And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.-- Genesis 2:7
Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum.
And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
Пресвятая Богородице спаси нас!  (Santíssima Mãe de Deus, salva-nos!)
R.  Deo grátias. R.  Thanks be to God.
October is the month of the Rosary since 1868;
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CAUSES OF SAINTS

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

Acts of the Apostles

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

Accept as blessings the casualties that befall you,
assured that nothing happens without God. -- Didache 3:10

Novena to St. Gerard Majella, Patron Saint of Pregnant Mothers and of Childbirth October 8-16
St. Gerard Majella
 You worshiped Jesus as the Lord of Life.   I ask you today to pray  For my special intention.
 (Stavon Victoria Williams & family.)
 Lift up to Jesus  All those who seek to conceive a child,  All those having difficult pregnancies,
 All who have suffered the loss of a child,  And all who lovingly lift up their children to God.
 Pray that all of us,  By caring for mothers, fathers, and children born and unborn May build a Culture of Life,
 In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Mary Mother of GOD 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary
Blessed Simeon; took our Lord Jesus in his arms prophesied concerning him when he was presented in the Temple.
  250 St. Reparata Virgin martyr of Caesarea, in Palestine
 300 St. Nestor Martyr
 302 St. Palatias and Laurentia Christian martyrs
4th v. St. Artemon,  priest, At Laodicea in Phrygia, during reign of Diocletian, gained crown of martyrdom by fire.
4th v. St. Thais Egyptian penitent; Repenting lifestyle through St. Paphnutius influence gave up money entered convent walled 3 years extreme penance for dissolute habits; at urging of St. Anthony, released permitted to join convent women, dying 5 days later.
        St. Pelagia more often called Margaret actress of Antioch
 4th v. St. Demetrius; Called a military martyr; and “the Megalomartyr” by the Greeks; deacon martyred at Sirmium,
        (former Yugoslavia); extremely popular in Middle Ages, and with St. George, he was the patron of the crusades
4th v. St. Triduna virgin assisted; Her shrine at Restalrig was long venerated until its destruction in 1560 during the
        Scottish Reformation
        St. Regulus in his mission to Scotland
        St. Benedicta A virgin listed in the pre-1970 Roman Martyrology; birthday celebrated in Laon, France, as a martyr.
 652  St GRATUS Profile French bishop at Chalons-sur-Saone. Died natural causes Canonized Pre-Congregation
 690 St. Ywi Benedictine monk and hermit at Lindisfarne Abbey; ministry of miraculous healing; Spiritual student of
Saint Cuthbert at Lindisfarne
 870 St. Badilo Benedictine abbot a monk at Vezelay France and became the abbot of Leuze in Hainault, Belgium.
9th v.St. Amor of Aquitaine Hermit founder of Munsterbilsen convent in Liege lived as a hermit in Maastricht, Belgium
1050 St. Martin Cid; Cistercian abbot-founder and co-worker with St. Bernard; founded Val-Paraiso, a Cistercian abbey staffed with monks sent by St. Bernard
         St. Keyne (Keyna or Cain) one of the 24 children King Brychan of Brecknock; founded numerous churches in
         South Wales, Cornwall, and perhaps somerset
1230  HUGH CANEFRO  Chaplain of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem at Genoa, Italy; Born 1168
1287  Ambrose Sansedoni of Siena unknown pilgrim said, “Do not cover that child's face. He will one day be the glory of this city.” A few days later the child suddenly stretch out his twisted limbs, pronounced the name “Jesus”, and all deformity left him. Mystic with deep contemplative prayer life. Received ecstacies. Visionary. Known to levitate when preaching, and was seen circled in a mystic light in which flew bright birds; Studied in Paris, France, and Cologne, Germany with Saint Thomas Aquinas and Blessed Pope Innocent V under Saint Albert the Great.
1309 Bl. Matthew de Eskandely Martyr of China
       Bl. Peter of Seville Martyr
1609 St. John Leonardi; formed Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; congregation confirmed by Pope Clement in 1595; deliberate policy of the founder, the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God never had more than 15 churches and today form only a very small congregation

“Do not cover that child's face. He will one day be the glory of this city.”
A few days later the child suddenly stretch out his twisted limbs, pronounced the name “Jesus”, and all deformity left him.  Mystic with deep contemplative prayer life. Received ecstacies. Visionary.  Known to levitate when preaching, and was seen circled in a mystic light  in which flew bright birds.
1287  Ambrose Sansedoni of Siena

October 8 - Mary, Mother of Hungary The Messenger of the Mother of God (I)
In the suburbs of Paris, there lived a well known doctor named Louis Granpas.  He was known for his great medical skills and his benevolence towards the poor.  Louis came from a rich family and he had married the heiress of a great fortune.  He was a fervent Christian and he took it as a duty to treat all his poor patients for free.  He devoted all his spare time to the poor.  Even during rare vacation times, he found a way to continue treating poor patients for nothing.   One Sunday, He returned late in the night after a medical congress.  He had a heavy trunk with him and signaled to a taxi and gave the driver his address.  The driver had a grim face and the strength of Hercules. He grabbed the trunk and set in on the seat close to him and he said in a dry tone: “Get in!” Usually, Mr. Granpas would not judge anybody according to his appearance, but the driver’s manners appeared strange to him. He was even more astonished when the fellow hit the gas and raced down the street in the opposite direction. The doctor opened the door and ordered the driver to stop.  But he didn’t listen and carried on down the street at a neck-breaking speed.  Then he left the city, taking a bad never-ending road…Instinctively, the passenger wanted to seize his revolver.  He remembered that he had left it in the trunk, which was next to the driver. At that point, he found his rosary, which he always had on him and entrusted the outcome of this adventure to the Mother of God.
Testimony of Suzanne Voiteau, in  “Maria Regina”, #11, 1952, Told by Brother Albert Pfleger

98-117 St. Ignatius Bishop of Antioch disciple of St. John the Evangelist  enthusiastic devotion to duty, a passionate love of sacrifice, and an utter fearlessness in the defense of Christian truth
St. Ignatius was a convert to the Faith and a disciple of St. John the Evangelist.
St. Chrysostom says that St. Peter appointed him Bishop of Antioch, which See he governed for forty years. The saint longed to shed to shed his blood for Christ but the opportunity was not granted him during the persecution under Domitian. While the short reign of Nerva lasted the Church was in peace, but under Trajan persecution broke out anew. In the year 107, the Emperor came to Antioch. St. Ignatius was seized and brought before him. Having confessed Christ, he was condemned to be taken in chains to Rome, there to be exposed to the wild beasts.
St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107?)
Born in Syria, Ignatius converted to Christianity and eventually became bishop of Antioch. In the year 107, Emperor Trajan visited Antioch and forced the Christians there to choose between death and apostasy. Ignatius would not deny Christ and thus was condemned to be put to death in Rome.

Ignatius is well known for the seven letters he wrote on the long journey from Antioch to Rome. Five of these letters are to Churches in Asia Minor; they urge the Christians there to remain faithful to God and to obey their superiors. He warns them against heretical doctrines, providing them with the solid truths of the Christian faith.

The sixth letter was to Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was later martyred for the faith. The final letter begs the Christians in Rome not to try to stop his martyrdom. "The only thing I ask of you is to allow me to offer the libation of my blood to God. I am the wheat of the Lord; may I be ground by the teeth of the beasts to become the immaculate bread of Christ."
Ignatius bravely met the lions in the Circus Maximus.
Comment: Ignatius's great concern was for the unity and order of the Church. Even greater was his willingness to suffer martyrdom rather than deny his Lord Jesus Christ. Not to his own suffering did Ignatius draw attention, but to the love of God which strengthened him. He knew the price of commitment and would not deny Christ, even to save his own life.

Quote: “I greet you from Smyrna together with the Churches of God present here with me. They comfort me in every way, both in body and in soul. My chains, which I carry about on me for Jesus Christ, begging that I may happily make my way to God, exhort you: persevere in your concord and in your community prayers.” (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Church at Tralles).
During this last journey he was welcomed by the faithful of Smyrna, Troas, and other places along the way. He arrived in Rome just as the public spectacles in the amphitheater were drawing to a close. The faithful of the city came out to meet him. He was at once hurried to the amphitheater, where two fierce lions immediately devoured him. He ended his saintly life by a glorious death, exclaiming, “May I become agreeable bread to the Lord.” His remains were carried to Antioch, where they were interred. In the reign of Theodosius they were transferred to a church within the city. At present they are venerated in Rome. During his long journey he addressed seven epistles to various congregations, in which, as a disciple of the Apostles, he testifies to the dogmatic character of Apostolic Christianity.  (d. c. 107 AD) --Father Robert F. McNamara

     This great early bishop and martyr was quite possibly a convert of St. John the Apostle. Nothing is known of the details of his life, but he was chosen second bishop of Antioch around the year 60 AD, and he ruled that diocese forty years. Antioch was by then the most important see in the Middle East. Indeed, it was the first large center of mideast Christianity and, as the New Testament tells us, the first place where Christ's followers were called “Christians.”  St. Ignatius the “Godbearer” (as he was called) won the respect of all the faithful along the eastern Mediterranean.
     But advanced age did not exempt Ignatius from persecution. Under Emperor Trajan, around 107 AD, he was arrested for not offering patriotic sacrifice to the Roman gods.
     The judge condemned him to be thrown to the wild beasts in the public “games” in Rome. The bishop was therefore taken aboard a Rome-bound ship. En route he was under heavy guard -  ten soldiers who were so brutal that he called them his “ten leopards.” 
     Nevertheless, he was given freedom at ports-of-call in Asia Minor to receive the local bishops and faithful. He wrote to these Christian groups seven letters exhorting all to be strong in faith and love. He also wrote ahead to the Christians of Rome. He suspected that they might try to have his death sentence commuted. This he did not desire. Martyrdom, he believed, was the only way in which he could prove to God his total devotion. “Suffer me to be the food of wild beasts,” he said, “through whom I may attain to God!”
     His desire was not thwarted. Ground by the teeth of the animals, he became, as he had hoped to be, the “pure bread of Christ!”  His martyrdom may have taken place in Rome's famous “Colosseum,” then a fairly new stadium. Afterwards his relics were carried back reverently to Antioch.
     Ignatius' seven letters are among the few non-biblical Christian writings of the apostolic period. (St. John the Apostle was still alive when they were written.)  They, therefore, bear important witness to the earliest Christian belief and practices. Thus the Bishop of Antioch becomes the first to emphasize Mary's virginity; to declare the holy Trinity; and to present Jesus as both son of God and son of Mary. He also defends the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
     Of special interest are his references to Church structure. While the apostles lived, it was they who ruled the churches they founded; but they made arrangements to be succeeded by resident bishops in various localities. By the time St. Ignatius (and St. John the Apostle) were dead, the hierarchy was already well established.
     Ignatius lays special stress on the importance of the local bishop. He is even the first writer to refer to the hierarchical church as “Catholic.”  “Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as wherever Christ Jesus appears, there is the Catholic Church.”  He does not as yet refer to the position of St. Peter's successors, the bishops of Rome, in that hierarchy. Still, in writing to the Roman Christians, he indicates that the city where SS. Peter and Paul died enjoyed a unique leadership. He advises all other Christians to keep good order under the rule of their bishops:  “The bishop is to preside in the place of God, while the priests are to function as the council of the apostles, and the deacons, who are most dear to me, are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ.” 
     Even a youthful bishop is to be obeyed. (There must have been many younger bishops in his day.)  Whatever his age, “He embodies the authority of God the Father.” The bishop is also the chief liturgist of his people, the supreme minister and custodian of the sacraments:  “Let that celebration of the Eucharist be considered valid which is held under the bishop or anyone to whom he has committed it.” 
     It is interesting to note that in formulating this doctrine on bishops the Second Vatican Council drew extensively on the apostolic witness of St. Ignatius of Antioch.  --Father Robert F. McNamara St. Ignatius of Antioch  Catholic Encyclopedia
Also called Theophorus; born in Syria, around the year 50; died at Rome between 98 and 117.
More than one of the earliest ecclesiastical writers have given credence, though apparently without good reason, to the legend that Ignatius was the child whom the Savior took up in His arms, as described in Mark 9:35. It is also believed, and with great probability, that, with his friend Polycarp, he was among the auditors of the Apostle St. John. If we include St. Peter, Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch and the immediate successor of Evodius (Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.”, II, iii, 22). Theodoret (“Dial. Immutab.”, I, iv, 33a, Paris, 1642) is the authority for the statement that St. Peter appointed Ignatius to the See of Antioch. St. John Chrysostom lays special emphasis on the honor conferred upon the martyr in receiving his episcopal consecration at the hands of the Apostles themselves (“Hom. in St. Ig.”, IV. 587). Natalis Alexander quotes Theodoret to the same effect (III, xii, art. xvi, p. 53).

