St. Faustina (1905-1938) Divine Mercy Chaplet
St. Mary Faustina's name is forever linked to the annual feast of the Divine Mercy (celebrated on the Second Sunday of Easter), the divine mercy chaplet and the divine mercy prayer recited each day by many people at 3 p.m.

Born in what is now west-central Poland (part of Germany before World War I), Helena was the third of 10 children. After age 16 she worked as a housekeeper in three cities before joining the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925. She worked as a cook, gardener and porter in three of their houses. In addition to carrying out her work faithfully, generously serving the needs of the sisters and the local people, she also had a deep interior life. This included receiving revelations from the Lord Jesus, messages that she recorded in her diary at the request of Christ and of her confessors.

At a time when some Catholics had an image of God as such a strict judge that they might be tempted to despair about the possibility of being forgiven, Jesus chose to emphasize his mercy and forgiveness for sins acknowledged and confessed.

“I do not want to punish aching mankind,” he once told St. Mary Faustina, “but I desire to heal it, pressing it to my merciful heart” (Diary 1588). The two rays emanating from Christ's heart, she said, represent the blood and water poured out after Jesus' death (Gospel of John 19:34)

Because Sister Mary Faustina knew that the revelations she had already received did not constitute holiness itself, she wrote in her diary:

“Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection.
My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God” (Diary 1107).

Sister Mary Faustina died of tuberculosis in Krakow, Poland, on October 5, 1938. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1993 and canonized her in 2000.

Comment: Devotion to God's Divine Mercy bears some resemblance to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In both cases, sinners are encouraged not to despair, not to doubt God's willingness to forgive them if they repent. As Psalm 136 says in each of its 26 verses, “God's love [mercy] endures forever.”

Quote: Four years after Faustina's beatification, Pope John Paul II visited the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy at Lagiewniki (near Krakow) and addressed members of her congregation. He said:

“The message of divine mercy has always been very close and precious to me. It is as though history has written it in the tragic experience of World War II. In those difficult years, this message was a particular support and an inexhaustible source of hope, not only for those living in Krakow, but for the entire nation. This was also my personal experience, which I carried with me to the See of Peter and which, in a certain sense, forms the image of this pontificate. I thank divine providence because I was able to contribute personally to carrying out Christ's will, by instituting the feast of Divine Mercy. Here, close to the remains of Blessed Faustina, I thank God for the gift of her beatification. I pray unceasingly that God may have 'mercy on us and on the whole world' (chaplet of Divine Mercy).”

MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA 1905-1938

Sister Mary Faustina, an apostle of the Divine Mercy, belongs today to the group of the most popular and well-known saints of the Church. Through her the Lord Jesus communicates to the world the great message of God's mercy and reveals the pattern of Christian perfection based on trust in God and on the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors.

She was born on August 25, 1905 in Glogowiec in Poland of a poor and religious family of peasants, the third of ten children. She was baptized with the name Helena in the parish Church of Ðwinice Warckie. From a very tender age she stood out because of her love of prayer, work, obedience, and also her sensitivity to the poor. At the age of nine she made her first Holy Communion living this moment very profoundly in her awareness of the presence of the Divine Guest within her soul. She attended school for three years. At the age of sixteen she left home and went to work as a housekeeper in Aleksandrów, ºódï and Ostrówek in order to find the means of supporting herself and of helping her parents.

At the age of seven she had already felt the first stirrings of a religious vocation. After finishing school, she wanted to enter the convent but her parents would not give her permission. Called during a vision of the Suffering Christ, on August 1, 1925 she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and took the name Sister Mary Faustina. She lived in the Congregation for thirteen years and lived in several religious houses. She spent time at Kraków, Plock and Vilnius, where she worked as a cook, gardener and porter.

Externally nothing revealed her rich mystical interior life. She zealously performed her tasks and faithfully observed the rule of religious life. She was recollected and at the same time very natural, serene and full of kindness and disinterested love for her neighbor. Although her life was apparently insignificant, monotonous and dull, she hid within herself an extraordinary union with God.

It is the mystery of the Mercy of God which she contemplated in the word of God as well as in the everyday activities of her life that forms the basis of her spirituality. The process of contemplating and getting to know the mystery of God's mercy helped develop within Sr. Mary Faustina the attitude of child-like trust in God as well as mercy toward the neighbors. O my Jesus, each of Your saints reflects one of Your virtues; I desire to reflect Your compassionate heart, full of mercy; I want to glorify it. Let Your mercy, O Jesus, be impressed upon my heart and soul like a seal, and this will be my badge in this and the future life (Diary 1242). Sister Faustina was a faithful daughter of the Church which she loved like a Mother and a Mystic Body of Jesus Christ. Conscious of her role in the Church, she cooperated with God's mercy in the task of saving lost souls. At the specific request of and following the example of the Lord Jesus, she made a sacrifice of her own life for this very goal. In her spiritual life she also distinguished herself with a love of the Eucharist and a deep devotion to the Mother of Mercy.

The years she had spent at the convent were filled with extraordinary gifts, such as: revelations, visions, hidden stigmata, participation in the Passion of the Lord, the gift of bilocation, the reading of human souls, the gift of prophecy, or the rare gift of mystical engagement and marriage. The living relationship with God, the Blessed Mother, the Angels, the Saints, the souls in Purgatory — with the entire supernatural world — was as equally real for her as was the world she perceived with her senses. In spite of being so richly endowed with extraordinary graces, Sr. Mary Faustina knew that they do not in fact constitute sanctity. In her Diary she wrote: Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God (Diary 1107).

The Lord Jesus chose Sr. Mary Faustina as the Apostle and "Secretary" of His Mercy, so that she could tell the world about His great message. In the Old Covenant — He said to her —I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to My people. Today I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My Merciful Heart (Diary 1588).

The mission of Sister Mary Faustina consists in 3 tasks:
– reminding the world of the truth of our faith revealed in the Holy Scripture about the merciful love of God toward every human being.
– Entreating God's mercy for the whole world and particularly for sinners, among others through the practice of new forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy presented by the Lord Jesus, such as: the veneration of the image of the Divine Mercy with the inscription: Jesus, I Trust in You, the feast of the Divine Mercy celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter, chaplet to the Divine Mercy and prayer at the Hour of Mercy (3 p.m.). The Lord Jesus attached great promises to the above forms of devotion, provided one entrusted one's life to God and practiced active love of one's neighbor.
– The third task in Sr. Mary Faustina's mission consists in initiating the apostolic movement of the Divine Mercy which undertakes the task of proclaiming and entreating God's mercy for the world and strives for Christian perfection, following the precepts laid down by the Blessed Sr. Mary Faustina. The precepts in question require the faithful to display an attitude of child-like trust in God which expresses itself in fulfilling His will, as well as in the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors. Today, this movement within the Church involves millions of people throughout the world; it comprises religious congregations, lay institutes, religious, brotherhoods, associations, various communities of apostles of the Divine Mercy, as well as individual people who take up the tasks which the Lord Jesus communicated to them through Sr. Mary Faustina.

The mission of the Blessed Sr. Mary Faustina was recorded in her Diary which she kept at the specific request of the Lord Jesus and her confessors. In it, she recorded faithfully all of the Lord Jesus' wishes and also described the encounters between her soul and Him. Secretary of My most profound mystery — the Lord Jesus said toSr. Faustina — know that your task is to write down everything that I make known to you about My mercy, for the benefit of those who by reading these things will be comforted in their souls and will have the courage to approach Me (Diary 1693). In an extraordinary way, Sr. Mary Faustina's work sheds light on the mystery of the Divine Mercy. It delights not only the simple and uneducated people, but also scholars who look upon it as an additional source of theo-logical research. The Diary has been translated into many languages, among others, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak.

Sister Mary Faustina, consumed by tuberculosis and by innumerable sufferings which she accepted as a voluntary sacrifice for sinners, died in Krakow at the age of just thirty three on October 5, 1938 with a reputation for spiritual maturity and a mystical union with God. The reputation of the holiness of her life grew as did the cult to the Divine Mercy and the graces she obtained from God through her intercession. In the years 1965-67, the investigative Process into her life and heroic virtues was undertaken in Krakow and in the year 1968, the Beatification Process was initiated in Rome. The latter came to an end in December 1992. On April 18, 1993 our Holy Father John Paul II raised Sister Faustina to the glory of the altars. Sr. Mary Faustina's remains rest at the Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy in Kraków-ºagiewniki.

Divine Mercy chaplet devotion - Jesus I trust in Thee ! Using normal rosary beads, begin with: Our Father..., Hail Mary..., The Creed. On the five large beads: Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. On the ten small beads: For the sake of His sorrowful Passion have mercy on us and on the whole world. At the end of the Divine Mercy Chaplet say three times:
Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world. have mercy on us and on the whole world. Divine Mercy Chaplet excerpts from the Diary of Sister Faustina: 687
Say unceasingly the Divine Mercy Chaplet that I have taught you. Whoever will recite it will receive great mercy at the hour of death. Priests will recommend it to sinners as their last hope of salvation. Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this chaplet only once, he would receive grace from My infinite mercy. I desire to grant unimaginable graces to those souls who trust in My mercy.
1541 My daughter, encourage souls to say the Divine Mercy Chaplet which I have given to you. It pleases Me to grant everything they ask of Me by saying the chaplet. When hardened sinners say it, I will fill their souls with peace, and the hour of their death will be a happy one. 1541 Write that when they say this Divine Mercy Chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My Father and the dying person, not as the just Judge but as a merciful Saviour.
1731Through the chaplet you will obtain everything, if what you ask for is compatible with My Will

Saint Faustina 1938 Divine Mercy in my Soul, has become the handbook for devotion to the Divine Mercy
was born Helena Kowalska in a small village west of Lodz, Poland on August 25, 1905. She was the third of ten children. When she was almost twenty, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, whose members devote themselves to the care and education of troubled young women. The following year she received her religious habit and was given the name Sister Maria Faustina, to which she added, “of the Most Blessed Sacrament”, as was permitted by her congregation's custom.
In the 1930's, Sister Faustina received from the Lord a message of mercy that she was told to spread throughout the world. She was asked to become the apostle and secretary of God's mercy, a model of how to be merciful to others, and an instrument for reemphasizing God's plan of mercy for the world. It was not a glamorous prospect. Her entire life, in imitation of Christ's, was to be a sacrifice - a life lived for others.
At the Divine Lord's request, she willingly offered her personal sufferings in union with Him to atone for the sins of others; in her daily life she was to become a doer of mercy, bringing joy and peace to others, and by writing about God's mercy, she was to encourage others to trust in Him and thus prepare the world for His coming again.
Her special devotion to Mary Immaculate and to the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation gave her the strength to bear all her sufferings as an offering to God on behalf of the Church and those in special need, especially great sinners and the dying. She wrote and suffered in secret, with only her spiritual director and some of her superiors aware that anything special was taking place in her life. After her death from tuberculosis in 1938, even her closest associates were amazed as they began to discover what great sufferings and deep mystical experiences had been given to this Sister of theirs, who had always been so cheerful and humble. She had taken deeply into her heart, God's gospel command to ”be merciful even as your heavenly Father is merciful” as well as her confessor's directive that she should act in such a way that everyone who came in contact with her would go away joyful. The message of mercy that Sister Faustina received is now being spread throughout the world;

her diary, Divine Mercy in my Soul, has become the handbook for devotion to the Divine Mercy.

170 St. Thraseas Bishop martyr at Smyrna
Apud Smyrnam item natális beáti Thraséæ, Epíscopi Euméniæ, martyrio consummáti.
At Smyrna, the birthday of blessed Thraseas, bishop of Eumenia, who ended his career through martyrdom.

He served as bishop of Eumenia, Phrygia, in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and was martyred at Smyrna during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
At Smyrna, the birthday of blessed Thraseas, bishop of Eumenia, who ended his career through martyrdom.

