old age, until he was granted to be numbered among the saints with whom he now glorifies the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

5th v. Eutropia of Auvergne, Widow first lauded by Saint Sidonius Apollinaris (RM)

In Gállia sanctæ Eutrópiæ Víduæ. In France, St. Eutropia, widow.

The sanctity of the widow Saint Eutropia was first lauded by Saint Sidonius Apollinaris (Benedictines).

507 St. Aprus Bishop of Toul, France; very successful lawyer, gave up his profession in order to receive presbyterial ordination

Tulli, in Gállia, sancti Apri Epíscopi. At Toul in France, St. Aper, bishop.

called Aper, Epvre, or Evre, the brother of St. Apronia. Aprus was born near Trier, Germany, was a very successful lawyer. After entering the priesthood, Aprus was appointed bishop of Toul, France.
Aprus of Toul B (RM)
(also known as Aper, Apre, Epvre, Eyre, Evre) Born near Trèves (Trier), Germany. Saint Aprus, who gave up his profession in order to receive presbyterial ordination. Eventually selected bishop of Toul, which he pastored for seven years (Benedictines).

6th v. Saint Hernan of Brittany (AC)
Born in Britain; During the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain, Saint Hernan sought refuge in Brittany. There he lived in solitude at a place now named for him, Loc-Harn. He is the patron of that village (Benedictines).

6th v. Blessed Abba Joseph of Alaverdi; disciple and companion of St. John of Zedazeni, arrived in Georgia with twelve Syrian ascetics to spread the Christian Faith. With the blessing of his teacher, Fr. Joseph settled in the village of Alaverdi in eastern Georgia. According to tradition, he carried with him a cross formed from the wood of the Life-giving Cross of our Savior. Many of the faithful were so drawn to Abba Joseph’s holy life, boundless love, and miracles that they left the world to join in his labors.

At that time the region around Alaverdi was deserted and barren. One day the Lord sent a nobleman to hunt in the valley where the pious hermit dwelt among the wild animals. Seeing the saint, the nobleman guessed immediately that before him stood a holy man. He bowed before him, kissed him, and humbly asked what had brought him to this deserted place.

With the help of God, St. Joseph aroused in the nobleman a divine love and an unquenchable desire for the Truth. The nobleman vowed to erect a church in the Alaverdi Wilderness, and he laid the foundations of Alaverdi Monastery in fulfillment of this vow. Venerable Joseph was overjoyed at the accomplishment of this God-pleasing work.

Soon the people began to hear stories about the holy elder who was laboring in Alaverdi. Crowds of the faithful flocked there to see him with their own eyes and hear the blessed Joseph’s preaching. As a result of his unceasing efforts, unbelief was uprooted, and the divine services of the Church were firmly established in that region. Many of the faithful were so drawn to Abba Joseph’s holy life, boundless love, and miracles that they left the world to join in his labors.

Gradually the number of hermits increased, and a large community was formed. Fr. Joseph was the first abbot of this brotherhood. Utterly exhausted from a life of God-pleasing ascesis and labors, St. Joseph sensed the approach of death and prepared to stand before the Lord God. He gathered his disciples, blessed them, instructed them for the last time, appointed a new abbot, and peacefully departed to the Lord.

With great honor Fr. Joseph’s disciples buried him at the Alaverdi Church. Many miracles have since occurred over the grave of the venerable elder.

556 St. Leobinus Bishop of Chartres, France; a hermit priest and abbot before his consecration

Item sancti Leobíni, Epíscopi Carnuténsis. Also, St. Leobinus, bishop of Chartres.

He was a hermit priest and abbot before his consecration. When raiders attacked his monastery near Lyons, Leobinus was tortured and left for dead. He is sometimes called Lubin.

590 St. Joseph Abibos Disciple of St. John Zeda Zfleli and abbot
A native of Syria, he served as abbot of Alaverdi in the area of modem Georgia.
Joseph Abibos, Abbot (AC) Saint Joseph, abbot of Alaverdi, Georgia, Iberia, was on of the 13 Syriac followers of Saint John Zedazneli, who evangelized the area and introduced monasticism there (Benedictines).

6th century St. Hernan Hermit and patron saint of Loc Horn Hernan.
Brittany, France. Hernan was a Briton who fled his homeland when the Anglo Saxons conquered the area.

