Make a Novena and pray the Rosary to Our Lady of Victory
Mary Mother of GOD
Pray that God will continue to bless the efforts that have gone into
the 40 Days for Life campaign, as we trust Him for the results.

  15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary
Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum.
And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
Пресвятая Богородице спаси нас!  (Santíssima Mãe de Deus, salva-nos!)
R.  Deo grátias. R.  Thanks be to God.
October is the month of the Rosary since 1868;
2023
23,658  Lives Saved Since 2007
Pope Francis  PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR October 2023

For the Synod
We pray for the Church, that she may adopt listening and dialogue as a lifestyle at every level, and allow herself to be guided by the Holy Spirit towards the peripheries of the world.
At Arenas in Spain, the birthday of St. Peter of Alcantara, confessor and priest of the Order of Friars Minor.

October 18 – Ethopian Church: Feast of Our Lady of the Garden of Myrrh –
 Founding of Schönstatt by Fr. Joseph Kentenich (Germany, 1914) 
 The Virgin’s wish comes true
 The Virgin Mary appeared for the first time to Sister Marie-Alphonsine (1843-1927), who was canonized on May 17, 2015, by Pope Francis, in the convent of Bethlehem, on the Epiphany of the year 1874
“I want you to start the Congregation of the Rosary...
In these parts I have experienced joy, pain and glory, and it is among you that I want to show my presence.”
One day a girl from her village said to Alphonsine:
“You should found a religious congregation called the Holy Rosary for girls from our country.”
Sister Alphonsine was convinced that, for many young Christian Arabs from her country, apostolic work could only be accomplished by religious congregations that were from the Middle East itself.
The Virgin Mary’s wish came true: the Sisters of the Rosary, beloved by both the Christian and Muslim population in the Holy Land, quickly became an important part of the religious life of the diocese of Jerusalem.
Parishes have asked the Sisters of the Rosary to open schools, care for girls, tend to the sick, and teach catechism.  rosarium.op.org

October is the Month of the Rosary.
Our Lady of the Rosary Pope St. Pius V established this feast in 1573. The purpose was to thank God for the victory of Christians over the Turks at Lepanto—a victory attributed to the praying of the rosary. Clement XI extended the feast to the universal Church in 1716.
 
October 18,

CAUSES OF SAINTS April  2014

Our Bartholomew Family Prayer List
Joyful Mystery on Monday Saturday   Glorius Mystery on Sunday Wednesday
   Sorrowful Mystery on Friday Tuesday   Luminous Mystery on Thursday Veterens of War
Acts of the Apostles

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

October 18
Saint Luke
"Then [Jesus] led them [out] as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God" (Luke 24:50-53).
The icons of Saint Luke
According to tradition, St Luke was the first person to complete three pictures of the holy Mother of God carrying the Child of God in her arms. He showed them to the Holy Virgin for approval, while she was still alive. She received these holy pictures joyfully and said: “May the grace of Him to whom I gave birth be within them!” Later, St Luke made pictures of the Holy Apostles and bestowed upon the Church this pious and holy tradition of venerating the icons of Christ and His Saints.”

I can no longer live without Jesus. How soon shall I receive Him again? -- St. Maria Goretti

Saint Luke
"Then [Jesus] led them [out] as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God" (Luke 24:50-53).
The icons of Saint Luke
According to tradition, St Luke was the first person to complete three pictures of the holy Mother of God carrying the Child of God in her arms. He showed them to the Holy Virgin for approval, while she was still alive. She received these holy pictures joyfully and said: “May the grace of Him to whom I gave birth be within them!” Later, St Luke made pictures of the Holy Apostles and bestowed upon the Church this pious and holy tradition of venerating the icons of Christ and His Saints.”

October 18 - Foundation of Schönstatt by Father Joseph Kentenich (Germany, 1914)
  Mother Thrice Admirable, Queen and Victorious Lady of Schoenstatt (II)

The spirituality of Schönstatt is decidedly marked by a practical faith in Divine Providence in daily life.
Decades before the Second Vatican Council, Father Kentenich foresaw with clarity that the Church needed persons and communities who were interiorly formed. He envisioned persons and communities who in the "spirit of being children of God" would know how to personally decide for God. Schoenstatt considers that one of its main tasks is to keep alive the spirit of the Council and to take it to the life of the Church.

In the Covenant of Love there is an attachment to the different Schönstatt Shrines, where The Mother Thrice Admirable, Queen and Victorious Lady, a painting of the Madonna and Child is always found.
Members have a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin and find a home in God’s merciful Love, which is a firm foundation for apostolic activity. They surrender themselves to the redeeming love of Christ which urges them towards evangelization. The members of Schoenstatt work in great numbers in educational projects, healthcare, missionary activities, culture and politics, and especially collaborate with other religious communities, following new directions of apostolate issued by the Church.
Adapted from www.schoenstatt.de/s_info/s-schoenstatt
St. Luke the only Gentile Christian among the Gospel writers
          Saint Mnason, bishop of Cyprus and forty holy children met their end by the sword.
  217 St. Asclepiades Bishop of Antioch martyr
  269 St. Athenodorus Bishop and martyr
  287 St. Justus of Beauvais; he was 9; stood upright with his head in his hand
3rd v.St. Tryphonia Roman widow and martyr
  377 St. Julian the Hermit, surnamed Sabas,
  492 St. Gwen (Candida, Blanche), Widow (AC)
         St. Keyna Welsh virgin founded churches
6th v. Brothen and Gwendolen (Gwendoline) (AC)
  645 St. Monon Scottish pilgrim martyred Ardennes France hermit
St. Isaac Jogues, priest of the Society of Jesus, and John de la Lande, a temporary helper to the same Society, who came from France to teach the faith.
1775 Sancti Pauli a Cruce, Presbyteri et Confessóris;

Romæ item natális sancti Pauli a Cruce, Presbyteri et Confessóris; qui Congregatiónis a Cruce et Passióne Dómini nostri Jesu Christi nuncupátæ Institútor fuit.  Ipsum vero, mira innocéntia ac pæniténtia conspícuum et singulári in Christum crucifíxum caritáte incénsum, Pius Papa Nonus fastis Sanctórum adjúnxit, et ejúsdem festivitátem quarto Kaléndas Maji recoléndam indíxit.
    At Rome, the birthday of St. Paul of the Cross, priest, confessor, and founder of the Congregation of the Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Known for his remarkable innocency of life and his penitential spirit, and aflame with love for Christ crucified, he was canonized by Pope Pius IX, and the 28th of April was assigned as his feast day.



Arénis, in Hispánia, natális páriter sancti Petri de Alcántara, Sacerdótis ex Ordine Minórum et Confessóris; quem, propter admirábilem pæniténtiam múltaque mirácula, Clemens Nonus, Póntifex Máximus, Sanctórum número adscrípsit.  Ejus autem festum sequénti die celebrátur.
    At Arenas in Spain, the birthday of St. Peter of Alcantara, confessor and priest of the Order of Friars Minor.  He was canonized by Pope Clement IX because of his admirable penance and many miracles, and his feast is observed on the day following.
The Historicity of the Infancy Gospel According to Saint Luke (I)
October 18 - OUR LADY OF RHEIMS (France, 605) - Saint Luke
             The Gospel of the Infancy according to Luke is prefaced with a clear statement of historicity:
“Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the Word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.”
The preoccupation to support the narrative with eyewitnesses is announced in the Prologue, and obvious in the two chapters of the Infancy. Luke refers himself three times to the witnesses who kept these words and events in their hearts (Lk 1: 66; 2: 19 and 51). His gospel betrays a constant concern to gather information, not only from the Twelve, but also from the family of Jesus, and from the women who had accompanied him as disciples in his ministry (Acts 8: 1-3, etc.). In the Acts of the Apostles (1: 14), he gives these 2 categories (the women and the family) a good place in the primitive community, and cross-checks by naming them: Mary, Mother of Jesus, witness and source of the Infancy stories (Lk 2: 19 and 51). 
René Laurentin The Christmas Gospels, Desclée, 1999
“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God....’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory” Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.

St. Luke the only Gentile Christian among the Gospel writers
In Bithynia natális beáti Lucæ Evangelístæ, qui, multa passus pro Christi nómine, obiit Spíritu Sancto plenus.  Ipsíus autem ossa póstea Constantinópolim transláta sunt, et inde Patávium deláta.
    In Bithynia, the birthday of St. Luke the Evangelist.  He died, filled with the Holy Ghost, after having suffered much for the Name of Christ.  His relics were translated to Constantinople, and thence taken to Pavia.

St Luke came from the city of Antioch the Great. Of noble birth, he particularly excelled in the areas of medical science and pictorial art. Under the reign of Emperor Claude (c. 42 AD.), while he was caring for the sick around Thebes in Beotia, he met the Apostle Paul, whose ardent words convinced him that the absolute truth for which he had been seeking for so many years could indeed be found among the disciples of Jesus Christ.
   After he had been separated from his master, Luke returned to Greece to proclaim the Gospel there. He again set up his abode in the Thebes area where he died peacefully at the age of eighty.
    Wishing to glorify His faithful servant, God poured a miraculous liquid over his tomb; this cured the eye complaints of those who anointed themselves with it in faith. So it was, that even after his death, St Luke continued to practise medicine.
   Many years later (on March 3, 357), Emperor Constantius, son of the great Constantine, ordered St Artemios, Duke of Egypt, to take the relics of the Saint to Constantinople, and had them laid to rest under the Altar of the Church of the Holy Apostles, beside the Holy Relics of the Apostles Andrew and Timothy. Orthodox Monastery http://monastere-orthodoxe.chez-alice.fr/

1st v. ST LUKE, EVANGELIST
IT is from St Paul himself that we learn that St Luke was a gentile, for he is not named among those of his helpers whom Paul mentions as Jews (Col. iv 10 to 11); that he was a fellow worker with the apostle, “Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, who share my labours”; and that he was a medical man, “Luke, the beloved physician” (or “the beloved Luke, the physician”), who doubtless had the care of Paul’s much-tried health. But nowhere does St Paul refer to Luke’s writings; if Luke be referred to in II Cor. viii 18—19 (as St Jerome thought), there is clearly here no question of a written gospel.

  The first time in the history of the mission of St Paul that Luke speaks in his own name in the first person is when the apostle sailed from Troas into Macedonia (Acts xvi 10). Before this he had doubtless been for some time a disciple of St Paul, and from this time seems never to have left him, unless by his order for the service of the churches he had planted.  He was certainly with him not only during the first but also during the second imprisonment in Rome. According to Eusebius, Luke’s home was at Antioch, and he was almost certainly a Greek; and Luke himself in the Acts of the Apostles of course, sets out his journeyings and tribulations with St Paul.

   St Luke wrote his gospel, as he himself explains, that Christians might know the verity of those words in which they had been instructed: he was primarily a historian or recorder, writing for the information of Greeks. And he indicates for us what were his sources: as many had written accounts of the things that had happened as they heard them from those “who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word”, it seemed good to him also, “having diligently attained to all things from the beginning”, to set them out in an ordered narrative.

   It is only in the gospel of St Luke that we have a full account of the annunciation of the mystery of the Incarnation to the Blessed Virgin, of her visit to St Elizabeth, and of the journeys to Jerusalem (ix 15; xix 28). He relates six miracles and eighteen parables not mentioned in the other gospels. He wrote the book called the Acts of the Apostles as an appendix to his gospel, to prevent false relations by leaving an authentic account of the wonderful works of God in planting His Church and of some of the miracles by which He confirmed it. Having related some general transactions of the principal apostles in the first establishment of the Church, beginning at our Lord’s ascension, he from the thirteenth chapter almost confines himself to the actions and miracles of St Paul, to most of which he had been privy and an eye-witness.
           Luke was with St Paul in his last days: after writing those famous words to Timothy, “The time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good fight: I have finished my course: I have kept the faith,” the apostle goes on to say, “Only Luke is with me”.
Of what happened to St Luke after St Paul’s martyrdom we have no certain knowledge: the later statements about him are impossible to reconcile. But according to a fairly early and widespread tradition he was unmarried, wrote his gospel in Greece, and died at the age of 84 in Boeotia.
         St Gregory Nazianzen (d. 390), who speaks of Greece as the chief field of Luke’s evangelism, is quote4 as the first to say he was martyred; but Gregory’s words do not certainly mean that: the martyrdom seems more than doubtful. The Emperor Constantius I! (d. 361) ordered the reputed relics of St Luke to be translated from the Boeotian Thebes to Constantinople.
           As well as of physicians and surgeons, St Luke is the patron saint of painters of pictures. A writer of the earlier sixth century states that the Empress Eudokia had a century before sent to St Pulcheria from Jerusalem an eikon of our Lady painted by St Luke. Other pictures were afterwards attributed to him; but St Augustine states clearly that nothing was known about the bodily appearance of the Virgin Mary. On the other hand there can be no question of the many subjects suggested to so many artists by St Luke’s descriptions of events in his writings.
         In accommodating the four symbolical representations mentioned in Ezechiel to the four evangelists, the ox or calf was assigned to Luke; St Irenaeus explains this by reference to the sacrificial element in the beginning of his gospel.
For a reliable appreciation of the author of the third gospel we must turn to such work of modern scholars as the admirable preface which Father Lagrange prefixed to his book, L’Évangile selon St Luc (1921). Of a proper biography there can of course be no question. Everything is uncertain beyond the little we find recorded in the New Testament itself, but Harnack, writing with the more persuasiveness as a non-Catholic at one time suspected of rationalizing tendencies, very solidly demonstrated that Luke the physician was the author both of the third gospel and of the whole of the Acts of the Apostles, despite the attempts which have been made, on the basis of the so-called “We” sections (Wirstücke) to prove that the text of this last was a conflation of at least two different documents. See Harnack, Lukas der Arzt, and subsequent publications of his written in support of the same thesis; all of which have been translated into English. For the history of St Luke, the Latin and Greek prefaces to early texts of the gospel are worthy of being taken into consideration (see the Revue Bénédictine, 1928, pp. 193 seq.), as also the short notice preserved in the Muratorian Canon. See further the preface to E. Jacquier’s great commentary, Les Actes des Apôtres (1926), and Theodore Zahn’s Die Apostelgeschichte des Lukas (1919—21). On the portraits of our Lady supposed to have been painted by St Luke, see DAC., vol. ix, c. 2614. See also A. H. N. Green-Armytage, Portrait of St Luke (1955).

Luke wrote one of the major portions of the New Testament, a two-volume work comprising the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. In the two books he shows the parallel between the life of Christ and that of the Church. He is the only Gentile Christian among the Gospel writers. Tradition holds him to be a native of Antioch, and Paul calls him "our beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14). His Gospel was probably written between A.D. 70 and 85.
Luke appears in Acts during Paul’s second journey, remains at Philippi for several years until Paul returns from his third journey, accompanies Paul to Jerusalem and remains near him when he is imprisoned in Caesarea. During these two years, Luke had time to seek information and interview persons who had known Jesus. He accompanied Paul on the dangerous journey to Rome where he was a faithful companion. "Only Luke is with me," Paul writes (2 Timothy 4:11).
Comment:  Luke wrote as a Gentile for Gentile Christians. This Gospel reveals Luke's expertise in classic Greek style as well as his knowledge of Jewish sources.
The character of Luke may best be seen by the emphases of his Gospel, which has been given a number of subtitles:
(1) The Gospel of Mercy: Luke emphasizes Jesus' compassion and patience with the sinners and the suffering. He has a broadminded openness to all, showing concern for Samaritans, lepers, publicans, soldiers, public sinners, unlettered shepherds, the poor.
Luke alone records the stories of the sinful woman, the lost sheep and coin, the prodigal son, the good thief.
(2) The Gospel of Universal Salvation: Jesus died for all. He is the son of Adam, not just of David, and Gentiles are his friends too.
(3) The Gospel of the Poor: "Little people" are prominent—Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, shepherds, Simeon and the elderly widow, Anna. He is also concerned with what we now call "evangelical poverty."
(4) The Gospel of Absolute Renunciation: He stresses the need for total dedication to Christ.
(5) The Gospel of Prayer and the Holy Spirit: He shows Jesus at prayer before every important step of his ministry. The Spirit is bringing the Church to its final perfection.
(6) The Gospel of Joy: Luke succeeds in portraying the joy of salvation that permeated the primitive Church.
Quote:   "Then [Jesus] led them [out] as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God" (Luke 24:50-53).

Luke the Evangelist (RM) 1st century. Saint Luke was a gentile (not mentioned as a Jew by Saint Paul in Col. 4:10-11), a Greek (according to Saint Jerome), perhaps born in Antioch (per Eusebius), and a medical man by profession--Saint Paul speaks of him as 'our beloved Luke, the physician' (Col. 4:14). He was the author of the Gospel the bears his name and of its continuation--the Acts of the Apostles.
The Gospel was definitely written by a Gentile Christian for Gentile Christians. Though Jesus lived and worked almost entirely among Jews, He also reached out to others. Whenever Jesus has dealings with, for example, Syrians, or praises a Roman centurion, Luke tells us about it. He also shows Jesus' special friendship with the outcasts of society and his love of the poor.

One of the interesting aspects of Luke's Gospel is his frequent juxtaposition of a story about a man and then another about a woman. For example, the cure of the demoniac (Luke 4:31-37) is followed by the cure of Peter's mother-in-law (4:38-39); the centurion's slave is healed (7:1-10), then the widow of Nain's son is raised (7:11-17); the Gerasene demoniac is healed (8:26-39) followed by the raising of Jairus's Daughter and healing of the woman with the hemorrhage (8:40-56).

Luke also mentions the women who followed and assisted Jesus in His ministry (e.g., 8:1-3). Thus, in a way that no other evangelist does, Luke depicts a Jesus who cares for the status and salvation of women quite as much as He does for men. Perhaps this is because Luke probably learned much about Jesus from the Blessed Virgin herself. Only he and Matthew record elements about the hidden life of the Lord before his public ministry.

Luke stresses God's mercy and love of all mankind. He alone records the parables of the lost sheep, the Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the Pharisee and the publican, the barren fig tree, Dives and Lazarus. He is also the only one to record Jesus' forgiveness of Mary Magdalen (?) (Luke 7:47), His promise to the good thief (Luke 23:43), and His prayer for his executioners (Luke 23:34). And he is also the only evangelist to record the Ave Maria the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and the Nunc Dimittis, which are all used in the Liturgy of the Hours (Night, Evening, Morning, and Night Prayer respectively). Luke also emphasizes the call to poverty, prayer, and purity of heart, which comprise much of his specific appeal to the Gentiles.

Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, which might more appropriately be known as the Acts of the Holy Spirit. This is a continuation of his Gospel account, though the Acts may have been written first. According to Eusebius and Jerome, Acts was written during Paul's imprisonment, though Saint Ireneaus says after Paul's death c. 66. Eusebius says that the Gospel was set down before Paul's death, Jerome says after, and an early tradition records it as being composed shortly before Luke's death.

Legend has him as one of the 72 disciples, and some scholars identify him with Lucius of Cyrene, a teacher and prophet at Antioch (Acts 13:1) and with Lucius, Paul's companion at Corinth (Rom. 16:21). We don't know exactly when he was converted; perhaps in 42 when Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas came to preach at Antioch, or possibly even earlier when the Christians fled from Jerusalem to Antioch after the stoning of Saint Stephen.

Certain passages of Acts, written in the first person plural, are usually held to show that the writer was with Saint Paul on parts of his second and third missionary journeys and on the voyage to Italy, when the ship was wrecked off the coast of Malta (Acts 16:10ff; 20:5ff; 27-28). He was with Paul during both his first and second imprisonments. In his letters, Paul thrice (AD 61-63) refers to Luke's presence in Rome, writing to Timothy, 'Luke is my only companion.'

Between the two missionary journeys (AD 51-57), he stayed at Philippi as a leader of the Christian community. Then he rejoined Saint Paul on the third trip, meeting him in Macedonia and accompanying him to Jerusalem. Thereafter, he was Paul's constant companion. He was with Paul after his arrest in the Temple and during the two years (57-59) of his imprisonment at Caesarea. When Paul appealed to Caesar, Luke went with him and was shipwrecked with Paul on the coast of Malta. Until St. Paul's martyrdom in 67, Luke never left his side.

A writer perhaps as early as the late second century declares that, having served the Lord constantly and written his gospel there, According to a less reliable tradition, Luke died, unmarried, in Boeotia, Greece, at the age of 84, 'full of the Holy Spirit.' He is said to have been martyred, which is very doubtful, but we have no record of his history after the time he was in Rome with Paul.
Though Luke may never have known Our Lord in the flesh, it is possible that he did know the Mother of God and Saint John. He was in Rome at the same time as Saints Peter and Mark and, while in the company of Paul, must surely have known many of the disciples.
Translations of his relics were claimed by Constantinople and Padua (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Green-Armytage, Walsh, White).

Perhaps one of the best novels about Saint Luke is Taylor Caldwell's Dear and Glorious Physician, which is especially good in portraying extant pagan heralds to the coming of Christ.

Saint Luke is the patron saint of physicians and surgeons, and also of guilds of artists, art schools, and painters of pictures because later tradition in the Greek Church claims that Luke was also an artist. Reputedly Luke carried a portrait of the Blessed Mother with him and that it was the instrument of many conversions. Indeed, he was a great artist in words, and his narratives have inspired many masterpieces of art; but the existing pictures of the Blessed Virgin, which he is said actually to have painted, are all works of a much later date, including that of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Unfortunately, a rough drawing in the catacombs inscribed as "one of seven painted by Luca" confirmed the Greek legend in the popular mind.
   Additionally, he is considered the patron of sculptors, bookbinders, goldsmiths, lacemakers, notaries (because of his account of Christ's life), and butchers (because of his emblem, the winged ox) (Appleton, Roeder, Tabor).
   Saint Irenaeus is credited with having first assigned the mysterious winged ox, described in Ezekiel and by Saint John in Revelation, to Saint Luke. The first known usage of the emblems of the apocalyptic creatures is in the apse mosaic of Saint Pudentiana in Rome dating to the end of the 4th century, although they were not specifically associated with any one of the Evangelists. Nevertheless, since the time of Saints Jerome (died 420) and Augustine (died 430), the winged ox has been assigned to Saint Luke. This may be an allusion to the sacrifice in the Temple at the beginning of his Gospel, and to Saint Luke's emphasis on the atonement made by Christ's suffering and death (Appleton).
   In art he appears (1) as a bishop or a physician with a book or scroll, often accompanied by a winged ox; (2) painting the Virgin (anonymous, at St. Isaac of Syria Skete, Boscobel, Wisconsin, USA) (this subject is especially used in 15th and 16th- century Flemish paintings); (3) in a doctor's cap and gown, holding a book; (4) occasionally present in scenes of the Annunciation or angel's message to Zacharia; (5) giving his book to Saint Theophilus B; or (6) as an evangelist, writing (14th century French illumination) (Roeder, White). Exceptional painting of Saint Luke include those of Roger van der Weyden in the Pinacoteca, Munich; Jean Grossaert in Prague; and the School of Raphael in the Accademia di San Luca in Rome (Tabor).
Saint Mnason, bishop of Cyprus and forty holy children met their end by the sword.
217 St. Asclepiades Bishop of Antioch martyr
Antiochíæ sancti Asclepíadis Epíscopi, qui fuit unus ex præcláro illórum Mártyrum número, qui glorióse sub Macríno passi sunt.
     At Antioch, the bishop St. Asclepiades, who was one of the celebrated band of martyrs who suffered so gloriously under Macrinus.
Asclepiades was the successor of St. Serapion in Antioch, Turkey, serving that see from 211 until his death. He is given the title of martyr because of the trials he endured during the persecutions of the time.
Asclepiades of Antioch BM (RM). Patriarch Asclepiades (211-217) succeeded Saint Serapion in the see of Antioch. Already he appears to have died in peace, he is usually given the title of martyr, probably because of all that he underwent during the persecution of Severus (Benedictines) .
287 9 yr old St. Justus of Beauvais stood upright with his head in his hand
Sinomovíci, in território Bellovacénsi, sancti Justi Mártyris, qui adhuc puer, in persecutióne Diocletiáni Imperatóris, sub Rictiováro Præside, cápite amputátus est.
    At Louvres, in the diocese of Beauvais, St. Justus, martyr, who, being but a boy, was put to death in the persecution of Diocletian, under the governor Rictiovarus.

St Justus Of Beauvais, Martyr
  “At Sinomovicus in the territory of Beauvais”, says the Roman Martyrology, “the passion of St Justus the martyr who, while still a boy, was beheaded by the  governor Rictiovarus during the persecution of Diocletian.” This young martyr was formerly famous all over north-western Europe, and the church of Beauvais even had his name in the canon of the Mass and accorded his feast a proper preface but the extension of his cultus was in some measure due to confusion with other saints of the same name. His legend as it has come down to us is worthless.
         According to it Justus lived at Auxerre, and when he was nine years old went with his father Justin to Amiens in order to ransom Justinian, Justin’s brother, who was held a slave there. They called on his master, Lupus, who was ready to sell the slave if he could be identified, but when they were all paraded for inspection neither brother recognized the other. Whereupon Justus, who had never seen his uncle before, pointed out a man who was carrying a lamp, crying, “That is he!” So it was, and Lupus handed him over,
      A soldier who had witnessed the occurrence reported to Rictiovarus that there were some Christian magicians in the town, and the governor sent four men after them to bring them back, and if they would not come quietly they were to be killed on the spot. When the three Christians came to Sinomovicus (now Saint-Just-en Chaussée), between Beauvais and Senlis, they sat down to eat by the side of a spring, when young Justus suddenly saw the four horsemen in the distance. Justin and Justinian at once hid themselves in a near-by cave, telling the boy to put the soldiers off if they came that way. When they rode up the pursuers saw Justus and asked him where were the two men they had seen with him and to what gods they were in the habit of sacrificing. He ignored one question, and replied to the other that he was a Christian. At once one of the soldiers smote off his head, and was about to pick it up to carry it back to Rictiovarus when the dead body stood upright and a voice was heard saying, “Lord of Heaven and earth, receive my soul, for I am sinless!” At this prodigy the soldiers fled from the place, and when Justin and his brother came out of the cave there was the body of St Justus with its head in its hands; and it is fabled to have directed them to bury the trunk in the cave and to take the head home to his mother, “who, if she wants to see me again, must look for me in Heaven”. A similar story is told of the St Justin venerated at Paris, for whom the “acts” of St Justus have been borrowed, “unde multiplex orta at in breviariis perturbatio”, observe the Bollandists.
Although this legend is entirely fabulous, we may infer from the fact that it is preserved in four recensions that it must have enjoyed a certain popularity. See the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. viii, and BHL., nn. 4590—4594. There is no mention of this Justus in the Hieronymianum, and there seems grave reason to doubt whether Rictiovarus, the persecutor whose name occurs so frequently in the Roman Martyrology, ever existed. For an im­portant comment and references, see Analecta .Bollandiana, vol. lxxii (1954), p. 269.
St. Justus of Beauvais, Martyr (Feast day - October 18) Justus was born in 278 and lived at Auxerre, France, with his father. At that time, the persecution of Diocletian was in full force. Justus and his father went to Amiens to ransom a relative. While there, Justus was reported to the authorities to be a Christian magician, and soldiers were sent to arrest him. When confronted at Beauvais, Justus, who was nine years old, confessed that he was a Christian, and he was immediately beheaded. Legend has it that he then stood upright with his head in his hand, at which the soldiers fled.