265 Saint Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria; devoted much effort to defend the Church from heresy, and he encouraged his flock in the firm confession of Orthodoxy during the persecution under the emperors Decius (249-251) fled to Alexandria; and Valerian (253-259) exiled him to Libya; had to contend with civil war, famine, plague, and other difficulties; “In such a manner the best of our brethren have departed this life. This generation of the dead, a deed of great piety and firm faith, is no less of a martyrdom”.

Son of wealthy pagan parents. He converted to Christianity at a mature age, and became a pupil of Origen. Later, he was appointed as the head of Alexandria's Catechetical School, and then became Bishop of Alexandria in the year 247.

St Dionysius devoted much effort to defend the Church from heresy, and he encouraged his flock in the firm confession of Orthodoxy during the persecution under the emperors Decius (249-251) and Valerian (253-259).

The holy bishop endured much suffering in his lifetime. When the Decian persecution broke out, St Dionysius was forced to flee Alexandria, but returned when the Emperor died. He was later exiled to Libya during the reign of Valerian.

When he was able to resume his duties in Alexandria in 261, St Dionysius had to contend with civil war, famine, plague, and other difficulties. The saint called upon his flock to tend sick Christians and pagans alike, and to bury the dead. Concerning the death of his spiritual children he wrote, “In such a manner the best of our brethren have departed this life. This generation of the dead, a deed of great piety and firm faith, is no less of a martyrdom.”
St Dionysius illumined his flock through his preaching, and with deeds of love and charity. An illness prevented him from attending the Council of Antioch (264- 265), and he fell asleep in the Lord while it was in session.
The influence of St Dionysius extended beyond the limits of his diocese, and his writings dealt with practical as well as theological subjects (“On Nature,” “On Temptations,” “On the Promises,” etc.). He was also familiar with Greek philosophy. Only fragments of his writings survive today, most of them preserved in Eusebius, who mentions him in his CHURCH HISTORY ( Book 7) and calls him “Dionysius the Great.”

Two complete letters of St Dionysius are extant, one addressed to Novatian, and the other to Basilides.

287 St. Palmatius Martyr of Trier, Germany
Tréviris sanctórum Mártyrum Palmátii et Sociórum; qui, in persecutióne Diocletiáni, sub Rictiováro Præside, martyrium subiérunt.
At Treves, the holy martyrs Palmatius and his companions, who suffered martyrdom in the persecution of Diocletian, under the governor Rictiovarus.
with companions. They were reportedly martyred in the reign of Diocletian.

Palmatius and Companions Oct 5 + c 287. Martyrs in Trier in Germany under Maximian Herculeus. {From Latin Saints of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Rome} Second from left.

287 St. Boniface Martyr of Trier, Germany
with St. Palmatius and companions. They have been revered only since the eleventh century.
They were martyred in the reign of Emperor Maximian.

3rd cent. St. Marcellinus; The second or third Bishop of Ravenna in Italy.
Ravénnæ sancti Marcellíni, Epíscopi et Confessóris.
At Ravenna, St. Marcellinus, bishop and confessor.

3rd v. 290 St. Alexander Martyred; A relic of Saint Alexander of Trier was placed in the the main Altar at The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Saint Alexander was a German martyr. Alexander and companions were executed by Trier Prefect, Rictiovarus in 305 A.D.
with innumerable companions at Trier, Germany. Alexander and the other martyrs were executed by the Trier Roman Prefect, Rictiovarus, in the reign of Emperor Diocletian.
A relic of Saint Alexander of Trier was placed in the the main Altar at The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Saint Alexander was a German martyr. Alexander and companions were executed by Trier Prefect, Rictiovarus in 305 A.D.

304 St. Charitina Young virgin tortured to death Black Sea
Eódem die pássio sanctæ Charitínæ Vírginis, quæ, sub Diocletiáno Imperatóre et Domítio Consulári, ígnibus est cruciáta et in mare projécta, et, cum inde incólumis evasísset, tandem, mánibus et pédibus abscíssis dentibúsque convúlsis, in oratióne spíritum emísit.
Also, under Emperor Diocletian and the proconsul Domitius, St. Charitina, virgin. She was exposed to the fire and thrown into the sea, but escaping uninjured, her hands and feet were cut off and her teeth torn out, and finally she yielded up her spirit in prayer.
in the persecution of Emperor Diocletian. She is believed to have been martyred at Amisus on the Black Sea.
St. Charitina of Amisus (from Asia Minor [Turkish], virgin, tortured and martyred in 304).

The Martyr Charitina of Rome was orphaned in childhood and raised like a daughter by the pious Christian Claudius. The young woman was very pretty, very sensible, kind and fervent in faith. She imparted to other people her love for Christ, and she converted many to the way of salvation.
During a time of persecution under the emperor Diocletian (284-305), St Charitina was subjected to horrible torments for her strong confession of the Lord Jesus Christ, and she died in the year 304.

344 Mamelchtha of Persia The Martyr was, before her conversion to the Christian Faith, a pagan priestess of the goddess Artemis. The saint's sister convinced her to accept Baptism. When the pagans saw Mamelchtha in her white baptismal robe, they stoned her. The saint suffered in the year 344. Later, a church was dedicated to her on the site of the temple of Artemis.

6th v. St. Placid Disciple of St. Benedict at Subiaco and Monte Cassino
Messánæ, in Sicília, natális sanctórum Mártyrum Plácidi Mónachi, e beáti Benedícti Abbátis discípulis, et ejus fratrum Eutychii et Victoríni, ac soróris eórum Fláviæ Vírginis, itémque Donáti, Firmáti Diáconi, Fausti et aliórum trigínta Monachórum, qui omnes a Manúcha piráta, pro Christi fide, necáti sunt.
At Messina in Sicily, the birthday of the holy martyrs Placidus, a monk who was a disciple of the blessed Abbot Benedict, and of his brothers Eutychius and Victorinus, and the virgin Flavia, their sister; also of Donatus, Firmatus, a deacon, Faustus, and thirty other monks, who were murdered for the faith of Christ by the pirate Manuchas.

6th v. PLACID, MARTYR
IN consequence of the reputation of the great sanctity of St Benedict whilst he lived at Subiaco, the noble families in Rome brought their children to him to be brought up in his monastery. Equitius committed to his care his son Maurus, and the patrician Tertullus his son Placid, who was a boy of tender years. In his Dialogues St Gregory relates that Placid having fallen into the lake at Subiaco as he was fetching water in a pitcher, St Benedict, who was in the monastery, immediately knew of the accident, and calling Maurus said to him, “Brother, run! Make haste! The child has fallen into the water.” Maurus ran to the lake and walked on the water a bow-shot from the bank to the place where Placid was struggling, and, taking hold of him by the hair, returned with the same speed. When he got to the shore and looked behind him he saw he had walked upon the water, which he had not noticed till then. St Benedict ascribed this miracle to the disciple's obedience, but St Maurus attributed it to the command and blessing of the abbot, which Placid confirmed. “When I was being pulled out of the water”, he said, “I saw the father's hood over my head, and I judged it was he who was getting me out.” This miraculous corporal preservation of Placid may be regarded as a symbol of the preservation of his soul by divine grace from the spiritual shipwreck of sin. He advanced daily in wisdom and virtue so that his life seemed a true copy of that of his master and guide, St Benedict. He, seeing the progress which grace made in his heart, loved Placid as one of the dearest among his children and probably took him with him to Monte Cassino. This place is said to have been given to St Benedict by Tertullus, the father of Placid. This is all that is known of St Placid, who was venerated as a confessor till the twelfth century.
But the feast kept by the Western church today is of St Placid, “a monk and disciple of the blessed abbot Benedict, together with his brothers Eutychius and Victorinus, their sister the maiden Flavia, Donatus, Firmatus the deacon, Faustus, and thirty other monks”, who, we are told, were martyred by pirates at Messina. Of these it may be said that certain early martyrologies mention on this date the martyrdom in Sicily of SS. Placidus, Eutychius, and thirty companions. The present confusion in the liturgical books of the Benedictine Placid with a number of martyrs who died before he was born has its principal origin in a forgery of the middle twelfth century. At that time Peter the Deacon, a monk of Monte Cassino and archivist of that house, gave to the world an account of the life and passion of St Placid, whose martyrdom nobody had hitherto heard of. He claimed to have got his information from one Simeon, a priest of Constantinople, who had inherited a contemporary document. This purported to have been written by a companion of Placid called Gordian, who had escaped from the slaughter of Placid and his companions in Sicily, fled to Constantinople, and there written the account, which he gave to Simeon's ancestors. This story, like others of the same sort, gradually succeeded in imposing itself and was eventually accepted by the Benedictines and throughout the West. According to it St Placid was sent into Sicily where he founded the monastery of St John the Baptist at Messina. Some years later a fleet of Saracen pirates from Spain descended on the island, and when the abbot, his brothers and sister, and his monks would not worship the gods of the king, Abdallah, they were put to the sword. There were, of course, no Moors in Spain in the sixth century, and no Saracenic descents on Sicily from Syria or Africa are recorded before the middle of the seventh.
Additional evidence, of equally spurious sort, was duly forthcoming, including a deed of gift from Tertullus to St Benedict of lands in Italy and Sicily, but it was not till 1588 that the veneration of St Placid spread to the faithful at large. In that year the church of St John at Messina was rebuilt, and during the work a number of skeletons were found. These were hailed as the remains of St Placid and his martyred companions, and Pope Sixtus V approved their veneration as those of martyrs. The feast was given the rank of a double and inserted in the Roman Martyrology, which causes the Bollandists to question if the pope acted with sufficient prudence. Among the Benedictines the feast of St Placid and his Companions, Martyrs, is a double of the second class. When their calendar was undergoing revision in 1915 the editors proposed to suppress this feast entirely, and to join the commemoration of St Placid, as abbot and confessor, to that of St Maurus on January 15. The Congregation of Sacred Rites, however, directed that there was to be no innovation in respect of this feast until it could be brought into line with the decision of the historico-liturgical question involved which would be dealt with in the revision of the Roman Breviary (whose third lesson for the feast summarizes Peter the Deacon's story). The Benedictines accordingly retained the name and rank of the feast, but suppressed the proper office, replacing it by the common office of several martyrs, with a general collect that does not mention either St Placid or martyrs.

The whole story of this fabrication has been very carefully investigated by U. Berlière in the Revue Benedictine, vol. xxxiii (1921), pp. 19-45; an article in which the liturgical as well as the historical aspects of the case have been taken into account. The spuriousness of the narrative attributed to “Gordian” had previously been convincingly demonstrated by E. Caspar, Petrus Diaconus und die Monte Cassineser Fälschungen (1909), see especially pp. 47-72. The text of the pseudo-Gordian passio will be found in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. iii. Consult also CMH., and see the summary in J. McCann, Saint Benedict (1938), pp. 282-291. The names of the martyrs in Peter the Deacon's forgery are all taken from the entry for October 5 in the Hieronymian martyrology, though Firmatus and Flaviana or Flavia are there expressly stated to have suffered at Auxerre in France.

He is known mainly through the Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory I the Great and is closely associated with St. Maurus of whom little is known outside of legend and the Dialogues . The son of a patrician named Tertulus, the very young Placid was placed into the care of St. Benedict at Subiaco, supposedly being saved from drowning through the aid of the renowned saint. Placid subsequently accompanied Benedict to Monte Cassino, which was evidently given to Benedict by the obviously grateful Tertulus. The name Placid was thereafter attached to assorted legends, including one assigning him credit for founding St. John the Baptist Monastery at Messina, in Sicily. While there, he was said to have been martyred by Saracen raiders with two brothers, a sister, and thirty companions. It is known that he was never in Sicily, and the bones discovered in 1585 at the monastery and widely believed to be Placid’s are not, in fact, his. Among his disciples are counted Eutychius, Faustus, Donatus, and Firmatus.