All the sterling qualities of ideal pastor and a true soldier of Christ were possessed by the Bishop of Antioch in a preeminent degree. Accordingly, when the storm of the persecution of Domitian broke in its full fury upon the Christians of Syria, it found their faithful leader prepared and watchful. He was unremitting in his vigilance and tireless in his efforts to inspire hope and to strengthen the weaklings of his flock against the terrors of the persecution. The restoration of peace, though it was short-lived, greatly comforted him. But it was not for himself that he rejoiced, as the one great and ever-present wish of his chivalrous soul was that he might receive the fullness of Christian discipleship through the medium of martyrdom. His desire was not to remain long unsatisfied. Associated with the writings of St. Ignatius is a work called “Martyrium Ignatii”, which purports to be an account by eyewitnesses of the martyrdom of St. Ignatius and the acts leading up to it. In this work, which such competent Protestant critics as Pearson and Ussher regard as genuine, the full history of that eventful journey from Syria to Rome is faithfully recorded for the edification of the Church of Antioch. It is certainly very ancient and is reputed to have been written by Philo, deacon of Tarsus, and Rheus Agathopus, a Syrian, who accompanied Ignatius to Rome. It is generally admitted, even by those who regarded it as authentic, that this work has been greatly interpolated. Its most reliable form is that found in the “Martyrium Colbertinum” which closes the mixed recension and is so called because its oldest witness is the tenth-century Codex Colbertinus (Paris).

According to these Acts, in the ninth year of his reign, Trajan, flushed with victory over the Scythians and Dacians, sought to perfect the universality of his dominion by a species of religious conquest. He decreed, therefore, that the Christians should unite with their pagan neighbors in the worship of the gods. A general persecution was threatened, and death was named as the penalty for all who refused to offer the prescribed sacrifice.
   Instantly alert to the danger that threatened, Ignatius availed himself of all the means within his reach to thwart the purpose of the emperor. The success of his zealous efforts did not long remain hidden from the Church's persecutors. He was soon arrested and led before Trajan, who was then sojourning in Antioch. Accused by the emperor himself of violating the imperial edict, and of inciting others to like transgressions, Ignatius valiantly bore witness to the faith of Christ. If we may believe the account given in the “Martyrium”, his bearing before Trajan was characterized by inspired eloquence, sublime courage, and even a spirit of exultation. Incapable of appreciating the motives that animated him, the emperor ordered him to be put in chains and taken to Rome, there to become the food of wild beasts and a spectacle for the people.

That the trials of this journey to Rome were great we gather from his letter to the Romans (par. 5): “From Syria even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only grow worse when they are kindly treated.” Despite all this, his journey was a kind of triumph. News of his fate, his destination, and his probable itinerary had gone swiftly before. At several places along the road his fellow-Christians greeted him with words of comfort and reverential homage. It is probable that he embarked on his way to Rome at Seleucia, in Syria, the nearest port to Antioch, for either Tarsus in Cilicia, or Attalia in Pamphylia, and thence, as we gather from his letters, he journeyed overland through Asia Minor. At Laodicea, on the River Lycus, where a choice of routes presented itself, his guards selected the more northerly, which brought the prospective martyr through Philadelphia and Sardis, and finally to Smyrna, where Polycarp, his fellow-disciple in the school of St. John, was bishop. The stay at Smyrna, which was a protracted one, gave the representatives of the various Christian communities in Asia Minor an opportunity of greeting the illustrious prisoner, and offering him the homage of the Churches they represented. From the congregations of Ephesus, Magnesia, and Tralles, deputations came to comfort him. To each of these Christian communities he addressed letters from Smyrna, exhorting them to obedience to their respective bishops, and warning them to avoid the contamination of heresy. These, letters are redolent with the spirit of Christian charity, apostolic zeal, and pastoral solicitude. While still there he wrote also to the Christians of Rome, begging them to do nothing to deprive him of the opportunity of martyrdom.

From Smyrna his captors took him to Troas, from which place he dispatched letters to the Christians of Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to Polycarp. Besides these letters, Ignatius had intended to address others to the Christian communities of Asia Minor, inviting them to give public expression to their sympathy with the brethren in Antioch, but the altered plans of his guards, necessitating a hurried departure, from Troas, defeated his purpose, and he was obliged to content himself with delegating this office to his friend Polycarp. At Troas they took ship for Neapolis. From this place their journey led them overland through Macedonia and Illyria. The next port of embarkation was probably Dyrrhachium (Durazzo). Whether having arrived at the shores of the Adriatic, he completed his journey by land or sea, it is impossible to determine. Not long after his arrival in Rome he won his long-coveted crown of martyrdom in the Flavian amphitheater. The relics of the holy martyr were borne back to Antioch by the deacon Philo of Cilicia, and Rheus Agathopus, a Syrian, and were interred outside the gates not far from the beautiful suburb of Daphne. They were afterwards removed by the Emperor Theodosius II to the Tychaeum, or Temple of Fortune which was then converted into a Christian church under the patronage of the martyr whose relics it sheltered. In 637 they were translated to St. Clement's at Rome, where they now rest. The Church celebrates the feast of St. Ignatius on 1 February.

The character of St. Ignatius, as deduced from his own and the extant writings of his contemporaries, is that of a true athlete of Christ. The triple honor of apostle, bishop, and martyr was well merited by this energetic soldier of the Faith. An enthusiastic devotion to duty, a passionate love of sacrifice, and an utter fearlessness in the defense of Christian truth, were his chief characteristics. Zeal for the spiritual well-being of those under his charge breathes from every line of his writings. Ever vigilant lest they be infected by the rampant heresies of those early days; praying for them, that their faith and courage may not be wanting in the hour of persecution; constantly exhorting them to unfailing obedience to their bishops; teaching them all Catholic truth ; eagerly sighing for the crown of martyrdom, that his own blood may fructify in added graces in the souls of his flock, he proves himself in every sense a true, pastor of souls, the good shepherd that lays down his life for his sheep.
Collections
The oldest collection of the writings of St. Ignatius known to have existed was that made use of by the historian Eusebius in the first half of the fourth century, but which unfortunately is no longer extant. It was made up of the seven letters written by Ignatius whilst on his way to Rome; These letters were addressed to the Christians of Ephesus (Pros Ephesious); of Magnesia (Magnesieusin); of Tralles (Trallianois); of Rome (Pros Romaious); of Philadelphia (Philadelpheusin); of Smyrna (Smyrnaiois); and to Polycarp (Pros Polykarpon).

We find these seven mentioned not only by Eusebius (“Hist. eccl.”, III, xxxvi) but also by St. Jerome (De viris illust., c. xvi). Of later collections of Ignatian letters which have been preserved, the oldest is known as the “long recension”. This collection, the author of which is unknown, dates from the latter part of the fourth century. It contains the seven genuine and six spurious letters, but even the genuine epistles were greatly interpolated to lend weight to the personal views of its author. For this reason they are incapable of bearing witness to the original form. The spurious letters in this recension are those that purport to be from Ignatius to Mary of Cassobola (Pros Marian Kassoboliten); to the Tarsians (Pros tous en tarso); to the Philippians (Pros Philippesious); to the Antiochenes (Pros Antiocheis); to Hero a deacon of Antioch (Pros Erona diakonon Antiocheias). Associated with the foregoing is a letter from Mary of Cassobola to Ignatius.

It is extremely probable that the interpolation of the genuine, the addition of the spurious letters, and the union of both in the long recension was the work of an Apollonarist of Syria or Egypt, who wrote towards the beginning of the fifth century. Funk identifies him with the compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions, which came out of Syria in the early part of the same century. Subsequently there was added to this collection a panegyric on St. Ignatius entitled, “Laus Heronis”. Though in the original it was probably written in Greek, it is now extant only in Latin and Coptic texts. There is also a third recension, designated by Funk as the “mixed collection”. The time of its origin can be only vaguely determined as being between that of the collection known to Eusebius and the long recension. Besides the seven genuine letters of Ignatius in their original form, it also contains the six spurious ones, with the exception of that to the Philippians.

In this collection is also to be found the “Martyrium Colbertinum”. The Greek original of this recension is contained in a single codex, the famous Mediceo-Laurentianus manuscript at Florence. This codex is incomplete, wanting the letter to the Romans, which, however, is to be found associated with the “Martyrium Colbertinum” in the Codex Colbertinus, at Paris. The mixed collection is regarded as the most reliable of all in determining what was the authentic text of the genuine Ignatian letters. There is also an ancient Latin version which is an unusually exact rendering of the Greek. Critics are generally inclined to look upon this version as a translation of some Greek manuscript of the same type as that of the Medicean Codex. This version owes its discovery to Archbishop Ussher, of Ireland, who found it in two manuscripts in English libraries and published it in 1644. It was the work of Robert Grosseteste, a Franciscan friar and Bishop of Lincoln (c. 1250). The original Syriac version has come down to us in its entirety only in an Armenian translation. It also contains the seven genuine and six spurious letters. This collection in the original Syriac would be invaluable in determining the exact text of Ignatius, were it in existence, for the reason that it could not have been later than the fourth or fifth century. The deficiencies of the Armenian version are in part supplied by the abridged recension in the original Syriac. This abridgment contains the three genuine letters to the Ephesians, the Romans, and to Polycarp. The manuscript was discovered by Cureton in a collection of Syriac manuscripts obtained in 1843 from the monastery of St. Mary Deipara in the Desert of Nitria. Also there are three letters extant only in Latin. Two of the three purport to be from Ignatius to St. John the Apostle, and one to the Blessed Virgin, with her reply to the same. These are probably of Western origin, dating no further back than the twelfth century.
The Controversy
At intervals during the last several centuries a warm controversy has been carried on by patrologists concerning the authenticity of the Ignatian letters. Each particular recension has had its apologists and its opponents. Each has been favored to the exclusion of all the others, and all, in turn, have been collectively rejected, especially by the coreligionists of Calvin.
   The reformer himself, in language as violent as it is uncritical (Institutes, 1-3), repudiates in globo the letters which so completely discredit his own peculiar views on ecclesiastical government. The convincing evidence which the letters bear to the Divine origin of Catholic doctrine is not conducive to predisposing non-Catholic critics in their favor, in fact, it has added not a little to the heat of the controversy. In general, Catholic and Anglican scholars are ranged on the side of the letters written to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrniots, and to Polycarp; whilst Presbyterians, as a rule, and perhaps a priori, repudiate everything claiming Ignatian authorship.

