Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum.
And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
Пресвятая Богородице спаси нас!  (Santíssima Mãe de Deus, salva-nos!)
R.  Deo grátias. R.  Thanks be to God.
March is the month of Saint Joseph since 1855;
2023-2024
23,658  Lives Saved Since 2007
                        Meditation_During_The_Great_Feast.jpg

http://www.haitian-childrens-fund.org/
For the Son of man ... will repay every man for what he has done.

We are the defenders of true freedom.
  May our witness unveil the deception of the "pro-choice" slogan.
  Campaign saves lives Shawn Carney Campaign Director www.40daysforlife.com , 
Please help save the unborn they are the future for the world

 It is a great poverty that a child must die so that you may live as you wish -- Mother Teresa
 Saving babies, healing moms and dads, 'The Gospel of Life'

 March 17 – Virgin of the French (Nagasaki, Japan) – Our Lady of Blaj (Romania)
 “It's all in here! Everything is in here!”
 Around 1930, Dr. Takashi Nagai, an atheist at the time (and future survivor of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki in 1945), visited a Polish Franciscan priest recently arrived in Japan—the future Saint Maximilian Kolbe. He tells this story:
"When he shook my hand, I realized he had a fever. I asked him: ‘Don’t you feel sick?’ – ‘Examine me!’ he replied with a bright smile. I examined him and exclaimed: ‘Father, this is serious! Both of your lungs have tuberculosis!’ Undaunted, he continued to smile and said: ‘Thank you, Doctor, you're a good doctor. Both in Rome and in Poland excellent doctors have told me the same thing for the past ten years.’ My reaction was to exclaim:
‘What? For ten years!?’
And this Knight of the Immaculate had been traveling the world for several years in this physical condition!
As a physician, I was confronted with an incredible case, a challenge to science. And he continued to be active and cheerful although he only had the use of 1/5 of his lungs and a continual fever.
Then, Father Kolbe gave me a Rosary, saying with a smile: ‘It's all in here! Everything is in here!’"
In 1934, Takashi Nagai asked to be baptized.
 www.famillechretienne.fr
 
Our Bartholomew Family Prayer List

Joyful Mystery on Monday Saturday   Glorius Mystery on Sunday Wednesday
   Sorrowful Mystery on Friday Tuesday   Luminous Mystery on Thursday Veterens of War

Acts of the Apostles

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

The saints are a “cloud of witnesses over our head”, showing us life of Christian perfection is possible.
 Novena to Saint Joseph -- Day 10
A novena is a prayer that is said for nine consecutive days. The purpose is to obtain a special favor from heaven by imploring a particular saint, in this case -Saint Joseph - who is celebrated in the Catholic Church on March 19th.
O glorious Saint Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, to you do we raise our hearts and hands to implore your powerful intercession in obtaining from the benign Heart of Jesus all the helps and graces necessary for our spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death, and the special favor we now implore (..state your petition..).  O Guardian of the Word Incarnate, we have confidence that your prayers on our behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God. Amen.
The “Atomic-bombed Virgin” of Nagasaki
 On April 10, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI blessed a statue of the Virgin Mary that survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.  Housed in the Urakami Cathedral, the largest Catholic church in East Asia.
Another Marian image at survived the 1937 bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War.
In the two images, Bishop Takami said he sees a sign of peace, which is the focus of the current pilgrimage.
Commemoration of Orthodox Christians departed this life in the hope of resurrection and eternal life.
St. Joseph of Arimathea The councillor (Lk 23:50) who, requested the body of Christ from Pontius Pilate
  St. Patrick Apostle of Ireland birthday.
461 St. Patrick Apostle of Ireland  a humble, pious, gentle man feared nothing not death
 760 St. Paul of Cyprus monk A martyr for the cause of venerating icons
1620 St. Jan Sarkander Martyred converted many Hussites and Bohemian Brethren
1834 Bl. Peter Lieou Martyr of China native gave comfort to Christian prisoners

Our Lady of Graces March 17 - Our Lady of Ireland - Saint Patrick (Ireland, d. 461)
The Dominican Priory of North Abbey, Youghal (founded in 1268) was initially dedicated to the Holy Cross.
Later, following the discovery of a small ivory statue of the Madonna and Child, blessings and graces generously distributed by the Mother of God prompted the religious to change the name of the priory to Our Lady of Graces.
The statue made Youghal the center of Marian devotion for several centuries, but this ended after the priory was dissolved during the dark days of persecution in the 16th century. The statue can now be found in the Saint Mary's Dominican Priory in Cork City, Ireland.
According to local tradition, a piece of wood brought in by the tide was found on the bank near the town of Youghal, Ireland. The piece of wood proved to be so heavy that ten horses were unable to move it. Eventually the rising tide dislodged it and religious from the Dominican Priory of North Abbey brought it to their cloister. During the night, the prior had a strange dream in which he was told that a statue of the Madonna and Child was concealed in the piece of wood.
The statue was subsequently found and was reverently enshrined. It became the object of special devotion to the faithful, who flocked from all parts of Ireland to venerate it. It is reported that from the time of the statue's discovery,
miraculous powers have been uninterruptedly ascribed to Our Lady of Graces.
The Irish people made pilgrimages to the priory as long as it was possible.
Adapted from Samuel Lewis, Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.
March 17 – Virgin of the French (Nagasaki, Japan) – Our Lady of Blaj (Romania)
 The “A-bombed Virgin” of Nagasaki
 On April 10, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI blessed a statue of the Virgin Mary that survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.
The wooden statue was housed in the Urakami Cathedral, which was the largest Catholic church in East Asia. It had been built on a site where Christians had endured persecution for years.  Though disfigured by the bomb, the head of the statue was found, intact, among the cathedral ruins.  Now, the statue is on a peace pilgrimage to Spain and the United States, passing through Rome, where the Pope blessed it at the end of the general audience.

Archbishop Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki was with a group of pilgrims to greet the Holy Father at the end of the audience.  The bishop explained how he linked the image of Mary that endured the Japanese bombing with another Marian image that survived the 1937 bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War.
 In the two images, Bishop Takami said that he sees a sign of peace, which is the focus of the current pilgrimage.
“I hope that the pilgrimage not only permits more people to learn of the suffering caused by the atomic bombing,
but also that it becomes a call to peace with the use of non-violence,” he said. Rome, Zenit.org
 
 March 17 – The Virgin of the French (Nagasaki, Japan)
 The irradiated Virgin of Nagasaki
 When the American atomic bomb "Fat Boy" destroyed Nagasaki 65 years ago,
one of the destroyed buildings was the Urakami Cathedral, one of the largest churches in Asia.
The blast that devastated that city on August 9, 1945, leaving more than 70,000 dead, smashed the windows and walls of the cathedral, burned its altar and melted its bell, but in a strange turn of events that Japanese Catholics
consider to be a miracle, the head of a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary survived the inferno!
The image has kept the scars of war—its eyes are burnt, leaving two black orbits, the right cheek is blackened and a crack runs the length of the face like a tear. "When I first saw her, I thought that the Virgin was crying," said Shigemi Fukahori, a 79 year-old parishioner who had seen the statue before the explosion.
"It was as if she were warning us against the horrors of war by sacrificing herself," he added.
The mutilated statue is now on display in the new church rebuilt on the same location,
only 500 meters from the hypocenter where the plutonium bomb exploded.
Published by the French newspaper La Dépêche du Midi of August 9, 2010.

Mary Mother of GOD 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary
Mary's Divine Motherhood
Called in the Gospel "the Mother of Jesus," Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as "the Mother of my Lord" (Lk 1:43; Jn 2:1; 19:25; cf. Mt 13:55; et al.). In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity.
Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly "Mother of God" (Theotokos).
Catechism of the Catholic Church 495, quoting the Council of Ephesus (431): DS 251.
St. Patrick Apostle of Ireland
461 St. Patrick Apostle of Ireland  a humble, pious, gentle man feared nothing not death
 Apud civitátem Dunum, in Hibérnia, natális sancti Patrícii, Epíscopi et Confessóris, qui primus in ea ínsula Christum evangelizávit, et máximis miráculis et virtútibus cláruit.
At Downpatrick in Ireland, the birthday of St. Patrick, bishop and confessor, who was the first to preach Christ in that country, and who became illustrious by great miracles and virtues.
fervent prayer, holy meditation, and reading pious books, are more necessary for those living in the world
 than for professed religious, because of the continual distractions.
A meditation during the Great Fast...
“Be gracious to me, O God, for men trample upon me; all day long foemen oppress me; my enemies trample upon me all day long, for many fight against me proudly. When I am afraid, I put my trust in thee. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust without a fear. What can flesh do to me?” – Psalms 56:1-4
Saturday is the day which the Church has set aside for the commemoration of Orthodox Christians departed this life in the hope of resurrection and eternal life.
Since the Divine Liturgy cannot be served on weekdays during Great Lent, the second, third, and fourth Saturdays of the Fast are appointed as Soul Saturdays when the departed are remembered at Liturgy.  In addition to the Liturgy, kollyva (wheat or rice cooked with honey and mixed with raisins, figs, nuts, sesame, etc.) is blessed in church on these Saturdays. The kollyva reminds us of the Lord's words, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).The kollyva symbolizes the future resurrection of all the dead. As St Simeon of Thessalonica (September 15) says, man is also a seed which is planted in the ground after death, and will be raised up again by God's power. St Paul also speaks of this (I Cor. 15:35-49).
It is also customary to give alms in memory of the dead. The angel who spoke to Cornelius testifies to the efficacy of almsgiving, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God" (Acts 10:4).
Memorial services for the dead may be traced back to ancient times. Chapter 8 of the Apostolic Constitutions recommends memorial services with Psalms for the dead.

It also contains a beautiful prayer for the departed, asking that their voluntary and involuntary sins be pardoned, that they be given rest with the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles in a place where sorrow, suffering, and sighing have fled away (Isaiah 35:10). St John Chrysostom mentions the service for the dead in one of his homilies on Philippians, and says that it was established by the Apostles. St Cyprian of Carthage (Letter 37) also speaks of our duty to remember the martyrs.
The holy Fathers also testify to the benefit of offering prayers, memorial services, Liturgies, and alms for the dead (St John Chrysostom, St Cyril of Jerusalem, St John of Damascus, etc.). Although both the righteous and those who have not repented and corrected themselves may receive benefit and consolation from the Church's prayer, it has not been revealed to what extent the unrighteous receive this solace. It is not possible, however, to transfer a soul from a state of evil and condemnation to a state of holiness and blessedness through the Church's prayer.
St Basil the Great points out that the time for repentance and forgiveness of sins is during the present life, while the future life is a time for righteous judgment and retribution (Moralia 1).

St John Chrysostom, St Gregory the Theologian, and other patristic writers concur with St Basil's statement.
By praying for others, we bring benefit to them, and also to ourselves, because "God is not so unjust as to forget your work and the love which you showed for His sake in serving the saints…" (Heb. 6:10).
Commemoration of Orthodox Christians departed this life in the hope of resurrection and eternal life.
       St. Joseph of Arimathea The councillor (Lk 23:50) who, requested the body of Christ from Pontius Pilate
 388 Saint Marinus inspired by ardent love for Christ the Savior destroyed a temple of the idolaters
 388 Alexandríæ commemorátio plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum
 390 Martyrs of Seramis (RM)
 411 St Alexis fragrant myrrh flowed from holy relics healing upon the sick the Voice heard again in the temple: "Seek
       the Man of God in the house of Euphemianus."
      Alexander and Theodore MM (RM)
 580 Agricola of Châlon attended several Church councils and enlarged and beautified many of his churches
 659 St. Gertrude of Nivelles Benedictine abbess mystic gifted with visions
 760 St. Paul of Cyprus monk A martyr for the cause of venerating icons
1144 Blessed Stephen of Palestrina a monk of Clairvaux
1483 Saint Macarius of Kalyazin repeatedly healed the paralyzed and the demon-possessed incorrupt relics  
1620 St. Jan Sarkander Martyred converted many Hussites and Bohemian Brethren
1834 Bl. Peter Lieou Martyr of China native gave comfort to Christian prisoners
The Madonna’s Tears of Blood.   March 17 - The Madonna of Ireland (1697) - Saint Patrick (+ 464)  
In the cathedral of Gyor, the Christian people venerate an Irish Madonna
Ireland and Hungary! Two martyr countries which, through the centuries, suffered for their faith and fought for their independence. In spite of many persecutions, the Hungarians and the Irishmen have kept an unfailing love for the Mother of God.  Ireland has not been disappointed by the trust it has put in Our Lady. The case is the same for Hungary which, during the hardships that it crossed has kept faith in the hope of better days.
Mary has sympathy for her children’s sufferings.
The following account is proof of their faith:
In the cathedral of Gyor, the Christian people venerate an Irish Madonna. This painting representing a Nativity scene with the Madonna and Child was brought to Hungary in 1650, by an Irish bishop who had succeeded in escaping from Cromwell’s persecution.  On March 17, 1697, at the 6 o’clock a.m. mass, on Saint Patrick’s feast day, (Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland), at a time when religious persecution had come to a head in Ireland, the Madonna cried tears of blood for three hours. The signed attestations of the eyewitnesses of this miracle are still kept in Gyor, in particular those of the burgomaster, the military commander, the governor, Calvinist and Lutheran ministers, as well as the city’s rabbi.
Since then, the devotion to the Irish Madonna has continued in Hungary and large crowds come to venerate the image hung above the high altar of the cathedral, especially on Saint Patrick’s Day and Ascension Day.
Printed in the French Journal La Croix (The Cross Newspaper of April 6, 1954)


1st v. St. Joseph of Arimathea  The councillor (Lk 23:50) who, after the Crucifixion, requested the body of Christ from Pontius Pilate
Hierosólymis sancti Joseph ab Arimathǽa, qui nóbilis Decúrio et discípulus Dómini éxstitit; atque ipsíus Dómini corpus, de cruce depósitum, in monuménto suo novo sepelívit.
At Jerusalem, St. Joseph of Arimathea, noble senator and disciple of our Lord, who took his Body down from the Cross and buried it in his own new sepulchre.