620 Saint Mirin of Benchor B contemporary of Saint Columba, was a disciple of Saint Comgall at Bangor (County Down) (AC)
(also known as Merinus, Merryn, Meadhran) Saint Mirin, a contemporary of Saint Columba, was a disciple of Saint Comgall at Bangor (County Down). He had a powerful influence in the area of Strathclyde, south of Glasgow, Scotland. There he founded and was abbot of Paisley abbey, where he died and was buried. His shrine became a pilgrimage center.
Mirin is venerated by both Protestants and Catholics in both Ireland and Scotland, where there is a chapel dedicated to him among the ruins of Inch Murryn, the largest island in Loch Lomond. He is also patron of the British football club called Saint Mirren's of Paisley (Benedictines, Farmer, Montague).

St Mirin (Seventh Century?)
St Mirin (Meadhran) was an Irish missionary in Scotland, who was buried at Paisley, where his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. He was co-titular of the medieval abbey there, and other churches in Scotland bore his name. According to the Aberdeen Breviary, Mirin was a disciple of St Comgall and was for a time abbot of Bangor. Characteristic of the vindictive strain in some Celtic hagiology, it is related that Mirin laid the pains of childbirth on an Irish king who had opposed him.
His feast, as a bishop, is observed in the diocese of Paisley, where the cathedral church is dedicated in his honour.

See the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. v; KSS, pp. 397, 406. Cf. M. Barrett, A Calendar of Scottish Saints (1904), p. 123, and Footprints of the Ancient Scottish Church (1914), p. 184; and LIS,, vol. ix, p. 377. Mirin is not to be confused with the eponymous saint of Saint Merryn in Cornwall, apparently a woman, and not certainly identified.

7th century St. Ribert Benedictine abbot and possibly a bishop
Best known and revered in the area of Rouen, France, he was a monk and later abbot of the monastery of Valery-sur-Some. As such, Ribert would have served as the regional bishop of Normandy and Picardy.
690 Saint Ritbert,of Varennes, OSB Abbot disciple of Saint Ouen preached missions in the countryside (AC)
Saint Ritbert, a disciple of Saint Ouen, became abbot of a small monastery and the pastor of the church of Varenne (Rouen). He preached missions in the countryside (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

687 St. Aichardus son of an army officer became Benedictine example of daily fidelity scrupulous observance of the monastic rules

Eódem die deposítio sancti Aichárdi Abbátis. On the same day, the death of St. Aichard, abbot.

He was the son of an army officer and was sent to Poitiers, France, to be educated for a military career. His mother, having seen his intense piety and his scholarly leanings, intervened and arranged for him to make his own decision about his career. Aichardus chose the religious life and entered the Benedictine Order at John's Abbey in Ansion, Poitou.
   He remained as a monk for almost forty years. When a new Benedictine monastery was founded by St. Philibert in Quincay, Aichardus was appointed as prior of the new house. When St. Philibert at Jumieges died, Aichardus succeeded him as abbot of that nine-hundred-member monastery. Aichardus was an example of daily fidelity and scrupulous observance of the monastic rules of his order.
Aichardus of Jumièges, OSB Abbot (RM) (also known as Archard, Aicard, Achart)
Born at Poitiers; died c. 687. As the son of one of Clotaire II's officers, Auschaire, and his wife Ermina, Saint Aichardus was born into a pre-eminent family of Poitou. His mother was particularly devout and diligently trained her son in the ways of Christian perfection. She sent him to Saint Hilary's monastery at Poitiers for his education. Early in his life he was professed as a monk of Ansion in Poitou, where he spent 39 years. Thereafter, he was abbot of Saint Benedict's at Quinçay and, finally, abbot of Jumièges, where he succeeded Saint Philibert as the spiritual leader of about 1,000 monks (Benedictines).

