Mary Mother of GOD 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary
Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum.
And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
Пресвятая Богородице спаси нас!  (Santíssima Mãe de Deus, salva-nos!)
RDeo grátias. R.  Thanks be to God.
December is the month of the Immaculate Conception.
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Sorrowful Mystery on Friday Tuesday   Luminous Mystery on Thursday Veterens of War

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Acts of the Apostles

Nine First Fridays Devotion to the Sacred Heart From the writings of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

How do I start the Five First Saturdays?

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

Pope Benedict XVI to The Catholic Church In China {whole article here }

The saints “a cloud of witnesses over our head”, showing us life of Christian perfection is possible.

December 3
Our Lady of Victories Basilica  Since 1927, one of the seven minor basilicas of the French capital.
626 bc  Prophet Zephaniah (Tsephan-yah) means "Yahweh hides") eliminate idol-worship prophesied calamities to come for people of Judea and Gaza, Ascalon, Crete, and against Moabites, Ammonites Ninevites contemporary of Prophet Jeremiah Sophonias  "the Lord is my secret" Prophet Jeremiah and Prophetess Oldama contemporary with
1552 St. Francis Xavier  4 miracles post mortem; Many people rank him—after St. Paul, the Apostle—as the greatest missionary of all time. Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. He was named the patron of the Propagation of the Faith in 1910 and patron of the missions in 1927.

December 3 – Our Lady of Victories (Paris, France, 1836) 
 Our Lady of Victories Basilica

Mozart and Our Lady of Victories December 3 - OUR LADY OF VICTORIES (Paris, 1836)
"When I come to Paris, I never fail to visit Our Lady of Victories to say a rosary."  W. A. Mozart


 Since 1927, this little known church dedicated to Our Lady of Victories
one of the seven minor basilicas of the French capital.
King Louis XIII ordered the construction of Notre-Dame des Victoires church in 1629, to celebrate his victories against the Protestants, especially during the siege of La Rochelle.
During the French Revolution, the monks were expelled, and the church became the seat of the National Lottery and then the Stock Exchange.
It was returned to the use of the Catholic Church in 1802 and raised to the rank of a basilica by Pope Pius XI in 1927.
It was in this church that the great musician of King Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) and his family were buried.
This Parisian basilica is a pilgrimage site due to the special devotion that Saint Therese of Lisieux had for Our Lady of Victories, after she was miraculous healed in her youth. She prayed in this church in 1887 on her way to Rome with her father and sister Celine.

With more than 37,000 ex votos affixed to its walls, this basilica is certainly a place to discover!  www.paris.fr
 
Notre Dame of Victories (Paris, 1836) December 3
626 bc  Prophet Zephaniah (Tsephan-yah) means "Yahweh hides") eliminate idol-worship prophesied
    calamities to come for people of Judea and Gaza, Ascalon, Crete, and against Moabites, Ammonites
    Ninevites contemporary of Prophet Jeremiah
Sophonias means "the Lord is my secret" a contemporary of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Prophetess Oldama.
200 St. Lucius Ruler of Britain who wrote to Pope St. Eleutherius for missionaries
      St. Agricola Martyr of Pannonia
           Claudius, a tribune, and Hilaria, his wife, with Jason and Maur, their sons, and seventy soldiers
298 St. Cassian of Tangiers Martyr patron of modern stenographers
           Claudius, Crispin, Magina, John, and Stephen
       Saints Ambicus, Victor, and Julius
 300 St Galganus Senis, in Túscia, sancti Galgáni Eremítæ.  At Siena in Tuscany, St. Galganus, hermit.
 318 St. Mirocles Archbishop of Milan Ambrosian chant and liturgy
 558 St John the Silent of St Sabbas Monastery many miracles St John performed during this time in the desert discern secret thoughts of people healed sick and possessed
 650 St. Birinus The "Apostle of Wessex."
 666 St. Eloque Benedictine abbot, disciple
 741 St. Attalia Benedictine abbess and niece of St. Odilia
 749 St. John of Damascus poet "Doctor of Christian Art." 3 treatises on Veneration of Images
794 ST SOLA an Englishman who, following St Boniface into Germany, became his disciple and was ordained priest by him.
Mozart and Our Lady of Victories December 3 - OUR LADY OF VICTORIES (Paris, 1836)
"When I come to Paris, I never fail to visit Our Lady of Victories to say a rosary."  W. A. Mozart

Consecrate Your Parish to the Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary (II)
After giving thanks, I examined the way in which I had offered the Holy Sacrifice. Only then did I remember that I had been distracted, but my memory was very confused, and I had to think very hard for a few moments in order to remember what had actually happened. I wondered how my distraction had ended, and then I suddenly remembered the words that I had heard and this thought froze me with terror.
I tried in vain to deny the possibility of receiving this internal locution. (...)

As I stood up (I was alone in the sacristy), I heard these words distinctly again,
"Consecrate your parish to the Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary."
I fell down on my knees again, and my first reaction was of utter amazement. I had heard the same words, spoken by the same voice and in the same manner. Earlier, I had tried my best not to believe; at least I thought I should doubt what had happened. Now, I could not doubt what I had heard; I could only pretend to myself.
A feeling of sadness seized me; old concerns arose in my mind and tormented my spirit again.
Father Desgenettes, priest at Notre Dame of Victories Church (Paris, d. 1860)


December 3 - Our Lady of Victories (Paris, France, 1836)
A Time of Waiting Unique in World History (II)
"The scepter shall not pass from Judah until tribute be brought him"
    The first of the prophecies foretelling the coming of the Messiah is found in Genesis (Gen 49:1-10) when Jacob, the son of Isaac, blesses his son before his death. "Gather round, so that I can tell you what is in store for you in the final days." And he continues, "The scepter shall not pass from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute be brought him and the peoples render him obedience." This passage which has always had Messianic significance for the exegetes of Israel, took on new significance at the time of the Blessed Virgin, after Herod 1st had been made King of Judea, bringing to an end the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty.

   From then on, the Jews of Israel would be governed by an Edomite, the son of a Nabatean woman, who came from an Arabian tribe; even though he had converted officially to Judaism, Herod was a friend of the Romans. Judea thus became a vassal province of Rome and remained so until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. When Octavius confirmed Herod 1st as the King of Judea, Samaria, Idumea and Galilee, also offering him the Golan plateau and the cities bordering the Mediterranean which he had been formerly compelled to give to Cleopatra, an earthquake struck Jerusalem and claimed 10,000 victims. With the accession of Herod 1st, authority passed to the Romans and the sign presaging the coming of the Messiah was fulfilled because the scepter had left Judea for good. Thus the Jews could now quite rightly reply to Pilate at Christ's trial, "We have no king except Caesar" (Jn 19:15).
Source: Jesus Hypotheses by Vittorio Messori, Saint Paul Pubns. (1978)

Love God, serve God: everything is in that. -- St Clare of Assisi

December 3 – Our Lady of Victories (Paris, France, 1836) 
 
Mary’s troubador
Pierre, a renowned minstrel, traveled and sang joyfully about the Mother of the Savior in cities, towns and villages. One day, he arrived in Rocamadour on a pilgrimage (1). He first made his genuflection before the image of Our Lady, and to better honor her, he took out his stringed instrument and played so well that his instrument seemed to talk. When he had played to the praise of the Blessed Virgin to his heart’s content, he made this request aloud: "To make my supper festive, please send me one of your beautiful candles."

Our Lady heard him: at once a candle slid onto the instrument. It was a beautiful candle too, the best one on the altar. But the monk guarding the monastery took Pierre for a magician and the sliding of the candle for a spell. Grumbling, he took the candle away from the minstrel and replaced it on the altar. The juggler, knowing well that Our Lady had heard him, thought that the monk was evil and mad. Again his bow produced sighs and weeping sounds, and white wax fell on his instrument.

After that, such merriment was made in the monastery with bells ringing that it would have been hard to hear God’s thunder itself. Pierre left his candle as an offering at the altar of the Virgin. Then, he returned, valiant and wise, each year to offer a beautiful candle to Our Lady of Rocamadour.
-----
(1)Reported by Gautier de Coinci, monk of Saint Medard, in Miracle de la Sainte Vierge, in 1193.
M. de Vloberg, Les Fêtes de France, Ed. Arthaud, Grenoble, 1942.
 
860 St. Abbo Bishop abbot of Auxerre
1409 Venerable Sava the Abbot of Zvenigorod model of simplicity and humility miraculous curative power issuing from the grave numerous appearances Disciple of the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh

1552 St. Francis Xavier  4 miracles post mortem
1678 Bl. Edward Coleman English martyr Titus Oates Plot
1760 Monkmartyr Cosmas of St Anne Skete, Mt Athos refused to convert to Islam
St George of Cernica and Caldarushani revive monastic life there according to the Athonite Typikon leading the Caldarushani Monastery Athonite-Paisian hesychastic tradition; the holy Hieromartyr Theodore, Archbishop of Alexandria; our devout Father Theodoulos, Eparch of Constantinople; our devout Father John the Hesychast, Bishop of Colonia; Saints Agapios, Seleucus, and Mamas; our devout Father Theodoulos the Cyprian; the holy Hieromartyr Gabriel; the holy New Martyr Angelìs of Chios; the devout Sava the Abbot of Zvenigorod, Disciple of the devout Sergios of Radonezh;  Saint George of Cernica and Caldarushani;
Sancti Francísci Xavérii, Sacerdótis e Societáte Jesu et Confessóris, Indiárum Apóstoli, sodalitátis et óperis Propagándæ Fídei atque Missiónum ómnium Patróni cæléstis; qui prídie hujus diéi quiévit in pace.
    St. Francis Xavier, priest of the Society of Jesus, confessor, Apostle of the Indies, and heavenly patron of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and also of all the Missions, who died on the day previous.

-626 bc Prophet Zephaniah eliminate idol-worship prophesied calamities to come for people of Judea and Gaza, Ascalon, Crete, and against Moabites, Ammonites and Ninevites contemporary of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Prophetess Oldama
If 626 BC is accepted, then the ministries of Jeremiah and Zephaniah began in the same year" (Homer Hailey).
Prophet Zephaniah {means "defended by God."} { (Hebrew -- Tsephan-yah) means "Yahweh hides" or "Yahweh has hidden." (Sophonias) {(means "the Lord is my secret")} was a contemporary of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Prophetess Oldama.
He was from the tribe of Simeon, and was the ninth of the Twelve Minor Prophets of the Old Testament.

The prophet lived at the royal court, where he preached repentance and helped King Josiah eliminate idol-worship.
He prophesied about the calamities that were to come for the people of Judea and the surrounding regions:
Gaza, Ascalon, Crete, and against the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Ninevites.

Zeph. 3:9-20 "speaks of another side of the day of the Lord: It will be a day of blessing after the judgment is complete. A righteous remnant will survive and all who call upon Him, Jew or Gentile, will be blessed" (Expanded Open Bible). Jesus alluded to Zephaniah on two occasions --- Matthew 13:41 (Zeph. 1:3) and Matthew 24:29 (Zeph. 1:15).
Both of these passages are associated with the second coming of Christ.