1st v. ST JOSEPH 0F ARIMATHEA
WE know nothing authentically of St Joseph of Arimathea beyond what is recorded in the Gospels. He is mentioned by all four evangelists and we learn from them that he was a disciple of our Lord, but “secretly, for fear of the Jews”. He was “a counsellor, a good and a just man”. He had not taken any part in the vote of the Sanhedrin against Jesus and “was himself looking for the kingdom of God”. The scenes beside the cross would seem to have given him courage, so “he went in boldly to Pilate and begged for the body of Jesus”. Having obtained his request, he bought fine linen, and wrapping the body therein he laid Him in a sepulchre which was hewed out of the rock and in which “never yet any man had been laid”. History has no more to tell us about Joseph, but the apocryphal gospels, and in particular that fuller redaction of the “Gospel of Nicodemus”, which was originally known as the “Acts of Pilate”, contain further references; but of a legendary king.

But the most astonishing of the legends associated with the name of Joseph of Arimathea is of much later date. It was at one time supposed that William of Malmesbury in his Do Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae (c. 1130) was already familiar with the story of the coming of this Joseph to Glastonbury. This, how­ever, has been shown to be an error. It was not until more than a century later that a chapter by another hand, embodying this fiction, was prefixed to William’s book. Here at last we are told how when St Philip the Apostle was preaching the gospel in Gaul, he was accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea, who was his devoted disciple. St Philip sent over to England twelve of the clerics in his company and placed them all under Joseph’s direction. The king in Britain to whom they addressed themselves would not accept their Christian teaching, but he gave them an island, Yniswitrin, afterwards known as Glastonbury, in the midst of the swamps, and there at the bidding of the archangel Gabriel they built a church of wattles in honour of our Blessed Lady, thirty-one years after the passion of Jesus Christ and fifteen after the assumption of the Blessed Virgin. This tale, before the end of the fourteenth century, is found very much developed in John of Glastonbury’s history of the abbey. John informs us that besides St Philip’s twelve disciples, no less than one hundred and fifty other persons, men and women, came from France to Britain to spread the gospel, and that at our Lord’s command all of them crossed the sea borne upon the shirt of Josephes, the son of Joseph of Arimathea, on the night of our Saviour’s resurrection, and reached land in the morning. They were afterwards imprisoned by the “king of North Wales”, but, on being released, St Joseph, Josephes and ten others were permitted to occupy the isle of Yniswitrin, which is here identified not only with Glastonbury but also with Avalon. Here, as previously stated, the chapel of wattles was built, and in due course St Joseph of Arimathea was buried there.

Neither in Bede, Gildas, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, the authentic William of Malmesbury nor any other chronicler for eleven hundred years do we find any trace of the supposed coming of Joseph of Arimathea to Glastonbury. Not even in the legend as presented by John of Glastonbury about the year 1400 is mention made of the Holy Grail, though this is so conspicuously associated with Joseph and his son Josephes in the Grail romances. On the other hand, much is made by the later Glastonbury writers of two silver cruets which Joseph is supposed to have brought with him, one containing the blood and the other the sweat of our Saviour. But when this legend did obtain currency towards the close of the fourteenth century, it was enthusiastically adopted as a sort of national credential, and at the Councils of Constance (1417) and of Basle (1434) the English representa­tives claimed precedence on the ground that Britain had accepted the teaching of Christianity before any other country of the West. It might at any rate be said that the claim was not less well-founded than that made by France in virtue of the coming of SS. Mary Magdalen, Martha and Lazarus to Provence, or by the Span­iards on the ground of the preaching of the gospel in Spain by the apostle St James.

An admirable account of this example of medieval myth-making was published by Dean J. Armitage Robinson in Two Glastonbury Legends (1926), in which full bibliographical references are provided. The learned writer’s sober exposition of the facts of history is particularly valuable in view of the mass of extravagant fictions obtained by automatic script— not the less pernicious because the writers who produced them printed them, no doubt, in good faith—with which the country was flooded after the publication of Bligh Bond’s Gate of Remembrance in 1958. See also the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. ii; articles by Henry Jenner in Pax, no. 48 (1916), pp. 125 seq., and by Fr Thurston in The Month, July 1931, pp. 43 seq. and T. D. Kenrick, British Antiquity (1950).

The councillor (Lk 23:50) who, after the Crucifixion, requested the body of Christ from Pontius Pilate and provided for a proper burial for Christ.
An immensely popular figure in Christian lore, Joseph was termed in the New Testament the “virtuous and righteous man” (Lk 23:50) and the man “who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God” (Mk 15:43). Described as .... . secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews, [he] asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. And Pilate permitted it” (In 19:38). According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, he helped establish the community of Lydda. He also was a prominent figure in the legends surrounding the Holy Grail, appearing in Rob­ert de Barron’s early thirteenth-century romance Joseph d ‘Arirnathea, William of Malmesbury’s twelfth-century De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae, and Thomas Mallory’s famed Morte D ‘Arthur; William of almesbury’s tale recounts Joseph’s arrival in England with the Holy Grail and the building of the first church on the isle at Glastonbury; the passage on Joseph, however, was added in the thirteenth century.

Joseph of Arimathea (RM) 1st century. We read about Joseph of Arimathea, the "noble counsellor," in all four Gospels (Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:43-46; Luke 23:50-56; and John 19:38-42).
As with many of the Biblical figures, numerous legends accrued around his name in later years.

Saint Joseph was a wealthy member of the temple council and a secret follower of Jesus because he was afraid of persecution from Jewish officials. He attended the Crucifixion, and legend has it that he caught Jesus's blood as he hung upon the cross. (What is said to be the Sacro Catino in which Joseph caught the blood of Christ at the Crucifixion is at San Lorenzo, Genoa, Italy.) Joseph persuaded Pontius Pilate to let him have Jesus's body, wrapped it in linen and herbs, and laid it in a tomb carved in a rock in the side of a hill, a tomb that he had prepared for himself.

Later tradition has embellished this account to add that Joseph was a distant relative of Jesus, who derived his wealth from tin mines in Cornwall, which he visited from time to time.
One version tells the story of the teenaged Jesus accompanying Joseph on one such visit. This is the background of the poem "Jerusalem," by William Blake (1757-1827):
And did those feet in ancient time  Walk upon England's mountains green?   And was the holy Lamb of God  On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine  Shine forth upon our clouded hills?  And was Jerusalem builded here  Among those dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold!  Bring me my arrows of desire!  Bring me my spear!   O clouds, unfold!  Bring me my chariot of fire!  I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem  In England's green and pleasant land.

This version continues to say that, after the Crucifixion, Saint Joseph returned to Cornwall, bringing with him the chalice of the Last Supper, known as the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail was hidden and played an important part in the folk history of England in the great national epic about King Arthur and his knights who unsuccessful seek to find it.
Upon reaching Glastonbury, he planted his staff, which took root and blossomed into a thorn tree. This is the Holy Thorn, which flowers at Christmas.

King Charles I baited his wife's Roman Catholic chaplain by observing that, although Pope Gregory had proclaimed a reform of the calendar, the Glastonbury Thorn ignored the Pope's decree and continued to blossom on Christmas Day according to the Old Calendar. One of Cromwell's soldiers cut down the Thorn because it was a relic of superstition. We are told that he was blinded by one of the thorns as it fell. A tree allegedly grown from a cutting of the original Thorn survives today in Glastonbury (and trees propagated from it stand on the grounds of the Cathedral in Washington, DC, and presumably elsewhere) and leaves from it are sold in all the tourist shops in Glastonbury.
It was not until about the middle of the 13th century that the legend appears saying Joseph accompanied Saint Philip to Gaul to preach and was sent by him to England as the leader of 12 missionaries. It is said that the company, inspired by Gabriel the archangel, built a church made of wattles in honor of the Virgin Mary on an island called Yniswitrin, given to them by the king of England. The church eventually evolved into Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. Supposedly Joseph died there, was buried on the island, and miraculous cures worked at his grave. This burial site is unlikely though.
Is there any merit to the legends of Saint Joseph? Perhaps.
Tin, an essential ingredient of bronze, was highly valued in ancient times, and Phoenician ships imported tin from Cornwall.

It is not unreasonable to believe that some first-century, Jewish Christians might have been investors in the Cornwall tin trade. Christianity gained a foothold in Britain very early, perhaps, in part, because of the commerce in tin. If so, then the early British Christians would have a tradition that they had been evangelized by a wealthy Jewish Christian. Having forgotten his name, they might have consulted the Scriptures and found that Joseph and Saint Barnabas fit the description. Because much of the life of Barnabas was already described by the Acts of the Apostles making him an unlikely candidate, only Joseph was left.
Thus, Christians seeking an immediate connection with their Lord, grasped on to Joseph as their evangelizer (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Robinson, White).

In art, Saint Joseph is portrayed as a very old man, carrying a pot of ointment or a flowering staff or a pair of altar cruets (containing the blood and sweat of Jesus) (White). He may be shown taking the crown of thorns from the dead Christ. At other times he is shown with the shroud and crown of thorns, a thorn tree by him, or a box of spices (Roeder).
He is venerated at Glastonbury and patron of grave-diggers and undertakers (Roeder, White).
Saint_Marinus
Saint Marinus inspired by ardent love for Christ the Savior destroyed a temple of the idolaters
 during one of the pagan festivals, trampling the sacrifices underfoot and confessed himself a Christian. After cruel tortures, the saint was beheaded.

Alexander and Theodore MM (RM)
 Romæ sanctórum Alexándri et Theodóri Mártyrum.
       At Rome, the Saints Alexander and Theodore, martyrs.
The names Alexander and Theodore appear in Jerome's martyrology as well as that of Rome. It has been conjectured that they should be identified with Saints Alexander and Theodulus (Benedictines).

388 Alexandríæ commemorátio plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum, qui a Serápidis cultóribus comprehénsi, et, cum adoráre idólum constánter renuíssent, sævíssime cæsi sunt, témpore Theodósii Imperatóris; qui mox rescríptum dedit, ut Serápidis templum destruerétur. 
     At Alexandria, the commemoration of many holy martyrs, who, being seized by the worshippers of Serapis, and refusing constantly to adore that idol, were cruelly murdered.  Emperor Theodosius, who issued the order, afterwards commanded that the temple of Serapis should be destroyed.

