Mary Mother of GOD 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary
"He who walking on the sea could calm the bitter waves, who gives life to the dying seeds of the earth; he who was able to loose the mortal chains of death, and after three days' darkness could bring again to the upper world the brother for his sister Martha: he, I believe, will make Damasus rise again from the dust" (epitaph Damasus wrote for himself).  
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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Our Lady of Guadalupe: Historical Sources (III) December 11 - MARY, QUEEN OF ANGELS

December 11
"He who walking on the sea could calm the bitter waves, who gives life to the dying seeds of the earth; he who was able to loose the mortal chains of death, and after three days' darkness could bring again to the upper world the brother for his sister Martha: he, I believe, will make Damasus rise again from the dust"
 (epitaph Damasus wrote for himself).   384 Pope Saint Damasus I
384 Pope Saint Damasus I commissioned Saint Jerome translate Scriptures in Latin
Saint Abba Hor, the Monk Departure of: Raised child from the dead; Coptic
1289 BD PETER OF SIENA; a high degree of contemplative prayer and received spiritual graces, difficult to hide, so that many knew his holiness. Priests and theologians equally with laybrothers and fellow workmen valued his opinion and advice, but not at all by himself:  It is commonly held that the “Pier Pettinagno”, the efficacy of whose prayers is made known by Dante in the Purgatorio, canto xiii, line 128, was no other than this beatus.
1910 Lars Olsen Skrefsrud; Mission in Stavanger nicht als Schüler aufnahm, ging er zu der Berliner Mission und wurde von ihr 1863 zu den Santals in Westbengalen entsandt, Skrefsrud arbeitete hier mit dem dänischen Missionar Hans Peter Børresen zusammen; 1869 wurde die erste Missionsstation erbaut, danach richtete Skrefsrud in der Provinz 30 Schulen ein, in denen auch praktisches Wissen vermittelt wurde. Er entwickelte eine Schriftsprache und übersetzte die Bibel  Evangelische Kirche: 11. Dezember

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.

We turn our gaze in this holy season with faith to the crib "in spiritual union with the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Advent. Let us place our hand in hers and enter joyfully into this new time of grace that God gives as a gift to his Church for the good of all humanity. Like Mary and with her maternal help, let us make ourselves docile to the action of the Holy Spirit, so that the God of peace may sanctify us totally, and the Church become a sign and instrument of hope for all men."  (Pope Benedict XVI, Celebration of First Vespers of the First Sunday of Advent. 2008)

Our Lady of the Angels (Forest of Livry, France, 1212) Mary in the Midst of Israel's Waiting (II)
"All nations on earth will be blessed in your descendants" (Gen 22:18)
The Virgin Mary, in the midst of Israel's waiting, also pondered ancient prophecy received by Balaam: "I see him but not in the present. I perceive him but not close at hand: a star is emerging from Jacob, a scepter is rising from Israel" (Num 24:17).

She examined "the promise He made to our ancestors" (Lk 1:55), "of his mercy to Abraham" the believer.
"All nations on earth will be blessed in your descendants" (Gen 22:18) ? in favor of his son Jacob -
"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" (Gen 49:10)
Promise made to Moses, "The Lord your God will raise up a prophet like me; you will listen
to him" (Deut 18:15).

Consecration of Our Lady of Victories to the Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary (France, 1836) 
I am the Mother of Ipalnemohuani (III)
On Sunday, December 10th, after attending mass, Juan Diego returned to the bishop's residence and after much effort, managed to see him. The bishop was surprised by his insistence and asked him many questions. Then he said that Juan Diego's word and message were not enough and that some other sign was necessary if he was actually to believe that Juan Diego was sent by the Queen of Heaven.
So Juan Diego went back to the Blessed Virgin and told her the bishop's answer.
She replied, "That's just fine, my dear son, you will go back there tomorrow and bring the bishop the sign he requested. Then he will believe you and he will not have any doubts or suspicions about you anymore.
And please know, my dear son that I will reward you for the hard work and sorrows that you have put into this for me. So, go now, I will be waiting for you here tomorrow."
The Lady from Heaven had asked Juan Diego to return the next day, but he did not obey her because his uncle was very ill, on the verge of death. During the night, his uncle asked him to fetch a priest to confess him before dying. So he left the house taking another path in order to avoid letting the Blessed Virgin notice that he was doing something else rather than going back to see the bishop.
Excerpt and adapted from La Dame du Ciel (The Lady from Heaven),
by Jean-Pierre Rousselle and Jean Mathiot, Editions Téqui 2004

The captor cut the tendons in Saint Nikon the Dry's legs and set a strong guard over him.
But suddenly, on the third day at the sixth hour, the holy captive became invisible.
At the moment the guard heard the words, "Praise the Lord from the Heavens" (Ps. 148).
St Nikon was transported to the Dormition church, where the Divine Liturgy was being served.
The brethren surrounded him and began to ask how he got there.
St Nikon wanted to conceal the miracle, but the brethren implored him to tell the truth.

December 11 – Consecration of Our Lady of Victories to the Most Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary (France, 1836)
A providential strike of lightening!
 A good family father, yet a man of little faith, had attached a Miraculous Medal above the steering wheel of his car to please his wife. One day, as he was returning from a drive in the country with his family, his car was caught in a violent rain storm that obstructed all visibility. The man should have slowed down, but he accelerated instead.
All of a sudden, the car was hit by lightning. His wife and children were sitting in the back seat, and they were thrown into the front seat while the husband was ejected several feet out of the car into a muddy pond. The car was demolished, but somehow it stayed dry inside and its bruised passengers were able to get out practically unharmed. The father got back to his feet, suffering no important injuries. They were able to walk to a nearby house where the people offered them a hearty drink.
Soon after the family returned to Paris, with only minor bruises. But before going home, the father decided to visit the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal, Rue du Bac, to thank the Virgin Mary for her protection. From that day on he resumed his Christian practice, saying that it was in acknowledgment of "a providential strike of lightning." 
 The Miraculous Medal – November 1966 Story told by Brother Albert Pfleger
In Fioretti de la Vierge Marie, Ephèse Diffusion


  250 ST GENULF, OR GENOU, BISHOP
 287 Sts. Victoricus, Fuscian, and Gentian martyrs in Gaul
 302 St. Trason w/ Pontian /Practextatus Roman martyrs
        In Hispánia sancti Eutychii Mártyris.   In Spain, St. Eutychius, martyr.
 312 Akepsimas and Aithalas The Holy Martyrs were from Persia. 
 342 St. Barsabas Persian abbot
famous wonder worker; martyr by Sassanid King Shapur II
 384 Pope Saint Damasus I commissioned Saint Jerome translate Scriptures in Latin
4th v. St. Eutychius Martyr of Spain at Merida or Cadiz, also called Oye. The details of his martyrdom are lost.
        Saint Abba Hor, the Monk Departure of: Raised child from the dead; Coptic
 420 St. Sabinus Bishop of Piacenza renowned for miracles.
 493 Saint Daniel the Stylite mother Martha dedicate him to the Lord named at 5 by igumen monastery at 12 ascetic 32 yrs then stylite 33 years could see future & gift of words Emperor Leo I, built a series of pillars with a platform on top for him, and Daniel was ordained there by St. Gennadius
6th v. St. Cian A Welsh hermit believed to have been a servant of St. Peris.
 640 Mirax The Holy Martyr declared himself a Moslem deeply repented and returned home
 566 St. Sabinus Bishop of Canossa Apulia 
Italy, and patron of Bari.
 888 St. Fidweten Benedictine monk and a disciple of St. Convoyon
 980 Saint Luke the New Stylite a soldier under the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitos
       St. Pens Patron saint of Llanberis Wales
1100 Saint Nikon the Dry gave up everything for Christ and became a monk at the Kiev Caves monastery; transported to the Dormition church
1289 BD PETER OF SIENA; Bd Peter attained to a high degree of contemplative prayer and received spiritual graces, which it was difficult to hide, so that many knew his holiness. Priests and theologians equally with laybrothers and fellow workmen valued his opinion and advice, but not at all by himself:  It is commonly held that the “Pier Pettinagno”, the efficacy of whose prayers is made known by Dante in the Purgatorio, canto xiii, line 128, was no other than this beatus.
1291 BD FRANCO OF GROTTI; by middle age his excesses had ruined his health and more than once brought him nearly to death; a long and painful pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostela; Visions and miracles were accorded him, and after his death on December 11, 1291, there was a spontaneous recognition of him as a very holy penitent
1373 BD HUGOLINO MAGALOTTI: orphan whose life was entirely given to manual work, contemplation and penance, and the fame of his holiness drew many to his lonely cell. God glorified him with the gift of miracles, and numbers of the sick were healed at his intercession.
1455 BD JEROME RANUZZI; a scholar and contemplative; doctorate in theology, and was afterwards ordained priest and employed as professor in various houses-of-studies of his order in Italy; devotion of the people was so great and miracles so numerous that his body, instead of being buried in the conventual graveyard, was at once enshrined above an altar in the church of the Servites at Sant’ Angelo
1910 Lars Olsen Skrefsrud; Mission in Stavanger nicht als Schüler aufnahm, ging er zu der Berliner Mission und wurde von ihr 1863 zu den Santals in Westbengalen entsandt, Skrefsrud arbeitete hier mit dem dänischen Missionar Hans Peter Børresen zusammen; 1869 wurde die erste Missionsstation erbaut, danach richtete Skrefsrud in der Provinz 30 Schulen ein, in denen auch praktisches Wissen vermittelt wurde. Er entwickelte eine Schriftsprache und übersetzte die Bibel

384 Pope Saint Damasus I commissioned Saint Jerome translate Scriptures in Latin
Romæ sancti Dámasi Primi, Papæ et Confessóris; qui Apollinárem hæresiárcham damnávit, et Petrum, Episcopum Alexandrínum, fugátum restítuit; multa étiam sanctórum Mártyrum córpora invénit, eorúmque memórias vérsibus exornávit.
    At Rome, St. Damasus, pope and confessor, who condemned the heresiarch Apollinaris, and restored to his See Peter, bishop of Alexandria, who had been driven from it.  He also discovered the bodies of many holy martyrs and composed verses in their honour.
He enforced Valentinian's edict of 370 forbidding gifts by widows and orphans to bishops. He was also a vigorous opponent of Arianism, Apollinarianism, and other heresies. He sent legates to the Council of Constantinople in 381, which accepted papal teaching, again condemned Arianism, and denounced the view of Macedonius that the Holy Spirit is not divine. The place of the Church was stabilized when, in 380, orthodox Christianity was recognized by the emperors Gratian and Theodosius I as the religion of the Roman state.
Damasus also devoted much effort to gathering the relics and resting places of Roman martyrs, and to restoring the sacred catacombs, and to drawing up instructions for their care. He composed many beautiful epitaphs--many of which still exist--for the tombs of the martyrs and encouraged pilgrimages to the tombs. Unfortunately, these epitaphs have little historical value because the true histories of many Roman martyrs were already lost or nearly forgotten by that time.
He had placed in the papal crypt of the cemetery of St. Callistus a general epitaph that ends, "I, Damasus, wished to be buried here, but I feared to offend the ashes of these holy ones." He was buried with his mother and sister at a small church he had built on the Via Ardeatina.
By far the most influential action of Damasus was his patronage of Saint Jerome. He commissioned Jerome to write his Biblical commentaries and to revise the Latin text of the Bible, which yielded the Vulgate version of the Bible.
St. Jerome, who served as his secretary for a time, called him "an incomparable man."
 The saint, when fourscore years old, foretold his own death, and caused "short exhortation to be written which he left his disciples, whom he commended to God, and admonished to practice humility, obedience, hospitality, and mortification; to love poverty, maintain constant peace and union, study always to advance holy charity, shun the tares of heresy, and obey the church, our holy mother."
Three days before his death he offered the holy sacrifice at midnight, and was visited by angels in a vision. The patriarch Euphemius assisted him in his last moments, and he died on his pillar about the year 494, on the 11th of December, the day which is sacred to his memory both in the Latin and Greek calendars.
Saint Daniel the Stylite 493
“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God....’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory” Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