St. Placidus, disciple of St. Benedict, the son of the patrician Tertullus, was brought as a child to St. Benedict at Sublaqueum (Subiaco) and dedicated to God as provided for in chapter 69 of St. Benedict's Rule. Here too occurred the incident related by St. Gregory (Dialogues, II, vii) of his rescue from drowning when his fellow monk, Maurus, at St. Benedict's order ran across the surface of the lake below the monastery and drew Placidus safely to shore. It appears certain that he accompanied St. Benedict when, about 529, he removed to Monte Cassino, which was said to have been made over to him by the father of Placidus. Of his later life nothing is known, but in an ancient psalterium at Vallombrosa his name is found in the Litany of the Saints placed among the confessors immediately after those of St. Benedict and St. Maurus; the same occurs in Codex CLV at Subiaco, attributed to the ninth century (see Baumer, “Johannes Mabillon”, p. 199, n. 2).

There seems now to be no doubt that the “Passio S. Placidi”, purporting to be written by one Gordianus, a servant of the saint, on the strength of which he is usually described as abbot and martyr, is really the work of Peter the Deacon, a monk of Monte Cassino in the twelfth century (see Delehaye, op. cit. infra). The writer seems to have begun by confusing St. Placidus with the earlier Placitus, who, with Euticius and thirty companions, was martyred in Sicily under Diocletian, their feast occurring in the earlier martyrologies on 5 October. Having thus made St. Placidus a martyr, he proceeds to account for this by attributing his martyrdom to Saracen invaders from Spain -- an utter anachronism in the sixth century but quite a possible blunder if the “Acta” were composed after the Moslem invasions of Sicily. The whole question is discussed by the Bollandists (infra) .

520 St. Apollinaris Bishop of Vienne, Gaul; renowned in life for virtues and in death for miracles and prodigies.
Valéntiæ, in Gállia, sancti Apollináris Epíscopi, cujus vita virtútibus fuit illústris, et mors signis ac prodígiis decoráta.
At Valence in France, St. Apollinaris, a bishop, renowned in life for virtues and in death for miracles and prodigies.
patron saint of that diocese. Apollinaris was the son of St. Hesychius and brother of St. Avitus of Vienne. He was trained by St. Marnertus and he was consecrated by his brother circa 492. He was sent into exile during the political turmoil caused by the marriage of an official of King Sigismund of Bavaria. The local bishops condemned the marriage, defended by the king. When Apollinaris' cloak was used to cure King Sigismund, he was recalled and restored to his office.

520 ST APOLLINARIS, BISHOP OF VALENCE
ST HESYCHIUS, Bishop of Vienne, had two sons, of whom the younger was the great St Avitus of Vienne and the elder was this Apollinaris of Valence. He was born about the year 453, educated under St Mamertus, and consecrated bishop by his brother before he was forty years old. Owing to the disorderly life of a previous prelate the see of Valence had been vacant for a number of years, and the diocese was in a deplorable state of ill-living and heresy. Soon after the year 517 a synod condemned an official of Sigismund, King of Burgundy, for having contracted an incestuous marriage. The culprit refused to yield, Sigismund supported him, and the bishops concerned were banished. St Apollinaris spent a year or more in exile. The occasion of his recall is said to have been the illness of Sigismund. The queen thought that her husband's malady was a divine punishment for his persecution of the bishops, and she sent to St Apollinaris to come to court. He refused. Then she asked for his prayers and the loan of his cloak, and this being laid upon the sick king he recovered. Thereupon, we are told, Sigismund sent a safe-conduct to the bishop and expressed contrition for his contumacy.
Some letters are extant which passed between St Apollinaris and St Avitus, which show mutual affection between the brothers and amusing touches of playfulness. In one of them Apollinaris reproves himself for having forgotten to observe the anniversary of the death of their sister Fuscina (whom Avitus praises in a poem): and in another Avitus accepts an invitation to the dedication of a church, but suggests that on this occasion too much revelry should be avoided. Being forewarned of his death, St Apollinaris went to Arles to visit his friend St Caesarius and the tomb of St Genesius. His progress down and up the Rhone was marked by marvels of dispersing storms and exorcising demons, to which the Roman Martyrology refers, but the historicalness of this journey has been questioned. On his return to Valence he died, about the year 520.

He is venerated as the principal patron of Valence, under the popular name of “Aplonay”.

The life printed in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol, iii, is there attributed to a contemporary, but this does not seem very probable. See B. Krusch in Mélanges Julien Havet (1895), pp. 39-56, and in MGH., Scriptores merov., vol , iii, pp. 194-203, where the text is critically edited. Cf, also Duchesne, Fastes Épiscopaux, vol. i, pp. 154, 217-218,223.

The most illustrious of the Bishops of Valence, b. at Vienne, 453; d. 520. He lived in the time of the irruption of the barbarians, and unhappily Valence, which was the central see of the recently founded Kingdom of Burgundy, had been scandalized by the dissolute Bishop Maximus, and the see in consequence had been vacant for fifty years.
Apollinaris was of a family of nobles and saints. He was little over twenty when he was ordained priest. In 486, when he was thirtythree years old, he was made Bishop of the long vacant See of Valence, and under his zealous care it soon recovered its ancient glory. Abuses were corrected and morals reformed. The Bishop was so beloved that the news of his first illness filled the city with consternation. His return to health was miraculous. He was present at the conference at Lyons, between the Arians and Catholics, which was held in presence of King Gondebaud. He distinguished himself there by his eloquence and learning.

A memorable contest in defence of marriage brought Apollinaris again into special prominence. Stephen, the treasurer of the kingdom, was living in incest. The four bishops of the province commanded him to separate from his companion, but he appealed to the King, who sustained his official and exiled the four bishops to Sardinia. As they refused to yield, the King relented, and after some time permitted them to return to their sees, with the exception of Apollinaris, who had rendered himself particularly obnoxious, and was kept a close prisoner for a year. At last the King, stricken with a grievous malady, repented, and the Queen in person came to beg Apollinaris to go to the court to restore the monarch to health. On his refusal, the Queen asked for his cloak to place on the sufferer. The request was granted, the King was cured, and came to beg absolution for his sin. Apollinaris was sixtyfour years old when he returned from Sardinia to Valence, and his people received him with every demonstration of joy. He died after an episcopate of thirtyfour years, at the age of sixtyseven, his life ending, as it had begun, in the constant exercise of the most exalted holiness.

550 St. Galla Widowed Roman noblewoman caring for sick and poor; Her church in Rome, near the Piazza Montanara, once held a picture of Our Lady, which according to tradition represents a vision vouchsafed to St. Galla. It is considered miraculous and was carried in recession in times of pestilence. It is now over the high altar of Santa Maria in Campitelli.
Romæ sanctæ Gallæ Víduæ, fíliæ Symmachi Cónsulis, quæ, viro suo defúncto, apud Ecclésiam beáti Petri multis annis oratióni, eleemósynis, jejúniis aliísque sanctis opéribus inténta permánsit; cujus felicíssimum tránsitum sanctus Gregórius Papa descrípsit.
At Rome, St. Galla, widow, daughter of the consul Symmachus. After the death of her husband, she remained for many years near the church of St. Peter, devoted to prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and other pious works. Her most happy death has been described by Pope St. Gregory.
praised by Pope St. Gregory I the Great. The daughter of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, she married and was widowed within a year. Galla joined a community of pious woman on Vatican Hill, Italy. She lived there, caring for the sick and poor until cancer claimed her life. Pope St. Gregory wrote about her, and St. Fulgentius of Ruspe delivered a treatise, in her honor.

550 ST GALLA, WIDOW
AMONG the victims of Theodoric the Goth in Italy was a noble patrician of Rome, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, who had been consul in 485. He was put to death unjustly in 525 and left three daughters, Rusticiana (the wife of Boethius), Proba and Galla, who is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology today. A reference to her life and a brief account of her death are given in the Dialogues of St Gregory. Galla within a year of her marriage was left a widow and, though young and wealthy, she determined to become a bride of Christ rather than again enter into that natural matrimony which, as St Gregory says in a generalization that he would have found hard to substantiate, “always begins with joy and ends with sorrow”. She was not to be turned from her resolve even by the warning of her physicians that if she did not marry again she would grow a beard. She therefore joined a community of consecrated women who lived close by the basilica of St Peter, where she lived for many years a life of devotion to God and care of the poor and needy.
Eventually she was afflicted with cancer of the breast, and being one night unable to sleep for pain she saw standing between two candlesticks (for she disliked physical as well as spiritual darkness) the figure of St Peter. “How is it, master?” she cried to him. “Are my sins forgiven ?” St Peter inclined his head. “They are forgiven”, he said. “ Come, follow me.” But Galla had a dear friend in the house named Benedicta, and she asked that she might come too. St Peter replied that Galla and another were called then, and that Benedicta should follow after thirty days. And accordingly three days later Galla and another were taken to God, and Benedicta after thirty days.
St Gregory, writing fifty years after, says that “the nuns now in that monastery, receiving them by tradition from their predecessors, can tell every little detail as though they had been present at the time when the miracle happened”.
The letter of St Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, “Concerning the State of Widowhood”, is supposed to have been addressed to St Galla; her relics are said to rest in the church of Santa Maria in Portico.

Little seems to be known beyond what is recorded in the Acta Sanctorurn, October, vol. iii. It is probable that the church known as San Salvatore de Gallia in Rome really perpetuated the name of this Saint. The French had a hospice at San Salvatore in Ossibus near the Vatican ; they had to move and settled close to San Salvatore de Galla, which consequently came to be known as de Gallia instead of Galla. See P. Spezi in Bulleuino della Com. archeolog. di Rorna, 1905, pp. 62—103 and 233—263.

According to St. Gregory the Great (Dial. IV, ch. xiii) she was the daughter of the younger Symmachus, a learned and virtuous patrician of Rome, whom Theodoric had unjustly condemned to death (525). Becoming a widow before the end of the first year of her married life, she, still very young, founded a convent and hospital near St. Peter's, there spent the remainder of her days in austerities and works of mercy, and ended her life with an edifying death. The letter of St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, “De statu viduarum”, is supposed to have been addressed to her. Her church in Rome, near the Piazza Montanara, once held a picture of Our Lady, which according to tradition represents a vision vouchsafed to St. Galla. It is considered miraculous and was carried in recession in times of pestilence. It is now over the high altar of Santa Maria in Campitelli.

St. Flavia martyred by pirates at Messina.
There is nothing known about Flavia other than she was martyred. The feast kept by the Western Church today is actually of St. Placid, “a monk and disciple of the Blessed Abbot Benedict, together with his brothers Eutychius and Victorinus, their sister, the maiden Flavia, Donatus, Firmatus the deacon, Faustus, and thirty other monks”, who, we are told were martyred by pirates at Messina.

St. Firmatus & Flaviana Martyrs of Auxerre, France
Antisiodóri deposítio sanctórum germanórum Firmáti Diáconi, et Flaviánæ Vírginis.
At Auxerre, the death of the saintly deacon Firmatus and the virgin Flaviana, his sister.
listed in St. Jerome’s martytrology. Firmatus was a deacon and Flaviana a virgin.

776 St. Magdalevus Benedictine bishop of Verdun, France
Magdalevus (d.c.776) + . He was a monk at Saint-Vannes until 736, when he was made the bishop of his native city.