687 St Aichardus, Or Achard, Abbot
IT is related that Aichardus at the age of ten was taken to he educated at a monastery at Poitiers. Here he remained till his father thought it was time for him to come home and be introduced to the life of court and camp hut his mother was concerned that he should become a saint, and that this end alone should be considered in it. This led to considerable disagreement between the parents, and to end it Aichardus himself was called in to give his opinion. This he expressed to his father with so much earnestness and in so dutiful a manner that he gained his consent upon the spot Aichardus went without delay to the abbey of St Jouin at Ansion in Poitou.
   St Aichardus had been at Ansion for thirty-nine years when St Philibert, who peopled it with fifteen monks from Jumièges and made Aichardus their superior, founded the priory of St Benedict at Quinçay. Under his rule the new house prospered and soon augmented its numbers. When St Philibert finally retired from Jumièges he resigned that abbacy to St Aichardus, whose nomination was accepted by the community in consequence of a vision granted to one of their number. This was not the only occasion in the career of Aichardus that, according to tradition, a vision was vouchsafed at a particularly useful moment. There were then at Jumièges nine hundred monks, among whom he promoted monastic perfection by his example, and this manner of exhorting proved most effectual for some of them. But others were not so easily led, until their abbot had a dream of the approaching death and judgement of 442 of them: this had a great effect in heightening their observance.
   St Aichardus was forewarned of the death of St Philibert very shortly before his own, and when his time came he was laid on ashes and covered with sackcloth, and said to the monks: My dear children, never forget the last advice and testament of your most loving father. “I implore you in the name of our divine Saviour always to love one another, and never to suffer the least coldness toward any brother to be for a moment in your breasts, or anything by which perfect charity may suffer any harm in your souls. You have borne the yoke of penance and are grown old in the exercise of religious duties in vain, if you do not sincerely love one another. Without this, martyrdom itself cannot make you acceptable to God. Fraternal charity is the soul of a religious house.” Having spoken these words, he happily surrendered his soul into the hands of his Creator.
The Cistercian menology on this same day commemorates a Bd Aichardus who was evidently a man whose virtues and abilities were equally above the average for he was master of novices at Clairvaux and was used by St Bernard in the work of his foundations. He died about a 170.

A full account of St Aichardus is given in the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. v, but little trust can be placed in the published lives of the saint.

852 St. Emilas deacon & Jeremiah Spanish student martyrs of Cordoba, Spain
Córdubæ, in Hispánia, sanctórum Mártyrum Emilæ Diáconi, et Jeremíæ, qui, in persecutióne Arábica, post longam cárceris maceratiónem, demum, cervícibus pro Christo abscíssis, martyrium complevérunt.
At Cordova in Spain, the holy martyrs Emilas, deacon, and Jeremias, who ended their martyrdom in the persecution of the Arabs by being beheaded after a long stay in prison.
by Caliph Abd-al-Rahman II . Emilas was a deacon. The young men were beheaded.
Emilas (Emile) and Jeremias (Jeremy) MM (RM). Emile, a deacon, and his friend Jeremy were students at Cordova, Spain. They provoked the Moorish inhabitants and were beheaded under caliph Abderrahman (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

10th v. The Venerable Philotheus Presbyter and Wonderworker devoted himself to deeds of prayer and fasting, and works of charity; received from God the gift of working miracles
The Holy Presbyter and Wonderworker Philotheus lived in the tenth century in the village of Mravin (or Myrmix) located in Bythnia in Asia Minor. He was a married priest, and had children. He devoted himself to deeds of prayer and fasting, and works of charity. Because of his holy life, St Philotheus received from God the gift of working miracles. The ascetic continually fed the hungry and helped the needy. St Philotheus died in peace. Myrrh flowed from his relics.

Philotheus was from the village of Myrmix or Mravin in Asia Minor. His mother had the same name, but reversed-Theophila. Philotheus was a presbyter and a great miracle-worker during his lifetime. On one occasion, he changed water into wine and, on another occasion, he miraculously increased a quantity of bread. He reposed in the Lord in the tenth century, and his relics gushed myrrh.

1170 Blessed Aichardus of Clairvaux, received the Cistercian habit from the hands of Saint Bernard OSB Cist. (PC)
Aichardus received the Cistercian habit from the hands of Saint Bernard at Clairvaux. The founder sent Aichardus to several different foundations. When he returned to Clairvaux, Saint Bernard appointed him novice-master (Benedictines).

1095 St. Vitus Benedictine monk in the community near Bergamo Italy. He was a disciple of St. Albert.

1222 Adam of Caithness, OSB Cist. B As bishop, Adam tried to enforce canon and civil law, including the payment of tithes martyred with followers (PC)
Saint Adam entered the Cistercians as a young man. Later he was abbot of Melrose until King William of Scotland appointed him bishop in a remote area over which he wanted to gain more power. As bishop, Adam tried to enforce canon and civil law, including the payment of tithes, which he increased gradually doubling.
Of course, this led to a revolt. A mob forced its way into the bishop's house at Halkirke and burnt him and his followers to death. His body, although "roasted with fire and livid with bruises, was found entire under a heap of stones and buried honorably in the church." Thereafter, an unofficial cultus developed (Farmer).