Justus of Beauvais M (RM). Saint Justus is reputed to have been a child of nine who was killed by Roman soldiers for concealing the hiding place of two other Christians; this is supposed to have happened between Beauvais and Senlis at a place now called Saint-Just-en-Chaussee during Diocletian's persecution under the mythical Rictiovarus. He was beheaded by a soldier but continued to proclaim the Good News. There used to be a considerable cultus of Saint Justus in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and at Winchester, England which claimed some of his relics from the 11th century. Most of his relics are enshrined in the cathedral of Paris and appear to be the body of a youth. The unhistorical tale appears to be based on that of Saint Justin of Paris. There may have been a Gallo-Roman martyr of this name and the stories of others with similar names may have been confused with the diffusion of the cultus (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Husenbeth) .
269 St. Athenodorus Bishop and martyr
Neocæsaréæ, in Ponto, sancti Athenodóri Epíscopi, qui fuit frater sancti Gregórii Thaumatúrgi; et, doctrína clarus, in persecutióne Aureliáni, martyrium consummávit.
    At Neocaesarea in Pontus, the holy and learned Bishop Athenodorus, brother of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, who underwent martyrdom in the persecution of Aurelian.
Athenodorus was a member of a prominent pagan family at Neocaesarea, in Cappadocia. His brother was St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. He went with Gregory and their sister to Caesarea, in 223, planning to study law in Beirut, Lebanon. Origen was in Caesarea, and Athenodorus and Gregory were converted by him. Athenodorus was named bishop of an unnamed see in Pontus later in his life. He was martyred in the persecutions of Emperor Aurelian.

Athenodorus of Pontus BM (RM) Born in Neo-Caesarea, Cappadocia. Saint Athenodorus, like his brother Saint Gregory the Wonder-Worker, was a convert to Christianity. Together they studied under Origen at Caesarea and then both became bishops-- Athenodorus of an unnamed see in Pontus. He suffered martyrdom under Aurelian (Benedictines) .
3rd century St. Tryphonia Roman widow and martyr
Romæ sanctæ Tryphóniæ, quæ Décii Cæsaris quondam uxor ac sanctæ Vírginis et Mártyris Cyrillæ mater éxstitit; cujus corpus in crypta, juxta sanctum Hippólytum, sepúltum est.
    At Rome, St. Tryphonia, at one time the wife of Caesar Decius, the mother of St. Cyrilla, virgin and martyr.  She was buried in a crypt, near that of St. Hippolytus.
Tradition states that she may have been the widow of the Christian enemy, Emperor Trajanus Decius or the widow of his son.

Tryphonia of Rome, Widow M (RM). In legend Tryphonia is either the wife of Emperor Decius or his son, Messius Decius. She was a Roman widow martyred in Rome. Her Acta are worthless (Benedictines).
377 St. Julian Sabas the Elder  hermit in Mesopotamia
St. Julian the Hermit, surnamed Sabas, who is mentioned also on the 17th of January
In fínibus Edessénæ regiónis, in Mesopotámia, commemorátio sancti Juliáni Eremítæ, cognoménto Sabæ, de quo ágitur étiam sextodécimo Kaléndas Februárii.
In Mesopotamia, in the neighbourhood of Edessa, the commemoration of St. Julian the Hermit, surnamed Sabas, who is mentioned also on the 17th of January.
On the banks of the Euphrates River. He gave much encouragement to the Christians in the Eastern Empire during the period of renewed oppression of the faith under Emperor Julian the Apostate. He appeared in 372 to refute the Arian heresy as well. Accounts of his life were written by St. John Chrysostom and Theodoret .
5th century 492 St. Gwen Widowed martyr at Talgrarth
sometimes called Blanche, Wenn, or Candida. She was the daughter of a Chieftain, Brychan or Brecknock.
Saxon pagans martyred Gwen at Talgrarth. 
Gwen (Wenn) of Wales, (AC) 5th century. There are two saints of this name, both celebrated on the same day. Both lived during the same period. Saint Gwen of Wales, widow of King Selyf of Cornwall, is said to have been the sister of Saint Nonna and, therefore, the aunt of Saint David of Wales. She is alleged to have been the mother of Saints Cyby and Cadfan and to have founded the church of Saint Wenn. There are a few other churches in Devon and Cornwall who may be dedicated to this saint (Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Farmer).
5th century St. Keyna Welsh virgin founded churches
also called Keyne or Ceinwen. She is possibly one of the twenty-four children of the chieftain Brychan of Brecknock, Wales. Keyna supposedly became a hermitess on the banks of the Severn River in Somerset, England St. Cadoc, her nephew, convinced her to return to Wales.
She founded churches in southern Wales and in Cornwall, England, and possibly in Somerset.
6th v. Brothen and Gwendolen (Gwendoline) (AC)
6th century. Only their names and place names honoring these Welsh saints remains of their history, and the fact that they were given a public cultus in Wales. Saint Brothen is the patron of Llanbrothen in Merionethshire. Dolwyddelen and Llanwyddelan in Montgomeryshire suggest a Saint Gwendolen; this and similar names are diminutives of Gwen (meaning 'white'), equivalent to the French Blanche (Benedictines).
645 St. Monon Scottish pilgrim martyred Ardennes France hermit tomb site of many miracles
in that area. Monon was murdered at Nassogne, in Luxembourg, by a group of unrepentant sinners.

Mono (Monon) of Scotland M (AC). Mono was an Irish monk or Scottish pilgrim who crossed over to the continent and lived as a hermit in the Ardennes, where he is highly venerated by the people. He was murdered in his cell at Nassogne (Nassau), in Belgian Luxemburg by some robber whom he had reproved. His tomb in the village at a place now encompassed by Saint Hubert's abbey was the site of many miracles. There is a church near Saint Andrew's in Scotland dedicated to him called Monon's Kirk. In 1920, Cardinal Mercier of Belgium told the persecuted bishops of Ireland, "For long have the eyes of Belgian Catholics turned towards Ireland full of admiration and gratitude. Is it not the first pioneers of Christian civilization that Belgium herself owes in large degree the grace, greatest of all graces, of belonging to Christ? The names of Irish missionaries who in the Merovingian epoch evangelized the north of France, Saint Columban, Saint Foillan, Saints Monon and Eton, Saint Lievan [Lebwin], the bishops Saint Wiro and Saint Plechelm and their deacon Saint Odger, Saint Fredegand finally, and many other have remained popular among us. More than 30 Belgian churches are dedicated to saints from your island" (Benedictines, D'Arcy, Encyclopedia, Fitzpatrick, Husenbeth, Kenney) .
Isaac Jogues, priest of the Society of Jesus, and John de la Lande, a temporary helper to the same Society, who came from France to teach the faith.
Apud Auriesville, in statu Neo-Eboracénsi, sanctórum Mártyrum e Societáte Jesu, Isaáci Jogues, Sacerdotis, et Joánnis de La Lande, Coadjutóris temporális, qui hac et sequénti die ab Iroquénsibus dire necáti sunt, eódem loco ubi, paucis ante annis, Renátus Goupil, et ipse Coadjútor temporális, martyrii palmam consecútus fúerat.
    At Auriesville, in the state of New York, the birthday of the holy martyrs Isaac Jogues, priest of the Society of Jesus, and John de la Lande, a temporary helper to the same Society, who came from France to teach the faith.  On this and the following day they were cruelly tortured and killed by the Iroquois in the same place where, a few years before, one of the companions, René Goupil, also a temporary assistant, had received the palm of martyrdom.
1775 Sancti Pauli a Cruce, Presbyteri et Confessóris; qui Congregatiónis a Cruce et Passióne Dómini nostri Jesu Christi nuncupátæ Institútor fuit, atque in Dómino obdormívit quintodécimo Kaléndas Novémbris.
 St. Paul of the Cross, priest and confessor, founder of the Congregation of the Cross and Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He went to his repose in the Lord on the 18th of October.
St. Paul of the Cross Paul Francis Daneii, born at Ovada, Genoa, Italy, 3 January, 1694; died in Rome, 18 October, 1775. Feast day 19 October HERE.
His parents, Luke Danei and Anna Maria Massari, were exemplary Catholics. From his earliest years the crucifix was his book, and the Crucified his model. Paul received his early education from a priest who kept a school for boys, in Cremolino, Lombardy. He made great progress in study and virtue; spent much time in prayer, heard daily Mass, frequently received the Sacraments, faithfully attended to his school duties, and gave his spare time to reading good books and visiting the churches, where he spent much time before the Blessed Sacrament, to which he had an ardent devotion. At the age of fifteen he left school and returned to his home at Castellazzo, and from this time his life was full of trials. In early manhood he renounced the offer of an honourable marriage; also a good inheritance left him by an uncle who was a priest. He kept for himself only the priest's Breviary.

Inflamed with a desire for God's glory he formed the idea of instituting a religious order in honour of the Passion. Vested in a black tunic by the Bishop of Alessandria, his director, bearing the emblem of our Lord's Passion, barefooted, and bareheaded, he retired to a narrow cell where he drew up the Rules of the new congregation according to the plan made known to him in a vision, which he relates in the introduction to the original copy of the Rules. For the account of his ordination to the priesthood, of the foundation of the Congregation of the Passion, and the approbation of the Rules, see PASSIONISTS. After the approbation of the Rules and the institute the first general chapter was held at the Retreat of the Presentation on Mount Argentaro on 10 April, 1747. At this chapter, St. Paul, against his wishes, was unanimously elected first superior general, which office he held until the day of his death. In all virtues and in the observance of regular discipline, he became a model to his companions. "Although continually occupied with the cares of governing his religious society, and of founding everywhere new houses for it, yet he never left off preaching the word of God, burning as he did with a wondrous desire for the salvation of souls" (Brief of Pius IX for St. Paul's Beatification, 1 Oct., 1852). Sacred missions were instituted and numerous conversions were made. He was untiring in his Apostolic labours and never, even to his last hour, remitted anything of his austere manner of life, finally succumbing to a severe illness, worn out as much by his austerities as by old age.

Among the distinguished associates of St. Paul in the formation and extension of the congregation were: John Baptist, his younger brother and constant companion from childhood, who shared all his labours and sufferings and equaled him in the practice of virtue; Father Mark Aurelius (Pastorelli), Father Thomas Struzzieri (subsequently Bishop of Amelia and afterwards of Todi), and Father Fulgentius of Jesus, all remarkable for learning, piety, and missionary zeal; Venerable Strambi, Bishop of Macerata and Tolentino, his biographer. Constant personal union with the Cross and Passion of our Lord was the prominent feature of St. Paul's sanctity. But devotion to the Passion did not stand alone, for he carried to a heroic degree all the other virtues of a Christian life. Numerous miracles, besides those special ones brought forward at his beatification and canonization, attested the favour he enjoyed with God. Miracles of grace abounded, as witnessed in the conversion of sinners seemingly hardened and hopeless. For fifty years he prayed for the conversion of England, and left the devotion as a legacy to his sons. The body of St. Paul lies in the Basilica of SS. John and Paul, Rome. He was beatified on 1 October, 1852, and canonized on 29 June, 1867. His feast occurs on 28 April. [Editor's note: It was later transferred to 19 October.] The fame of his sanctity, which had spread far and wide in Italy during his life, increased after his death and spread into all countries. Great devotion to him is practiced by the faithful wherever Passionists are established.


On Death and Life
"Man Needs Eternity -- and Every Other Hope, for Him, Is All Too Brief"
Пресвятая Богородице спаси нас!    (Santíssima Mãe de Deus, salva-nos!)
                      

                                                                           

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

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

"Man Needs Eternity -- and Every Other Hope, for Him, Is All Too Brief"
It Makes No Sense Not To Believe In GOD 
Every Christian must be a living book
wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel

Jesus brings us many Blessings
 
The more we pray, the more we wish to pray. Like a fish which at first swims on the surface of the water, and afterwards plunges down, and is always going deeper; the soul plunges, dives, and loses itself in the sweetness of conversing with God. -- St. John Vianney

  Month by Month of Saintly Dedications


The Rosary html Mary Mother of GOD -- Her Rosary Here
Mary Mother of GOD Mary's Divine Motherhood: FEASTS OF OUR LADY
     of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary

May 9 – Our Lady of the Wood (Italy, 1607) 
Months of Dedication
January is the month of the Holy Name of Jesus since 1902;
March is the month of Saint Joseph since 1855;
May, the month of Mary, is the oldest and most well-known Marian month, officially since 1724;
June is the month of the Sacred Heart since 1873;
July is the month of the Precious Blood since 1850;
August is the month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary;
September is the month of Our Lady of Sorrows since 1857;
October is the month of the Rosary since 1868;
November is the month of the Holy Souls in Purgatory since 1888;
December is the month of the Immaculate Conception.

In all, five months of the year are dedicated to Mary.
The idea of dedicating months came from Rome and promotion of the month of Mary owes much to the Jesuits.  arras.catholique.fr

Pray that the witness of 40 Days for Life bears abundant fruit, and that we begin again each day to storm the gates of hell until God welcomes us into the gates of heaven.

If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways:
either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid.
Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten;
he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth.-- St. Thomas Aquinas

We begin our day by seeing Christ in the consecrated bread, and throughout the day we continue to see Him in the torn bodies of our poor. We pray, that is, through our work, performing it with Jesus, for Jesus and upon Jesus.
The poor are our prayer. They carry God in them. Prayer means praying everything, praying the work.
We meet the Lord who hungers and thirsts, in the poor.....and the poor could be you or I or any person kind enough to show us his or her love and to come to our place.
Because we cannot see Christ, we cannot express our love to Him in person.
But our neighbor we can see, and we can do for him or her what we would love to do for Jesus if He were visible.
-- Mother Teresa
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 love Thee.  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,  Amen Fatima Prayer, Angel of Peace
Mary's Divine Motherhood
Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI { 2013 } Catholic Church In China { article here}
1648 to1930 St. Augustine Zhao Rong and 120 Companions Christianity arrived in China by way of Syria -- 600s.
        Depending on China's relations with outside world,
Christianity for centuries was free to grow or forced to operate secretly.

How do I start the Five First Saturdays? 
Called in the Gospel “the Mother of Jesus,” Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as “the Mother of my Lord” (Lk 1:43; Jn 2:1; 19:25; cf. Mt 13:55; et al.). In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly “Mother of God” (Theotokos). 
Catechism of the Catholic Church 495, quoting the Council of Ephesus (431): DS 251.
“The Blessed Virgin was eternally predestined, in conjunction with the incarnation of the divine Word, to be the Mother of God. By decree of divine Providence, she served on earth as the loving mother of the divine Redeemer, an associate of unique nobility, and the Lord's humble handmaid. She conceived, brought forth, and nourished Christ.”
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 geeral and binds all the followers of Christ.

Join Mary of Nazareth Project help us build the International Marian Center of Nazareth
http://www.worldpriest.com/
THE EUCHARIST, A MYSTERY TO BE BELIEVED POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
SACRAMENTUM CARITATIS OF THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI
There are over 10,000 named saints beati  from history
 and Roman Martyology Orthodox sources
Miracles by Century 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000    1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800   1900  Miracles_BC  Lay Saints
Morning Prayer and Hymn    Meditation of the Day    Prayer for Priests    Our Bartholomew Family Prayer List  Here
We are called upon with the whole Church militant on earth to join in praising and thanking God for the grace and glory he has bestowed on his saints. At the same time we earnestly implore Him to exert His almighty power and mercy in raising us from our miseries and sins, healing the disorders of our souls and leading us by the path of repentance to the company of His saints, to which He has called us.
   They were once what we are now, travellers on earth they had the same weaknesses, which we have. We have difficulties to encounter so had the saints, and many of them far greater than we can meet with; obstacles from kings and whole nations, sometimes from the prisons, racks and swords of persecutors. Yet they surmounted these difficulties, which they made the very means of their virtue and victories. It was by the strength they received from above, not by their own, that they triumphed. But the blood of Christ was shed for us as it was for them and the grace of our Redeemer is not wanting to us; if we fail, the failure is in ourselves.
   THE saints and just, from the beginning of time and throughout the world, who have been made perfect, everlasting monuments of God’s infinite power and clemency, praise His goodness without ceasing; casting their crowns before His throne they give to Him all the glory of their triumphs: “His gifts alone in us He crowns.”
“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God....’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory” Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

Called in the Gospel “the Mother of Jesus,” Mary is acclaimed by Elizabeth, at the prompting of the Spirit and even before the birth of her son, as “the Mother of my Lord” (Lk 1:43; Jn 2:1; 19:25; cf. Mt 13:55; et al.). In fact, the One whom she conceived as man by the Holy Spirit, who truly became her Son according to the flesh, was none other than the Father's eternal Son,  the second person of the Holy Trinity.
Hence the Church confesses that Mary is truly “Mother of God” (Theotokos).
Catechism of the Catholic Church 495, quoting the Council of Ephesus (431): DS 251.
Nine First Fridays Devotion to the Sacred Heart ... From the writings of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
On Friday during Holy Communion, He said these words to me, His unworthy slave, if I mistake not:
“I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that its all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on nine first Fridays of consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they will not die under my displeasure or without receiving their sacraments, my divine Heart making itself their assured refuge at the last moment.”
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.
With regard to this promise it may be remarked: (1) that our Lord required Communion to be received on a particular day chosen by Him; (2) that the nine Fridays must be consecutive; (3) that they must be made in honor of His Sacred Heart, which means that those who make the nine Fridays must practice the devotion and must have a great love for our Lord; (4) that our Lord does not say that those who make the nine Fridays will be dispensed from any of their obligations or from exercising the vigilance necessary to lead a good life and overcome temptation; rather He implicitly promises abundant graces to those who make the nine Fridays to help them to carry out these obligations and persevere to the end; (5) that perseverance in receiving Holy Communion for nine consecutive First Firdays helps the faithful to acquire the habit of frequent Communion, which our Lord eagerly desires; and (6) that the practice of the nine Fridays is very pleasing to our Lord He promises such great reward, and all Catholics should endeavor to make nine Fridays.
How do I start the Five First Saturdays? by Fr. Tom O'Mahony.
On July 13,1917, Our Lady appeared for the third time to the three children of Fatima an showed them the vision of hell and made the now - famous thirteen prophecies. In this vision Our Lady said that 'GOD WISHES TO ESTABLISH IN THE WORLD DEVOTION to Her Immaculate Heart and that She would come TO ASK FOR THE COMMUNION OF REPARATION ON THE FIRST SATURDAYS...'  Eight years later, on December 10, 1925, Our Lady did indeed come back. She appeared (with the Child Jesus) to Lucia in the convent of the Dorothean Sisters in Pontevedra.
The Child Jesus spoke first:
'HAVE COMPASSION ON THE HEART OF YOUR MOST HOLY MOTHER WHICH IS COVERED WITH THORNS WITH WHICH UNGRATEFUL MEN PIERCE IT AT EVERY MOMENT, WHILE THERE IS NO ONE TO REMOVE THEM WITH AN ACT OF REPARATION.'

THE GREAT PROMISE
Our Lady then said: 'MY DAUGHTER LOOK AT MY HEART SURROUNDED WITH THORNS WITH WHICH UNGRATEFUL MEN PIERCE IT AT EVERY MOMENT BY THEIR BLASPHEMIES AND INGRATITUDE. YOU, AT LEAST, TRY TO CONSOLE ME, AND SAY THAT I PROMISE TO ASSIST AT THE HOUR OF DEATH WITH ALL THE GRACES NECESSARY FOR SALVATION, ALL THOSE WHO, ON THE FIRST SATURDAY OF FIVE CONSECUTIVE MONTHS GO TO CONFESSION AND RECEIVE HOLY COMMUNION, RECITE FIVE DECADES OF THE ROSARY AND KEEP ME COMPANY FOR A QUARTER OF AN HOUR WHILE MEDITATING ON MYSTERIES OF THE ROSARY, WITH THE INTENTION OF MAKING REPARATION TO ME.'

The Five Reasons
Lucia once asked this question of Our Lord and received as an answer: 'MY DAUGHTER, THE MOTIVE IS SIMPLE, THERE ARE FIVE KINDS OF OFFENCES AND BLASPHEMIES UTTERED AGAINST THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY: (1) BLASPHEMIES AGAINST THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION: (2) BLASPHEMIES AGAINST HER VIRGINITY: (3) BLASPHEMIES AGAINST HER DIVINE MATERNITY: (4) BLASPHEMIES OF THOSE WHO OPENLY SEEK TO FOSTER IN THE HEARTS OF CHILDREN INDIFFERENCE OR EVEN HATRED FOR THIS IMMACULATE MOTHER: (5) THE OFFENCES OF THOSE WHO DIRECTLY OUTRAGE HER IN HOLY IMAGES.'
From the above, it is easy to see that each of the Five Saturdays can correspond to a specific offence. By offering the graces received during each First Saturday as reparation for the offence being prayed for, the participant can hope to help remove the thorns from Our Lady's Heart.
What Do I Have To Do?
The devotion of First Saturdays, as requested by Our Lady of Fatima, carries with it the assurance of salvation. However, to derive profit from such a great promise of Our Lady, the devotion must be properly understood and duly performed.
The requirements as stipulated by Our Lady are as follows:
(1) CONFESSION, (2) COMMUNION, (3) FIVE DECADES OF THE ROSARY, (4) MEDITATION ON ONE OR MORE OF THE ROSARY MYSTERIES FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES, (5) TO DO ALL THESE THINGS IN THE SPIRIT OF REPARATION TO THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY, and (6) TO OBSERVE ALL THESE PRACTICES ON THE FIRST SATURDAY OF FIVE CONSECUTIVE MONTHS.
(1) CONFESSION: A reparative confession means that the confession should not only be good (valid and licit), but also be offered in the spirit of reparation, in this case, to Mary's Immaculate Heart. This confession may be made on the First Saturday itself or some days before or after the First Saturday within the preceding octave would suffice.
(2) COMMUNION: The communion of reparation must be sacramental duly received with the intention of making reparation. This offering, like the confession, is an interior act and so no external action to express the intention is needed.
(3) THE ROSARY: The Rosary mentioned here was indicated by the Portuguese word 'terco' which is commonly employed to denote a Rosary of five decades, since it forms a fourth of the full Rosary of 20 decades. This too must recited in a spirit of reparation.
(4) MEDITATION FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES: Here the meditation on one mystery or more is to be made without simultaneous recitation of the Rosary decade. As indicated, the meditation may be either on one mystery alone for 15 minutes, or on all 20 mysteries, spending about one minute on each mystery, or again, on two or more mysteries during the period. This can also be made before each decade spending three minutes or more in considering the mystery of the particular decade. This meditation has likewise to be made in the spirit of reparation to the Immaculate Heart.
(5) THE SPIRIT OF REPARATION: All these acts, as said above, have to be done with the intention of offering reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the offences committed against Her. Everyone who offends Her commits, so to speak, a two-fold offence, for these sins also offend her Divine Son, Christ, and so endanger our salvation. They give bad example to others and weaken the strength of society to withstand immoral onslaughts. Such devotions therefore make us consider not only the enormity of the offence against God, but also the effect of sins on human society as well as the need for undoing these social effects even when the offender repents and is converted. Further, this reparation emphasises our responsibility towards sinners who, themselves, will not pray and make reparation for their sins.
(6) FIVE CONSECUTIVE FIRST SATURDAYS: The idea of the Five First Saturdays is obviously to make us persevere in the devotional acts for these Saturdays and overcome initial difficulties. Once this is done, Our Lady knows that the person would become devoted to Her immaculate Heart and persist in practising such devotion on all First Saturdays, working thereby for personal self-reform and for the salvation of others.

Unless Russia is converted, the movement against God and for sin will continue to spread, promoting wars and persecutions, and making the attainment for peace and justice impossible for this world. One means of obtaining Russia's conversion is to practise the Fatima Message. The stakes are so great that to encourage Catholics to practise the devotion of the First Saturdays, Our Lady has assured us that She will obtain salvation for all those who observe the first Saturdays for five consecutive months in accordance with Her conditions.
At the supreme moment the departing person will be either in the state of grace or not. In either case Our Lady will be by his side. If in the state of grace, She will console and help him to resist whatever temptations the devil might put before him in his last attempt to take the person with him to hell. If not in the state of grace, Our Lady will help the person to repent in a manner agreeable to God and so benefit by the fruits of redemption and be saved.

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
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Pius IX 1846--1878 • Leo XIII 1878-1903 • Pius X 1903-1914• Benedict XV 1914-1922 • Pius XI 1922-1939 • Pius XII 1939-1958 • John XXIII 1958-1963 • Paul VI 1963 to 1978 • John Paul • John Paul II 10/16/1975-4/2/2005
 • Benedict XVI (2005 - 2013) • Francis (2013
Pope Leo XIII

The best way to make our pleas heard 
The Rosary, a kind of prayer that seems to contain, as it were, a final pledge of affection and to sum up in itself the honor due to Our Lady… There has seemed to be no better means of conducting sacred solemnities or of obtaining protection and favors. (Encyclical Octobri Mense).

There are, of course, more ways than one to win her protection by prayer, but as for Us, We think that the best and most effective way to her favor lies in the Rosary. (Encyclical Adjutricem populi, 1895).

So that our pleas have the greatest effect… let us has recourse to Mary… through the Rosary (1891).