The two letters to the Apostle St. John and the one to the Blessed Virgin, which exist only in Latin, are unanimously admitted to be spurious. The great body of critics who acknowledge the authenticity of the Ignatian letters restrict their approval to those mentioned by Eusebius and St. Jerome. The six others are not defended by any of the early Fathers. The majority of those who acknowledge the Ignatian authorship of the seven letters do so conditionally, rejecting what they consider the obvious interpolations in these letters. In 1623, whilst the controversy was at its height, Vedelius gave expression to this latter opinion by publishing at Geneva an edition of the Ignatian letters in which the seven genuine letters are set apart from the five spurious. In the genuine letters he indicated what was regarded as interpolations. The reformer Dallaeus, at Geneva, in 1666, published a work entitled “De scriptis quae sub Dionysii Areop. et Ignatii Antioch. nominibus circumferuntur”, in which (lib. II) he called into question the authenticity of all seven letters. To this the Anglican Pearson replied spiritedly in a work called “Vindiciae epistolarum S. Ignatii”, published at Cambridge, 1672. So convincing were the arguments adduced in this scholarly work that for two hundred years the controversy remained closed in favor of the genuineness of the seven letters. The discussion was reopened by Cureton's discovery (1843) of the abridged Syriac version, containing the letters of Ignatius to the Ephesians, Romans, and to Polycarp. In a work entitled “Vindiciae Ignatianae” London, 1846), he defended the position that only the letters contained in his abridged Syriac recension, and in the form therein contained, were genuine, and that all others were interpolated or forged outright. This position was vigorously combated by several British and German critics, including the Catholics Denzinger and Hefele, who successfully defended the genuineness of the entire seven epistles. It is now generally admitted that Cureton's Syriac version is only an abbreviation of the original.

While it can hardly be said that there is at present any unanimous agreement on the subject, the best modern criticism favors the authenticity of the seven letters mentioned by Eusebius. Even such eminent non-Catholic critics as Zahn, Lightfoot, and Harnack hold this view. Perhaps the best evidence of their authenticity is to be found in the letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, which mentions each of them by name. As an intimate friend of Ignatius, Polycarp, writing shortly after the martyr's death, bears contemporaneous witness to the authenticity of these letters, unless, indeed, that of Polycarp itself be regarded as interpolated or forged. When, furthermore, we take into consideration the passage of Irenaeus (Adv. Haer., V, xxviii, 4) found in the original Greek in Eusebius (Hist. eccI., III, xxxvi), in which he refers to the letter to the Romans. (iv, I) in the following words: “Just as one of our brethren said, condemned to the wild beasts in martyrdom for his faith”, the evidence of authenticity becomes compelling. The romance of Lucian of Samosata, “De morte peregrini”, written in 167, bears incontestable evidence that the writer was not only familiar with the Ignatian letters, but even made use of them. Harnack, who was not always so minded, describes these proofs as “testimony as strong to the genuineness of the epistles as any that can be conceived of” (Expositor, ser. 3, III, p. 11).
Contents of the letters
It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance of the testimony which the Ignatian letters offer to the dogmatic character of Apostolic Christianity. The martyred Bishop of Antioch constitutes a most important link between the Apostles and the Fathers of the early Church. Receiving from the Apostles themselves, whose auditor he was, not only the substance of revelation, but also their own inspired interpretation of it; dwelling, as it were, at the very fountain-head of Gospel truth, his testimony must necessarily carry with it the greatest weight and demand the most serious consideration.
    Cardinal Newman did not exaggerate the matter when he said (“The Theology of the Seven Epistles of St. Ignatius”, in “Historical Sketches”, I, London, 1890) that “the whole system of Catholic doctrine may be discovered, at least in outline, not to say in parts filled up, in the course of his seven epistles”. Among the many Catholic doctrines to be found in the letters are the following: the Church was Divinely established as a visible society, the salvation of souls is its end, and those who separate themselves from it cut themselves off from God (Philad., c. iii); the hierarchy of the Church was instituted by Christ (lntrod. to Philad.; Ephes., c. vi); the threefold character of the hierarchy (Magn., c. vi); the order of the episcopacy superior by Divine authority to that of the priesthood (Magn., c. vi, c. xiii; Smyrn., c. viii; Trall., c. iii); the unity of the Church (Trall., c. vi; Philad., c. iii; Magn., c. xiii); the holiness of the Church (Smyrn., Ephes., Magn., Trall., and Rom.); the catholicity of the Church (Smyrn., c. viii); the infallibility of the Church (Philad., c. iii; Ephes., cc. xvi, xvii); the doctrine of the Eucharist (Smyrn., c. viii), which word we find for the first time applied to the Blessed Sacrament, just as in Smyrn., viii, we meet for the first time the phrase “Catholic Church”, used to designate all Christians; the Incarnation (Ephes., c. xviii); the supernatural virtue of virginity, already much esteemed and made the subject of a vow (Polyc., c. v); the religious character of matrimony (Polyc., c. v); the value of united prayer (Ephes., c. xiii); the primacy of the See of Rome (Rom., introd.). He, moreover, denounces in principle the Protestant doctrine of private judgment in matters of religion (Philad. c. iii), The heresy against which he chiefly inveighs is Docetism. Neither do the Judaizing heresies escape his vigorous condemnation.
Editions
The four letters found in Latin only were printed in Paris in 1495. The common Latin version of eleven letters, together with a letter of Polycarp and some reputed works of Dionysius the Areopagite, was printed in Paris, 1498, by Lefevre d'Etaples. Another edition of the seven genuine and six spurious letters, including the one to Mary of Cassobola, was edited by Symphorianus Champerius, of Lyons, Paris, 1516. Valentinus Paceus published a Greek edition of twelve letters (Dillingen, 1557). A similar edition was brought out at Zurich, in 1559, by Andrew Gesner; a Latin version of the work of John Brunner accompanied it. Both of these editions made use of the Greek text of the long recension. In 1644 Archbishop Ussher edited the letters of Ignatius and Polycarp. The common Latin version, with three of the four Latin letters, was subjoined. It also contained the Latin version of eleven letters taken from Ussher's manuscripts. In 1646 Isaac Voss published at Amsterdam an edition from the famous Medicean Codex at Florence. Ussher brought out another edition in 1647, entitled “Appendix Ignatiana”, which contained the Greek text of the genuine epistles and the Latin version of the “Martyrium Ignatii”.

In 1672 J.B. Cotelier's edition appeared at Paris, containing all the letters, genuine and supposititious, of Ignatius, with those of the other Apostolic Fathers. A new edition of this work was printed by Le Clerc at Antwerp, in 1698. It was reprinted at Venice, 1765-1767, and at Paris by Migne in 1857. The letter to the Romans was published from the “Martyrium Colbertinum” at Paris, by Ruinart, in 1689. In 1724 Le Clerc brought out at Amsterdam a second edition of Cotelier's “Patres Apostolici”, which contains all the letters, both genuine and spurious, in Greek and Latin versions. It also includes the letters of Mary of Cassobola and those purporting to be from the Blessed Virgin in the “Martyrium Ignatii”, the “Vindiciae Ignatianae” of Pearson, and several dissertations. The first edition of the Armenian version was published at Constantinople in 1783. In 1839 Hefele edited the Ignatian letters in a work entitled “Opera Patrum Apostolicorum”, which appeared at Tubingen. Migne took his text from the third edition of this work (Tubingen, 1847). Bardenhewer designates the following as the best editions: Zahn, “Ignatii et Polycarpi epistulae martyria, fragmenta” in “Patr. apostol. opp. rec.”, ed. by de Gebhardt, Harnack, Zahn, fasc. II, Leipzig, 1876; Funk, “Opp. Patr. apostol.”, I, Tubingen, 1878, 1887, 1901; Lightfoot, “The Apostolic Fathers”, part II, London, 1885, 1889; an English version of the letters to be found in Lightfoot's “Apostolic Fathers”, London, 1907, from which are taken all the quotations of the letters in this article, and to which all citations refer.
Ignatius of Antioch BM (RM)
Died c. 107; feast formerly on February 1. Saint Ignatius gives us the earliest documentary evidence of primacy of the bishop of Rome. Information about his letters can be found in any history of the early Church. This is simply a synopsis.

However, little is known of his life, although his passio was recorded for his flock. He was probably of Syrian origin, and legend identified him with the child whom Christ set down among his disciples (Matthew 18:1-6). Some sources say that Ignatius may have been a persecutor of Christians, who then became a convert and disciple of Saint John the Evangelist or Saints Peter and Paul.

He called himself both a disciple and the “bearer of God” (theophoros), so sure was he of the presence of God in himself.
In any case he became the second or third bishop of the great Christian center of Antioch in Syria. Legend holds that he was appointed and consecrated by Saint Peter after Peter left the deathbed of Saint Evodius, the previous bishop. Ignatius governed for 40 years.
During Trajan's persecutions, Ignatius was seized by a guard of ten soldiers, bound, and taken to Rome by them. The soldiers boarded a ship that traveled along the southern and western shores of Asia Minor instead of going straight to Italy. Ignatius was greeted by crowds of Christians wherever the ship touched port, but he was ill-treated by his captors. In one of his letters he says:
    “From Syria to Rome I seem to be fighting with wild beasts, night and day, on land and sea, bound to ten leopards. I mean a bunch of soldiers whose treatment of me grows harsher the kinder I am to them.”
The many stopovers enabled Ignatius to reaffirm religious fervor in various ports along the way. They stopped for a time at Smyrna, where Ignatius was met by Saint Polycarp, then a young man. Here the first four letters were written: to the Ephesians, to the churches of Magnesia and Tralles-- whose bishops had come to visit him--and to the Christians in Rome. The guards were anxious to leave Smyrna in order to reach Rome before the games were over; distinguished victims drew great crowds.
They sailed on to Troas, where they learned that peace had been restored to the church at Antioch. Then at Lystra, before crossing into Europe, he wrote three more, to the Christians at Philadelphia and Smyrna, and a farewell letter of advice to Bishop Saint Polycarp. (The letters can also be found in short and long versions on the New Advent site at http://www.knight.org/advent/fathers.) As the ship approached Rome, Christians are said to have gathered to greet Ignatius, and although they wished to work for his release, he begged them not to interfere with his martyrdom. He wrote, “I pray that they will be prompt with me. I shall entice them to eat me speedily.”

Legend has it that he arrived in Rome on December 20, the last day of the public games, was rushed to the amphitheater (probably the Colosseum), and was killed by lions in the arena. As he was offered to the animals, he described himself as “wheat of Christ.”

The saint insisted that in spite of his sufferings, he remained a sinner, saved only because of the love of his Lord, who had been crucified for him.
His relics are kept at Saint Peter's in Rome. A detailed description of the trip to Rome is provided by Agathopus and a deacon named Philo, who were with him, and who also wrote down his dictation of the seven letters of instruction on the Church, marriage, the Trinity, the Incarnation, Redemption, and the Eucharist.
These letters of Ignatius (English translation, 1934 et alia) are among the most valuable documents of the ancient Church because of the light they throw on Christian belief and practice less than a century after Christ's Ascension. Ignatius continually urges his readers to maintain unity amongst themselves, meeting together in the Eucharist under the presidency of their bishop. Through his letters we have access also to the mind and personality of a man who loved vivid images to express his beliefs. The Eucharist he described as “the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death.” To him, Jesus on the Cross lured the devil, like a fish, with the bait of his own body.  The best-known letter is the one sent in advance to the Roman Christians. In it he implores them not to try to get him reprieved. It reveals a patient, gentle man, so passionately devoted to Christ that he could not ear to miss the chance of dying a violent death for his sake: “Let me follow the example of the suffering of my God” (Attwater, Bentley, Delaney, White).