St. Mamilian Bishop of Palermo, on Sicily Italy Mamilian was exiled by the Arian ruler Geiseric. His relics are enshrined in Palermo.

1386 Bl. Roland de'Medici; renounced all its power, influence, and wealth to become quarter century as a hermit
A member of the famed House of de’Medici, he adopted a lifestyle in sharp contrast to his worldly and humanist relatives. He spent over a quarter century living as a hermit in the forest of Parma, Italy.
Blessed Roland de'Medici, Hermit (AC) Born in Florence, Italy; died at Borgone, 1386; cultus confirmed in 1852. Scion of the famous Medici family of Florence, Italy, Roland renounced all its power, influence, and wealth to become a hermit for 26 years in the forests of Parma (Benedictines).

1510 St Catherine (Caterinetta) of Genoa, Widow; blood from her stigmata gave off exceptional heat; “He who purifies himself from his faults in the present life, satisfies with a penny a debt of a thousand ducats; and he who waits until the other life to discharge his debts, consents to pay a thousand ducats for that which he might before have paid with a penny.” Saint Catherine, Treatise on purgatory. (RM)
Génuæ sanctæ Catharínæ Víduæ, contémptu mundi et caritáte in Deum insígnis.
In Genoa, St. Catherine, a widow, renowned for her contempt of the world and her love of God.
Born in Genoa, Italy, 1447; died there, September 14, 1510; beatified in 1737 and equipollently canonized by Pope Benedict XIV a few years later (others say she was canonized in 1737); feast day formerly on March 22.
Caterina_by Tommasina Fieschi.jpg

“We should not wish for anything but what comes to us from moment to moment,” Saint Catherine told her spiritual children, “exercising ourselves none the less for good. For he who would not thus exercise himself, and await what God sends, would tempt God. When we have done what good we can, let us accept all that happens to us by Our Lord's ordinance, and let us unite ourselves to it by our will. Who tastes what it is to rest in union with God will seem to himself to have won to Paradise even in this life.”

The biography of Saint Catherine of Genoa, who combined mysticism with practicality, was written by Baron Friedrich von Hügel. She was the fifth and youngest child of James Fieschi and his wife Francesca di Negro, members of the noble Guelph family of Fieschi, which had produced two popes (Innocent IV and Adrian V). After her birth, her father later became viceroy of Naples for King René of Anjou.

From the age of 13 Catherine sought to became a cloistered religious. Her sister was already a canoness regular and her confessor was the chaplain of that convent. When she asked to be received, they decided that she was too young. Then her father died and, for dynastic reasons, her widowed mother insisted that the 16-year-old marry the Genoese Ghibelline patrician, Guiliano Adorno. Her husband was unfaithful, violent, and a spendthrift. The first five years of their marriage, Catherine suffered in silence. In some ways it seems odd that he did not find her attractive, because Catherine was a beautiful woman of great intelligence, and deeply religious. But they were of completely different temperaments: she was intense and humorless; he had a zest for life.

Then she determined to win her husband's affection by adopting worldly airs. As it turns out, this only made her unhappy because she lost the only consolation that had previously sustained her-- her religious life. Ten years into her marriage, Catherine was a very unhappy woman; her husband had reduced them to poverty by his extravagance. On the eve of his feast in 1473, Catherine prayed, “Saint Benedict, pray to God that He make me stay three months sick in bed.” Two days later she was kneeling for a blessing before the chaplain at her sister's convent. She had visited her sister and revealed the secrets of her heart. Her sister advised her to go to confession.

In following her sister's advice, Catherine experienced a sort of ecstasy. She was overwhelmed by her sins and, at the very same time, by the infinite love of God for her. This experience was the foundation for an enduring awareness of the presence of God and a fixed attitude of soul. She was drawn back to the path of devotion of her childhood. Within a few days she had a vision of our Lord carrying His cross, which caused her to cry out, “O Love, if it be necessary I am ready to confess my sins in public!” On the Solemnity of the Annunciation she received the Eucharist, the first time with fervor for ten years.

Thus began her mystical ascent under very severe mortifications that included fasting throughout Lent and Advent almost exclusively on the Eucharist. She became a stigmatic. A group of religious people gathered around Catherine, who guided them to a spirit- filled life.