Our Lady of Guadalupe: Historical Sources (III) December 11 - MARY, QUEEN OF ANGELS
Recent research and discoveries have confirmed the ancient data of a constant "traditio" of Guadalupe from the 16th century, and lead to the confirmation of the actual existence of Juan Diego. Among them, we recall the study on the Escalada Codex (found by the Spanish Jesuit Xavier Escalada and presented on 31 July 1997), that includes the death certificate of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, with the signatures of Antonio Valeriano and of the friar, Fr Bernardino de Sahagún. Other discoveries that confirm the historical truth of Guadalupe are the 17th-century documents found in the archives of the ancient Convent of Corpus Christi in Mexico City, still unpublished, that refer to certain legal proofs of "purity of blood", or to the noble lineage of two candidates to the monastic life who declared they were descendents of the visionary, Juan Diego.
Investigations made by researchers in other archives, until very recently unknown, at the ancient Dominican Friary of San Vicente Ferrer Chimalhuacan (founded in 1529), has resulted in the discovery of important material concerning the early years of the conquest and some of its protagonists, both Indian and Spanish. This material shows Juan Diego's cultural and family background that is closely linked to the site of the friary and its foundation. The documents concerning Guadalupe include: an unpublished poem in Latin about Our Lady of Guadalupe (Ramo Album Codex), several homilies on the theme of Guadalupe, part of the correspondence of Boturini, an 18th-century researcher of Guadalupe, and other friary documents indirectly involving Guadalupe. This "mixed" poem, in Nahuatl and very poor Latin, dated in the second half of the 16th century, was found in a cluttered pile of many other documents in the old friary of Chimalhuacan: it is a hymn of praise to Our Lady of Guadalupe in which are asserted the essential facts.
Another important factor is the study of a series of Indian, mestizo and Spanish testaments, that grant legacies to the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe. Among these can be distinguished that of the daughter of a certain Juan García Martín (1599), that gives access to notarial deeds of purchase and sales, whose proprietors are not legendary figures nor classed as such, and one of these figures of history is a certain Juan Diego.
Other important documents are the notes we mentioned on her journey by the nun, Sister Ana de Cristo, and the note written about Guadalupe by a doctor from Alcalá de Henares, a lecturer at the University of Mexico City in the early 17th century.
Adapted from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English January 23, 2002, page 8


250 ST GENULF, OR GENOU, BISHOP
THE early episcopal lists in many French dioceses, as Mgr Duchesne has had occasion to point out, are not at all reliable, and the very existence of the bishops who, as reputed founders or patrons, are honoured with festivals of the highest rank is in some cases a matter of doubt. It seems that the abbey of Strada, founded in 828 on the banks of the Indre, acquired in the course of the same century the relics of St Genulf, who lived with another monk, St Genitus, at a place now called Celles-sur-Nahon. About the year 1000 a document was compiled which de­scribed Genulf as sent from Rome with his father, Genitus, in the third century, to preach the gospel in Gaul. They came, it is said, to a township (civitas Gitur­nicensis), where they stayed a few months, made many converts, and built a church; then they settled in a solitude on the banks of the Nahon, and eventually died there surrounded by disciples.

There is, however, nothing to identify the Giturnicenses with the Cadurcenses (Cahors), and the improbability of anyone with a German name like Genulf becoming bishop in Gaul during the third century is extreme. From this and other difficulties Mgr Duchesne concludes that the late tradition which makes St Genulf the first bishop of Cahors is quite untrustworthy. There is no scrap of respectable evidence to justify the statement, neither does the Roman Martyrology (June 17) connect “Gundulphus” with Cahors. The feast of St Genulf is, nevertheless, kept in that diocese on January 17 as a double of the first class.

See Acta Sanctorum for January 17, and Duchesne, Fastes Épiscopaux, vol. ii, pp. 126—128.
287 Sts. Victoricus, Fuscian, and Gentian martyrs in Gaul
Ambiáni, in Gállia, sanctórum Mártyrum Victórici et Fusciáni, sub eódem Imperatóre, in quorum náribus et áuribus jussit Rictiovárus Præses immítti tarínchas, et clavis ardéntibus témpora transfígi, deínde óculos evélli, ac póstmodum eórum córpora jaculári; sicque, una cum sancto Gentiáno, eórum hóspite, capítibus amputátis, migravérunt ad Dóminum.
    At Amiens in France, the holy martyrs Victoricus and Fuscian, under the same emperor.  By order of Governor Rictiovarus, they had iron pins driven into their ears and nostrils, heated nails into their temples, and arrows into their bodies and their eyes torn out.  They were beheaded with St. Gentian, their guest, and they passed to the Lord.
According to tradition, Victoricus and Fuscian were Christian mission. aries to the Morini people of the region. Gentian was an elderly man who died trying to protect them from martyrdom. He protested when the troops of Governor Rictiovarus hunted down Victoricus and Fuscian, Gentian was slain on the spot. Victoricus and Fuscian were tortured in Amiens and then beheaded at SaintAux-Bois.
SS. FUSCIAN, VICTORICUS, AND GENTIAN, MARTYRS
THE legend of these martyrs tells us that Fuscian and Victoricus were Roman missionaries who came into Gaul at the same time as St Quintinus, and set themselves the task of evangelizing the Morini.
   Victoricus established his headquarters at Boulogne and Fuscian at Thérouanne, or rather near by at the village of Helfaut,
where he built a small church. Both of them met with opposition from the pagan Gauls and Romans, but made a number of conversions. After a time they went together to visit St Quintinus, but when they reached Amiens they found perse­cution raging against Christians.
They therefore passed on to Sains, and there lodged with an old man named Gentian. He was a heathen, but well disposed towards Christianity, and in talking to him of the faith the two missionaries learned of the martyrdom of St Quintinus six weeks before. When he heard that two Christian priests were at Sains, the governor Rictiovarus arrived there with a troop of soldiers. He was met by Gentian with a drawn sword, threatening him because he was a persecutor and declaring that he was ready to die for the true God. Rictiovarus accordingly had him beheaded on the spot. Fuscian and Victoricus were then taken in chains to Amiens, and as they would not renounce their faith after divers tortures they were beheaded, at Saint-Fuscien-aux-Bois. Among the embroideries of the story of SS. Fuscian and Victoricus is that they rose up and walked away with their severed heads after execution; Rictiovarus was driven mad.

The extravagant passio of these martyrs is preserved in varying forms. The text is printed in the Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de Picardie, vol. xviii (1861), pp. 23—43. Although the story is plainly fabulous and has been framed in dependence upon the not less incredible legend of St Quintinus (October 31), still the occurrence of the names of SS. Fuscian and companions in the Hieronymianum is some guarantee of the fact that a martyrdom took place in the locality indicated. The question has been discussed by Duchesne, Fastes Episcopaux, vol. iii, pp. 141—152.

302 St. Thrason w/ Pontian /Practextatus Roman martyrs.
Item Romæ pássio sancti Trasónis, qui, cum Christiános laborántes in thermis, aliísque opéribus públicis fatigátos, et in cárcere pósitos, de suis facultátibus áleret, jussu Maximiáni tentus est, et cum áliis duóbus, id est Pontiáno et Prætextáto, martyrio coronátus.
    Also at Rome, St. Thrason.  He was arrested by order of Maximian for supporting with his goods the Christians who laboured in the baths and at other public works, and those confined in jail.  He was crowned with martyrdom with two others, Pontian and Prætextatus.
They were executed during the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian for giving aid to Christian prisoners.
312 The Holy Martyrs Akepsimas and Aithalas were from Persia.
Akepsimas was a pagan priest in the city of Arbel. Having received healing through the prayers of a Christian bishop, he was converted to the faith in Christ and boldly confessed it. For this they threw St Akepsimas into prison.
Soon St Aithalas, a deacon of the Arbel Church, was imprisoned with him. They brought the martyrs before the ruler, where they again confessed their faith and were beheaded.

The holy, glorious and right-victorious Martyrs Acepsimus, Bishop of Naeson; Joseph the Presbyter; and Aeithalas the Deacon were Christians living in Persia at the time of Shapur II. The Orthodox Church commemorates them together on November 3, but Aeithalas is sometimes also remembered on September 1.
Bishop Acepsimus was well-known for spreading the Christian faith. After King Shapur began his persecution of Christians in Persia, Acepsimus was siezed along with Joseph and Aeithalas. Having endured cruel imprisonment for three years, Acepsimus was beheaded, and his companions stoned to death.
342 St. Barbabas Persian abbot famous wonder worker; martyr by Sassanid King Shapur II
In Pérside sancti Bársabæ Mártyris.    In Persia, St. Barbabas, martyr.
who perished with twelve of his monks in a persecution. Barsabas was a famous wonder worker.
ST BARSABAS, MARTYR   
IN his fictitious legend Barsabas is called an abbot in Persia, who had under him twelve monks. In the beginning of the persecution by Sapor they were all seized and led in chains to Istachr, a city near the ruins of Persepolis. After vainly trying to make them apostatize by tortures, which a human being could hardly survive, the governor condemned them to lose their heads. The martyrs went joyfully to the place of execution, surrounded by soldiers and followed by a mob of people, and the slaughter began. A Mazdean, travelling that way with his wife and children, beheld the venerable abbot singing praises to God, and taking each monk by the hand in turn, as if to deliver him to the executioner; he saw too a fiery cross shining above the bodies of the slain. The man was so impressed that he got off his horse and whispered to Barsabas, asking to be admitted into his holy company. The abbot assenting, he passed through his hands after the ninth monk, and was beheaded, the executioner not knowing him. Last of all the venerable Barsabas presented his neck to the sword. The example of her husband moved his wife and family to become Christians.
It is difficult to understand what induced Baronius to include this alleged Persian martyr in the Roman Martyrology. He is wholly unknown in the West, and the Constantinople synaxary barely mentions his name under December 11. In the Ethiopic synaxary his story is told in September. Though the story is different, Barsabas seems only a doublet of St Simeon Barsabae, on April 21.
377 ST JULIAN SABAS “In the district of Edessa, in Mesopotamia (the commemoration) of St Julian, the hermit, called Sabas, who, when the Catholic faith at Antioch had almost died out in the time of the Emperor Valens, restored it again by the power of his miracles”.
IN the Roman Martyrology we read on this day: “In the district of Edessa, in Mesopotamia (the commemoration) of St Julian, the hermit, called Sabas, who, when the Catholic faith at Antioch had almost died out in the time of the Emperor Valens, restored it again by the power of his miracles”.

Hiding himself from the world in a cave in Osrhoëne (beside the Euphrates) he practised extraordinary asceticism, eating only once in the week. After the expulsion of St Meletius, Bishop of Antioch, it was asserted by the heretics in that city that Julian Sabas, whose reputation as an ascetic stood high, had embraced Arian doctrines.
When besought by the orthodox in 372 to come and refute the slander, he com­plied, and his presence in Antioch was attended by the most beneficial results. When his mission was accomplished he returned to his cave, and died not long afterwards. Many stupendous miracles are attributed to him by the Greek hagio­graphers.

See the Acta Sanctorum for October 18, where Theodoret is cited as our most reliable source of information. A Syriac version of Theodoret’s account has been printed by Bedjan; see Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xvi (1897), p. 184; and BHG., nn. 67—68.
384 Pope Saint Damasus I commissioned Saint Jerome translate Scriptures in Latin
Romæ sancti Dámasi Primi, Papæ et Confessóris; qui Apollinárem hæresiárcham damnávit, et Petrum, Episcopum Alexandrínum, fugátum restítuit; multa étiam sanctórum Mártyrum córpora invénit, eorúmque memórias vérsibus exornávit.
    At Rome, St. Damasus, pope and confessor, who condemned the heresiarch Apollinaris, and restored to his See Peter, bishop of Alexandria, who had been driven from it.  He also discovered the bodies of many holy martyrs and composed verses in their honour.

All lovers of Scripture have reason to celebrate this day.
384 ST DAMASUS, POPE
POPE DAMASUS is said in the Liber Pontificalis to have been a Spaniard, which may be true of his extraction but he seems to have been born at Rome, where his father was a priest. Damasus himself was never married, and he became deacon in the church that his father served.
When Pope Liberius died in 366, Damasus, who was then about sixty years old, was chosen bishop of Rome. His accession was far from unopposed, a minority electing another deacon, called Ursicinus or Ursinus, whom they supported with great violence. It appears  that the civil power in its maintenance of Damasus used considerable cruelty— Butler’s expression, “barbarous proceedings”, is not too strong—from concurrence in which the contemporary Rufinus exonerates him. The adherents of the antipope were not easily quelled, and so late as 378 Damasus had to clear himself both before the Emperor Gratian and a Roman synod of a charge of incontinence maliciously laid against him by his enemies.
    Ammianus Marcellinus, the pagan historian of those times, says the standard of living of the prelates of Rome was a tempting object of ambition, and wishes they would imitate the plainness of the clergy in the provinces. Some show of pomp and state was certainly then made since, as St Jerome reports, a pagan senator of Rome, Praetextatus, said to Pope Damasus, “Make me bishop of Rome, and I will be a Christian to-morrow”. The reflection of this heathen shows how necessary Christian moderation is, if we would properly show in ourselves the spirit of the gospel. Damasus certainly did not deserve to fall under this censure.
   For St Jerome, who knew him well, being his secretary for a time, severely inveighs against the luxury and state which some ecclesiastics at Rome displayed, and he was not the man to spare their bishop had he deemed him involved. But to such a degree were St Jerome’s strictures justified that in 370 Valentinian issued a regulation forbidding clergy to induce orphans and widows to make them any gift or legacy. This edict St Damasus was severe in putting into execution.