He is portrayed in art looking at a crucifix, with a lion at his side; or standing between two lions; or in chains; or holding a heart with IHS upon it; or with a heart with the IHS torn out by the lions according to White.  Depicted as a bishop holding a heart with IHS on it. Sometimes he is shown with the image of Christ on his breast because the image of Jesus was found on his heart after his martyrdom; holding a fiery globe; or in an arena with lions. One Greek icon of Saint Ignatius can be found at the Saint Isaac of Syria Skete site. Saint Ignatius is highly venerated in the Eastern Church (Roeder).
136 St. Herónis, Herodion. Heron; Martyred bishop successor St. Ignatius
Antiochíæ natális sancti Herónis, qui fuit discípulus beáti Ignátii; atque, post eum factus Epíscopus, viam magístri pius imitátor est secútus, et pro commendáto sibi grege amátor Christi occúbuit.
    At Antioch, the birthday of St. Heron, a disciple of blessed Ignatius.  Being made bishop after him, he religiously followed his master's footsteps, and, as a true lover of Christ, died for the flock entrusted to his keeping.
at Antioch, Turkey, where he served for two decades.
Heron of Antioch BM (RM) Bishop Saint Heron of Antioch was a disciple of Saint Ignatius and his successor. He governed the see for 27 years before dying a as martyr (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
290 Solina of Gascony maiden who escaped to Chartres to avoid marriage to a pagan VM (AC)
A Gascon maiden who escaped to Chartres to avoid marriage to a pagan. She was beheaded at Chartres. Venerated in Poitiers, Angoulême, and Chartres (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
303 Sts. Victor, Alexander, and Marianus Martyrs put to death at Nicomedia under Emperor Dioclctian.
Eódem die pássio sanctórum Victóris, Alexándri et Mariáni.
    The same day, the martyrdom of the Saints Victor, Alexander, and Marian.
Martyrs put to death at Nicomedia under Emperor Dioclctian.
4th v.St. Regulus An abbot of Scotland; best known for bringing the relics of St. Andrew to Scotland from Greece
He is best known for bringing the relics of St. Andrew to Scotland from Greece
344 St. Mamelta Martyr of Persia
In Pérside sanctæ Maméltæ Mártyris, quæ, a cultu idolórum ad fidem Angélico mónitu convérsa, a Gentílibus lapidáta est et in profúndum lacum demérsa.
    In Persia, St. Mamelta, martyr.  He was converted from idolatry to the faith by the warning of an angel, and was later stoned by heathens and cast into a deep lake.
 He was a pagan priest at Bethfarme. Converted to Christianity, he was stoned because of his faith and then drowned in a lake by Persian authorities
Mamelta of Persia M (RM). Saint Mamelta, reputed to have been a pagan priest at Bethfarme, Persia, converted to Christianity. Thereafter he was stoned, and then drowned in lake (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
554 St. Victor of Capua B (RM). A bishop of Capua in southern Italy and an ecclesiastical writer (Benedictines).
A sixth-century bishop about whose life nothing is known except what is found in his epitaph (C.I.L., 4503), which has been preserved, though the tomb itself has disappeared. This inscription simply states that his episcopate of thirteen years ended in April, 554. The authenticity of the inscription and its chronological data admit of no doubt.
 Victor is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 17 Oct., as “eruditione et sanctitate conspicus”. His original writings, preserved only in fragments, show him to have been a devoted student and a man of wide and varied learning. His best known work is the “Codex fuldensis”, one of the most ancient manuscripts of the Vulgate, prepared under his direction, and which he himself revised and corrected. In this codex the place of the Four Gospels is taken by a harmony of the Gospels, or as he himself terms it in the preface, a single Gospel composed from the four.

  Victor was not certain that the harmony he used was identical with the “Diatesseron” of Tatian. The discovery of the text of the latter work and recent investigation have made it clear that this Latin harmony used by Victor was drawn up about A.D. 500. The anonymous author of this work simply substituted the Latin of St. Jerome's Vulgate for the Greek of Tatian, and at times changed the order or inserted additional passages. Many of the discrepancies may be due however to subsequent changes. Other works by Victor were: “De cyclo paschali” written about 550 in refutation of the “Cursus paschalis” of Victorius. Only a few fragments of this work have survived (P.L., LXVIII, 1097-98; Pitra, “Spic. Solesm.”, I, 296); commentaries on the Old and New Testament, for the most part catenae of quotations from the Greek exegetes; “Libelius reticulus seu de arca Noe” (Pitra, “Spic. Solesm.”, I, 287), containing an ingenious allegorical computation showing that the dimensions of the ark typified the years of Christ's earthly life; “Capitula de resurrectione Domini” dealt with some of the chief difficulties regarding Christ's genealogy and the hour of the Crucifixion as recorded in the Evangelists.
He was known for his patronage of monastic scholarship and his personal sancity. Florentius defended his see against the heresies of the era.
554 St. Florentinus, Bishop of Capua Italy learning and historical concerns
Aráusicæ, in Gálliis, sancti Floréntii Epíscopi, qui, multis clarus virtútibus, quiévit in pace.
    At Orange in France, St. Florentinus, bishop, who died leaving a reputation for many virtues.
 from 541 and an ecclesiastical writer. He is perhaps to be identified with Victor, bishop of Capua of the same century. He is honored for his learning and historical concerns.
Florentius of Orange B (RM). The 8th bishop of Orange in southern France (Benedictines).
5th v St. John the Dwarf native of Basta in Lower Egypt  pass his whole life in prayer and manual labor

ST JOHN THE DWARF
St JOHN, surnamed Kolobos, that is “the Little” or “the Dwarf”, was famous among the eminent saints that inhabited the deserts of Egypt. He retired when a young man into the wilderness of Skete and set himself with his whole heart to put on the spirit of Christ. The old hermit who was his director for his first lesson bade him plant in the ground a walking stick, and water it every day till it should bring forth fruit. John did so with great simplicity, though the river was at a considerable distance. It is related that when he had continued his task, without speaking one word about it, into the third year the stick, which had taken root, pushed forth leaves and buds and produced fruit. The old hermit, gathering the fruit, carried it to the church, and giving it to some of the brethren, said, “Take, and eat the fruit of obedience”. Postumian, who was in Egypt in 402, assured Sulpicius Sevens that he was shown this tree, which grew in the yard of the monastery and which he saw covered with shoots and green leaves.
   St John believed that the perfection of a monk consists in his keeping to his cell, watching constantly over himself and having God continually present to his mind. He never discoursed on worldly affairs and never spoke of “news”, the ordinary amusement of the superficial. He was so intent on the things of God that he became very absent-minded. At his work he sometimes plaited into one basket the material, which should have made two, and often went wrong through forgetting what he was doing. One day when a carrier knocked at his door to carry away his materials and tools to another place, St John thrice forgot what he went to fetch in returning from his door, till he repeated to himself, “The camel, my tools. The camel, my tools. The camel, my tools.” The same happened to him when someone came to fetch the baskets he had made, and as often as he came back from his door he sat down again to his work, till at last he called the brother to come in, and take them himself. How St John tested the good dispositions of St Arsenius has already been related in the account of that saint on July 19. His own humility was the more remarkable because of his natural quick temper and good opinion of himself. But he knew his faults and he knew what provoked them, and therefore he avoided the ways of men and their discussions and so cultivated the things of peace that his words held the attention of all. It is said that a certain brother coming one day to speak to him for two or three minutes, so ardent and sweet was their conversation on spiritual things that they continued it the whole night till morning. Perceiving it was day, they went out, the one to return home, the other to go with him for a few steps, but their talk again turned to God and His kingdom and it lasted till midday. Then St John took him again into his cell to eat a little; after which they really parted.
   A certain charitable young woman, named Paesia, fell gradually into a disorderly life. The monks entreated St John to try to reclaim her, and he went to her house and sitting down by her he said with his accustomed sweetness, “What reason can you have to complain of Jesus that you should thus abandon Him?” At these words she was struck silent, and seeing the saint in tears she said to him, “Why do you weep?” St John replied, “ How can I not weep whilst I see Satan in possession of your heart?” She was moved by his gentleness and concern for her, and grace entered into her heart and she asked him, “Father, is the path of penitence still open to me?” “It is,” he replied. “Then show me the way.” He rose up and she followed him without saying another word. As they slept in the desert, their heads pillowed on mounds of cold sand, St John dreamed he saw the soul of Paesia going up to Heaven and heard a voice telling him that her penitence was as perfect before God as it was short before man. And in the morning he found Paesia dead.
   When the Berbers raided Skete, John went across the Nile towards the Red Sea, and there, in the place hallowed by St Antony, he died. When he drew near his end, his disciples entreated him to leave them some final lesson of Christian perfection. He sighed, and that he might shun the air of a teacher alleging his own doctrine and practice, he said, “I never followed my own will; nor did I ever teach another what I had not first practised myself”.
The most reliable source of information seems to be the Apophthegmata (see Bousset, Apophthegmata Studien zur Geschichte des ältesten mönchtums, (1923); but consult also the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. viii, pp. 39—48. The panegyric of Bishop Zachary, published in Coptic by Amélineau (Annales du Musée Guimet, vol. xxv, 1894), and translated by Nau, from the Syriac, in the Revue de l’Orient chrétien, vols. vii to ix, is not very trustworthy. See also De L. O’Leary, The Saints of Egypt (1937), pp. 170-172.
John the Dwarf  to the desert of Skeet when a young man and became a disciple of St. Poemen. John lived a life of obedience, humility, and austerity the rest of his days. When he arrived at Skeet he is reputed to have watered a stick stuck in the ground unquestioningly when his spiritual director ordered him to do so; in the third year of his ministrations, it bore fruit.  He left Skeet to escape marauder Berbers and settled on Mount Quolzum, where he died.
Fifth Century Father Robert F. McNamara
   Countless stories are told about hundreds of hermits and hermitages that hallowed the deserts of Egypt in the earliest Christian centuries.  Some of these stories are likely folklore.  Usually they ring true. Always, they edify.
One of the best-known of the fifth-century desert saints was a man called "John Kolobos;" that is, John the Little, of John the Dwarf.  He was a young man when he entered the monastic wilderness of Skete in northern Egypt.  There he would pass his whole life in prayer and manual labor.
Little John had a beautiful simplicity of character.  On his arrival, he was assigned to an old, experienced hermit as tutor.  The tutor straightway gave John a walking stick.  "Plant this in the ground," he ordered, "and water it every day."  The command was a test as well as a task.  John obeyed at once, without question or delay.  Even though the river from which he fetched the water was at a distance, he watered the stick dutifully every day.  In the third year the walking stick put forth buds and flowers and fruit.  John had passed the test.  His tutor collected the fruit and distributed it among his companions.  "Take," he told them, "and eat the fruit of obedience."
(Although this sounds like folklore, there is a record, dating from 402 AD, that refers to a certain tree in the monastery yard as John's walking stick come to life.)
It is not surprising that such a simple soul would be single-minded in his service of God.  Divine things were his only interest.  He cared nothing for the "news" of the day.  (Here is something for us gossips to ponder; and, even more, the media people!)  In fact, his focus was so intense that he was often absent-minded about worldly things.  Once, for instance, a man on a camel came to his cell to pick up John's basket making tools and transfer them elsewhere, according to an agreement.  But, between the door and his bench, John forgot his messenger and his message.  This happened three times.  Finally he hammered the caller's purpose into his mind be repeating to himself: "The camel; my tools."  So the caller on the camel finally did get the equipment.  On the other hand, John once spent a whole night and day without break discussing spiritual matters with another monk.
Around that time, a hitherto reputable young Egyptian woman named Paesia fell into unworthy ways.  St. John's monks begged him to try to bring her back to God.  He called at Paesia's home and gently expressed his concern for her.  She asked why he was weeping.  "How can I not weep,"  he replied, "while I see Satan in possession of your heart?"
Paesia was deeply touched.  "Will you show me the route to repentance?"  she asked.  John bade her to come back to the desert with him.  En route, they had to stop over night.  As he slept in the dark wasteland he dreamt that he saw Paesia going up to heaven, and he heard a voice that said, "God has already considered her repentance perfect."  When he awoke and went to the place where she had been sleeping, he found that she had indeed died.

Towards the end of St. John's life, Berbers from the west raided the monastic fastness of Skete.  John and his followers fled east across the Nile to the desert made famous by St. Anthony, the pioneer Egyptian monk.  It was there that John, too, drew his last breath.  When they saw that his death was imminent, St. John's disciples asked him to give them one final spiritual lesson. Still too humble to want to be thought an expert, he simply said, "I have never followed my own will; nor did I ever teach another what I had not practiced myself."  There were spiritual giants in the ancient deserts of Egypt.  One of the tallest of these giants was St. John the dwarf.