Eventually her husband was converted, became a Franciscan tertiary, and they agreed to live together in continence. Catherine and Giuliano devoted themselves to the care of the sick in the municipal hospital of Genoa, Pammatone, where they were joined by Catherine's cousin Tommasina Fieschi. In 1473, they moved from their palazzo to a small house in a poorer neighborhood than was necessary. In 1479, they went to live in the hospital and Catherine became its director in 1490. The heroism of Catherine's charity revealed itself in a special way during the plagues of 1493 and 1501. The first one killed nearly 75 percent of the inhabitants. Catherine herself contracted the disease. Although she recovered, she was forced to resign due to ill health three years later.

After Giuliano's death the following year (1497), Catherine's spiritual life became even more intense. In 1499, Catherine met don Cattaneo Marabotto, who became her spiritual director. Her religious practices were idiosyncratic; for instance, she went to communion daily when it was unusual to do so. For years she made extraordinarily long fasts without abating her charitable activities. Catherine is an outstanding example of the religious contemplative who combines the spiritual life with competence in practical affairs. Yet she was always fearful of "the contagion of the world's slow stain" that had separated her from God in the early years of her marriage.

Her last three years of life were a combination of numerous mystical experiences and ill health that remained undiagnosed by even John-Baptist Boerio, the principal doctor to King Henry VII. In addition to her body remaining undecomposed and one of her arms elongating in a peculiar manner shortly before her death, the blood from her stigmata gave off exceptional heat.

A contemporary painting of Catherine, now at the Pammatone Hospital in Genoa, possibly painted by the female artist Tomasina Fieschi, shows Catherine in middle age. It reveals a slight woman with a long, patrician nose; pronounced, cleft chin; easy smile of broad but thin lips (and, surprisingly, deep laugh lines); high cheekbones; and large dark eyes punctuated by thin, graceful eyebrows.

Dialogue between the soul and the body and Treatise on purgatory are outstanding works in the field of mysticism, which were inspired by her and contain the essence of her, but were actually composed by others under her name. She is the patron of Genoa and of Italian hospitals (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Harrison, Schamoni, Schouppe, Walsh).

Of interest may be The Life and Doctrine of Saint Catherine of Genoa.