Pope St Damasus had to oppose several heresies, but in 380 Theodosius I in the East and Gratian in the West proclaimed Christianity, as professed by the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, to be the religion of the Roman state, and Gratian, on the petition of the Christian senators, supported by St Damasus, removed the altar of Victory from the senate-house and laid aside the title of Pontifex Maximus. In the following year the second oecumenical council was held, the first of Constantinople, at which legates represented the pope.
   But the action of Damasus that was most far-reaching and beneficial down to this day was his patronage of St Jerome and encouragement of his biblical studies, which had their consummation in the Vulgate version of the Bible. Jerome tells us that Damasus himself was learned in the Scriptures, “a virgin doctor of the virgin Church”, and Theodoret says that “He was illustrious for his holy life, and ready to preach and do all things in defence of apostolic doctrine”.

St Damasus is, too, specially remembered for his care for the relics and resting-places of the martyrs and for his work in the draining, opening out and adornment of the sacred catacombs; and notably—by the ordinary Christian imbued with pietas no less than by the historian and archaeologist—for the inscriptions which he set up therein.
   A large number of his inscriptions and epigrams in verse are extant, either in originals or copies; one of the best known is that to which we are indebted for all we know about St Tarcisius. St Damasus died on December 11, 384, at the age of about eighty. He had put up in the “papal crypt” of the cemetery of St Callistus a general epitaph that ends:
I, Damasus, wished to be buried here, but I feared to offend the ashes of these holy ones.

He was accordingly laid to rest with his mother and sister at a small church he had built on the Via Ardeatina; and among his epitaphs which have been preserved in writing is the one which he wrote for himself, an act of faith in Christ’s ‘resurrection and his own.
 
Damasus was the pope who commissioned Saint Jerome to translate the Scriptures into Latin, the Vulgate version of the Bible.

By far the most influential action of Damasus was his patronage of Saint Jerome. He commissioned Jerome to write his Biblical commentaries and to revise the Latin text of the Bible, which yielded the Vulgate version of the Bible. St. Jerome, who served as his secretary for a time, called him "an incomparable man." (Elsewhere I read that St. Jerome left Rome when Damasus was elected in preference to himself--Jerome was too irascible to be pope.)

As a biblical scholar, Damasus published the canon of the Holy Scripture, specifying the authentic books of the Bible as decreed by a council in Rome in 374. He also saw to the collection and housing of papal archives (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, White).

In art St. Damasus is a pope holding a ring. Sometimes he is shown with St. Jerome; or restoring sacred buildings (Roeder). Or, he may hold a screen with "Gloria Patri," etc., upon it; or be shown with a church door behind him (White). St. Damasus is the patron saint of archaeologists (White).
384 St. Damasus Pope and Confessor
Pope Damasus is said in the Pontifical to have been a Spaniard; which may be true of his extraction; but Tillemont and Merenda show that he seems to have been born at Rome. His father, whose name was Antony, either after the death of his wife, or by her free consent, engaged himself in the ecclesiastical state, and was successively reader, deacon, and priest of title or parish church of St. Laurence in Rome.

Damasus served in the sacred ministry in the same church, and always lived in a perfect state of continence, as St. Jerome assures us. When Liberius was banished by Constantius to Beroea, in 355, he was archdeacon of the Roman church, and attended him into exile, but immediately returned to Rome. Liberius at length was prevailed upon to sign a confession of faith in which the word consubstantial was omitted.

After his return from banishment, he constantly held communion with St. Athanasius, as is clear from that holy man's letter to the bishops of Egypt, in 360. He condemned and annulled the decrees of the council of Rimini, by a letter which he wrote to those bishops, mentioned by Siricius.
Liberius, after this, lay hid some time in the vaults of the cemeteries, for fear of the persecutors, as we learn from Sozomen, Prosper, in his chronicle, Lucifer of Cagliari, and Anastasius, in the life of pope Julius. Thus he repaired the fault which he had committed by his subscription. All this time Damasus had a great share in the government of the church, and doubtless animated the zeal of the pope.
Liberius died on the 24th of September, 366, and Damasus, who was then sixty years old, was chosen bishop of Rome, and ordained in the basilic of Lucina, otherwise called St. Laurence's, which title he bore before his pontificate.

Soon after, Ursinus, called by some moderns Ursicinus, who could not bear that St. Damasus should be preferred before him, got together a crowd of disorderly and seditious people in the church of Sicin, commonly called the Liberian basine, now St. Mary Major, and persuaded Paul bishop of Tibur, now Tivoli, a dull ignorant man, to ordain him bishop of Rome, contrary to the ancient canons, which require three bishops for the ordination Or a bishop; and to the ancient custom of the Roman church whose bishop was to be consecrated by the bishop of Ostia, as Baronius and Tillemont observe. Juventius, prefect of Rome, banished Ursinus, and some others of his party.


Seven priests who adhered to him were seized to be carried into exile; but were rescued by their partisans, and carried to the Liberian basilic. The people that sided with Damasus came together with swords and clubs, besieged the basilic to deliver these men up to the prefect, and a fight ensued, in which one hundred and thirty-seven persons were killed, as Ammianus Marcellinus and St. Austin relate.
In September the following year, 367, the emperor Valentinian allowed Ursinus to return to Rome; but, on account of new tumults, in November banished him again with seven accomplices, into Gaul.
The schismatics still kept possession of a church, probably that of St. Agnes without the walls, and held assemblies in the cemeteries. But Valentinian sent an order for that church to be put into the hands of Damasus; and Maximin, a magistrate of the city, a man naturally inclined to cruelty, put several schismatics to the torture.
Rufin clears Damasus of any way concurring to, or approving of such barbarous proceedings, and the schismatics fell into the snare they had laid for trim, by which it seems that they demanded an inquiry to be made by the rack, which turned to their own confusion and chastisement. It appears by certain verses of pope Damasus that he had made a vow to God in honor of certain martyrs, to engage their intercession for the conversion of some of the clergy who continued obstinate in the schism; and that these clergymen being converted to the unity of the church, in gratitude, adorned at their own expense the tombs of these martyrs. By the same poem we learn, that the warmest abettors of the cause of Ursinus, after some time sincerely submitted to Damasus. His election was both anterior in time and in all its circumstances regular; and was declared such by a great council held at Aquileia in 381, composed of the most holy and eminent bishops of the western church; and by a council at Rome in 378, in both which the acts of violence are imputed to the fury of Ursinus.

St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Austin, Rufin, and others, bear testimony to the demeanor, and to the due election of Damasus.
Ammianus Marcellinus, the famous pagan historian of those times, says, that the chariots, rich clothes, and splendid feasting of the bishops of Rome, whose tables surpassed those of kings, were a tempting object to ambition; and wishes they would imitate the plainness of some prelates in the provinces. Herein, at least with regard to the table, there is doubtless a great deal of exaggeration and spleen; though sometimes extraordinary entertainments were probably given by the church. However, some appearance of pomp and state was certainly then made, since, as St. Jerome reports, Praetextatus, an eminent pagan senator who was afterwards prefect of Rome, said to pope Damasus, "Make me bishop of Rome, and I will be a Christian tomorrow."

Power alone is a snare to ambitious and worldly men; and a danger inseparable from exalted stations; yet all such things are rather an object of dread to those clergymen whose hearts are disengaged from the world; and riches in their hands are only the patrimony of Christ, instruments of charity. The reflection, however, of this heathen shows how necessary Christian modesty is to recommend the spins of the gospel. Damasus certainly deserved not to fall under his censure. For St. Jerome, the great admirer of this holy pope, severely weighs against the luxury and state which some ecclesiastics at Rome affected," which he would never have done if it had been a satire on his patron, at least he was too sincere to have continued his admirer.
More over, in 370, Valentinian, to repress the scandalous conduct of ecclesiastics, who persuaded persons to bequeath estates or legacies to the church in prejudice of their heirs, addressed a law to Damasus, forbidding the clergy or monks to frequent the houses of orphans and widows, or to receive from them any gift, legacy, or feoffment in trust. This edict pope Damasus caused to be read in all the churches of Rome, and he was very severe in putting the same in execution, so as to give great offense to some unworthy persons who, on that account, went over to the schismatics, but some time after returned to their duty. Baronius thinks this law was enacted at the request of the pope, because it was addressed to him. At least it was certainly approved by him, and was not less agreeable to him than just in itself.

It appears by St. Damasus's fifteenth poem, that having escaped all dangers and persecutions, in thanksgiving he made a pilgrimage to St. Felix's shrine at Nola, and there hung up this votive poem, and performed his devotions.

Arianism reigned in the East under the protection of Valens, though vigorously opposed by many pillars of orthodoxy, as St. Athanasius, St. Basil, &c.
In the West it was confined to Milan and Pannonia. Utterly to extirpate it in that part of the world, pope Damasus, in a council at Rome in 368, condemned Ursacius and Valens, famous Arian bishops in Pannonia; and in another in 370, Auxentius of Milan.
The schism of Antioch fixed the attention of the whole church. Meletius had beer ordained upon the expulsion of St. Eustathius, whom the Arians had banished; Paulinus was acknowledged by the zealous Catholics, called, Eustathians, because, during the life of St. Eustathius, they would admit no other bishop.
St. Basil, and other Orientals, being well informed of the orthodox faith of St. Meletius, adhered to him; but Damasus, with the western prelates, held communion with Paulinus, suspecting the orthodoxy of Meletius on account of the doubtful principles of some of those by whom he was advanced to the see. Not with standing this disagreement, these prelates were careful to preserve the peace of Christ with one another. The heresy of Apollinarius or Apollinaris caused a greater breach.

Apollinarius, the father, taught grammar first at Berytus, afterwards at Laodicea in Syria, where he married, and had a son of the same name, who was brought up to learning, had a good genius well improved by studies, and taught rhetoric in the same town; and both embracing an ecclesiastical state, the father was priest, and the son reader in that church at the same time. The younger of these was chosen bishop of Laodicea in 362.


When Julian the Apostate forbade Christians to read the classics, the two Apollinariuses composed very beautiful hymns in all sorts of verse on the sacred history and other pious subjects; which are lost, except a paraphrase on the psalms in hexameter verse. In these poems they began to scatter the poison of certain errors, which were condemned by St. Athanasius, in his council at Alexandria in 360, but the author was not then known. St. Athanasius wrote against these without naming the author, in 362 In the council which Damasus held at Rome in 374, the same conduct was observed. But the obstinacy of the bishop Apollinarius appearing incurable, from that time his name was no longer spared: it was anathematized first by pope Damasus at Rome The heresiarch lived to a great age, and died in his impiety. His capital errors consisted in this, that he said Christ had not assumed a human understanding, (soul,) but only the flesh, that is, the body and a sensitive soul, such as beasts have; and that the divine person was to him instead of a soul or human understanding; for which he insisted upon those words, the Word was made flesh; and he pretended that the human soul being the fountain of sin, it was not fitting that Christ should assume it In this erroneous system it followed that Christ was not made man, having only taken upon him a body, the least part of human nature. Apollinarius also taught, that the body of Christ came from heaven, was impassible, and descended into the womb of the Virgin Mary, was not born or formed of her; also, that Christ only suffered and died in appearance." He likewise revived the Millenarian heresy, and advanced certain errors about the Trinity. His followers chose Vitalis, one of his disciples, bishop of their sect at Antioch, and called Timothy, another of his disciples, patriarch of Alexandria. The decrees of pope Damasus against this heresiarch were received in a council held at Alexandria, in another at Antioch, and in the general council at Constantinople in 381.
   Illyricum in that age comprised all Greece and several other provinces near the Danube. The emperor Gratian, in favor of Theodosius, yielded up Eastern Illyricum, that is, Greece and Dacia, to the Eastern empire: the popes maintained that this country still belonged to the Western patriarchate, and reserved to themselves the confirmation of its bishops and other patriarchal rights.
St. Damasus appointed St. Ascholius, bishop of Thessalonica, (who frequently preserved Macedon from the Goths with no other arms but his prayers,) his vicar over those churches: and in a letter to him, which is yet extant, gave him strict charge to be watchful that nothing should be done in the church of Constantinople prejudicial to the faith, or against the canons: and he condemned the illegal intrusion of Maximus the Cynic into that important see.