Mrs Adjoubei’s Rosary        Bishop Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII
As he left Bulgaria in 1934, Bishop Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, stated,
"If a Slavic, catholic or not, knocks on my door, it will be opened and he will be greeted like a true friend." Later, a Slavic arrived one day at the airport of Fiumicino who asked to see Pope John XXIII. His reply was immediate, "Let him come!"
The meeting was set for March 7th.
After the general audience, the Pope called for Mr. Adjoubei and his wife, Rada, a young woman from Khrushchev. He received them in his library and asked them to be seated.
They spoke about many things including the Saints of Russia and the beauty of Orthodox liturgy.
Then John XXIII picked up a string of rosary beads that was laid on his table.
"Madam, this is for you. My entourage taught me that I should give currencies or stamps to a non-Catholic princess; but I still give you a Rosary because priests, in addition to the biblical prayer of the psalms, also have this popular form of prayer. For me, the Pope, it is like fifteen open windows - fifteen mysteries - through which I contemplate, in the light of the Lord, the events of the world. I say a rosary in the morning, another at the beginning of the afternoon, and another in the evening.
Look, I made a great impression by telling the journalists that in the fifth joyful mystery - "he listened and questioned them" - I was really praying for... I made an impression on those people when I said that, in the third joyful mystery - the Birth of Jesus - I prayed for all the babies who are born in the past twenty-four hours, because, Catholics or not, they will find the wishes of the Pope upon their entry into life.
When I recite the third mystery, I will also remember your children, Madam."
Mrs Adjoubei, who held the Rosary in her hands, answered,
"Thank you, Holy Father, how grateful I am to you! I will tell my children what you said...
" The Pope looked at her smiling, "I know the name of your sons... the third is called Yan, or John like me...
When you are back home, give him a special hug from me... "  Rosary for the Church, #14 - 1973


“Where there is no honor for the elderly, there is no future for young people.”
During his weekly General Audience in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis made this strong statement while continuing his catechesis on the family, with this and next week focusing on the elderly.  Confining this week’s address to their problematic current condition, the Holy Father said the elderly are ignored and that a society that does this is perverse.
While noting that life has been lengthened thanks to advances in medicine, he lamented that while the number of older people has multiplied, "our societies are not organized enough to make room for them, with proper respect and concrete consideration for their fragility and their dignity.”

“As long as we are young, we are led to ignore old age, as if it were a disease to be taken away. Then when we become older, especially if we are poor, sick and alone, we experience the shortcomings of a society planned on efficiency,
which consequently ignores the elderly.”

He went on to quote his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, who, when visiting a nursing home in November 2012, “used clear and prophetic words: ‘The quality of a society, I would say of a civilization, is judged also on how the elderly are treated and the place reserved for them in the common life.’"  Without a space for them, Francis highlighted, society dies.

Cultures, he decried, see the elderly as a burden who do not produce and should be discarded.
“You do not say it openly, but you do it!” he exclaimed. "Out of our fear of weakness and vulnerability, we do not tolerate and abandon the elderly," he said. “It’s sickening to see the elderly discarded. It is ugly. It’s a sin. Abandoning the elderly is a mortal sin.”
“Children who do not visit their elderly and ill parents have mortally sinned. Understand?”

The Pope expressed his dismay at children who go months without seeing a parent, or how elderly are confined to little tables in their kitchens alone, without anyone caring for them.  He noted that he observed this reality during his ministry in Buenos Aires.  Unwilling to accept limits, society, he noted, doesn’t allow elderly to participate and gives into the mentality that only the young can be useful and enjoy life.
The whole society must realize, the Pope said, the elderly contain the wisdom of the people.
The tradition of the Church, Pope Francis reaffirmed, has always supported a culture of closeness to the elderly, involving affectionately and supportively accompanying them in this final part of life.  The Church cannot, and does not want to, Francis underscored, comply with a mentality of impatience, and even less of indifference and contempt towards old age.
Sooner or later, we will all be old, he said. If we do not treat the elderly well, he stressed we will not be treated well either.
“We must awaken the collective sense of gratitude, of appreciation, of hospitality, which make them feel the elderly living part of his community.”

Concluding his address, Pope Francis noted how old age will come to all one day and reminded the faithful how much they have received from their elders. He also challenged them to not take a step back and abandon them to their fate.

The Church without Mary is an orphanage
 Pope Francis:
Cross Not Optional, Says Benedict XVI
Reflects on Peter's "Immature" Faith CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 31, 2008 (Zenit.org).-
Taking up one's cross isn't an option, it's a mission all Christians are called to, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope said this today before reciting the midday Angelus with several thousand people gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.
Referring to the Gospel reading for today's Mass, the Holy Father reflected on the faith of Peter, which is shown to be "still immature and too much influenced by the 'mentality of this world.'”  He explained that when Christ spoke openly about how he was to "suffer much, be killed and rise again, Peter protests, saying: 'God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.'"
"It is evident that the Master and the disciple follow two opposed ways of thinking," continued the Pontiff. "Peter, according to a human logic, is convinced that God would never allow his Son to end his mission dying on the cross.  "Jesus, on the contrary, knows that the Father, in his great love for men, sent him to give his life for them, and if this means the passion and the cross, it is right that such should happen."
Christ also knew that "the resurrection would be the last word," Benedict XVI added.
Serious illness
The Pope continued, "If to save us the Son of God had to suffer and die crucified, it certainly was not because of a cruel design of the heavenly Father.  "The cause of it is the gravity of the sickness of which he must cure us: an evil so serious and deadly that it will require all of his blood. 
"In fact, it is with his death and resurrection that Jesus defeated sin and death, reestablishing the lordship of God."
Popes Html link here: 
 “Where there is no honor for the elderly, there is no future for young people.” Pope Francis:
“It Is a Mortal Sin When Children Don't Visit Their Elderly Parents.”

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 19 2017

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 18 2017
none mentioned today
Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 17 2017
  780 St. Nothlem Archbishop of CanterburyOriginally 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.  740 St Nothelm, Archbishop Of Canterbury, 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.”

1584 St. Richard Gwyn  One of Forty Martyrs of England and Wales 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.

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 the numbing influence of Jansenism, which presented God as not loving all mankind alike. 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.”  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.    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.

1794 Bl. Marie Magdalen Desjardin Ursuline martyr of the French Revolution.  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.

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) .

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 16 2017
439 St. Maxima Africa slaves.  Martinian, his brother Saturian and their two brothers were slaves in Africa at the time of Arian King Jenseric's persecution of Catholics. They were converted to Christianity by another slave, Maxima. When their master insisted that Martinian marry Maxima, who had taken a vow of virginity, they fled to a monastery but were brought back and beaten for their attempt to escape. When their master died, his widow gave them to a Vandal, who freed Maxima (she later entered a monastery) and sold the men to a Berber chief. They converted many, petitioned the Pope Leo I to send them a priest, and were then tortured and dragged to their deaths by horses for their Faith.

 787 St. Lull Benedictine bishop relative of St. Boniface.  786 ST LULL, BISHOP of MAINZ
LULL was an Englishman, doubtless a native of the kingdom of the West Saxons. The foundation of his education was laid in the monastery of Malmesbury, where he remained as a young man and was ordained deacon. Hearing the call of the foreign missions when he was about twenty years old, he passed into Germany, and was received with joy by St Boniface, who is thought to have been related to him. From this time Lull shared with that great saint the labours of his apostleship, and the persecutions which were raised against him. St Boniface promoted him to priest’s orders and in 751 sent him to Rome to consult Pope St Zachary on certain matters which he did not care to commit to writing. Upon his return, St Boniface selected him for his successor he was consecrated as coadjutor, and when Boniface departed on his last missionary journey into Frisia St Lull took over the see of Mama.

1085 St. Anastasius Hermit papal legate.   This Anastasius was a native of Venice and a man of considerable learning who, by the middle of the eleventh century, was a monk at Mont-Saint-Michel. The abbot there was not a satisfactory person—he was accused of simony—and Anas­tasius eventually left the monastery in order to live as a hermit on Tombelaine off Normandy. About the year 1066 St Hugh of Cluny induced him to join the community at Cluny. After seven years there he was ordered by Pope St Gregory VII to go into Spain, perhaps to help in inducing the Spaniards to give up their Mozarabic liturgy for the Roman, an undertaking begun by Cardinal Hugh of Remiremont (rather inappropriately called Candidus), who was then legate in France and Spain. St Anastasius was soon back at Cluny, where he lived quietly for another seven years, and then went to be a hermit in the neighbourhood of Toulouse. Here he preached to the people of the countryside (and is said to have shared his solitude with Hugh of Remiremont, who had been deposed and excommunicated for repeated acts of simony) and lived in contemplation until he was recalled to his monastery in 1085. On his way he died and was buried at Doydes.

1123 St. Bertrand of Comminges Bishop.  This happening is commemor­ated locally on May 2 every year, and Pope Clement V, who had been bishop of Comminges, granted a plenary indulgence to be gained at the then cathedral church of St Bertrand every year that the feast of the finding of the Holy Cross falls on a Friday. St Bertrand was canonized some time before 1309, probably by Pope Honorius III.

1243 St. Hedwig Duchess widow Cistercain patroness of Silesia   At Cracow in Poland, St. Hedwig, duchess of Poland, who devoted herself to the service of the poor, and was renowned for miracles.  She was inscribed among the saints by Pope Clement IV.

1399 Queen St. Jadwiga of Poland cultural institutions to both state and church Pope John Paul II canonized Blessed Jadwiga
Sanctæ Hedwígis Víduæ, Polonórum Ducíssæ, quæ prídie hujus diéi obdormívit in Dómino.
      St. Hedwig, widow, duchess of Poland, who went to her rest in the Lord on the day previous.
(1371-1399)
There are two Polish women of royal blood who have long been venerated by Polish Catholics.  Up to 1997 they were referred to as Saint Jadwiga and Blessed Jadwiga.  (Hedwig is the form of their name in German.)  Now both are called saints, for in June 1997, on a solemn visit to Krakow, where he had formerly been archbishop, Pope John Paul II canonized Blessed Jadwiga. 

1771 St. Marguerite d'Youville Canada "Mother of Universal Charity." O our sweet hope let us feel your power over the loveable Heart of Jesus, and use your credit so as to make a place for us there forever!  Ask Him to exert his sovereignty on our hearts, making his love reign in our heart, that He may consume us and change everything into Himself.  May He be our Father, our Husband, our guard, our treasure, our delight, our love and our everything; destroying and annihilating in us all that there is of ourselves to fill us only with all that is of Him, so that we may be pleasing to Him!  May He be the support of our impotence, the force of our weakness, the joy of all our sadness! Amen.  The General Hospital in Montreal became known as the Hotel Dieu (House of God) and set a standard for medical care and Christian compassion. When the hospital was destroyed by fire in 1766, she knelt in the ashes, led the Te Deum (a hymn to God's providence in all circumstances) and began the rebuilding process. She fought the attempts of government officials to restrain her charity and established the first foundling home in North America.
Pope John XXIII, who beatified her in 1959, called her “the Mother of Universal Charity.” She was canonized in 1990.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 15 2017
1243 St. Hedwig Duchess widow Cistercain patroness of Silesia Miracles;  Her feast is celebrated on the following day.       At Cracow in Poland, St. Hedwig, duchess of Poland, who devoted herself to the service of the poor, and was renowned for miracles.  She was inscribed among the saints by Pope Clement IV.



1582 St. Teresa of Avila Doctor of the Church miracles levitated     At Avila in Spain, the virgin St. Teresa, mother and mistress of the Brothers and Sisters of the Carmelite Order of the Strict Observance.  (also known as Teresa of Jesus);  At this time Pope St Pius V appointed visitors apostolic to inquire into relaxa­tions in religious orders with a view to reform, and he named a well-known Domin­ican, Peter Fernandez, to be visitor to the Carmelites of Castile. At Avila he not surprisingly found great fault with the convent of the Incarnation, and to remedy its abuses he sent for St Teresa and told her she was to take charge of it as prioress. It was doubly distasteful to her to be separated from her own daughters and to be put from outside at the head of a house which opposed her activities with jealousy and warmth. The nuns’ at first refused to obey her; some of them went into hysterics at the very idea. She told them that she came not to coerce or instruct but to serve, and to learn from the least among them.

“My mothers and sisters, our Lord has sent me to this house by the voice of obedience, to fill an office of which I was far from thinking and for which I am quite unfitted...I come solely to serve you...Do not fear my rule. Though I have lived among and exercised authority over those Carmelites who are discalced, by God’s mercy I know how to rule those who are not of their number.”

St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)  Teresa lived in an age of exploration as well as political, social and religious upheaval. It was the 16th century, a time of turmoil and reform. Her life began with the culmination of the Protestant Reformation, and ended shortly after the Council of Trent.

1617  Blessed Victoria Strata Blue Nuns Religious vision of Our Lady Pope Clement VIII approved the order's constitutions in 1604 and Maria Victoria and ten companions made their solemn vows in the late summer of 1605.1617 Mary Victoria Fornari  a vision of Mary established "Le Turchine", i.e. the "Turquoise Annunziate", or "Blue Nuns"  sky-blue scapulars and cloaks.  (1562-1617).  Mary Victoria Fornari was a native of Genoa Italy.  When seventeen she desired to enter the convent, but out of respect for her father's wishes she married Angelo Strata.
It was a happy marriage.  Angelo encouraged his wife in her charitable works and defended her against those who said she should take more part in social events.  Mary Victoria bore him six children, four boys and two girls.  Unfortunately, Signor Strata died after only nine years of married life.
His death was traumatic to Victoria.  She worried that she could not raise so large a family alone.  When a local nobleman asked her to marry him, she thought at first that it might be wise to accept, for the sake of her own boys and girls.  But then she had a vision of Mary (which she wrote up at the request of her confessor) in which Our Lady told her, “My child Victoria, be brave and confident, for it is my wish to take both the mother and the children under my protection.  I will care for your household.  Live quietly and without worrying.  All I ask is that you trust yourself to me and henceforth devote yourself to the love of God above all things.”
Mary's words settled Victoria's mind completely.  She took a vow of chastity, and lived in retirement, giving all her time to prayer, the care of her family, and the needs of the poor.
When eventually her children were raised (five of the six entered religious orders), Signora Strata revealed to the archbishop of Genoa a proposal that she had long been considering.  It was to found a strict new religious order of contemplative nuns.  Dedicated to Mary's Annunciation, the sisters would imitate her hidden life at Nazareth, devoting themselves to prayer and making vestments and altar linens for poor churches.  Each member would add the names “Maria Annunziata” to her baptismal name.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 14 2017
  222 St. Calixtus (Callistus) Pope; a slave with power behind the Church, mercy, equality embrace sinners.     At Rome, on the Aurelian Way, the birthday of blessed Callistus I, pope and martyr.  By order of Emperor Alexander, he was kept in prison for a long time without food, and was daily scourged with rods.  He was finally hurled from a window of the house in which he had been shut up, and was cast into a well, and thus merited the triumph of victory.

Pope Paul I. and his successors, seeing the cemeteries without walls, and neglected after the devastations of the barbarians, withdrew from thence the bodies of the most illustrious martyrs, and had them carried to the principal churches of the city. Those of SS. Callistus and Calepodius were translated to the church of St. Mary, beyond the Tiber. Count Everard, lord of Cisoin or Chisoing, four leagues from Tournay, obtained of Leo IV., about the year 854, the body of St. Callistus, pope and martyr, which he placed in the abbey of Canon Regulars which he had founded at Cisoin fourteen years before; the church of which place was on this account dedicated in honor of St. Callistus.
These circumstances are mentioned by Fulco, archbishop of Rheims, in a letter which he wrote to pope Formosus in 890. The relics were removed soon after to Rheims for fear of the Normans, and never restored to the abbey of Cisoin. They remain behind the altar of our Lady at Rheims. Some of the relics, however, of this pope are kept with those of St. Calepodius martyr, in the church of St. Mary Trastevere at Rome.
A portion was formerly possessed at Glastenbury.
Among the sacred edifices which, upon the first transient glimpse of favor, or at least tranquillity that the church enjoyed at Rome, this holy pope erected, the most celebrated was the cemetery which he enlarged and adorned on the Appian road, the entrance of which is at St. Sebastian's, a monastery founded by Nicholas I., now inhabited by reformed Cistercian monks.
In it the bodies of SS. Peter and Paul lay for some time, according to Anastasius, who says that the devout lady Lucina buried St. Cornelius in her own farm near this place; whence it for some time took her name, though she is not to be confounded with Lucina who buried St. Paul's body on the Ostian way, and built a famous cemetery on the Aurelian way.
Among many thousand martyrs deposited in this place were St. Sebastian, whom the lady Lucina interred, St. Cecily, and several whose tombs pope Damasus adorned with verses.
In the assured faith of the resurrection of the flesh, the saints, in all ages down from Adam, were careful to treat their dead with religious respect, and to give them a modest and decent burial. The commendations which our Lord bestowed on the woman who poured precious ointments upon him a little before his death, and the devotion of those pious persons who took so much care of our Lord's funeral, recommended this office of charity; and the practice of the primitive Christians in this respect was most remarkable.
Julian the Apostate, writing to a chief priest of the idolaters, desires him to observe three things, by which he thought Atheism (so he called Christianity) had gained most upon the world, namely, "Their kindness and charity to strangers, their care for the burial of their dead, and the gravity of their carriage."
Their care of their dead consisted not in any extravagant pomp, in which the pagans far outdid them, but in a modest religious gravity and respect which was most pathetically expressive of their firm hope of a future resurrection, in which they regarded the mortal remains of their dead precious in the eyes of God, who watches over them, regarding them as the apple of his eye, to be raised one day in the brightest glory, and made shining lusters in the heavenly Jerusalem.

  754 St. Burkard or Buchard,  Bishop, Benedictine.  In 749 he was appointed by Pepin the Short to go with St Fulrad, Abbot of Saint Denis, to lay before Pope St Zachary the question of the succession to the throne of the Franks, and brought back a reply favourable to the ambitions of Pepin.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 13 2017

  909 St. Gerald of Aurillac Confessor gave much time to meditation, study, and prayer piety generosity to the poor a layman who devoted himself to his neighbors and dependents founded the monastery at Aurillac. Saint Odo of Cluny wrote a Life of Saint Gerald that made him celebrated in medieval France. A later member of Saint Gerald of Aurillac's family was Saint Robert of Chaise-Dieu (d. 1087; canonized c. 1095) who founded the great abbey of that name in Auvergne (Attwater, Encyclopedia, Sitwell, White).


1066 St. Edward the Confessor built St. Peter's Abbey at Westminster; son of King Ethelred III     St. Edward, king of England and confessor, who died on the 5th day of January.  He is specially honoured on this day because of the translation of his body. Son of King Ethelred III and his Norman wife, Emma, daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy; born at Islip, England, and sent to Normandy with his mother in the year 1013 when Danes under Sweyn and his son Canute invaded England.    Canute remained in England and the year after Ethelred's death in 1016, married Emma, who had returned to England, and became King of England.
EDWARD(US) REX. Edward the Confessor enthroned , opening scene of the Bayeux Tapestry King of England; He died in London on January 5, and he was canonized in 1161 by Pope Alexander III.
   St Edward during exile in Normandy had made a vow to go on pilgrimage to St Peter’s tomb at Rome if God should be pleased to put an end to the misfortunes of his family. When he was settled on the throne he held a council, in which he declared the obligation he lay under. The assembly commended his devotion, but represented that the kingdom would be left exposed to domestic divisions and to foreign enemies. The king was moved by their reasons, and consented that the matter should be referred to Pope St Leo IX.
He, considering the impossibility of the king’s leaving his dominions, dispensed his vow upon condition that by way of commutation he should give to the poor the sum he would have expended in his journey and should build or repair and endow a monastery in honour of St Peter. King Edward selected for his benefaction an abbey already existing close to London, in a spot called Thorney. He rebuilt and endowed it in a magnificent manner out of his own patrimony, and obtained of Pope Nicholas II ample exemptions and privileges for it. From its situation it had come to be called West Minster in distinction from the church of St Paul in the east of the city. The new monastery was designed to house seventy monks, and, though the abbey was finally dissolved and its church made collegiate and a “royal peculiar” by Queen Elizabeth, the ancient community is now juridically represented by the monks of St Laurence’s Abbey at Ampleforth. The present church called Westminster Abbey, on the site of St Edward’s building, was built in the thirteenth century and later.
   Some years afterwards two English pilgrims, having lost their way as they were travelling in the Holy Land, “were succoured and put in the right way by an old man”, who at parting told them he was John the Evangelist, adding, as the legend proceeds, “Say ye unto Edwarde your Kying that I grete hym well by the token that he gaaf to me this Ryng wyth his own handes at the halowyng of my Chirche, whych Rynge ye shall deliver to hym agayn: and say ye to hym, that he dyspose his goodes, for wythin six monethes he shall be in the joye of Heven wyth me, where he shall have his rewarde for his chastitie and his good lyvinge”. At their return home, the two pilgrims waited upon the king, who was then at this Bower, and delivered to him the message and the ring; from which circumstance this place is said to have received the name of Have-Ring. Havering is really “Haefer’s people”.
In 1161 he was canonized, and two years later his incorrupt body was translated to a shrine in the choir by St Thomas Becket, on October 13, the day now fixed for his feast; the day of his death, January 5, is also mentioned in the Roman Martyrology. There was a further translation, in the thirteenth century, to a shrine behind the high altar, and there the body of the Confessor still lies, the only relics of a saint (except those of the unidentified St With at Whitchurch Canonicorum in Dorsetshire) remaining in situ after the violence and impiety of Henry VIII and those who followed him.

1191 St. Maurice of Carnoët Sistercian abbot and reformer;  St Maurice has always had a cultus in his order and in the dioceses of Quimper, Vannes and Saint-Brieuc, and Pope Clement XI permitted the Cistercians to observe his feast liturgically, as is done in those dioceses.

1503 Bd Magdalen Panattieri, Virgin; she seems to have been spared all external contradiction and persecution, soon becoming a force in her town of Trino. Her care for the poor and young children (in whose favour she seems several times to have acted miraculously) paved the way for her work for the conversion of sinners; she prayed and suffered for them and supplemented her austerities with exhortation and reprimands, especially against the sin of usury; She seems to have foreseen the calamities that overtook northern Italy during the invasions of the sixteenth century and made several covert references to them; it was afterwards noticed and attributed to her prayers that, when all around was rapine and desolation, Trino was for no obvious reason spared;  When she knew that she was dying she sent for all her tertiary sisters, and many others pressed into her room. She made her last loving exhortation to them, promising to intercede for them all in eternity, adding, “I could not be happy in Heaven if you were not there too”. Then she peacefully made an end, while the bystanders were singing the thirtieth psalm. From before the day of her death, October 13, 1503, the grateful people of Trino had venerated Bd Magdalen Panattieri as a saint, a cultus that was confirmed by Pope Leo XII.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 12 2017
284 St. Maximilian of Lorch Martyred bishop of Lorch Pope Sixtus II sent him to Lorch, near Passau, where he served two decades as a missionary bishop.

304 St. Pantalus first bishop of Basel;  The scull is preserved today in the historical museum in Basel. Pantalus' stature as a saint predates the practice of canonization by a Pope.

 484 St. Felix and Cyprian Martyred bishops of Africa -- THE DECIAN PERSECUTION
The prosperity of the Church during a peace of thirty-eight years had produced great disorders. Many even of the bishops were given up to worldliness and gain, and we hear of worse scandals. In October, 249, Decius became emperor with the ambition of restoring the ancient virtue of Rome. In January, 250, he published an edict against Christians. Bishops were to be put to death, other persons to be punished and tortured till they recanted. On 20 January Pope Fabian was martyred, and about the same time St. Cyprian retired to a safe place of hiding. His enemies continually reproached him with this. But to remain at Carthage was to court death, to cause greater danger to others, and to leave the Church without government; for to elect a new bishop would have been as impossible as it was at Rome.

Saint Eustace The Vision of about 1438-42  or see below;  As with many early saints, there is little evidence for Eustace's existence; elements of his story have been attributed to other saints (notably the French Saint Hubert). His feast day in the Roman Catholic Church was September 20, but this date has not been officially observed since Pope Paul VI removed many of the less well documented saints from the calendar in 1969. He is one of the patron saints of Madrid, Spain.

 633 St. Edwin a martyr king of Northumbria    St Edwin was certainly venerated in England as a martyr, but though his claims to sanctity are less doubtful than those of some other royal saints, English and other, he has had no liturgical cultus so far as is known. His relics were held in veneration; Speed says that churches were dedicated in his honour in London and at Brean in Somerset; and Pope Gregory XIII permitted him to be represented among the English martyrs on the walls of the chapel of the Venerabile at Rome.

 709 St. Wilfrid abbot of Ripon in 658 founded many monasteries of the Benedictine Order;   At Rome he put himself under Boniface the archdeacon, a pious and learned man; he was secretary to Pope St Martin, and took much delight in instructing young Wilfrid. After this, Wilfrid returned to Lyons. He stayed three years there and received the tonsure after the Roman manner, thus adopting an outward and visible sign of his dissent from Celtic customs. St Annemund desired to make him his heir, but his own life was suddenly cut short by murder, and Wilfrid himself was spared only because he was a foreigner. He returned to England, where King Alcfrid of Deira, hearing that Wilfrid had been instructed in the discipline of the Roman church, asked him to instruct him and his people accordingly. Alcfrid had recently founded a monastery at Ripon and peopled it with monks from Melrose, among whom was St Cuthbert. These the king required to abandon their Celtic usages, whereupon the abbot Eata, Cuthbert and others, elected to return to Melrose. So St Wilfrid was made abbot of Ripon, where he introduced the Rule of St Benedict, and shortly after he was ordained priest by St Agilbert, the Frankish bishop of the West Saxons.

1604 St. Seraphin of Montegranaro Capuchin Franciscan ordinary work; 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.

1622 Bl. Camillus Constanzi Jesuit martyr of Japan Originally from Italy;  Blessed Camillus Costanzi, SJ (AC) Born in Italy, 1572; died at Firando, Japan, September 15, 1622; beatified in 1867.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 11 2016
The Motherhood of Our Lady
Pope Pius XI enjoined the celebration on this day throughout the Western church of a feast in honour of the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, in the encyclical “Lux veritatis”, published on December 25, 1931, in view of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus.