390 Martyrs of Seramis (RM)

390 THE MARTYRS OF THE SERAPEUM

Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria (the same who later compassed the down­fall of St John Chrysostom) obtained a rescript from, the Emperor Theodosius authorizing him to convert a temple of Dionysius into a Christian church. This proceeding led to riots, in the course of which many were killed in the streets. The insurgents made their headquarters in the great temple of Serapis, from which they made sallies and seized a number of Christians, whom they tried to induce to offer sacrifice to Serapis, and upon their refusal put them to a cruel death.
The emperor expressed his admiration of those who had received the crown of martyr­dom, and in order not to dishonour their triumph he pardoned their murderers; but he ordered the destruction of all the heathen temples in Egypt. When his letter was read in Alexandria, the pagans abandoned the temple of Serapis, and the idol having been cast down, it was thrown into a fire. The populace had been told that if it were touched the heavens would fall and the earth revert to chaos, but as soon as they realized that no terrible judgement followed upon its destruction, many heathens embraced Christianity. Two churches were built on the site of the temple of Serapis: one of the most famous buildings of the ancient world.

The accounts furnished by Theodoret, Rufinus, and other early church historians have been extracted and annotated in the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. ii. For a vivid account of the scene in the Serapeum, see DCB., vol. iv, p. 1000. There seems to have been no ecclesiastical cultus, but an entry was added to the Roman Martyrology by Baronius.
411 St Alexis fragrant myrrh flowed from holy relics healing upon the sick. the Voice was heard again in the temple: "Seek the Man of God in the house of Euphemianus."
born at Rome into the family of the pious and poverty-loving Euphemianus and Aglais. The couple was childless for a long time and constantly prayed the Lord to grant them a child.
And the Lord consoled the couple with the birth of their son Alexis.

At six years of age the child began to read and successfully studied the mundane sciences, but it was with particular diligence that he read Holy Scripture. When he was a young man, he began to imitate his parents: he fasted strictly, distributed alms and beneath his fine clothing he secretly wore a hair shirt. Early on there burned within him the desire to leave the world and serve God. His parents, however, had arranged for Alexis to marry a beautiful and virtuous bride.
On his wedding night, Alexis gave her his ring and his belt (which were very valuable) and said, "Keep these things, Beloved, and may the Lord be with us until His grace provides us with something better." Secretly leaving his home, he boarded a ship sailing for Mesopotamia.
Icon of the Lord "Not-made-by-Hands"
Arriving in the city of Edessa, where the Icon of the Lord "Not-made-by-Hands" (August 16) was preserved, Alexis sold everything that he had, distributed the money to the poor and began to live near the church of the Most Holy Theotokos under a portico. The saint used a portion of the alms he received to buy bread and water, and he distributed the rest to the aged and infirm. Each Sunday he received the Holy Mysteries.

The parents sought the missing Alexis everywhere, but without success. The servants sent by Euphemianus also arrived in Edessa, but they did not recognize the beggar sitting at the portico as their master. His body was withered by fasting, his comeliness vanished, his stature diminished.
The saint recognized them and gave thanks to the Lord that he received alms from his own servants.

The inconsolable mother of St Alexis confined herself in her room, incessantly praying for her son. His wife also grieved with her in-laws.

St Alexis dwelt in Edessa for seventeen years. Once, the Mother of God spoke to the sacristan of the church where the saint lived: "Lead into My church that Man of God, worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven. His prayer rises up to God like fragrant incense, and the Holy Spirit rests upon him." The sacristan began to search for such a man, but was not able to find him for a long time. Then he prayed to the Most Holy Theotokos, beseeching Her to clear up his confusion. Again a voice from the icon proclaimed that the Man of God was the beggar who sat in the church portico.

The sacristan found St Alexis and brought him into the church. Many recognized him and began to praise him. The saint secretly boarded a ship bound for Cilicia, intending to visit the church of St Paul in Tarsus. But God ordained otherwise. A storm took the ship far to the West and it reached the coast of Italy. The saint journeyed to Rome and decided to live in his own house.
Unrecognized, he humbly asked his father's permission to settle in some corner of his courtyard. Euphemianus settled Alexis in a specially constructed cell and gave orders to feed him from his table.

Living at his parental home, the saint continued to fast and he spent day and night at prayer. He humbly endured insults and jeering from the servants of his father. The cell of Alexis was opposite his wife's windows, and the ascetic suffered grievously when he heard her weeping. Only his immeasurable love for God helped the saint endure this torment. St Alexis dwelt at the house of his parents for seventeen years and the Lord revealed to him the day of his death. Then the saint, taking paper and ink, wrote certain things that only his wife and parents would know. He also asked them to forgive him for the pain he had caused them.
On the day of St Alexis' death in 411, Archbishop Innocent (402-417) was serving Liturgy in the presence of the emperor Honorius (395-423). During the services a Voice was heard from the altar: "Come unto Me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Mt.11:28). All those present fell to the ground in terror.

The Voice continued: "On Friday morning the Man of God comes forth from the body; have him pray for the city, that you may remain untroubled." They began to search throughout Rome, but they did not find the saint. Thursday evening the Pope was serving Vigil in the Church of St Peter.   He asked the Lord to show them where to find the Man of God.

After Liturgy the Voice was heard again in the temple: "Seek the Man of God in the house of Euphemianus." All hastened there, but the saint was already dead. His face shone like the face of an angel, and his hand clasped the paper, and they were unable to take it. They placed the saint's body on a cot, covered with costly coverings. The Pope and the Emperor bent their knees and turned to the saint, as to one yet alive, asking him to open his hand.  And the saint heard their prayer. When the letter was read, the righteous one's wife and parents tearfully venerated his holy relics.
 
The body of the saint was placed in the center of the city. The emperor and the Pope carried the body of the saint into the church, where it remained for a whole week, and then was placed in a marble crypt. A fragrant myrrh began to flow from the holy relics, bestowing healing upon the sick.
The venerable relics of St Alexis, the Man of God, were buried in the church of St Boniface. The relics were uncovered in the year 1216.
The Life of St Alexis, the Man of God, was always very popular in Russia.
461 St. Patrick Apostle of Ireland  a humble, pious, gentle man feared nothing not death
 Apud civitátem Dunum, in Hibérnia, natális sancti Patrícii, Epíscopi et Confessóris, qui primus in ea ínsula Christum evangelizávit, et máximis miráculis et virtútibus cláruit.
       At Downpatrick in Ireland, the birthday of St. Patrick, bishop and confessor, who was the first to preach Christ in that country, and who became illustrious by great miracles and virtues.
Apostle of Ireland, born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, in the year 387; died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland, 17 March, 461.

461 ST PATRICK, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGU, APOSTLE OF IRELAND
“IF”, says Alban Butler, “the virtue of children reflects an honour on their parents, much more justly is the name of St Patrick rendered illustrious by the lights of sanctity with which the Church of Ireland shone during many ages, and by the colonies of saints with which it peopled many foreign countries.” The field of his labours, he adds, was the remote corner of the then known world, and he himself was born upon its confines. Whether his birthplace, the village of “Bannavem Taberniae”, was near Dumbarton on the Clyde, or in Cumberland to the south of Hadrian’s Wall, or at the mouth of the Severn or elsewhere is of no great moment. We may infer from what he says of himself that he was of Romano­-British origin. His father Calpurnius was a deacon and a municipal official, his grandfather a priest, for in those days no strict law of celibacy had yet been imposed on the Western clergy. The saint’s full name in the Roman style was not im­probably Patricius Magonus Sucatus. He tells us that when he was sixteen he “knew not the true God”, meaning probably no more than that he lived thought­lessly, like those around him, not heeding much the warnings of the clergy “who used to admonish us for our salvation”. We cannot be far wrong in supposing that he was born about 389 and that about 403 he with many others was carried off by raiders to become a slave among the still pagan inhabitants of Ireland. There for six years he served his master, and amid the bodily hardships of this bondage his soul grew marvellously in holiness. It is the generally accepted tradition that these years were spent near Ballymena in Antrim upon the slopes of the mountain now called Slemish, but according to another view the place of his captivity, near the forest of Fochlad (or Foclut), was on the coast of Mayo. If this be true, then Crochan Aigli (Croagh Patrick), which was the scene at a later date of his prolonged fast, was also the mountain upon which in his youth he had lived alone with God tending his master’s herds. Wherever it may have been, he tells us himself how “constantly I used to pray in the daytime. Love of God and His fear increased more and more, and my faith grew and my spirit was stirred up, so that in a single day I said as many as a hundred prayers and at night nearly as many, so that I used to stay even in the woods and on the mountain [to this end]. And before the dawn I used to be aroused to prayer, in snow and frost and rain, nor was there any tepidity in me such as now I feel, because then the spirit was fervent within.”

After six years he heard a voice in his sleep warning him to be ready for a brave effort which would bring him back to freedom in the land of his birth. Accord­ingly he ran away from his master and travelled 200 miles to the ship of whose approaching departure he had had some strange intimation. His request for free passage was refused at first, but, in answer to his silent prayer to God, the sailors called him back, and with them he made an adventurous journey. They were three days at sea, and when they reached land it was only to travel in company for a month through some uninhabited tract of country until all their provisions gave out. It is St Patrick himself who narrates how hunger over came them. “And one day the shipmaster began to say to me, ‘How is this, 0 Christian, thou sayest that thy God is great and almighty wherefore then canst thou not pray for us, for we are in danger of starvation? Hardly shall we ever see a human being again.’ Then said I plainly to them, ‘Turn in good faith and with all your heart to the Lord my God, to whom nothing is impossible, that this day He may send you food in your journey, until ye be satisfied, for he has abundance everywhere! And, by the help of God, so it came to pass. Lo, a herd of swine appeared in the way before our eyes, and they killed many of them, and in that place they remained two nights and they were well refreshed and their dogs were sated, for many of them had fainted and were left half dead by the way. And after this they rendered hearty thanks to God, and I became honourable in their eyes; and from that day they had food in abundance, Moreover, they found wild honey, and gave me a piece of it. But one of them said, ‘This is an idol-offering’. Thanks be to God, I tasted none of it.”

At length they reached human habitations—probably in Gaul—but the fugitive was safe, and thus eventually Patrick, at the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, was restored to his kinsfolk. They welcomed him warmly and besought him not to depart from them again, but after a while, in the watches of the night, fresh visions came to him, and he heard “the voices of those who dwelt beside the wood of Foclut which is nigh to the western sea, and thus they cried, as if with one mouth; ‘We beseech thee, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more.’”

“Thanks be to God “, he adds “that after many years the Lord granted to them according to their cry.”

With regard to the order of events which followed there is no certainty. St Patrick could hardly have set out upon such an undertaking as the conversion of Ireland without study and preparation, without priestly orders, without some sort of commission from ecclesiastical authority. It seems therefore beyond dispute, and it is quite in agreement with the statements of the saint’s earliest biographers, that he spent several years in France before he made any attempt to take up his work in Ireland. The evidence for a considerable sojourn on the island of Lérins (off Cannes) is strong, and so also is that which represents him as being in personal contact with Bishop St Germanus, at Auxerre. Some have maintained that he journeyed to Rome at this period and was despatched on his special mission to the Irish by Pope St Celestine I. Since the publication of Professor Bury’s Life of St Patrick the view has gained favour that he was three years at Lérins, from 412 to 415, that he then spent some fifteen years at Auxerre, during which time he received holy orders, that meanwhile Pope Celestine had sent Palladius to Ireland, who after less than a twelvemonth died among the Picts in North Britain, and that then, in 432, St Germanus consecrated Patrick bishop to replace Palladius and carry on his work of evangelization, which as yet was hardly begun.

To trace in detail the course of-the saint’s heroic labours in the land of his former captivity is impossible, left as we are to the confused, legendary and sometimes contradictory data - supplied by his later biographers. Tradition declares that his first effort was made in the north beside that Slemish where, according to Muirchu, he had pastured the cattle and prayed to God as a slave. We may or may not accept the story that, apprised of the coming of his former bondsman, the master who had owned him elected to set fire to his own house and perish in the flames. But it seems probable that there is an historical basis for a preliminary stay of St Patrick in Ulster, whence after the foundation of Saul he embarked with characteristic energy on his attempt to gain the favour of the High-King Laoghaire, who held his court at Tara in Meath. There is doubtless much that is purely mythical in the legend of the encounter of Patrick with the magicians or Druids, but it is clear that something momentous was decided on that occasion, and that the saint, either by force of character or by the miracles he wrought, gained a victory over his pagan opponents which secured a certain amount of toleration for the preaching of Christianity. The text of the Senchus Mor (the old Irish code of laws), though in its existing form much later than St Patrick’s time, makes definite reference to some under­standing arrived at Tara, and associates the saint and his disciple St Benen (Benignus) with the work of its composition. We are there told how “Patrick requested the men of Erin to come to one place to hold a conference with him. When they came to the conference the gospel of Christ was preached to them all and when the men of Erin heard of the killing of the living and the resuscitation of the dead, and all the power of Patrick since his arrival in Erin and when they saw Laoghaire with his druids overcome by the great signs and miracles wrought in the presence of the men of Erin, they bowed down in obedience to the will of God and Patrick.”