When Nectarius was chosen archbishop of Constantinople, Theodosius sent deputies to Rome, to entreat pope Damasus to confirm his election. When St. Jerome accompanied St. Epiphanius and St. Paulinus of Antioch to Rome, Damasus detained him till his death, three years after, near his person, employing him in quality of secretary, to write his letters, and answer consultations. This pope, who was himself a very learned man, and well skilled in the holy scriptures, encouraged St. Jerome in his studies. That severe and holy doctor calls him "an excellent man;" and in another place, "an incomparable person, learned in the scriptures, a virgin doctor of the virgin church, who loved chastity, and heard its eulogiums with pleasure. Theodoret calls him the celebrated Damasus," and places him at the head of the famous doctors of divine grace in the Latin church.
The oriental bishops in 431, profess that they follow the holy example of Damasus, Basil, Athanasius, Ambrose, and others who have been eminent for their learning. The general council of Chalcedon styles Damasus, for his piety, the honor and glory of Rome." Theodoret says, "He was illustrious by his holy life, and ready to preach, and to do all of the apostolic doctrine."

This pope rebuilt, or at least repaired, the church of St. Laurence near Pompey's theater, where he had officiated after his father, and which to this day is called from St. Laurence, in Damaso. He beautified it with paintings of sacred history, which were remaining four hundred years afterwards." He presented it with a paten of silver weighing fifteen pounds, a wrought vessel of ten pounds weight, five silver chalices weighing three pounds each, five silver sconces to hold wax lights, of eight pounds each, and candlesticks of brass, of sixteen pounds weight. He also settled upon it several houses that were near the church, and a piece of land.

St. Damasus likewise drained all the springs of the Vatican which ran over the bodies that were buried there, and he decorated the sepulchers of a great number of martyrs in the cemeteries, and adorned them with epitaphs in verse, of which a collection of almost forty is extant.
Some of these belong not to him; those which are his work, are distinguished by a peculiar elegance and elevation, and justify the commendation which St. Jerome gives to his poetical genius. In the few letters of this pope which we have in the editions of the councils, out of the great number which he wrote, it appears that he was a man of genius and taste, and wrote with elegance. The ancients particularly commend his constancy in maintaining the purity of our holy faith, the innocence of his manners, his Christian humility, his compassion for the poor, his piety in adorning holy places, especially the tombs of the martyrs, and his singular learning.
Having sat eighteen years and two months, he died on the 10th of December in 384, being near fourscore years of age. A pontifical kept in the Vatican library, quoted by Merenda, says, that the saint burning with an ardent desire to be dissolved, and be with Christ, he was seized with a fever, and having received the body and blood of the Lord, lifting up his eyes and hands to heaven, he expired in devout prayer. His intercession is particularly implored in Italy by persons that are sick of fevers." He was buried near his mother and sister, in an oratory which he had built and adorned at the catacombs near the Ardeatin Way, between that road and the cemetery of Calixtus or Praetextatus. Marangonus describes his sepulcher and those of his mother and sister, as they were discovered in the year 1736.
   Learning, the great accomplishment and improvement of the human mind, is often made its bane. This sometimes happens by the choice which a man makes of his studies, and much oftener by the manner in which he pursues them. As to the choice, there is no sloth more trifling or vain than the studies of some learned men; to whom we may apply what Plato said to the charioteer, whose dexterity in the circus struck the spectators with astonishment. But the philosopher declared he deserved to be publicly chastised for the loss of so much time as was necessary for him to have attained that dexterity in so trifling; useless an exercise. A perfect knowledge of our own, and some foreign and learned languages, is a necessary instrument, and a key to much useful knowledge, but of little use if it be not directed to higher purposes. Holy David, St. Ambrose, St. Damasus Prudentius, St. Paulinus, and many others consecrated poetry to the divine praises. The belles letters in all their branches, give an elegance to a man's mind and thoughts, and help us to communicate with dignity our most useful knowledge to others. But if made an employment of life, especially when the proper studies or occupations of a state ought to have banished them, they become a pernicious idleness, and so much entertain the heart as to ruin devotion and the taste of duties. and to occupy our reason in trifles. They are particularly condemned by the fathers and councils, in clergymen, as trespassing upon their obligations and destructive of the spirit of their profession. Logic gives a justness and clearness to our thoughts teaches accurate reasoning, and exceedingly improves the judgment and other faculties of the mind. Yet, if its rules are made too prolix or spun into refined subtilties, they puzzle and confound the understanding. The same is to be said of metaphysics, which ought properly to be called the generals of science: a just acquaintance with which is, above all other studies and accomplishments, the means of improving the mind to the highest perfection, especially its ruling faculty, the judgment, and fitting it for success and accuracy in all other sciences and arts. The principles of Aristotlei in logic and metaphysics are solid, exact, complete, and far preferable to all others; but the exposition must be concise, methodical, profound, infinitely accurate, clear, elegant, or free from a Gothic dress, which disfigures the best attainments, and is the characteristic of barbarism. Skill in useless knotty problems or questions which some start, is compared by an elegant writer to a passion for breaking hard stones with a man's teeth, merely to show their goodness. All studies, he they ever so methodically conducted and regulated, must, in imitation of the saints, be directed to a holy end and serious purpose, and sanctified by a life of prayer. If fondness for any science degenerates into passion, it becomes a dangerous and vicious branch of curiosity, drains the heart, hinders holy meditation and prayer, captivates the soul, and produces all the disorders of inordinate passions.

St. Damasus I (305?-384)
To his secretary St. Jerome, Damasus was “an incomparable person, learned in the Scriptures, a virgin doctor of the virgin Church, who loved chastity and heard its praises with pleasure.”  Damasus seldom heard such unrestrained praise. Internal political struggles, doctrinal heresies, uneasy relations with his fellow bishops and those of the Eastern Church marred the peace of his pontificate.
The son of a Roman priest, possibly of Spanish extraction, Damasus started as a deacon in his father’s church, and served as a priest in what later became the basilica of San Lorenzo in Rome. He served Pope Liberius (352-366) and followed him into exile.
When Liberius died, Damasus was elected bishop of Rome; but a minority elected and consecrated another deacon, Ursinus, as pope. The controversy between Damasus and the antipope resulted in violent battles in two basilicas, scandalizing the bishops of Italy. At the synod Damasus called on the occasion of his birthday, he asked them to approve his actions. The bishops’ reply was curt: “We assembled for a birthday, not to condemn a man unheard.” Supporters of the antipope even managed to get Damasus accused of a grave crime—probably sexual—as late as A.D. 378. He had to clear himself before both a civil court and a Church synod.
As pope his lifestyle was simple in contrast to other ecclesiastics of Rome, and he was fierce in his denunciation of Arianism and other heresies. A misunderstanding of the Trinitarian terminology used by Rome threatened amicable relations with the Eastern Church, and Damasus was only moderately successful in dealing with the situation.
During his pontificate Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman state (380), and Latin became the principal liturgical language as part of the pope’s reforms. His encouragement of St. Jerome’s biblical studies led to the Vulgate, the Latin translation of Scripture which the Council of Trent (12 centuries later) declared to be “authentic in public readings, disputations, preachings.”
Comment:  The history of the papacy and the Church is inextricably mixed with the personal biography of Damasus. In a troubled and pivotal period of Church history, he stands forth as a zealous defender of the faith who knew when to be progressive and when to entrench. Damasus makes us aware of two qualities of good leadership: alertness to the promptings of the Spirit and service. His struggles are a reminder that Jesus never promised his Rock protection from hurricane winds nor his followers immunity from difficulties. His only guarantee is final victory.
Quote: "He who walking on the sea could calm the bitter waves, who gives life to the dying seeds of the earth; he who was able to loose the mortal chains of death, and after three days' darkness could bring again to the upper world the brother for his sister Martha: he, I believe, will make Damasus rise again from the dust" (epitaph Damasus wrote for himself).  
4th v. St. Eutychius Martyr of Spain at Merida or Cadiz, also called Oye. The details of his martyrdom are lost.
In Hispánia sancti Eutychii Mártyris.    In Spain, St. Eutychius, martyr.
Saint Abba Hor, the Monk, The Departure of; Raised child from the dead.
The Second Day of the Blessed Month of Kiahk

This day marks the departure of the saint Abba Hor, the monk. This father was a native of the city of Abraht, district of Ashmunein. He was a chosen monk that surpassed many saints in his worship. He loved the solitary life so he lived in seclusion in the desert. Satan envied him, so he appeared to Abba Hor and told him, "In the desert you can conquer me because you are alone here, but if you are brave, go to Alexandria and I will tempt you there." When Abba Hor heard that, he rose up immediately and went to Alexandria. He remained there for a while drawing water for the prisoners and the shut ins.

One day horses were galloping in the middle of the city, one of them hit a child and killed him immediately. Saint Abba Hor was standing where the child was killed. Satan entered the hearts of some of the people who were standing around and made them shout saying, "The killer of this child was that old monk." Several people were passing by and heard that. They gathered around and mocked Abba Hor. The saint, Abba Hor, was not disturbed. He took the child in his arms, while praying to the Lord Christ in his heart, then he made the sign of the honorable Cross over the child. The child's soul returned to him, and Abba Hor delivered the child to his parents.

The people standing around marvelled and glorified God, and their hearts and minds turned toward Abba Hor. Being afraid of vainglory, he escaped to the desert and stayed there in one of the monasteries for the rest of his days.

When his departure from this futile world drew near, he saw the company of saints calling him. He rejoiced exceedingly. He sent for his disciples, commanded them to remain in the path of the ascetic life, and told them that he was about to depart to the Lord Christ. They were sorrowful for his departure, and felt that they would be orphans without him. After a short sickness, he delivered up his soul in the hands of the Lord.
His prayers be with us and Glory be to our God forever. Amen.     
420 St. Sabinus Bishop of Piacenza renowned for miracles. Feast day moved to Jan 17
Placéntiæ sancti Sabíni Epíscopi, miráculis clari.    At Piacenza, St. Sabinus, bishop, renowned for miracles.
He served the Church early in his career, being sent by Pope St. Damasus to Antioch to suppress the Meletian Schism in Antioch. Also a friend of St. Ambrose of Milan, he regularly received from Ambrose early versions of his writings. Sabinus read them and made suggestions for revisions.
He also attended the Council of Aquileia in 381.

420 Sabinus of Piacenza B (RM); feast day formerly December 11. Bishop Saint Sabinus of Piacenza was a close friend of Saint Ambrose, who used to send him his writings for editing
 In fínibus Edessénæ regiónis, in Mesopotámia, sancti Juliáni Eremítæ, cognoménto Sabæ, qui, Valéntis Imperatóris témpore, fidem cathólicam, Antiochíæ ferme collápsam, virtúte miraculórum eréxit.
      At Edessa in Mesopotamia, in the time of Emperor Valens, St. Julian Sabas the Elder, who miraculously restored the Catholic faith at Antioch, although it was almost destroyed in that city.

While still a deacon Sabinus was sent by Pope Saint Damasus to settle the Meletian schism at Antioch. Sabinus is reputed to have stayed the flood water of the River Po with a written order (Attwater2, Benedictines, Coulson).
420 ST SABINUS, BISHOP OF PIACENZA
The letters of St Ambrose to Sabinus bear witness to the close friendship between the two bishops, as also to the high reputation for learning which St Sabinus enjoyed, for in one letter St Ambrose asks for his criticisms of some treatises which he sent to him.

He sat in the Council of Aquileia in 381 against the Arians, and in that of Milan nine years later against Jovinian. He is probably identical with the Sabinus who was a deacon at Milan, and was sent by Pope St Damasus to the East in connection with the Arian troubles at Antioch. St Gregory has preserved the legend according to which St Sabinus averted a disastrous flood by writing down an order and casting the paper into the River Po. The river obeyed, and returned to its proper channel. He is said to have died on December 11, 420.

See Acta Sanctorum, January 17.
St. Pens Patron saint of Llanberis Wales
No documents on his life are extant. 
 