859 St. Meinuph Abbot-founder godson of Charlemagne
also called Magenulf, Magenulpus, and Meen. A noble of Westphalia, he became a priest. Meinulf established the abbey of Bodeken in Westphalia, Germany, for nuns. His fame as a preacher and evangelist led to his being designated as one of the apostles to Westphalia.
   ST MAGENULF, OR MEINULF (c. A.D. 857)

         MAGENULF was born of a noble Westphalian family, and on the death of his father his mother fled to the court of Charlemagne to escape the unwelcome attentions of her brother-in-law. Local tradition has it that Magenuif was a posthumous child, born while his mother was on the way to the king at Stadberg, beneath a lime tree shown near Bodeken. Charlemagne made him his godchild and sent the boy to the cathedral school at Paderborn. A conference of the bishop Badurad on the text, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests: but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head”, determined him to enter the ranks of the clergy, and on receiving minor orders he was presented to a canonry in the cathedral of Paderborn. He was ordained deacon and then made archdeacon.
           It was the desire of St Magenuif to apply his riches to the foundation of a monastery for women on his own estate, and he chose as the site a spot where the deer came to drink at a brook. His choice was confirmed, it is said, by seeing a stag which displayed a cross between its antlers, like those of St Eustace and St Hubert. The monastery was duly founded at Bödeken and peopled with nuns from Aachen, for whose life he drew up a rule and constitutions. He made the monastery a centre from which he preached the gospel over the surrounding country, and he is accounted one of the apostles of Westphalia. St Magenuif died and was buried at Bödeken. A story, perhaps invented in view of some local dispute, says that while being carried to burial he sat up on the bier and exclaimed, “Tell the bishop of Paderborsi not to interfere in the election of a new superior!”
Other miracles were reported at his tomb, and these, with the memory of his humbleness and generosity, caused him soon to be venerated as a saint. Magenuif is called St Méen in France, and must be distinguished from the better-known St Méen (Mevennus, June 21).

A life of this saint seems to have been written about the year 895 when his remains were first exhumed for veneration, but this has not been preserved to us. It was, however, utilized by a certain Siegward who compiled a wordy but inadequate biography, c. 1035. Yet a third life was written from these materials and from his own acquaintance with the history of the period by Gobelinus Persona. It must have been produced, as Löffler has shown in the Historisches Jahrbuch for 1904 (pp. 190—192), between 1409 and 1416. The text of both Siegward and Gobelinus is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. iii.

861 Gregory of Khandzta Our Holy Father was raised in the court of the Kartlian ruler Nerse. His family was part of the Meskhetian aristocracy. He received an education befitting his family’s noble rank and displayed a special aptitude for the sciences and theology.

The youth chosen by God was extraordinarily dedicated to his studies. In a short time he memorized the Psalms and familiarized himself with the doctrines of the Church. He also learned several languages and knew many theological works by heart.

While Gregory was still young, his loved ones expressed a wish to see him enter the priesthood. The wise youth had aspired to the spiritual life from early on, but he considered himself unprepared to bear such an enormous responsibility. “My pride prevents me from fulfilling your desire,” he told them.

Finally he consented to be ordained a priest, but the local princes sought to consecrate him a bishop. Frightened at the prospect, Gregory secretly fled to southwestern Georgia with three like-minded companions: his cousin Saba (a future bishop and the reviver of Ishkhani Monastery), Theodore (the builder of Nedzvi [Akhaldaba] Monastery), and Christopher (the builder of the Dviri Monastery of St. Cyricus). The four brothers were unified by faith and love of God and bound by a single desire, as though they were one soul existing in four bodies.

The brothers arrived at the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Opiza and presented themselves before the abbot George. With his blessing they labored there for two years. Then St. Gregory visited the monk Khvedios, the righteous hermit of Khandzta. Prior to Gregory’s arrival, Khvedios had received a sign from God indicating that a monastery would be built in Khandzta by the hands of the priest Gregory. It was revealed to him that Fr. Gregory’s prayers were so holy that their sweet-smelling fragrance rose up before God like incense. The monk showed St. Gregory the environs, and he was so drawn to this area that he soon returned there with the other brothers and began to build a monastery.

The monks were forced to construct the monastery in difficult conditions, since the earth was rocky and mountainous and they were not equipped with the proper tools. First they built a wooden church, and later four cells and a dining hall.

A certain aristocrat by the name of Gabriel Dapanchuli lived nearby, and Gregory turned to him for help with construction of the monastery. With great joy he donated the stone, labor and food necessary for this worthy project to be realized. In such a way the first monastery church in Khandzta was established.

Gabriel informed Holy King Ashot Kuropalates about the brothers’ activity, and the king invited their leader, St. Gregory, to the palace. There he received him with great honor, asked him to bless the royal family, and inquired in detail about the life and labors of the holy monks. Then he presented Gregory with a generous donation to the monastery and, having learned that the land in Khandzta could not be cultivated, bestowed upon the monastery a large plot of fertile land in Shatberdi. King Ashot’s sons, the princes Adarnerse, Bagrat, and Guaram, also donated generously to the monastery.

And so, during the bloody Arab-Muslim period of rule, when the Georgian people had sunk into deep despair, the Klarjeti Wilderness was transformed into a life-giving oasis to which the greatest sons of the nation flocked. The rules of the monastery were strict. In each monk’s cell was nothing but a short, stiff bed and a small pitcher for water. Neither fires nor candles were lit inside.

St. Gregory was known throughout all of Georgia. At the request of King Demetre II of Abkhazeti (837–872), Fr. Gregory built a monastery in the village of Ubisi in Imereti and appointed his disciple Ilarion of Jerusalem as abbot. He built this monastery on the border of western and eastern Georgia and in so doing foresaw the unification of the two kingdoms.

The Lord performed many miracles through St. Gregory. Once the church bell-ringer was approaching the abbot’s cell and saw a light issuing forth from inside. He knew that St. Gregory had lit neither a fire nor his oil lamp, and he became frightened, believing that a fire might have started in the abbot’s cell. As it turned out, others had witnessed similar wonders: when the saint stood praying, he would light up like the sun, and beams of light would emanate from his body in the shape of a cross.

Venerable Gregory stood firmly in defense of morality, and he even confronted King Ashot Kuropalates when his conduct was at odds with the values of the Georgian people. Gregory had united his companions in their love of God, but among the roses there appeared a thorn. A certain Tskir, a protégé of the Tbilisi emir Sahak, schemed to obtain the episocopal see of Anchi.

He forcibly took control of Anchi Cathedral and committed many blasphemies. The clergy, and venerable Gregory in particular, condemned his behavior, but Tskir was consumed by pride and hired a killer to eliminate St. Gregory. Like a prophet, St. Gregory foresaw the imminent danger but went out to meet it nevertheless. Approaching his victim, while still at a distance from him, the murderer saw a bright light enveloping the holy father. He froze in fear, and his hand immediately withered. Only the prayers of St. Gregory could heal him and permit him to return home.

The Church excommunicated Tskir, and he fled to the emir for refuge. With Sahak’s help he returned to the throne of Anchi and sent a military detachment to destroy Khandzta Monastery. The monks of Khandzta and their abbot met the attackers in meekness and requested time to celebrate the Sunday Liturgy. The whole brotherhood prayed tearfully to the Lord to save the monastery.
The Liturgy had not yet been completed when a messenger arrived from Anchi to report that Tskir had died suddenly.

Near the end of his life St. Gregory spent most of his time at Shatberdi Monastery, which he himself had built. When he received a sign that his death was approaching, he distributed candles throughout all the monasteries in the Klarjeti Wilderness and requested that they be burned on the day of his death. He asked all to remember him and bade farewell to Khandzta.

On the day of his repose, holy fathers from all over Klarjeti gathered to receive a final blessing from their teacher. Gregory blessed them, admonished them for the last time, and gave up his soul to God. When he breathed his last, a voice was heard from heaven, calling him: “Do not be afraid to come, O Venerable Servant of Christ, for Christ, the King of heaven, has Himself anointed you an earthly angel and a heavenly man. Now come and approach thy Lord with great joy and prepare for exaltation, for you are blessed among the saints and your everlasting glory has been prepared!”

Abounding in blessings and perfect in wisdom, justly ruling the inhabitants of the wilderness, St. Gregory of Khandzta reposed on October 5, 861, at the age of 102. In accordance with his will, he was buried among his brothers at Khandzta Monastery.

965 Bl. Aymard Abbot succeeding St. Odo in Citiny, France, in 942. Aymard served until 948, when blindness forced him to retire. He had continued the reform of St. Odo.

1009 St. Attilanus Benedictine bishop; Mozarabic saints, St. Attilanus, Bishop of Zamora and St. Iñigo of Calatayud; ranked among the saints by Pope Urban II.
Eódem die sancti Attiláni, Epíscopi Zamorénsis, quem beátus Urbánus Papa Secúndus in Sanctórum númerum rétulit.
Also, St. Attilanus, bishop of Zamora, who was ranked among the saints by Pope Urban II.
companion of St. Froilan. Born in Tarazona, near Saragossa, Spain, he became a Benedictine at Mareruela, under St. Froilan. He was named bishop of Zamora and was consecrated on Whitsunday in 990. St. Froilan was consecrated with him. Attilanus was canonized in 1089.
When the Moors took Tarazona they were able to hold it for a long time on account of its fortified position near the Moncaya, between the Douro and the Ebro. The names of its Mozarabic bishops have not come down to us, although it is very probable there were such; on the other hand we know of the Mozarabic saints, St. Attilanus, Bishop of Zamora and St. Iñigo of Calatayud.

1281 Saint Charitina, Princess of Lithuania, nun of Novgorod, pursued asceticism in a Novgorod women's monastery in honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, built on Sinich hill.

Having resolved to dedicate her life to the Lord, she became nun. For her virtuous life she was made Abbess of the monastery. Until the time of her death, she was a sister to all through her humility, purity and strict temperance. She fell asleep in the Lord in the year 1281 and was buried in the Peter and Paul monastery church.

In the Iconographers' Manual it says, “The holy and righteous Charitina, Abbess of the Peter and Paul women's monastery at Novgorod. She was born of Lithuanian royalty, yet appears as a maiden in a single garb without the mantiya.”
Saint Charitina (feminine of Chariton = grace) icon is in THE STAIRWELLS, At the summit of the northern stairwell a martyr Charitina princess of Lithuania, in THE CHURCH OF THE GREAT MARTYR ST. GEORGE THE VICTORIOUS IN EDMONTON , Canada.

1347 St. Flora Patron abandoned converts single laywomen betrayal victims many miracles worked & at her tomb.

ST FLORA OF BEAULIEU, VIRGIN (A.D. 1347)

THE “Hospitalières”, nuns of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, had a flourishing priory known as Beaulieu, between Figeac and the shrine of Rocamadour. Here about the year 1324 entered a very devout novice of good family, who is now venerated as St Flora. If we can trust the biography in the form we have it, she had passed a most innocent childhood, had resisted all her parents’ attempts to find her a husband, but on dedicating herself to God at Beaulieu she was over-whelmed by every species of spiritual trial. At one time she was beset with misgivings that the life she was leading was too easy and comfortable, at another she had to struggle against endless temptations to go back to the world and enjoy its pleasures. She seems, in consequence, to have fallen into a state of intense depression which showed itself in her countenance and behaviour to a degree which the other sisters found intensely irritating. They gave her in consequence a very bad time. They declared that she was either a hypocrite or out of her mind. They not only treated her themselves as an object of ridicule, but they brought in outsiders to look at her and encouraged them to mimic and make fun of her as though she were crazy.
In all this time, obtaining help occasionally from some visiting confessor who seemed to understand her state, she was growing dearer to God and in the end was privileged to enjoy many unusual mystical favours. It is alleged that one year on the feast of All Saints she fell into an ecstasy in which she continued without taking any nourishment at all until St Cecilia’s day, three weeks later. Again, we hear of a fragment of the Blessed Sacrament being brought to her by an angel from a church eight miles away. The priest who was celebrating there thought that through some carelessness of his this portion of the Host which he had broken off had slipped off the corporal and been lost. In great distress he came to ask Sister Flora about it, since her gift of spiritual discernment was widely known. But she smiled and comforted him, leaving him with the conviction that she herself had received what had disappeared from the altar. It must be confessed that this story bears a suspicious resemblance to a similar incident which occurs in the Life of St Catherine of Siena. Again, when meditating on the Holy Ghost, one Whit Sunday at Mass, Flora is said to have been raised four feet from the ground and to have hung suspended in the air for some time while all were looking on. But perhaps the most curious of her mystical experiences was her feeling that a rigid cross to which our Saviour’s body was attached was inside her. The arms of the cross seemed to pierce her ribs and caused a copious flow of blood which sometimes flowed from her mouth, sometimes escaped through a wound in her side. Many instances were apparently reported of her inexplicable or prophetic knowledge of matters of which she could not naturally have learnt anything. She died in 1347 at the age of thirty-eight, and many miracles are believed to have been worked at her tomb.