Zephaniah was the great, great grandson of Hezekiah, one of the good kings of Judah. King Josiah, yet another great, great grandson of Hezekiah, was on the throne of Judah when Zephaniah prophesied. At this time, Israel, the northern kingdom, no longer existed. It had been taken into captivity by Assyria one hundred years earlier.
Assyria and Egypt battled for control of the world. Located right between both of them, Judah was often territory for battles between the two.

Zephaniah and his fellow prophets - possibly Nahum, Habakkuk, and Jeremiah, all of whom lived in Zephaniah's time - assisted King Josiah in leading a spiritual revolution. He removed idol worship, repaired the temple of God, and brought back worship of the true God.
However, most of the people repented only outwardly and when Josiah was killed in battle, they returned to idol worship.

Zephaniah
       According to the title of this short book, the prophet Zephaniah worked in the reign of Josiah, 640-609. His attacks on alien manners, 1:8, and on the worship of false gods, 1:4-5, his rebuke of court officials, 1:8, his silence about the king, all point to a period before the religious reform, during the minority of Josiah, between 640 and 630, thus immediately before the beginning of the ministry of Jeremiah.
Judah, robbed of part of its territory by Sennacherib, has experienced Assyrian rule, and the wicked reigns of Manasseh and Amon have favoured religious disorders. The increasing weakness of Assyria now raises hopes of national recovery accompanied by religious reform.
  This book falls into four short sections: the day of Yahweh, 1:2-2:3; oracles against the nations 2:4-15; against Jerusalem, 3:1-8; promises, 3:9-20.
Unjustifiable attempts have been made to exclude certain oracles against the nations and all the promises of the fourth section. Suffice it to admit that the prophecies of pagan conversion, 2:11 and 3:9-10, alien to the context, seem to be inspired by the Book of Consolation, Is 40-55, and that the concluding verses, 3:18b-20, are best understood against the background of the Exile.
  The message of Zephaniah is, in brief, a prophecy of the day of Yahweh (see Amos), of a catastrophe affecting not only Judah but also the nations. Judah is condemned for religious and moral corruption springing from pride and rebelliousness, 3:1,11. Zephaniah has a deep appreciation of sin (an anticipation of Jeremiah); it is an offence against the person of the living God.
    The punishing of the nations should serve as a warning, 3:7, to reduce God’s people to obedience and humility, 2:3; salvation is promised to only a humble and submissive ‘remnant’, 3:12-13. This is as far as the messianism of Zephaniah goes, but it is enough to reveal the spiritual nature of the promises he makes.
      The short book of Zephaniah has had a restricted influence and is only once used in the New Testament, Mt 13:4 1. But the description of the day of Yahweh, 1:14-18, inspired the description by Joel, and, in the Middle Ages, the opening words of the Dies Irae.
Sophonias means "the Lord is my secret" a contemporary of the Prophet Jeremiah and the Prophetess Oldama.
In Judæa sancti Sophóniæ Prophétæ.
    In Judea, the holy prophet Sophonias.

St. Agricola Martyr of Pannonia.
In Pannónia sancti Agrícolæ Mártyris.    In Hungary, St. Agricola, martyr.
Agricola is listed in all the ancient accounts, but the details of his life have not survived.
200 St. Lucius Ruler of Britain who wrote to Pope St. Eleutherius for missionaries.
Cúriæ, in Germánia, sancti Lúcii, Britannórum Regis, qui primus ex iis Régibus fidem Christi suscépit, témpore sancti Eleuthérii Papæ.
    At Chur in Germany, St. Lucius, king of the Britons, who in the time of Pope Eleutherius, was the first of their kings to receive the faith of Christ.
A convert, he established the dioceses of London, England, and Llandalf, Wales. St. Bede wrote of him.
ST LUCIUS
IN the earliest part of the Liber Ponttficalis, compiled about the year 530, it is stated under the name of Pope St Eleutherius (c. 174—c. 189) that “He received a letter from Lucius, a British king, to the effect that he might be made a Christian by his order”, i.e. asking that the pope would send missionaries. This statement was copied by St Bede the Venerable into his Chronicon in almost the same words. In his Ecclesiastical History he writes:
“In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 156, Marcus Antoninus Verus [i.e. Marcus Aurelius], the fourteenth from Augustus, was made emperor, together with his brother, Aurelius Commodus [i.e. Lucius Verus]. In their time, while the holy man Eleuther presided over the Roman church, Lucius, King of Britain, sent a letter to him asking that by his mandate he might be made a Christian. He soon obtained his religious request, and the Britons kept the faith as they had received it, pure and in its fullness, in peace and quietness until the time of the Emperor Diocletian.”
Bede makes a third reference to the conversion of Lucius in the recapitulation at the end of the Ecclesiastical History, the three references being inconsistent only in the chronology, which he tries to adjust.

The original simple statement underwent amplification and embroidery in the course of time. Nennius retells the story with improvements in the ninth century, celticizing Lucius into Lleufer Mawr (“ Great Splendour”) and calling the pope “Eucharistus”; the Liber Landavensis gives the names of Lucius’s envoys to Rome as Elvinus and Meduinus, an editor of William of Malmesbury adding those of the missionaries sent, Faganus and Deruvianus. Geoffrey of Monmouth adds more the whole country having been converted to the faith, Lucius divided it into provinces and bishoprics; he says he died and was buried at Gloucester. John Stow, in his survey of sixteenth-century London, writes of St Peter’s on Cornhill: “There remaineth in this church a table whereon it is written, I know not by what authority, but of a late hand, that King Lucius founded the same church to be an archbishop’s see metropolitan and chief church of his kingdom, and that it so endured the space of four hundred years unto the coming of Augustine the monk.”

In another place he quotes from Jocelin of Furness the names of the apocryphal archbishops, fourteen in number, up to 587. “Thus much out of Jocelin of the archbishops, the credit whereof I leave to the judgement of the learned”, he observes.

The Welsh version of the Lucius legend is that Lleufer Mawr (Lleirwg, etc.) sent Elfan and Medwy (Elvinus and Meduinus) to Pope St Eleutherius, who baptized them, made Elfan a bishop, and sent them back with two missionaries, Dyfan and Ffagan (Deruvianus and Faganus). Lleufer Mawr thereupon founded the church of Llandaff, “which was the first in the isle of Britain”, and gave legal privileges to all who should become Christians. He put a bishop at Llandaff and also there founded schools.* [*Lleirwg, Dyfan, Ffagan and Medwy are all found in church dedications and place-names around Liandaff. To travellers on the W.R. South Wales line Saint Fagans is a familiar station just beyond Cardiff. They presumably were church-founders who flourished some time during the first six centuries, but nothing whatever is known about them.]

The legend of the church of Chur in the Grisons claims that Lucius of Britain was an apostle of the Rhaetian Alps, and a bishop and martyr to boot. A further Swiss extravagance about him is that he was baptized by St Timothy, disciple of St Paul, who is represented as coming into Britain from Gaul. The Roman Martyrology records his death at Chur on this day and says he was the first king of the Britons to accept the Christian faith, in the time of the holy Pope Eleutherius, but calls him neither bishop nor martyr.

The only point of importance about St Lucius is the fundamental one, whether the statement of the Liber Pontificalis copied by St Bede is a record of historical fact or not. For long it was unquestioned; by the time Alban Butler wrote there were already some objections raised, but in his opinion they did not deserve notice.

 It is not antecedently impossible that a local British chief (Lucius was certainly not a king) of the late second century should want to be a Christian and should send all the way to Rome for the purpose; but it is extremely improbable, and considerably better evidence than a single unsupported statement of three hundred and fifty years later is required to substantiate it.  Moreover, we have not the slightest indication that the mission of Pope Eleutherius to Lucius was known to Gildas, Gregory the Great, Augustine of Canterbury, Colman of Lindisfarne, Aldhelm or others, to all of whom in one way or another such a fact of history would have had a practical use and importance. “The judgement of the learned”, to which Stow deferred, as represented by such scholars as Mgr Duchesne, Dr Plummer, Mgr Kirsch and Dom Leclercq, strongly supports the view that the story is a fable; if it be such, the very existence of our St Lucius remains to be proved.

The genesis of the legend is another matter.
It has been asserted that it was deliberately invented to demonstrate the Roman origin of British Christianity and the submission of the Britons to the discipline of the Holy See, in view of the controversies between the old British church and the new English church. But in Rome the story first appears before these dissensions began, and in England we first hear of it, in the pages of Bede, after they were for all practical purposes finished; there is no evidence that the Lucius legend was used in controversy by a pro-Roman side until after the Reformation. Its continued use by controver­sialists on either side is to be deplored. A solution of the problem, by no means certain but plausible and interesting, has been advanced by Harnack. He points out that King Abgar IX of Edessa was named Lucius Aelius Septimius Megas Abgarus, and that he is known to have become a Christian about the time St Eleutherius was pope. Moreover, Birtha (i.e. the fortress) of Edessa is found latinized in ancient documents as Britium Edessenorum. In transcribing a record of the conversion of Lucius Abgar, “Hic accepit epistulam a Lucio, in Britio rege . . .”might easily be misread as, or wrongly emended to, “a Lucio, Brittanio rege”.

The story of Lucius and Pope Eleutherius has been discussed in some detail by Duchesne, Liber PontificaIis, pp. ccxxii seq. ; by Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, vol. i, pp. 25—26; by C. Plummer in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii, p. 14; J. P. Kirsch in Catholic Encyclo­pedia, vol. v, p. 379; A. Harnack in the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin Academy for 1904, pp. 906—916, and cf. Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xxii, pp. 767—770; and by H. Leclercq in DAC., vol. ix, cc. 2661—2663. No one of these shows any disposition to regard the episode as historically trustworthy. On the supposed Deruvianus and Faganus see J. Armitage Robinson, Two Glastonbury Legends (1926). Cf. also V. Berther in Zeitschrift für Schwei­zerische Kirchengeschichte, vol. xxxii (1938), pp. 20—38, 103—124.
Romæ sanctórum Mártyrum Cláudii Tribúni, et uxóris Hiláriæ, ac filiórum Jásonis et Mauri, cum septuagínta. milítibus.  Ex eis Cláudium jussit Numeriánus Imperátor, ingénti saxo alligátum, in flumen præcípitem dari; mílites vero et ipsíus Cláudii fílios capitáli senténtia puníri.  Beáta autem Hilária, cum filiórum córpora sepelísset, paulo post, orans ad eórum sepúlcrum, tenta est a Pagánis, et, in cárcerem trusa, migrávit ad Dóminum.
    At Rome, the holy martyrs Claudius, a tribune, and Hilaria, his wife, with Jason and Maur, their sons, and seventy soldiers.  By the command of Emperor Numerian, Claudius was fastened to a large stone and thrown into the river, the soldiers and the sons of Claudius were condemned to capital punishment.  But blessed Hilaria, after having buried the bodies of her sons, and while praying at their tomb, was arrested by the pagans, and shortly after departed for heaven.