493 Saint Daniel the Stylite; mother Martha dedicate him to the Lord named at 5 by igumen monastery at 12 ascetic 32 yrs then stylite 33 years could see future & gift of words Emperor Leo I, built a series of pillars with a platform on top for him, and Daniel was ordained there by St. Gennadius
Constantinópoli sancti Daniélis Stylítæ.    At Constantinople, St. Daniel Stylites.
Born in the village of Bethara, near the city of Samosata in Mesopotamia. His mother Martha was childless for a long while and in her prayers she vowed that if she had a child, she would dedicate him to the Lord. Her prayers were heard, and Martha soon gave birth to a son, who was without a name until he was five years of age.
The boy's parents desired that since he was born through the good-will of God, he should also receive his name from God. They took their son to a monastery located nearby and approached the igumen. The igumen gave orders to take down one of the service books, and unrolled it at random. He found the Prophet Daniel (December 17) mentioned in it. Thus did the boy receive his name. The parents asked that he might remain at the monastery, but the igumen would not accept him, since he was still only a small boy. At twelve, saying nothing to no one, the child left home for the monastery.
His parents were happy when they learned where their son was, and they went to the monastery. Seeing that he was still going about in his worldly clothes, they besought that the igumen should clothe him in the angelic garb. That Sunday the igumen fulfilled their request, but permitted them often to visit their son. The brethren of the monastery were astonished at the saint's ascetical efforts.

Once, St Simeon the Stylite (September 1), visited the monastery. He foretold to the young monk, that he too would undertake the feat of pillar-dwelling. St Daniel continued with his ascetic life in seclusion. When the place of a new exploit was revealed to him in a vision, he withdrew into the Thracian wilderness together with two disciples. They set up a pillar, upon which St Daniel dwelt for 33 years. People thronged to the pillar, the unfortunate and those who were sick, and all received help and healing from St Daniel. Byzantine emperors also sought the prayers of the holy ascetic. The most notable of the saint's predictions was about a great fire in Constantinople. St Daniel possessed also the gift of gracious words. He guided many onto the path of correcting their lives. The monk reposed in his eightieth year.

    St. Daniel, the Stylite, Priest. Feast day is December 11. Daniel was born in Maratha, Syria in 409 and became a monk in nearby Samosata on the Upper Euphrates. He learned of St. Simeon Stylites the Elder, living on a pillar at Antioch and got to see him twice. At the age of forty-two, Daniel decided that he too wanted to become a stylite (from the Greek word "stylos", meaning pillar) and live on a pillar at a spot near Constantinople. Therefore, Emperor Leo I, built a series of pillars with a platform on top for him, and Daniel was ordained there by St. Gennadius. The saint quickly became an attraction for the people. He celebrated the Eucharist on his pillar, preached sermons, dispensed spiritual advice, and cured the sick who were brought up to him. He also gave prudent counsel to Emperors Leo and Zeno and the patriarch of Constantinople. All the while, Daniel lived his particular type of pillar spirituality. He came down from his perch only once in thirty-three years - to turn Emperor Baliscus away from backing the heresy of Monophysitism. Daniel died in 493 and became the best known Stylite after St. Simeon Stylites the Elder. The life of St. Daniel the Stylite is an apt reminder that there are many ways to live the spiritual life. All of us have our own way to be close to God every day. Our task is to find that way and follow it to the very end.

Father Alban Butler: Lives of the Saints: Saint Daniel the Stylite
Though a love of singularity is vicious, and always founded in pride, sometimes extraordinary paths of virtue may be chosen in a spirit of fervor and humble simplicity, which is discovered by the effects. And true virtue is always so far singular that it is raised above, and essentially distinguished from, the manners of the crowd, which ever walks in the broad way, and runs counter to the rules of the gospel, by which a Christian is bound to square his conduct.
The manner of living which a Simeon and a Daniel Stylites chose by an extraordinary inspiration and impulse of true piety and fervor, is only to be considered by us as an object of admiration: but the ardor, humility, and devotion with which they pursued the means of their sanctification, are imitable by all Christians. Daniel was a native of the town of Maratha, near Samosam; at twelve years of age he retired into a neighboring monastery, where, with astonishing fervor, he embraced all the means of perfection. A long time after, his abbot going to Antioch about the affairs of the church, carried Daniel with him, and passing by Telanissa, went to see Saint Simeon on his pillar. That saint suffered Daniel to come up to him, gave him his blessing, and foretold that he would suffer much for Jesus Christ.
The abbot dying soon after, the monks would have put Daniel in his place, but he declined it, and returning to see Saint Simeon, continued fourteen days in the mandra, or monastery, which was near his pillar. He afterwards undertook a journey to the Holy Land; but Saint Simeon appeared to him on the way, and ordered him to steer his course towards Constantinople, which he did. He passed seven days in the church of Saint Michael without the walls of that city; then nine years at Philempora, in a ruinous abandoned little temple.
Became a monk in nearby Samosata on the Upper Euphrates.
He learned of St. Simeon Stylites the Elder, living on a pillar at Antioch and got to see him twice. At the age of forty-two, Daniel decided that he too wanted to become a stylite (from the Greek word "stylos", meaning pillar) and live on a pillar at a spot near Constantinople. Therefore, Emperor Leo I, built a series of pillars with a platform on top for him, and Daniel was ordained there by St. Gennadius. The saint quickly became an attraction for the people. He celebrated the Eucharist on his pillar, preached sermons, dispensed spiritual advice, and cured the sick who were brought up to him. He also gave prudent counsel to Emperors Leo and Zeno and the patriarch of Constantinople. All the while, Daniel lived his particular type of pillar spirituality. He came down from his perch only once in thirty-three years - to turn Emperor Baliscus away from backing the heresy of Monophysitism. Daniel died in 493 and became the best known Stylite after St. Simeon Stylites the Elder. The life of St. Daniel the Stylite is an apt reminder that there are many ways to live the spiritual life. All of us have our own way to be close to God every day. Our task is to find that way and follow it to the very end.

  After this term he resolved to imitate the manner of life of which Saint Simeon had set the example, whose cowl he had obtained of that saint's disciple Sergius, after his death in 459. Saint Daniel chose a spot in the neighboring desert mountains towards the Euxine sea, four miles by sea, and seven by land, from Constantinople towards the north. A friend erected him a pillar, which consisted of two pillars fastened together with iron bars; whereon another lesser pillar was placed, on the top of which was fixed by other friends a kind of vessel somewhat like a half-barrel, on which he abode, encompassed by a balustrade. The country of Thrace where he lived, was subject to high winds, and very severe frosts; so that his penance was more surprising than that of Saint Simeon. The lord of the ground, about the year 463, built him a second pillar, which was stronger and higher than the first.
   When the saint took his rest he supported himself against the balustrade of his pillar. But by continually standing, his legs and feet were swollen, and full of ulcers and sores. One winter he was found so stiff with cold that his disciples, having soaked some sponges in warm water, ascended the column, and rubbed him therewith to bring him to himself. This did not oblige him to leave his pillar, where he lived till he was four-score years old. Without descending from it, he was ordained priest by Gennadius, bishop of Constantinople, who, having read the preparatory prayers at the bottom of the pillar, went up to the top of it to finish the red of the ceremony, and the saint said mass on the top of the pillar; and the first time administered the communion to the patriarch. Afterwards many frequently received the communion at his hands. In 465 a great fire happened at Constantinople, which consumed eight of its regions. Saint Daniel had foretold it, and advised the patriarch Gennadius, and the emperor Leo, to prevent it, by ordering public prayers to be said twice a week; but no credit was given to him. The event made them remember it, and the people ran in great haste to his pillar. The saint, moved with their affliction, burst into tears, and advised them to have recourse to prayer and fasting. Stretching our his hands to heaven, he prayed for them. By his prayers he obtained a son for the emperor Leo, who frequently visited, and greatly respected him; but this son died young, God rather choosing that he should reign in heaven than on earth. Leo caused a small monastery to be built near the saint's pillar for his disciples.
Gubas, king of the Lazi, in Colchis, coming to renew his alliance with the Romans, the emperor carried him to see Saint Daniel, as the wonder of his empire. The barbarian king prostrated himself with tears before the pillar, and the holy man was umpire of the treaty between the two princes. Gubas being returned to his own dominions, wrote often to Saint Daniel, recommending himself to his prayers. This prince built a third pillar for the saint, adjoining to the other two, in such manner that the middle pillar was the lowest, that the saint might retire upon it for shelter in violent stormy weather; the saint also acquiesced that the emperor Leo should cause a roof to be made over the standing place on the top of his pillar.
Unsavory herbs and roots were Saint Daniel's ordinary diet, and he often fasted some days without sustenance. God honored him with the spirit of prophecy and the gift of miracles. The sick, whom he often caused to come up his pillar, he frequently cured by laying his hands upon them, or by anointing them with the oil of the saints as it is called in his life; by which we are to understand the oil which burnt before the relics of the saints, in the same manner as Saint Sabas cured many with the oil of the cross. The instructions which Saint Daniel usually gave to those that resorted to him, wrought the conversion of many sinners; for his words penetrated their hearts, and being enforced by the example of his penitential life, were wonderfully powerful in bringing others into the narrow path of penance and true virtue. Certain persons had his image made of silver, which they placed in Saint Michael's church not far distant from his pillar.

Saint Daniel foretold Zeno that God would preserve him in a certain dangerous expedition; also, that he should succeed his father-in-law Leo in the empire, but should lose it for some time, and at last recover it again.
   The emperor Leo died in January, 474, and Zeno was saluted emperor; but openly abandoned himself to vice as if it had been the privilege of the imperial dignity to account nothing unlawful or dishonorable.

  While the Huns plundered Thrace, and the Arabs the east, he completed the ruin of his people by tyrannical oppressions. Having quarreled with his mother-in-law, Verina, the widow of his predecessor, he saw himself abandoned, and fled into Isauria, his own country, in the year 475, the second of his reign.
   Basiliscus, brother to the empress Verina, usurped the throne, but was a profligate tyrant, and declared himself publicly the protector of the Eutychians. He restored Timothy Elurus, Peter the Fuller, and other ringleaders of that heresy; and by a circular letter addressed to all the bishops, ordered the acts of the council of Chalcedon and the letter of Saint Leo to be everywhere anathematized and burned, condemning the bishops and clerks to be deposed, and the monks and laymen banished, who should refuse to subscribe his letter, or should dare to make mention of the council of Chalcedon.


  The holy pope: Simpicious wrote strenuously to the tyrant against these proceedings, also to Acacius, patriarch of Constantinople charging him as his legate to oppose the re-establishment of Timothy at Alexandria, and forbidding mention to be made against the definitions of the council of Chalcedon. Acacius refused to subscribe the tyrant's letter, put on mourning, covered the pulpit and altar of his church with black, and sent to Saint Daniel Stylites, to acquaint him with what the emperor had done. Basiliscus, on his side, sent to him to complain of Acacius, whom he accused of raising a rebellion in the city against him. Saint Daniel replied, that God would overthrow his government, and added such vehement reproaches, that he who was sent durst not report them, but besought the saint to write them, and to seal the letter. The patriarch having assembled several bishops, in his own and their name, sent twice, in the most urgent manner, to entreat Daniel to come to the succor of the church. At length the saint, though with reluctance, came down from his pillar, and was received by the patriarch and bishops with incredible joy.

   Basiliscus being frightened at the uproar which was raised in the city, retired to Hebdomum, whither the saint followed him. Not being able to walk for the sores in his legs and feet, he was carried by men, piety paying to his penance on that occasion the honor which the world gave to consuls. The guards would not suffer Saint Daniel to enter the palace, who thereupon shook off the dust from his feet, and returned to the city. The tyrant was terrified, went himself to the saint, and threw himself at his feet, begging pardon, and promising to annul his former edicts. The saint threatened him with the thunderbolts of the divine anger, and said to those who stood by: "This feigned humility is only an artifice to conceal designs of cruelty. You shall very soon see the power of God, who pulls down the mighty."

    Having thus foretold the fall of Basiliscus, and performed several miracles, he returned to the top of his pillar where he lived eighteen years longer. Elurus recovered the see of Antioch, and Peter the Fuller that of Alexandria, and Eutychianism was everywhere encouraged. But Zeno after twenty months returned with an army from Isauria, and Basiliscus fled to the church, put his crown upon the altar, and took sanctuary in the baptistery, together with his wife and son. Zeno sent them to a castle in Cappadocia, where they were starved to death. One of the first things which the emperor did after his return was to pay a visit to Saint Daniel Stylites, who had foretold both his banishment and his restoration.