John the Dwarf, Hermit (RM) ( John Colobus) Born in Basta, Lower Egypt; 5th century. While still a young man, Saint John retired with an elder brother to the desert of Skete and became a disciple of Saint Poemen. John lived a life of obedience, humility, and austerity the rest of his days. When he first arrived at Skete he is reputed to have watered a stick stuck in the ground unquestioningly when his spiritual director order him to do so; in the third year of his ministrations, it bore fruit. He left Skete to escape marauding Berbers and settled on Mount Quolzum, where he died (Delaney).
6th v. St. Colman of Kilroot; s a disciple of Saint Ailbe of Emly. He retained his abbacy while also in the episcopal chair
Abbot-bishop of Kiltrout, near Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He was a disciple of St. Ailbhe of Emly.
Colman of Kilroot B (AC). Bishop Colman of Kilroot, near Carrickfergus, was a disciple of Saint Ailbe of Emly. He retained his abbacy while also in the episcopal chair (Benedictines).
6th v. St. Louthiem Irish saint, patron of St. Ludgran
Irish saint, patron of St. Ludgran in Cornwall, England. Also called Luchtighem.
Louthiern of Cornwall B (AC). The Irish Saint Louthiern, patron of Saint Ludgran in Cornwall, may be identical to Saint Luchtighern, abbot of Ennistymon, who is associated with Saint Ita (Benedictines).
670 Ethelbert (Ædilberct, Ethelbricht) and Ethelred of Kent MM (AC)
Died c. 640-670; this is the feast of the translation of their relics. These are the sons of Ermenred and great-grandsons of King Saint Ethelbert of Kent, who were cruelly murdered by King Egbert of Kent's counsellor, Thunor, at Eastry (near Sandwich). Egbert was held accountable for the assassinations and founded Minster Abbey as a penance. Here their sister, Saint Ermenburga was founding abbess of the convent. Saint Bede does not mention them, and the source that does, leaves them unnamed. Apparently, there was competition for their relics, which were translated to Wakering in Essex. Finally, in the 10th century, Saint Oswald enshrined their relics at Ramsey abbey in Huntingdonshire, where they are venerated. Their legend only fully developed in the 11th century (Attwater, Benedictines, Farmer). In art, this pair is portrayed as royal brothers, sometimes with swords (Roeder). They are also venerated at Canterbury (Farmer).
680 St. Berarius Bishop of Le Mans
France. He is remembered for translating the relics of St. Scholastica from Monte Cassino to Le Mans.
Berarius I of Le Mans B (AC)  Bishop Berarius of Le Mans translated the relics of Saint Scholastica from Monte Cassino to Le Mans (Benedictines).
668 St. Anstrudis Benedictine abbess  affectionate in caring for her sisters, charitable to the poor, and attentive to the voice of God
also known as Astrude. She is believed to be the daughter of Sts. Salaberga and Blandinus. Anstrudis succeeded her mother as abbess of the abbey at Laon, France. When Anstrudis' brother, Baldwin, was murdered, Anstrudis opposed Ebroin, the mayor of the royal palace. Ebroin, a politically powerful man, sought many petty vengeances against Anstrudis and made her life difficult. Blessed Pepin of Landen entered the dispute and put a stop to Ebroin's harassment.

Anstrudis of Laon, OSB V (AC) (also known as Anstrude, Austru) Saint Anstrudis was the daughter of Saints Blandinus and Salaberga, the founders of Saint John the Baptist Convent at Laon. With the consent of her husband, Saint Salaberga retired to the abbey and was chosen abbess. Anstrudis followed in her mother's noble footsteps, though only reluctantly did she accept the abbacy at Salaberga's death. Anstrudis was a model religious: scrupulous in her observance of the rule, affectionate in caring for her sisters, charitable to the poor, and attentive to the voice of God. Often she kept vigil throughout the night. Except on Sunday and Christmas, feast days, she ate only once a day.

She was perfected by her sufferings at the hands of Ebroin, the mayor of the palace and oppressor of all the saints of that period. After her brother, Saint Baldwin, was assassinated, Anstrudis was threatened by Ebroin. He eventually relented, won over by her virtue and innocence. Anstrudis is remembered in the Gallican and Benedictines calendars (Benedictines, Husenbeth) .

700 St Anstrudis, Or Austrude, Virgin
She was probably the daughter of St Salaberga, who founded an abbey at Laon, in which she, with the consent of her husband, took the religious veil. Anstrudis faithfully walked in her steps, and after her death succeeded her in the abbacy. The holiness of St Anstrudis was proved and made perfect by afflictions. Her brother Baldwin was treacherously assassinated, and she herself was accused to Ebroin, mayor of the palace, of taking side against his interest. When he came to Laon he burst into the convent and had the young abbess dragged before him, and would have led her to prison had he not been frightened off. The next day an attempt was made on the life of Anstrudis, but she escaped by clinging to the altar of the church. Attracted by her intrepid constancy and proved virtue and innocence, Bd Pepin of Landen declared himself her protector. When Madelgarius, Bishop of Laon, tried to lay hands on the income of the convent, St Anstrudis lodged a complaint and Pepin sent his son Grimoald to deal straitly with the unjust prelate. She died before 709.

The Bollandists, following Mabillon, have printed a life of this saint in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. VII, Pt 2. It purports to be of almost contemporary date, but Levison, in his critical edition, MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. vi, pp. 64 seq., assigns it to the ninth century.
780 St. Nothlem Archbishop of Canterbury Originally a priest in London, he was named archbishop in 734. Nothelm conducted research on the history of Kent which was collected by Abbot Albinus and in turn utilized by the Venerable Bede in the writing of his Ecclesiastical History.

Nothelm of Canterbury B (AC)  Died c. 740. A priest in London, he was named archbishop of Canterbury in 734. In his preface to his Ecclesiastical History, the historian the Venerable Bede acknowledges that the chief authority for his work was Abbot Albinus, who passed along to him the recollections of Nothelm, including the research Nothelm has done in Roman archives on the history of Kent and adjacent areas. Nothelm was also a correspondent of Saint Boniface (Benedictines, Delaney) .

740 St Nothelm, Archbishop Of Canterbury   
Nothelm, whom St Bede refers to as “a devout priest of the church of London”, succeeded St Tatwin in the see of Canterbury in the year 734. Two years later he received the pallium from Pope St Gregory III. He was consulted by St Boniface from Germany and furnished him with a copy of the famous letter of instruction from Pope St Gregory I to St Augustine of Canterbury about how to deal with the English converts. But St Nothelm’s name is principally remembered for his part in the composition of St Bede’s Ecclesiastical History.
     In the preface thereto, addressed to King Ceolwulf, Bede says that his chief aid and authority for his work had been the learned abbot Albinus at Canterbury, who transmitted to him
“either by writing or by word of mouth of the same Nothelm, all that he thought worthy of memory that had been done in the province of Kent, or the adjacent parts, by the disciples of the blessed Pope Gregory, as he had learned them either from written records or the traditions of his ancestors. The said Nothelm afterwards went to Rome and, having with leave of the present Pope Gregory [III] searched into the archives of the holy Roman church, found there some letters of the blessed Pope Gregory and other popes. When he returned home he brought them to me, by the advice of the aforesaid most reverend father Albinus, to be inserted in my history. Thus . . . what was transacted in the church of Canterbury by the disciples of St Gregory or their successors, and under which kings they happened, has been conveyed to us by Nothelm through the industry of abbot Albinus. They also partly informed me by what bishops and under what kings the provinces of the East and West Saxons, as well as of the East Angles and the Northumbrians, received the faith of Christ.”
 Nothelm also wrote some observations on St Bede’s commentary on the books of Kings in the Bible, to which Bede replied in a personal letter.
The saint is noticed in the Acts Sanctorum, October, vol. viii. We know little more than what Bede has told us: see Plummer’s edition and notes. But since the publication of the work of Dom S. Brechter, The Quellenl zur Angelsacksenmission Gregors des Grossen (1941), the authenticity of the alleged Responsiones of Pope Gregory to Augustine, and Nothelm’s finding of them in the Roman archives, are subject to serious question: cf. Fr P. Grosjean in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lx (1942), p. 287. Some scholars do not find Dom Brechter’s arguments completely convincing.
1066 St. Rudolph of Gubbio  Benedictine bishop  described as 'a miracle of unselfishness'
and disciple of St. Peter Damian, also called Rodolph. He spent years under the spiritual care and monastic leadership of St. Peter Damian until about 1061 when, while still young, he was named bishop of Gubbio, Italy. His term as bishop was characterized for its remarkable charity.
Rudolph of Gubbio, OSB B (AC). A monk of Fontavellana under Saint Peter Damian. In 1061, while still very young, he was appointed bishop of Gubbio. He is described as 'a miracle of unselfishness' (Benedictines) .
1167 Blessed Gilbert the Theologian, OSB Cist. Abbot (AC)
(also known as Blessed Gilbert the Great) Born in England; Gilbert, often surnamed by Cistercian writers as “the Great” or “the Theologian,” became abbot of Ourscamp monastery in 1147. In 1163, he was promoted abbot of Cîteaux (Benedictines).
1492 Blessed Balthassar of Chiavari, OFM (AC)
cultus confirmed in 1930. The Franciscan Blessed Balthassar was a fellow preacher with Blessed Bernardino of Feltre. He is venerated in the diocese of Pavia, Italy (Benedictines).
1584 St. Richard Gwyn  One of Forty Martyrs of England and Wales  the first Welsh martyr of Queen Elizabeth I's reign
Also called Richard White, he was born in Montgomeryshire, Wales, in 1547, and stud­ied at Cambridge University, England. Converted from Protestantism, he returned to Wales in 1562, married, had six children, and opened a school. Arrested in 1579, he spent four years in prison before his execution by being hanged, drawn, and quartered at Wrexham on October 15, for being a Catholic. While jailed, he com­posed many religious poems in Welsh. He is considered the protomartyr of Wales and was included among the canonized martyrs of England and Wales by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

Richard Gwyn M (RM) Born at Llanidloes, Montgomeryshire, Wales, in 1537; died at Wrexham, Wales, on October 15, 1584; canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
Richard Gwyn was raised a Protestant, studied briefly at Saint John's College, Cambridge. He returned to Wales in 1562, opened a school at Overton, Flintshire, married, and had six children. He left Overton after becoming a Catholic, when his absence from Anglican services was noticed, but was arrested in 1579 at Wrexham, Wales.
He escaped but was again arrested in 1580 and imprisoned at Ruthin. He was brought up before eight assizes, tortured, and fined in between, and four years later, in 1584, he was convicted of treason on charges by perjuring witnesses and sentenced to death.  During his time in prison, he wrote numerous religious poems in Welsh. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Wrexham-- the first Welsh martyr of Queen Elizabeth I's reign. He is the protomartyr of Wales (Benedictines, Delaney) .
1604 Seraphino famous for charity to the poor and power to heal sickness OFM Cap. (RM)
(also known as Seraphinus, Serafino) Born at Montegranaro, Italy, in 1540; canonized 1767; feast day formerly October 12. Seraphino took the Capuchin habit as a lay-brother in 1556 and spent the whole of his uneventful life at the friary of Ascoli-Piceno. He is said to have been the spiritual advisor of high ecclesiastical and civil dignitaries.
He was famous for his charity to the poor and his power to heal sickness (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
1604 St. Seraphinus Capuchin spiritual gifts wisdom spiritual advisor
Asculi, in Picéno, sancti Seraphíni Confessóris, ex Ordine Minórum Capuccinórum, vitæ sanctimónia et humilitáte conspícui; quem Clemens Décimus tértius, Póntifex Máximus, Sanctórum fastis adscrípsit.
    At Ascoli in Piceno, St. Seraphinus, confessor, of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, distinguished by his humility and holiness of life.  He was enrolled among the saints by the Sovereign Pontiff Clement XIII.