The Bollandists were at first unable to procure any detailed information regarding St Flora, but eventually a Latin version was sent them, made in 1709, of a life which existed at Beaulieu in Old French. It is printed as an appendix in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. ii. The Old French text was printed in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxiv (1946), pp. 5—49. It was made before 1482 from a lost Latin original, said to have been written by the saint’s confessor. See also C. Lacarrière, Vie de Ste Flore ou Fleur (1866); and Analecta jurispontificii. vol. xviii (1879), pp. 1—27. The cult of St Flora has received a sort of indirect confirmation in the fact that the Holy See has approved an office in her honour, used in the diocese of Cahors.

St. Flora, Virgin, Patron of the abandoned, of converts, single laywomen, and victims of betrayal.
Flora was born in France about the year 1309. She was a devout child and later resisted all attempts on the part of her parents to find a husband for her.
In 1324, she entered the Priory of Beaulieu of the Hospitaller nuns of St. John of Jerusalem. Here she was beset with many and diverse trials, fell into a depressed state, and was made sport of by some of her religious sisters. However, she never ceased to find favor with God and was granted many unusual and mystical favors.
One year on the feast of All Saints, she fell into an ecstasy and took no nourishment until three weeks later on the feast of St. Cecelia.
On another occasion, while meditating on the Holy Spirit, she was raised four feet from the ground and hung in the air in full view of many onlookers.
She also seemed to be pierced with the arms of Our Lord's cross, causing blood to flow freely at times from her side and at others, from her mouth.
Other instances of God's favoring of his servant were also reported, concerning prophetic knowledge of matters of which she could not naturally know.
Through it all, St. Flora remained humble and in complete communion with her Divine Master, rendering wise counsel to all who flocked to her because of her holiness and spiritual discernment. In 1347, she was called to her eternal reward and many miracles were worked at her tomb.

1399 Bl. Raymond of Capua second founder of the Dominican Order; made the acquaintance of St. Catherine of Siena, serving as spiritual director 1376 became her closest advisor
            BD RAYMUND OF CAPUA (A.D. 1399)
         THE family of delle Vigne was one of the noblest of Capua; Peter delle Vigne had been chancellor to the Emperor Frederick II (his conduct in that office is defended by Dante in the Inferno), and among his descendants was Raymund, born in 1330.
         While a student at Bologna he became a Dominican, and in spite of the continual handicap of bad health made steady progress in his order. When he was thirty-seven he was prior of the Minerva at Rome, and afterwards was lector at Santa Maria Novella in Florence and then, in 1374, at Siena. Here he met St Catherine who, assisting at his Mass on St John the Baptist’s day, heard as it were a voice saying to her, “This is my beloved servant. This is he to whom I will entrust you.” Father Raymund had already been chaplain to the Preacheresses at Monte-pulciano and so had experience of religious women, but he had never before met one like this young tertiary: she was twenty-seven, sixteen years younger than himself. He was a cautious, deliberate man, and did not allow himself either to be carried away by her vehemence or put off by her unusualness; he did not at once recognize her mission, but he did recognize her goodness, and one of the first things he did on becoming her confessor was to allow her holy communion as often as she wished.
For the six last and most important years of her life Raymund of Capua was the spiritual guide and right-hand man of Catherine of Siena, and would be remembered for that if he had done and been nothing else of note.
Their first work in common was to care for the sufferers from the plague by which Siena was then devastated. Father Raymund became a victim and had symptoms of death: Catherine prayed by him for an hour and a half without intermission, and on the morrow he was well. Thenceforward he began to believe’ in her miraculous powers and divine mission, and when the pestilence was stayed he co-operated in her efforts to launch a new crusade to the East, preaching it at Pisa and elsewhere and personally delivering Catherine’s famous letter to that ferocious freebooter from Essex, John Hawkwood. This was interrupted by the revolt of Florence and the Tuscan League against the pope in France, and they turned their efforts to securing peace at home and working for Gregory’s return to Rome.
When in 1378 Gregory XI died, Urban VI succeeded him, the opposition party elected Clement VII, and the Schism of the West began. St Catherine and Bd Raymund had no doubt as to which was the legitimate pope, and Urban sent him to France to preach against Clement and to win over King Charles V. Catherine was in Rome and had a long farewell talk with this faithful friar who had been active in all her missions for God’s glory and had sometimes sat from dawn till dark hearing the confessions of those whom she had brought to repentance; “We shall never again talk like that”, she said on the quayside, and fell on her knees in tears.
           At the frontier Bd Raymund was stopped by Clementine soldiers and his life threatened. He returned to Genoa, where he received a letter from St Catherine, disappointed at his failure. Pope Urban wrote telling him to try and reach France through Spain, but this also was useless; Catherine sent him another letter of stinging reproach for what she considered his faint-heartedness. But Raymund remained at Genoa, preaching against Clement and studying for his mastership in theology.
   While in Pisa, on April 28, 1380, he “heard a voice, which was not in the air, speaking words which reached my mind and not my ears”, and those words were, “ Tell him never to lose courage. I will be with him in every danger if he fails, I will help him up again.” A few days later he heard that St Catherine was dead and that she had spoken those words of him to those who stood by. He succeeded to the charge of her famiglia, the little group of clerics and lay-people who had helped and hindered her in all her undertakings, and he continued all his life her labours for the ending of the schism.
     But for the next nineteen years Bd Raymund was conspicuous also in a new sphere of activity. At the time of St Catherine’s death he was elected master general of the Urbanist part of the Order of Preachers, and he set himself to restore its fervour, grievously impaired by the schism, the Black Death, and general debility. He particularly sought to revive the more specifically monastic side of the order, and established a number of houses of strict observance in several provinces, whose influence was intended to permeate the whole. The reform was not completely successful, and it has been made a reproach to Raymund that his provisions tended to modify and lessen the studies of the friars; on the other hand they also formed many holy men, and it is not for nothing that the twenty-third master general has been popularly called the second founder of his order. To spread the third order in the world was also part of his scheme, in which he was particularly supported by Father Thomas Caffarini, to whose relentless urging-on we owe the fact that Raymund persevered with and completed his Life of St Catherine. He also wrote in his earlier and less burdened years a Life of St Agnes of Montepulciano.
Bd Raymund of Capua died on October 5, 1399, at Nuremberg, while working for Dominican reform in Germany. He was beatified in 1899.

No formal biography of Bd Raymund is preserved to us from early times, but the sources for the life of St Catherine of Siena necessarily tell us a great deal about him (see April 30). There are also his writings, collected in the volume Opuscula et Litterae (1899) and the, unfortunately incomplete, Registrum Litterarum of the Dominican masters general edited by Fr Reichert. These official documents are of great importance for their bearing on the reform movement in the order which Raymund initiated. There is a good modern biography by H. Cormier, Le bx Raymond de Capoue (1899), and he occupies a conspicuous place in the third volume of Mortier’s Histoire des Maîtres Généraux O.P. See further the article by Bliemetzrieder in the Historisches Yahrbuch, vol. xxx (1909), pp. 23 1—273.

Born at Capua, Italy, in 1330, Raymond delle Vigne entered the Dominicans while attending the University of Bologna and subsequently held several posts, including prior of the Dominican house in Rome and lector in Florence and Siena. While at Siena, he made the acquaintance of St. Catherine of Siena, serving as her spiritual director from 1376 and becoming her closest advisor. Through the years he was connected with most of Catherine’s important undertakings, including the call for a Crusade against the Turks, the negotiation of peace between the papacy and Florence, and the plea made to Pope Gregory XI to depart Avignon and return to Rome.
Raymond also worked to bring aid and comfort to the victims of a plague which struck Siena, and when he fell sick with the disease, Catherine nursed him back to health. Upon the start of the Great Western Schism in 1378, both Raymond and Catherine gave their support to Pope Urban VI against antipope Clement VII. Raymond traveled to France in an unsuccessful bid to win the support of that kingdom; during the sojourn he was nearly killed by overzealous partisans of Clement VII. He continued to strive for a peaceful settlement of the crisis in the Church, even after Catherine’s death in 1380, and was elected master general of the Dominicans.
As head of the order until his death at Nuremnberg, he brought reforms to its houses and demanded the strict adherence to the rules laid down by St. Dominic. He also wrote biographies of Catherine of Siena and St. Agnes of Montepulciano.

God gave to man and woman complementary roles. This is true not only in marriage, but wherever male and female are called by their vocations to collaborate. Particularly in the lives of saints do we see holy women accomplishing great deeds and achieving great sanctity with the assistance and advice of holy men.
St. Catherine of Siena one of the most notable women of the fourteenth century. Blessed Raymond Delle Vigne, a Dominican friar, could not match her in wits; yet as spiritual director and coworker he helped her wisely to channel her great gifts. Raymond was himself gifted in mind and soul. He was a native of Capua, Italy, and the descendant of its noblest family. While studying Scripture and Patrology at Bologna, he entered the Order of Preachers (the Dominican Friars). Despite chronic poor health, he rose to prominence in that Order as a teacher and religious superior. In 1363 he was designated spiritual director of the Dominican nuns at Montepulciano. In this assignment he became experienced in the spiritual counseling of women. In 1374 he was appointed “lector” or teacher of the Dominican friary at Siena.
Catherine, a member of the third order of the Dominicans, was then in her late twenties, some 16 years younger than Friar Raymond. She was obviously a good person, but unusual in character and strong in feeling. What she most needed at that point in her life was guidance. Fr. Raymond first met Catherine in Siena on feast of St. John the Baptist. As she assisted at his Mass, she heard an inner voice saying, “This is my beloved servant. This is he to whom I will entrust you.” He was shortly appointed her spiritual director. Raymond was not an enthusiast, but a cautious, deliberate man, ideally equipped to advise and assist this remarkable penitent during the last six years of her life. Theirs was a warm and appreciative spiritual friendship. Bl. Raymond would eventually write the Saint's first important biography.
Once their association began, they worked as a team on all of the Saint's important projects. They first collaborated in taking care of the victims of the Black Death that was epidemic in Siena. Raymond himself became infected with the plague, but after Catherine had prayed over him for an hour and a half, he recovered fully, convinced now of her charismatic holiness. After the epidemic was over, the Saint undertook to launch a new crusade to save Christianity in the Mideast. Raymond preached the crusade at Pisa. He also personally delivered Catherine's famous letter to Sir John Hawkwood, an Englishman who had become one of the most notorious brigands in Italy.
The crusade campaign was cut short by outbreak of a revolt by Florence and the Tuscan League against Pope Gregory XI. During Gregory's residence in Avignon, France, Italy had fallen into turmoil. Catherine and Raymond agreed that the pope had to return to Rome, so they began to work for peace in Italy as a preliminary. Gregory at length came back to the Eternal City, although he died shortly afterward. It was then that the French party of cardinals, who first voted in the new pope, Urban VI, suddenly declared that Urban's election was void, and elected a French cardinal, “Clement VI”, thus initiating the Great Schism of the West. Fr. Raymond and St. Catherine stood firm for the Roman pope, and Urban VI sent Raymond to France to win its king away from the “pope” of Avignon. Unfortunately, the friar was refused admission at the French border.
While at Pisa on April 28, 1380, Raymond heard a disembodied voice say, “Tell him never to lose courage. I will be with him in every danger; if he fails, I will help him up again.” He later learned that Catherine had died that day, and before dying had spoken those very words to the people around her.
Bl. Raymond fell heir to the “family” of clerics and laypeople who had assisted the dead saint. Elected that same year to head the Dominicans of the Roman obedience, he worked to reform the order. While engaged in this work he died at Nuremberg, Germany. St. Catherine learned much from Raymond, he also learned much from her. --Father Robert F. McNamara

1588 Bl. William Hartley Martyr of England; Anglican minister before his conversion to Catholicism; aided St. Edmund Campion
Born at WiIne, Derbyshire, he studied at Oxford and was an Anglican minister before his conversion to Catholicism. Going to Reims, France, he received ordination in 1580 and went back to the English mission to aid St. Edmund Campion. He was arrested in 1582 and deported from England. He returned and was captured again at Holborn. William was hanged at Shoreditch and beatified in 1929.