Hieromartyr Theodore the Archbishop of Alexandria fiery preacher, powerful of word and church activity.
The Hieromartyr Theodore, Bishop of Alexandria, was born in Egypt in the city of Alexandria. This city was famous for its many martyrs and confessors: from the holy Evangelist Mark, Protomartyr of Alexandria (April 25), to St Athanasius the Great (January 18 and May 2), a pillar and confessor of Orthodoxy.
Regrettably, historical records do not give us precise details of St Theodore's life and deeds, but the Church of Christ has preserved the name of the hieromartyr in its diptychs for all time.
A fiery preacher, powerful of word and church activity, Bishop Theodore evoked an angry hatred in the boisterous pagans of Alexandria, who did not like his preaching. During one of his sermons they surrounded and seized the saint. They beat him and jeered at him, but he did not offer resistance. They placed a crown of thorns on his head, and led him through the city.
Then they led him to the seacoast and threw him from a cliff into the sea, but the wind and the waves carried him back to dry land. The astonished pagans brought St Theodore to the prefect of the city, who commanded that he be subjected to harsh tortures. Not a word did the torturers hear from the tortured confessor, except his prayer to the Lord. Then the holy martyr was handed over to Roman soldiers and executed in the manner of the Apostle Paul, he was beheaded with a sword.
298 St. Cassian of Tangiers Martyr patron of modern stenographers.
Tingi, in Mauritánia, pássio sancti Cassiáni Mártyris, qui, cum exceptóris diu gessísset offícium, tandem, admirátus intrépida beáti Marcélli Centuriónis respónsa et immóbilem in Christi fide constántiam, atque cælitus inspirátus, exsecrábile duxit Christianórum neci deservíri; ideóque, cum renuntiásset eídem offício, et ipse, sub Christiána professióne, cápite abscíssus, triúmphum méruit obtinére martyrii.
    At Tangier in Morocco, St. Cassian, martyr.  After having been a recorder for a long time, at length, by an inspiration from heaven, he deemed it a hateful thing to contribute to the massacre of the Christians, and therefore abandoned his office, and making a profession of Christianity, he deserved to obtain the triumph of martyrdom.
Mentioned in a hymn by St. Prudentius also called Cassian of Tangiers. He was a court recorder at the trial of St. Marcellus the Centu­rion. Aurelius Agricola, deputy prefect in the Roman province in North Africa, conducted the trial. When the death penalty was imposed on St. Marcellus, Cassian threw down his pen and declared that he was a Christian. He was arrested immediately and put to death. Cassian is patron of modern stenographers.

298 ST CASSIAN, MARTYR
WE are told that when St Marcellus the Centurion (October 30) was tried before Aurelius Agricolan at Tangier, the proceedings were being taken down by a shorthand-writer named Cassian. But when he heard Agricolan reply to the devotion of Marcellus by a sentence of death, he vowed with an imprecation he would go no further, and threw his stilus and tablets to the ground. Amid the astonishment of the staff and the laughter of Marcellus, Aurelius Agricolan trembling leapt from the bench and demanded why he had thrown down his tablets with an oath. St Cassian answered that Agricolan had given an unjust sentence. To avoid further contradiction, Agricolan ordered him to be at once removed and cast into prison.

“Now the blessed martyr Marcellus had laughed because, having knowledge of the future through the Holy Spirit, he rejoiced that Cassian would be his com­panion in martyrdom. On that very day amid the eager expectation of the city blessed Marcellus obtained his desire. After no long interval, namely, on Decem­ber 3, the worshipful Cassian was brought to the same place in which Marcellus had been tried and, by almost the same replies and statements as holy Marcellus had made, merited to obtain the victory of martyrdom, through the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong honour and glory, excellency and power for ever and ever. Amen.”

On the writer’s explanation of the laughter of St Marcellus it may be permitted to comment that the fate of the bold Cassian could be anticipated by the natural powers, without any charisma of prophecy; it is more likely that the prisoner laughed at the spectacle, amusing enough, of the deputy-prefect leaping from his bench in rage at being openly defied by his own clerk in his own court.

Although the story of the martyrdom of SS. Marcellus and Cassian is included by Ruinart among his Acta sincera, Father Delehaye, in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xli (1923), pp. 257— 287, gives no countenance to the idea that what we now read is a shorthand report of what happened. The substance of the account, however, may be accepted. But as regards Cassian, while the fact that a martyr of that name was honoured at Tangier in Mauretania is confirmed by Prudentius, who in his Peristephanon (iv, 45) writes, “Ingeret Tingis sua Cassianum”, nevertheless Delehaye gives (bc. cit. pp. 276—278) strong reasons for thinking that ignorance about him was made up for by associating him with Marcellus, whose acta were known. See further Monceaux, Hist. litt. de l’Afrique chrétienne, vol iii, pp. 119—121 Leclercq in DAC., vol. xi, c. 1140; and the note under St Marcellus on October 30 herein, to which a further reference to Analecta Bollandiana must be added, vol. lxiv (1946), pp. 281—282.
300 St Galganus.
Senis, in Túscia, sancti Galgáni Eremítæ.    At Siena in Tuscany, St. Galganus, hermit.
Nicomedíæ pássio sanctórum Ambici, Victóris et Júlii.
    At Nicomedia, the martyrdom of the Saints Ambicus, Victor, and Julius.

318 St. Mirocles Archbishop of Milan Ambrosian chant and liturgy.
Medioláni sancti Miroclétis, Epíscopi et Confessóris; cujus aliquándo sanctus Ambrósius méminit.
    At Milan, St. Mirocles, bishop and confessor, sometimes mentioned by St. Ambrose.
 Italy, also called Merocles. He is revered as one of the originators of the Ambrosian chant and liturgy. He attended the Council of Rome in 313.
Item, in Africa sanctórum Mártyrum Cláudii, Crispíni, Magínæ, Joánnis et Stéphani.
    Also in Africa, the holy martyrs Claudius, Crispin, Magina, John, and Stephen.
SS. CLAUDIUS, HILARIA AND THEIR COMPANIONS, MARTYRS
“AT Rome”, says the Roman Martyrology, “the passion of the holy martyrs, Claudius the tribune, Hilaria his wife, their sons Jason and Maurus, and seventy soldiers. Of these, the Emperor Numerian ordered Claudius to be tied to a huge stone and flung headlong into the river, and his sons with the soldiers to be punished by the capital sentence. The blessed Hilaria, however, a little while after burying the bodies of her sons, was taken by the heathen while praying at their tomb, cast into prison, and passed to the Lord.”
This Claudius was the tribune of 
that name who, according to the legend of SS. Chrysanthus and Dana, was con­verted by the sight of their constancy under torture, as has been related herein under October 25. Other figures in the same legend, namely, SS. Diodorus the priest, Marian the deacon and their companions, who were slain while com­memorating the martyrs Chrysanthus and Dana, are named in the martyrology on December 1. 

Nothing whatever is known of these martyrs beyond the casual and quite untrust­worthy reference in the passio of Chrysanthus and Dana. There was indeed an Hilaria whose resting-place on the Via Salaria is mentioned by pilgrims of the seventh century, but she seems to belong more properly to December 31, and she is not there associated with any Claudius. See Delehaye, Etude sur le légendier romain, pp. 53—54, and also his CMH., p. 57.
558 St John the Silent of St Sabbas Monastery many miracles St John performed during this time in the desert discern secret thoughts of people healed sick and possessed
Saint John the Silent was born around 454 in the city of Nicopolis, Armenia into the family of a military commander named Enkratius and his wife Euphemia. The boy began to study Holy Scripture, and he loved solitude and prayer with all his heart.
With the inheritance his parents left him, John built a church dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos. At eighteen years of age John became a monk, living an ascetic life of fasting, prayer and temperance with ten other monks at the church he had founded.
At the request of the citizens of Colonia, the Metropolitan of Sebaste consecrated the twenty-eight-year-old John as Bishop of Colonia. Having assumed the episcopal throne, the saint did not alter his strict ascetic manner of life. Under the influence of the saint his relatives, his brother Pergamios (an associate of the emperors Zeno and Anastasius) and his nephew Theodore (an associate of the emperor Justinian), also lived in a Christian manner.
In John's tenth year as bishop, the governorship of Armenia was assumed by Pazinikos, the husband of the saint's sister, Maria. The new governor began to interfere in spiritual and ecclesiastical matters, and there was unrest in the Church. St John then went to Constantinople, and through Archbishop Euthymius, he entreated the emperor Zeno to defend the Armenian Church from the evil Governor.
Overwhelmed by worldly quarrels, John secretly left his diocese and sailed to Jerusalem. With tears he besought God to show him a place where he might live and find salvation. A bright star appeared, which led St John to the Lavra of St Sava.
John, concealing his episcopal rank, was accepted in the community as a simple novice. Under the guidance of the igumen St Sava (December 5), Bishop John toiled obediently for more than four years at every task he was assigned. When a guesthouse was built at the Lavra, St John served the workers, serving their food and assisting in the construction of the building. When a cenobitic monastery for novices was being built, John was once again assigned to help the workers.
Seeing St John's humility and love of labor, St Sava deemed him worthy of ordination to presbyter. St John was forced to reveal his rank to Patriarch Elias of Jerusalem (494-517), who told St Sava that John could not be ordained. Moreover, he said that John was to live in silence, and that no one should trouble him. Soon the Lord also revealed St John's secret to St Sava. St John spent four years in his cell, receiving no one and not going out even for church.
Desiring ever greater solitude and increased abstinence, St John quit the Lavra and withdrew into the desert, where he spent more than nine years, eating plants and grass. He survived a devastating incursion of the Saracens and did not perish, only because the Lord sent him a defender: a ferocious lion. When the enemy tried to harm the saint, the lion attacked them and they scattered in fright. Tradition speaks of many miracles St John performed during this time in the desert.
When St Sava returned after an extended stay in Scythopolis, he persuaded St John to forsake the wilderness and to live at the monastery. After this, the Lord, in a miraculous way, revealed to everyone at the Lavra that the monk John was actually a bishop.
When St John reached age seventy, his holy and God-bearing spiritual Father St Sava died. The saint grieved deeply over this, since he was not present at the time. St Sava appeared to him in a vision, and having consoled him, he foretold that there would be much toil ahead in the struggle against heresy. St John even had to leave his solitude to strengthen the brethren in the struggle with the Origenists.
St John the Silent spent sixty-six years at the Lavra of St Sava the Sanctified. Through his constant ascetic efforts, by his untiring prayer and humble wisdom, St John acquired the grace of the Holy Spirit. At his prayers, many miracles took place, and he was able to discern the secret thoughts of people. He healed the sick and those possessed by demons. Even during his lifetime he saved those who invoked his name from certain destruction. Once, he scattered fig seeds on barren rock, and a beautiful and fruitful tree sprang up. In time, the tree grew so much that it overshadowed the saint's cell.
St John the Silent departed to the Lord in peace at the age of 104.
650 St. Birinus The "Apostle of Wessex."
Dorcéstriæ, in Anglia, sancti Biríni, qui fuit primus ejúsdem civitátis Epíscopus.
    At Dorchester in England, St. Birinus, who was the first bishop of that city.
   Birinus a German, became a priest in Rome and a bishop in Genoa, Italy, before undertaking a missionary apostolate, sent by Pope Honorius I. He went to Britain in 634, where he preached to the West Saxons. King Cynegils was converted by Birinus and gave him the area of Dorchester as his see. He died on December 3, and was buried in Dorchester, Oxfordshire
741 St. Attalia Benedictine abbess and niece of St. Odilia.
Attalia became the abbess of St. Stephen's Convent in Salzburg, Austria.