Although King Laoghaire seems not to have become a Christian himself, certain members of his family did, and from that time the work of the great apostle, though carried on amid manifold hardships and often at the risk of his life owing to the lawless violence of those whom he thwarted or rebuked, was openly favoured by many powerful chieftains. The druids, as the most interested representatives of paganism, were his bitter opponents. A strange prognostic is preserved to us by Muirchu which was alleged to have been current amongst them even before the preaching of the gospel began. “Adze-head [this was a reference to the form of the tonsure] will come, with his crook-headed staff, and his house [chasuble, casula = a little house] holed for his head. He will chant impiety from his table in the east of his house. All his household shall answer, Amen, Amen.” And they added, “When, therefore, all these things come to pass, our kingdom, which is a heathen one, will not stand.” How full of peril the mission was we learn from the incident of Odhran, St Patrick’s charioteer, who by some presentiment asked to take the chief seat while Patrick himself drove. Odhran was killed by a spear-thrust intended for his master, while the saint himself escaped. But the work of the evangelization of Ireland went steadily on, despite opposition. Proceeding northwards from Tara, Patrick overthrew the idol of Crom Cruach in Leitrim, and built a Christian church in the place where it had stood. Thence he passed to Connaught, and amongst his other doings there Tirechan has preserved the story of the conversion of Ethne and Fedelm, the two daughters of King Laoghaire, though the incident of the shamrock, used as an illustration of the Trinity in their instruction, is an accretion of much later date. But the whole history of his preaching in Ulster again, as well as in Leinster and Munster, cannot be told here.

When Patrick had gathered many disciples round him, such, for example, as Benignus, who was destined to be his successor, the work of evangelization was well under way. He maintained his contacts abroad, and it has been suggested that the “approval” of which we read was a formal communication from Pope St Leo the Great. In 444, according to the Annals of Ulster, the cathedral church of Armagh, the primatial see of Ireland, was founded, and no long time probably elapsed before it became a centre of education as well as administration. There is good reason to believe that St Patrick held a synod—no doubt at Armagh, though this is not expressly mentioned—and although, again, there may be interpolations, many of the decrees then enacted are still preserved to us as they were originally framed. The names of Auxilius and Iserninus, the southern bishops, which are attached to his Collectio Canonum Hibernensis, support the presumption of authen­ticity. It is likely that the synod was held towards the close of Patrick’s days, and he must have been by that time a man in broken health, for the physical strain of his austerities and endless journeys cannot, apart from some miraculous intervention of Providence, have failed to produce its effect. Nevertheless the story of his forty days’ fast upon Croagh Patrick and of the privileges he then extorted from the divine clemency by his importunity in prayer must be connected with the end of his life. As Tirechan briefly tells us “Patrick went forth to the summit of Mount Aigli, and he remained there for 40 days and 40 nights, and the birds were a trouble to him, and he could not see the face of the heavens, the earth or the sea on account of them; for God told all the saints of Erin, past, present and future, to come to the mountain summit—that mountain which overlooks all others, and is higher than all the mountains of the West—to bless the tribes of Erin, so that Patrick might see [by anticipation] the fruit of his labours, for all the choir of the saints of Erin came to visit him there, who was the father of them all.”

The British chronicler Nennius gives a similar account, but adds that “from this hill Patrick blessed the people of Ireland, and his object in climbing to its summit was that he might pray for them and see the fruit of all his labours.  Afterwards he went to his reward in a good old age, where now he rejoices for ever and ever. Amen.” It seems certain that Patrick died and was buried, in or about the year 461, at Saul on Strangford Lough, where he had built his first church. That he spent his last days as abbot of Glastonbury is quite untrue.

It need hardly be said that in all the ancient lives of St Patrick the marvellous is continuously present and often in a very extravagant form. If we were dependent for our knowledge of him upon such material as is supplied in the Vita Tripartita we should understand little of his true character. Too many of the wonder-workers who are portrayed for us by Celtic hagiographers remain featureless, simply from the profusion of incredible marvels which reduces all to a dead level of unreality. Fortunately in the case of the apostle of Ireland we have a slender collection of his own writings, and these show us the man himself as he was and felt and acted. It is only by a study of the “Confession”, the Lorica and the Coroticus letter, that we come to understand the deep human feeling and the still more intense love of God which were the secret of the extraordinary impression he produced upon those with whom he came into contact. If he had not possessed a strongly affectionate nature which clung to his own kith and kin, he would not have referred so many times to the pang it had cost him to leave them, turning a deaf ear to their efforts to detain him. He was deeply sensitive. If he had not been that, he could never have laid so much stress upon his disinterestedness. The suggestion that he was seeking profit for himself in the mission he had undertaken stung him almost beyond endurance. All that was most human, and at the same time most divine, in Patrick comes out in such a passage as the following, from his “Confession.”

And many gifts were proffered me, with weeping and with tears. And I displeased them, and also, against my wish, not a few of my elders; but, God being my guide, in no way did I consent or yield to them. It was not any grace to me, but God who conquereth in me, and He resisted them all, so that I came to the heathens of Ireland to preach the gospel and to bear insults from unbelievers so as to hear the reproach of my going abroad and to endure many persecutions even unto bonds, the while that I was surrendering my liberty as a man of free condition for the profit of others. And if I should, be found worthy, I am ready to give even my life for His name’s sake unfalteringly and very gladly, and there I desire to spend it until I die, if only our Lord should grant it to me.

On the other hand, the marvel of the wondrous harvest which God had allowed him to reap was always before his eyes and filled him with gratitude. It is un­questionably true that, in his apostolate of less than thirty years, Patrick had con­verted Ireland as a whole to Christianity. This is not a mere surmise based upon the unmeasured encomiums of his enthusiastic biographers. It is the saint himself who alludes more than once to the “multitudes” (innumeros), the “so many thousands”, whom he had baptized and confirmed. And again he says “Where­fore then in Ireland they who never had the knowledge of God, but until now only worshipped idols and abominations—how has there been lately prepared a people of the Lord, and they are called children of God? Sons and daughters of Scottic chieftains are seen to become monks and virgins of Christ.” Paganism and rapine and vice had not entirely loosed their hold. The saint in this same “Confession”, which was written in his later days, still declares “Daily I expect either a violent death or to be robbed and reduced to slavery or the occurrence of some such calamity.” But he adds “I have cast myself into the hands of Almighty God, for He rules everything; as the Prophet saith, ‘Cast thy care upon the Lord, and He Himself will sustain thee.’” This was apparently the secret of the inexhaust­ible courage and determination manifested by St Patrick throughout his whole career.

The literature of the subject is naturally vast. The primary source of any accurate knowledge must always be St Patrick’s own writings, referred to above. The most valuable text of the “Confession” (though incomplete) is that contained in the “Book of Armagh.” This manuscript, written in the first years of the ninth century, contains also the memoirs of St Patrick compiled by Muirchu and Tirechan, as well as other documents. The whole was very carefully edited by Dr John Gwynn for the Royal Irish Academy in 1913. The documents bearing on St Patrick had previously been published by Fr Edmund Hogan in the Analecta Bollandiana, vols. i and ii (1882—1883), and elsewhere. The Vita Tripartita is most readily accessible in the edition prepared for the Rolls Series by Whitley Stokes (1887). It is there supplemented by the Muirchu and Tirechan collections and other documents, notably by the hymns of Secundinus (Sechnall) and Fiacc, which last are also critically edited in the Irish Liber Hymnorum published by the Henry Bradshaw Society. Other later lives of St Patrick were printed for the first time by Colgan in his Trias Thaumaturga (1647). A very convenient little book containing in English the most material documents connected with St Patrick’s life is that of Dr N. White, St Patrick, his Writings and Life (1920). Modern biographies of the saint are very numerous, the most noteworthy being those of J. B. Bury (1905) and the-still more comprehensive volume of Abp J. Healy (1905), which last includes a text and translation of the documents of which St Patrick himself is the author. Prof. Bury’s work is particularly valuable as exploding from an agnostic standpoint the theory of Prof. Zimmer that Palladius and Patrick were one and the same person and that the story of Patrick’s life is a myth. But the identification of Palladius and Patrick has been revived in a modified form by T. F. O’Rahilly, The Two Patricks (1942). See also biographies by H. Concannon (1931), K. Muller (Der hl. Patrick, 1931), E. MacNeill (1934) J. Ryan, Irish Monasticism (1931), pp. 59—96 and passim Codices Patriciani Latini (1942), a descriptive catalogue ed. by L. Bieler, with notes thereon by the editor in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxiii (1945), pp. 242—256 Dr Bieler’s Life and Legend of St Patrick (1949), with Fr P. Grosjean’s notes on the same in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxii (1944), pp. 42—73 and for Patrick’s birthplace, his stay in Gaul and other matters, Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxiii (1945), pp. 65—1,9. Dr. Bieler has edited the texts, and see his Works of St. Patrick (1953) in English.

Along with St. Nicholas and St. Valentine, the secular world shares our love of these saints. This is also a day when everyone's Irish.   There are many legends and stories of St. Patrick, but this is his story.

Patrick was born around 385 in Scotland, probably Kilpatrick. His parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Romans living in Britian in charge of the colonies.  As a boy of fourteen or so, he was captured during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him.
During his captivity, he turned to God in prayer. He wrote
"The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was rosed, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same."
 "I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain."

Patrick's captivity lasted until he was twenty, when he escaped after having a dream from God in which he was told to leave Ireland by going to the coast. There he found some sailors who took him back to Britian, where he reunited with his family.
He had another dream in which the people of Ireland were calling out to him "We beg you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more."  He began his studies for the priesthood. He was ordained by St. Germanus, the Bishop of Auxerre, whom he had studied under for years.
Later, Patrick was ordained a bishop, and was sent to take the Gospel to Ireland. He arrived in Ireland March 25, 433, at Slane. One legend says that he met a chieftain of one of the tribes, who tried to kill Patrick. Patrick converted Dichu (the chieftain) after he was unable to move his arm until he became friendly to Patrick.  Patrick began preaching the Gospel throughout Ireland, converting many. He and his disciples preached and converted thousands and began building churches all over the country. Kings, their families, and entire kingdoms converted to Christianity when hearing Patrick's message.

Patrick by now had many disciples, among them Beningnus, Auxilius, Iserninus, and Fiaac, (all later canonized as well).  Patrick preached and converted all of Ireland for 40 years. He worked many miracles and wrote of his love for God in Confessions. After years of living in poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died March 17, 461.  He died at Saul, where he had built the first church.
Why a shamrock?

Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, and has been associated with him and the Irish since that time.
In His Footsteps:  Patrick was a humble, pious, gentle man, whose love and total devotion to and trust in God should be a shining example to each of us. He feared nothing, not even death, so complete was his trust in God, and of the importance of his mission.
Patrick of Ireland B (RM)   Born in Scotland, c. 385-390; died in Ireland c. 461.
"I bind to myself today  The strong virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with his Baptism, The virtue of His Crucifixion with his burial, The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,

The virtue of His coming on the Judgment Day. I bind to myself today The virtue of the love of the seraphim, In the obedience of angels, In the hope of resurrection unto reward, In prayers of Patriarchs, In predictions of Prophets, In preaching of Apostles, In faith of Confessors, In purity of holy Virgins, In deeds of righteous men.  I bind to myself today The power of Heaven, The light of the sun,The brightness of the moon, The splendor of fire, The flashing of lightning, The swiftness of wind,  The depth of the sea, The stability of the earth, The compactness of rocks.I bind to myself today
God's power to guide me, God's might to uphold me, God's wisdom to teach me, God's eye to watch over me, God's ear to hear me, God's word to give me speech, God's hand to guide me, God's way to lie before me, God's shield to shelter me, God's host to secure me, Against the snares of demons, Against the seductions of vices, Against the lusts of nature, Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near, Whether few or many.  I invoke today all these virtues Against every hostile, merciless power Which may assail my body and my soul, Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism, Against the false laws of heresy, Against the deceits of idolatry, Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man and woman.
Christ, protect me today Against poison, Against burning, Against drowning, Against death-wound, That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ be with me, Christ be before me, Christ behind me, Christ be with me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me,  Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left, Christ be in the fort, Christ be in the chariot, Christ be in the ship, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
I bind to myself today The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity. I believe the Trinity in the Unity, The Creator of the Universe. Amen." --Saint Patrick's Breastplate or Faeth Fiadha (deer's cry).