   The saint, when fourscore years old, foretold his own death, and caused "short exhortation to be written which he left his disciples, whom he commended to God, and admonished to practice humility, obedience, hospitality, and mortification; to love poverty, maintain constant peace and union, study always to advance holy charity, shun the tares of heresy, and obey the church, our holy mother."

Three days before his death he offered the holy sacrifice at midnight, and was visited by angels in a vision. The patriarch Euphemius assisted him in his last moments, and he died on his pillar about the year 494, on the 11th of December, the day which is sacred to his memory both in the Latin and Greek calendars. See his life carefully compiled in the sixth century, quoted by Saint John Damascen somewhat adulterated as extant in Metaphrastes and Surius.


Father Daniel the Stylite
Our holy Father Daniel enlightens the world by the brilliance of his virtues like a star, and as a living ladder he invites us to leave earthly things and to climb heavenward. He was born in the little village of Meratha near Samosata in response to the prayers of his mother, who had long been childless, after a radiant vision that signified the glory in store for her son. When he reached five years of age, his parents took him to the local monastery in order to consecrate him to the Lord like the Prophet Samuel (1 Sam. 1:19ff). Although not received into the monastery on account of his tender years, he was given his name on this occasion for the abbot told him to fetch one of the books that lay before the sanctuary, and he picked up the book of the Prophet Daniel. On attaining his twelfth year he heard his mother say, ‘My child, I have consecrated you to God.’ Without more ado, he made his own way to a not-far-distant monastery where his earnest supplications overcame the reluctance of the Abbot to admit him to the brotherhood. Such was his progress in the way of God and so great his ardor in the contests of virtue that, after a while, in the presence of his overjoyed parents, he was tonsured and clothed in the angelic Habit by the Abbot, whose favorite disciple he was to become.

One day, traveling with his Abbot to a meeting of Archimandrites called by the Archbishop of Antioch, Daniel found the opportunity to fulfill his dearest wish of visiting the illustrious Saint Symeon the Stylite, whose unusual ascesis was the admiration of some but questionable to others. On arriving at the foot of the Saint’s pillar, all those who had doubted his holiness were dumbstruck when they saw the heroic warfare waged by the great Elder for the sake of Christ, and felt the loving kindness that he extended. Fear gripped all the Archimandrites, and Daniel was the only one of the company who overcame it and climbed the ladder to take the blessing of the Saint. ‘Take courage, Daniel, be strong and patient,’ Saint Symeon said to him, ‘for you will have to bear many hardships for God. But I trust in the God whom I serve that He will strengthen and accompany you on your way.’

Some time later his Abbot was called to the Lord, and Daniel, who was then thirty-seven, was appointed to succeed him. Whereupon, having made sure that the monk who held the second place was competent to direct the monastery, he left and went back to Saint Symeon. He spent two weeks with him before setting out at last for Palestine, with the intention of visiting the Holy Places prior to withdrawing into the solitude of the desert. On the way, there suddenly appeared to him an old man resembling Saint Symeon, who persuaded him not to run the risk of falling into the hands of the rebellious Samaritans, but to take the road to Constantinople, the ‘new Jerusalem,’ illustrious through the presence of numberless precious relics and of so many sanctuaries, and where he could easily find the peace and quiet of the desert in the surrounding countryside.

When he reached Anaplus (now Rumeli-Hisari), high up on the European shore of the Bosphorus, just beyond the confines of the imperial City, he first spent seven days at prayer in the church of the Holy Archangel Michael. Then clad in the armor of God, with the shield of faith and the sword of prayer (Eph. 6:14), following the example of Anthony and Paul and of many other valiant heroes of the faith, he boldly entered within a pagan temple, the haunt of demons that used to harass all who passed that way by land or sea. Taking no account of the screams which pierced the silence of the night, nor of the showers of rocks, the athlete of Christ continued steadfast in prayer night and day and put the unclean spirits to flight with the fire of the life-giving Cross. His reputation soon drew crowds of visitors who could speak to him only through a narrow opening in the wall. The Devil, infuriated at his renown, stirred up some of the clergy of the church of Saint Michael to become jealous of the servant of God, and they denounced him as a heretic to the holy Archbishop Anatolius. The wise shepherd made little of their accusations at first but, when they returned with more calumnies, he sent officers from Constantinople to bring Daniel before him. Not only was he greatly edified by Daniel’s pure confession of faith but he was also cured of a serious illness through the prayer of the holy ascetic, of whom he became one of the most fervent admirers. It was with great reluctance that he let him return at last to his hermitage, accompanied by a rejoicing crowd.


One day, nine years later, when he was fifty-one years old, Daniel fell into an ecstasy and saw Saint Symeon the Stylite standing before him at the top of a huge pillar of cloud; on either side of him were two men of shining appearance who, at the command of the Elder, fetched Daniel and brought him up to his side. Symeon gave him a fatherly embrace and disappeared into heaven, leaving his spiritual son on the pillar accompanied by the two angels. The vision was confirmed soon after by the arrival of the monk Sergius, one of the disciples of Saint Symeon the Stylite, bringing with him the leathern, hooded tunic of the Saint.1 He had come to the City intending to present it to the Emperor Leo I (457-74) at the same time as announcing his master’s decease but, having awaited an audience for some days in vain, he was wonderfully directed to Daniel, whose disciple he became, and to whom he delivered the precious relic as to the new Elisha, who was to take up the mantle of Elijah after his departure into heaven (cf. 2 Kings 2:13).

In the strength of this sign and informed in a dream that the time was now ripe, Daniel left the temple to follow the way of Saint Symeon and to mount a twelve-foot-high pillar which, through the care of some friends, had been made for him in the City and was set up in a lonely spot, indicated by the fluttering of a white dove sent by God. The owner of the land, an officer of the imperial household called Gelanius, annoyed at the trespass, wanted to drive Daniel off his property; but a sudden storm which destroyed his vines, together with the steadfastness of the Saint, worked such a change in him that he was inspired to have a new, higher pillar set up beside the first one for the heroic soldier of Christ. Sergius settled at the foot of this new pillar in order to attend to the direction of the ever-increasing number of disciples.

A spectacle to men and to angels, like Christ on the Cross, Daniel never moved from there and lived only for heaven; in return God made of the pillar a channel of His grace, which was poured forth abundantly upon the faithful. The miracles, signs, healings, words of salvation and heavenly wisdom of the Stylite soon attracted crowds of visitors, among them the foremost personages of the day, including the consul Cyrus, whose two daughters were healed by the Saint, also the Empress Eudocia on her return from Africa, and the Emperor Leo himself. He, having obtained an heir through the prayer of Daniel, expressed his gratitude by having the foundations laid for a third pillar.

Some heretics, eaten up by the demon of jealousy, sent a famous harlot to bring scandal upon the Saint; but she was attacked and cruelly tormented by a demon. She was finally delivered from it by the prayer of Daniel, to the dismay of her abettors whom she openly denounced. In view of the high renown of the man of God, the pious Emperor urged the holy Archbishop Gennadius (458-71; 17 Nov.) to ordain him priest. But when the Archbishop and his clergy arrived at the pillar, Daniel, who realized what their plan was, would not allow Gennadius to climb up to him. The Archbishop therefore pronounced the prayer of ordination from a distance, calling upon Christ to lay His hand invisibly upon his disciple from above, while the crowd shouted, ‘He is worthy!’ In the end, Daniel gave way and ordered the ladder to be set in place so that the Archbishop could climb up to him. Having embraced, they both received the holy Communion, the one from the other between heaven and earth.


Not long after Daniel had taken his station on the third pillar, the City was ravaged for a week by a terrible fire (Sept. 465) which the Saint had foretold, although the Emperor and Court had ignore his prediction. A stream of folk was then to be seen, headed by the Emperor and Empress, coming to ask his forgiveness and to beg him to intercede for the distressed people of God. Some time later, a violent storm arose and the pillar, which had not been well secured, rocked to and fro in the wind and driving rain. The disciples of the Elder trembled for his life but he uttered not a word and persevered in prayer. In the following year, his leathern tunic was torn off by the wind one winter’s night, and the snow congealed over his body as a thick layer of ice. It was late next day before the wind abated and his disciples were able to set up the ladder and thaw him out with hot water. They were amazed to learn that, as he froze on the pillar, the Saint had been carried away in spirit to a place of refreshment where he conversed with Saint Symeon the Stylite. Following this incident, the pious Emperor insisted on a small shelter being put up above the pillar to protect Daniel from the worst of the weather. So greatly did the Emperor admire the holy Stylite’s way of life that he had a palace built nearby at Anaplus, and brought all his royal guests and ambassadors out to visit the Saint. He came with Gubazius, King of the Lazi and, submitting their political differences to Daniel’s mediation, they agreed on a treaty that satisfied them both. Gubazius corresponded with the Saint for the rest of his life, and whenever people from Lazica visited the City they always wanted to go out to see the holy Stylite. There were many other occasions on which the man of God put his prophetic spirit, his wisdom and the power of his prayer at the service of justice and righteousness.

   The Emperor Zeno was driven from the throne in 475 by Basiliscus. The usurper took up the defense of the Monophysites, and made no secret of his hostility towards the decisions of the holy Council of Chalcedon and towards the pious Archbishop Acacius who, surrounded by the monks of the City, took refuge in the Church of Saint Sophia.
    Rejecting Basiliscus’ attempts to win him to his side Saint Daniel, on the strength of a sign from Heaven, came down from his pillar, resolved, like Saint Anthony of old, to go into the City for the sake of the Church in distress. The vast crowd which had assembled in Saint Sophia’s to hear Daniel proclaim the Orthodox faith, left the Great Church with him in their midst and made for the palace of the Hebdomon where the usurper had gone for refuge.
   It was a triumphal progress marked by the miraculous cleansing of a leper.
When they reached the palace, Daniel shook off the dust from his leathern tunic as a sign of malediction (Matt. 10:13-14) and the whole crowd shook their garments as well, so that it made a thunderous noise. Frightened by this demonstration Basiliscus sent out his secretary to placate Daniel with smooth words, but he got a severe answer, and when he returned with it to the Emperor the palace tower collapsed.
   Next day, the Emperor returned to the City in great fear and prostrated himself at the feet of the Saint in the Great Church. He made a solemn profession of Orthodoxy and was reconciled with Acacius in the presence of all the people. Daniel wrought many miracles on the way back to his pillar where he predicted the approaching death of Basiliscus and the restoration of Zeno (786-91), who held the Saint in high regard, as did his successor Anastasios (491-518).


   The Saint’s pillar became one of the most venerated places of pilgrimage within reach of Constantinople, and people from all over the world made their way there. The Emperor prevailed with Daniel to allow a great hospice for the reception of these pilgrims to be built beside the church where rested the relics of Saint Symeon the Stylite that had been brought from Antioch. Like an earthly angel, with heart and eyes ever turned toward God, the holy man lived a stranger to vainglory and pride. His countless miracles were for him the opportunity of advancing in humility; for ever did he ascribe them to any virtue of his own, but he would send those who came to him to venerate the relics of Saint Symeon or to anoint themselves with the oil of the lamps which were burning near his tomb.

Daniel showed the same wonderful humility even in his death. He fell sick, and a sumptuous tomb was prepared for him by the Emperor Anastasios; but then Daniel recovered, and made the Emperor promise to bury his body deep in the earth, below the relics of Saints Ananias, Azarias and Misael (17 Dec.) – recently translated from Babylon to Constantinople – so that the answered prayers of anyone venerating his grave would be attributable to the holy Martyrs.

     Several days before he died, he gathered together his many disciples to give them his last teaching and to ask the help of their prayers. Crowds of the faithful kept arriving from the City to be present at his last moments. In the middle of the night he fell into ecstasy and contemplated the assembly of all the Saints, who greeted him as one of their own and bade him celebrate the divine Liturgy with them. Having come to himself, he communicated in the holy Mysteries and fell asleep in peace the next day, delivering, at the very moment of expiring, a man possessed by an unclean spirit. With great difficulty his boy was taken down from the pillar on which he had remained crouched for thirty-three years. The plank on which his body had been secured to bring it down was placed upright and for many hours the people looked at him, as at a holy icon, and with cries and tears besought him to be an advocate with God on behalf of them all. Saint Daniel was buried in the presence of all the most eminent personages of the imperial City on December 11, 493, in his eighty-fourth year.