1588 Bl. Robert Sutton English martyr; an Anglican priest convert
Born at Kegwell, Leicestershire, he became an Anglican priest convert, studying at Oxford. In 1575, he converted and went to Douai, France. He returned to England and was arrested in London and hanged at Clerkenwell.

The celebration of a special day to honor Saints Peter, Alexis, Jonah the Metropolitans and Wonderworkers of All Russia was established by Patriarch Job on October 5, 1596. In 1875, St Innocent, Metropolitan of Moscow (March 31 and October 6) proposed that St Philip be included with the others. St Hermogenes was added only in the year 1913. In 2005 the Church of Russia added St Innocent (March 31 and October 6), St Macarius (December 30), St Job (April 5 and June 19), St Tikhon (April 7 and October 9), St Philaret (November 19), St Peter (September 27), and St Macarius (February 16).

By celebrating these hierarchs on a common day, the Church offers each of them equal honor, as heavenly protectors of the city of Moscow and prayerful intercessors for Russia.

Information about the Lives of these holy Hierarchs is found under the dates of their commemoration: St Peter (December 21 and August 24), St Alexis (February 12 and May 20), St Jonah (March 31, May 27, and June 15), St Philip (January 9 and July 3 ), St Hermogenes (February 17 and May 12 ).

2002 For centuries the region of Tao-Klarjeti in southwestern Georgia was known for its holiness, unity and spiritual strength. The cultural life and faith of Kartli were nearly extinguished by the Arab-Muslim domination from the 8th to 10th centuries. Tao-Klarjeti, however, which had been emptied by a cholera epidemic and the aftermath of the Islamic invasions, filled with new churches and monasteries, becoming a destination for many Christian ascetics. St. Ekvtime Taqaishvili wrote that “Every monastery included a school and a seminary where the Christian Faith, philosophy, Greek and other foreign languages, chant, calligraphy, fine arts, jewelry making, and other disciplines were taught. Countless priests, translators, miniaturists, and jewelry makers developed their craft in these schools.”
On October 17, 2002, the Georgian Apostolic Church nominally restored the dioceses of Klarjeti and Lazeti to its own jurisdiction and declared the incumbent bishop of Akhaltsikhe to be their spiritual leader. On the same day, the Georgian Church canonized the holy and venerable fathers and mothers who labored in those regions under the leadership of St. Gregory of Khandzta. Only a few of the God-fearing laborers, among them Holy Catholicos Nerse II, were Armenian by descent, but they had converted to Orthodoxy and preached the true Faith in the wilderness with the Georgian fathers.

The prayers of the Tao-Klarjeti monastics multiplied and were lifted up to the heavens like holy incense. Hagiographical works were written, original hymns composed, and theological texts translated. The literature of this period was thoroughly infused with the spirit of the Georgian people. Tao-Klarjeti reinvigorated the soul of the Georgian people and redirected the lost back to the true path.
St. Gregory of Khandzta, a priest of great virtue and wisdom, spearheaded this spiritual revival. He was a good shepherd to his flock and the builder of many churches. The Lives of St. Gregory of Khandzta and the other holy fathers and mothers of Tao-Klarjeti are recounted in St. George Merchule’s work The Life of St. Gregory of Khandzta. George Merchule labored in the Khandzta wilderness in the 10th century. His epithet, “Merchule,” means “the theologian” or literally “the knower of the law.”
George Merchule also provided the Church with the Life of Holy Catholicos Nerse III, an Armenian by descent. Nerse confessed the Orthodox Faith and labored in Tao-Klarjeti with the Georgian fathers. (At that time many Orthodox Armenians fled to Tao-Klarjeti after being exiled from their homeland.) In the first half of the 7th century St. Nerse laid the foundations of Ishkhani Church and labored there in holiness.
Holy Catholicos Hilarion was the founder and abbot of Tsqarostavi Church and a disciple of Gregory of Khandzta. He arrived at Khandzta Monastery with his spiritual father, St. David, Abbot of Midznadzori Monastery, and St. Zachariah, the builder of Beretelta Church. Those who witnessed the fathers’ unity and piety abandoned the world to join them in offering their lives to God. In the middle of the 9th century St. Hilarion was enthroned as Catholicos of Kartli in recognition of his wisdom and holiness. He followed Gabriel II (ca. 830–850) and was succeeded by Arsenius I “the Great” (ca. 860–887) in this most honorable role.
St. Stephen of Tbeti was the first bishop of Tbeti. He was a major writer and hagiographer in the Church of his time and a brilliant figure of the Tao-Klarjeti literary school. St. Stephen is credited with authoring the narrative The Martyrdom of St. Gobron.
From his childhood St. Zachariah of Anchi was filled with love and fear of God. Strict in his discipline but free from every constraint of this world, he led the life of a shepherd like St.David the Psalmist. As a child, St. Zachariah would gather his friends and relate with precision the words and scenes he had witnessed in churches and monasteries. Once the bishop of Anchi observed this unusual pastime and reported seeing a pillar of light descend fromthe heavens and alight atop St.Zachariah’s head. When he reached a mature age, St. Zachariah became the spiritual leader of his brothers. Through his prayers many miracles were performed: he stopped the stone wall of a collapsing building from crashing to the ground, eliminated the troublesome birds and grasshoppers from the monastery’s vineyard, and killed two venomous snakes that were keeping his frightened brothers from the vineyard. Filled with good faith and virtue, St. Zachariah was later consecrated bishop of Anchi.
St. Macarius of Anchi served as bishop of Anchi following the repose of St. Gregory of Khandzta in 861.
St. Ezra of Anchi, of the noble Dapanchuli family, labored in holiness during the 10th century.
St. Sava of Ishkhani was a cousin and one of the closest companions of St.Gregory of Khandzta. Along with two other friends, Christopher and Theodore, the young Sava accompanied Gregory of Khandzta to Klarjeti on a quest for the ascetic life. At first the young monks settled at Opiza Monastery and labored there with great zeal, and afterwards they moved to Khandzta.
Once St. Sava made a pilgrimage with St. Gregory to Byzantium, and there he learned the typica of the local monasteries. On the way back to Tao-Klarjeti, God revealed to them His will for Sava to restore Ishkhani Church, which had been destroyed by Arab-Muslim invaders. St. Sava desired to begin this holy task at once, but he continued on the way with St. Gregory at the latter’s insistence. Later, Gregory assigned two monks to help Sava restore the church and sent the three of them to Ishkhani. By God’s grace, the brothers restored the church and monastery and the number of monks who labored there multiplied. Before long their abbot, St. Sava, was consecrated bishop of Ishkhani.
St. John the New Martyr for Christ labored at Khandzta Monastery. While he was journeying to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage, the Saracens captured him in Baghdad and attempted to torture him into a denial of the Christian Faith. But by shedding his blood St. John demonstrated his immutable fidelity to the Faith of our Savior.
St. Theodore, Founder of Nedzvi Monastery, and St. Christopher, Founder of the Dviri Monastery of St. Cyricus, were spiritual sons of St. Gregory of Khandzta and the first men to join him in his holy labors. With St. Gregory they labored first at Opiza and later at Khandzta Monastery. These holy fathers journeyed to Abkhazeti to increase the fullness of the Faith in that region, and on their way, in Samtskhe, an aristocrat named Mirian entrusted them with the care and upbringing of his son, the six-year-old Arsenius (later Holy Catholicos Arsenius the Great). Eventually St. Gregory of Khandzta desired the return of Theodore and Christopher, and he traveled to Abkhazeti to find them. St. Gregory took with him his young disciple Ephraim (later the bishop and wonderworker of Atsquri). When he met the brothers in Abkhazeti, St. Gregory entrusted them with Ephraim’s upbringing and made them vow not to leave Khandzta Monastery until Ephraim and Arsenius had reached maturity. When Ephraim and Arsenius reached manhood they were “perfected in wisdom,” and Theodore and Christopher left Khandzta to establish the Nedzvi and Dviri Monasteries. There each father labored until the day of his repose.
Holy Fathers George, Amona, Peter, and Macarius labored in the wilderness of Opiza. Abba George was abbot of Opiza’s St. John the Baptist Monastery during the two years St. Gregory of Khandzta and his companions labored there. Fr. George was the third abbot of the monastery (he was succeeded by St. Andria and St. Samuel). Through God’s grace Abba George recognized the pilgrims’ faith and received them, not as pupils, but as honorable and wise elders. Witnessing the ascetic feats of the venerable fathers of Opiza, St. Gregory increased in virtue and humility, and acquired inner peace. (History has preserved a Holy Gospel from the Opiza Wilderness that has been dated to the year 913, around the time that Abba George was laboring there.)
In the second part of the 9th century St. Serapion of Zarzma founded Zarzma Monastery in Samtskhe. St. Serapion’s nephew, St. Basil, later performed great ascetic feats and worked miracles at that monastery. St. Basil authored The Life of Serapion of Zarzma and recounted the lives of the other venerable fathers of Zarzma as well.
St. George, “a brilliant and kindhearted man of great virtue,” succeeded St. Serapion as abbot of Zarzma Monastery. After St. George, the Venerable Abbot Michael began building a second church in Zarzma, in fulfillment of St. Serapion’s prophecy. St. Paul, who followed Michael as abbot of the monastery, completed construction of this second church.
The holy and righteous St. Khvedios labored as a hermit in the caves of the Khandzta Wilderness. God revealed to him the news of St. Gregory’s arrival, and he received Gregory and his brothers with great joy. He blessed them, while receiving a blessing himself from St. Gregory of Khandzta. Then, rather than journeying on with St. Gregory and the other brothers, St. Khvedios retired to his secluded cave, since he had taken a vow before God to live his whole life in solitude. After the holy father reposed, his dwelling place filled with a sweet fragrance.
St. Epiphanius was a wonderworker and a spiritual son of St. Gregory of Khandzta. This venerable father was truly clad in the armor of righteousness, and he was an inspiration to many. According to St. Gregory’s instructions, he became an example of obedience for the other brothers of the monastery. St. Epiphanius’s prayers healed many who were afflicted by terminal illnesses.
St. Matthew labored in the Khandzta Wilderness. After the abbess of Mere Monastery reposed, he took upon himself leadership of the women’s monastery and for forty years set an example of life lived in the fullness of the Faith. He was so strict in his asceticism that, for those forty years, he never once shared a meal with the mothers, nor did he receive a single object from any of their hands. When St. Matthew reached an advanced age, he became diseased in the flesh, but he declined the nuns’ offers to care for him. Instead he asked his relative, also a monk, to attend to him in his time of need.
St. Zenon was born in Samtskhe to a family of aristocrats. He was raised in the fear of God, and he desired from his youth to enter the monastic life. Before this desire was fulfilled, however, his sister was kidnapped by a certain godless man. Zenon set off to pursue the abductor on horseback, but while he was riding the devil began to assault him with anxieties. “I am a respectable man,” he thought, “but the one whom I am following is dishonorable. If I catch and kill him, I will destroy my soul, but if I turn back, shame will come upon me.” And so, at that very moment, St. Zenon turned back to fulfill his lifelong desire. He was tonsured a monk and later became a disciple of St. Gregory of Khandzta. St. Zenon, the “Treasure of Virtue, Holy Model of Asceticism and Gate of the Klarjeti Wilderness,” reposed at an advanced age.
St. John, Abbot of Khandzta, is celebrated for having completed construction of the new church at Khandzta that was begun by his predecessor, St. Arsenius. Both holy fathers reposed in the Khandzta Wilderness.
St. Theodore the Abbot and his brother St. John both labored at Khandzta Monastery. St. George Merchule recognizes the brothers as co-authors, with him, of the work The Life of St. Gregory of Khandzta; historians, however, believe that they were contributors, rather than coauthors, of this work.
The monk St. Gabriel ministered to the infirm and elderly monks of Khandzta Monastery. St. Gabriel verbally recounted the Lives of the great Church Fathers and admonished his brothers to follow the same strict disciplines as the fathers who had gone before them.
St. Demetrius was raised by the blessed St. Febronia and later became one of St. Gregory of Khandzta’s first disciples. He is commemorated among the holy fathers for having attaining the heights of the monastic struggle and for working wonders, both in this life and after he had been received into the bosom of Abraham.
SS. Arsenius and Macarius, “good monks full of wisdom and the gift of wonder-working,” were relatives of St. Ephraim of Atsquri. They labored together at St. Sabbas Monastery in Jerusalem and corresponded regularly with the monks of Khandzta. Sts. Arsenius and Macarius possessed a profound love for Christ and a longing to serve their motherland and mother Church.
St. Shio the Wonderworker “shone upon the land of Kartli like the North Star in the morning sky.” According to Basil of Zarzma, St. Shio was the spiritual father of St. Michael of Parekhi.
SS. Basil and Markelus, “abounding and brilliant in virtue,” were disciples of St. Michael of Parekhi. St. Basil was buried in Parekhi next to his spiritual father. Both fathers worked miracles from their graves and healed the infirmities of the faithful who came to seek their blessings.
Venerable Father David, “an image of the angels” and builder of many monasteries, labored as abbot of Midznadzori Monastery. He was the spiritual father of the holy catholicos Hilarion.
Endowed with many gifts of grace, St. Jacob was a prominent figure in the tenth-century Georgian Church. He labored first in Shatberdi, and later near Midznadzori Gorge, where he shone forth as the brightest of stars.
Venerable Sophronius the Great was the restorer of the Shatberdi Church and a famous writer, but his literary works have not been preserved.
St. George Merchule numbers him among the wise and holy fathers whose stories are worthy to be told. St. Gregory of Shatberdi labored at the same monastery. Several of the tenth-century manuscripts copied by him at Shatberdi Monastery have been preserved, including the Notebooks of the Shatberdi Wilderness and the Gospels of Hadishi, Jruchi, and Parekhi.
St. Zachariah built the famous Beretelta Monastery and set an example of wisdom and holiness for the fathers who labored there after him.
St. George Merchule honors the venerable and God-fearing St. Hilarion of Parekhi as one of the greatest writers and figures in the Church of his time.
St. Hilarion, Abbot of Ubisi, labored for many years at the Lavra of St. Sabbas in Jerusalem, where the Georgians had their own chapel for many centuries (See Archimandrite Gregory Peradze, “An Account of the Georgian Monks and Monasteries in Palestine,” Georgica, Autumn 1937, nos. 4–5, pp. 181–246.). After he had reached an advanced age, the venerable father moved to Georgia and settled at Khandzta Monastery. Later this clever and learned father began construction of Ubisi Church in Imereti, where he labored until his death.
St. Febronia labored at Mere Monastery in Samtskhe. She was a close friend of St. Gregory of Khandzta. He sent to her a certain woman whom King Ashot Kuropalates (later the holy martyr) had taken as his mistress, to instruct her in the Christian Faith. St. Febronia denied the king’s pleas to return the woman to the royal palace. Angels often visited St. Febronia to inform her of God’s holy will. St. Temestia labored with St. Febronia at Mere Monastery. For forty years she ministered to St. Matthew, the spiritual father of the monastery. St. Temestia herself remarked that her relationship with Father Matthew was so chaste and innocent that the holy father would not even permit himself to receive the holy incense directly from her hands.
St. Anatole (also called Antonios) labored in seclusion at Mere Monastery. Angels often appeared to the holy mother, who herself led a life equal to that of the bodiless powers. Both venerable Temestia and Anatole were informed by angels of the repose of their abbot, St.Matthew.
St. Anastasia labored among the holy mothers in remarkable sanctity and humility. She descended from an Abkhaz family and was known as Bevreli in the world. As queen (the wife of King Adarnerse) she was often called upon to protect the interests of Mere Monastery. King Adarnerse later grew cold towards Bevreli, so she left the world and was tonsured a nun with the name Anastasia. St. Anastasia bore the most difficult labor at the monastery: she gathered the firewood and carried it from the forest. She wore only rags and prayed constantly. Once King Adarnerse suddenly fell ill, and he sent messengers to Persati Monastery, where Anastasia was laboring, asking forgiveness on his behalf. St. Anastasia prayed for the sick king: “May Christ forgive all his sins and heal him in soul and body.” King Adarnerse was soon healed of his infirmity. Abounding in holiness and humility, St. Anastasia labored at Persati Monastery to the end of her days on earth. God granted her the gift of wonder-working both during her life on earth and after her repose. St. Anastasia’s own sons, Gurgen and Sumbat, were cured of their diseases at her grave, and afterwards many more who came with faith received healing from the holy mother.