1379 St. John of Bridlington; Augustinian prior;  Born at Thwing, Yorkshire, England, in 1319; died October 10, 1379; canonized by Pope Boniface IX in 1401 or 1403. At the age of 19, while still a student at Oxford, John joined the community of Augustinian canons at Bridlington near his hometown. He filled various offices until he was elected its prior and held that position for 17 years--until his death. Saint John is the patron of women in difficult labor (Benedictines, Delaney).

1592 St. Alexander Sauli The Apostle of Corsica; bishop; miracles of prophecy healing calming of storms; during his life and death; spiritual advisor to St. Charles Borromeo to Cardinal Sfondrato -- Pope Gregory XIV The order the congregation of Clerks Regular of Saint Paul became known as the Barnabites.   At Calozzo, in the diocese of Asti, formerly that of Pavia, St. Alexander Sauli, bishop and confessor of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul.  He was of noble birth and renowned for virtues, learning, and miracles.  Pope Pius X placed him in the canon of the saints.
He came from a prominent family of Lombard, Italy, born in Milan in 1533. At an early age he entered the Barnabite Congregation {Anthony Mary Zaccaria, Priest Born in Cremona, Italy, 1502; died there, July 15, 1539; canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1897.  Alexander was a noted miracle worker. He was also spiritual advisor to St. Charles Borromeo and to Cardinal Sfondrato, who became Pope Gregory XIV. He was canonized in 1904 by Pope St. Pius X.

1833 St. Peter Tuy Vietnamese martyr native priest he was beheaded by Vietnamese authorities. Peter was canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II. 

1867 St Francis Xavier Seelos  mission preaching Miracle worker.  He was considered an expert confessor, a watchful and prudent spiritual director and a pastor always joyfully available and attentive to the needs of the poor and the abandoned. In 1860, he was a candidate for the office of Bishop of Pittsburgh. Having been excused from this responsibility by Pope Pius IX, from 1863 until 1866 he became a full-time itinerant missionary preacher. He preached in English and German in the states of Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. He was named pastor of the Church of St. Mary of the Assumption in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he died of the yellow fever epidemic caring for the sick and the poor of New Orleans on October 4, 1867, at the age of 48 years and nine months. The enduring renown for his holiness which the Servant of God enjoyed occasioned his Cause for Canonization to be introduced in 1900 with the initiation of the Processo Informativo. On January 27, Your Holiness declared him Venerable, decreeing the heroism of his virtues.

1887 SS Maria- Desolata (Emmanuela) Torres Acosta Handmaids of Mary V (RM).  Born at Madrid, Spain, in 1826; died there in 1887; beatified in 1950; canonized in 1970. Emmanuela, a truly great woman who overcame many obstacles, was the daughter of Francis Torres and Antonia Acosta, who earned their living by running a little business in Madrid. Born into poverty, she tried unsuccessfully to become a Dominican in the convent she frequented. But she did not despair. Instead she waited patiently for God to demonstrate his will for her.
His will became apparent in 1848, and she responded to the call of a Servite tertiary priest, Michael Martinez y Sanz, to found an institute for the care of the neglected sick of his parish in their own homes. In 1851, he gathered together seven women for agreed to devote themselves to service in a religious community. Among them was the 25-year-old Emmanuela, who took the name Maria-Desolata (after Our Lady of Sorrows) together with the religious habit. In 1856, Father Martinez took half the members with him to found a new house in Fernando Po, while leaving Maria-Desolata as superioress in Madrid.

1899 Blessed Angela Truszkowska the Felician Sisters Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1993;  Today we honor a woman who submitted to God's will throughout her life—a life filled with pain and suffering.
Born in 1825 in central Poland and baptized Sophia, she contracted tuberculosis as a young girl. The forced period of convalescence gave her ample time for reflection. Sophia felt called to serve God by working with the poor, including street children and the elderly homeless in Warsaw's slums. In time, her cousin joined her in the work.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 10 2016
  644 St. Paulinus bishop of York; Missionary; Eboráci, in Anglia, sancti Paulíni Epíscopi, qui fuit beáti Gregórii Papæ discípulus; et, una cum áliis, ad prædicándum Evangélium illuc ab eo missus, Edwínum Regem ejúsque pópulum ad Christi fidem convértit.
    At York in England, the holy bishop Paulinus, disciple of the blessed pope Gregory.  He was sent there by that pope along with others to preach the Gospel, and he converted King Edwin and his people to the faith of Christ. Born 584. A Roman monk, in 600 he was named by Pope St. Gregory I the Great to accompany Sts. Justus and Mellitus on their mission to England to advance the cause of evangelization undertaken by St. Augustine of Canterbury Paulinus labored for some twenty four years in Kent and, in 625, was ordained bishop of Kent. He was also responsible for bringing Christianity to Northumbria, baptizing the pagan king Edwin of Northumbria on Easter 627, and then converting thousands of other Northumbrians. Following the defeat and death of Edwin by pagan Mercians at the Battle of Hatfield in 633, Paulinus was driven from his see, and he returned to Kent with Edwin’s widow Ethelburga, her two children, and Edwin’s grandson Osfrid. Paulinus then took up the see of Rochester, which he headed until his death. 

1227 Ss. Daniel Samuel, Angelus, Leo, Nicholas, Ugolino, and Domnus, all of whom were priests except Domnus; Franciscan martyrs of Morocco. Neither threats nor bribes could move them, they continued to affirm Christ and to deny Mohammed, so they were ordered put to death. Each one of the martyrs went up to Brother Daniel, knelt for his blessing, and asked permission to give his life for Christ; and they were all beheaded outside the walls of Ceuta. Their bodies were mangled by the infuriated people, but the local Christians managed to rescue and bury them. Later on the relics were carried into Spain, and in 1516 Pope Leo X permitted the Friars Minor to observe the martyrs’ feast liturgically.

1572 St. Francis Borgia humble Jesuit priest  Born at Gandia, Valencia, Spain in 1510; died shortly after midnight on September 30, 1572, in Rome; canonized 1671.
The name of Borgia (Borja) is understandably ill-sounding; however, Saint Francis was outstanding among those who brought honor to it. He was the scion of the family that produced Pope Callistus III (1455-1458) and a great-grandson of the man who became Pope Alexander VI of unhappy memory (who had fathered four children at the time of his elevation).

October 10 - Canonization of Father Kolbe, Saint of Auschwitz (1982)
1941 Saint Maximilian Kolbe Apostle of Consecration to MaryCanonized 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II; declared a martyr of charity
Profile Second of three sons born to a poor but pious Catholic family in Russian occupied Poland. His parents, both Franciscan lay tertiaries, worked at home as weavers. His father, Julius, later ran a religious book store, then enlisted in Pilsudski's army, fought for Polish independence from Russia, and was hanged by the Russians as a traitor in 1914. His mother, Marianne Dabrowska, later became a Benedictine nun. His brother Alphonse became a priest.

Raymond was known as a mischievous child, sometimes considered wild, and a trial to his parents. However, in 1906 at Pabianice, at age twelve and around the time of his first Communion, he received a vision of the Virgin Mary that changed his life.
“I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.” -Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 09 2016
 258 Sts Denis patron saint of France, Rusticus, and Eleutherius; The Martyrology of Jerome mentions St. Dionysius on October 9, together with Rusticus and Eleutherius, assumed by later writers to be Denis's priest and deacon. The Denis is presumed to be the bishop-martyr of Paris, one of the seven missionary bishops sent from Rome to convert Gaul. He was martyred between 250-258 AD.
Writing in the 6th century, St. Gregory of Tours tells the story of these three martyrs. Born in Italy, Denis was sent with six other bishops to Gaul in 250 as missionaries and became the first bishop of Paris. He was so effective in converting the inhabitants around Paris that he was arrested with his priest, St. Rusticus, and deacon, St. Eleutherius, and imprisoned. The three of them were beheaded on October 9 in Montmartre (Martyrs' Hill) near Paris during Decius's persecution. Their bodies were rescued from the River Seine, and a chapel built over their tomb later became the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Denis (Delaney).
Roeder claims that the deacon Eleutherius was beheaded in 286 and is shown as a deacon carrying his head. He is invoked against headache, frenzy, and strife. Venerated in Salzburg and Paris (Roeder).
In 1215 Pope Innocent III translated the presumed relics of the Areopagite to the popular Basilica of St. Denis in Paris. This also added additional confusion to the stories of the three saints .

1085 St. Alfanus Benedictine archbishop; a monk at Monte Cassino until appointed archbishop of Salerno; assisted Pope St. Gregory VII on his deathbed.

1609 St. John Leonardi miracles and religious fervor founder;  John Leonardi was born at Diecimo, Italy. He became a pharmacist's assistant at Lucca, studied for the priesthood, and was ordained in 1572. He gathered a group of laymen about him to work in hospitals and prisons, became interested in the reforms proposed by the Council of Trent, and proposed a new congregation of secular priests. Great opposition to his proposal developed, but in 1583, his association (formally designated Clerks Regular of the Mother of God in 1621) was recognized by the bishop of Lucca with the approval of Pope Gregory XIII.   John was aided by St. Philip Neri and St. Joseph Calasanctius, and in 1595, the congregation was confirmed by Pope Clement VIII, who appointed John to reform the monks of Vallombrosa and Monte Vergine. He died in Rome on October 9th of plague contracted while he was ministering to the stricken. He was venerated for his miracles and religious fervor and is considered one of the founders of the College for the Propagation of the Faith. He was canonized in 1938 by Pope Pius XI.

1890 Blessed John Henry Newman; Pope Benedict XVI beatified Newman on September 19, 2010, at Crofton Park (near Birmingham). The pope noted Newman's emphasis on the vital place of revealed religion in civilized society but also praised his pastoral zeal for the sick, the poor, the bereaved and those in prison.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 08 2016
  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.   Beatified 8 October 1622 by Pope Gregory XV (cultus confirmed)

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




Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 07 2016
Our Lady of the Rosary Pope St. Pius V established this feast in 1573. The purpose was to thank God for the victory of Christians over the Turks at Lepanto—a victory attributed to the praying of the rosary. Clement XI extended the feast to the universal Church in 1716.
336 Pope Mark successor to St. Sylvester I; elected January 18, 336; During pontificate erected two basilicas on land donated by Emperor Constantine I. He died in Rome on October 7 after only eight months. Pope St. Mark; Constantine the Great's letter, which summoned a conference of bishops for the investigation of the Donatist dispute, is directed to Pope Miltiades and one Mark (Eusebius, Church History X.5). This Mark was evidently a member of the Roman clergy, either priest or first deacon, and is perhaps identical with the pope. The date of Mark's election (18 Jan., 336) is given in the Liberian Catalogue of popes (Duchesne, “Liber Pontificalis”, I, 9), and is historically certain; so is the day of his death (7 Oct.), which is specified in the same way in the “Depositio episcoporum” of Philocalus's “Chronography”, the first edition of which appeared also in 336.
1101-1206 St. Artaldus; cultus of St. Artaldus, called simply “Blessed by the Carthusians”, was confirmed for the diocese of Belley in 1134;  like his master St. Bruno, he was consulted by the Pope, and when he was well over eighty, he was called from his monastery to be bishop of Belley, in spite of his vehement and reasonable protest. However, after less than two years of episcopate, his resignation was accepted, and he thankfully returned to Arvieres, where he lived in peace for the rest of his days. During his last years, he was visited by St. Hugh of Lincoln, who had come into France, and who, while he was prior of the charterhouse of Witham, had induced Henry II to become a benefactor of Arvieres.

1470 BD MATTHEW OF MANTUA; OP successful preacher, preparing himself for that ministry by long periods of recollection, and an upholder of strict observance in his order; pirates set free the friar but when he saw that among the other prisoners were a woman and her young daughter, he went back to the pirate captain and offered himself in their place. The ruffian was so astonished at the request that he let all three of them go; Bd Matthew died (after having asked his prior’s permission to do so) twelve years later Pope Sixtus IV allowed his solemn translation and a liturgical commemoration.
Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 06 2016
1090 Bl. Adalbero bishop and defender of papal authority of Pope Gregory VII who endured trials for his loyalty. Adalbero was the son of an Austrian count of Lambach and studied in Paris. He was named the bishop of Wurzberg, Germany, but was forced into exile after defending Pope Gregory VII against King Henry IV. He retired to the Benedictine abbey in Lambach, where he remained until his death.

1101 St. Bruno hermit confessor to  Bishop St. Hugh of Grenoble,  began the Carthusian Order  Many eminent scholars in philosophy and divinity did him honour by their proficiency and abilities, and carried his reputation into distant parts; among these, Eudes de Châtillon became afterwards a beatified pope under the name of Urban II.

1791 St. Maria Francesca Gallo Mystic and stigmatic, a Franciscan tertiary; MARY FRANCES OF NAPLES  She was born in Naples became a Franciscan tertiary at the age of sixteen. Maria lived at home where she was abused until she became a priest's housekeeper in 1753. She had visions, bore the wounds of Christ's Passion, and was a known prophetess; among her predictions was the coming of the French Revolution. Maria was canonized in 1867 by Pope Pius IX.

1849 Bl. Marie Rose Durocher founded Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary   At Naples in Campania, the death of St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a nun of the Third Order of St. Francis.  Because of her reputation for virtues and the working of miracles, she was placed among the holy virgins by Pope Pius IX.  Worn out by her many labors, Marie Rose was called to her heavenly reward on October 6, 1849, at the age of thirty-eight. She was declared Blessed by Pope John Paul II on May 23, 1982.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 05 2016
1938 Saint Faustina Divine Mercy in my Soul, has become the handbook for devotion to the Divine Mercy  “Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection.
My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God” (Diary 1107). Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1993 and canonized her in 2000.

6th v. St. Placid Disciple of St. Benedict at Subiaco and Monte Cassino
Messánæ, in Sicília, natális sanctórum Mártyrum Plácidi Mónachi, e beáti Benedícti Abbátis discípulis, et ejus fratrum Eutychii et Victoríni, ac soróris eórum Fláviæ Vírginis, itémque Donáti, Firmáti Diáconi, Fausti et aliórum trigínta Monachórum, qui omnes a Manúcha piráta, pro Christi fide, necáti sunt.
    At Messina in Sicily, the birthday of the holy martyrs Placidus, a monk who was a disciple of the blessed Abbot Benedict, and of his brothers Eutychius and Victorinus, and the virgin Flavia, their sister; also of Donatus, Firmatus, a deacon, Faustus, and thirty other monks, who were murdered for the faith of Christ by the pirate Manuchas. It was not till 1588 that the veneration of St Placid spread to the faithful at large. In that year the church of St John at Messina was rebuilt, and during the work a number of skeletons were found. These were hailed as the remains of St Placid and his martyred companions, and Pope Sixtus V approved their veneration as those of martyrs.

550 St. Galla Widowed Roman noblewoman caring for sick and poor; Her church in Rome, near the Piazza Montanara, once held a picture of Our Lady, which according to tradition represents a vision vouchsafed to St. Galla. It is considered miraculous and was carried in recession in times of pestilence, now over high altar Santa Maria in Campitelli.  The letter of St Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe, “Concerning the State of Widowhood”, is supposed to have been addressed to St Galla; her relics are said to rest in the church of Santa Maria in Portico.  590-604 Pope St. Gregory I ("the Great") wrote about her, and St. Fulgentius of Ruspe delivered a treatise, in her honor.

1009 St. Attilanus Benedictine bishop; Mozarabic saints, St. Attilanus, Bishop of Zamora and St. Iñigo of Calatayud; ranked among the saints by Pope Urban II. When the Moors took Tarazona they were able to hold it for a long time on account of its fortified position near the Moncaya, between the Douro and the Ebro. The names of its Mozarabic bishops have not come down to us, although it is very probable there were such; on the other hand we know of the Mozarabic saints, St. Attilanus, Bishop of Zamora and St. Iñigo of Calatayud.

 1399 Bl. Raymond of Capua second founder of the Dominican Order; made acquaintance of St. Catherine of Siena, serving as spiritual director 1376; became her closest advisor    When in 1378 Gregory XI died, Urban VI succeeded him, the opposition party elected Clement VII, and the Schism of the West began. St Catherine and Bd Raymund had no doubt as to which was the legitimate pope, and Urban sent him to France to preach against Clement and to win over King Charles V.  Catherine was in Rome and had a long farewell talk with this faithful friar who had been active in all her missions for God’s glory and had sometimes sat from dawn till dark hearing the confessions of those whom she had brought to repentance; “We shall never again talk like that”, she said on the quayside, and fell on her knees in tears. For the six last and most important years of her life Raymund of Capua was the spiritual guide and right-hand man of Catherine of Siena, and would be remembered for that if he had done and been nothing else of note.
     Their first work in common was to care for the sufferers from the plague by which Siena was then devastated. Father Raymund became a victim and had symptoms of death: Catherine prayed by him for an hour and a half without intermission, and on the morrow he was well. Thenceforward he began to believe’ in her miraculous powers and divine mission, and when the pestilence was stayed he co-operated in her efforts to launch a new crusade to the East, preaching it at Pisa and elsewhere and personally delivering Catherine’s famous letter to that ferocious freebooter from Essex, John Hawkwood. This was interrupted by the revolt of Florence and the Tuscan League against the pope in France, and they turned their efforts to securing peace at home and working for Gregory’s return to Rome.  Bd Raymund of Capua died on October 5, 1399, at Nuremberg, while working for Dominican reform in Germany. Beatified in 1899 20 February, 1878; 20 July, 1903; Pope Leo XIII .

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 04 2016
445 St. Petronius  Bishop of Bologna Sent by Byzantine emperor Theodosius to Pope re: Nestorius

1226 St. Francis of Assisi; Founder: Animals, Merchants & indulgences Ecology; The Christmas crèche first popularized  St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)  Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally—not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit and without a mite of self-importance. Serious illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his frolicking life as leader of Assisi's youth. Prayer—lengthy and difficult—led him to a self- emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer: “Francis! Everything you have loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.”
From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of San Damiano, Christ told him, “Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis became the totally poor and humble workman.  He must have suspected a deeper meaning to “build up my house.” But he would have been content to be for the rest of his life the poor “nothing” man actually putting brick on brick in abandoned chapels. He gave up every material thing he had, piling even his clothes before his earthly father (who was demanding restitution for Francis' “gifts” to the poor) so that he would be totally free to say, “Our Father in heaven.”  Francis was a man of action. His simplicity of life extended to ideas and deeds. If there was a simple way, no matter how impossible it seemed, Francis would take it. So when Francis wanted approval for his brotherhood, he went straight to Rome to see Pope Innocent III. You can imagine what the pope thought when this beggar approached him! As a matter of fact he threw Francis out. But when he had a dream that this tiny man in rags held up the tilting Lateran basilica, he quickly called Francis back and gave him permission to preach. In the following year he was in Rome, where he probably met his fellow friar St Dominic, who had been preaching faith and penance in southern France while Francis was still a “young man about town” in Assisi. St Francis also wanted to preach in France, but was dissuaded by Cardinal Ugolino (afterwards Pope Gregory IX); so he sent instead Brother Pacifico and Brother Agnello, who was afterwards to bring the Franciscans to England. The good and prudent Ugolino considerably influenced the development of the brotherhood. The members were so numerous that some organization and systematic control was imperatively necessary. The order was therefore divided into provinces, each in charge of a minister to whom was committed “the care of the souls of the brethren, and should anyone be lost through the minister’s fault and bad example, that minister will have to give an account before our Lord Jesus Christ”. The friars now extended beyond the Alps, missions being sent to Spain, Germany and Hungary.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 03 2016
1282 St Thomas Cantelupe, Bishop Of Hereford; in Oxford lectured in canon law; in 1262 chosen chancellor of the university. Thomas was always noted for his charity to poor students; he was also a strict disciplinarian; went to confession every day; buried at Orvieto; soon his relics were conveyed to Hereford, where his shrine in the cathedral became the most frequented in the west of England; Miracles were soon reported (four hundred and twenty-nine are given in the acts of canonization) and the process was begun at the request of King Edward I it was achieved in the year 1320. He is named in the Roman Martyrology on the day of his death, but his feast is kept by the Canons Regular of the Lateran and the dioceses of Birmingham (commemoration only) and Shrewsbury on this October 3, by Cardiff and Salford on the 5th, and Westminster on the 22nd.  Here Thomas was probably ordained, and received from Pope Innocent IV dispensation to hold a plurality of benefices, a permission of which he afterwards freely availed himself.   Miracles were soon reported (four hundred and twenty-nine are given in the acts of canonization) and the process was begun at the request of King Edward I it was achieved in the year 1320. He is named in the Roman Martyrology on the day of his death, but his feast is kept by the Canons Regular of the Lateran and the dioceses of Birmingham (commemoration only) and Shrewsbury on this October 3, by Cardiff and Salford on the 5th, and Westminster on the 22nd.  Some bishops refused to publish the sentence, and St Thomas publicly announced his appeal to Pope Martin IV, whom he set out to see in person. Some of Peckham’s letters to his procurators at Rome are extant, but in spite of their fulminations the pope at Orvieto very kindly received St Thomas. Pending the consideration of his cause he withdrew to Montefiascone, but the fatigues and heat of the journey had been too much for him and he was taken mortally sick. It is related that, seeing his condition, one of his chaplains said to him, “My lord, would you not like to go to confession?” Thomas looked at him, and only replied, “Foolish man”. Twice more he was invited, and each time he made the same reply. The chaplain was not aware that his master went to confession every day.

1645 Saint John Masias Marvelous Dominican Gatekeeper of Lima, Peru truly a "child of God."  saint of simplicity and charity Many miracles saved souls in purgatory  Historians have often criticized the Spaniards who colonized Peru and other parts of Latin America for greed and harshness.  But we must not forget the bright side, the holy side of their colonial efforts.
Thus, Lima itself could boast of two saints early canonized: St. Rose of Lima and Archbishop St. Toribio de Mogrovejo.  More recent popes have added to that calendar two more, saints of simplicity and charity: St. Martin de Porres (canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII) and St. John Masias (canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI).  Of such is the kingdom of heaven.
--Father Robert F. McNamara

1888 St. Maria Giuseppe Rossello Foundress of the Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy
“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God....’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory” Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.  When Pope John Paul II beatified this remarkable religious in Rome on October 25, 1998, he gave a Christian model not only to the Hoosiers (Indianans) but to all Americans who appreciate greatness of character; --Father Robert F. McNamara

St. Maria Giuseppe Rossello Foundress of the Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy
“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: ‘But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God....’ Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory” Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.
  The congregation was devoted to charitable works, hospitals, and educating poor young women. In 1840, Maria Giuseppe, also called Josepha, was made superior. By the time she died on December 7, 1888, she had made sixty-eight foundations. She was canonized in 1949.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 02 2016
    Guardian Angels  In Spain it became customary to honour the Guardian Angels not only of persons, but of cities and provinces. An office of this sort was composed for Valencia in 1411. Outside of Spain, Francis of Estaing, Bishop of Rodez, obtained from Pope Leo X a bull in 1518 which approved a special office for an annual commemoration of the Guardian Angels on March 1. In England also there seems to have been much devotion to them. Herbert Losinga, Bishop of Norwich, who died in 1119, speaks eloquently on the subject; and the well-known invocation beginning Angele Dei qui custos es mei is apparently traceable to the verse-writer Reginald of Canterbury, at about the same period. Pope Paul V authorized a special Mass and Office and at the request of Ferdinand II of Austria granted the feast to the whole empire. Pope Clement X extended it to the Western church at large as of obligation in 1670 and fixed it for the present date, being the first free day after the feast of St Michael.

1817 St Theodore,  one of Russia's greatest naval heroes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; frequently gave alms to the poor and needy. He never sought earthly glory or riches, but spent his life in serving God and his neighbor; The unvanquished Admiral was the terror of his country's enemies, and the deliverer of those whom the barbarians had taken captive. He served during the Russo-Turkish War (1787 - 1791), and also fought against the French. Although he fought many naval battles in the Black Sea and in the Mediterranean, he never lost a single one, and he was never wounded.
He was born in 1745.  St Theodore was glorified by the Orthodox Church of Russia in 2004, and a reliquary in the shape of a naval vessel was made to enshrine his holy relics.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  October 01 2016
217 Pope Saint Zephyrinus was pope from 199 .
He was a Roman who had ruled as head bishop for close to 20 years, and was elected to the Papacy upon the death of the previous pope, Victor. Zephyrinus was succeeded, upon his death on December 20, 217, by his principal advisor, Callixtus.
286 St. Piaton Martyr, also called Piat sent by the pope (283, to 22 April, 296 Pope Caius), to evangelize Chartres and the Tournai district of Belgium
1350 BD FRANCIS OF PESARO became known and loved far and wide for his goodness and benevolence; number of remarkable occurrences cultus confirmed by Pope Pius IX
1897 Saint Thérèse  of Lisieux; Dr. of the Church Since death she worked innumerable miracles; one of the patron saints of the missions; She was beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1923, and in 1925 the same pope declared Teresa-of-the-Child-Jesus to have been a saint. Her feast was made obligatory for the whole Western church, and in 1927 she was named the heavenly patroness of all foreign missions, with St Francis Xavier, and of all works for Russia. A few months later she was in Rome with her father and a French pilgrimage on the occasion of the sacerdotal jubilee of Pope Leo XIII. At the public audience, when her turn came to kneel for the pope’s blessing, Teresa boldly broke the rule of silence on such occasions and asked him, “In honour of your jubilee, allow me to enter Carmel at fifteen”.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 30  2016
420 ST JEROME, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH JEROME (EUSEBIUS HIERONYMUS SOPHRONIUS) Born at Stridon, Hungary;  Upon St Gregory’s leaving Constantinople in 382, St Jerome went to Rome with Paulinus of Antioch and St Epiphanius to attend a council which St Damasus held about the schism at Antioch. When the council was over, Pope Damasus detained him and employed him as his secretary; Jerome, indeed, claimed that he spoke through the mouth of Damasus.

653 ST HONORIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY;  He was consecrated at Lincoln by St Paulinus, Bishop of York, and received the pallium sent by Pope Honorius I together with a letter, in which his Holiness ordained that whenever either the see of Canter­bury or York should become vacant, the other bishop should ordain the person that should be duty elected, “because of the long distance of sea and land that lies between us and you”. And to confirm this delegation of the patriarchal power of consecrating all bishops under him, a pallium was sent also to the bishop of York.