Portions of the preceding text are from “The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church” by Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra, and translated from the French by Christopher Hookway 
© 2002-2006 Saint Barbara Greek Orthodox Church (203) 795-1347 | Email: church@saintbarbara.org Rev. Father Peter J. Orfanakos, Parish Priest
493 ST DANIEL THE STYLITE  
AFTER St Simeon the Elder, the first and greatest of them, this Daniel is the best known among the Stylites or pillar-saints. He was a child of promise, dedicated to God from before his birth, and a native of the town of Maratha, near Samosata. At twelve he was received at a neighbouring monastery, where some years after he became a monk. His abbot going on a journey to Antioch took Daniel with him and passing by Telanissae they went to see St Simeon on his pillar. He let Daniel come up to him, gave him his blessing, and foretold that he would suffer much for Jesus Christ.
   The abbot died soon after and the monks would have put Daniel in his place, but he declined and went again to see St Simeon, spending fourteen days in the monastic settlement that was near his pillar. He afterwards undertook a journey to the Holy Land, but finding the way stopped by war went instead to Constantinople. Here he passed seven days in the church of St Michael outside the walls, and then made a hermitage for himself at Philempora in an abandoned temple. He remained there for nine years, under the protection of the patriarch St Anatolius.
After this time he resolved to imitate the manner of life of St Simeon, whose cloak he had obtained after his death in 459.
Simeon had bequeathed this garment to the Emperor Leo I, but his disciple Sergius had been unable to get admittance to the imperial presence to deliver it and so had given it to Daniel. He selected a spot some miles from the city, overlooking the Bosphorus, and ascended the broad-topped pillar, which had been provided by a friend. Later, having been nearly frozen to death one night, the emperor built him a higher and better home; it consisted of two pillars fastened together with iron bars, whereon masonry was placed, on the top of which was fixed a covered-in shelter and a balustrade. The country was subject to high winds, and very severe frosts, but this did not oblige him to leave his pillar, where he lived till he was eighty-four years old. Without descending from it, he was ordained priest by St Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who, having read the prayers at the bottom of the pillar, went up to the top of it presumably to impose his hands on Daniel, though this is not stated, but only that he gave him holy communion. Daniel did not want to be ordained and accordingly refused to come down.
   In 465 a fire happened at Constantinople, which consumed eight of its regions. St Daniel had foretold it and advised the patriarch and the emperor to order public prayers to be said twice a week; but no credit was given to him. The event made them remember, and the people ran in crowds to his pillar where the saint, stretching out his hands to Heaven, prayed for them. The Emperor Leo frequently visited and greatly respected him; when the king of the Lazi in Colchis came to renew his alliance with the Romans; Leo took him to see St Daniel, as a wonder of his empire. The barbarian king prostrated himself before the pillar, and the holy man was witness of the treaty between the two princes. The sick, who were often allowed to come up his pillar, were frequently cured by Daniel laying his hands upon them or by anointing them with the “oil of the saints”, as it is called in his life; by which we are to understand the oil which burnt before the relics or images of the saints.*{ * The custom of anointing both the sick and the healthy with oil from the church lamps is still known in the East.
But not all respected the holy man, and early on a plot was laid, by “those who hunted after women of her sort”, to seduce him by means of a well-known harlot named Basiane. When it failed, she asserted that it had in fact succeeded, till her nerve failed and she publicly disclosed the names of those who had egged her on.
A pillar-saint is an unfamiliar, rather frightening and perhaps repellent figure. But the narrative of the life of St Daniel is a fascinating one, and in character he is found to be as simple and practical as his way of life was bizarre when he taught the crowds that flocked to him, he said nothing “rhetorical or philosophical” but spoke about “the love of God and the care of the poor and almsgiving and brotherly love and of the everlasting condemnation which is the lot of sinners”.
   There is a pleasant ironical touch here and there, as when Daniel prophesied sore difficulties for Zeno going on a military expedition into Thrace. “Is it possible, I beg you”, asked the Emperor Leo, “for anyone to survive a war without some labour and trouble?”
Leo I died in 474 and Zeno succeeded in the same year and put an equal trust in the wisdom and virtue of St Daniel. Then Basiliscus, brother to the dowager-empress Verina, usurped the throne and declared himself the protector of the Eutychian heretics. The patriarch of Constantinople, Acacius, sent to St Daniel to acquaint him with what the usurper had done. Basiliscus on his side sent to him to complain of Acacius, whom he accused of raising rebellion against him. St Daniel replied that God would overthrow his government, and added such reproaches that the messenger dared not report them, but besought the saint to write them down and to seal, the letter. The patriarch sent twice urgently to entreat Daniel to come to the succour of the Church. At length, with reluctance, he came down from his pillar—“with difficulty, because of the pain in his feet”— and was received with joy and excitement. Basiliscus, frightened at the uproar, retired to his country place, whither Daniel followed him. Not being able to walk for lack of practice, he was carried shoulder-high in a chair, surrounded by the  
people as though he were, as was said by one in derision, a new consul. At the palace the guards would not allow St Daniel to enter, so he shook off its dust from his feet as a testimony against Basiliscus, and returned to the city. Basiliscus at length went himself to the saint and promised to annul his orders in favour of heresy—he pleaded that he was a “simple soldier-man”. Daniel rebuked him severely for stirring up such trouble, and returned to the top of his pillar where he lived many years longer, watching over all that went on in the world at his feet, a power in the troubled history of Constantinople at that time. But Zeno after twenty months returned with an army from Isauria, and Basiliscus fled. One of the first things the emperor did after his return was to visit St Daniel, who had foretold both his banishment and his restoration.

When he was eighty-four years old St Daniel gave his testament for his friends and disciples: a very short document breathing a lovely spirit of charity and affection and setting out succinctly the whole duty of man. After celebrating the Holy Mysteries at midnight on his pillar for the last time he knew he was dying. The Patriarch Euphemius was sent for, and there St Daniel died in the year 493, and was buried at the foot of the pillar whereon he had lived for thirty-three years.

Delehaye has very carefully studied the history of all the better-known pillar-saints in his monograph, Les Saints Stylites (1923). In that book will be found a critical text of the long Greek life of St Daniel (pp. 1-94), as well as that of an early compendium (pp. 95-103), and of the adaptation of the Metaphrast (pp. 104-147); there is also in the preface (pp. xxxv to lviii) a description of the manuscripts used and a summary of the life itself. The main biography was the work of a contemporary who had himself seemingly been one of the disciples of St Daniel. It is a hagiographical document of the highest value, and its general accuracy is confirmed by a study of other sources for the history of the same period. The life was published for the first time in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxii (1913), and there is an excellent English version, with introduction and notes, in E. Dawes and N. H. Baynes, Three Byzantine Saints (1948). See also H. Lietzmann, Byzantinische Legenden (1911), pp. 1-52.

6th v. St. Cian A Welsh hermit believed to have been a servant of St. Peris. 
566 St. Sabinus Bishop of Canossa Apulia Italy, and patron of Bari.
A native of Canossa, he was a well known and popular figure in the city prior to his elevation as bishop. Pope St. Agapitus I used him as a legate (535-536) to the court of Emperor Jutinian at Constantinople. Sabinus went blind in his later years. His relics are preserved at Bari.
640 The Holy Martyr Mirax declared himself a Moslem deeply repented and returned home
born into a Christian family living in the city of Tanis (Egypt) during the seventh century. He was raised in piety, but yielded to demonic temptation and trampled on a cross. He went to the Emir, the ruler of Egypt, and taking his sword in hand, he declared himself a Moslem.

His parents, grieving over the terrible downfall of their son, incessantly prayed for him. And then the grace of God illumined the heart of the prodigal. He deeply repented and returned home. His parents counselled him to acknowledge his fall into darkness and to show his repentance. St Mirax obeyed them. He went before the Emir and announced that he had become a Christian once more. The ruler condemned him to tortures, after which the saint was beheaded and cast into the sea (occurred year 640).

888 St. Fidweten Benedictine monk and a disciple of St. Convoyon in Redon Abbey, Brittany, France.
980 Saint Luke the New Stylite was a soldier under the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitos (912-959).

During a war with Bulgaria (917), St Luke remained unharmed through the Providence of God. After this he became a monk, and having succeeded in his efforts, was ordained as a presbyter.

Striving for an even higher degree of perfection, the monk put chains upon himself and ascended a pillar.


After three years standing on the pillar, through divine inspiration, he went to Mount Olympos, and then to Constantinople, and finally to Chalcedon, where he chose a pillar upon which he remained for 45 years, manifesting a gift of wonderworking.

He died in about the year 980.

1100 Saint Nikon the Dry gave up everything for Christ and became a monk at the Kiev Caves monastery transported to the Dormition church
The son of rich and illustrious parents, gave up everything for Christ and became a monk at the Kiev Caves monastery. In the year 1096, during the incursions of Khan Bonyak, he was taken into captivity with some other monks. The captors treated St Nikon harshly, while waiting for a ransom to be paid. When the saint refused to be ransomed, his masters began to torment him with hunger, and left him exposed in the heat of summer and the cold of winter. He was mistreated and beaten every day for about three years, for his captors thought he would change his mind and send word to his relatives, asking to be ransomed.

The saint gave thanks to God for everything, and once said to his tormentor that the Lord, through the prayers of Sts Anthony and Theodosius would return him to his monastery within three days, as St Eustratius (March 28) had predicted while appearing to him.
The captor cut the tendons in St Nikon's legs and set a strong guard over him. But suddenly, on the third day at the sixth hour, the holy captive became invisible. At the moment the guard heard the words, "Praise the Lord from the Heavens" (Ps. 148).
St Nikon was transported to the Dormition church, where the Divine Liturgy was being served. The brethren surrounded him and began to ask how he got there. St Nikon wanted to conceal the miracle, but the brethren implored him to tell the truth.
St Nikon did not want to have his fetters removed, but the igumen said, "If the Lord had wanted you to remain fettered, He would not have delivered you from captivity."

After a long while St Nikon's former master came to the Kiev Caves monastery and recognized his former captive, who was withered from hunger and the loss of blood from his wounds. He came to believe in Christ, and accepted Baptism. After receiving monastic tonsure, he became a novice under St Nikon's direction.
St Nikon died at the beginning of the twelfth century and was buried in the Near Caves. Though he did not enjoy good health in this life, his holy relics were glorified by incorruption.
His memory is celebrated also on September 28 and on the second Sunday of Great Lent.

1291 BD FRANCO OF GROTTI; by middle age his excesses had ruined his health and more than once brought him nearly to death; a long and painful pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostela; Visions and miracles were accorded him, and after his death on December 11, 1291, there was a spontaneous recognition of him as a very holy penitent

FRANCO Lippi was a native of Grotti, near Siena, and was born in 1211. As a youth he was violent, insubordinate and lazy, and after the death of his father he spent all his time and money in gambling and debauchery. To avoid a prosecution for murder he joined a band of condottieri wherein his evil propensities had full scope, and by middle age his excesses had ruined his health and more than once brought him nearly to death.

   When he was fifty he lost his eyesight, and the shock of this sudden deprivation occasioned a complete change in him. He made a general confession and set out on a long and painful pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostela. There his blindness was healed, but his spiritual sight remained and he made a further pilgrimage, barefooted, from Compostela to Rome.

   While praying in a Carmelite church Franco had a vision of our Lady in which he was told he must make public reparation for the endless scandals he had caused in Siena. He accordingly went about the streets clothed in sackcloth and beating himself with a whip, and eventually asked to be admitted into the Carmelite Order. But his age—he was now sixty-five—and his appalling reputation made the friars dubious of such a postulant, and they told him to try again in five years’ time.

   Franco persisted, and at last he was allowed to join as a lay-brother. He lived for ten years in Carmel, and not only his brethren but the whole city was amazed and edified by his fervour and the austerity of his penance. Visions and miracles were accorded him, and after his death on December 11, 1291, there was a spontaneous recognition of him as a very holy penitent. This cultus was confirmed in 1670.

No early separate biography seems to be known, but G. Lombardelli published in 1590, La vita del b. Franco Sanese da Grotti, and another account by S. Grassi appeared in 1680. For a more modern setting see Il Monte Carmelo (1917), pp. 300 seq.

1289 BD PETER OF SIENA; Bd Peter attained to a high degree of contemplative prayer and received spiritual graces, which it was difficult to hide, so that many knew his holiness. Priests and theologians equally with laybrothers and fellow workmen valued his opinion and advice, but not at all by himself:  It is commonly held that the “Pier Pettinagno”, the efficacy of whose prayers is made known by Dante in the Purgatorio, canto xiii, line 128, was no other than this beatus.