1510 ST CATHERINE OF GENOA, WIDOW
The Fieschi were a great Guelf family of Liguria, with a long and distinguished history. In 1234 it gave to the Church the vigorous Pope Innocent IV, and in 1276 his nephew, who ruled for a few weeks as Adrian V. By the middle of the fifteenth century it had reached the height of its power and splendour in Liguria, Piedmont and Lombardy. One member was a cardinal, and another, James, descended from the brother of Innocent IV, was viceroy of Naples for King René of Anjou. This James Fieschi was married to a Genoese lady, Francesca di Negro, and to them was born at Genoa in the year 1447 the fifth and last of their children, Caterinetta, now always called Catherine. Her biographers give particulars of her premising childhood which may perhaps be dismissed as common-form panegyric, but from the age of thirteen she was undoubtedly strongly attracted to the religious life. Her sister was already a canoness regular and the chaplain of her convent was Catherine’s confessor, so she asked him if she also could take the habit. In consultation with the nuns he put her off on account of her youth, and about the same time Catherine’s father died. Then, at the age of sixteen, she was married. It is alleged of many saints, both male and female, that, though wishing to enter a monastery, they married in obedience to the will of those in authority over them, and of some of them these circumstances are only doubtfully true. But about St Catherine of Genoa there is no question. The star of the Ghibelline family of the Adorni was in decline, and by an alliance with the powerful Fieschi they hoped to restore the fortunes of their house. The Fieschi were willing enough, and Catherine was their victim. Her bridegroom was Julian Adorno, a young man with too poor a character to bring any good out of his marriage as a marriage. Catherine was beautiful in person (as may be seen from her portraits), of great intelligence and sensibility, and deeply religious; of an intense temperament, without humour or wit. Julian was of very different fibre, incapable of appreciating his wife, and to that extent to be commiserated; but if he failed to win more than her dutiful submission and obedience it was either because he did not try, or because he set about it in the wrong way. He was, on his own admission, unfaithful to her; for the rest, he was pleasure-loving to an inordinate degree, undisciplined, hot-tempered and spendthrift. He was hardly ever at home, and for the first five years of her married life Catherine lived in solitude and moped amid vain regrets. Then for another five she tried what consolations could he found in the gaieties and recreations of her world, and was little less sad and desperate than before.
She had, however, never lost trust in God, or at least so much of it as was implied in the continued practice of her religion, and on the eve of the feast of St Benedict in 1473 she was praying in a church dedicated in his honour near the sea-shore outside Genoa. And she asked that saint, “St Benedict, pray to God that He make me stay three months sick in bed”. Two days later she was kneeling for a blessing before the chaplain at her sister’s convent when she was suddenly overcome by a great love of God and realization of her own unworthiness. She repeated over and over interiorly, “No more world! No more sins!” and she felt that “had she had in her possession a thousand worlds, she would have cast them all away”. She was able to do nothing but mumble an excuse and retire, and within the next day or two she had a vision of our Lord carrying His cross which caused her to cry out, “0 Love, if it be necessary I am ready to confess my sins in public!” Then she made a general confession of her whole life with such sorrow “as to pierce her soul”. On the feast of the Annunciation she received holy communion, the first time with fervour for ten years, and shortly after became a daily communicant, so remaining for the rest of her life—a most rare thing in those days, so that she used to say she envied priests, who could receive our Lord’s body and blood daily without exciting comment.
   At about this time his luxury and extravagance had brought Julian to the verge of ruin, and his wife’s prayers, added to his misfortunes, brought about a reformation in his life. They moved from their palazzo into a small house, much more humble and in a poorer quarter than was necessary agreed to live together in continence and devoted themselves to the care of the sick in the hospital of Pammatone. Associated with them was a cousin of Catherine, Tommasina Fieschi, who after her widowhood became first a canoness and then a Dominican nun. This went on for six years without change, except in the development of St Catherine’s spiritual life, till in 1479 the couple went to live in the hospital itself, of which eleven years later she was appointed matron. She proved as capable an administrator as she was a devoted nurse, especially during the plague of 1493, when four-fifths of those who remained in the city died. Catherine caught the distemper off a dying woman whom she had impulsively kissed, and herself nearly died. During the visitation she first met the lawyer and philanthropist Hector Vernazza, who was soon to become her ardent disciple (and also the father of the Venerable Battista Vernazza) and to whom is due the preservation of many precious details of her life and conversation.
   In 1496 Catherine’s health broke down and she had to resign the control of the hospital, though still living within the building, and in the following year her husband died after a painful illness. “Messer Giuliano is gone”, she said to a friend, “and as you know well he was of a rather wayward nature, so that I suffered much interiorly. But my tender Love assured me of his salvation before he had yet passed from this life.” Julian provided in his will for his illegitimate daughter Thobia, and her unnamed mother, and St Catherine made herself responsible for seeing that Thobia should never be in want or uncared for.
   For over twenty years St Catherine lived without any spiritual direction whatever, and only rarely going to confession. Indeed, it is possible that, having no serious matter on her conscience, she did not always make even an annual confession, and she had, without fussiness, found no priest who understood her spiritual state with a view to direction. But about 1499 a secular priest, Don Cattaneo Marahotto, was made rector of the hospital, and “they understood each other, even by just looking each other in the face without speaking. “To him” she said, “Father, I do not know where I am, either in soul or body. I should like to confess, but I am not conscious of any sin.” And Don Marabotto lays bare her state in a sentence “And as for the sins which she did mention, she was not allowed to see them as so many sins thought or said or done by herself. She was like a small boy who has committed some slight offence in ignorance, and who, if someone tells him, ‘You have done wrong’, starts and blushes, yet not because he has now an experimental knowledge of evil.” We are also told in her life “that Catherine did not take care to gain plenary indulgences. Not that she did not hold them in great reverence and devotion and consider them of very great value, but she wished that the selfish part of her should be rather chastised and punished as it deserved....” In pursuance of the same heroic idea she but rarely asked others, whether on earth or in Heaven, to pray for her; the invocation of St Benedict mentioned above is a very notable exception and the only one recorded as regards the saints. It is also noteworthy that throughout her widowhood St Catherine remained a laywoman. Her husband on his conversion joined the third order of St Francis (and to become a tertiary of any order was in those days a far more serious matter than it is now), but she did not do even that. These peculiarities are mentioned neither for commendation nor reprobation; those to whom they appear surprising may be reminded that those who examined the cause of her beatification were perfectly well aware of them the Universal Church does not demand of her children a uniformity of practice compatible neither with human variousness nor the freedom of the Holy Spirit to act on souls as He wills.
   From the year 1473 on St Catherine without intermission led a most intense spiritual life combined with unwearying activity on behalf of the sick and sad, not only in the hospital but throughout Genoa.
   She is one more example of the Christian universality which those who do not understand call contradictions complete “other-worldliness” and efficient “practicality”; concern for the soul and care for the body; physical austerity which is modified or dropped at the word of authority, whether ecclesiastical, medical or social; a living in the closest union with God and an “all-thereness” as regards this world and warm affection for individuals in it.
   The life of St Catherine has been taken as the text of a most searching work on the mystical element in religion—and she kept the hospital accounts without ever being a farthing out and was so concerned for the right disposition of property that she made four wills with several codicils.
   Catherine suffered from ill health for some years and had to give up not only her extraordinary fasts, but even to a certain extent those of the Church, and at length in 1507 her health gave way completely. She rapidly got worse, and for the last months of her life suffered great agony; among the physicians who attended her was John-Baptist Boerio, who had been the principal doctor of King Henry VII of England, and he with the others was unable to diagnose her complaint. They eventually decided, “it must be a supernatural and divine thing”, for she lacked all pathological symptoms, which they could recognize. On September 13, 1510, she was in a high fever and delirium, and at dawn of the 15th “this blessed soul gently breathed her last in great peace and tranquillity, and flew to her tender and much-desired Love”. She was beatified in 1737 and Benedict XIV added her name to the Roman Martyrology, with the title of saint. St Catherine left two written works, a treatise on Purgatory and a Dialogue of the soul and the body, which the Holy Office declared were alone enough to prove her sanctity. They are among the more important documents of mysticism, but Alban Butler says of them very truly that “these treatises are not writ for the common”.