The historical region of Tao-Klarjeti has throughout history, and even up to the present day, been inhabited by ethnic Georgians. However, since 1921, when the Communists annulled the independence of the Georgian Republic, Tao-Klarjeti has been a Turkish possession.

God endowed this region with abundant sunshine and clear air, free from cruel heat and bitter frost.
The local climate heightens the beauty of this wondrous region.

But Tao-Klarjeti has been transformed into a battlefield countless times throughout history: it has witnessed victory and defeat, destruction and restoration, treason and selfless loyalty. Through all these trials it has remained an inseparable part of the unified Georgian nation. In spite of the fact that, today, Tao-Klarjeti is located within the borders of a foreign government and its Georgian dioceses are often referred to as belonging to the Armenian Church, the historical truth must be upheld.

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

THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 86

Give praise to the Lord, for He is good: because by His most sweet Mother, the Virgin Mary, mercy is given to us.

Obtain for us, O Lady, the friendship of Jesus Christ: and keep us lest we should lose our innocence.

Repress our enemy by thy command: lest he should destroy in us the virtue of charity.

Illumine our ways and our paths: that we may know what is pleasing to God.

Preserve in us what is naturally good: and may good graces be multiplied in us.

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

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

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

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

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

There are over 10,000 named saints beati from history
and Roman Martyology Orthodox sources
Patron_Saints.html Widowed_Saints html Indulgences The Catholic Church in China
LINKS: Marian Shrines India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East Lourdes 1858 China Marian shrines 1995
Kenya national Marian shrine Loreto, Italy Marian Apparitions (over 2000) Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
Links to Related MarianWebsites Angels and Archangels Saints Visions of Heaven and Hell
Widowed Saints html
Doctors_of_the_Church Acts_Of_The_Apostles Roman Catholic Popes Purgatory Uniates Chalcedon

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

The great psalm of the Passion, Chapter 22, whose first verse “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Jesus pronounced on the cross, ended with the vision: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord;
and all the families of the nations shall worship before him” For kingship belongs to the LORD, the ruler over the nations. All who sleep in the earth will bow low before God; All who have gone down into the dust will kneel in homage. And I will live for the LORD; my descendants will serve you. The generation to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought.

Pope Benedict XVI to The Catholic Church In China {whole article here} 2000 years of the Catholic Church in China
The saints “a cloud of witnesses over our head”, showing us life of Christian perfection is possible.

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Saint Frances Xavier Seelos Practical Guide to Holiness

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

My God, I believe, I adore, I trust and I love Thee. I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not

O most Holy trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He is offended, and by the infite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I beg the conversion of poor sinners, Fatima Prayer, Angel of Peace

The voice of the Father is heard, the Son enters the water, and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove.

THE spirit and example of the world imperceptibly instil the error into the minds of many that there is a kind of middle way of going to Heaven; and so, because the world does not live up to the gospel, they bring the gospel down to the level of the world. It is not by this example that we are to measure the Christian rule, but words and life of Christ. All His followers are commanded to labour to become perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect, and to bear His image in our hearts that we may be His children. We are obliged by the gospel to die to ourselves by fighting self-love in our hearts, by the mastery of our passions, by taking on the spirit of our Lord.

These are the conditions under which Christ makes His promises and numbers us among His children, as is manifest from His words which the apostles have left us in their inspired writings. Here is no distinction made or foreseen between the apostles or clergy or religious and secular persons. The former, indeed, take upon themselves certain stricter obligations, as a means of accomplishing these ends more perfectly; but the law of holiness and of disengagement of the heart from the world is general and binds all the followers of Christ.

God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique each the result of a new idea.

As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike.
It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints.
Dear Lord, grant us a spirit not bound by our own ideas and preferences.
Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves.
O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory.
Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives.

Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts.

The 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary ) Revealed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan)

1. Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces. 2. I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary. 3. The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies. 4. It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things. Oh, that soul would sanctify them by this means. 5. The soul that recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish. 6. Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying themselves to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune. God will not chastise them in His justice, they shall not perish by an unprovided death; if they be just, they shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life. 7. Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church. 8. Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise. 9. I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary. 10. The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven. 11. You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary. 12. I shall aid all those who propagate the Holy Rosary in their necessities. 13. I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death. 14. All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my only Son, Jesus Christ. 15. Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.

His Holiness Aram I, current (2013) Catholicos of Cilicia of Armenians, whose See is located in Lebanese town of Antelias. The Catholicosate was founded in Sis, capital of Cilicia, in the year 1441 following the move of the Catholicosate of All Armenians back to its original See of Etchmiadzin in Armenia. The Catholicosate of Cilicia enjoyed local jurisdiction, though spiritually subject to the authority of Etchmiadzin. In 1921 the See was transferred to Aleppo in Syria, and in 1930 to Antelias.

Its jurisdiction currently extends to Syria, Cyprus, Iran and Greece.

Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac

The exact date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa {Armenian Ourhaï in Arabic Er Roha, commonly Orfa or Urfa, its present name} is not known. It is certain, however, that the Christian community was at first made up from the Jewish population of the city. According to an ancient legend, King Abgar V, Ushana, was converted by Addai, who was one of the seventy-two disciples. In fact, however, the first King of Edessa to embrace the Christian Faith was Abgar IX (c. 206) becoming official kingdom religion.

Christian council held at Edessa early as 197 (Eusebius, Hist. Ecc7V,xxiii).

In 201 the city was devastated by a great flood, and the Christian church was destroyed (“Chronicon Edessenum”, ad. an. 201).

In 232 the relics of the Apostle St. Thomas were brought from India, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written.

Under Roman domination martyrs suffered at Edessa: Sts. Scharbîl and Barsamya, under Decius; Sts. Gûrja, Schâmôna, Habib, and others under Diocletian.

In the meanwhile Christian priests from Edessa evangelized Eastern Mesopotamia and Persia, established the first Churches in the kingdom of the Sassanides. Atillâtiâ, Bishop of Edessa, assisted at the Council of Nicæa (325). The “Peregrinatio Silviæ” (or Etheriæ) (ed. Gamurrini, Rome, 1887, 62 sqq.) gives an account of the many sanctuaries at Edessa about 388.