749 St. John of Damascus poet "The Doctor of Christian Art." 3 treatises on Veneration of Images b. 645
Saint John Damascene has the double honor of being the last but one of the fathers of the Eastern Church, and the greatest of her poets. It is surprising, however, how little that is authentic is known of his life. The account of him by John of Jerusalem, written some two hundred years after his death, contains an admixture of legendary matter, and it is not easy to say where truth ends and fiction begins.

The ancestors of John, according to his biographer, when Damascus fell into the hands of the Arabs, had alone remained faithful to Christianity. They commanded the respect of the conqueror, and were employed in judicial offices of trust and dignity, to administer, no doubt, the Christian law to the Christian subjects of the Sultan. His father, besides this honorable rank, had amassed great wealth; all this he devoted to the redemption of Christian slaves on whom he bestowed their freedom. John was the reward of these pious actions. John was baptized immediately on his birth, probably by Peter II, bishop of Damascus, afterwards a sufferer for the Faith.

The father was anxious to keep his son aloof from the savage habits of war and piracy, to which the youths of Damascus were addicted, and to devote him to the pursuit of knowledge. The Saracen pirates of the seashore neighboring to Damascus, swept the Mediterranean, and brought in Christian captives from all quarters. A monk named Cosmas had the misfortune to fall into the hands of these freebooters. He was set apart for death, when his executioners, Christian slaves no doubt, fell at his feet and entreated his intercession with the Redeemer. The Saracens enquired of Cosmas who he was. He replied that he had not the dignity of a priest; he was a simple monk, and burst into tears. The father of John was standing by, and expressed his surprise at this exhibition of timidity. Cosmas answered, "It is not for the loss of my life, but of my learning, that I weep." Then he recounted his attainments, and the father of John, thinking he would make a valuable tutor for his son, begged or bought his life of the Saracen governor; gave him his freedom, and placed his son under his tuition. The pupil in time exhausted all the acquirements of his teacher. The monk then obtained his dismissal, and retired to the monastery of S. Sabas, where he would have closed his days in peace, had he not been compelled to take on himself the bishopric of Majuma, the port of Gaza.

The attainments of the young John of Damascus commanded the veneration of the Saracens; he was compelled reluctantly to accept an office of higher trust and dignity than that held by his father. As the Iconoclastic controversy became more violent, John of Damascus entered the field against the Emperor of the East, and wrote the first of his three treatises on the Veneration due to Images. This was probably composed immediately after the decree of Leo the Isaurian against images, in 730.

Before he wrote the second, he was apparently ordained priest, for he speaks as one having authority and commission. The third treatise is a recapitulation of the arguments used in the other two. These three treatises were disseminated with the utmost activity throughout Christianity.

The biographer of John relates a story which is disproved not only by its exceeding improbability, but also by being opposed to the chronology of his history. It is one of those legends of which the East is so fertile, and cannot be traced, even in allusion, to any document earlier than the biography written two hundred years later. Leo the Isaurian, having obtained, through his emissaries, one of John's circular epistles in his own handwriting -- so runs the tale -- caused a letter to be forged, containing a proposal from John of Damascus to betray his native city to the Christians. The emperor, with specious magnanimity, sent this letter to the Sultan. The indignant Mahommedan ordered the guilty hand of John to be cut off. John entreated that the hand might be restored to him, knelt before the image of the Virgin, prayed, fell asleep, and woke with his hand as before. John, convinced by this miracle, that he was under the special protection of our Lady, resolved to devote himself wholly to a life of prayer and praise, and retired to the monastery of Saint Sabas.

That the Sultan should have contented himself with cutting off the hand of one of his magistrates for an act of high treason is in itself improbable, but it is rendered more improbable by the fact that it has been proved by Father Lequien, the learned editor of his works, that Saint John Damascene was already a monk at Saint Sabas before the breaking out of the Iconoclastic dispute.

In 743, the Khalif Ahlid II persecuted the Christians. He cut off the tongue of Peter, metropolitan of Damascus, and banished him to Arabia Felix. Peter, bishop of Majuma, suffered decapitation at the same time, and Saint John of Damascus wrote an eulogium on his memory.
Another legend is as follows: it is probably not as apocryphal as that of the severed hand: -- The abbot sent Saint John in the meanest and most beggarly attire to sell baskets in the marketplace of Damascus, where he had been accustomed to appear in the dignity of office, and to vend his poor ware at exorbitant prices. Nor did the harshness of the abbot end there. A man had lost his brother, and broken-hearted at his bereaval, besought Saint John to compose him a sweet hymn that might be sung at this brother's funeral, and which at the same time would soothe his own sorrow. John asked leave of the abbot, and was curtly refused permission. But when he saw the distress of the mourner he yielded, and sang him a beautiful lament. The abbot was passing at the time, and heard the voice of his disciple raised in song. Highly incensed, he expelled him from the monastery, and only re- admitted him on condition of his daily cleaning the filth from all the cells of his brethren. An opportune vision rebuked the abbot for thus wasting the splendid talents of his inmate. John was allowed to devote himself to religious poetry, which became the heritage of the Eastern Church, and to theological arguments in defense of the doctrines of the Church, and refutation of all heresies. His three great hymns or "canons," are those on Easter, the Ascension, and Satin Thomas's Sunday.
 Probably also many of the Idiomela an Stichera which are scattered about the office- books under the title of "John" and "John the Hermit" are his. His eloquent defense of images has deservedly procured him the title of "The Doctor of Christian Art."
The date of his death cannot be fixed with any certainty; but it lies between 754 and before 787.
666 St. Eloque Benedictine abbot, disciple and successor of St. Fursey at Lagny. He is sometimes called Eloquius.
794 ST SOLA saint was an Englishman who, following St Boniface into Germany, became his disciple and was ordained priest by him.
Called by the Holy Ghost to a solitary life, by the advice of his master he retired to a lonely place first at
Fulda and then on the banks of the River Altmuhl, near Eichstätt, where in a little cell he passed his days in penance and prayer.
     After the martyrdom of St Boniface, the holy brothers Willibald the bishop and Winebald the priest encouraged him to make his cell the religious centre of the surrounding country. For this purpose there was bestowed on him a piece of land, and here later grew up the abbey of Solnhofen, which was a dependency of Fulda.
St Sola departed to the Lord on December 3, 794, and a chapel was built where his oratory had stood.
The name Sola (Solo) is still preserved in that of the village of Solnhofen, west of Eichstätt.

There is a Latin life of St Sola which was written in 835, forty years after his death, by Ermanrich, a monk of Ellwangen, who obtained his information from a servant of the saint and other surviving contemporaries. The Latin of this biography was revised in the following year by a certain Master Roland. The best text is that printed in MGH., Scriptores, vol. xv, Pt i, pp. 151—163, but it is also to be found in Mabillon, vol. iii, pt 2, pp. 429—438. The saint’s curious name has led to his cult being popularly identified with certain carvings and inscriptions which are really monuments of an ancient sun-worship. See E. Jung, German. Götter (1922), pp. 258—231; and Kunstdzenkmäler d. Bez. Weissenburg (1932), pp. 426—437.
860 St. Abbo Bishop abbot of Auxerre
France. He entered the monastery of St. Germain and was elected abbot of the institution. In 857, Abbo was appointed the bishop of Auxerre, in France, serving in that capacity for only two years. He is revered both in Auxerre and in St. Germain.

1409 Venerable Sava the Abbot of Zvenigorod model of simplicity and humility miraculous curative power issuing from the grave numerous appearances  Disciple of the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh
1490 Sava appeared to Dionysius (4th igumen of St Sava monastery and said to him:
"Dionysius! Wake up and paint my icon."
Saint Sava Storozhevsky of Zvenigorod left the world in his early youth, and received the monastic tonsure from St Sergius of Radonezh, whose disciple and fellow-ascetic he was.
St Sava loved solitude, and avoided conversing with people. He lived in constant toil, lamenting the poverty of his soul, and trembling before the judgment of God. He was a model of simplicity and humility, and he attained to such a depth of spiritual wisdom that "in the monastery of St Sergius he was a spiritual confessor to all the brethren, a venerable and exceedingly learned Elder."
When Great Prince Demetrius of the Don built the monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God at the River Dubenka, in gratitude for the victory over Mamai, Sava became its Igumen, with the blessing of St Sergius.
Preserving the simple manner of his ascetic lifestyle, he ate plants, wore coarse clothing and slept on the ground.
In 1392 the brethren of the Sergiev Lavra, with the departure of its Igumen Nikon into the wilderness, asked St Sava to be the igumen of the monastery. Here he "shepherded well the flock entrusted to him to the best of his ability, helped by the prayers of his spiritual Father, St Sergius." According to Tradition, the great well outside the Lavra walls was built when he was igumen.
Prince Yuri Dimitrievich Zvenigorodsky, a godson of St Sergius, regarded St Sava with great love and esteem. He chose St Sava as his spiritual Father and begged him to come and bestow his blessing upon all his household. The saint had hoped to return to his monastery, but the prince begged him to remain and establish a new monastery, "in his fatherland, near Zvenigorod, at a place called Storozhi."
St Sava accepted the request of Prince Yuri Dimitrievich, and praying with tears before an icon of the Mother of God, he entreated Her protection for the wilderness place. On Storozhi Hill, he built a small wooden church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, and a small cell for himself nearby. Here in the year 1399 the monk established a monastery, lovingly accepting all who came seeking a life of silence and seclusion.
St Sava toiled much at the building up of his monastery. He dug a well at the foot of the hill, from which he carried water on his own shoulders; he encircled the monastery with a wooden palisade, and in a hollow above it, he dug out a cell where he could dwell in solitude.
In 1399 St Sava blessed his spiritual son, Prince Yuri, to go on a military campaign, and he predicted victory over the enemy. Through the prayers of the holy Elder, the forces of the prince won a speedy victory. Through the efforts of St Sava, a stone church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos was also built to replace the wooden one.
St Sava died at an advanced age on December 3, 1406. He appointed his disciple, also named Sava, to succeed him.
Veneration of the God-pleaser by the local people began immediately after his death. The miraculous curative power issuing from the grave of the monk, and his numerous appearances, convinced everyone that Igumen Sava "is truly an unsetting sun of divine light, illumining all with its miraculous rays." In a letter of 1539 St Sava is called a wonderworker. Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich had a special veneration for him, repeatedly going to the monastery of St Sava on foot. Tradition has preserved for us a remarkable account of how St Sava once saved him from a ferocious bear.
The Life of St Sava, compiled in the sixteenth century, relates how at the end of the fifteenth century (1480-1490), the saint appeared to Dionysius, the fourth igumen of the St Sava monastery and said to him: "Dionysius! Wake up and paint my icon." When Dionysius asked who he was, he replied, "I am Sava, the founder of this place."
Now Dionysius had not known the saint personally, so he summoned Elder Habakkuk, who had known St Sava in his youth, hoping to convince himself of the truth of the dream. He described the outward appearance of the saint, and Habakkuk assured him that the saint looked exactly as the igumen had seen him in his dream. Then Dionysius fulfilled the command and painted the icon of St Sava.
The feastday of St Sava was established at the Moscow Council of 1547. The incorrupt relics of the saint were uncovered on January 19, 1652.
1552 St. Francis Xavier Great Missionary to the Orient by Friar Jack Wintz, O.F.M.
Sancti Francísci Xavérii, Sacerdótis e Societáte Jesu et Confessóris, Indiárum Apóstoli, sodalitátis et óperis Propagándæ Fídei atque Missiónum ómnium Patróni cæléstis; qui prídie hujus diéi quiévit in pace.
    St. Francis Xavier, priest of the Society of Jesus, confessor, Apostle of the Indies, and heavenly patron of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and also of all the Missions, who died on the day previous.