Apart from a short notice by Giustiniano, Bishop of Nibio, in his Annali di Genova (1537), the earliest biographical account of St Catherine seems to be preserved in manuscripts varying considerably in their Italian text and belonging to the years 1547—1548. From these in the main was compiled the first book concerning her which was printed in any detail. It is commonly known as the Vita e Dottrina, and was issued in 1551. This work, which has been often reprinted, is our principal source of information concerning the saint, and it contains also a collection of her sayings and meditations. The many problems connected with its text have been discussed in great detail by Baron Friedrich von Hügel in his important work, The Mystical Element of Religion (2 vols., 1908); see especially vol. i, pp. 371—466. His conclusions are beyond doubt justified in the main, but there is room for some difference of opinion as to details, as noted, e.g. in The Month, June, 1923, pp. 538—543. See also the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. v. The numerous modern lives of St Catherine are based on the Vita e Dottrina; among the more recent are Lili Sertorius, Katharina von Genua (1939), and L. de Lapérouse, La vie de Ste Catherine de Gênes (1948). A new translation of the Purgatory treatise and the Dialogue was published in 1946, made by Helen Douglas Irvine and Charlotte Balfour.

1656 Saint Joseph the New traveled to Mount Athos, tonsured at Pantokrator Monastery; worked many miracles attained unceasing prayer of the heart, receiving from God gift of tears, healing the sick and the crippled; relics remained incorrupt
Born in 1568 at Raguza in Dalmatia, and was given the name Jacob at his Baptism. When he was very young, his father died, and he was raised by his mother. At the age of twelve, he was sent to Ochrid to be schooled.

The young Jacob was called to live the monastic life when he was fifteen, and entered the monastery of the Mother of God. After five years, he traveled to Mount Athos, and was tonsured at the Pantokrator Monastery with the new name of Joseph. He fulfilled his various obediences in an exemplary manner, becoming perfected in virtue and holiness. He attained unceasing prayer of the heart, receiving from God the gift of tears. He also performed many miracles, healing the sick and the crippled. Some of the monasteries of the Holy Mountain would send for him so that he could heal those monks who were afflicted with severe bodily suffering.

On July 20, 1650, at the age of eighty-two, St Joseph was elected as Metropolitan of Timishoara. He was a wise and good shepherd to his flock, healing their physical and spiritual illnesses. Once he extinguished a fire in the western part of Timishoara by his prayers, when God sent a heavy rainfall. After three years of archpastoral labors, he retired to the Partosh Monastery, where he was often visited by many of the faithful. The monastery was an important center of church activity in those days, and even had a school for training priests.

Metropolitan Joseph fell asleep in the Lord on August 15, 1656 when he was eighty-eight years old, and he was buried in the monastery church. He is commemorated on September 15. He worked many miracles during his lifetime, and there are reports that his relics remained incorrupt after his death.

For more than 300 years the monks reverently tended his grave, then at his glorification on October 7, 1956 St Joseph's relics were transferred into the cathedral at Timishoara. The casket containing his holy relics is adorned with carvings depicting scenes from his life.