Note that there are several different versions of this prayer, which is alleged to be the invocation that led Patrick and his party safely to the confrontation with the Druids at Tara. It's Irish name, the Deer's Cry, is based on the legend that Patrick and his eight companions were miraculously turned into deer to be able to pass unnoticed by the king's guards sent to intercept them.
"I was like a stone lying in the deep mire; and He that is mighty came, and in His mercy lifted me up, and verily raised me aloft and placed me on the top of the wall."
--Saint Patrick The historical Patrick is much more attractive than the Patrick of legend. It is unclear exactly where Patricius Magonus Sucatus (Patrick) was born--somewhere in the west between the mouth of the Severn and the Clyde--but this most popular Irish saint was probably born in Scotland of British origin, perhaps in a village called Bannavem Taberniae. (Other possibilities are in Gaul or at Kilpatrick near Dumbarton, Scotland.) His father, Calpurnius, was a deacon and a civil official, a town councillor, and his grandfather was a priest.
About 405, when Patrick was in his teens (14-16), he was captured by Irish raiders and became a slave in Ireland. There in Ballymena (or Slemish) in Antrim (or Mayo), Patrick first learned to pray intensely while tending his master's sheep in contrast with his early years in Britain when he "knew not the true God" and did not heed clerical "admonitions for our salvation." After six years, he was told in a dream that he should be ready for a courageous effort that would take him back to his homeland.
He ran away from his owner and travelled 200 miles to the coast. His initial request for free passage on a ship was turned down, but he prayed, and the sailors called him back. The ship on which he escaped was taking dogs to Gaul (France). At some point he returned to his family in Britain, then seems to have studied at the monastery of Lérins on the Côte d'Azur from 412 to 415.

He received some kind of training for the priesthood in either Britain or Gaul, possibly in Auxerre, including study of the Latin Bible, but his learning was not of a high standard, and he was to regret this always. He spent the next 15 years at Auxerre were he became a disciple of Saint Germanus of Auxerre and was possibly ordained about 417.

The cultus of Patrick began in France, long before Sucat received the noble title of Patricius, which was immediately before his departure for Ireland about 431. The center of this cultus is a few miles west of Tours, on the Loire, around the town of St- Patrice, which is named after him. The strong, persistent legend is that Patrick not only spent the twenty years after his escape from slavery there, but that it was his home. The local people firmly believe that Patrick was the nephew of Saint Martin of Tours and that he became a monk in his uncle's great Marmoutier Abbey.

Patrick's cultus there reverts to the legend of Les Fleurs de St- Patrice which relates that Patrick was sent from the abbey to preach the Gospel in the area of Bréhémont-sur-Loire. He went fishing one day and had a tremendous catch. The local fishermen were upset and forced him to flee. He reached a shelter on the north bank where he slept under a blackthorn bush. When he awoke the bush was covered with flowers. Because this was Christmas day, the incident was considered a miracle, which recurred each Christmas until the bush was destroyed in World War I. The phenomenon was evaluated many times and verified by various observers, including official organizations. His is now the patron of the fishermen on the Loire and, according to a modern French scholar, the patron of almost every other occupation in the neighborhood. There is a grotto dedicated to him at Marmoutier, which contains a stone bed, alleged to have been his.

It is said that in visions he heard voices in the wood of Focault or that he dreamed of Ireland and determined to return to the land of his slavery as a missionary. In that dream or vision he heard a cry from many people together "come back and walk once more among us," and he read a writing in which this cry was named 'the voice of the Irish.' (When Pope John Paul II went to Ireland in 1979, among his first words were that he, too, had heard the "voice of the Irish.")
In his Confessio Patrick writes: "It was not my grace, but God who overcometh in me, so that I came to the heathen Irish to preach the Gospel . . . to a people newly come to belief which the Lord took from the ends of the earth." Saint Germanus consecrated him bishop about 432, and sent him to Ireland to succeed Saint Palladius, the first bishop, who had died earlier that year. There was some opposition to Patrick's appointment, probably from Britain, but Patrick made his way to Ireland about 435.
He set up his see at Armagh and organized the church into territorial sees, as elsewhere in the West and East. While Patrick encouraged the Irish to become monks and nuns, it is not certain that he was a monk himself; it is even less likely that in his time the monastery became the principal unit of the Irish Church, although it was in later periods. The choice of Armagh may have been determined by the presence of a powerful king. There Patrick had a school and presumably a small familia in residence; from this base he made his missionary journeys. There seems to have been little contact with the Palladian Christianity of the southeast.
There is no reliable account of his work in Ireland, where he had been a captive. Legends include the stories that he drove snakes from Ireland, and that he described the Trinity by referring to the shamrock, and that he singlehandedly--an impossible task--converted Ireland. Nevertheless, Saint Patrick established the Catholic Church throughout Ireland on lasting foundations: he travelled throughout the country preaching, teaching, building churches, opening schools and monasteries, converting chiefs and bards, and everywhere supporting his preaching with miracles.
At Tara in Meath he is said to have confronted King Laoghaire on Easter Eve with the Christian Gospel, kindled the light of the paschal fire on the hill of Slane (the fire of Christ never to be extinguished in Ireland), confounded the Druids into silence, and gained a hearing for himself as a man of power. He converted the king's daughters (a tale I've recounted under the entry for Saints Ethenea and Fidelmia. He threw down the idol of Crom Cruach in Leitrim. Patrick wrote that he daily expected to be violently killed or enslaved again.
He gathered many followers, including Saint Benignus, who would become his successor. That was one of his chief concerns, as it always is for the missionary Church: the raising up of native clergy.
He wrote:
 "It was most needful that we should spread our nets, so that a great multitude and a throng should be taken for God. . . . Most needful that everywhere there should be clergy to baptize and exhort a people poor and needy, as the Lord in the Gospel warns and teaches, saying: Go ye therefore now, and teach all nations. And again: Go ye therefore into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature. And again: This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations."
In his writings and preaching, Patrick revealed a scale of values.

He was chiefly concerned with abolishing paganism, idolatry, and sun-worship. He made no distinction of classes in his preaching and was himself ready for imprisonment or death for following Christ. In his use of Scripture and eschatological expectations, he was typical of the 5th-century bishop.
One of the traits which he retained as an old man was a consciousness of his being an unlearned exile and former slave and fugitive, who learned to trust God completely.

There was some contact with the pope. He visited Rome in 442 and 444. As the first real organizer of the Irish Church, Patrick is called the Apostle of Ireland. According to the Annals of Ulster, the Cathedral Church of Armagh was founded in 444, and the see became a center of education and administration. Patrick organized the Church into territorial sees, raised the standard of scholarship (encouraging the teaching of Latin), and worked to bring Ireland into a closer relationship with the Western Church.
His writings show what solid doctrine he must have taught his listeners. His Confessio (his autobiography, perhaps written as an apology against his detractors), the Lorica (or Breastplate), and the "Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus," protesting British slave trading and the slaughter of a group of Irish Christians by Coroticus's raiding Christian Welshmen, are the first surely identified literature of the British or Celtic Church.
What stands out in his writings is Patrick's sense of being called by God to the work he had undertaken, and his determination and modesty in carrying it out: "I, Patrick, a sinner, am the most ignorant and of least account among the faithful, despised by many. . . . I owe it to God's grace that so many people should through me be born again to him."
Towards the end of his life, Patrick made that 'retreat' of forty days on Cruachan Aigli in Mayo from which the age-long Croagh Patrick pilgrimage derives. Patrick may have died at Saul on Strangford Lough, Downpatrick, where he had built his first church. Glastonbury claims his alleged relics. The National Museum at Dublin has his bell and tooth, presumably from the shrine at Downpatrick, where he was originally entombed with Saints Brigid and Columba.
The high veneration in which the Irish hold Patrick is evidenced by the common salutation, "May God, Mary, and Patrick bless you." His name occurs widely in prayers and blessings throughout Ireland. Among the oldest devotions of Ireland is the prayer used by travellers invoking Patrick's protection, An Mhairbhne Phaidriac or The Elegy of Patrick. He is alleged to have promised prosperity to those who seek his intercession on his feast day, which marks the end of winter. A particularly lovely legend is that the Peace of Christ will reign over all Ireland when the Palm and the Shamrock meet, which means when St. Patrick's Day fall on Passion Sunday.
Most unusual is Well of Saint Patrick at Orvieto, Italy, which was built at the order of Pope Clement VII in 1537 to provide water for the city during its periodic sieges. The connection with Saint Patrick comes from the fact that the project was completed and dedicated by a member of the Sangallo family, a name derived from the Irish Saint Gall. A common Italian proverb refers to this exceptionally deep (248 steps to the surface) well: liberal spenders are said to have pockets as deep as the Well of Patrick (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Bieler, Bury, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer, MacNeill, Montague, White).
We are told that often Patrick baptized hundreds on a single day. He would come to a place, a crowd would gather, and when he told them about the true God, the people would cry out from all sides that they wanted to become Christians. Then they would move to the nearest water to be baptized.  On such a day Aengus, a prince of Munster, was baptized. When Patrick had finished preaching, Aengus was longing with all his heart to become a Christian. The crowd surrounded the two because Aengus was such an important person. Patrick got out his book and began to look for the place of the baptismal rite but his crozier got in the way.
As you know, the bishop's crozier often has a spike at the bottom end, probably to allow the bishop to set it into the ground to free his hands. So, when Patrick fumbled searching for the right spot in the book so that he could baptize Aengus, he absent-mindedly stuck his crosier into the ground just beside him--and accidentally through the foot of poor Aengus!
Patrick, concentrating on the sacrament, never noticed what he had done and proceeded with the baptism. The prince never cried out, nor moaned; he simply went very white. Patrick poured water over his bowed head at the simple words of the rite. Then it was completed. Aengus was a Christian. Patrick turned to take up his crozier and was horrified to find that he had driven it through the prince's foot!
"But why didn't you say something? This is terrible. Your foot is bleeding and you'll be lame. . . ." Poor Patrick was very unhappy to have hurt another.
Then Aengus said in a low voice that he thought having a spike driven through his foot was part of the ceremony. He added something that must have brought joy to the whole court of heaven and blessings on Ireland:
"Christ," he said slowly, "shed His blood for me, and I am glad to suffer a little pain at baptism to be like Our Lord" (Curtayne).

In art, Saint Patrick is represented as a bishop driving snakes before him or trampling upon them. At times he may be shown (1) preaching with a serpent around the foot of his pastoral staff; (2) holding a shamrock; (3) with a fire before him; or (4) with a pen and book, devils at his feet, and seraphim above him (Roeder, White). Click here to view an anonymous American icon. He is patron of Nigeria (which was evangelized primarily by Irish clergy) and of Ireland and especially venerated at Lérins (Roeder, White).

St. Patrick (415?-493?) Legends about Patrick abound; but truth is best served by our seeing two solid qualities in him: He was humble and he was courageous. The determination to accept suffering and success with equal indifference guided the life of God’s instrument for winning most of Ireland for Christ.
Details of his life are uncertain. Current research places his dates of birth and death a little later than earlier accounts. Patrick may have been born in Dunbarton, Scotland, Cumberland, England, or in northern Wales. He called himself both a Roman and a Briton. At 16, he and a large number of his father’s slaves and vassals were captured by Irish raiders and sold as slaves in Ireland. Forced to work as a shepherd, he suffered greatly from hunger and cold.
After six years, Patrick escaped, probably to France, and later returned to Britain at the age of 22. His captivity had meant spiritual conversion. He may have studied at Lerins, off the French coast; he spent years at Auxerre, France, and was consecrated bishop at the age of 43. His great desire was to proclaim the Good News to the Irish.
In a dream vision it seemed “all the children of Ireland from their mothers’ wombs were stretching out their hands” to him. He understood the vision to be a call to do mission work in pagan Ireland. Despite opposition from those who felt his education had been defective, he was sent to carry out the task. He went to the west and north, where the faith had never been preached, obtained the protection of local kings and made numerous converts.
Because of the island’s pagan background, Patrick was emphatic in encouraging widows to remain chaste and young women to consecrate their virginity to Christ. He ordained many priests, divided the country into dioceses, held Church councils, founded several monasteries and continually urged his people to greater holiness in Christ.
He suffered much opposition from pagan druids, and was criticized in both England and Ireland for the way he conducted his mission.
In a relatively short time the island had experienced deeply the Christian spirit, and was prepared to send out missionaries whose efforts were greatly responsible for Christianizing Europe.
Patrick was a man of action, with little inclination toward learning. He had a rocklike belief in his vocation, in the cause he had espoused.