St Francis Xavier was canonized in 1622, at the same time as Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Philip Neri and Isidore the Husbandman—indeed a noble company.
St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552)

1552 ST FRANCIS XAVIER
CHARGED to go and preach to all nations was given by Christ to His apostles, and in every age men have been raised up by God and filled with His holy Spirit for the discharge of this arduous duty, men who, being sent by the authority of Christ and in His name by those who have succeeded the apostles in the government of His Church, have brought new nations to the fold of Christ for the filling up the number of the saints.
     Among those who have laboured most successfully in this great work is the illustrious St Francis Xavier, who was named by Pope Pius X the official patron of foreign missions and of all works for the spreading of the faith. He was one of the greatest of all missionaries, and among numerous eulogies that of Sir Walter Scott is striking: “The most rigid Protestant, and the most indifferent philosopher, cannot deny to him the courage and patience of a martyr, with the good sense, resolution, ready wit and address of the best negotiator that ever went upon a temporal embassy.”
He was born in Spanish Navarre, at the castle of Xavier, near Pamplona, in 1506 (his mother-tongue was Basque), the youngest of a large family, and he went to the University of Paris in his eighteenth year. He entered the college of St Barbara and in 1528 gained the degree of licentiate. Here it was that he met Ignatius Loyola and, though he did not at once submit himself to his influence, he was one of the band of seven, the first Jesuits, who vowed themselves to the service of God at Montmartre in 1534. With them he received the priesthood at Venice three years later and shared the vicissitudes of the nascent society until, in 1540, St Ignatius appointed him to join Father Simon Rodriguez on the first missionary expedition it sent out, to the East Indies.

They arrived at Lisbon about the end of June, and Francis went immediately to Father Rodriguez, who was lodged in a hospital in order to attend and instruct the sick. They made this place their ordinary dwelling, but catechized and instructed in the town, and were taken up all Sundays and holidays in hearing confessions at court, for the king, John III, had a high regard for these religious; so much so that eventually Rodriguez was retained by him at Lisbon. St Francis was obliged to stay there eight months: “the king has not yet made up his mind whether he will send us to India, because he thinks we should serve our Lord as well in Portugal as there”, he wrote to St Ignatius at Rome. B
efore he at last sailed, on his thirty-fifth birthday, April 7, ‘54’, the king delivered to him briefs from the pope in which Francis Xavier was constituted apostolic nuncio in the East. The king could not prevail on him to accept any gifts except some clothes and a few books. Nor would he consent to have a servant, saying. “the best means to acquire true dignity is to wash one’s own clothes and boil one’s own pot, unbeholden to anyone”. He had two companions to the Indies, Father Paul of Camerino, an Italian, and Francis Mansilhas, a Portuguese who was not yet in orders, of whom St Francis wrote that he had “a larger store of zeal, virtue and simplicity than of any extraordinary learning”, in his lively farewell letter to St Ignatius.
    St Francis was accommodated on the ship that carried Don Martin Alfonso de Sousa, a governor of the Indies who went with five ships to take up his post. The admiral’s vessel contained crew, passengers, soldiers, slaves and convicts, whom Francis considered as committed to his care. He catechized, preached every Sunday before the mast, took care of the sick, converted his cabin into an infirmary, and all this though suffering at first seriously from seasickness.
There were all sorts among the ship’s company and passengers; Xavier had to compose quarrels, quell complaints, check swearing and gaming, and remedy other disorders. Scurvy broke out, and there was no one but the three Jesuits to nurse the sick. It took them five months to get round the Cape of Good Hope and arrive at Mozambique, where they wintered. They continued to hug the east coast of Africa and called at Malindi and Socotra, from whence it took them two months to reach Goa, where they arrived on May 6, 1542, after a voyage of thirteen months (twice the then usual time). St Francis took up his quarters at the hospital to await the arrival of his companions, who were following in another ship.
   The Portuguese had been established in Goa since 1510 and there was a considerable Christian population, with churches, clergy, secular and regular, and a bishop. But among very many of these Portuguese, ambition, avarice, usury and debauchery had extinguished their religion: the sacraments were neglected, there were not four preachers and no priests outside the walls of Goa; when slaves were atrociously beaten, their masters counted the blows on the beads of their rosaries.* {*Fr H. J. Coleridge, s.j., in his biography of Xavier, remarks justly that:
“There has probably never yet been a zealous European missionary in any part of the heathen world in which Christians from his own country have been settled, or which they have occasionally visited for purposes of commerce, who has not found among them the worst enemies to his work. No exception can be made as to this lamentable truth in favour of Catholic nations Spaniards, Frenchmen, Portuguese have as much to answer for in this respect as Dutchmen and Englishmen.” In a note on this subject, quoting an illustrative complaint by a Protestant writer about converts to his religion in North America, Alban Butler says with his usual courteous charity “ It is hoped that there is more exaggeration than truth in [this complaint]”, and adds of the quotation, “This remark is meant not as a reproach to any, but as a caution to all.”}
The scandalous behaviour of the Christians, who lived in direct opposition to the gospel which they professed and by their lives alienated the infidels from the faith, was like a challenge to Francis Xavier and he opened his mission with them, instructing them in the principles of religion and forming the young to the practice of virtue. Having spent the morning in assisting and comforting the distressed in the hospitals and prisons—both alike filthy and foul—he walked through the streets ringing a bell to summon the children and slaves to catechism. They gathered in crowds about him, and he taught them the creed and prayers and Christian conduct. He offered Mass with the lepers every Sunday, preached in public and to the Indians, and visited private houses the sweetness of his character and his charitable concern for his neighbours were irresistible to many. One of the most troublesome disorders was the open concubinage of Portuguese of all ranks with Indian women, which was aggravated by the fewness of women of their own religion and race in Goa. Tursellini, who wrote the first published Life of St Francis in 1594, gives a vivid account of his combating this by methods which commend themselves alike to Christian morality, common sense, human instincts and tactful dealing. For the instruction of the very ignorant or simple he versified the truths of religion to fit popular tunes, and this was so successful that the practice spread till these songs were being sung everywhere, in the streets and houses and fields and workshops.

After five months of this St Francis was told that on the Pearl Fishery coast, which extends from Cape Comorin to the isle of Manar, opposite Ceylon, there were people called Paravas, who to get the protection of the Portuguese against the Arabs and others had been baptized, but for want of instruction still retained their superstitions and vices. Xavier went to the help of these people, who “just knew that they were Christians and nothing more”—the first of thirteen repetitions of this torrid and dangerous journey. Under every difficulty he set himself to learn the native language and to instruct and confirm those who had been already baptized, especially concentrating on teaching the rudiments of religion to the children.
   Then he preached to those Paravas to whom the name of Christ was till that time unknown. So great were the multitudes he baptized that sometimes by the bare fatigue of administering the sacrament he was scarcely able to move his arms, according to the account which he gave to his brethren in Europe.*{ * From a very long letter of January 15, 1544, of great importance in waking Europeans up to foreign missions and their needs. It was indeed outspoken, written from the depths of Xavier’s great heart.} The Paravas were a low-caste people, and St Francis had a different reception and very little success among the Brahmans; at the end of twelve months he had converted only one. It seems certain that at this time God wrought a number of miracles of healing through him.
St Francis, as always, came before the people as one of themselves. His food was that of the poorest, rice and water; he slept on the ground in a hut. And God visited him with interior delights “I am accustomed”, he says, “often to hear one labouring in this vineyard cry out to God, ‘Lord, give me not so much joy in this life or, if in thy mercy thou must heap it upon me, take me all together to thyself’.”
   Soon he was obliged to return to Goa to get help, and returned to the Paravas with two Indian priests and a lay-catechist, and Francis Mansilhas, whom he stationed in different centres. To Mansilhas he wrote a series of letters that are some of the most revealing of all he ever wrote for the understanding of his spirit amid the difficulties with which he had to contend. The sufferings of native people at the hands both of heathen and Portuguese became “a permanent bruise on my soul”. When an Indian servant was abducted he wrote, “Would the Portuguese be pleased if one of the Hindus were to take a Portuguese by force and carry him up country? The Indians must have the same feelings.”
St Francis was able to extend his activities to Travancore; here his achievements have been rather exaggerated by some writers, but village after village received him with joy, and after baptizing the inhabitants he wrote to Father Mansilhas telling him to come and organize the converts.*{ * There had, of course, been some Christians on the Malabar coast of India for perhaps thousand years. Cf. December 21, St Thomas.}
As elsewhere, he enlisted the help in this of the children (who doubtless thought it great fun), and used them as auxiliaries to the catechists to teach to others what they had just learned themselves. His difficulties were increased by the misfortunes of the Christians of Comorin and Tuticorin, who were set upon by the Badagas from the north, who robbed, massacred and carried them into slavery. Xavier is said on one occasion to have held off the raiders by facing them alone, crucifix in hand. The Portuguese, their local commandant having his own secret dealings with the Badagas, again handicapped him. But when this man had himself to take refuge from them, St Francis wrote in haste to Mansilhas, “Go at once to his help, I beseech you, for the love of God”.