1082 ST SIMON OF CREPY helped reconcile kings and subjects; great negotiator for Pope St Gregory VII;  When Pope St Gregory VII, in view of his conflict with the emperor, determined to come to terms with Robert Guiscard and his Normans in Italy, he sent for St Simon to help him in the negotiations. These were brought to a successful conclusion at Aquino in 1080, and the pope kept Simon by his side.

1872  Quarto Nonas Januárii 1873 Lexóvii, in Gállia, item natális sanctæ Terésiæ a Jesu Infánte, ex Ordine Carmelitárum Excalceatórum; quam, vitæ innocéntia et simplicitáte claríssimam, Pius Undécimus, Póntifex Máximus, sanctárum Vírginum albo adscrípsit, peculiárem ómnium Missiónum Patrónam declarávit, ejúsque festum quinto Nonas Octóbris recoléndum esse decrévit.
    At Lisieux in France, the birthday of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, of the Order of Discalced Carmelites.  Seeing her to be most wonderful for her innocence of life and simplicity, Pope Pius XI placed her name among the holy virgins and appointed her as special patron before God of all missions, decreeing that her feast should be observed on the 3rd of October.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 29  2016
Apart from the veneration of St Michael, the earliest liturgical recognition of the other great archangels seems to be found in the primitive Greek form of the Litany of the Saints. Edmund Bishop was of opinion (Liturgica Historica, pp. 142—151) that this may be traced back to the time of Pope Sergius (687—701). In it St Michael, St Gabriel and St Raphael are invoked in succession just as they are today, the only difference being that they there take precedence, not only of St John the Baptist, but also of the Blessed Virgin herself. See Dictionnaire de la Bible, vol. iv, cc. 1067—1075 DAC., vol. xi, CC. 903—907 DTC., vol. i, cc. 1189—1271; Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. vii; K. A. Kellner, Heortology (1908), pp. 328—333; and on the archangels in art it is sufficient to give a reference to Kunstle, Ikonographie, vol. i, pp. 239—264, though the subject has also been fully treated by A. Didron, van Drival, and others. For the angels in the church fathers, see J. Danie!ou, Les anges et leur, mission (1952).

1364 BD CHARLES OF BLOIS  would always rather been Franciscan friar than prince;  provided for poor /suffering.; Charles, the man who would always rather have been a Franciscan friar than a prince, was killed on the field. Numerous and remarkable miracles were reported at his tomb at Guingamp, and there was a strong movement for his canonization in spite of the opposition of John IV de Montfort, whose cause in Brittany might suffer were his late rival to be canonized. Pope Gregory XI seems in fact to have decreed it, but in the turmoil of his departure from Avignon in 1376 the bull was never drawn up. The people nevertheless continued to venerate Bd Charles, his feast was celebrated in some places, and finally in 1904 this ancient cultus was confirmed by St Pius X.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 28  2016
220s St. Privatus, martyr
Romæ sancti Priváti Mártyris, qui, ulcéribus plenus, a beáto Callísto Papa est sanátus; inde, sub Alexándro Imperatóre, ob Christi fidem plumbátis cæsus est usque ad mortem.
    St. Privatus, martyr, who was cured of ulcers by blessed Pope Callistus At Rome.  In the time of Emperor Alexander he was scourged to death with leaded whips for the faith of Christ.

404 Saint Eustochium addressee of one of Jerome's most famous letter (Ep. 22)--a lengthy treatise on virginity V (RM)
In Béthlehem Judæ sanctæ Eustóchii Vírginis, quæ cum beáta Paula, matre sua, ex urbe Roma in Palæstínam profécta est; ibíque, ad Præsépe Dómini cum áliis Virgínibus enutríta, præcláris méritis fulgens migrávit ad Dóminum.
    At Bethlehem of Juda, the holy virgin  Eustochium, daughter of blessed Paula, who was brought up at the manger of our Lord with other virgins, and being celebrated for her merits, went to our Lord.

412 St Exsuperius, Bishop Of Toulouse;  earning the thanks and commendation of St Jerome, who dedicated to him his commentary on Zacharias and wrote of him
“To relieve the hunger of the poor he suffers it himself. The paleness of his face shows the rigour of his fasts, but he is grieved by the hunger of others. He gives his all to the poor of Christ but rich is he who carries the Body of the Lord in an osier-basket and His Blood in a glass vessel. His charity knew no bounds, it sought for objects in the most distant parts, and the solitaries of Egypt felt its beneficial effects.” At home as well as abroad there was ample scope for his benefactions, for in his time Gaul was overrun by the Vandals.St Exsuperius wrote to Pope St Innocent I for instruction on several matters of discipline and enquiring about the canon of Holy Scripture. In reply the pope sent him a list of the authentic books of the Bible as they were then received at Rome, and that list was the same as today, including the deuterocanonical books. The place and year of the death of Exsuperius are not known, but he seems to have suffered exile before the end. St Paulinus of Nola referred to him as one of the most illustrious bishops of the Church in Gaul, and by the middle of the sixth century he was held in equal honour with St Saturninus in the church of Toulouse.

782 Saint Lioba an Anglo-Saxon nun who was part of Boniface's mission to the Germans; credited with quelling a storm with her command; Several miracles were attributed to her gravesite 782 saint Lioba an Anglo-Saxon nun who was part of Boniface's mission to the Germans; credited with quelling a storm with her command; Several miracles were attributed to her gravesite
Schorneshémii, prope Mogúntiam, sanctæ Líobæ Vírginis, miráculis claræ.
    At Fulda near Mayence, St. Lioba, virgin, renowned for miracles
Also Leoba and Leofgyth born .;   In the year 722 St Boniface was consecrated bishop by Pope St Gregory II and sent to preach the gospel in Saxony, Thuringia and Hesse. He was a native of Crediton, not very far from Wimborne


 929 St. Wenceslaus martyred patron saint of Bohemia patron saint of Bohemia  Miracles  reported at his tomb
Comment:  “Good King Wenceslaus” was able to incarnate his Christianity in a world filled with political unrest. While we are often victims of violence of a different sort, we can easily identify with his struggle to bring harmony to society. The call to become involved in social change and in political activity is addressed to Christians; the values of the gospel are sorely needed today.
Quote: “While recognizing the autonomy of the reality of politics, Christians who are invited to take up political activity should try to make their choices consistent with the gospel and, in the framework of a legitimate plurality, to give both personal and collective witness to the seriousness of their faith by effective and disinterested service of men” (Pope Paul VI, A Call to Action, 46).

1102 St. Thiemo Benedictine bishop; martyr at Ascalon (modern Israel); Journeying to Palestine to aid crusading movement, he was captured by Muslims and murdered for refusing to abjure the faith. His office brought him into conflict with the German King Henry IV (r. 1056-1106) during the Investiture Controversy and, as Thiemo sided with Pope St. Gregory VII (r.1073-1085) in the struggle, Henry exiled him.

1102 St. Thiemo Benedictine bishop; martyr at Ascalon (modern Israel); Journeying to Palestine to aid crusading movement, he was captured by Muslims and murdered for refusing to abjure the faith.  

1484 BD JOHN OF DUKLA by preaching and example brought back many to the Church from Ruthenians Hussite and other sects;  He died on September 29, 1484, and the devotion of his people was answered with miracles; in 1739 Pope Clement XII approved his cultus as a principal patron of Poland and Lithuania.

1494 Blessed Bernardine of Feltre; Franciscan priest missionary labors throughout the larger cities of Italy; “Prayer”, he said, “is a better preparation than study: it is both more efficacious and quicker.”; Hitherto Friar Bernardino had done no public preaching, and when in 1469 a chapter at Venice appointed him a preacher he was much troubled. He was nervous, lacked confidence in himself, and seemed physically ill-equipped, for he was very short in stature. This was sufficiently noticeable to earn him the nick­name of Parvulus from Pope Innocent VIII, and he used to sign himself “piccolino e poverello.”

1457 BD LAURENCE OF RIPAFRATTA “The most persuasive tongue becomes silent in death, but your heavenly pictures will go on speaking of religion and virtue throughout the ages.” “How many souls have been snatched from Hell by his words and example and led from depravity to a high perfection; how many enemies he reconciled and what disagreements he adjusted; to how many scandals did he put an end. I weep also for my own loss, for never again shall I receive those tender letters wherewith he used to stir up my fervour in the duties of this pastoral office.” His tomb was the scene of many miracles, and in 1851 Pope Pius IX confirmed his cultus.

1507 BD FRANCIS OF CALDEROLA  a great missioner, with an unwearying zeal for the reform of sinners.  He was active with Bd Bernardino of Feltre in the establishment of charitable pawnshops. Francis died at the friary of Colfano on September 12, 1507, and the cultus that at once manifested itself was confirmed by Pope Gregory XVI.

1624 BD SIMON DE ROJAS: Rojas exercised strong influence in royal entourage contributed much to high standard of religion and morality;  Several references to the beatification process of this friar occur in the great work of Benedict XIV, De...beatificatione, bk ii. When Bd Simon was beatified there was published in Rome a Compendio della Vita del B. Simone de Roxas (1767). See also P. Deslandres, L’Ordre des Trinitaires (i9o3), vol. i, p. 6s8, etc.

1624 BD SIMON DE ROJAS: Rojas exercised strong influence in royal entourage contributed much to high standard of religion and morality beatified in 1766..
1630 Bl. Peter Kufioji Martyr in Japan native Japanese; for giving aid and shelter to Augustinian missionaries.
1630 Bl. Michael Kinoshi Martyr of Japan; for sheltering Catholic missionaries. beatified in 1867.
1630 Bl. Lawrence Shizu Martyr of Japan native Augustinian tertiary; for sheltering priests beatified in 1867.
1630 St. Lawrence Ruiz Martyr in Japan Philipino; Layman; he told his executioner that he was "ready to die for God
        and give himself for many thousands of lives if he had them!" canonized in 1987.
1630 St. John Kokumbuko Martyr of Japan Augustinian tertiary beatified in 1867.
1630 Bl. Thomas Kufioji Japanese martyr

1637 St. Lorenzo Ruiz first Filipino saint & martyred in Japan; He and fifteen companions, martyred in the same persecution, were beatified by Pope John Paul II in Manila on February 18, 1981 and elevated to full honors of the altar by canonization on October 18, 1987 in Rome.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 27  2016
1323 St. Elzear; He managed his estate with firmness, prudence, and ability; Elzear and Delphina were regarded as an ideal married couple, known for their holiness and piety.   About the year 1309 St Elzear had assisted as godfather at the baptism of William of Grimoard, his nephew, a sickly child whose health was restored at the prayers of his sponsor. Fifty-three years later this William became pope as Urban V, and in 1369 he signed the decree of canonization of his godfather Elzear, who is named in the Roman Martyrology on this day.
Lutétiæ Parisiórum sancti Elzeárii Cómitis.    At Paris, St. Eleazar, a count.

1392 Saint Sergius of Radonezh named Bartholomew by parents the pious and illustrious nobles Cyril and Maria (September 28); For his angelic manner of life St Sergius was granted an heavenly vision by God. One time by night Abba Sergius was reading the rule of prayer beneath an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos. Having completed the reading of the canon to the Mother of God, he sat down to rest, but suddenly he said to his disciple, St Mikhei (May 6), that there awaited them a wondrous visitation. After a moment the Mother of God appeared accompanied by the holy Apostles Peter and John the Theologian. Due to the extraordinary bright light St Sergius fell down, but the Most Holy Theotokos touched Her hands to him, and in blessing him promised always to be Protectress of his holy monastery.

1660  St. Vincent de Paul, priest and confessor; At Paris, the birthday of
Lutétiæ Parisiórum item natális sancti Vincéntii a Paulo, Presbyteri et Confessóris, Congregatiónis Presbyterórum Missiónis et Puellárum Caritátis Fundatóris, viri apostólici et páuperum patris; quem Leo Décimus tértius, Póntifex Máximus, ómnium Societátum caritátis, in toto cathólico Orbe exsisténtium et ab eódem Sancto quomodólibet promanántium, cæléstium Patrónum apud Deum constítuit.  Ipsíus tamen festívitas quartodécimo Kaléndas Augústi celebrátur.
    At Paris, the birthday of St. Vincent de Paul, priest and confessor, founder of the Congregation of the Mission and of the Sisters of Charity, an apostolic man and father to the poor.  Pope Leo XIII appointed this saint as the heavenly patron before God of all charitable societies in the world which in any way whatever draw their origin from him.  His feast is celebrated on the 19th of July.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 26  2016
September 26 - Our Lady of Victory (Tourney, 1340)

Mrs Adjoubei’s Rosary        Bishop Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII
As he left Bulgaria in 1934, Bishop Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, stated,
"If a Slavic, catholic or not, knocks on my door, it will be opened and he will be greeted like a true friend." Later, a Slavic arrived one day at the airport of Fiumicino who asked to see Pope John XXIII. His reply was immediate, "Let him come!"
The meeting was set for March 7th.
After the general audience, the Pope called for Mr. Adjoubei and his wife, Rada, a young woman from Khrushchev. He received them in his library and asked them to be seated.
They spoke about many things including the Saints of Russia and the beauty of Orthodox liturgy.
Then John XXIII picked up a string of rosary beads that was laid on his table.
"Madam, this is for you. My entourage taught me that I should give currencies or stamps to a non-Catholic princess; but I still give you a Rosary because priests, in addition to the biblical prayer of the psalms, also have this popular form of prayer. For me, the Pope, it is like fifteen open windows - fifteen mysteries - through which I contemplate, in the light of the Lord, the events of the world. I say a rosary in the morning, another at the beginning of the afternoon, and another in the evening.
Look, I made a great impression by telling the journalists that in the fifth joyful mystery - "he listened and questioned them" - I was really praying for... I made an impression on those people when I said that, in the third joyful mystery - the Birth of Jesus - I prayed for all the babies who are born in the past twenty-four hours, because, Catholics or not, they will find the wishes of the Pope upon their entry into life.
When I recite the third mystery, I will also remember your children, Madam."
Mrs Adjoubei, who held the Rosary in her hands, answered,
"Thank you, Holy Father, how grateful I am to you! I will tell my children what you said...
" The Pope looked at her smiling, "I know the name of your sons... the third is called Yan, or John like me...
When you are back home, give him a special hug from me... " 
Rosary for the Church, #14 - 1973

 600 St. Amantius Patron saint of Cittá di Castello; At Tiferno in Umbria, St. Amantius, a priest distinguished for the gift of miracles; Italy. Amantius was a parish priest in the city, venerated by Pope St. Gregory I the Great because of his sanctity.

1004 St. Nilus the Younger Abbot Born in Calabria     In the Tuscan plain, the blessed Abbot Nilus, founder of the monastery of Grottaferrata, a man of eminent sanctity.
ST NILUS OF ROSSANO, ABBOT (A.D. 1004); When in the year 998 the Emperor Otto III came to Rome to expel Philagathos, Bishop of Piacenza, whom the senator Crescentius had set up as antipope against Gregory V, St Nilus went to intercede with the pope and emperor that the antipope might be treated with mildness. Philagathos (“John XVI”) was a Calabrian like himself, and Nilus had tried in vain to dissuade him from his schism and treason. The abbot was listened to with respect, but he was not able to do much to modify the atrocious cruelty with which the aged antipope was treated.  When a prelate was sent to make an explanation to Nilus, who had protested vigorously against the injuries done to the helpless Philagathos, he pretended to fall asleep in order to avoid an argument about it. Some time after Otto paid a visit to the laura of St Nilus; he was surprised to see his monastery consisting of poor scattered huts, and said, “These men who live in tents as strangers on earth are truly citizens of Heaven.” Nilus conducted the emperor first to the church, and after praying there entertained him in his cell. Otto pressed the saint to accept some spot of ground in his dominions, promising to endow it. Nilus thanked him and answered, “If my brethren arc truly monks our divine Master will not forsake them when I am gone”.
     In taking leave the emperor vainly asked him to accept some gift: St Nilus, laying his hand upon Otto's breast, said, “The only thing I ask of you is that you would save your soul. Though emperor, you must die and give an account to God, like other men.”

1159 St. John of Meda abbot Rule of St. Benedict to Milan; A secular priest from Como, Italy, John joined the Humiliati, a penitential institute of laymen; A secular priest from Como, Italy, John joined the Humiliati, a penitential institute of laymen who brought the Rule of St. Benedict to the Humiliati in Milan, Italy.
A secular priest from Como, Italy, John joined the Humiliati, a penitential institute of laymen. He introduced the Little Office of Our Lady and the rule of St. Benedict. Pope Alexander III canonized him.

13th v. BD LUCY OF CALTAGIRONE, VIRGIN; 13th v. BD LUCY OF CALTAGIRONE, VIRGIN special devotion to the Five Wounds; and miracles were attributed to her both before and after her death
CALTAGIRONE, a town in Sicily well-known in later times as the home of Don Luigi Sturzo, was the birthplace of this beata, but she seems to have spent her life in a convent of Franciscan regular tertiaries at Salerno. Very little is known about her. She became mistress of novices, and instilled into her charges her own, the date of which is not known. Bd Lucy's cultus seems to have been approved by Popes Callistus III and Leo X.

1642-1649 THE MARTYRS OF NORTH AMERICA
1649 St. Noel Chabanel Jesuit missionary to Hurons in Canada;  Jogues remained a slave among the Mohawks, one of the Iroquois tribes, who, however, had decided to kill him. He owed his escape to the Dutch, who, ever since they had heard of the sufferings he and his friends were enduring, had been trying to obtain his release. Through the efforts of the governor of Fort Orange and of the governor of New Netherlands he was taken on board a vessel and, by way of England, got back to France, where his arrival roused the keenest interest. With mutilated fingers he was debarred from celebrating Mass, but Pope Urban VII granted him special permission to do so, saying, “It would be unjust that a martyr for Christ should not drink the blood of Christ”.

1885 St. Theresa Coudere Foundress Our Lady of Retreat  Society of Our lady of the Cenacle at La Louvesc, France. She was born on February 1, at Masle, France. Joining Father J. Terme in his parish work in Aps, she founded the Daughters of St. Regis, the original group that became the Society. She served as superior until 1838 and then resumed the role of a simple member of the com­munity until her death on September 26. Murió el 26 de septiembre de 1885.
By the time of her death, her congregation spread rapidly. Pope Paul VI canonized her in 1970.
Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 25  2016
2nd v. St. Herculafilis Martyred Roman soldier
Eódem die, via Cláudia, sancti Herculáni, mílitis et Mártyris; qui, sub Antoníno Imperatóre, miráculis in passióne beáti Alexándri Epíscopi ad Christum convérsus, atque ob fídei confessiónem, post multa torménta, gládio cæsus est.
    At Rome, on the Claudian Way, under Emperor Antoninus, St. Herculanus, soldier and martyr, who was converted to Christ by the miracle wrought during the martyrdom of the blessed bishop Alexander.  After enduring many torments he was put to the sword.
Martyred Roman soldier reportedly converted by Pope St. Alexander I.

633 St. Finbar Bishop founded monastery developed into city of Cork Many extravagant miracles
FINBAR, or Bairre, founder of the city and see of Cork, is said to have been the natural son of a royal lady and of a master smith. He was baptized Lochan, but the monks who educated him at Kilmacahill in Kilkenny changed his name to Fionnbharr, Whitehead, because of his fair hair. Legends say that he went to Rome on pilgrimage with one of his preceptors, and on his way back passed through Wales and visited St David in Pembrokeshire. As he had no means of getting to Ireland, David lent him a horse for the crossing, and in the channel he sighted and signalled St Brendan the Navigator, voyaging eastward. St Finbar is fabled to have gone again to Rome, in company with St David and others, when Pope St Gregory would have made him a bishop but was deterred hy a vision in which he learned that Heaven had reserved this prerogative for itself.

7th v. St. Fymbert Bishop of western Scotland; He was ordained by Pope St. Gregory the Great.

716 St. CEOLFRID, ABBOT OF WEARMOUTH Ceolfrid Benedictine abbot St. Paul Monastery produced oldest Vulgate Bible at Wearmouth-Jarrow, England;  St Bede, who had the happiness to live under this great man, has left authentic testimonies of his learning, abilities and sanctity. He was a great lover of sacred literature, and enriched the libraries of his two monasteries with a large number of books. To how high a pitch he carried the sacred sciences in his monasteries St Bede himself is the foremost example. He says of St Ceolfrid that:
“Whatever good works his predecessor had begun he with no less energy took pains to finish.”
It is now established beyond doubt that Codex Amiatinus was written (not necessarily by an Englishman) in the abbey of Wearmouth or Jarrow at the beginning of the eighth century and is the very book which St Ceolfrid carried with him to give to Pope St Gregory II.

1215 St. Albert of Jerusalem Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Carmelite Order   When therefore the Patriarch Michael died in the year 1203 the canons regular of the Holy Sepulchre, supported by King Amaury II de Lusignan, petitioned Pope Innocent III to send to succeed him a prelate whose holiness and abilities were well known even in Palestine. This was Albert, Bishop of Vercelli. He belonged to a distinguished family of Parma, and after brilliant theological and legal studies had become a canon regular in the abbey of the Holy Cross at Mortara in Lombardy. When he was about thirty-five years old, namely in 1184, he was made bishop of Bobbio and almost at once translated to Vercelli. His diplomatic ability and trustworthiness caused him to be chosen as a mediator between Pope Clement Ill and Frederick Barbarossa. By Innocent III he was made legate in the north of Italy, and in that capacity he brought about peace between Parma and Piacenza in 1199. Innocent did not want to spare him for Jerusalem, but approved the choice of the canons; he invested him with the pallium and created him his legate in Palestine, and in 1205 St Albert set out.

1523-1534 Clement VII (GIULIO DE’ MEDICI). ; Cardinal, Pope 1523-1534. Born 1478; died 25 September, 1534. Giulio de' Medici was born a few months after the death of his father, Giuliano, who was slain at Florence in the disturbances which followed the Pazzi conspiracy. Although his parents had not been properly married, they had, it was alleged, been betrothed per sponsalia de presenti, and Giulio, in virtue of a well-known principle of canon law, was subsequently declared legitimate. The youth was educated by his uncle, Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was made a Knight of Rhodes and Grand Prior of Capua, and, upon the election of his cousin Giovanni de' Medici to the papacy as Leo X, he at once became a person of great consequence. On 28 September, 1513, he was made cardinal, and he had the credit of being the prime mover of the papal policy during the whole of Leo's pontificate. He was one of the most favoured candidates in the protracted conclave which resulted in the election of Adrian VI; neither did the Cardinal de' Medici, in spite of his close connection with the luxurious regime of Leo X, altogether lose influence under his austere successor. Giulio, in the words of a modern historian, was "learned, clever, respectable and industrious, though he had little enterprise and less decision" (Armstrong, Charles V, I, 166).

1569 Bl. Mark Criado Trinitarian martyr
He was born in Andujar, Spain, in 1522, and joined the Trinitarians in 1536 . Mark was martyred by the Moors in Almeria. Mark joined the Order of the Holy Trinity and was later assigned to the apostolate of preaching.  He set out for the provinces of Almeria and Granada, where he zealously proclaimed the Gospel to the Moors as well as to the Christians.  Captured by the Moors, he died a martyr near the town of La Peza in 1569.  Mark Criado was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 24 July 1899.

1622 Bl. Mancius Shisisoiemon Martyr native Japan His beatification was declared in 1867.
1622 Bl. Augustine Ota native martyr of Japan His beatification was declared in 1867.

1824 St. Vincent Strambi Passionist after attending a retreat given by St. Paul of the Cross;  became a professor of theology, was made provincial in 1781, and in 1801, was appointed bishop of Macera and Tolentino. He was expelled from his See when he refused to take an oath of alliance to Napoleon in 1808,
 Later there was an outbreak of typhus and a dearth of provisions which bordered on famine, but in all these emergencies the bishop set an heroic example. In the fierce resentment excited by some of his reforms his life is said to have been more than once attempted. On the death of Pope Pius VII he resigned his see, and at the instance of Leo XII, who was Strambi's devoted friend, he took up his quarters at the Quirinal, where he acted as the pope's confidential adviser. During all these vicissitudes he had never relaxed anything of the austerity of his private life; but his strength was now exhausted, and, as Bd Anna Maria Taigi, his penitent, had prophesied, he received holy communion for the last time on December 31, and passed away on his seventy-ninth birthday, on January 1, 1824. St Vincent Strambi was canonized in 1950

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 24  2016
  JOHN PAUL I  ANGELUS Sunday, 24 September 1978
Yesterday afternoon I went to St. John Lateran. Thanks to the Romans, to the kindness of the Mayor and some authorities of the Italian Government, it was a joyful moment for me.

On the contrary, it was not joyful but painful to learn from the newspapers a few days ago that a Roman student had been killed for a trivial reason, in cold blood. It is one of the many cases of violence which are continually afflicting this poor and restless society of ours.

The case of Luca Locci, a seven-year-old boy kidnapped three months ago, has come up again in the last few days. People sometimes say: "we are in a society that is all rotten, all dishonest." That is not true. There are still so many good people, so many honest people. Rather, what can be done to improve society? I would say: let each of us try to be good and to infect others with a goodness imbued with the meekness and love taught by Christ. Christ's golden rule was: "do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Do to others what you want done to yourself." 'And he always gave. Put on the cross, not only did he forgive those who crucified him, but he excused them. He said: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." This is Christianity, these are sentiments which, if put into practice would help society so much.

This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Georges Bernanos, a great Catholic writer. One of his best-known works is "Dialogues of the Carmelites". It was published year after his death. He had prepared it working on a story of the German authoress, Gertrud von Le Fort. He had prepared it for the theatre.