1604 ST SERAPHINO
The life of St Seraphino was of that uneventfulness which one associates with the vocation of a lay brother, though spiritually he attained great heights and numerous miracles are related of him. He was born at Montegranaro in 1540, of very humble parentage, and like many another saint he began to earn his living as a shepherd boy.
When he was left an orphan he was taken into the service of his elder brother, a bricklayer and a harsh master. Young Seraphino was treated rather brutally by him, and when he was sixteen he ran away and became a lay brother with the Capuchins. He had always been very devout and good, and now he progressed rapidly on the path of heroic sanctity. Every night he spent three hours in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and did not go to bed again after Matins; he won sinners by his kindness and moving words, and was beloved by all the poor. Had his superiors allowed, he would have emulated St Francis and gone to work among the infidels; but he unmurmuringly accepted God’s will that he should live and die in obscurity at home. The decree of his canonization (published in 1767) records two of his miracles: namely, that when on a pilgrimage to Loreto he passed the river Potenza in flood not merely unharmed but quite dry, and that when he was reproved for his reckless generosity to the poor the vegetables which he had cut for them overnight in the friary garden were grown up again the next day. With the sign of the cross he cured the sick and he received the gifts of discernment of spirits and reading the future, so that both civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries consulted him. St Seraphino died at Ascoli Piceno on October 12, 1604; his feast is kept on this day by the Capuchins in England, but on the 13th elsewhere.
The story of St Seraphino told in some detail is included in the Annals: Ordinis Capuccini (1639) by Z. Boverio. This has been reprinted in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. vi, and with it the full text of the bull of canonization. There are other lives by C. de Harenberg (1642), P. B. Joannini (1709) and Cardinal Svampa (1904); and see Ernest de Beaulieu, Deux émules de St Felix de Cantalice (1919). Further bibliographical details may be gleaned from Giuseppe da Fermo, Gli Scrittori Cappuccini delle Marche (1928).
Also called Seraphino. Born at Montegranaro, Italy, in 1540, he worked as a shepherd in his youth and was reportedly much abused by his older brother. At the age of sixteen he entered the Capuchins as a lay brother at Ascoli Piceno, earning a reputation for his holiness. He was graced with considerable spiritual gifts and wisdom, as well as devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. Seraphinus gave counsel to ecclesiastical and secular leaders. He was canonized in 1767.
Seraphinus (Serafino) of Ascoli-Piceno, OFM Cap. (RM) Born at Montegranaro, Italy, 1540; died 1604; canonized in 1767. At the age of 16, Saint Seraphinus took the Capuchin habit as a lay-brother. He spent the whole of his uneventful life during good works at the Ascoli-Piceno friary, where he became famous for his charity to the poor and his power to heal sickness. He is also said to have been the spiritual advisor to dignitaries of both the church and the state (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

St. Seraphin of Montegranaro (1540-1604)
Born into a poor Italian family, young Seraphin lived the life of a shepherd and spent much of his time in prayer. Mistreated for a time by his older brother after the two of them had been orphaned, Seraphin became a Capuchin Franciscan at age 16 and impressed everyone with his humility and generosity.
Serving as a lay brother, Seraphin imitated St. Francis in fasting, clothing and courtesy to all. He even mirrored Francis' missionary zeal, but Seraphin's superiors did not judge him to be a candidate for the missions.

Faithful to the core, Seraphin spent three hours in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament daily. The poor who begged at the friary door came to hold a special love for him. Despite his uneventful life, he reached impressive spiritual heights and has had miracles attributed to him.
Seraphin died on October 12, 1604, and was canonized in 1767.
Comment: For many people these days, work has no significance beyond providing the money they need to live. How many share the belief expressed in the Book of Genesis that we are to cooperate with God in caring for the earth? The kind of work Seraphin did may not strike us as earth-shattering. The work was ordinary; the spirit in which he did it was not.
Quote: In Brothers of Men, Rene Voillaume of the Little Brothers of Jesus speaks about ordinary work and holiness: "Now this holiness [of Jesus] became a reality in the most ordinary circumstances of life, those of work, of the family and the social life of a village, and this is an emphatic affirmation of the fact that the most obscure and humdrum human activities are entirely compatible with the perfection of the Son of God." Christians are convinced, "that the evangelical holiness proper to a child of God is possible in the ordinary circumstances of a man who is poor and obliged to work for his living."
 1690 St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Apostle of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; France of the seventeenth century, love of God had gone cold, on the one hand because of widespread rebellion and sinfulness, on the other because of the numbing influence of Jansenism, which presented God as not loving all mankind alike. And to rekindle that love there flourished, between 1625 and 1690, three saints, John Eudes, Claud La Colombière, and Margaret-Mary Alacoque, who between them brought and taught to the Church, in the form that we have had it ever since, devotion to our divine Lord in His Sacred Heart, “the symbol of that boundless love which moved the Word to take flesh, to institute the Holy Eucharist, to take our sins upon Himself, and, dying on the cross, to offer Himself as a victim and a sacrifice to the eternal Father.”
Parédii, in diœcési Augustodunénsi, sanctæ Margarítæ Maríæ Alacóque, quæ, Ordinem Visitatiónis beátæ Maríæ Vírginis proféssa, exímiis in devotióne erga sacratíssimum Cor Jesu propagánda et público ejúsdem  cultu provehéndo méritis excélluit; atque in sanctárum Vírginum album a Benedícto Papa Décimo quinto reláta fuit.
 At Paray, in the diocese of Autun, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.  She made her profession in the Order of the Visitation of Blessed Mary the Virgin, and she excelled with great merit in spreading devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and in furthering its public veneration.  Pope Benedict XV added her name to the list of holy virgins.

Religious of the Visitation Order. Apostle of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, born at Lhautecour, France, 22 July, 1647; died at Paray-le-Monial, 17 October, 1690.

1690 St Margaret Mary, Virgin
Notwithstanding the great saints and many other holy people of the time, in France of the seventeenth century, love of God had gone cold, on the one hand because of widespread rebellion and sinfulness, on the other because of the numbing influence of Jansenism, which presented God as not loving all mankind alike. And to rekindle that love there flourished, between 1625 and 1690, three saints, John Eudes, Claud La Colombière, and Margaret-Mary Alacoque, who between them brought and taught to the Church, in the form that we have had it ever since, devotion to our divine Lord in His Sacred Heart, “the symbol of that boundless love which moved the Word to take flesh, to institute the Holy Eucharist, to take our sins upon Himself, and, dying on the cross, to offer Himself as a victim and a sacrifice to the eternal Father.”

  The third and most prominent of these “saints of the Sacred Heart” was born in 1647 at Janots, the eastern quarter of L’Hautecour, a small town in Burgundy. Her father was a notary of some distinction, whose wife bore him seven children, of whom Margaret was the fifth. She was a devout and good little girl, with a horror of “being naughty”. When she was four she “made a vow of chastity”, though she admitted afterwards that, as one would expect at that age, she knew not what either a vow or chastity might be. When she was about eight her father died and she was sent to school with the Poor Clares at Charolles; she was at once attracted by what she could see and understand of the life of the nuns, and they on their side were so impressed by Margaret’s piety that she was allowed to make her first communion when she was nine. Two years later she was afflicted by a painful rheumatic affection that kept her to her bed till she was fifteen, and in the course of it she was taken back to her home at L’Hautecour. Several other members of the family now occupied her father’s house as well, and one sister and her husband had taken all domestic and business authority out of the hands of the widow Alacoque. She and Margaret were treated almost as servants, and she recovered from her sickness only to be confronted by this persecution of her mother. “At this time”, she writes in her autobiography, “all my desire was to seek happiness and comfort in the Blessed Sacrament, but as I lived some way from the church I could not go without the leave of these persons, and sometimes one would give and another refuse her consent.” They would say it was a pretext to meet some boy or other, and Margaret would go and hide herself in a corner of the garden, and stop there crying and praying for the rest of the day, without food or drink unless somebody from the village took pity on her. “The heaviest of my crosses was my powerlessness to lighten those laid upon my mother.”

  From the energy with which Margaret reproaches herself for worldliness, faithlessness and resistance to grace, it may reasonably be gathered that she was not averse from a reasonable participation in those opportunities for gaiety and amusement that came her way, and when her mother and other relatives wanted her to marry she considered the proposal not unfavourably for some time. In her uncertainty she inflicted cruel austerities on herself in punishment for her faults, and brought the further dislike of her relations upon herself by collecting neglected village children into the house or garden and giving them lessons. When she was twenty, more pressure was put on her to marry, but now, fortified by a vision of our Lord, she made up her mind once for all what she would do, and firmly refused. Not till she was twenty-two did she receive the sacrament of confirmation (it was then that she took the name of Mary), and thus armed she was able to withstand the final opposition of her family. Her brother Chrysostom furnished her dowry, and in June 1671 she entered the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial.

 As a novice Margaret-Mary was humble, obedient, simple and frank, and she edified the community, testified a fellow-novice, “by her charity to her sisters, to whom she never uttered an irritating word, and by her patience under the sharp reproofs, scorn and ridicule to which she was often submitted”. But her novitiate was not an easy one. A Visitation nun must not “be extraordinary except by being ordinary”, and already God was leading Margaret-Mary by extraordinary paths. For example, she was quite unable to practice discursive meditation: “No matter how much I tried to follow the method taught me, I invariably had to return to my divine Master’s way [i.e. ‘prayer of simplicity’], although I did my best to give it up.” In due course she was professed, and on that occasion our Lord was pleased to accept her as His bride, “but in a way that she felt herself incapable of describing”. From that time “my divine Master urged me incessantly to ask for humiliations and mortifications”, and they came unsought when she was appointed to assist in the infirmary. The infirmarian, Sister Catherine Marest, was temperamentally very different from her assistant: active, energetic, and efficient, while Margaret-Mary was quiet, slow and clumsy. The result she summed up in her own words: “God alone knows what I had to suffer there, as much through my impulsive and sensitive disposition as from my fellow-creatures and the Devil.” But, granted that Sister Marest was too vigorous in her methods, she on her side probably had something to suffer too. During these two and a half years our Lord continually made Himself sensibly present to Margaret-Mary, often as crowned with thorns, and on December 27, 1673, her devotion to His passion was rewarded with the first of the revelations.
  She was kneeling alone at the grille before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar, and all at once she felt herself, as she says, “invested” by the divine Presence, and heard our Lord inviting her to take the place which St John (it was his feast) had occupied at the Last Supper. He then went on speaking, “in so plain and effective a manner as to leave no room for doubt, such were the results that this grace produced in me, who am always afraid of deceiving myself about what I assert to take place interiorly”. He told her that the love of His heart must needs spread and manifest itself to men by means of her, and that He would reveal the treasures of its graces through her, His chosen instrument and the disciple of His Sacred Heart. Then it was as though our Lord took her heart and put it within His own, returning it burning with divine love into her breast. During a period of eighteen months our Lord continued to appear to Margaret-Mary at intervals, explaining and amplifying the first revelation. He told her that His heart was to be honoured under the form of a heart of flesh, represented in a way now familiar to Catholics throughout the world, and that, in consideration of the coldness and rebuffs given to Him by mankind in return for all His eagerness to do them good, she should make up for their ingratitude so far as she was able.
This was to be done by frequent loving communion, especially on the first Friday of each month and by an hour’s vigil every Thursday night in memory of His agony and desertion in Gethsemane—practices which Catholics have made their own in the devotions of the Nine Fridays and the Holy Hour.
  After a long interval a final revelation was made within the octave of Corpus Christi in 1675, when our Lord said to St Margaret-Mary,
“Behold the heart which has so much loved men that it has spared nothing, even exhausting and consuming itself in testimony of its love. Instead of gratitude I receive from most only indifference, by irreverence and sacrilege and the coldness and scorn that men have for me in the sacrament of love.”
Then He asked that a feast of reparation be instituted for the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi (now the feast of the Sacred Heart). Thus through His chosen instrument God made known to the world His will concerning the reparation due for human ingratitude towards His goodness and mercy, by worship of the heart of flesh of His Son, considered as united to His divinity and as the symbol of His love in dying for our redemption.*{*It is interesting to note that just before this time, in 1651, Thomas Goodwin, Independent (Congregationalist) chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, wrote a book entitled The Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth (vol. iv of his Complete Works, 1862). It has remarkable affinities with the teaching of Bd Claud La Colombière.}
  Our Lord had told St Margaret-Mary that she was to “do nothing without the approval of those who guide you, in order that, having the authority of obedience, you may not be misled by Satan, who has no power over those who are obedient”. When she carried the matter to her superior, Mother de Saumaise, she “mortified and humiliated her with all her might, and allowed her to do none of the things that our Lord had asked of her, treating contemptuously all that the poor sister had said”. “This”, adds St Margaret-Mary, “consoled me very much and I withdrew in great peace.” But she was seriously over-wrought by all that had happened, was taken ill, and her life was in danger. Mother de Saumaise was looking for a sign to guide her in dealing with Sister Alacoque, and said to her, “If God cures you, I shall take it as a proof that all you experience comes from Him, and I will allow you to do what our Lord wishes in honour of His Sacred Heart”.
   St Margaret-Mary prayed accordingly, she at once recovered, and Mother de Saumaise fulfilled her promise. But there was a minority in the community definitely hostile to their sister and her spiritual experiences, and the superior ordered her to set them out for the opinion of certain theologians. These men lacked experience in such matters, diagnosed them as delusions, and recommended that the visionary should take more food. Our Lord, however, had promised that an understanding director should come to St Margaret-Mary, and when Claud La Colombière arrived as confessor extraordinary to the nuns she knew at once that he was the man. He did not stay at Paray long, but long enough to be convinced of the genuineness of Margaret-Mary’s experiences, to gain a deep respect and affection for her, and sincerely to adopt the teaching of the Sacred Heart while confirming the saint herself in it.
   Soon after Bd Claud had left for England (“where”, he complained, “there are no Daughters of Holy Mary, much less a Sister Alacoque”), Margaret-Mary underwent probably the most distressing trial of her life. She was asked in vision to become the sacrificial victim for the shortcomings of the nuns of her community and for the ingratitude of some to the Sacred Heart. For long she demurred, asking that this cup might pass from her. Then our Lord asked her again that she would do this thing, not merely interiorly but in public. She accepted, not in desperation or defiance, but in an agony of fear at what she felt bound to do because God had asked her—and had had to ask her twice. On that very same day, November 20, 1677, this young nun of only five years’ standing, having first told her superior and been told by her to obey God’s voice, “said and did what her Lord required of her”—knelt before her sisters in religion and told them in the name of Christ that she was appointed to be the victim for their failings. They did not all take it in the same spirit of utter humility and obedience, and on that occasion, she says, our Lord, “chose to favour me with a little sample of the grievous night of His own passion”.