But for the tireless efforts of St Francis it looks as if the Paravas would have been exterminated. They for their part received the Catholic faith so firmly that no oppression or persuasion has ever been able to remove it.

The ruler of Jaffna, in northern Ceylon, hearing of the progress of the faith in his island of Manar, slew six hundred Christians there. +{+ It is said that some of the converts had destroyed the shrines of idols and so incurred the wrath of the raja.}
   The governor, Martin de Sousa, ordered an expedition to punish this massacre and it was to fit out at Negapatam, whither St Francis went to join it; but the officers were diverted from their purpose and so Francis instead made a journey on foot to the shrine of St Thomas at Mylapore, where there was a small Portuguese settlement to be visited. Many incidents are related of him during these travels, especially of his conversion of notorious sinners among the Europeans by the gentle and courteous way in which he dealt with them; other miracles too were ascribed to him.
   From Cochin in 1545 he sent a long and very outspoken letter to the King of Portugal giving an account of his mission. He speaks of the danger of those who had already been gathered into the Church falling back into their former state, “scandalized and scared away by the many grievous injuries and vexations which they suffer—especially from your Highness’s own servants…For there is danger that when our Lord God calls your Highness to His judgement that your Highness may hear angry words from Him: ‘Why did you not punish those who were your subjects and owned your authority, and who were enemies to me in India?’"
He speaks in the highest terms of Don Miguel Vaz, vicar general of Goa, and implores the king to send him back to India with plenary powers when he shall have made his report in Lisbon. “As I expect to die in these Indian regions and never to see your Highness again in this life, I beg you, my lord, to help me with your prayers, that we may meet again in the next world, where we shall certainly have more rest than here.”
He repeats his praise of Miguel in a letter to Father Simon Rodriguez, and is more explicit about the Europeans: “ People scarcely hesitate to think that it cannot be wrong to do that which can be done easily…I am terrified at the number of new inflexions which have been added to the conjugation of that miserable verb ‘to rob’.”

In the spring of 1545 St Francis set out for Malacca, on the Malay Peninsula, where he spent four months. It was then a large and prosperous city, which Albuquerque had captured for the Portuguese in 1511, and its life was peculiarly licentious. Anticipating the manners of a later age adult girls went about the place in men’s clothes, without the excuse of being engaged on men’s work. Francis was received with great reverence and cordiality, and his efforts at reform met with some success. For the next eighteen months his movements are difficult to follow, but they were a time of great activity and interest, for he was in a largely unknown world, visiting islands, which he refers to in general as the Moluccas, not all of which are now identifiable. He preached and ministered at Amboina, Ternate, Gilolo, and other places, in some of which there were Portuguese merchants and settlements. In this mission he suffered much, but from it wrote to St Ignatius
 “The dangers to which I am exposed and the tasks I undertake for God are springs of spiritual joy, so much so that these islands are the places in all the world for a man to lose his sight by excess of weeping: but they are tears of joy. I do not remember ever to have tasted such interior delight and these consolations take from me all sense of bodily hardships and of troubles from open enemies and not too trustworthy friends.”
When he got back to Malacca he passed another four months there, ministering to a very unsatisfactory flock, and then departed for India again. But before he left he heard about Japan for the first time, from Portuguese merchants and from a fugitive Japanese named Anjiro. Xavier arrived back in India in January 1548.
   The next fifteen months were spent in endless travelling between Goa, Ceylon and Cape Comorin, consolidating his work (notably the “ international college of St Paul at Goa
) and preparing for an attempt on that Japan into which no European had yet penetrated. He wrote a final letter to King John III, on behalf of an Armenian bishop and a Franciscan friar but also saying, “Experience has taught me that your Highness has no power in India to spread the faith of Christ, while you have power to take away and enjoy all the country’s temporal riches”, and more to the like effect.

In April 1549, St Francis set out, accompanied by a Jesuit priest and a lay-brother, by Anjiro—now Paul—and by two other Japanese converts. On the feast of the Assumption following they landed in Japan, at Kagoshima on Kyushu.

At Kagoshima they were not molested, and St Francis set himself to learn Japanese (so far from having the gift of tongues with which he is so often credited, he seems to have had difficulty in learning new languages). A translation was made of a simple account of Christian teaching, and recited to all who would listen. The fruit of twelve months’ labour was a hundred converts, and then the authorities began to get suspicious and forbade further preaching. So, leaving Paul in charge of the neophytes, Francis decided to push on further with his other companions and went by sea to Hirado, north of Nagasaki. Before leaving Kagoshima he visited the fortress of Ichiku, where the “baron’s” wife, her steward and others accepted Christianity. To the steward’s care Xavier recommended the rest at departure; and twelve years later the Jesuit lay brother and physician, Luis de Almeida, found these isolated converts still retaining their first fervour and faithfulness.
At Hirado the missionaries were well received by the ruler (daimyó), and they had more success in a few weeks than they had had at Kagoshima in a year. These converts St Francis left to Father de Torres and went on with Brother Fernandez and a Japanese to Yamaguchi in Honshu. Francis preached here, in public and before the daimyó, but the missionaries made no impression and were treated with scorn.

Xavier’s objective was Miyako (Kyoto), then the chief city of Japan, and having made a month’s stay at Yamaguchi and gathered small fruit of his labours except affronts, he continued his journey with his two companions. It was towards the end of December, and they suffered much on the road from heavy rains, snow and the difficult country, and did not reach their destination till February. Here Francis found that he could not procure an audience of the Mikado (who in any case was but a puppet) without paying a sum of money far beyond his resources. Moreover, civil strife filled the city with such tumult that he saw it to be impossible to do any good there at that time and, after a fortnight’s stay, they returned to Yamaguchi.
   Seeing that evangelical poverty had not the appeal in Japan that it had in India, St Francis changed his methods. Decently dressed and with his companions as attendants he presented himself before the daimyó as the representative of Portugal, giving him the letters and presents (a musical-box, a clock and a pair of spectacles among them) which the authorities in India had provided for the Mikado. The daimyo received the gifts with delight, gave Francis leave to teach, and provided an empty Buddhist monastery for a residence. When thus he obtained protection, Francis preached with such fruit that he baptized many in that city.

Hearing that a Portuguese ship had arrived at Funai (Oita) in Kyushu St Francis set out thither. Among those on board was the traveller Fernão Mendez Pinto, who left a full and amusing account of the ceremony and display with which the Portuguese surrounded the visit of their admired Xavier to the local daimyó. Unfortunately Mendez Pinto was a highly fanciful writer, and no reliance can be put on what he tells us of Xavier’s activities and adventures at Funai.
    Francis had decided to make use of this Portuguese ship to revisit his charge in India, from whence he now hoped to extend his mission to China. The Japanese Christians were left in charge of Father Cosmas de Torres and Brother Fernandez: they numbered perhaps 2000 in all, the seed of many martyrs in time to come.

In spite of some unhappy experiences in their country, it was the opinion of St Francis Xavier that
“among all unbelievers, no finer people will be found than the Japanese”.

Francis found that good progress had been made in India, but there were also many difficulties and abuses, both among the missionaries and the Portuguese authorities, that urgently needed his attention. These matters he dealt with, lovingly and very firmly and thoroughly. At the end of four months, on April 25, 1552, with a Jesuit priest and a scholastic, an Indian servant and a young Chinese to interpret (but he had forgotten his own language), he sailed eastward again; he was awaited at Malacca by Diogo Pereira, whom the viceroy in India had appointed ambassador to the court of China.
At Malacca St Francis had to treat about this embassy with Don Alvaro da Ataíde da Gama (a son of Vasco da Gama), the maritime authority there. This Alvaro had a personal grudge against Diogo Pereira, whom he flatly refused to let sail either as envoy or as private trader. Nothing could move him, even when St Francis informed him of the brief of Pope Paul III by which he was appointed apostolic nuncio. By impeding a papal legate Alvaro incurred excommunication, but Francis had unfortunately left the original document behind at Goa. At length Don Alvaro conceded that Xavier should go to China in Pereira’s ship, but without its owner; and to this Pereira most nobly agreed.
   When the project of the embassy thus failed Francis sent his priest companion to Japan, and eventually was left with only the Chinese youth, Antony. With him he hoped to find means to land secretly in China, the country closed to foreigners. In the last week of August 1552 the convoy reached the desolate island of Sancian (Shang-chwan), half-a-dozen miles off the coast and a hundred miles southwest of Hong Kong.

From here by one of the ships St Francis sent off letters, including one to Pereira, to whom he says: “ If there is one man in the whole of this undertaking who deserves reward from divine Providence it is undoubtedly you; and you will have the whole credit of it.” Then he goes on to tell the arrangements he has made: he had with great difficulty hired a Chinese merchant to land him by night in some part of Canton, for which Xavier had engaged to pay him, and bound himself by oath that nothing should ever bring him to confess the name of him who had set him on shore.
   Whilst waiting for his plans to mature, Xavier fell sick and, when the Portuguese vessels were all gone except one, was reduced to extreme want: in his last letter he wrote, “It is a long time since I felt so little inclined to go on living as I do now”. The Chinese merchant did not turn up. A fever seized the saint on November 21, and he took shelter on the ship; but the motion of the sea was too much for him, so the day following he requested that he might be set on shore again, which was done. Chiefly Don Alvaro’s men who, fearing to offend their master by common kindness to Xavier, left him exposed on the sands to a piercing north wind, till a friendly Portuguese merchant led him into his hut, which afforded only a very poor shelter, manned the vessel. He lay thus in a high fever, being bled with distressing results, praying ceaselessly between spasms of delirium. He got weaker and weaker till at last, in the early morning of December 3, which fell on a Saturday, “I [Antony] could see that he was dying and put a lighted candle in his hand. Then, with the name of Jesus on his lips, he rendered his soul to his Creator and Lord with great repose and quietude”.

St Francis was only forty-six years old, of which he had passed eleven in the East. His body was laid in the earth on the Sunday evening: four people were present, the Chinese Antony, a Portuguese and two slaves. *{* Details of the saint’s last days were given by the faithful Antony in a letter to Manuel Teixeira, who printed it in his biography of Xavier.}

At the suggestion of somebody from the ship the coffin had been packed with lime around the body in case it should later be desired to move the remains. Ten weeks and more later the grave and the coffin were opened. The lime being removed from the face, it was found quite incorrupt and fresh-coloured, the rest of the body in like manner whole and smelling only of lime. The body was accordingly carried into the ship and brought to Malacca, where it was received
with great honour by all, except Don Alvaro. At the end of the year it was taken away to Goa, where physicians verified its continued incorruption; there it still lies enshrined in the church of the Good Jesus. St Francis Xavier was canonized in 1622, at the same time as Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Philip Neri and Isidore the Husbandman—indeed a noble company.