One of the few certainly authentic writings is his Confessio, above all an act of homage to God for having called Patrick, unworthy sinner, to the apostolate.
There is hope rather than irony in the fact that his burial place is said to be in strife-torn Ulster, in County Down.
Comment:  What distinguishes Patrick is the durability of his efforts. When one considers the state of Ireland when he began his mission work, the vast extent of his labors (all of Ireland) and how the seeds he planted continued to grow and flourish, one can only admire the kind of man Patrick must have been. The holiness of a person is known only by the fruits of his or her work.
Quote:  “Christ shield me this day: Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every person who thinks of me, Christ in the eye that sees me, Christ in the ear that hears me” (from “The Breastplate of St. Patrick”).

Saint Patrick, the Enlightener of Ireland was born around 385, the son of Calpurnius, a Roman decurion (an official responsible for collecting taxes). He lived in the village of Bannavem Taberniae, which may have been located at the mouth of the Severn River in Wales. The district was raided by pirates when Patrick was sixteen, and he was one of those taken captive. He was brought to Ireland and sold as a slave, and was put to work as a herder of swine on a mountain identified with Slemish in Co. Antrim. During his period of slavery, Patrick acquired a proficiency in the Irish language which was very useful to him in his later mission.

He prayed during his solitude on the mountain, and lived this way for six years. He had two visions. The first told him he would return to his home. The second told him his ship was ready. Setting off on foot, Patrick walked two hundred miles to the coast. There he succeeded in boarding a ship, and returned to his parents in Britain.

Some time later, he went to Gaul and studied for the priesthood at Auxerre under St Germanus (July 31). Eventually, he was consecrated as a bishop, and was entrusted with the mission to Ireland, succeeding St Palladius (July 7). St Palladius did not achieve much success in Ireland. After about a year he went to Scotland, where he died in 432.

Patrick had a dream in which an angel came to him bearing many letters. Selecting one inscribed "The Voice of the Irish," he heard the Irish entreating him to come back to them.

Although St Patrick achieved remarkable results in spreading the Gospel, he was not the first or only missionary in Ireland. He arrived around 432 (though this date is disputed), about a year after St Palladius began his mission to Ireland. There were also other missionaries who were active on the southeast coast, but it was St Patrick who had the greatest influence and success in preaching the Gospel of Christ. Therefore, he is known as "The Enlightener of Ireland."

His autobiographical Confession tells of the many trials and disappointments he endured. Patrick had once confided to a friend that he was troubled by a certain sin he had committed before he was fifteen years old. The friend assured him of God's mercy, and even supported Patrick's nomination as bishop. Later, he turned against him and revealed what Patrick had told him in an attempt to prevent his consecration. Many years later, Patrick still grieved for his dear friend who had publicly shamed him.

St Patrick founded many churches and monasteries across Ireland, but the conversion of the Irish people was no easy task. There was much hostility, and he was assaulted several times. He faced danger, and insults, and he was reproached for being a foreigner and a former slave. There was also a very real possibility that the pagans would try to kill him. Despite many obstacles, he remained faithful to his calling, and he baptized many people into Christ.

The saint's Epistle to Coroticus is also an authentic work. In it he denounces the attack of Coroticus' men on one of his congregations. The Breastplate (Lorica) is also attributed to St Patrick. In his writings, we can see St Patrick's awareness that he had been called by God, as well as his determination and modesty in undertaking his missionary work. He refers to himself as "a sinner," "the most ignorant and of least account," and as someone who was "despised by many." He ascribes his success to God, rather than to his own talents: "I owe it to God's grace that through me so many people should be born again to Him."

By the time he established his episcopal See in Armargh in 444, St Patrick had other bishops to assist him, many native priests and deacons, and he encouraged the growth of monasticism.

St Patrick is often depicted holding a shamrock, or with snakes fleeing from him. He used the shamrock to illustrate the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Its three leaves growing out of a single stem helped him to explain the concept of one God in three Persons. Many people now regard the story of St Patrick driving all the snakes out of Ireland as having no historical basis.

St Patrick died on March 17, 461 (some say 492). There are various accounts of his last days, but they are mostly legendary. Muirchu says that no one knows the place where St Patrick is buried. St Columba of Iona (June 9) says that the Holy Spirit revealed to him that Patrick was buried at Saul, the site of his first church. A granite slab was placed at his traditional grave site in Downpatrick in 1899.
580 Agricola of Châlon attended several Church councils and enlarged and beautified many of the churches of his diocese B (RM) (also known as Agèrle, Arègle)
 Cabillóne, in Gálliis, sancti Agrícolæ Epíscopi.
        At Chalons in France, St. Agricola, bishop.
580  ST AGRIGOLA, BISHOP OF CHALON-SUR-SAONE
ST Agricola, or Arègle, as he is popularly called in France, was a contemporary of St Gregory of Tours, who knew him well and was greatly impressed with the simplicity of his life.
The saint came of a Gallo-Roman family of senatorial rank, but it seems to have been the father of another Agricola who adopted Venantius Fortunatus and educated him with his own son.
   In the year 532, during the reign of the sons of Clovis, Agricola was raised to the bishopric of Chalon-sur-Saone. His new position, which obliged him to keep up an appearance of state and to exercise hospitality, made no change in the simplicity and penitential abstinence of his daily life. St Gregory says that he never dined, and that he never broke his fast until the evening, when he partook of a light meal standing. Whole-heartedly devoted to the spiritual welfare of his people, St Agricola spent much time and money upon the enlargement and adornment of the churches of his diocese. His interests, however, were not entirely restricted to his own see, and he was present at many councils. After governing his diocese for forty-eight years and translating to his own cathedral city the remains of the recluse St Didier, St Agricola died at the age of eighty-three, and was buried in the church of St Marcellus, where his body was found three hundred years later. His relics are still preserved above the high altar.

St Gregory of Tours is the main authority (see Migne, FL., vol. lxxi, cc. 362 and 895), and cf. Duchesne, Fastes Épiscopaux, vol. ii, p. 193 P. Besnard, Les origines . . . do l’église chalonnaise (1922), pp. 62—65.

Born c. 497; died in Châlon, France, 580. In 532, Saint Agricola, son of a Gallo-Roman senator, was consecrated bishop of Châlon-sur-Saône. His friend, Saint Gregory of Tours, wrote that Agricola lived a simple, austere life devoted to promoting the spiritual good of his people, and in the 48 years of his episcopacy attended several Church councils and enlarged and beautified many of the churches of his diocese (Benedictines, Delaney).
659 St. Gertrude of Nivelles Benedictine abbess mystic gifted with visions
 Nivigéllæ, in Brabántia, sanctæ Gertrúdis Vírginis, quæ claríssimo genere orta, despíciens mundum et toto vitæ suæ cursu in ómnibus sanctitátis offíciis se exércens, Christum sponsum in cælis habére méruit.
        At Nivelle in Brabant, St. Gertrude, a virgin of noble birth.  Because she despised the world, and during her whole life practised all kinds of good works, she deserved to have Christ for her spouse in heaven.
Daughter of Blessed Pepin of Landen and Blessed Itta of Ida. Itta founded Nivelles Abbey and installed Gertrude as abbess in 639. Gertrude was a mystic, gifted with visions.  She befriended the Irish saints Foillian and Ultan. Gertrude is a patroness of travelers and gardeners.

659 ST GERTRUDE OF NIVELLES, VIRGIN
ST GERTRUDE, the younger daughter of Bd Pepin of Landen and of Bd Itta, Ida or Iduberga, was born at Landen in 626. She had a brother, Grimoald, who suc­ceeded his father, and a sister, St Begga, who married the son of St Arnulf of Metz.
Gertrude was brought up carefully by her parents, who fostered her naturally religious disposition. When she was about ten years old, her father gave a feast at which he entertained King Dagobert and the chief nobles of Austrasia. One of these lords asked the monarch to bestow the hand of Gertrude on his son, who was present. Dagobert, no doubt thinking to please the little girl, sent for her and, pointing to the handsome young man in his brave attire, asked the child if she would like him for a husband. To his surprise Gertrude answered that she would never take him or any earthly bridegroom, as she wished to have Jesus Christ as her only lord and master. No one seems to have thought of overruling the girl’s deter­mination, which was indeed applauded by the king and the assembly.

Upon being left a widow, Bd Itta consulted St Amand, Bishop of Maestricht, as to how she and her daughter could best serve God, and by his advice began to build a double monastery at Nivelles. Lest any attempt should be made to interfere with Ger­trude’s vocation, her mother herself cut off her hair, shaving her head to the shape of a monk’s tonsure. As soon as the new foundation was ready both mother and daughter entered it, but Itta insisted upon making Gertrude superior, while she herself served under her daughter, though assisting her from time to time with her advice. The young abbess proved herself fully equal to the position. She won the respect not only of her nuns but of the many pilgrims of distinction who visited the house. Amongst the latter were St Foillan and St Ultan on their way from Rome to Péronne, where their brother St Fursey was buried. St Gertrude gave them land at Fosses on which to build a monastery and a hospice. Foillan became its abbot, but Ultan and some others were retained at Nivelles (according to Irish writers) in order to instruct the community in psalmody.

Bd Itta died in 652, and St Gertrude, feeling the charge of so large an establish­ment, committed much of the external administration to others. This gave her more time for the study of the Holy Scriptures and enabled her to add to her mortifications. So severely did she treat her body that by the time she was thirty she was worn out by fasting and want of sleep, and felt compelled to resign in favour of her niece Wulfetrudis, whom she had trained, but who was only twenty years old. The saint now began to prepare for death by increasing her devotions and disci­plines. Her biographer relates that once, when she was praying in church, a globe as of fire appeared above her head and lit up the building for half an hour.

Holy though she was, when the time of her departure approached she was afraid because of her unworthiness, and sent to ask St Ultan at Fosses whether he had had any revelation with regard to her. The holy man sent back word that she would die the following day while Mass was being celebrated, but that she need have no fear, for St Patrick with many angels and saints was waiting to receive her soul. St Gertrude rejoiced at the message, and on March 17, while the priest was saying the prayers before the preface, she rendered up her soul to God. In compliance with her wish she was buried in her hair-shirt without shroud or winding-sheet, and her head was wrapped in a worn-out veil which had been discarded by a passing nun.

St Gertrude has always been regarded as a patroness of travellers, probably owing to her care for pilgrims and to a miraculous rescue at sea of some of her monks who invoked her name in great peril. Before starting on a journey it was once the custom to drink a stirrup-cup to her honour, and a special goblet, of old used for the purpose, is preserved at Nivelles with her relics.
She came to be regarded also as a patroness of souls who, on a three days’ journey to the next world before the particular judgement, were popularly supposed to lodge the first night with St Gertrude and the second night with St Michael.

The most constant emblem with which St Gertrude (who was widely invoked and a very popular saint in Belgium and the Netherlands for many centuries) is associated is a mouse. One or more mice are usually depicted climbing up her crozier or playing about her distaff. No really satisfactory explanation of this symbolism has ever been given, though many suggestions have been made—for example, that while Gertrude was spinning, the Devil in the form of a mouse used to gnaw her thread in order to provoke her to lose her temper. In any case she was specially invoked against mice and rats, and as late as 1822, when there was a plague of field-mice in the country districts of the Lower Rhine, a band of peasants brought an offering to a shrine of the saint at Cologne in the form of gold and silver mice. There may also have been some underlying transference to her of traits derived from the Freya or other pagan myths.
   St Gertrude is further invoked for good quarters on a journey and for gardens. Fine weather on her feast day is regarded as a favourable omen, and this day is treated in some districts as marking the beginning of the season of out-door garden work.

There is an early Latin Life of St Gertrude (which has been critically edited by B. Krusch in MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. ii, pp. 447—474), as well as a number of other documents of which details will be found in the BHL., nn. 3490—3504. See also Mabillon and the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum. A full account of the folk lore connected with St Gertrude of Nivelles is provided in Bächtold-Stäubli, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (1927), vol. iii, cc. 699—786, with a comprehensive bibliography and cf. Kunstle, Ikonographie der Heiligen, pp. 280—281. See also A, F. Stocq, Vie critique de ste Gertrude . . . (1031).