  It is a tradition at Paray that the next morning there were not enough priests available to hear all the nuns who wanted to go to confession, but unhappily there is reason to believe that for many years afterwards there were sisters who nursed resentment against St Margaret-Mary.

   During the rule of Mother Greyfié, who succeeded Mother de Saumaise, St Margaret-Mary alternately received great graces and underwent great trials, both interiorly and from her fellow-creatures. She was tempted to despair, vainglory, self-indulgence, and had a good deal of sickness. In 1681 Claud La Colombière came to Paray for the good of his health, and died there in February of the following year. St Margaret-Mary is said been supernaturally assured that his soul was in Heaven, as she was from time to time regarding the state of others who were dead.
  Two years later Mother Melin, who had known Margaret-Mary during all her religious life, was elected superior at Paray and she appointed the saint as her assistant, with the approval of the chapter. From henceforth any remaining opposition ceased, or at least was silenced. The secret of her divine revelations was made known to the community in a rather dramatic (and for her embarrassing) way, being read out, presumably by accident, in the refectory in the course of a book written by Bd Claud La Colombière.
   But the ultimate triumph made no difference, one way or another, to St Margaret-Mary. One of the duties of the assistant superior was to sweep out the choir, and one day while she was doing it she was asked to go and lend a hand in the kitchen. Without brushing up the dust under her hand she went off, and when the nuns assembled for office the heap of dust was still there in full view. That is the sort of thing that twelve years before had upset Sister Marest the infirmarian she still lived and was to have Sister Alacoque to help her again, and doubtless she remembered it with a grim smile. St Margaret Mary was also made mistress of the novices, with such success that professed nuns would ask leave to attend her conferences. Her secret being now known, she was less reticent in encouraging devotion to the Sacred Heart, and inculcated it among her novices, who privately observed the feast in 1685. In the following year the family of a dismissed novice caused trouble by denouncing the novice mistress as an impostor and unorthodox innovator, and for a time some of the old feeling was raised against her in the convent, but it soon subsided and on June 21 the whole house privately celebrated the feast so far as they were able. Two years later a chapel was built at Paray in honour of the Sacred Heart, and the devotion began to be accepted in other convents of the Visitandines, and to be propagated here and there throughout France.

  While serving a second term as assistant superior St Margaret-Mary was taken ill in October 1690. “I shall not live”, she said, “for I have nothing left to suffer”, but the doctor did not think anything was very seriously wrong. A week later she asked for the last sacraments, saying, “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus”. The priest came and began to administer the last rites; at the fourth anointing, of the lips, she died. St Margaret-Mary Alacoque was canonized in 1920.
In the very complete Vie de Ste Marguerite-Marie by Fr A. Hamon, of which the first edition appeared in 1907, nearly thirty pages are devoted to an “étude des sources” and a full bibliography. It must suffice here to note, as most important of all, the autobiographical sketch (Eng. trans.) which was written by the saint at the bidding of her director five years before her death, as well as 533 letters of hers and a number of notes and spiritual memoranda in her own handwriting. Besides these we have a valuable mémoire by her superior, Mother Greyfié, with other letters concerning her, and the depositions of the sisters at Paray-le-Monial, who were examined on oath with a view to her ultimate beatification. The first printed summary of what was then known of the saint’s history was published in 1691 as an appendix which Fr Croiset added to his little book on Devotion to the Sacred Heart. Upon this followed the very careful biography of Mgr Languet, Bishop of Soissons (1729). Since then we have a long succession of lives, among which it will be sufficient to mention those of Mgr Bougaud (Eng. trans., 1890), Mgr Leon Gauthey (3 vols., 1915). Abbé Demimuid (1912) in the series “Les Saints” (Eng. trans.), J. Rime (1947), and M. Yeo in These Three Hearts. There are many other short lives in every European language. For the text of the saint’s own writings reference is generally made to the Vie et Oeuvres which was published by the Visitation nuns of Paray-le-Monial in 1876. See further DTC., vol. iii, cc. 320—351. For the Nine Fridays, see Fr Thurston in The Month, June 1903, pp. 635— 649; and J. B. O’Connell, The Nine First Fridays (1934).
Her parents, Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn, were distinguished less for temporal possessions than for their virtue, which gave them an honourable position. From early childhood Margaret showed intense love for the Blessed Sacrament, and preferred silence and prayer to childish amusements. After her first communion at the age of nine, she practised in secret severe corporal mortifications, until paralysis confined her to bed for four years. At the end of this period, having made a vow to the Blessed Virgin to consecrate herself to religious life, she was instantly restored to perfect health. The death of her father and the injustice of a relative plunged the family in poverty and humiliation, after which more than ever Margaret found consolation in the Blessed Sacrament, and Christ made her sensible of His presence and protection. He usually appeared to her as the Crucified or the Ecce Homo, and this did not surprise her, as she thought others had the same Divine assistance. When Margaret was seventeen, the family property was recovered, and her mother besought her to establish herself in the world. Her filial tenderness made her believe that the vow of childhood was not binding, and that she could serve God at home by penance and charity to the poor. Then, still bleeding from her self-imposed austerities, she began to take part in the pleasures of the world. One night upon her return from a ball, she had a vision of Christ as He was during the scourging, reproaching her for infidelity after He had given her so many proofs of His love. During her entire life Margaret mourned over two faults committed at this time--the wearing of some superfluous ornaments and a mask at the carnival to please her brothers.

 On 25 May, 1671, she entered the Visitation Convent at Paray, where she was subjected to many trials to prove her vocation, and in November, 1672, pronounced her final vows. She had a delicate constitution, but was gifted with intelligence and good judgement, and in the cloister she chose for herself what was most repugnant to her nature, making her life one of inconceivable sufferings, which were often relieved or instantly cured by our Lord, Who acted as her Director, appeared to her frequently and conversed with her, confiding to her the mission to establish the devotion to His Sacred Heart. These extraordinary occurrences drew upon her the adverse criticism of the community, who treated her as a visionary, and her superior commanded her to live the common life. But her obedience, her humility, and invariable charity towards those who persecuted her, finally prevailed, and her mission, accomplished in the crucible of suffering, was recognized even by those who had shown her the most bitter opposition.

  Margaret Mary was inspired by Christ to establish the Holy Hour and to pray lying prostrate with her face to the ground from eleven till midnight on the eve of the first Friday of each month, to share in the mortal sadness He endured when abandoned by His Apostles in His Agony, and to receive holy Communion on the first Friday of every month. In the first great revelation, He made known to her His ardent desire to be loved by men and His design of manifesting His Heart with all Its treasures of love and mercy, of sanctification and salvation. He appointed the Friday after the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi as the feast of the Sacred Heart; He called her "the Beloved Disciple of the Sacred Heart", and the heiress of all Its treasures. The love of the Sacred Heart was the fire which consumed her, and devotion to the Sacred Heart is the refrain of all her writings. In her last illness she refused all alleviation, repeating frequently: "What have I in heaven and what do I desire on earth, but Thee alone, O my God", and died pronouncing the Holy Name of Jesus.

The discussion of the mission and virtues of Margaret Mary continued for years. All her actions, her revelations, her spiritual maxims, her teachings regarding the devotion to the Sacred Heart, of which she was the chief exponent as well as the apostle, were subjected to the most severe and minute examination, and finally the Sacred Congregation of rites passed a favourable vote on the heroic virtues of this servant of God. In March, 1824, Leo XII pronounced her Venerable, and on 18 September, 1864, Pius IX declared her Blessed. When her tomb was canonically opened in July, 1830, two instantaneous cures took place. Her body rests under the altar in the chapel at Paray, and many striking favours have been obtained by pilgrims attracted thither from all parts of the world. Her feast is celebrated on 17 October. [Editor's Note: St. Margaret Mary was canonized by Benedict XV in 1920.]
1794 Bl. Marie Magdalen Desjardin Ursuline martyr of the French Revolution
 She was guillotined in Valenciennes with Marie Louise Vanot. In religion, Marie Magdalen was called Marie-Augustine. Marie Louise was called Natalie. Both received beatification in 1920.

Blessed Ursuline Nuns MM (AC); beatified in 1920. A group of 11 Ursuline nuns guillotined at Valenciennes for having reopened their school in spite of the prohibition of the French revolutionary authorities. Each has a special entry in the calendar (Benedictines).