It was long believed that the letters and other biographical materials, collected in two bulky volumes under the title Monumenta Xaveriana (1899—1912), left nothing more to be discovered about St Francis Xavier. Certainly these documents, critically edited at Madrid in the Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu, are of supreme importance. They supply a much more reliable text than any previously available of the letters written by the saint, as well as a faithful transcript of the depositions of the witnesses in the process of beatification, with other early materials of value. But Father George Schurhammer, working in the archives at Lisbon, and making use at Tokyo of native Japanese sources previously unexplored, has been able to collect a good deal more information, which supplements and sometimes corrects the data hitherto accepted as reliable. His definitive edition, with Fr J. Wicki, of the invaluable letters appeared in two volumes in 1943—44. Fr Schurhammer issued a short life of the saint, Der Heilige Franz Xaver (1925), of which a free translation was published in America, and he supplemented this with a number of important articles and monographs, dealing with various special aspects of the great missionary’s career. Most of these contribu­tions will be found noticed in the Analecta Bollandiana; see especially vol. xl (1922), pp. 171—178, vol. xliv (1926), pp. 445—446, vol. xlvi (1928), pp. 455—456, vol. xlviii (5930), pp. 445—445, vol. 1(5932), pp. 453—454, vol. liv (1936), pp. 247—249, and vol. lxix (1951), pp. 438-445. Under the first of these references will be found a valuable article of Fr Schurhammer himself dealing with the relics of St Francis Xavier, and in the fourth a notice of his brochure Das kirchliche Sprachproblem in der japanischen Jesuitenmission (1928). In this it is shown that the belief that St Francis was able to converse and hold disputations in the Japanese tongue is quite unfounded. The legend grew up out of the imagination and ignorance of two unreliable witnesses in the beatification process. Unfortunately, as Fr Astrain in his official Historia de la Compañia de Jesús was among the first to point out, many of the miraculous incidents recorded in early biographies of the saint must now be rejected as mythical. For this reason no great reliance can be placed on the life by 0. Tursellini, or on that by Bouhours, which last was translated into English by the poet John Dryden. In modern times Fr L. J. M. Cros collected much critical material concerning the family of Xavier, etc., before the publication of the Monumenta Xaveriana. This appeared as Documents nouveaux (1894) and also in his S. François Xavier, sa vie et ses lettres, 2 vols. (1900); but the most trustworthy French life is that by Father A. Brou, 2 vols. (1952). In English, Fr H. J. Coleridge published a very sympathetic biography in 2 vols. (1886), though unfortunately he had not access to a critical text of the saint’s letters. For this reason the more compendious life by Mrs Yeo (1933) is preferable from the point of view of accuracy. In the opinion of Fr James Brodrick, Edith A. Stewart’s Life of St Francis Xavier (1917), “except for occasional small ebullitions of Protestant sentiment, is more scholarly and satisfying than any English Catholic biography of the saint”; that may have been so in 1940 when he wrote, but the definitive life in English is now Fr Brodrick’s own splendid work, St Francis Xavier (1952). The work of St Francis in Japan and India is discussed by Fr Thurston in The Month for February and March 1905 and December 1912. For the key-note and spirit of Xavier’s apostolate see the sketch by Fr C. C. Martindale, In God’s Army, vol. i (1915); and on his reputed miracles the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xvi (1897), pp. 52—63.  

Though Xavier Castle dates back to the 10th or 11th centuries, it has recently been rebuilt. (photo by Jack Wintz, O.F.M.)
This year is the 500th anniversary of St. Francis Xavier’s birth. He was born on April 7, 1506, at the family castle, known in Spanish as Castillo de Javier (Xavier, in English). The Xavier Castle sits about 45 miles southeast of Pamplona (where his friend-to-be, Ignatius of Loyola, was struck in the leg by a cannonball in 1521). Details of our visit to the Xavier Castle will be given near the end of this column.

Francis Xavier meets Ignatius of Loyola
In 1525, at the age of 19, Francis went to Paris and entered the university there. In time, he and Ignatius of Loyola became roommates and then good friends for the rest of their lives. At this time, Ignatius had already begun developing his Spiritual Exercises, which would later become a published manual and practical program for Christian living known throughout the world. Ignatius shared these Exercises with Francis and several other companions who were trying to discern where God’s Spirit was leading them. In time, Francis and several other companions of Ignatius’s decided to gather together and form a group that would become known as the Society of Jesus.

In 1537, Francis was ordained a priest in Venice along with Ignatius and four other Jesuits. Within two years, Francis was in Rome with Ignatius and others who were laying the foundations of the Society of Jesus. Suddenly, a great opportunity fell in the path of Francis Xavier. He was commissioned by Ignatius, at the request of the king of Portugal, to travel to Lisbon, Portugal, and from there to go as a missionary to the East Indies. Francis sailed from Lisbon for the Orient on April 7, 1541. He was the first Jesuit missionary. As he departed, Francis was given a brief from the pope appointing him apostolic nuncio to the East.

Francis Xavier sails to the Orient (photo by Jack Wintz, O.F.M.) After a dangerous voyage that included a lengthy stopover in Mozambique on the eastern coast of Africa, Francis landed at Goa (in western India) in 1542, 13 months after leaving Lisbon. After ministering in that region for five months, he spent three years near the southern tip of India, evangelizing the people of that area and baptizing them by the thousands. During this time, he was also able to visit the tomb of St. Thomas the Apostle in São Thomé, now part of Madras, one of India’s major cities.

In 1546, Francis set off for the Malay Peninsula (now Malaysia) and landed in the Portuguese city of Malacca. From there he evangelized widely and visited several islands in that region, conferring many Baptisms along the way. Back in Malacca, he met Anjiro, a Japanese nobleman who showed interest in the Catholic faith and told Francis many things about Japan.

Francis returned to Goa to concentrate on his responsibilities as superior of the missions there. He also needed to decide what would be the best assignments for Jesuits who had just arrived from Europe and were eager to establish or help out at new missions.
Off to Japan—and dreams of China
In 1549, together with Anjiro and several Jesuits, Francis sailed for Japan by way of Malacca. Japan had not yet been introduced to Christianity. As the group traveled from place to place, it met many challenges. Efforts at gaining converts did not always meet with obvious success. Yet, missionaries laid the groundwork in Japan for Christian communities that would increase rapidly in the years to follow.
In this painting inside Xavier Castle. St. Francis Xavier is shown as he gazes longingly toward the Chinese mainland. (photo by Jack Wintz, O.F.M.)
For some time, Francis had also dreamt of evangelizing China. He set out to do so in 1552, reaching the island of Sancian in the Bay of Canton later that year. From this island, he looked longingly toward the Chinese mainland. Little did he know that his missionary days were about to end. He was soon to take ill with a fever and was confined to a leafy hut on the island’s shore. Two weeks later, on December 3, 1552, he died. His body was buried on the island. In the spring, however, his remains were taken to Malacca for burial. A few years later, his body was transferred to Goa, where his remains are still enshrined—and revered by thousands from all over India and beyond—in the Church of the Good Jesus.

In 1615, the saint’s right arm was removed and transported to Rome. The arm—which had baptized and blessed so many—is now venerated in the well-known Jesuit church in Rome, known as the Gesù. This famous church also houses the earthly remains of Francis’ longtime friend and spiritual mentor, St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Visiting Xavier Castle
The last shrine we visited on our motorbus pilgrimage across Spain was the Castle of Javier, located near a small town with the same name (Javier). This castle, some 60 miles from the Castle of Loyola, greets the visitor’s eye like a picture on a postcard. The castle, which like the Castle of Loyola is under the care of the Jesuits, has many rooms of interest for the numerous tourists who visit. One can visit the room, for example, which was once Francis’s bedroom. There are also various rooms and hallways containing art works and exhibits depicting the life of the great Jesuit missionary.

Our group felt especially honored to celebrate Eucharist in the Chapel of the Xavier Castle, given that this occurred during the 500th anniversary year of the birth of St. Francis Xavier.
1552 St. Francis Xavie4 miracles post mortem
Remembering the great missionary

St. Francis Xavier, whose feast day is December 3, is known as the “Apostle of the Indies” and the “Apostle of Japan.” Many people rank him—after St. Paul, the Apostle—as the greatest missionary of all time. Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. He was named the patron of the Propagation of the Faith in 1910 and patron of the missions in 1927.

See St. Anthony Messenger's version of Friar Jack's saints series at "Four Great Spanish Saints" (December 2006).

(1506) Catholic Encyclopedia
Born in the Castle of Xavier near Sanguesa, in Navarre, 7 April, 1506; died on the Island of Sancian near the coast of China, 2 December, 1552. In 1525, having completed a preliminary course of studies in his own country, Francis Xavier went to Paris, where he entered the collège de Sainte-Barbe. Here he met the Savoyard, Pierre Favre, and a warm personal friendship sprang up between them. It was at this same college that St. Ignatius Loyola, who was already planning the foundation of the Society of Jesus, resided for a time as a guest in 1529. He soon won the confidence of the two young men; first Favre and later Xavier offered themselves with him in the formation of the Society. Four others, Lainez, Salmerón, Rodríguez, and Bobadilla, having joined them, the seven made the famous vow of Montmartre, 15 Aug., 1534.

After completing his studies in Paris and filling the post of teacher there for some time, Xavier left the city with his companions 15 November, 1536, and turned his steps to Venice, where he displayed zeal and charity in attending the sick in the hospitals. On 24 June, 1537, he received Holy orders with St. Ignatius. The following year he went to Rome, and after doing apostolic work there for some months, during the spring of 1539 he took part in the conferences which St. Ignatius held with his companions to prepare for the definitive foundation of the Society of Jesus. The order was approved verbally 3 September, and before the written approbation was secured, which was not until a year later, Xavier was appointed, at the earnest solicitation of the John III, King of Portugal, to evangelize the people of the East Indies. He left Rome 16 March, 1540, and reached Lisbon about June. Here he remained nine months, giving many admirable examples of apostolic zeal.

On 7 April, 1541, he embarked in a sailing vessel for India, and after a tedious and dangerous voyage landed at Goa, 6 May, 1542. The first five months he spent in preaching and ministering to the sick in the hospitals. He would go through the streets ringing a little bell and inviting the children to hear the word of God. When he had gathered a number, he would take them to a certain church and would there explain the catechism to them. About October, 1542, he started for the pearl fisheries of the extreme southern coast of the peninsula, desirous of restoring Christanity which, although introduced years before, had almost disappeared on account of the lack of priests. He devoted almost three years to the work of preaching to the people of Western India, converting many, and reaching in his journeys even the Island of Ceylon. Many were the difficulties and hardships which Xavier had to encounter at this time, sometimes on account of the cruel persecutions which some of the petty kings of the country carried on against the neophytes, and again because the Portuguese soldiers, far from seconding the work of the saint, retarded it by their bad example and vicious habits.