Gertrude of Nivelles, OSB Abbess (RM) Born at Landen in 626; died at Nivelles in 659. Saint Gertrude was the younger daughter of Blessed Pepin of Landen and Blessed Itta. Her sister Begga is also numbered among the saints.
At an early age she devoted herself to the religious life.
On the death of Pepin in 639 and on the advice of Saint Amand of Maastricht, Itta built a double monastery at Nivelles, where both mother and daughter retired. Gertrude was appointed abbess when she was judged old enough (about age 20). Although she was still very young, she discharged her responsibilities well with her mother's assistance. Gertrude was known for her hospitality pilgrims and her encouragement of and generous benefactions to the Irish missionary monks. She gave land to Saint Foillan, brother of Saint Fursey, on which he built the monastery of Fosses. She also helped the Irish Saint Ultan in his evangelizing efforts.

At age 30 (656), Gertrude resigned her office in favor of her niece, Saint Wilfetrudis, because she was weakened by her many austerities. She spent the rest of her days studying Scripture and doing penances. Gertrude is another of the medieval mystics who was gifted with visions, and like Saint Catherine of Siena died at the significant age of 33--the age of Our Lord at His death. The cultus of Saint Gertrude became widely spread in the Lowlands, neighboring countries, and England. A considerable body of folklore gathered around her name. Saint Gertrude is named in Saint Bede's martyrology (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer).

In art Gertrude is an abbess with mice (representing the souls in purgatory to whom she had a great devotion) running up her pastoral staff. Sometimes she is shown (1) holding a large mouse; (2) spinning or holding a distaff; or (3) with a cat near her (Roeder). As late as 1822, offerings of gold and silver mice were left at her shrine in Cologne (Farmer).

Saint Gertrude is the patron saint of gardeners because fine weather on her feast day meant it was time to begin spring planting. Her patronage of travellers comes from her hospitality toward them (Delaney). Pilgrims used to drink a stirrup-cup in her honor before setting out. As an extension, she was also invoked as a patroness of those who had recently died, who were popularly supposed to experience a three-day journey to the next world. It was supposed that they spent the first night under the care of Gertrude, and the second under Saint Michael the Archangel. She is invoked against rats and mice (Farmer).
760 St. Paul of Cyprus monk A martyr for the cause of venerating icons.  
 Constantinópoli sancti Pauli Mártyris, qui, sub Constantíno Coprónymo, cum sanctárum Imáginum cultum defénderet, igne combústus est.
        At Constantinople, St. Paul, martyr, who was burned alive by Constantine Copronymus, for defending the veneration of sacred images.
During the period in the eighth century when several Byzantine Emperors implemented iconoclastic policies, forbidding the revering of icons, Paul was arrested and brought before local officials on the charge of opposing the decree. When he refused to desecrate a crucifix, he was tortured and then burned to death.
760 ST PAUL OF CYPRUS
AMONG the victims of the persecution initiated by the Emperor Constantine Copronymus against those who venerated the sacred images, one of the most outstanding was a Cypriot called Paul, who was hailed before the governor of Cyprus, and given the alternative of trampling upon the crucifix or of suffering the torture of the rack which was standing beside him. Without a moment’s hesitation Paul cried out, “Far be it from me, Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son of God, to trample on thy divine image”, and stooping down he kissed the figure on the cross. The irate governor gave orders that he should be stripped and pressed between two boards. His body was then torn with iron combs and finally hung, head downwards, over a fire until it was consumed. The author of the Acts of St Stephen the Younger says that his example helped greatly to encourage the Constantinopolitan martyrs, and consequently some writers have thought that St Paul suffered in Constantinople, but the not very copious evidence shows that he almost certainly was martyred in the island of Cyprus.

See the Acta Sanctorum, March, vol. ii the account is based on the Greek Menaia. The entry in the Roman Martyrology, assigning this martyr to Constantinople, seems to have been due to a mistake of Baronius.
Paul of Cyprus M (RM) Died 777. Saint Paul was a monk of Cyprus, who, in the reign of the iconoclastic emperor Constantine Copronymus, refused to trample on a crucifix. He was brutally tortured, hung upside down, and burned to death slowly over a fire (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
1144 Blessed Stephen of Palestrina a monk of Clairvaux OSB Cist. B (PC)
Blessed Stephen was promoted to cardinal and consecrated to the see of Palestrina in 1141. Cistercian writers always call him either saint or blessed; however, his cultus has never been formally confirmed (Benedictines).
1483 Saint Macarius of Kalyazin repeatedly healed the paralyzed and the demon-possessed incorrupt relics
(In the world Matthew) was born in 1400 in the village of Gribkovo (Kozhino), near the city of Kashin, into the family of the boyar Basil Kozha. From youth he yearned for monasticism, but he married at the insistence of his parents.
After a year his parents died, and after three more years his wife Elena also reposed. Having nothing to bind him to his former life, Matthew became a monk at the Nikolaev Klobukov monastery. Desiring solitude, he left the city monastery with the abbot's blessing, and he found a suitable place between two lakes, eighteen versts from Kashin. Here the monk raised a cross and founded a solitary wilderness monastery.
The boyar Ivan Kolyaga, to whom the nearby lands belonged, began to fear that a monastery would grow up there, and that monks would begin to cultivate the wastelands. The Enemy of our salvation planted such spite and enmity in the boyar, that he decided to kill the saint. Suddenly, he was stricken with a grievous illness.
Fear of death awakened repentance in the boyar. Ivan Kolyaga was carried to the saint and told him of his evil intent, asking forgiveness.

"God forgive you", the humble ascetic replied. Wishing to expiate his sin and to help the saint, the boyar gave his lands to the growing monastery. The monks built a temple dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity.
Word of the boyar Kolyaga's conversion brought many people to the monk, seeking salvation. St Macarius tonsured Kolyaga and named the monastery Kalyazin for him.

It became necessary to choose an igumen. St Macarius was then fifty-three years of age, but he considered himself unworthy of this dignity and he asked each of the older men coming to him to become the monastery's priest and igumen. Yielding to the common will, the saint was made igumen by Bishop Moses of Tver.*
The new igumen prepared for his first service at the altar of God with long solitary prayer, and then communed all the brethren with the Holy Mysteries.

In the rank of igumen, St Macarius labored to guide the brethren. The monastery had two chalices, a diskos and two plates fashioned by St Macarius on a lathe.
He guided not only the monks, but also laypeople coming to the monastery, dealing with both the educated and the simple.

Despite his noble origin and his position of igumen, the saint wore ragged, frayed and patched clothing. In his conduct and his way of life St Macarius was so simple that the haughty heretic Vassian, sneeringly called him the "peasant of Kalyazin." The saint preferred to hear himself mocked rather than praised. He went to solitary places, delighted to be alone with nature.
Wild animals, sensing his holiness, walked with him like sheep, they submitted to him, and sometimes took food from him.

The spiritual stature of St Macarius was close to the spiritual stature of St Paphnutius of Borov (May 1, 1477). Not by chance did St Paphnutius' disciple, St Joseph of Volokolamsk (September 9, 1515), visit St Macarius in 1478 and write down his impressions of him:
"When I arrived at this place," said St Macarius, "seven Elders came with me from the monastery of Klobukov. They were so excellent in virtues, fasting and monastic life, that all the brethren came to them to receive instruction and benefit. They enlightened all and taught them for their benefit.
They affirmed the virtuous life, and censured those inclined to misconduct, and neither did they seek to do their own will."

Though the humble igumen was silent about his own efforts, they were not hidden from St Joseph. Perceiving the holiness of the igumen, he accounted him blessed and spoke about the life of the monastery:
 "Such piety and decorum were in that monastery, where everything was done in harmony with the patristic and communal traditions, that even the great Elder Metrophanes Byvaltsev was amazed. He had just come from Mount Athos, where he spent nine years, and said to the brethren: "My efforts and my journey to the Holy Mountain were in vain, because one can find salvation in the Kalyazin monastery. Life here is similar to life in the cenobitic monasteries of the Holy Mountain."

From the moment St Macarius settled in the wilderness, his did not abandon his strict Rule because of old age. Even during his lifetime the saint repeatedly healed the paralyzed and the demon-possessed.

The saint reposed on March 17, 1483. At the time of his death they found heavy chains on him, about which no one knew. The incorrupt relics of St Macarius were uncovered on May 26, 1521 when ditches were dug for a new church. A Council of 1547 established his local festal celebration.

* The successor of Bishop Moses was St Macarius' brother, Bishop Gennadius (Kozhin) (1460-1477). The nephew of St Macarius, St Paisius of Uglich (January 8 and June 6) was also famed for his sanctity. The Kalyazin monastery had a collection of the sermons of St Gregory the Theologian, which St Macarius had copied in his own hand.
1620 St. Jan Sarkander Martyred converted many Hussites and Bohemian Brethren
He was born on December 20 at Skotschau, in Austrian Silesia, and educated at Prague. He was ordained in 1607 and served in various parishes, defending the faith against the Hussites. In 1618, at the start of the Thirty Years’ War, the Protestants seized the local government. Two years later, Jan was taken prisoner at Olmutz and was tried by the Hussites. He was racked and tortured and died on March 17. He was canonized in 1995 by Pope John Paul II.
John Sarkander, SJ M (AC) Born at Skotschau, Silesia, in 1576; died 1620; beatified by Pius IX in 1860; canonized by Pope John Paul II with Saint Zdislava Berka in Olomouc, Czech Republic, in 1995.

1620 BD JOHN SARKANDER, MARTYR
JOHN SARKANDER, who was to end his life as a martyr for the seal of confession, was born on the borders of Austrian Silesia, of well-connected parents who were more pious than affluent. His father died when he was thirteen, and his mother took special pains to find a suitable teacher for her fourth son, John, whose great abilities she recognized. He was eventually sent to the Jesuit college at Prague, and in due course raised to the priesthood. Returning to the diocese of Olmütz (Olomuc), he attracted the attention of the bishop, Cardinal von Dietrichstein, who appointed him parish priest of Holleschau (Holeshov). Since the fifteenth century that district had been a hotbed of the Hussite heresy and the Bohemian Brothers, but supported by the local landowner, Baron von Lobkovitz, and with the help of members of the Society of Jesus, Sarkander rekindled the faith amongst the inhabitants and reconciled about 250 heretics to the Church. By so doing he incurred the enmity of a powerful neighbouring landowner, Bitowsky von Bystritz, who was violently anti-Catholic and regarded Lobkovitz as a dangerous rival.

In 1618, at the beginning of the Thirty Years War, a revolt broke out in Moravia: the Protestants seized the reins of government and set about destroying Catholic institutions. On the advice of his friends, Sarkander left Holleschau and betook himself eventually to Cracow, where he remained for several months. As soon, however, as he could prudently do so, he returned to his parish and strove to reorganize his scattered flock. The country was still in a very disturbed state, and in February 1620 Polish troops, sent to the assistance of the emperor, came pouring across Moravia, pillaging on their way. When they drew near to Holleschau, Sarkander, at the head of his parishioners, went out to meet them carrying the Blessed Sacrament. As pious Catholics the Poles dismounted, fell on their knees and asked for the priest’s blessing. Not only did they leave Holleschau intact, but they left a warning to the troops who followed that they should spare the village. Sarkander had indeed saved Holleschau, but he had signed his own death-warrant. His enemy Bitowsky immediately accused him of having treasonably brought the Poles into the country. His visit to Poland was misconstrued, and it was declared that he had planned the incursion as the agent of Baron von Lobkovitz, so he was carried off to Olmütz, where he was loaded with chains and confined in a sub­terranean dungeon. The commission which tried him was composed almost entirely of Hussites, and they called upon him to disclose who had brought the Polish troops into the country and what Baron von Lobkovitz, who was known to be his penitent, had told him in the confessional. Sarkander denied that he had anything to do with the coming of the Poles, but refused absolutely to divulge the secrets of the confessional. Thereupon he was subjected to the rack in its severest form, and four days later was again racked, and branded for two hours with torches. Moreover, the next morning, after being racked for three hours, he was plastered with feathers which had been dipped in a mixture of pitch, sulphur and oil and was then set on fire. He survived this atrocious treatment and lingered on for a month, reduced to almost complete helplessness, but praying continually, until on March 17, after receiving the last sacraments, he passed peacefully and joyfully to his reward.