PETER TECELANO was a citizen of Siena and a comb-maker by trade. After living for some years in happiness with his wife, she died, leaving him childless, and he joined the third order of St Francis, determining to devote to his neighbour the time and money that was no longer required for his own household. His life was quite without exterior event, such as might be led by any pious artisan. He worked hard and for long hours, and at night would go to some church to pray, where meditating on St Francis’s following of our Lord he conceived the desire to be yet more closely associated with his religious children.
    The guardian of the Friars Minor accordingly gave him permission to live in a cell adjoining their infirmary, where he continued to carry on his business almost to the end of his life. He used frequently to visit the sick in the hospital of our Lady della Scala and he had a strong sense of his public as well as his private duties as a citizen: once when he had been deliberately passed over in the collection of a war-tax, he assessed himself and insisted on paying what seemed to him to be due.
    Bd Peter attained to a high degree of contemplative prayer and received spiritual graces, which it was difficult to hide, so that many knew his holiness. Priests and theologians equally with laybrothers and fellow workmen valued his opinion and advice, but not at all by himself: “You are raising too 
much wind for this poor dust”, he said to one who praised him. Among his chief faults in his own opinion was talkativeness, and it took him fourteen years of hard work to reduce it and build up the habit of silence at which he aimed.

He lived to a very advanced age, and as he lay dying foresaw the calamities that were shortly to fall on Pistoia and Florence as well as on his own city. He was buried in the Franciscan church and pilgrims came from all over Italy to pray and be cured of their infirmities at his tomb. This cultus was approved in 1802.

This holy tertiary, who is sometimes called Peter Pettinaio (comb-maker), is noticed by Wadding and other annalists of the Franciscan Order. There is a life by Peter di Monterone, said to have been a contemporary, which was printed in Italian in 1529. Another account was based upon a set of breviary lessons compiled in 1333. Further details regarding sources will be found in the Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, vol. xiv (1921), p. 27. See also Monumenta Franciscana, vol. v (1890), pp. 34—52; Mazzara, Leggendario Francescano, vol. iii (1680), pp. 618—623, and Leon, Aureole Séraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. i, pp. 456—463. It is commonly held that the “Pier Pettinagno”, the efficacy of whose prayers is made known by Dante in the Purgatorio, canto xiii, line 128, was no other than this beatus.

1373 BD HUGOLINO MAGALOTTI: orphan whose life was entirely given to manual work, contemplation and penance, and the fame of his holiness drew many to his lonely cell. God glorified him with the gift of miracles, and numbers of the sick were healed at his intercession.
FEW particulars are known of the life of this holy man, whose feast is kept by the Friars Minor. He was born near Camerino in the early part of the fourteenth century, and was left an orphan while a young man. Thereupon he gave his patrimony away to the poor, put on the Franciscan tertiary habit, and became a hermit.
His life was entirely given to manual work, contemplation and penance, and the fame of his holiness drew many to his lonely cell. God glorified him with the gift of miracles, and numbers of the sick were healed at his intercession. He died on December 11 1373
, and was buried at the parish church of Fiegni. Pope Pius IX confirmed his cultus in 1856.

See Léon, L’Auréole Séraphique (Eng. trans.), vol. iv, pp. 177—178, where it is stated that an old manuscript life was in existence at the time of the beatification. We are also told that he is mentioned by Jacobilli in his Santi e beati dell Umbria, and by other writers of that district. 

1455 BD JEROME RANUZZI; a scholar and contemplative; doctorate in theology, and was afterwards ordained priest and employed as professor in various houses-of-studies of his order in Italy; devotion of the people was so great and miracles so numerous that his body, instead of being buried in the conventual graveyard, was at once enshrined above an altar in the church of the Servites at Sant’ Angelo

THERE is a notable contrast between the characters of the two Servite beati com­memorated this month, both in their youth and their maturity. Bonaventure Buonaccorsi was a preacher and what is called a man of action, Jerome Ranuzzi was a scholar and contemplative; while the one spent his life in violence and disorder till nearly middle age, the other from his earliest years was noted for his devoutness and studious habits.

   Ranuzzi was born near the end of the fourteenth century at Sant’ Angelo in Vado, a little town near Urbino which was one of the first to have a convent of Servite nuns, and before his twentieth year took the habit of the Servite friars, receiving the name of Jerome. After his profes­sion he was sent to the University of Bologna, where he took his doctorate in theology, and was afterwards ordained priest and employed as professor in various houses-of-studies of his order in Italy. He was thus engaged for some years, till at last he was given permission to retire for a time to the priory in his native town.

Father Jerome became the valued friend of the whole neighbourhood. His solicitude in both temporal and spiritual works of mercy, his wisdom in both temporal and spiritual difficulties, soon made him known as an “angel of good counsel”. Frederick of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, who asked the Servite authorities for his services as theologian and personal adviser, knew his quality.

This was the last thing that Bd Jerome wanted, but he was constrained by obedience to accept the post. It is not known how long he remained at Frederick’s court, but he was as successful there as in a monastery and conducted negotiations with the Holy See and other matters of state to the satisfaction of his prince. He eventually was allowed to go back to Sant’ Angelo, where before his death he rebuilt the nuns’ convent. Jerome Ranuzzi died rather suddenly on December 11, 1455, and the devotion of the people was so great and miracles so numerous that his body, instead of being buried in the conventual graveyard, was at once enshrined above an altar in the church of the Servites at Sant’ Angelo. This cultus was confirmed in 1775.

Some account of this beatus may be gathered from A. Giani, Annales Ordinis Servorum, vol. i, pp. 491—492; and some miracles attributed to him are recounted in vol. iii, pp. 599—600. That no very copious information is obtainable may be gathered from the fact that writers of the Servite Order itself (so Giani complains) have confused this Jerome with another Servite named Jerome, who lived some time before him and died in another part of the country.

1910 Lars Olsen Skrefsrud; Mission in Stavanger nicht als Schüler aufnahm, ging er zu der Berliner Mission und wurde von ihr 1863 zu den Santals in Westbengalen entsandt, Skrefsrud arbeitete hier mit dem dänischen Missionar Hans Peter Børresen zusammen; 1869 wurde die erste Missionsstation erbaut, danach richtete Skrefsrud in der Provinz 30 Schulen ein, in denen auch praktisches Wissen vermittelt wurde. Er entwickelte eine Schriftsprache und übersetzte die Bibel
Evangelische Kirche: 11. Dezember

Lars Olsen Skrefsrud wurde um 1840 in Norwegen geboren. Er wollte Pastor werden, aber seine Eltern konnten das Schulgeld nicht aufbringen und er wurde Schmied. Er begann zu trinken und nahm als 19-jähriger an einem Bankraub teil. Er wurde deshalb zu vier Jahren Gefängnis verurteilt. Er wurde vorzeitig 1861 entlassen. Da ihn die Mission in Stavanger nicht als Schüler aufnahm, ging er zu der Berliner Mission und wurde von ihr 1863 zu den Santals in Westbengalen entsandt. Skrefsrud arbeitete hier mit dem dänischen Missionar Hans Peter Børresen zusammen. 1864 heiratete er Anna Olsum, die ihn schon im Gefängnis besucht hatte. Er versuchte, die bestehenden Sippen zu erhalten und sie durch christliches Vorbild zu bekehren. 1869 wurde die erste Missionsstation erbaut, danach richtete Skrefsrud in der Provinz 30 Schulen ein, in denen auch praktisches Wissen vermittelt wurde. Er entwickelte eine Schriftsprache und übersetzte die Bibel. Zweimal mußte Skrefsrud wegen seiner angegriffenen Gesundheit nach Europa reisen. Er predigte in vielen überfüllten Kirchen und reiste auch durch die Vereinigten Staaten, kehrte aber jedesmal wieder zu seinen Santals zurück. Hier starb er dann auch am 11.12.1910. Bei seinem Tod umfasste die Gemeinde über 20.000 Glieder. Die von ihm gegründete norwegische Santalmission arbeitet heute in vielen Ländern

In Hispánia sancti Eutychii Mártyris.   In Spain, St. Eutychius, martyr.


THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 217

Rejoice, ye just, in the Virgin Mary: and in uprightness of heart praise ye her together.

Draw near unto her with reverence and devotion: and let your heart be delighted in her salutation.

Give unto her the sacrifice of praise: and be ye inebriated from the breasts of her sweetness.

For she sheds upon you the rays of her loving kindness: and she will enlighten you with the splendors of her mercy.

Her fruit is most sweet: it grows ever sweeter in the mouth and the heart of the wise.


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

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

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
 
Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”
 
Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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

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

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.
 
Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.
 
Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
 
Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.
 
Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

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

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

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

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

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.
 
Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

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

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
 
Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”
 
Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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

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

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.
 
Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.
 
Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
 
Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.
 
Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

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

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

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

Servant of God Alfonse Gallegos of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, Titular Bishop of Sasabe, auxiliary of Sacramento; born Feb. 20, 1931 and died Oct. 6, 1991
Servant of God Rafael Sánchez García, diocesan priest; born June 14, 1911 and died on Aug. 8, 1973
Servant of God Andrés García Acosta, professed layman of the Order of Friars Minor; born Jan. 10, 1800 and died Jan. 14, 1853
Servant of God Joseph Marchetti, professed priest of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles; born Oct. 3, 1869 and died Dec. 14, 1896
Servant of God Giacomo Viale, professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, pastor of Bordighera; born Feb. 28, 1830 and died April 16, 1912
Servant of God Maria Pia of the Cross (née Maddalena Notari), foundress of the Congregation of Crucified Sisters Adorers of the Eucharist; born Dec. 2, 1847 and died on July 1, 1919
Sunday, November 23 2014 Six to Be Canonized on Feast of Christ the King.

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

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

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

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic prelate was also an ardent supporter of the Jewish community in Ukraine, going so far as to learn Hebrew to better communicate with them. He also was a vocal protestor against atrocities committed by the Nazis, evidenced in his pastoral letter, "Thou Shalt Not Kill." He was also known to harbor thousands of Jews in his residence and in Greek Catholic monasteries.
Following his death in 1944, his cause for canonization was opened in 1958.
* * *
The Holy Father authorized the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees regarding the heroic virtues of:
- Servant of God Andrey Sheptytsky, O.S.B.M., major archbishop of Leopolis of the Ukrainians, metropolitan of Halyc (1865-1944);
- Servant of God Giuseppe Carraro, Bishop of Verona, Italy (1899-1980);
- Servant of God Agustin Ramirez Barba, Mexican diocesan priest and founder of the Servants of the Lord of Mercy (1881-1967);
- Servant of God Simpliciano della Nativita (ne Aniello Francesco Saverio Maresca), Italian professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Hearts (1827-1898);
- Servant of God Maria del Refugio Aguilar y Torres del Cancino, Mexican founder of the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (1866-1937);
- Servant of God Marie-Charlotte Dupouy Bordes (Marie-Teresa), French professed religious of the Society of the Religious of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (1873-1953);
- Servant of God Elisa Miceli, Italian founder of the Rural Catechist Sisters of the Sacred Heart (1904-1976);
- Servant of God Isabel Mendez Herrero (Isabel of Mary Immaculate), Spanish professed nun of the Servants of St. Joseph (1924-1953)
October 01, 2015 Vatican City, Pope Authorizes following Decrees
(ZENIT.org) By Staff Reporter
Polish Layperson Recognized as Servant of God
Pope Authorizes Decrees
Pope Francis on Wednesday authorised the Congregation for Saints' Causes to promulgate the following decrees:

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

HEROIC VIRTUES
- Servant of God Giovanni Folci, Italian diocesan priest and founder of the Opera Divin Prigioniero (1890-1963);
- Servant of God Franciszek Blachnicki, Polish diocesan priest (1921-1987);
- Servant of God Jose Rivera Ramirez, Spanish diocesan priest (1925-1991);
- Servant of God Juan Manuel Martín del Campo, Mexican diocesan priest (1917-1996);
- Servant of God Antonio Filomeno Maria Losito, Italian professed priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (1838-1917);
- Servant of God Maria Benedetta Giuseppa Frey (nee Ersilia Penelope), Italian professed nun of the Cistercian Order (1836-1913);
- Servant of God Hanna Chrzanowska, Polish layperson, Oblate of the Ursulines of St. Benedict (1902-1973).
March 06 2016 MIRACLES authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
Pope Francis received in a private audience Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, during which he authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
MIRACLES

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

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

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

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