In the spring of 1545 Xavier started for Malacca. He laboured there for the last months of that year, and although he reaped an abundant spiritual harvest, he was not able to root out certain abuses, and was conscious that many sinners had resisted his efforts to bring them back to God. About January, 1546, Xavier left Malacca and went to Molucca Islands, where the Portuguese had some settlements, and for a year and a half he preached the Gospel to the inhabitants of Amboyna, Ternate, Baranura, and other lesser islands which it has been difficult to identify. It is claimed by some that during this expedition he landed on the island of Mindanao, and for this reason St. Francis Xavier has been called the first Apostle of the Philippines. But although this statement is made by some writers of the seventeenth century, and in the Bull of canonization issued in 1623, it is said that he preached the Gospel in Mindanao, up to the present time it has not been proved absolutely that St. Francis Xavier ever landed in the Philippines.

By July, 1547, he was again in Malacca. Here he met a Japanese called Anger (Han-Sir), from whom he obtained much information about Japan. His zeal was at once aroused by the idea of introducing Christanity into Japan, but for the time being the affairs of the Society demanded his presence at goa, whither he went, taking Anger with him. During the six years that Xavier had been working among the infidels, other Jesuit missionaries had arrived at Goa, sent from Europe by St. Ignatius; moreover some who had been born in the country had been received into the Society. In 1548 Xavier sent these missionaries to the principal centres of India, where he had established missions, so that the work might be preserved and continued. He also established a novitiate and house of studies, and having received into the Society Father Cosme de Torres, a spanish priest whom he had met in the Maluccas, he started with him and Brother Juan Fernandez for Japan towards the end of June, 1549. The Japanese Anger, who had been baptized at Goa and given the name of Pablo de Santa Fe, accompanied them.

They landed at the city of Kagoshima in Japan, 15 Aug., 1549. The entire first year was devoted to learning the Japanese language and translating into Japanese, with the help of Pablo de Santa Fe, the principal articles of faith and short treatises which were to be employed in preaching and catechizing. When he was able to express himself, Xavier began preaching and made some converts, but these aroused the ill will of the bonzes, who had him banished from the city. Leaving Kagoshima about August, 1550, he penetrated to the centre of Japan, and preached the Gospel in some of the cities of southern Japan. Towards the end of that year he reached Meaco, then the principal city of Japan, but he was unable to make any headway here because of the dissensions the rending the country. He retraced his steps to the centre of Japan, and during 1551 preached in some important cities, forming the nucleus of several Christian communities, which in time increased with extraordinary rapidity.

After working about two years and a half in Japan he left this mission in charge of Father Cosme de Torres and Brother Juan Fernandez, and returned to Goa, arriving there at the beginning of 1552. Here domestic troubles awaited him. Certain disagreements between the superior who had been left in charge of the missions, and the rector of the college, had to be adjusted. This, however, being arranged, Xavier turned his thoughts to China, and began to plan an expedition there. During his stay in Japan he had heard much of the Celestial Empire, and though he probably had not formed a proper estimate of his extent and greatness, he nevertheless understood how wide a field it afforded for the spread of the light of the Gospel. With the help of friends he arranged a commission or embassy the Sovereign of China, obtained from the Viceroy of India the appointment of ambassador, and in April, 1552, he left Goa. At Malacca the party encountered difficulties because the influential Portuguese disapproved of the expedition, but Xavier knew how to overcome this opposition, and in the autumn he arrived in a Portuguese vessel at the small island of Sancian near the coast of China. While planning the best means for reaching the mainland, he was taken ill, and as the movement of the vessel seemed to aggravate his condition, he was removed to the land, where a rude hut had been built to shelter him. In these wretched surroundings he breathed his last.

It is truly a matter of wonder that one man in the short space of ten years (6 May, 1542 - 2 December, 1552) could have visited so many countries, traversed so many seas, preached the Gospel to so many nations, and converted so many infidels. The incomparable apostolic zeal which animated him, and the stupendous miracles which God wrought through him, explain this marvel, which has no equal elsewhere. The list of the principal miracles may be found in the Bull of canonization. St. Francis Xavier is considered the greatest missionary since the time of the Apostles, and the zeal he displayed, the wonderful miracles he performed, and the great number of souls he brought to the light of true Faith, entitle him to this distinction. He was canonized with St. Ignatius in 1622, although on account of the death of Gregory XV, the Bull of canonization was not published until the following year.

The body of the saint is still enshrined at Goa in the church which formerly belonged to the Society. In 1614 by order of Claudius Acquaviva, General of the Society of Jesus, the right arm was severed at the elbow and conveyed to Rome, where the present altar was erected to receive it in the church of the Gesu.

St. Francis Xavier by Kate O'Brien
Francis Xavier was born on April 7th, 1506, in the Spanish kingdom of Navarre; and his native language, like that of Ignatius Loyola, whose devoted disciple he was to become, was Basque. He inherited the proud and passionate temperament of his race and could show himself both fiery and autocratic even to the end of his life. As a boy he was ambitious and fond of sport, but he had a largeness of heart and generosity of nature which made him capable, once he had been converted, of heroic love and endurance.

His first encounter with Ignatius took place at the University of Paris, where Francis went at the age of nineteen. Ignatius was much the elder man, and it took him some time to win Francis from his worldly ambitions. But eventually Francis capitulated and gave himself with his whole soul to the new life which the Exercises of Ignatius opened up to him. He became one of the first members of the Society of Jesus and made his vows with Ignatius and five others on August 15th, 1534, and was finally ordained priest on June 24th, 1537.

The first object of Ignatius and his companions had been to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but events turned out otherwise. Ignatius was asked by King John of Portugal to send priests to the new missions in India, and his choice fell eventually on Francis. Francis, it must be said, had no particular qualifications for this task. Though he took his degree at the University, he was possessed of no great learning, and the only books he took with him on all his missionary journeys were his breviary and a book of meditations. His ignorance of the religion of the people to whom he went to preach the gospel was complete. He regarded all 'moors' and 'pagans' as enemies of God and slaves of the devil, to be rescued at all costs from his power. His attitude never changed, and the devout Muslim, the learned Brahmin and the Buddhist monk made equally little impression on him.

In this respect his mind remained essentially medieval. He saw a vast new world opening before him and his one desire was to win it to Christ. He brought with him nothing but his consuming love for God and for the souls of his fellow men. It is noticeable that he never criticized the social, political or ecclesiastical institutions of his time. He accepted the slave trade and the Inquisition alike apparently without question and, although he complained bitterly of the abuse of power, he never questioned the right of the Portuguese power in India and was prepared at all times to make use of it in the interests of the gospel.

Yet though he might accept the external circumstances of life as he knew it, he preserved an absolute detachment of heart. He deliberately chose to live in the most complete poverty and refused to accept any of the material conveniences which were offered to him. His food was reduced to so small a quantity that it was a miracle that he kept alive. The only concession he would make in clothing for his long missionary journeys under a tropical sun was a pair of boots. He could put up with the most appalling conditions on his long sea voyages and endure the most agonizing extremes of heat and cold. Wherever he went he would seek out the poor and the sick and spend his time in ministering to their needs. Yet while he was occupied all day with these incessant labours, he would spend the greater part of the night in prayer. And all this was done with a gaiety and lightness of heart, which remind one of the other Francis-of Assisi.

The story of his journeys is an epic of adventure. He arrived in Goa in May 1542 and went on from there to Cape Comorin in the south of India. Here he spent three years working among the pearl-fishers, or Paravas, of the Fishery Coast. From there he went on to the East

Indies, to Malacca and the Moluccas, and, finally, in 1549 he set out for Japan. He died on December 3rd, 1552, on a lonely island, vainly seeking to obtain entrance into China. Thus in ten years he traversed the greater part of the Far East. When one considers the conditions of travel, the means of transport, the delays and difflculties which beset him at every stage, it is, even physically an astounding achievement. It is even more remarkable when one considers that he left behind him a flourishing church wherever he went and that the effects of his labours remain to the present day.

Many miracles have been attributed to St Francis. He was said to have possessed the gift of tongues, to have healed the sick and even to have raised the dead; but for the last, at least, there is no real evidence. That he possessed the gift of prophecy seems to be certain, but he can hardly have possessed the gift of tongues. The evidence is, on the contrary, that he had to rely throughout on interpreters to translate his message into the different languages he required, and was often sadly misled. The real miracle of his life, as has been said, was the miracle of his personality, by which he was able to convert thousands to the faith wherever he went and to win their passionate devotion.

He died abandoned with but one companion, without the sacraments or Christian burial. But within a few weeks his body was recovered and found to be perfectly incorrupt. It was brought to Goa and received there with a devotion and an enthusiasm which showed that the people had already recognized him as a saint. He was beatified by Pope Paul V in 1619 and canonized together with St Ignatius by Pope Gregory XV, on March 12th, 1622. He is now the patron of all the missions of the Catholic Church.
1678 Bl. Edward Coleman English martyr Titus Oates Plot
 a victim of the Titus Oates Plot. Educated at Cambridge, he convened to the faith and served as secretary to the duchess of Thrk. Condemned falsely of conspiring to restore Catholicism to England, he was executed at Tyburn. He was beatified in 1929.

1760 Monkmartyr Cosmas of St Anne Skete, Mt Athos refused to convert to Islam
Saint Cosmas was a monk of St Anne's Skete on Mount Athos. He was executed in Constantinople on December 3, 1760 when he refused to convert to Islam. The specific details of his martyrdom are not known.

St George of Cernica and Caldarushani revive monastic life there according to the Athonite Typikon leading the Caldarushani Monastery Athonite-Paisian hesychastic tradition

Saint George was born in 1730, and became a monk on Mount Athos when he was a young man. He was a disciple of St Paisius Velichkovsky (November 15) who was then the igumen of Vatopedi Monastery. Since the skete at Cernica had been deserted for almost thirty years, Metropolitan Gregory II of Wallachia asked Elder George to revive monastic life there according to the Athonite Typikon.

St George's efforts at Cernica were so successful that Metropolitan Philaret II also entrusted him with leading the Caldarushani Monastery, which he guided until his death. Life at both monasteries followed the Athonite-Paisian hesychastic tradition.

St George was glorified by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 2005. His holy relics are in the Cernica Monastery, where they are venerated by the faithful.




THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 212

Blessed be thou, O Lady, who teachest thy servants to fight: and strengthenest them against the enemy.

With thy lightnings and thy brightness scatter him: send forth thy darts, that thou mayest confound him.

Glorify from on high thy hand: and let thy servants sing thy praise and thy glory.

Raise up from earthly things our affection: from these eternal delights refresh our interior.

Kindle in our hearts the longing for heavenly things: and deign to refresh us with the joys of Paradise.

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

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


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

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


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

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

Mary the Mother of Jesus Miracles_BLay Saints  Miraculous_IconMiraculous_Medal_Novena Patron Saints
Miracles by Century 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000    1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800  1900 2000
Miracles 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000  
 
1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800   1900 Lay Saints

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Father Corapi's Biography

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

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

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

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


God Bless you on your journey Father John Corapi


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

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

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

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

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.
 
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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
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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 
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May 23, 1995 Zarvintisya Ukraine Lourdes Kenya national Marian shrine    Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798  
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