The words Sarkander had used to those who sought to make him reveal the secrets of the confessional are worthy of record: “I know nothing, and nothing has been entrusted to me in the holy sacrament of penance. Anything that may ever have been confided to me in that way is not retained in my memory. I have buried it in oblivion out of veneration for the inviolable seal of confession, and I would choose, with God’s help, rather to be torn in pieces than sacrilegiously to violate the seal of confession.” Bd John Sarkander was venerated as a martyr from the time of his death, and was beatified in 1859.

We are indebted to John Scintilla, a Catholic magistrate of Olmütz, for an account of the proceedings of the commission which tried the martyr. He was constrained by his official position to be present at the first session and he afterwards drafted a report for Cardinal von Dietrichstein. See Liverani, Della vita e passione del Ven. Giovanni Sarcander (1835), and the articles in the Catholic Encyclopedia (under “John”), and the Kirchenlexikon (under “Sarkander”). There is a fuller biography in Polish, P. Matuszynski, Zyvot bl. Jana Sarkandra meczennika (1875).
The canonization of Saint John Sarkander drew sharp criticism from Czech and Slovakian Protestants,
although the Holy Father offered and asked for forgiveness for past sins committed in the name of religion.

John's father died when he was still very young, but his mother ensured that he would receive an excellent education by sending him to the Jesuits schools at Olmutz and Prague, where he read philosophy in 1602. Four years later he married a Lutheran lady, Anna Platska, who died the following year. Shocked by this experience, he resumed his study of theology and was ordained to the priesthood in 1609.

He became a parish priest of Holleschau in Moravia (diocese of Olmutz), a church whose property was purchased by the Catholic Baron Lobkovitz from the Bohemian Brethren. John converted many Hussites and Bohemian Brethren, but as a result, he incurred the enmity of the Protestants, who came to power in Moravia in 1618 at the beginning of the Thirty Years War. At that time Saint John made a pilgrimage to Czestochowa, Poland, and remained for some months in Cracow.

In 1620, King Sigismund III of Poland sent Cossack troops into Moravia to support Emperor Ferdinand III against the Protestant Estates. Although the Cossacks spared Holeschau when they met Sarkander in procession, he was unjustly accused of conspiring with the Poles, sent to Olmutz, and chained in a dungeon to await questioning.

At his trial, he denied any complicity in treasonable acts. He refused the order to reveal what he heard in confession from his penitent, the baron of Moravia. For his continued refusal to break the seal of the confessional, three times in mid-February, he was cruelly racked, branded, covered with pitch and tar, and set ablaze. He survived the ill-treatment, but died within the month (Benedictines, Farmer).
1834 Bl. Peter Lieou  Martyr of China native gave comfort to Christian prisoners
he was converted to Catholicism and was consequently exiled to Mongolia in 1814. Permitted to return in 1827, he soon assisted the spread of Catholic missionary efforts and, during the persecution of Christianity by the Chinese government, managed to make his way into a prison where he gave comfort to Christian prisoners. He was caught and strangled. Peter was beatified in 1900.

Blessed Peter Lieou M (AC); beatified in 1900. A Chinese layman, Blessed Peter converted to Christianity in his youth. He was exiled for his faith to Tartary in 1814. In 1827, he was allowed to return. During a fresh persecution, he gained entry into the prison to comfort and strengthen his sons and was strangled (Benedictines).



THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 288

Sing to Our Lady a new song: for she hath done wonderful things.

In the sight of nations she hath revealed her mercy: her name is heard even to the ends of the earth.

Be mindful, O Lady, of the poor and the wretched: and support them by the help of thy holy refreshment.

For thou, O Lady, art sweet and true: exceedingly patient and full of compassion.

Tread upon the enemies of our souls: and crush with thy holy arm their contumacy.

Let every spirit praise Our Lady

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

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

God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique, for each is the result of a new idea.  As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike. It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints. Dear Lord, grant us a spirit that is not bound by our own ideas and preferences.  Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves. O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory. Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives.  Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts.   God calls each one of us to be a saint in order to get into heaven:  only saints are allowed into heaven. The more "extravagant" graces are bestowed NOT for the benefit of the recipients so much as FOR the benefit of others.
There are over 10,000 named saints beati  from history
 and Roman Martyology Orthodox sources
Patron_Saints.html  Widowed_Saints html  Indulgences The Catholic Church in China
LINKS: Marian Shrines   India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes 1858  China Marian shrines 1995
Kenya national Marian shrine  Loreto, Italy  Marian Apparitions (over 2000)  Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
  Links to Related MarianWebsites  Angels and Archangels  Saints Visions of Heaven and Hell
Widowed Saints  html
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Of_The_Apostles  Roman Catholic Popes  Purgatory  Uniates  Chalcedon
Mary the Mother of Jesus Miracles_BC  Lay Saints  Miraculous_Icons  Miraculous_Medal_Novena Patron Saints
Miracles by Century 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000    1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800  1900 2000
Miracles 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000  
 1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800   1900 Lay Saints

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

Join us on CatholicVote.org. Be part of a new movement committed to using powerful media projects to create a Culture of Life. We can help shape the movement and have a voice in its future. Check it out at www.CatholicVote.org

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]
To Save A Life is Earthly; Saving A Soul is Eternal Donation by mail, please send check or money order to:
Eternal Word Television Network 5817 Old Leeds Rd. Irondale, AL 35210  USA
  Catholic Television Network  Supported entirely by donations from viewers  help  spread the Eternal Word, online Here
Mother Angelica saving souls is this beautiful womans journey  Shrine_of_The_Most_Blessed_Sacrament
Colombia was among the countries Mother Angelica visited. 
In Bogotá, a Salesian priest - Father Juan Pablo Rodriguez - brought Mother and the nuns to the Sanctuary of the Divine Infant Jesus to attend Mass.  After Mass, Father Juan Pablo took them into a small Shrine which housed the miraculous statue of the Child Jesus. Mother Angelica stood praying at the side of the statue when suddenly the miraculous image came alive and turned towards her.  Then the Child Jesus spoke with the voice of a young boy:  “Build Me a Temple and I will help those who help you.” 

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

Brief History of our Beloved Holy Priest Here and his published books of Catholic History in North America
Reardon, J.M. Archbishop Ireland; Prelate, Patriot, Publicist, 1838-1918.
A Memoir (St. Paul; 1919); George Anthony Belcourt Pioneer Catholic Missionary of the Northwest 1803-1874 (1955);
The Catholic Church IN THE DIOCESE OF ST. PAUL from earliest origin to centennial achievement 1362-1950 (1952);
The Church of Saint Mary of Saint Paul 1875-1922;  (1932)
The Vikings in the American Heartland;
The Catholic Total Abstinence Society in Minnesota;
James Michael Reardon Born in Nova Scotia, 1872;  Priest, ordained by Bishop Ireland;
Member -- St. Paul Seminary faculty.
Affiliations and Indulgences  Litany of Loretto in Stained glass windows here.  Nave Sacristy and Residence Here
Sanctuary spaces between them filled with grilles of hand-forged wrought iron the life of our Blessed Lady After the crucifixon
Apostle statues Replicas of those in St John Lateran--Christendom's earliest Basilica.
Ordered by Rome's first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, Popes' cathedral and official residence first millennium of Christian history.
The only replicas ever made:  in order from west to east {1932}.
Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel
 It Makes No Sense Not To Believe In GOD
THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi. 
  June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.
By Father John Corapi
THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi. 
  June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.
By Father John Corapi
Among the most important titles we have in the Catholic Church for the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our Lady of Victory and Our Lady of the Rosary. These titles can be traced back to one of the most decisive times in the history of the world and Christendom. The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7 (date of feast of Our Lady of Rosary), 1571. This proved to be the most crucial battle for the Christian forces against the radical Muslim navy of Turkey. Pope Pius V led a procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City praying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral leadership in recognizing the danger posed to Christendom by the radical Muslim forces, and in using the means necessary to defeat it. Spiritual battles require spiritual weapons, and this more than anything was a battle that had its origins in the spiritual order—a true battle between good and evil.

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

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

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

Father Corapi's Biography

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

Father Corapi's academic credentials are quite extensive. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Pace University in the seventies. Then as an older man returned to the university classrooms in preparation for his life as a priest and preacher. He received all of his academic credentials for the Church with honors: a Masters degree in Sacred Scripture from Holy Apostles Seminary and Bachelor, Licentiate, and Doctorate degrees in dogmatic theology from the University of Navarre in Spain.
Father John Corapi goes to the heart of the contemporary world's many woes and wars, whether the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, or the Congo, or the natural disasters that seem to be increasing every year, the moral and spiritual war is at the basis of everything. “Our battle is not against human forces,” St. Paul asserts, “but against principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness...” (Ephesians 6:12). 
The “War to end all wars” is the moral and spiritual combat that rages in the hearts and minds of human beings. The outcome of that  unseen fight largely determines how the battle in the realm of the seen unfolds.  The title talk, “With the Moon Under Her Feet,” is taken from the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, and deals with the current threat to the world from radical Islam, and the Blessed Virgin Mary's role in the ultimate victory that will result in the conversion of Islam. Few Catholics are aware of the connection between Islam, Fatima, and Guadalupe. Presented in Father Corapi's straight-forward style, you will be both inspired and educated by him.

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

God Bless you on your journey Father John Corapi


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.
 
Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.
 
Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
 
Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.
 
Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.
8 Martyrs Move Closer to Sainthood 8 July, 2016
Posted by ZENIT Staff on 8 July, 2016

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

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

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

On the List Are Lay Founder of a Hospital and Eastern Catholic Religious
VATICAN CITY, June 12, 2014 (Zenit.org) - Today, the Vatican announced that during the celebration of the feast of Christ the King on Sunday, November 23, an ordinary public consistory will be held for the canonization of the following six blesseds, who include a lay founder of a hospital for the poor, founders of religious orders, and two members of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See:
-Giovanni Antonio Farina (1803-1888), an Italian bishop who founded the Institute of the Sisters Teachers of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts
-Kuriakose Elias Chavara (1805-1871), a Syro-Malabar priest in India who founded the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate
-Ludovico of Casoria (1814-1885), an Italian Franciscan priest who founded the Gray Sisters of St. Elizabeth
-Nicola Saggio (Nicola da Longobardi, 1650-1709), an Italian oblate of the Order of Minims
-Euphrasia Eluvathingal (1877-1952), an Indian Carmelite of the Syro-Malabar Church
-Amato Ronconi (1238-1304), an Italian, Third Order Franciscan who founded a hospital for poor pilgrims
CAUSES OF SAINTS July 2015.
Pope Recognizes Heroic Virtues of Ukrainian Archbishop
Recognition Brings Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky Closer to Beatification
By Junno Arocho Esteves Rome, July 17, 2015 (ZENIT.org)
Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtues of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky. According to a communique released by the Holy See Press Office, the Holy Father met this morning with Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MIRACLES
– Blessed Alfonso Maria Fusco, diocesan priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. John the Baptist (1839-1910);
– Venerable Servant of God John Sullivan, professed priest of the Society of Jesus (1861-1933);
MARTYRDOM
– Servants of God Nikolle Vinçenc Prennushi, O.F.M., archbishop of Durres, Albania, and 37 companions killed between 1945 and 1974;
– Servants of God José Antón Gómez and three companions of the Benedictines of Madrid, Spain, killed 1936;
HEROIC VIRTUES
– Servant of God Thomas Choe Yang-Eop, diocesan priest (1821-1861);
– Servant of God Sosio Del Prete (né Vincenzo), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Congregation of the Little Servants of Christ the King (1885-1952);
– Servant of God Wenanty Katarzyniec (né Jósef), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1889-1921);
– Servant of God Maria Consiglia of the Holy Spirity (née Emilia Pasqualina Addatis), founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Addolorata, Servants of Mary (1845-1900);
– Servant of God Maria of the Incarnation (née Caterina Carrasco Tenorio), founder of the Congregation of the Franciscan Tertiary Sisters of the Flock of Mary (1840-1917);
– Servant of God , founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Family of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1851-1923);
– Servant of God Ilia Corsaro, founder of the Congregation of the Little Missionaries of the Eucharist (1897-1977);
– Servant of God Maria Montserrat Grases García, layperson of the Personal Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei (1941-1959).
LINKS:
Marian Apparitions (over 2000)  India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes Feb 11- July 16, Loreto, Italy 1858 
China Marian shrines May 23, 1995 Zarvintisya Ukraine Lourdes Kenya national Marian shrine    Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798  
Links to Related Marian Websites  Angels and Archangels
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Apostles  Roman Catholic Popes  Purgatory  Uniates, PSALTER  BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 288 2024