It went on the stage. It was set to music and then shown on the screens of the whole world. It became extremely well known. The fact, however, was a historical one.
   Pius X, in 1906, right here in Rome, had beatified the sixteen Carmelites of Compiègne, martyrs during the French revolution. During the trial they were condemned "to death for fanaticism". And one of them asked in her simplicity:

 "Your Honour, what does fanaticism mean?" And the judge: "It is your foolish membership of religion." "Oh, Sisters, she then said, did you hear, we are condemned for our attachment to faith. What happiness to die for Jesus Christ!"
They were brought out of the prison of the Conciergerie, and made to climb into the fatal cart. On the way they sang hymns; when they reached the guillotine, one after the other knelt before the Prioress and renewed the vow of obedience. Then they struck up "Veni Creator"; the song, however, became weaker and weaker, as the heads of the poor Sisters fell, one by one, under the guillotine. The Prioress, Sister Theresa of St Augustine, was the last, and her last words were the following: "Love will always be victorious, love can do everything." That was the right word, not violence, but love, can do everything. Let us ask the Lord for the grace that a new wave of love for our neighbour may sweep over this poor world. © Copyright 1978 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Feast of Our Lady of Ransom
Festum beátæ Maríæ Vírginis de Mercéde nuncupátæ, Ordinis redemptiónis captivórum sub ejus nómine Institutrícis, de cujus Apparitióne ágitur quarto Idus Augústi.
    The feast of our Lady of Ransom, Foundress of the Order for the Redemption of Captives.  The apparition of the same Blessed Virgin occurred on the 10th of August.
 24 September, a double major, commemorates the foundation of the Mercedarians.

1721 ST PACIFICO OF SAN SEVERINO At Mass he was often rapt in ecstasy; gift of prophecy ability to read the consciences of his penitents Miracles took place at his tomb, as they had done in his lifetime; "Moreover, I advise and admonish the friars that in their preaching, their words should be examined and chaste. They should aim only at the advantage and spiritual good of their listeners, telling them briefly about vice and virtue, punishment and glory, because our Lord himself kept his words short on earth" (St. Francis, Rule of 1223, Ch. 9). Septémpedæ, in Picéno, deposítio sancti Pacífici, Sacerdótis ex Ordine Minórum et Confessóris, exímiæ patiéntiæ viri et solitúdinis amóre præclári, quem Gregórius Papa Décimus sextus in Sanctórum cánonem rétulit.
    At San Severino in Piceno, the death of St. Pacificus, priest and confessor of the Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis of the Reformed Observance.  Illustrious for his great patience and his love of solitude, he was enrolled in the canon of the saints by Pope Gregory XVI.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 23  2016
67 Saint Linus a native of Tuscany succeeded St. Peter as Pope; Romæ sancti Lini, Papæ et Mártyris, qui, primus post beátum Petrum Apóstolum, Romanum Ecclésiam gubernávit, et, martyrio coronátus, sepúltus est in Vaticano, prope eundem Apóstolum.  At Rome, St. Linus, pope and martyr, who governed the Roman Church next after the blessed apostle Peter.  He was crowned with martyrdom and was buried on the Vatican Hill beside the same apostle.  IT is now not disputed that St Linus was the first successor of St Peter in the see of Rome, but practically nothing is known about him. St Irenaeus, writing about the year 189, identifies him with the Linus mentioned by St Paul in his second letter to Timothy (iv zi), and implies that he was appointed bishop before the death of Peter. St Linus is named among the martyrs in the canon of the Mass and his feast as a martyr is kept throughout the Western church today, but his martyrdom is very doubtful as no persecution is recorded in his time moreover, Irenaeus names only St Telesphorus as a martyr among the earliest popes after Peter.

1520 Bd Helen Of Bologna, Widow;   BD HELEN DUGLIOLI has been selected by popular acclamation from among the unknown numbers of those who have served God heroically "in the world" to be exalted at the altars of the Church.  She was born at Bologna, and when she was about seventeen years old married Benedict dali' Oglie.  Husband and wife lived together for thirty years in amity and happiness, supporting and encouraging one another in the life of Christians, and when Benedict died, Helen shortly after followed him to the grave.  The common people, who have an almost unerring instinct for detecting true holiness, knew she was a saint, and the continual cultus they had given her was confirmed in 1828.
  The most important part of the notice devoted to her by the Bollandists consists of an extract from the De Servorum Dei beatificatione of Prosper Lambertini (afterwards Pope Benedict XIV), written when he was archbishop of Bologna.  In this he quotes the tributes paid to Bd Helen at Bologna as an almost typical case of a spontaneous and immemorial cultus, and refers to sundry local publications which bore witness to the devotion of the citizens.  Among other evidence cited by the Bollandists it is curious to find a passage from the Ragionamenti of Pietro Aretino, of all people, a contemporary of the beata, who refers satirically to the crowds of candles, pictures and ex votos deposited " alla sapoltura di santa Beata Lena dalI' Olio a Bologna."
  See the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. vi .

1968 St. Padre Pio da Pietrelcina  b.1887; Born Francesco Forgione, Padre Pio grew up in a family of farmers in southern Italy. Twice (1898-1903 and 1910-17) his father worked in Jamaica, New York, to provide the family income.
September 23, 2005

In one of the largest such ceremonies in history, Pope John Paul II canonized Padre Pio of Pietrelcina on June 16, 2002. It was the 45th canonization ceremony in Pope John Paul's pontificate. More than 300,000 people braved blistering heat as they filled St. Peter's Square and nearby streets. They heard the Holy Father praise the new saint for his prayer and charity. "This is the most concrete synthesis of Padre Pio's teaching," said the pope. He also stressed Padre Pio's witness to the power of suffering. If accepted with love, the Holy Father stressed, such suffering can lead to "a privileged path of sanctity."

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 22  2016
 530 ST FELIX III (IV), POPE revered in his day as a man of great simplicity, humility and kindness to the poor.  Having been given two ancient buildings in the Roman Forum, Felix built on their site the basilica of SS. Cosmas and Damian the mosaics to be seen today in the apse and on the trium­phal arch of that church are those made at his direction

1637 St. Lawrence Ruiz and Companions; Lorenzo: "That I will never do, because I am a Christian, and I shall die for God, and for him I will give many thousands of lives if I had them. And so, do with me as you please."   Pope John Paul II canonized these six and 10 others, Asians and Europeans, men and women, who spread the faith in the Philippines, Formosa and Japan. Lorenzo Ruiz is the first canonized Filipino martyr.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 21  2016
The martyrdom of St. Alexander, bishop.   His body was afterwards carried into the city by blessed Pope Damasus on the 26th of November.

13th v. In July of 1274, the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII accepted a union with the Roman Church at Lyons, France. Faced with dangers from Charles of An cojou, the Ottoman Turks, and other enemies, the emperor found such an alliance with Rome expedient. The Union of Lyons required the Orthodox to recognize the authority of the Pope, the use of the Filioque in the Creed, and the use of azymes (unleavened bread) in the Liturgy. Patriarch Joseph was deposed because he would not agree to thesenditions. The monastic clergy and many of the laity, both at home and in other Orthodox countries, vigorously opposed the Union, denouncing the emperor for his political schemes and for his betrayal of Orthodoxy.

1838 St. Thomas Dien Vietnamese martyr native.   He entered the seminary program of the Paris Foreign Missions but was put to death before he could complete his studies.Thomas was flogged and strangled. Pope John Paul 11 canonized him in 1988.

1839 Sts. Chastan & Imbert beatified as the Martyrs of Korea;  A letter is extant written by the Koreans to Pope Pius VII, imploring him to send them priests at once; their little flock had already given martyrs to the Church. In 1831 the vicariate apostolic of Korea was created, but the first vicar never reached there. His successor, Mgr Laurence Joseph Mary Imbert, Titular Bishop of Capsa and a member of the Paris Foreign Missions, who had been in China for twelve years, entered the country in disguise at the end of 1837, having been preceded by Bd PETER PHILIBERT MAUBANT and BD JAMES HONORÉ CHASTAN, priests of the same missionary society.  1925 Bd Laurence and his companions were beatified. The first Korean priest martyr was BD ANDREW KIM in 1846.  They were canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1984.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 20  2016
  536  St. Pope Agapitus I Pope from 535-536 and apologist; translation of the body;  able to put down a religious revolt spearheaded by a bishop named Anthemius and Empress Theodora.

1713 BD FRANCIS DE POSADAS;  gave missions all over the southwest of Spain, adding to the fatigues of preaching, hearing confessions, and travelling on foot voluntary mortifications of a most rigorous kind. His combination of example and precept won him a great influence over all with whom he came in contact, and in his native city he brought about a much-needed reform and improvement in public and private morals; disorderly places of amusement shut up for lack of business. He was always at the service of the poor and learned from them a humility that made him avoid not only the offices of his order but also bishoprics that were offered to him. Bd Francis wrote several books—The Triumph of Chastity, lives of St Dominic and other holy ones of his order, moral exhortations—and died at Scala Caeli after forty years of uninterrupted work for souls on September 20, 1713. He was beatified in 1818. interesting account of his levitations when he was celebrating Mass (pp. 42—45), and of his sensations in endeavouring to resist this lifting of his body into the air

1839 Sts. Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions
Martyrs of Korea of 1839, 1846, and 1867; intellectuals of that land, eager to learn about the world, discovered some Christian books procured through Korea’s embassy to the Chinese capital. One Korean, Ni-seung-houn, went to Beijing in 1784 to study Catholicism and was baptized Peter Ri. Returning to Korea, he converted many others. In 1791, when these Christians were suddenly viewed as foreign traitors, two of Peter Ri’s converts were martyred, men named Paul Youn and Jacques Kuen.  The faith endured, however, and when Father James Tsiou, a Chinese, entered Korea three years later, he was greeted by four thousand Catholics. Father Tsiou worked in Korea until 1801 when he was slain by authorities. were canonized in Korea in 1984 by Pope John Paul II.

Quote  "The Korean Church is unique because it was founded entirely by lay people. This fledgling Church, so young and yet so strong in faith, withstood wave after wave of fierce persecution. Thus, in less than a century, it could boast of 10,000 martyrs. The death of these martyrs became the leaven of the Church and led to today's splendid flowering of the Church in Korea. Even today their undying spirit sustains the Christians in the Church of silence in the north of this tragically divided land" (Pope John Paul II, speaking at the canonization).

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 19  2016
 690 St. Theodore of Tarsus united all of Catholic England one of the greatest; St Theodore was the first bishop whom the whole English church obeyed, the first metropolitan of all England, and his fame penetrated into the remotest corners of the land. Many students gathered round these two foreign prelates who knew Greek as well as Latin, for Theodore and Adrian themselves expounded the Scriptures and taught the sciences, particularly astronomy and arithmetic (for calculating Easter), and to compose Latin verse. Many under them became as proficient in Latin and Greek as they were in their own tongue. Britain had never been in so happy a condition as at this time since the English first set foot in the island. The kings were so brave, says Bede, that the barbarous nations dreaded their power; and men such good Christians that they aspired only after the joys of the kingdom of Heaven which had been but lately preached to them. All who desired to learn could find instructors.  Pope St Vitalian, who then sat in St Peter’s chair, chose Adrian, abbot of a monastery near Naples, to be raised to that dignity. This abbot was by birth an African, understood Greek and Latin perfectly, was thoroughly versed in theology and in the monastic and ecclesiastical discipline. But so great were his fears of the office that the pope was compelled to yield to his excuses. He insisted, however, that Adrian should find a person equal to the charge, and Adrian first named a monk called Andrew; but he was judged incapable on account of his bodily infirmities. Adrian then suggested another monk, Theodore of Tarsus. He was accepted, but on condition that Adrian should accompany him to Britain, because he had already travelled twice through France and also to watch over Theodore lest he introduce into his church anything contrary to the faith (“as the Greeks have a habit of doing”, comments St Bede).

1299, 1321 SS Theodore, David and Constantine They died in 1321 and were buried with their father, and were equally with him venerated as saints, the relics of all three being solemnly enshrined in 1464. Throughout their lives Theodore and his sons walked worthily of their calling, both as Christians and as noblemen; they were forgiving of injuries, more mindful of their own obligations than delinquencies of others.     At Canterbury, the holy bishop Theodore, who was sent to England by Pope Vitalian, and who was renowned for learning and holiness.
ST THEODORE, called “the Black”, duke of Yaroslavl and Smolensk, was a great-grandson of that Kievan prince, Vladimir Monomakh, whose “Charge to my Children” is one of the most precious documents of early Russian Christianity. As a ruler Theodore was sincerely concerned for the poor and the uncared-for.  He defended his people against the Tartars, and did all he could for the promotion of religion, building a church in honour of St Michael and several others. A few days before his death, which happened on September 19, 1299, he was clothed with the monastic habit, and buried in the monastery of the Transfiguration at Yaroslavl. On the death of his first wife, mother of his son Michael, Theodore married again, and of this second wife his sons David and Constantine were born.

1591 Bl. Alphonsus de Orozco St. Thomas of Villanova, his instructor, imbuing him with a spirit of recollection and prayer. Alphonsus, a popular preacher and confessor, served as prior of the Augustinians in Seville then in 1554, at Valladolid. In 1556 he became a court preacher, in 1561 accompanied King Philip II of Spain to Madrid. Throughout his court life, he did not engage in the pleasures or intrigues around him. His example of holiness made a great impression on the royal family and the nobles of Madrid. Alphonsus was given a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and wrote treatises on prayer and penance as Our Lady instructed him. He was beatified in 1881.  He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on January 15, 1882.

1852 St. St. Emily De Rodat, Virgin, Foundress of the Congregation of the Holy Family of VillefrancheIRGIN, FOUNDRESS OF THE CONGREGATION OF THE HOLY FAMILY OF VILLEFRANCHE: “It is good to be an object of contempt”, St Emily declares; “Don’t you know that we are the scum of the earth, and that anyone is entitled to tread on us?”  Such abnegation can be sustained by no ordinary means, and it is not surprising to learn that it was often impossible to interrupt St Emily at prayer until her state of ecstasy had passed.   Pope Pius XII canonized her during the Holy Year of 1950.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 18  2016
 895 St. Richardis Empress and wife of Emperor Charles the Fat.  The daughter of the count of Alsace, she wed the future emperor and served him faithfully for nineteen years until accused of infidelity with Bishop Liutword of Vercelli. To prove her innocence, she successfully endured the painful ordeal of fire, but she left Charles and lived as a nun, first at Hohenburg, Germany, and then Andlau Abbey. She remained at Andlau until her death.

1645 St. John de Massias  Dominican monk at Lima austerities, miracles, and visions; He was born in Ribera, Spain, to a noble family and was orphaned at a young age. John went to Peru to work on a cattle ranch before entering the Dominicans at Lima as a lay brother, assigned to serve as a doorkeeper, or porter. He was known for his austerities, miracles, and visions. John cared for all the poor of Lima, dying there on September 16. Pope Paul VI canonized him in 1975 .

1663 St. Joseph of Cupertino Franciscan mystic patron saint of pilots /air passengers; From time of his ordination St Joseph’s life was one long succession of ecstasies, miracles of healing and supernatural happenings on a scale not paralleled in the reasonably authenticated life of any other saint.  When Cardinal Lauria asked him what souls in ecstasy saw during their raptures he replied: “They feel as though they were taken into a wonderful gallery, shining with never-ending beauty, where in a glass, with a single look, they apprehend the marvellous vision which God is pleased to show them.”
Anything that in any way could be particularly referred to God or the mysteries of religion was liable to ravish him from his senses and make him oblivious to what was going on around him; the absent-mindedness and abstraction of his childhood now had an end and a purpose clearly seen. The sight of a lamb in the garden of Capuchins at Fossombrone caused him to be lost in contemplation of the spotless Lamb of God and, it is said, be caught up into the air with the animal in his arms.
At Osimo in Piceno, St. Joseph of Cupertino, priest and confessor of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, who was placed among the saints by Clement XIII.

1842 St. Dominic Trach Vietnamese martyr and a priest; member of the Dominican Third Order. Caught up in the persecution against Christians, Dominic was beheaded. He was canonized in 1988.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 17  2016
1145-1153 Bd Eugenius III, Pope Cistercian monk at Clairvaux; he took in religion the name of Bernard, his great namesake being his superior at Clairvaux
1145-1153 EUGENIUS III. (Bernardo Paganelli), pope from the 15th of February 1145 to the 8th of July 1153, a native of Pisa, was abbot of the Cistercian monastery of St Anastasius at Rome when suddenly elected to succeed Lucius II.
   St Hildegards visions recorded in the Scivias received the guarded approbation of Pope Eugenius III, but this and similar approvals of private revelations impose no obligation of belief. The Church receives them only as probable, and even those most worthy of faith may be prudently rejected by individuals.
His friend and instructor, Bernard of Clairvaux, the most influential ecclesiastic of the time, remonstrated against his election on account of his "innocence and simplicity," but Bernard soon acquiesced and continued to be the mainstay of the papacy throughout Eugenius's pontificate.
Eugene is said to have gained the affection of the people by his affability and generosity. He died at Tivoli, whither he had gone to avoid the summer heats, and was buried in front of the high altar in St. Peters, Rome. St. Bernard followed him to the grave (20 Aug.). "The unassuming but astute pupil of St. Bernard", says Gregorovius, "had always continued to wear the coarse habit of Clairvaux beneath the purple; the stoic virtues of monasticism accompanied him through his stormy career, and invested him with that power of passive resistance which has always remained the most effectual weapon of the popes."

St. Antoninus pronounces Eugene III "one of the greatest and most afflicted of the popes". Pius IX by a decreed of 28 Dec., 1872, approved the cult which from time immemorial the Pisans have rendered to their countryman, and ordered him to be honoured with Mass and Office ritu duplici on the anniversary of his death

1179 St. Hildegarde visions and prophecies works written called Scivias; the first of the great German mystics a poet, a physician, and a prophetess.  Hildegarde was known for visions and prophecies, which at her spiritual directors request, she recorded. They were set down in a work called Scivias {written between 1141 and 1151, relating twenty six of her visions} and approved by the archbishop of Mainz and Pope Eugenius III at the recommendation of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

1485 St. Peter Arbues; Augustinian inquisitor; a master of Canon Law at the University of Bologna.  At Saragossa in Spain, St. Peter of Arbues, first inquisitor of the faith in the kingdom of Aragon, who received the palm of martyrdom by being barbarously massacred by apostate Jews for courageously defending the Catholic faith, according to the duties of his office.  He was added to the list of martyr saints by Pius IX.     In the year 1478 Pope Sixtus IV, at the urgent request of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile, issued a bull empowering them to appoint a tribunal to deal with Jewish and other apostates and sham converts. Thus was established the institution known in history as the Spanish Inquisition. It may be noted in passing that, though primarily an ecclesiastical tribunal, it acted, independently and often in defiance of the Holy See;

1621 St. Robert Bellarmine; important writings works of devotion and instruction; spiritual father of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, helped St. Francis de Sales obtain formal approval of the Visitation Order, and in his prudence opposed severe action in the case of Galileo; Pope Pius XI bestowed honours of the Saints, declared him Doctor of the Universal Church, and appointed May 13 as his festival day. Born 1542 at Montepulciano, Italy, October 4, the third of ten children. His mother, Cinzia Cervini, a niece of Pope Marcellus II, was dedicated to almsgiving, prayer, meditation, fasting, and mortification of the body.   Bellarmine was made a cardinal by Pope Clement VIII on the grounds that "he had not his equal for learning."   Among many activities, he became theologian to Pope Clement VIII, preparing two catechisms which have had great influence in the Church.  In 1931 Pius XI declared him a Doctor of the Church.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 16  2016
255 St. Cornelius elected Pope to succeed Fabian;   There was no pope for 14 months after the martyrdom of St. Fabian because of the intensity of the persecution of the Church. During the interval, the Church was governed by a college of priests.
St. Cyprian, a friend of Cornelius, writes that Cornelius was elected pope "by the judgment of God and of Christ, by the testimony of most of the clergy, by the vote of the people, with the consent of aged priests and of good men."   A document from Cornelius shows the extent of organization in the Church of Rome in the mid-third century: 46 priests, seven deacons, seven subdeacons. It is estimated that the number of Christians totaled about 50,000.  The story of St Cornelius forms an important episode in ecclesiastical history, and from Eusebius downwards it has engaged the attention of all writers who deal with the Christian Church in the early centuries.
Cornelius died as a result of the hardships of his exile in what is now Civitavecchia (near Rome).

258 ST CYPRIAN, BISHOP OF CARTHAGE, MARTYR  ;  The leaders of the schematics were excommunicated, and Novatus departed to Rome to help stir up trouble there, where Novatian had set himself up as antipope. Cyprian recognized Cornelius as the true pope and was active in his support both in Italy and Africa during the ensuing schism; with St Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, he rallied the bishops of the East to Cornelius, making it clear to them that to adhere to a false bishop of Rome was to be out of communion with the Church. In connection with these disturbances he added to his treatise on Unity one on the question of the Lapsed.

 303  ST EUPHEMIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR; miracles during persecution with  soldiers Victor and Sosthenes    Evagrius, the historian, testifies that emperors, patriarchs and all ranks of people resorted to Chalcedon to be partakers of the blessings which God conferred on men through her patronage, and that manifest miracles were wrought. A great church was erected there in her honour and in it was held in the year 451 the fourth general council, which condemned Monophysism. A legend says that at this council the Catholic fathers agreed with their opponents that each side should write down its views in a book, lay them down, and ask Almighty God to show by a sign which expressed the truth. This was done and the two books were sealed up in the shrine of St Euphemia. After three days of prayer the shrine was opened the monophysite hook lay at the feet of the martyr but the Catholic book was held in her right hand. It is hardly necessary to say that this great council reached its conclusions by no such methods; but it seems that the fact that this epoch-making synod was held in the church of St Euphemia accounts for some of the remarkable prestige that she formerly enjoyed, and Pope Pius XII invoked her name in his encyclical letter “Sempiternus Christus rex” on the fifteen hundredth anniversary of the council in 1951. The martyr is often referred to in the East as Euphemia the Far-renowned, and she is among the saints named in the canon of the Milanese Mass and in the preparation according to Russian usage of the Byzantine rite.

 649-655 St. Martin I, pope and martyr The birthday of;  feast, however, is observed on the 12th of November
He had called together a council at Rome and condemned the heretics Sergius, Paul and Pyrrhus.  By order of the heretical Emperor Constantius he was taken prisoner through a deceit, brought to Constantinople, and exiled to the Chersonese.  There he ended his life, worn out with his labours for the Catholic faith and favoured with many virtues.  His body was afterwards brought to Rome and buried in the church of Saints Sylvester and Martin.  His feast, however, is observed on the 12th of November.

1087 BD VICTOR III, POPE -- Desiderius, one of the greatest abbots of Monte Cassino;  He had attracted the favourable notice of Pope St Leo IX, and about 1054 he was at the court of Victor II.
  Here he met monks from Monte Cassino, went on a pilgrimage to that cradle of Benedictine monasticism, and joined the community. In the year 1057 Pope Stephen X summoned Desiderius to Rome, intending to send him as his legate to Constantinople.  Stephen had been abbot of Monte Cassino and retained the office on his elevation to the papacy, but now, believing himself to be dying, he ordered the election of a successor.  The choice fell on Desiderius, and he had got to Bari on his way to the East when he learned of the pope’s death and was told to return. There was a disputed succession to Stephen X, in which Desiderius supported Pope Nicholas II, who made him a cardinal before he was permitted to go and take up his duties at his monastery.

1628 Bl. Michael Fimonaya Martyr of Japan Dominican tertiary native;  Michael was beatified in 1867 by Pope Pius IX.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 15  2016
90 St. Nicomedes of Rome priest refused to aposate M (RM).  At Rome, on the Via Nomentana, the birthday of blessed Nicomedes, priest and martyr.  Because he said to those who would compel him to sacrifice: "I offer sacrifice only to the omnipotent God who reigneth in heaven," he was for a long time scourged with leaded whips, and thus passed to the Lord.
The Emperor Constantine Copronymus thought that the relics of the saints and martyrs were worthless objects, and that anyone who collected the bones of the holy ones was a fool. He therefore set about finding as many of these sacred remains as he could and throwing them into the sea.  
Pope Saint Paschal I, who was elected in 817, 32 years after the emperor's death, disagreed. Whereas Constantine Copronymus had got rid of saintly bones, Paschal I conceived it as his duty to find as many replacements as possible. The church of Santa Prassede in Rome is filled with all that he collected, their names inscribed on marble tablets close by the sanctuary.

 1510 St. Catherine (Caterinetta) of Genoa, Widow; "He who purifies himself from his faults in the present life, satisfies with a penny a debt of a thousand ducats; and he who waits until the other life to discharge his debts, consents to pay a thousand ducats for that which he might before have paid with a penny." Saint Catherine, Treatise on purgatory. (RM)
16th v. Saint Bessarion, Archbishop of Larissa, founded the Dusika monastery in Thessaly.   In Genoa, St. Catherine, a widow, renowned for her contempt of the world and her love of God.
Born in Genoa, Italy, 1447; died there, September 14, 1510; beatified in 1737 and equipollently canonized by Pope Benedict XIV a few years later (others say she was canonized in 1737); feast day formerly on March 22.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 14  2016
Triumph of the Cross 
Although believers spoke of the cross as the instrument of salvation, it seldom appeared in Christian art
 unless disguised as an anchor or the Chi-Rho until after Constantine's edict of toleration.
258 Pope St. Sixtus II Elected 31 Aug., 257, martyred at Rome, 6 Aug., 258
(XYSTUS).
  During the pontificate of his predecessor, St. Stephen, a sharp dispute had arisen between Rome and the African and Asiatic Churches, concerning the rebaptism of heretics, which had threatened to end in a complete rupture between Rome and the Churches of Africa and Asia Minor (see SAINT CYPRIAN OF CARTHAGE). Sixtus II, whom Pontius (Vita Cyprian, cap. xiv) styles a good and peaceful priest (bonus et pacificus sacerdos), was more conciliatory than St. Stephen and restored friendly relations with these Churches, though, like his predecessor, he upheld the Roman usage of not rebaptizing heretics.  
253 Pope Cornelius; predecessor, Fabian, put to death by Decius, 250. March, 251 persecution slackened, owing to absence of the emperor, (two rivals had arisen); 16 bishops at Rome elected Cornelius against his will was; "What fortitude in his acceptance of the episcopate, what strength of mind, what firmness of faith, that he took his seat intrepid in the sacerdotal chair, at a time when the tyrant in his hatred of bishops was making unspeakable threats, when he heard with far more patience that a rival prince was arising against him, than that a bishop of God was appointed at Rome" (Cyprian, Ep. lv, 24). Is he not, asks St. Cyprian, to be numbered among the glorious confessors and martyrs who sat so long awaiting the sword or the cross or the stake and every other torture?
Cornelius Martyr (251 to 253).
236-250, Pope Saint Fabian succeeded Saint Antheros governed as bishop of Rome 14 peaceful years
Died 250. On January 10, his martyrdom under Decius. He was a layman, who, according to Eusebius, was chosen because a dove flew in through a window during the election and settled on his head. This 'sign' united the votes of the clergy and people for this layman and stranger.