An Akathist composed to honor St Joseph speaks of his many virtues.

1811 The New Martyr John, murdered by Moslems; "I was born as an Orthodox Christian, and I shall die as an Orthodox Christian." "Most Holy Theotokos, help me." He also asked forgiveness of the Christians he met along the way.
John was from Crete, and worked as a farmer at New Ephesus (Kusantasi) in Asia Minor. He was a young man, and was engaged to be married.

On August 29, John and two friends from Crete went to a festival to celebrate the Feast of St John the Baptist. They were stopped by the Turks, and the two visitors were ordered to pay the head tax. The Cretans refused to pay, and got into a scuffle with the aga's men. The Turks took a gun belonging to one of the Cretans, but then he grabbed it back from the Moslem. In the confusion, one of the aga's men was killed and some of the others were stabbed.

Since John was not involved in the incident, he went back to his farm. The brother of the dead Moslem, however, wanted revenge. He knew that John was present when his brother was killed, so he had him arrested. John was thrown into prison, beaten, and was not allowed to have any visitors.

St John remained in prison for sixteen days. Then he was given the choice of saving his life by converting to Islam, or to remain a Christian and die. John stated, "I was born as an Orthodox Christian, and I shall die as an Orthodox Christian."

Since John was an attractive young man, the kadi's daughter became interested in him. If he were willing to convert, he could marry the girl and enjoy both wealth and position as a member of the kadi's family. Even this was not enough to make him deny Christ.

Finally the Hagarenes grew tired of trying to convert John, and he was sentenced to death by hanging. As he was led to the place of execution, he kept saying, "Most Holy Theotokos, help me." He also asked forgiveness of the Christians he met along the way.

St John suffered for Christ on September 15, 1811, and received the incorruptible crown of martyrdom. That night the martyr's body shone with a bright light. After three days, permission was granted to bury his holy relics in the courtyard of the church of St George.

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

THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 66

I have hated the unjust: and I have loved thy way, O gracious Lady.

Help me, O Lady of the world, and I shall be saved: and I shall meditate the honor of thy commandments.

Make me always stand in thy fear: and deliver me not up, O Virgin, to those who calumniate me.

I am of thy own tongue: I am the least in thy family.

Keep me, O Lady, from those who neglect the judgments of thy justice.

Thou despisest all who depart from thy service: because their thought is unjust.

Be mindful in eternity of her mercy: keep in mind her virtues and her wonders.

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

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

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

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

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

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.

Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

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

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”

Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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

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

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.

Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.

Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.

Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.

Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

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

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

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

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

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.

Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

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

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”

Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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

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

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.

Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.

Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.

Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.

Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

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

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

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

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

Sunday, November 23 2014 Six to Be Canonized on Feast of Christ the King.

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

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

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

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

October 01, 2015 Vatican City, Pope Authorizes following Decrees
(ZENIT.org) By Staff Reporter
Polish Layperson Recognized as Servant of God
Pope Authorizes Decrees
Pope Francis on Wednesday authorised the Congregation for Saints' Causes to promulgate the following decrees:

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

HEROIC VIRTUES
- Servant of God Giovanni Folci, Italian diocesan priest and founder of the Opera Divin Prigioniero (1890-1963);
- Servant of God Franciszek Blachnicki, Polish diocesan priest (1921-1987);
- Servant of God Jose Rivera Ramirez, Spanish diocesan priest (1925-1991);
- Servant of God Juan Manuel Martín del Campo, Mexican diocesan priest (1917-1996);
- Servant of God Antonio Filomeno Maria Losito, Italian professed priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (1838-1917);
- Servant of God Maria Benedetta Giuseppa Frey (nee Ersilia Penelope), Italian professed nun of the Cistercian Order (1836-1913);
- Servant of God Hanna Chrzanowska, Polish layperson, Oblate of the Ursulines of St. Benedict (1902-1973).

March 06 2016 MIRACLES authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
Pope Francis received in a private audience Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, during which he authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
MIRACLES

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

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

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

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

LINKS:
Marian Apparitions (over 2000) India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes Feb 11- July 16, Loreto, Italy 1858
China Marian shrines May 23, 1995 Zarvintisya Ukraine Lourdes Kenya national Marian shrine    Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
Links to Related Marian Websites Angels and Archangels
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Apostles Roman Catholic Popes Purgatory Uniates, 66 2022