Although Hebrew had been the language of the ancient Israelite kingdom, after their return from Exile the Jews turned more and more to Aramaic, using it for parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel in the Bible. By the time of Jesus, Aramaic was the main language of Palestine, and quite a number of texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls are also written in Aramaic.

Aramaic continued to be an important language for Jews, alongside Hebrew, and parts of the Talmud are written in it.

After Arab conquests of the seventh century, Arabic quickly replaced Aramaic as the main language of those who converted to Islam, although in out of the way places, Aramaic continued as a vernacular language of Muslims.

Aramaic, however, enjoyed its greatest success in Christianity. Although the New Testament wins written in Greek, Christianity had come into existence in an Aramaic-speaking milieu, and it was the Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac, that became the literary language of a large number of Christians living in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and in the Persian Empire, further east. Over the course of the centuries the influence of the Syriac Churches spread eastwards to China (in Xian, in western China, a Chinese-Syriac inscription dated 781 is still to be seen); to southern India where the state of Kerala can boast more Christians of Syriac liturgical tradition than anywhere else in the world.

680 Shiite saint Imam Hussein, grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad Known as Ashoura and observed by Shiites across the world, the 10th day of the lunar Muslim month of Muharram: the anniversary of the 7th century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints. Imam Hussein died in the 680 A.D. battle fought on the plains outside Karbala, a city in modern Iraq that's home to the saint's shrine. The battle over a dispute about the leadership of the Muslim faith following Muhammad's death in 632 A.D. It is the defining event in Islam's split into Sunni and Shiite branches. The occasion is the source of an enduring moral lesson. "He sacrificed his blood to teach us not to give in to corruption, coercion, or use of force and to seek honor and justice." According to Shiite beliefs, Hussein and companions were denied water by enemies who controlled the nearby Euphrates. Streets get partially covered with blood from slaughter of hundreds of cows and sheep. Volunteers cook the meat and feed it to the poor. Hussein's martyrdom recounted through a rich body of prose, poetry and song remains an inspirational example of sacrifice to many Shiites, 10 percent of the world's estimated 1.3 billion Muslims.

Meeting of the Saints walis (saints of Allah)

Great men covet to embrace martyrdom for a cause and principle.

So was the case with Hazrat Ali. He could have made a compromise with the evil forces of his time and, as a result, could have led a very comfortable, easy and luxurious life. But he was not a person who would succumb to such temptations. His upbringing, his education and his training in the lap of the holy Prophet made him refuse such an offer.
Rabia Al-Basri (717–801 C.E.) She was first to set forth the doctrine of mystical love and who is widely considered to be the most important of the early Sufi poets. An elderly Shia pointed out that during his pre-Partition childhood it was quite common to find pictures and portraits of Shia icons in Imambaras across the country.
Shah Abdul Latif: The Exalted Sufi Master born 1690 in a Syed family; died 1754. In ancient times, Sindh housed the exemplary Indus Valley Civilisation with Moenjo Daro as its capital, and now, it is the land of a culture which evolved from the teachings of eminent Sufi saints. Pakistan is home to the mortal remains of many Sufi saints, the exalted among them being Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, a practitioner of the real Islam, philosopher, poet, musicologist and preacher. He presented his teaching through poetry and music - both instruments sublime - and commands a very large following, not only among Muslims but also among Hindus and Christians. Sindh culture: The Shah is synonymous with Sindh. He is the very fountainhead of Sindh's culture. His message remains as fresh as that of any present day poet, and the people of Sindh find solace from his writings. He did indeed think for Sindh. One of his prayers, in exquisite Sindhi, translates thus: “Oh God, may ever You on Sindh bestow abundance rare! Beloved! All the world let share Thy grace, and fruitful be.”
Shia Ali al-Hadi, died 868 and son Hassan al-Askari 874. These saints are the 10th and 11th of Shia's 12 most revered Imams. Baba Farid Sufi 1398 miracle, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki renowned Muslim Sufi saint scholar miracles 569 A.H. [1173 C.E.] hermit gave to poor, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti greatest mystic of his time born 533 Hijri (1138-39 A.D.), Hazrat Ghuas-e Azam, Hazrat Bu Ali Sharif, and Hazrat Nizamuddi n Aulia Sufi Saint Hazrath Khwaja Syed Mohammed Badshah Quadri Chisty Yamani Quadeer (RA) 1236-1325 welcomed people of all faiths & all walks of life.

801 Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya Sufi One of the most famous Islamic mystics
(b. 717). This 8th century saint was an early Sufi who had a profound influence on later Sufis, who in turn deeply influenced the European mystical love and troubadour traditions. Rabi'a was a woman of Basra, a seaport in southern Iraq. She was born around 717 and died in 801 (185-186). Her biographer, the great medieval poet Attar, tells us that she was "on fire with love and longing" and that men accepted her "as a second spotless Mary" (186). She was, he continues, “an unquestioned authority to her contemporaries" (218).
Rabi'a began her ascetic life in a small desert cell near Basra, where she lost herself in prayer and went straight to God for teaching. As far as is known, she never studied under any master or spiritual director. She was one of the first of the Sufis to teach that Love alone was the guide on the mystic path (222). A later Sufi taught that there were two classes of "true believers": one class sought a master as an intermediary between them and God -- unless they could see the footsteps of the Prophet on the path before them, they would not accept the path as valid. The second class “...did not look before them for the footprint of any of God's creatures, for they had removed all thought of what He had created from their hearts, and concerned themselves solely with God. (218)
Rabi'a was of this second kind. She felt no reverence even for the House of God in Mecca: "It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?" (219) One lovely spring morning a friend asked her to come outside to see the works of God. She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker. Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made" (219). During an illness, a friend asked this woman if she desired anything.
"...[H]ow can you ask me such a question as 'What do I desire?' I swear by the glory of God that for twelve years I have desired fresh dates, and you know that in Basra dates are plentiful, and I have not yet tasted them. I am a servant (of God), and what has a servant to do with desire?" (162)
When a male friend once suggested she should pray for relief from a debilitating illness, she said,
"O Sufyan, do you not know Who it is that wills this suffering for me? Is it not God Who wills it? When you know this, why do you bid me ask for what is contrary to His will? It is not well to oppose one's Beloved." (221)
She was an ascetic. It was her custom to pray all night, sleep briefly just before dawn, and then rise again just as dawn "tinged the sky with gold" (187). She lived in celibacy and poverty, having renounced the world. A friend visited her in old age and found that all she owned were a reed mat, screen, a pottery jug, and a bed of felt which doubled as her prayer-rug (186), for where she prayed all night, she also slept briefly in the pre-dawn chill. Once her friends offered to get her a servant; she replied,
"I should be ashamed to ask for the things of this world from Him to Whom the world belongs, and how should I ask for them from those to whom it does not belong?" (186-7)
A wealthy merchant once wanted to give her a purse of gold. She refused it, saying that God, who sustains even those who dishonor Him, would surely sustain her, "whose soul is overflowing with love" for Him. And she added an ethical concern as well:
"...How should I take the wealth of someone of whom I do not know whether he acquired it lawfully or not?" (187)
She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance. She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself. The story is told that once a number of Sufis saw her hurrying on her way with water in one hand and a burning torch in the other. When they asked her to explain, she said:
"I am going to light a fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell, so that both veils may vanish altogether from before the pilgrims and their purpose may be sure..." (187-188)
She was once asked where she came from. "From that other world," she said. "And where are you going?" she was asked. "To that other world," she replied (219). She taught that the spirit originated with God in "that other world" and had to return to Him in the end. Yet if the soul were sufficiently purified, even on earth, it could look upon God unveiled in all His glory and unite with him in love. In this quest, logic and reason were powerless. Instead, she speaks of the "eye" of her heart which alone could apprehend Him and His mysteries (220).
Above all, she was a lover, a bhakti, like one of Krishna’s Goptis in the Hindu tradition. Her hours of prayer were not so much devoted to intercession as to communion with her Beloved. Through this communion, she could discover His will for her. Many of her prayers have come down to us:
       "I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
        But my body is available for those who seek its company,
        And my body is friendly towards its guests,
        But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul." [224]

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Mother Angelica saving souls is this beautiful womans journey

Shrine_of_The_Most_Blessed_Sacrament

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

Thus began a great adventure that would eventually result in the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, a Temple dedicated to the Divine Child Jesus, a place of refuge for all. Use this link to read a remarkable story about The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Father Reardon, Editor of The Catholic Bulletin for 14 years Lover of the poor; “A very Holy Man of God.”

Monsignor Reardon Protonotarius Apostolicus
Pastor 42 years BASILICA OF SAINT MARY Minneapolis MN

America's First Basilica Largest Nave in the World

August 7, 1907-ground broke for the foundation

by Archbishop Ireland-laying cornerstone May 31, 1908

James M. Reardon Publication History of Basilica of Saint Mary 1600-1932

Index to Part I and Part II 1932

James M. Reardon Publication History of the Basilica of Saint Mary 1955 {update}

Brief History of our Beloved Holy Priest Here and his published books of Catholic History in North America
Reardon, J.M. Archbishop Ireland; Prelate, Patriot, Publicist, 1838-1918.
A Memoir (St. Paul; 1919); George Anthony Belcourt Pioneer Catholic Missionary of the Northwest 1803-1874 (1955);
The Catholic Church IN THE DIOCESE OF ST. PAUL from earliest origin to centennial achievement 1362-1950 (1952);
The Church of Saint Mary of Saint Paul 1875-1922; (1932)
The Vikings in the American Heartland;
The Catholic Total Abstinence Society in Minnesota;

James Michael Reardon Born in Nova Scotia, 1872; Priest, ordained by Bishop Ireland;

Member -- St. Paul Seminary faculty.

Affiliations and Indulgences Litany of Loretto in Stained glass windows here. Nave Sacristy and Residence Here
Sanctuary spaces between them filled with grilles of hand-forged wrought iron the life of our Blessed Lady After the crucifixon

Apostle statues Replicas of those in St John Lateran--Christendom's earliest Basilica.
Ordered by Rome's first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, Popes' cathedral and official residence first millennium of Christian history.

The only replicas ever made: in order from west to east {1932}.

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

Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel
It Makes No Sense Not To Believe In GOD

THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi.

June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.

By Father John Corapi
THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi.

June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.

By Father John Corapi

Among the most important titles we have in the Catholic Church for the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our Lady of Victory and Our Lady of the Rosary. These titles can be traced back to one of the most decisive times in the history of the world and Christendom. The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7 (date of feast of Our Lady of Rosary), 1571. This proved to be the most crucial battle for the Christian forces against the radical Muslim navy of Turkey. Pope Pius V led a procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City praying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral leadership in recognizing the danger posed to Christendom by the radical Muslim forces, and in using the means necessary to defeat it. Spiritual battles require spiritual weapons, and this more than anything was a battle that had its origins in the spiritual order—a true battle between good and evil.

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

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

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

Talk is weak. Prayer is strong. Pray! God bless you, Father John Corapi

Father Corapi's Biography

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

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

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

About Father John Corapi.

Father Corapi is a Catholic priest .

The pillars of father's preaching are basically:

Love for and a relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary
Leading a vibrant and loving relationship with Jesus Christ
Great love and reverence for the Most Holy Eucharist from Holy Mass to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
An uncompromising love for and obedience to the Holy Father and the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church

God Bless you on your journey Father John Corapi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LINKS:
Marian Apparitions (over 2000) India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes Feb 11- July 16, Loreto, Italy 1858
China Marian shrines May 23, 1995 Zarvintisya Ukraine Lourdes Kenya national Marian shrine    Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
Links to Related Marian Websites Angels and Archangels
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Apostles Roman Catholic Popes Purgatory Uniates, 865 2023