Pope St. Fabian (FABIANUS) Pope (236-250), extraordinary circumstances of whose election is related by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., VI, 29). After the death of Anterus he had come to Rome, with some others, from his farm and was in the city when the new election began. While the names of several illustrious and noble persons were being considered, a dove suddenly descended upon the head of Fabian, of whom no one had even thought. To the assembled brethren the sight recalled the Gospel scene of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Saviour of mankind, and so, divinely inspired, as it were, they chose Fabian with joyous unanimity and placed him in the Chair of Peter.  On 20 January Pope Fabian was martyred, and about the same time St. Cyprian retired to a safe place of hiding. His enemies continually reproached him with this. But to remain at Carthage was to court death, to cause greater danger to others, and to leave the Church without government; for to elect a new bishop would have been as impossible as it was at Rome.

At Comana in Pontus, the birthday of St. John, bishop of Constantinople, confessor and doctor of the Church, surnamed Chrysostom because of his golden eloquence.  He was cast into exile by a faction of his enemies, but was recalled by a decree of Pope Innocent I.  However, he suffered many evils on the journey at the hands of the soldiers who guarded him, and he rendered up his soul unto God.  His feast is kept on the 27th of January, on which day his holy body was translated to Constantinople by Theodosius the Younger.  Pope Pius X declared and appointed this glorious preacher of the divine Word as heavenly patron of those preaching of holy things.

629 The Exaltation Of The Holy Cross, Commonly Called Holy Cross Day;  On this day the Western church celebrates, as we learn from the Roman Martyrology and lessons at Matins, the veneration of the great relics of Christ’s cross at Jerusalem after the Emperor Heraclius had recovered them from the hands of the Persians, who had carried them off in 614, fifteen years before. According to the story, the emperor determined to carry the precious burden upon his own shoulders into the city, with the utmost pomp; but stopped suddenly at the entrance to the Holy Places and found he was not able to go forward. The patriarch Zachary, who walked by his side, suggested to him that his imperial splendour was hardly in agreement with the humble appearance of Christ when He bore His cross through the streets of that city. Thereupon the emperor laid aside his purple and his crown, put on simple clothes, went along barefoot with the procession, and devoutly replaced the cross where it was before. It was still in the silver case in which it had been carried away.  The patriarch and clergy, finding the seals whole, opened the case with the key and venerated its contents. The original writers always speak of this portion of the cross in the plural number, calling it the pieces of the wood of the true cross. This solemnity was carried out with the most devout thanksgiving, the relics were lifted up for the veneration of the people, and many sick were miraculously cured.

1313 St. Notburga Patroness of poor peasants servants in Tyrol; famous for her miracles and concern for the poor.  Before she died she particularly recommended her beloved poor to her master, and asked him to lay her body on a farm-wagon and bury it wherever the oxen should finally rest. This was done, and after a journey of which the usual miraculous accompaniments are recorded, the oxen brought the burden to a halt before the door of the church of St Rupert at Eben. Here accordingly St Notburga was buried. In 1862. Pope Pius IX confirmed her local cultus as patroness of poor peasants and hired servants.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 13  2016
 407 St. John Chrysostom "golden-mouthed" When it came to justice and charity, John acknowledged no double standards. The ambiguity and intrigue surrounding John, the great preacher (his name means "golden-mouthed") from Antioch, are characteristic of the life of any great man in a capital city. Brought to Constantinople after a dozen years of priestly service in Syria, John found himself the reluctant victim of an imperial ruse to make him bishop in the greatest city of the empire. Ascetic, unimposing but dignified, and troubled by stomach ailments from his desert days as a monk, John began his episcopate under the cloud of imperial politics.  If his body was weak, his tongue was powerful. The content of his sermons, his exegesis of Scripture, were never without a point. Sometimes the point stung the high and mighty. Some sermons lasted up to two hours.

His life-style at the imperial court was not appreciated by some courtiers. He offered a modest table to episcopal sycophants hanging around for imperial and ecclesiastical favors. John deplored the court protocol that accorded him precedence before the highest state officials. He would not be a kept man. ;   Two prominent personages who personally undertook to discredit John were Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, and Empress Eudoxia. Theophilus feared the growth in importance of the Bishop of Constantinople and took occasion to charge John with fostering heresy. Theophilus and other angered bishops were supported by Eudoxia. The empress resented his sermons contrasting gospel values with the excesses of imperial court life. Whether intended or not, sermons mentioning the lurid Jezebel and impious Herodias were associated with the empress, who finally did manage to have John exiled. He died in exile in 407.
The saint wrote to Pope St Innocent I, begging him to invalidate all that had been done, for the miscarriage of justice had been notorious. So the cabal proceeded to a sentence of deposition against him, which they sent to the Emperor Arcadius, accusing him at the same time of treason, apparently in having called the empress “Jezebel “. Thereupon the emperor issued an order for his banishment.  For three days Constantinople was in an uproar, and Chrysostom delivered a vigorous manifesto from his pulpit.
“Violent storms encompass me on all sides:  yet I am without fear, because I stand upon a rock. Though the sea roar and the waves rise high, they cannot overwhelm the ship of Jesus Christ. I fear not death, which is my gain; nor banishment, for the whole earth is the Lord’s; nor the loss of goods, for I came naked into the world, and I can carry nothing out of it.”
He declared that he was ready to lay down his life for his flock, and that if he suffered now, it was only because he had neglected nothing that would help towards the salvation of their souls. Then he surrendered himself, unknown to the people, and an official conducted him to Praenetum in Bithynia. But his first exile was short. The city was slightly shaken by an earthquake. This terrified the superstitious Eudoxia, and she implored Arcadius to recall John; she got leave to send a letter the same day, asking him to return and protesting her own innocence of his banishment. All the city went out to meet him, and the Bosphorus blazed with torches. Theophilus and his party fled by night.

607  St Eulogius, Patriarch Of Alexandria celebrated for learning and sanctity;     Of the numerous writings of St Eulogius, chiefly against heresies, only a sermon and a few fragments remain one treatise was submitted to St Gregory before publica­tion, and he approved it with the words, “I find nothing in your writings but what is admirable”. St Eulogius did not long survive his friend, dying at Alexandria about the year 607.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 12  2016
Holy Name of Mary: The feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary began in Spain in 1513 and in 1671 was extended to all of Spain and the Kingdom of Naples. In 1683, John Sobieski, king of Poland, brought an army to the outskirts of Vienna to stop the advance of Muslim armies loyal to Mohammed IV in Constantinople.
After Sobieski entrusted himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary, he and his soldiers thoroughly defeated the Muslims.
Pope Innocent XI extended this feast to the entire Church to commemorate victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.
At Pavia, St. Juventius, bishop, mentioned on the 8th of February.  The blessed Hermagoras, disciple of the evangelist St. Mark, sent him to that city along with St. Cyrus, who is mentioned on the 9th of December.  They both preached the Gospel of Christ there, and being renowned for great virtues and miracles, enlightened the neighbouring cities by divine works.  They closed their glorious careers in peace, invested with the episcopal office.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 11  2016
 258 St. Cyprian development of Christian thought and practice northern Africa: see Saint_of_the_Day September16. html Butler Lives - Thurston ; During a plague in Carthage, he urged Christians to help everyone, including their enemies and persecutors. A friend of Pope Cornelius, Cyprian opposed the following pope, Stephen. He and the other African bishops would not recognize the validity of Baptism conferred by heretics and schismatics. This was not the universal view of the Church, but Cyprian was not intimidated even by Stephen's threat of excommunication.  He was exiled by the emperor and then recalled for trial. He refused to leave the city, insisting that his people should have the witness of his martyrdom.

253-268 SS. PROTUS AND HYACINTH, MARTYRS; The relics of St Protus are supposed to have been removed into the city by Pope St Leo IV in the middle of the ninth century, and parts thereof have been translated several times since. In an epitaph by Pope St Damasus, these martyrs are referred to as brothers.

1840 Bl. John-Gabriel Perboyre Martyr of China Vincentian from Puech;  Pope Leo XIII beatified him in 1889, making him the first martyr in China to be so honored. Pope John Paul II canonized him in 1996.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 10  2016
 453 St. Pulcheria Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire, eldest daughter of the Emperor Arcadius; opposition to the doctines of Nestorius and Eutyches; she built churches, hospitals, houses for pilgrims, and gave rich gifts to churches . In 449 Pope St Leo the Great appealed to St Pulcheria and to the emperor to reject Monophysism, and the answer of Theodosius was to approve the acts of the “Robber Synod” of Ephesus, and to drive St Flavian from the see of Constantinople. Puicheria was firmly orthodox, but her influence with her brother had been weakened. The pope wrote again, and the archdeacon of Rome, Hilarus, wrote, and the Western emperor, Valentinian III, with Eudoxia his wife (Theodosius’s daughter) and Galla Placidia, his mother—and amid all these appeals Theodosius suddenly died, killed by a fall from his horse while hunting.

584 St. Salvius Bishop of Albi friend of Pope St. Gregory I the Great; ransomed prisoners and brought King Chilperic back to orthodox teachings.  

1160 St. Cosmas bishop and martyr.  He was named bishop of Aphrodisia, ordained by Pope Eugene III. When the Saracens captured his see, Cosmas was seized and died as a result of harsh abuse. His cult was approved by Pope Leo XIII.

1305 Saint Nicholas of Tolentino Patron of Holy Souls in Purgatory, and, with St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church hundreds of miracles.  Born 1245 at Sant'Angelo, March of Ancona, diocese of Fermo, Italy Died 10 September 1305 at Tolentino, Italy following a long illness; relics rediscovered at Tolentino in 1926; in previous times they were known exude blood when the Church was in danger Canonized 5 June (Pentecost) 1446 by Pope Eugene IV; over 300 miracles were recognized by the Congregation.

1622 Bb. Apollinaris Franco, Charles Spinola and Their Companions, Martyrs In The Great Martyrdom In Japan. IN 1867, the same year in which persecution began again in Urakami, though not to blood, Pope Pius IX beatified 295 of the martyrs of Japan, of whom the Fran­ciscan Martyrology today refers to eighteen members of its first order and twenty-two tertiaries. Owing to various causes—among them it seems we must sadly recognize national jealousies and even religious rivalries between the missionaries of various orders—the shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa in 1614 decreed that Christianity should be abolished, and these Franciscan beati suffered between the years 1617 and 1632.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 09  2016
  556 Saint Ciaran of Clonmacnoise 1/12 Apostles of Ireland his holiness spread abroad: miraculous events.  When Pope John Paul II visited Ireland, it was the only school that he visited. The monastery survived many invasions and raids until 1552, and there are still many notable ruins remaining from its early days. Although Ciaran's shrine was plundered several times during the medieval period, the Clonmacnoise crozier remains in the National Museum in Dublin.

1478 Blessed Seraphina Sforza, Poor Clare V (AC);  But Sueva entered the convent in 1457, when she was twenty-five years old, and whatever she may have had to repent of she had more than twenty years in which to grow holy in the living of a most austere religious rule. This she did, and the local cultus of Bd Seraphina was approved by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754.

1654 Saint  Peter Claver, SJ Priest unable to abolish the slave trade Though Father Claver's activities were not confined
to the Negroes, the "slave of the slaves" regarded himself as, above all, consecrated to their service.(RM) Sometimes St Peter would spend almost the whole day in the great square of the city, where the four principal streets met, preaching to all who would stop to listen, he became the apostle of Cartagena as well as of the Negroes, and in so huge a work was aided by God with those gifts that particularly pertain to apostles, of miracles, of prophecy, and of reading hearts.
The conditions under which they were conveyed across the Atlantic were so foul and inhuman as to be beyond belief, and it was reckoned that there would be a loss in each cargo by death during the six or seven weeks’ voyage of at least a third; but in spite of this an average of ten thousand living slaves was landed in Cartagena every year. In spite of the condemnation of this great crime by Pope Paul III and by many lesser authorities, this “supreme villainy”, as slave-trading was designated by Pius IX, continued to flourish; all that most of the owners did in response to the voice of the Church was to have their slaves baptized. They received no religious instruc­tion or ministration, no alleviation of their physical condition, so that the sacrament of baptism became to them a very sign and symbol of their oppression and wretched­ness. The clergy were practically powerless; all they could do was to protest and to devote themselves to the utmost to individual ministration, corporal and material, among the tens of thousands of suffering human beings. They had no charitable funds at their disposal, no plaudits from well-disposed audiences; they were ham­pered and discouraged by the owners and often rebuffed by the Negroes themselves.  St Peter Claver was never again forgotten and his fame spread throughout the world: he was canonized at the same time as his friend St Alphonsus Rodriguez in 1888, and he was declared by Pope Leo XIII patron of all missionary enterprises among Negroes, in whatever part of the world. His feast is observed throughout the United States.

1853 Blessed Frédèric Ozanam Both mystical and practical; humble no pride of intellect; faught secularism and anti-clericalism in Europe; Born in Lyons, France, in 1813; beatified in 1997 by Pope John Paul II.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 08  2016

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 08  2016
701 St Sergius I, Pope; Sergius was an alumnus of the Roman schola cantorum, and he seems to have been actively concerned with the liturgy and its music  in particular, the Liber pontificalis states that he directed that the Agnus Dei "should be sung by clergy and people at the breaking of the Lord's body" at Mass, and he ordained that the Roman church should observe the four feasts of our Lady already kept at Constantinople, namely, her birthday, her purification, the Annunciation and her "falling alseep"... In the words of Alcuin, "a holy and most worthy successor of St Peter, second to none in piety".

730 St. Corbinian "bear" A bishop ordained by Pope St. Gregory II

1071 St. Adela Benedictine noblewoman;  Adela was the wife of Count Baldwin IV of Flanders. When the count died, she entered the Benedictines, receiving the habit from Pope Alexander II. Retiring to the Benedictine convent near Ypres, Adela served as a nun until her death.

1628 Bl. Michael Jamada Japan native martyr Dominican tertiary of Japan.
Michael converted and became an outstanding Catholic. He was arrested for aiding foreign missionaries and was beheaded at Nagasaki. Pope Pius IX beatified all these martyrs in 1867.
1622 Bl. John Inamura Japanese martyr
1628 Bl. Anthony of St. Bonaventure Franciscan Spanish martyr of Japan
1628 Bl. Thomas of St. Hyacinth Japanese martyr native catechist
1628 Bl. Thomas Tomaki Japanese martyr young boy
1628 Bl. John Tomaki Japanese martyr and Dominican tertiary
1628 Bl. Dominic of Nagasaki Japanese martyr native
1628 St. James Fayashida, Blessed  Japanese martyr native
1628 Bl. Lawrence Jamada Martyr of Japan
1628 Bl. Leo Kombiogi Martyr of Japan Dominican tertiary
1628 Bl. Louis Nifaki Martyred Japanese Dominican tertiary
1628 St. Louis of Omura She Martyr of Japan
1628 St. Romanus Aybara Father of Blessed Paul Aybara and martyr
1628 Bl. Matthew Alvarez Japanese martyr native Dominican tertiary
1628 Bl. Michael Jamada Japan native martyr Dominican tertiary
1626 Bl. Michael Tomaki A thirteen-year-old Japan martyr
1628 St. Paul Aybara  Japanese martyr
1628 Bl. Paul Tomaki  young Japanese martyr
Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 07  2016
400 St. Pamphilus  Bishop of Capua A Greek, consecrated bishop by Pope Siricius. Pamphilus’ relics are in Benevento

450 Augustalis as the first historical bishop of Gaul;   Duchesne saya assisted at councils in 441 and 442 and signed in 449 and 450 the letters addressed to Pope Leo I from the province of Arles France.

1211 Eustace of Flay, OSB Cist. Abbot  apostolic legate of Pope Innocent III to England and represented the holy father against the Albigensians (PC)  St. Eustace abbot, was apostolic legate to England
St. Eustace was born at Beauvais, France. He was ordained and served as a priest in his native diocese until he joined the Cistercians at Flay (St. Germer). He later was elected abbot, was apostolic legate to England for Pope Innocent III {1161  1216}, and was later sent by Innocent as his legate to combat Albigensianism in southern France.

1619 Bb. Mark, Stephen And Melchior, Martyrs at the instigation of the Calvinists;   They were canonized in 1995 as the Martyrs of Kosice by Pope John Paul II.

1627 Bl. Louis Maki Martyr of Japan layman The adopted son of Blessed Louis Maki. A Christian, he refused to abjure the faith when arrested and was burned alive at Nagasaki. Pope Pius IX beatified him in 1867.

1644 Bl. John Duckett  Martyr of England
1644 Bl. Ralph Corby Jesuit martyr of England; Both were beatified in 1929 and also 1644 Bl. Ralph Corby Jesuit martyr of England

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 06  2016
 585-590 Eleutherius of Spoleto, OSB Abbot  one favored by God with the gift of miracles (RM);  At Rome, the holy abbot Eleutherius, a servant of God, who, according to the testimony of Pope St. Gregory, raised a dead man to life by his prayers and tears.

7th v. St. Felix and Augebert 2 martyred English who were captured and sold into slavery in France. Ransomed by Pope St. Gregory I the Great, Felix became a priest and Augebert a deacon.

1258 Liberatus of Loro, OFM introduced initial austerity of Friars Minor with help of Blesseds Humilis and Pacificus(AC); The cultus of this beato was approved by Pope Pius IX in 1868, but his history is involved in a good deal of obscurity. 

1997 Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Albania now Skopje, Macedonia Ottoman
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the tiny woman recognized throughout the world for her work among the poorest of the poor, was beatified October 19, 2003. Among those present were hundreds of Missionaries of Charity, the Order she founded in 1950 as a diocesan religious community. Today the congregation also includes contemplative sisters and brothers and an order of priests.
Speaking in a strained, weary voice at the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II declared her blessed, prompting waves of applause before the 300,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square. In his homily, read by an aide for the aging pope, the Holy Father called Mother Teresa “one of the most relevant personalities of our age” and “an icon of the Good Samaritan.”

1947 Blessed Claudio Granzotto  Friars Minor sculptur;  Pope John Paul II said that Claudio made his sculpture "the privileged instrument" of his apostolate and evangelization. "His holiness was especially radiant in his acceptance of suffering and death in union with Christ’s Cross. Thus by consecrating himself totally to the Lord’s love, he became a model for religious, for artists in their search for God’s beauty and for the sick in his loving devotion to the Crucified" (L’Osservatore Romano, Vol. 47, No. 1, 1994).

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 05  2016
1316 BD RAYMUND LULL, MARTYR; Although Ramón’s whole life was a record of disappointment, his literary activity was incredible. Three hundred and thirteen different treatises are attri­buted to him, most of them in Latin or Catalan, but not a few are in Arabic. Some of his writings have been thought to deserve a note of theological censure, but there is also difficulty in determining in certain cases what is authentically his composi­tion. Nearly all of it gives proof of a tender piety, but he speaks fearlessly of the abuses then prevalent in the Church. Lull is celebrated liturgically by the Friars Minor and others, and Pope Pius XI speaks highly of him in his encyclical letter “Orientalium rerum” (1928), but without according him the title Blessed.

1340 Blessed Gentilis (Gentil) of Matelica sowed faith in Italy, Islamics of Egypt, Arabia, finally martyrd in Persia OFM M.  In 1433 Pope Eugenius IV appointed St Laurence to the bishopric of Castello, a diocese which included part of Venice. He tried hard to avoid this dignity and responsibility, and he took possession of his cathedral-church so privately that his own friends knew nothing of the matter till the ceremony was over. As a religious so as a prelate he was admirable for his sincere piety towards God and the greatness of his charity to the poor. He remitted nothing of the austerities which he had practised in the cloister, and from his prayer drew a light, courage and vigour which directed and animated him in his whole conduct; he pacified dissensions in the state and governed a diocese in most difficult times with as much ease as if it had been a single well-regulated convent.

1455 St. Lawrence Giustiniani Bishop of Venice; prior of San Giorgios; deep prayer life; raptures; penance provided him experiential knowledge  paths of  interior life ability to direct souls; tears shed offering Mass affected all who assisted awakened in them renewed faith.  In 1433 Pope Eugenius IV appointed St Laurence to the bishopric of Castello, a diocese which included part of Venice. He tried hard to avoid this dignity and responsibility, and he took possession of his cathedral-church so privately that his own friends knew nothing of the matter till the ceremony was over. As a religious so as a prelate he was admirable for his sincere piety towards God and the greatness of his charity to the poor. He remitted nothing of the austerities which he had practised in the cloister, and from his prayer drew a light, courage and vigour which directed and animated him in his whole conduct; he pacified dissensions in the state and governed a diocese in most difficult times with as much ease as if it had been a single well-regulated convent.  The popes of his time held St Laurence in great veneration. Eugenius IV, meeting him once at Bologna, saluted him with the words, “Welcome, ornament of bishops!” His successor, Nicholas V, equally esteemed him and in 1451 recognized his worth in no uncertain fashion.

1838 St. Joseph Canh native Martyr of Vietnam physician.   He was a native physician of Vietnam, a Dominican tertiary, and was beheaded by the Japanese authorities because of his refusal to deny Christ. Joseph was canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II.

1838 St. Peter Tu Vietnamese martyr native priest; Vietnamese, joined became a priest in his own country. He was beheaded. Pope John Paul II canonized him in 1988.

Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta September 5, 2006 1910-1997

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 04  2016

   78 St. Candida the Elder cured of an illness by St. Peter. In the 9th century, her relics were enshrined in Saint Praxedes church by Pope Saint Paschal I (Benedictines, Encyclopedia) .

423 Pope St. Boniface I;  gently, but firmly, defended the rights of the Holy See;  a strong supporter of St Augustine in his opposition to Pelagianism (RM)

  515  St. John, the Short, Arrival of the Holy Relic to the Wilderness of Scetis.  On this day also, in the year 515 A.D., the body of the great saint Anba John, the Short, was relocated from Al-Qulzum (Red Sea) to the wilderness of Scetis. When Pope John (Youhanna), 48th Pope of Alexandria, was in the wilderness of Scetis, some of the monks expressed their wish to relocate the relics of St. John, the Short, to his monastery. The Grace of God moved the Pope, and he wrote a letter by the hand of the Hegumen Kosman and Hegumen Boctor, from the elders, and sent them to Al-Qulzum.

1160  St. Rosalia hermit; descendant great Charlemagne; Pope Urban VIII entered her name in the Roman Martyrology, wherein she is mentioned twice, on this date (said to be of her death) and on July 15, the anniversary of the finding of her relics. With the bones were found a crucifix of terra-cotta, a Greek cross of silver, and a string of beads, twelve small and a large one, which was doubtless a rosary in one of its many early forms. The feast of St Rosalia on September 4 is still the principal popular festa among the Panormitans, who always look for a cleansing rain on the preceding days.
Her body was discovered several centuries later, in 1625, during the pontificate of Pope Urban VIII.

1251 St. Rose of Viterbo; At Viterbo, the translation of St. Rose the Virgin, of the Third Order of St. Francis, during the pontificate of Pope Alexander IV.  St Rose therefore returned to her parents' house, where she died on March 6 1252, about the age of seventeen. She was buried in the church of Santa Maria in Podio, but her body was on September 4 in 1258 translated to the church of the convent of St Mary of the Roses, as she had foretold. This church was burnt down in 1357 but her body was preserved and is annually carried in procession through the streets of Viterbo. Pope Innocent IV immediately after her death ordered an inquiry into the virtues of St Rose, but her canonization was not achieved until 1457.

1711 Blessed Joseph Vaz, the "Apostle of Sri Lanka several miracles attributed registered in Sri Lanka. "These records are regularly sent to Rome,"  few pilgrims from Goa visit his country, because "we don't have anything of Blessed Vaz." By Vatican proclamation, the venerated native son was declared patron of Goa in 2000.  Blessed Vaz died in Kandy, central Sri Lanka, which remained an independent kingdom during the time of Dutch rule over the rest of the island. The late Pope John Paul II beatified him, declaring him blessed, in Colombo in 1995.

1926 Blessed Dina Bélanger her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament transformed her into a woman of infectious joy despite illness;  Born in Québec, Canada, 1897; died 1929; beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1993. When Dina joined the Sisters of Jesus-Marie in Rome (founded by Saint Claudine Thevenet), she took the name Marie Sainte-Cecile of Rome to honor the patron of musicians because she was herself an accomplished pianist. During the course of her life as a sister, her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament transformed her into a woman of infectious joy despite illness. Her autobiography was published in Québec in 1984 (Catholic World News, May 1, 1997).

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 03  2016
 604  Saint Gregory, the raising to the Sovereign Pontificate of  Great Pope and Doctor of the Church.  After the death of Pelagius, St. Gregory was chosen Pope by the unanimous consent of priests and people. Now began those labors which merited for him the title of Great. His zeal extended over the entire known world, he was in contact with all the Churches of Christendom and, in spite of his bodily sufferings, and innumerable labors, he found time to compose a great number of works. He is known above all for his magnificent contributions to the Liturgy of the Mass and Office. He is one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church. He died March 12, 604. He is the patron of teachers.

1315 St. Andrew Dotti mystic granted visions Servite missionary.  He was buried in the church at Borgo San Sepolcro, where the popular veneration for his holiness was confirmed by miracles, and in 1806 Pope Pius VII approved the ancient cultus.

   Pope St. Pius X, whose birthday is mentioned on the 20th of August.
Sancti Pii Papæ Décimi, cujus natális dies tertiodécimo Kaléndas Septémbris recensétur.  THAT distinguished historian of earlier popes, Baron von Pastor, has written of Pope Pius X:

He was one of those chosen few men whose personality is irresistible. Everyone was moved by his simplicity and his angelic kindness. Yet it was something more that carried him into all hearts: and that “something” is best defined by saying that all who were ever admitted to his presence had a deep conviction of being face to face with a saint. And the more one knows about him the stronger this Conviction becomes.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  September 01  2016

520 St. Constantius Bishop of Aquino; renowned for the gift of prophecy. many virtues; mentioned by Pope St. Gregory the Great in his Dialogues.