1794 The Ursuline Martyrs Of Valenciennes
Ursuline nuns established themselves at Valenciennes in the year 1654; nearly a hundred and forty years later, after devoting themselves throughout that time to the interests of their fellow-citizens by teaching their children and looking after the poor, their convent was suppressed under the Revolution and the nuns took refuge in the house of their order at Mons. When the Austrians occupied Valenciennes in 1793 they returned, reopened their school, and remained in the town after the French had recaptured it. In September 1794 they were arrested at the instance of Citizen Lacoste’s commission, on the charge of being émigrées who had unlawfully returned and reopened their convent, and confined in the public prison. On October 17 five of them were brought up for trial, and on their stating openly that they had come back to Valenciennes to teach the Catholic faith they were sentenced to death. They were led to the guillotine in the great marketplace amid the tears of their sisters. “Mother, you taught us to be valiant, and now we are going to be crowned you weep!” exclaimed Bd Mary Augustine (Mother Dejardin) to the mother superior. Five days later the superior herself, Bd Mary Clotilde (Mother Paillot) and the other five nuns suffered in the same place, among the last victims of the Revolution. “We die for the faith of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church”, said Bd Mary Clotilde, and the truth of this statement was formally recognized by that same church when, in 1920, Pope Benedict XV solemnly beatified as martyrs the eleven Ursulines of Valenciennes. Among them were two, Bd Lilvina (Lacroix) and Anne Mary (Erraux), who had been professed Bridgettines, and one, Bd Josephine (Leroux) who had been a Poor Clare; they joined the Ursulines when their own communities were expelled.
As vice-postulator of the cause of the Valenciennes martyrs, the Abbé J. Loridan in his little volume Les bses Ursulines de Valenciennes (in the series “Les Saints”) speaks with full authority and gives proof of exhaustive research. See also Wallon, Les Représentants du peuple vol. v (1890), pp. 163-167; and H. Leclercq, Les Martyrs, vol. xii.
(1794) -Father Robert F. McNamara
The biography of St. Ursula, Virgin and Martyr, is notable for being strong in fable but weak in factuality. In Cologne, Germany, there is a church dedicated to her, in which an obscure Latin inscription dating from the fourth or fifth century states that a senator named Clematius had rebuilt the structure to honor a group of Christian virgins who had been martyred on that spot.
Legend took over thereafter. By the tenth century the story had it that she was a Christian princess who desired to remain unwed and who, to escape a proffered marriage, spent three years traveling on pilgrimage by sea and by land, accompanied by a number of unmarried young women. She and her companions happened to arrive at Cologne in 451, just after the pagan Huns had captured that city. Attila, their leader, executed all these young women out of hatred for Christianity.
The number of Ursula and her martyred companions was usually given as eleven, but a later development of the legend said there were 11,000! Some historians have guessed that this absurd figure could be the result of misreading of a Latin inscription: "The "M" in "XI. M.V", meant to stand for "martyrs" ("Eleven Martyr-Virgins") was taken for the Roman numeral "M", which stands for one thousand.
What, now, of the Ursuline nuns of Valenciennes, martyrs during the French Revolution?
In 1535 St. Angela Merici established, at Brescia, Italy, a "Company of St. Ursula," dedicated to teaching, especially Christian doctrine. She chose St. Ursula as their patroness because their primary occupation was to be teaching. Originally, the members lived in their own homes; but in 1585 a new rule was devised for those who wanted to live in community. The OSU (Order of St. Ursula) thus became a regular religious order. It gradually spread throughout the world (including Canada and the United States). Divisions of the community led to the establishment of several different jurisdictions, but the total number of members of all jurisdictions made the Ursulines one of the largest of all women's religious families.
Ursuline nuns were particularly numerous in France: By 1700 there were 350 French Ursuline monasteries with 9,000 nuns.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, French Ursuline nuns had a monastery and school at Valenciennes, within the boundary of France but very close to the border of the Austrian Netherlands (the present Belgium). The Revolutionary government closed a larger number of religious houses and schools, including that of the Ursulines. Evicted, the Ursulines moved across the border to Mons in the Netherlands, where another Ursuline monastery gave them shelter.
In 1793 Austria invaded northern France to vindicate its sovereignty over the Austrian Netherlands. In doing so it also seized a strip of French territory that included Valenciennes. The evicted nuns therefore returned to Valenciennes, now Austrian, and reopened their school. But the French retaliated and recaptured Valenciennes. What were the poor nuns to do now? They decided to continue with their school in their old home.
Shortly thereafter, the French government arrested and jailed the Ursulines of Valenciennes. On what charge? That they were emigrees who had returned to France without permission and were illegally conducting a religious school!  Five of them were brought to trial on October 17, 1794. They stated frankly that they had returned to teach the Catholic religion. For this crime they were condemned to death by the anti-Christian French authorities.
As the nuns were being led out to the guillotine in the marketplace, one of them, Marie Augustine Dejardin, said to the mother superior (who had not yet been sentenced), "Mother, you taught us to be valiant, and now that we are going to be crowned, you weep!"
Five days later the same superior, Marie Clotilde Paillot, and the other five nuns were condemned to die in the same manner. Mother Paillot made the public declaration, "We die for the faith of the Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church!" This time the victims were transported to the guillotine in a tumbril or dump-cart.
Now, the commissioners had overlooked a lay sister of the community, Cordule Barre. Cordule would not be separated from her sisters. Hurrying over to the cart, she climbed in of her own accord, and was executed with the rest. As they moved on to the scaffold, all six sang the Litany of Our Lady.
Pope Benedict XV beatified these eleven women in 1920 as the "Ursuline Martyrs of Valenciennes." Once again, eleven virgins bearing the name of St. Ursula had laid down their lives for the Faith; but the story of their heroic death is not clouded by the mist of fancy that enshrouds the martyrdom at Cologne of St. Ursula herself and her young companions.
1794  BB. JOHN BAPTIST TURPAN DU CORMIER, MARY L’HUILIER and their companions. Fourteen priests, three nuns and a lay woman martyred at Laval in 1794 during the French Revolution. They were beatified in 1955.
1833 St. Francis Isidore Gagelin Martyr of Vietnam Born in Montperreux France
in 1799, he entered the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris. He was sent to Vietnam in 1822, where he was ordained a priest. In 1833, Francis was seized by anti-Christian forces and was martyred by strangulation. He was canonized in 1988.

Blessed Francis Isidore Gagelin M (AC) Born Montperreux (diocese of Besançon), France, 1799; died in Cochin-China, 1833; beatified in 1900. Blessed Francis was sent by the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris to Cochin-China in 1822. Upon his arrival he was ordained a priest. He worked zealously until the persecution broke out, when he gave himself up to the mandarin of Bongson and was strangled (Benedictines) .


THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 98

Praise, O Jerusalem, Our Lady: glorify her also, O Sion.

For she buildeth up thy walls: and blesseth thy sons.

Let her grace nourish thee: let her give peace to thy borders.

The Most High hath sent forth His Word: and His power hath overshadowed her.

Let us raise our hearts and hands up to her: that we may feel her influence.

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 Nizamuddin Aulia Sufi Saint Hazrath Khwaja Syed Mohammed Badshah Quadri Chisty Yamani Quadeer (RA) 1236-1325 welcomed people of all faiths & all walks of life.
801 Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya Sufi One of the most famous Islamic mystics
(b. 717). This 8th century saint was an early Sufi who had a profound influence on later Sufis, who in turn deeply influenced the European mystical love and troubadour traditions.  Rabi'a was a woman of Basra, a seaport in southern Iraq.  She was born around 717 and died in 801 (185-186).  Her biographer, the great medieval poet Attar, tells us that she was "on fire with love and longing" and that men accepted her "as a second spotless Mary" (186).  She was, he continues, “an unquestioned authority to her contemporaries" (218).
Rabi'a began her ascetic life in a small desert cell near Basra, where she lost herself in prayer and went straight to God for teaching.  As far as is known, she never studied under any master or spiritual director.  She was one of the first of the Sufis to teach that Love alone was the guide on the mystic path (222).  A later Sufi taught that there were two classes of "true believers": one class sought a master as an intermediary between them and God -- unless they could see the footsteps of the Prophet on the path before them, they would not accept the path as valid.  The second class “...did not look before them for the footprint of any of God's creatures, for they had removed all thought of what He had created from their hearts, and concerned themselves solely with God. (218)
Rabi'a was of this second kind.  She felt no reverence even for the House of God in Mecca:  "It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?" (219) One lovely spring morning a friend asked her to come outside to see the works of God.  She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker.  Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made" (219).  During an illness, a friend asked this woman if she desired anything.
"...[H]ow can you ask me such a question as 'What do I desire?'  I swear by the glory of God that for twelve years I have desired fresh dates, and you know that in Basra dates are plentiful, and I have not yet tasted them.  I am a servant (of God), and what has a servant to do with desire?" (162)
When a male friend once suggested she should pray for relief from a debilitating illness, she said,
"O Sufyan, do you not know Who it is that wills this suffering for me?  Is it not God Who wills it?  When you know this, why do you bid me ask for what is contrary to His will?  It is not  well to oppose one's Beloved." (221)
She was an ascetic.  It was her custom to pray all night, sleep briefly just before dawn, and then rise again just as dawn "tinged the sky with gold" (187).  She lived in celibacy and poverty, having renounced the world.  A friend visited her in old age and found that all she owned were a reed mat, screen, a pottery jug, and a bed of felt which doubled as her prayer-rug (186), for where she prayed all night, she also slept briefly in the pre-dawn chill.  Once her friends offered to get her a servant; she replied,
"I should be ashamed to ask for the things of this world from Him to Whom the world belongs, and how should I ask for them from those to whom it does not belong?"  (186-7)
A wealthy merchant once wanted to give her a purse of gold.  She refused it, saying that God, who sustains even those who dishonor Him, would surely sustain her, "whose soul is overflowing with love" for Him.  And she added an ethical concern as well:
"...How should I take the wealth of someone of whom I do not know whether he acquired it lawfully or not?" (187)
She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance.  She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did.  For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself.  The story is told that once a number of Sufis saw her hurrying on her way with water in one hand and a burning torch in the other.  When they asked her to explain, she said:
"I am going to light a fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell, so that both veils may vanish altogether from before the pilgrims and their purpose may be sure..." (187-188)
She was once asked where she came from.  "From that other world," she said.  "And where are you going?" she was asked.  "To that other world," she replied (219).  She taught that the spirit originated with God in "that other world" and had to return to Him in the end.  Yet if the soul were sufficiently purified, even on earth, it could look upon God unveiled in all His glory and unite with him in love.  In this quest, logic and reason were powerless.  Instead, she speaks of the "eye" of her heart which alone could apprehend Him and His mysteries (220).
Above all, she was a lover, a bhakti, like one of Krishna’s Goptis in the Hindu tradition.  Her hours of prayer were not so much devoted to intercession as to communion with her Beloved.  Through this communion, she could discover His will for her.  Many of her prayers have come down to us:
       "I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
        But my body is available for those who seek its company,
        And my body is friendly towards its guests,
        But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul."  [224]
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Mother Angelica saving souls is this beautiful womans journey  Shrine_of_The_Most_Blessed_Sacrament
Colombia was among the countries Mother Angelica visited. 
In Bogotá, a Salesian priest - Father Juan Pablo Rodriguez - brought Mother and the nuns to the Sanctuary of the Divine Infant Jesus to attend Mass.  After Mass, Father Juan Pablo took them into a small Shrine which housed the miraculous statue of the Child Jesus. Mother Angelica stood praying at the side of the statue when suddenly the miraculous image came alive and turned towards her.  Then the Child Jesus spoke with the voice of a young boy:  “Build Me a Temple and I will help those who help you.” 

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

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

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

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

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

Father Corapi's Biography

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

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

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

God Bless you on your journey Father John Corapi


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MIRACLES
– Blessed Alfonso Maria Fusco, diocesan priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. John the Baptist (1839-1910);
– Venerable Servant of God John Sullivan, professed priest of the Society of Jesus (1861-1933);
MARTYRDOM
– Servants of God Nikolle Vinçenc Prennushi, O.F.M., archbishop of Durres, Albania, and 37 companions killed between 1945 and 1974;
– Servants of God José Antón Gómez and three companions of the Benedictines of Madrid, Spain, killed 1936;
HEROIC VIRTUES
– Servant of God Thomas Choe Yang-Eop, diocesan priest (1821-1861);
– Servant of God Sosio Del Prete (né Vincenzo), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Congregation of the Little Servants of Christ the King (1885-1952);
– Servant of God Wenanty Katarzyniec (né Jósef), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1889-1921);
– Servant of God Maria Consiglia of the Holy Spirity (née Emilia 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, 98 2023