543-615 'St Columbanus Was a 'Privileged Channel of God’s Grace' .   “Saint Columbanus, who according to Benedict XVI we can truly consider one of the ‘Fathers of Europe,’ was convinced that there can be fraternity in the heart of Europe between people only if a civilization exists that is open to God.”
  This statement was made by Pope Francis in a letter that Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sent on Francis' behalf for the 18th International Meeting of the Columbanus Community, on the 1400th anniversary of the death of the saint. It was sent to Bishop Gianni Ambrosio of Piacenza-Bobbio, Italy.

1490 St. Beatrice da Silva Meneses foundress.  canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1976.   In 1484, Beatrice founded the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The groups first house was the castle of Galliana, a gift from Queen Isabel. Beatrice died at Toledo on September 1, 1490

1367 BD JOAN SODERINI, VIRGIN her tomb at once became a place of pilgrimage.. In 1828 Count Soderini, a relative of Joan, petitioned Pope Leo XII for confirmation of this cultus, which was duly granted.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today  June 30
From Pope Clement I, successor of St. Peter: “It was through envy and jealousy that the greatest and most upright pillars of the Church were persecuted and struggled unto death.... First of all, Peter, who because of unreasonable jealousy suffered not merely once or twice but many times, and, having thus given his witness, went to the place of glory that he deserved. It was through jealousy and conflict that Paul showed the way to the prize for perseverance. He was put in chains seven times, sent into exile, and stoned; a herald both in the east and the west, he achieved a noble fame by his faith....”
250 Saint Martial Bishop of Limoges one of the first apostles of France; It is stated that Pope John XIX gave permission for the term “apostle" to be applied to St Martial, but the Congregation of Rites in 1854 refused to ratify this, deciding that he was to be venerated in the Mass, the litanies, and office as an ordinary bishop and confessor. It would seem, however, that the bishop of Limoges, in answer to a remonstrance and appeal addressed to Pius IX in the same year, was gratified with a favourable answer permitting that in that diocese St Martial should enjoy the style and precedence of an apostle.





Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 29
Pope Alexander II -- Nothing less than a decree issued by Pope Alexander II was required before Robert (1110 Robert of Molesme one of Cistercian founders movement a great reformer OSB Cist. Abbot RM) and the hermits could come together again; the decree appointed him their superior. But they did not last long in Collan, since Robert decided to leave that unhealthy site for a more salubrious setting in the forest of Molesmes (c. 1075).

Honoured as adviser by nine popes, consulted and venerated by all the sovereigns of western Europe, entrusted with the ultimate control of two hundred monasteries, St Hugh during the sixty years that he was abbot of Cluny raised its prestige to extraordinary heights.

Pope Gregory IX -- the year 1234, he (1252 St Peter of Verona inquisitor inspiring sermons martyr accepted into the Dominican Order by St. Dominic) was appointed by Pope Gregory IX as inquisitor of Northern Italy, where many Catharists lived. Peter's preaching attracted large crowds, but as inquisitor he made many enemies.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 30
Eutropius sent by Pope Saint Clement (100) as first bishop in Saintes evangelized inhabitants BM (RM)

1572 St. Pius V, Pope from 1566-1572 Catholic Reformation leader taught theology philosophy 16 years excessive zeal
as grand inquisitor wholeheartedly devoted to the religious life published Roman Catechism revised Roman Breviary and Roman Missal organized Battle of Lepanto

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 28
Pope Pius XII -- 1716 Saint Louis de Monfort founded the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Wisdom.  He was renowned for his preaching and devotion to the Blessed Mother, and was added to the number of the saints by Pope Pius XII.
Pope Clement XI --  1775 Sancti Pauli a Cruce, Presbyteri et Confessóris; qui Congregatiónis a Cruce et Passióne Dómini nostri Jesu Christi
Cross was endowed with extraordinary gifts. He prophesied future events, healed the sick, and even during his lifetime appeared on various occasions in vision to persons far away In 1714 Paul went to Venice in response to the appeal of Pope Clement XI for volunteers to fight in the Venetian army against the Turks

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 27
Pope Innocent XII. -- 1485 Blessed James of Bitetto heroic humility; levitate during prayer; accurately predict the future; incorrupted body remains; many miracles Many miracles were ascribed to his intercession, and in the garden at Bitetto there used to be a juniper tree which he had planted, the berries of which were said to possess healing properties. He was beatified by Pope Innocent XII.  The notice of James de Bitetto in the Acta Sanctorum, April, vol. iii, is interesting because this is one of the cases in which the Bollandists have had access to the documents submitted for the beatification process, and have been able to print the evidence of the various witnesses.

Nazareth is the School of the Gospel (II)
It is first a lesson of silence.
May the esteem of silence be born in us anew, this admirable and indispensable condition of the spirit, in us who are assailed by so much clamor, noise and shouting in our modern life, so noisy and hyper sensitized. O silence of Nazareth, teach us recollection, interiority, disposition to listen to the good inspirations and words of the true masters; teach us the need and value of preparation, study, meditation, personal and interior life, and prayer that God alone sees in secret.
It is a lesson of family life.
May Nazareth teach us what a family is, with its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, its sacred and inviolable character; let us learn from Nazareth how sweet and irreplaceable is the formation one receives within it; let us learn how primordial its role is on the social level.
It is a lesson of work. Nazareth, the house of the carpenter's son; it is there that we would like to understand and celebrate the severe and redeeming law of human labor; there, to reestablish the conscience of work's nobility; to remind people that working cannot be an end in itself, but that its freedom and nobility come, in addition to its economic value, from the value that finalize it; how we wish to salute here all the workers of the world and show them their great model, their divine brother, the prophet of all their just causes, Christ Our Lord.
Homily of Paul VI in Nazareth January 5, 1964

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 26
91 St. Cletus Pope eminent virtue martyr canon of the Roman mass among St. Peter's 1st disciple 3rd Pope after Linus
304 Marcellinus Pope M (RM)
Pope Saint Gregory VII   860 Paschasius Radbertus abandoned at convent asked to be forgotten simply asks for prayers to God left works dealing with the body and blood of Christ the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (De Corpore et Sanguine Christe) commentary on Saint Matthew's Gospel (12 volumes) composed treatise on the Virgin defend her perpetual virginity long exposition on Psalm 44 and another on the Lamentations of Jeremiah wrote biographies of 2 abbots -Corbie OSB Abbot (AC) -- Radbertus was buried in Saint John's Chapel. His body was translated into the great church, in 1073, by authority of the Pope Saint Gregory VII.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 25
From that time Photius's life  891 Photius career of scholarship and public service at the imperial court legitimate patriarch of Constantinople Orthodox objection to doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Filioque) is one of difficulties between himself and Pope Saint Nicholas I and his successor Adrian II, complicated by the fluctuations of Byzantine politics--a long, complex, and often obscure struggle that is a matter of ecclesiastical history. It did not end until 879 when, Ignatius being dead, Pope John VIII recognized Photius as the legitimate patriarch of Constantinople and peace was restored between the churches.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 24
Pope St Gregory the Great despatched  to England in 601:  624 St Mellitus of Canterbury missionary Archbishop of Canterbury from 619
Pius XII, Sovereign Pontiff, enrolled among the number of the saints at Angers in France, St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, virgin and foundress of the Institute of the Good Shepherd Sisters.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 22
 174 Soter, Pope charity personal kindness care for persecuted condemned Montanists (RM)
 282 The Departure of the Holy Father Anba Maximus The Fifteenth Pope of Alexandria.
 296 Saint Caius, Pope Dalmatian M (RM)
167 to 175 Pope Soter and Caius, Saints and Popes
They have their feast together on 22 April, on which day they appear in most of the martyrologies, though Notker and a few others give Soter on the 21st and Caius on the 19th or 21st.
 536 Pope Agapitus I archdeacon opposed Monophysites Pope (RM) in the opinion of Pope St Gregory I he was “a trumpet of the gospel and a herald of righteousness”.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 21
Pope Clement XI in 1720, 1109 Anselm of Canterbury Doctor of the Church OSB B Cur Deus Homo, the most famous treatise on the Incarnation ever written; canonized and included among the Doctors of the Church by Pope Clement XI in 1720.  An attempt to persuade Pope Urban II to depose the saint was equally futile.  After due consideration Paschal II confirmed his predecessor’s decisions, and Henry thereupon sent word to St Anselm forbidding his return if he continued recalcitrant, and pronouncing the confiscation of his revenues.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 21
Pope St. Gregory the Great. -- 599 St. Anastasius XI Antioch Patriarch learning holiness comforting afflicted observed perpetual silence except for charityIn 593 Anastasius was restored to his see by Pope St. Gregory the Great.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 21
Pope Pius XI -- 1163 Blessed Fastred of Cambron abbot-founder of Cambron obligation to poverty OSB Cist. Abbot (AC) Being renowned for miracles, Pope Pius XI enrolled him among the number of the saints.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 20
On April 20, 1940, Pope Pius XII fittingly addressed these eloquent words in the city of Genoa for the anniversary of this event: "Genoese, bow down to Columbus, not only to the bold navigator who overcame opposition from scientists and the fury of the ocean, but also to a great servant of Our Lady.   He placed his expedition under Mary's protection and gave his caravel the name of Santa Maria. When he climbed aboard his ship, he said farewell to a surprised and skeptical Europe;  he ventured on the fierce waves and reaching the end of his journey
he kneeled before Jesus, who calmed the storms, and before Mary, the star of the sea."
Encyclopedia Maria Vol. IV - Beauchesne 1956.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 19
1054    Leo IX "the pilgrim pope" - reformer deacon a stern bishop holy man & army officer  Pope (RM)

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints today; April 18
Alexander III 1159-81: granted privileges were to the abbey of 1167 Idesbald of Dunes court of Flanders OSB Cist. Abbot

Popes mentioned in todays  articles of Saints April 13
655 Saint Martin the Confessor, Pope of Rome native of the Tuscany convened Lateran Council at Rome condemn Monothelite heresy last martyred Pope
Pope Paschal II, {Pope Paschal II Succeeded Urban II, and reigned from 13 Aug., 1099, till he died at Rome, 21 Jan., 1118.

 Popes mentioned in articles of Saints April 12
649-655 Pope St. Martin I defender of the faith; buried in the church of Our Lady, called Blachernæ, near Cherson
Sancti Martíni Primi, Papæ et Mártyris, cujus dies natális sextodécimo Kaléndas Octóbris recensétur.
    The Feast of St. Martin I, pope and martyr, whose birthday is mentioned on the 16th day of September.

Many miracles are related wrought by St Martin in life and after death; Pope St. Martin I of noble birth, great student, commanding intelligence, profound learning, great charity to the poor Saint Martin the Confessor, Pope of Rome native of the Tuscany convened Lateran Council at Rome condemn Monothelite heresy;
Last martyred Pope.
655 Martin I, Pope died in the Crimea great intellect and charity the last pope to die a martyr M (RM)
Born in Todi in Umbria, Italy; died in the Crimea, September 16, 655; feast day was previously November 12 (November 10 in York);
the Eastern Church celebrates his feast on September 20.

336 St. Julius elected Pope to succeed Pope St. Mark on February 6, 337 built several basilicas and churches in Rome
        declared that Athanasius was the rightful bishop of Alexandria and reinstated him

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Pope St. Leo I (the Great) April 11
"And to the angel of the Church of Pergamum write: the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword. I know where you live, where the throne of Satan is, and you cleave unto My Name, and have not renounced My faith, even in those days when Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwells" (Rev 2:12-13).  St. Antipas


Pope Urban V, in 1360, appointed 1374 Blessed Antony of Pavoni  consistent poverty of Antony's life & example of Christian virtue combatting heresies of Lombards OP inquisitor-general of Lombardy and Genoa, making him one of the youngest men ever to hold that office. It was a difficult and dangerous job for a young priest of 34. Besides being practically a death sentence to any man who held the office, it carried with it the necessity of arguing with the men most learned in a twisted and subtle heresy.  Antony worked untiringly in his native city, and his apostolate lasted 14 years.
432 Saint Celestine Pope of Rome (422-432) zealous champion of Orthodoxy virtuous life theologian authority denounced the Nestorian heresy

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
 180 Saint Hegesippus Father of Church History Jewish convert {Eusebius drew heavily on his writings for  Ecclesiastical History (Book I  through  Book X)}


432 Celestine I Pope treatise against semi-Pelagianism
Born in Campania, Italy; died at Rome, July 27, 432; feast day formerly on July 27 and/or August 1. Saint Celestine was a deacon in Rome when he was elected pope on September 20, 422, to succeed Saint Boniface. He was a staunch supporter of Saint Germanus of Auxerre in the fight against Pelagianism, and a friend of Saint Augustine with whom he corresponded, and which demonstrates that the bishop of Rome was the central authority even at that early date.

About the year 1234 Pope Gregory IX appointed 1252 St. Peter of Verona inquisitor inspiring sermons martyr accepted into the Dominican Order by St. Dominicinquisitor general for the Milanese territories.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
St Leo IX -- 1095 Saint Gerald of Sauve-Majeure monk cellarer of abbey Corbie; founded, directed, Benedictine Abbey of Grande -Sauveabbot  author of a hagiology His abbot chose him as companion to go with him to Rome, where he hoped the sufferer might be cured.Together they visited the tombs of the Apostles, and at the hands of St Leo IX Gerald was ordained priest.
Pope Urban IV) -- 1258 Blessed Juliana of Mount Cornillon visions in which Jesus pointed out that there was no feast in honor of the Blessed Sacrament OSA V (AC) her mission to some of her friends, notably to Bd Eva, a recluse who lived beside St Martin’s church on the opposite bank of the river, and to a saintly woman, Isabel of Huy, whom she had received into her community. Encouraged no doubt by the support of these two, she opened her heart to a learned canon of St Martin’s, John of Lausanne, asking him to consult theologians as to the propriety of such a feast. James Pantaleon (afterwards Pope Urban IV), Hugh of St Cher, the Dominican prior provincial, Bishop Guy of Cambrai, chancellor of the University of Paris, with other learned men, were approached, and decided that there was no theological or canonical objection to the institution of a festival in honour of the Blessed Sacrament.
127 Sixtus I, Pope survived as pope for about 10 years before being killed by the Roman authorities M (RM)
 Romæ natális beáti Xysti Primi, Papæ et Mártyris; qui, tempóribus Hadriáni Imperatóris, summa cum laude rexit Ecclésiam, ac demum, sub Antoníno Pio, ut sibi Christum lucrifáceret, libénter mortem sustínuit temporálem.
      At Rome, the birthday of blessed Pope Sixtus the First, martyr, who ruled the Church with distinction during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, and finally in the reign of Antoninus Pius he gladly accepted temporal death in order to gain Christ for himself.  (also known as Xystus)



Saint Leo the Great --  469 St. Abundius Greek priest bishop noted theologian obvious intellect and holiness attended Councils of Chalcedon and Milan, Hermit (RM) (also known as Abondius, Abundias) Died c. 500. Saint Abundius, a Greek priest, was consecrated bishop of Como in northern Italy. Because he was an able theologian, Saint Leo the Great entrusted him with a mission to Emperor Theodosius the Younger, which led to the convening of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. At the council, Abundius presided as the pope's legate (Attwater2, Benedictines).
6th v. St. Musa Virgin child of Rome; a great mystic, visions and ecstasies, reported by St. Gregory I the Great

1220 Jacqueline V Hermit recluse in Sicily reprimanded Pope Innocent III

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
During his 52-year episcopacy, 1132 St. Hugh of Grenoble Benedictine bishop amazing modesty took upon himself all sins of others the cross he carried was heavy laden holy and redemptive great reputation for miracles:
vainly tendered his resignation to each pope--Gregory VII, Gelasius II, Calixtus II, Honorius II, Innocent II, and others--and they refused him because of his outstanding ability. He never ceased imploring them to release him from the duties of his episcopal office up to the day of his death. During his last, painful illness he was tormented by headaches and stomach disorders that resulted from his long fasts and vigils, yet never complained. For a short time before his death, he lost his memory for everything but prayer, and would recite the Psalter and the Our Father unceasingly.

 440 Pope St. Sixtus III approved Acts of the Council of Ephesus endeavoured to restore peace between Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch prominent among the Roman clergy and in correspondence with St. Augustine
Romæ sancti Xysti Tértii, Papæ et Confessóris.    At Rome, St. Sixtus III, pope and confessor.
Pope Martin V -- The Observant reform which had been initiated in the middle of the fourteenth century still found itself hampered in many ways by the administration of superiors general who held a different standard of perfection, and on the other hand there had also been exaggerations in the direction of much greater austerity culminating eventually in the heretical teachings of the Fraticelli. All these difficulties required adjustment, and Capistran, working in harmony with St Bernardino of Siena, was called upon to bear a large share in this burden. After the general chapter held at Assisi in 1430, St John was appointed to draft the conclusions at which the assembly arrived, and these “Martinian statutes”, as they were called, in virtue of their confirmation by Pope Martin V, are among the most important in the history of the order.
Aeneas Sylvius (the future Pope Pius II) -- St John Capistran was sent as commissary and inquisitor general, and he set out for Vienna in 1451 with twelve of his Franciscan brethren to assist him. It is beyond doubt that his coming produced a great sensation. Aeneas Sylvius (the future Pope Pius II) tells us how, when he entered Austrian territory, “priests and people came out to meet him, carrying the sacred relics. They received him as a legate of the Apostolic See, as a preacher of truth, as some great prophet sent by God. They came down from the mountains to greet John, as though Peter or Paul or one of the other apostles were journeying there. They eagerly kissed the hem of his garment, brought their sick and afflicted to his feet, and it is reported that very many were cured. . . . The elders of the city met him and conducted him to Vienna. No square in the city could contain the crowds. They looked on him as an angel of God.”
Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
 St. Venturino of Bergamo is also known for helping to organize a crusade, at the behest of Pope Clement VI (r. 1342-1352), against the Turks who were then menacing Europe.


150 St. Mark & Timothy Roman martyrs of post-apostolic times mentioned in a letter by Pope St. Pius I


 752 Pope St. Zachary 741 - 752 Zachary I, Pope known for his learning & sanctity chosen pope in 741 to succeed Saint Gregory III (RM)
Pope Zacharias_Zachary Pope Zachary was a peace-maker and judged no man without a hearing.
Zachary was also responsible for restoring Montecassino under Saint Petronax and himself consecrated its abbey church in 748. The saint was known for aiding the poor, provided refuge to nuns driven from Constantinople by the iconoclasts, ransomed slaves from the Venetians, forbade the selling of Christian slaves to the Moors of Africa, and translated Saint Gregory the Great's Dialogues into Greek. Since "Zacharias embraced and cherished all people like a father and a good shepherd, and never allowed even the smallest injustice to happen to anyone," he was venerated as a saint immediately after his death (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Husenbeth, Schamoni).

Frequent and daily Communion is greatly desired by our Lord and the Church. Pope St. Pius X
 
A meditation during the Great Fast...
“It is necessary most of all for one who is fasting to curb anger,
to accustom himself to meekness and condescension,
to have a contrite heart,
to repulse impure thoughts and desires, to examine his conscience,
to put his mind to the test and to verify what good has been done by us in this or any other week,
and which deficiency we have corrected in ourselves in the present week.
This is true fasting.” – Saint John Chrysostom

March 21 – Our Lady of Nowy Swierjan (Russia)
Hail, Holy Mother of God -- Pope Francis
Jesus Christ is the blessing for every man and woman ... The Church, in giving us Jesus, offers us the fullness of the Lord’s blessing. This is precisely the mission of the people of God: to spread to all peoples God’s blessing made flesh in Jesus Christ. And Mary, the first and most perfect disciple of Jesus, the first and most perfect believer, the model of the pilgrim Church, is the one who opens the way to the Church’s motherhood and constantly sustains her maternal mission to all mankind. Mary’s tactful maternal witness has accompanied the Church from the beginning. She, the Mother of God, is also the Mother of the Church, and through the Church, the mother of all men and women, and of every people. …

Let us look to Mary, let us contemplate the Holy Mother of God. I suggest that you all greet her together, just like those courageous people of Ephesus, who cried out before their pastors when they entered Church: “Hail, Holy Mother of God!” What a beautiful greeting for our Mother. There is a story – I do not know if it is true – that some among those people had clubs in their hands, perhaps to make the Bishops understand what would happen if they did not have the courage to proclaim Mary “Mother of God”! I invite all of you, without clubs, to stand up and to greet her three times with this greeting of the early Church: “Hail, Holy Mother of God!”  Pope Francis; Homily, Holy Mass on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
Vatican Basilica, January 1, 2015
Pope’s Prayer in Pompeii
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Virgin of the Holy Rosary, Mother of the Redeemer, our earthly Lady raised above the heavens, humble servant of the Lord, proclaimed Queen of the world, from the depth of our miseries we turn to you. With the faithfulness of children we look to your sweet gaze.

Crowned with twelve stars, you bring us to the mystery of the Father, you shine the splendor of the Holy Spirit, you give us our Divine Child, Jesus, our hope, our only salvation in the world. Comforted by your Rosary, you invite us to be fixed to his gaze. You open to us His heart, abyss of joy and sorry, of light and glory, mystery of the son of God, made man for us. At your feet in the footsteps of the saints, we feel as God’s family.

Mother and model of the Church, you are our guide and secure support. Make us one heart and one mind, a strong people on the way towards the heavenly homeland. We entrust our miseries, the many streets of hate and blood, the thousands of ancient and new poverties and above all, our sins. To you we entrust ourselves, Mother of Mercy: grant us the forgiveness of God, help us to build a world according to your heart.

O Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain that ties us to God, chain of love that makes us brothers, we will not leave you again. You will be in our hands a weapon of peace and forgiveness, star that guides our path. And the kiss to you with our last breath, we plunge into a wave of light, in the vision of the beloved Mother and the Son of God, the desire and joy of our heart, with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.
1086 ST ANSELM, BISHOP OF Lucca
IT was in 1036 that St Anselm was born in Mantua, and in 1073 his uncle, Pope Alexander II, nominated him to the bishopric of Lucca, left vacant by his own elevation to the chair of St Peter, and sent him to Germany to receive from the Emperor Henry IV the crozier and the ring— in accordance with the regrettable custom of the time. Anselm, however, was so strongly convinced that the secular power had no authority to confer ecclesiastical dignities that he could not bring himself to accept investiture from the emperor and returned to Italy without it. Only after he had been consecrated by Alexander’s successor, Pope St Gregory VII, did he consent to accept from Henry the crozier and the ring, and even then he felt scruples of conscience on the subject. These doubts led him to leave his diocese and to withdraw to a congregation of Cluniac monks at Polirone. A dignitary of such high-minded views could ill be spared, and Pope Gregory recalled him from his retirement and sent him back to Lucca to resume the government of his diocese. Zealous with regard to discipline, he strove to enforce among his canons the common life enjoined by the decree of Pope St Leo IX. In acute discordance with the edifying example accredited to them above in our notice of St Frediano, the canons refused to obey, although they were placed under an interdict by the pope and afterwards excommunicated. Countess Matilda of Tuscany undertook to expel them, but they raised a revolt and, being supported by the Emperor Henry, drove the bishop out of the city in 1079.
752 Zachary I, Pope known for his learning & sanctity chosen pope in 741 to succeed Saint Gregory III (RM)
(also known as Zacharias) Born at San Severino, Calabria, Italy; died 752; feast day formerly on March 22; feast day in the East is September 5.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, writing in the latter quarter of the second century, reckons him as the fifth pope in succession from the Apostles, though he says nothing of his martyrdom. His pontificate is variously dated by critics, e. g. 106-115 (Duchesne) or 109-116 (Lightfoot). In Christian antiquity he was credited with a pontificate of about ten years (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. IV, i,) and there is no reason to doubt that he was on the "catalogue of bishops" drawn up at Rome by Hegesippus (Eusebius, IV, xxii, 3) before the death of Pope Eleutherius (c. 189). According to a tradition extant in the Roman Church at the end of the fifth century, and recorded in the Liber Pontificalis he suffered a martyr's death by decapitation on the Via Nomentana in Rome, 3 May. The same tradition declares him to have been a Roman by birth and to have ruled the Church in the reign of Trajan (98-117). It likewise attributes to him, but scarcely with accuracy, the insertion in the canon of the Qui Pridie, or words commemorative of the institution of the Eucharist, such being certainly primitive and original in the Mass. He is also said to have introduced the use of blessing water mixed with salt for the purification of Christian homes from evil influences (constituit aquam sparsionis cum sale benedici in habitaculis hominum). Duchesne (Lib. Pont., I, 127) calls attention to the persistence of this early Roman custom by way of a blessing in the Gelasian Sacramentary that recalls very forcibly the actual Asperges prayer at the beginning of Mass. In 1855, a semi-subterranean cemetery of the holy martyrs Sts. Alexander, Eventulus, and Theodulus was discovered near Rome, at the spot where the above mentioned tradition declares the Pope to have been martyred. According to some archaeologists, this Alexander is identical with the Pope, and this ancient and important tomb marks the actual site of the Pope's martyrdom. Duchesne, however (op. cit., I, xci-ii) denies the identity of the martyr and the pope, while admitting that the confusion of both personages is of ancient date, probably anterior to the beginning of the sixth century when the Liber Pontificalis was first compiled [Dufourcq, Gesta Martyrum Romains (Paris, 1900), 210-211]. The difficulties raised in recent times by Richard Lipsius (Chronologie der römischen Bischofe, Kiel, 1869) and Adolph Harnack (Die Zeit des Ignatius u. die Chronologie der antiochenischen Bischofe, 1878) concerning the earliest successors of St. Peter are ably discussed and answered by F. S. (Cardinal Francesco Segna) in his "De successione priorum Romanorum Pontificum" (Rome 1897); with moderation and learning by Bishop Lightfoot, in his "Apostolic Fathers: St. Clement ' (London, 1890) I, 201-345- especially by Duchesne in the introduction to his edition of the "Liber Pontificalis" (Paris, 1886) I, i-xlviii and lxviii-lxxiii. The letters ascribed to Alexander I by PseudoIsidore may be seen in P. G., V, 1057 sq., and in Hinschius, "Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae" (Leipzig, 1863) 94-105. His remains are said to have been transferred to Freising in Bavaria in 834 (Dummler, Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, Berlin, 1884, II, 120). His so-called "Acts" are not genuine, and were compiled at a much later date (Tillemont, Mem. II, 590 sqq; Dufourcq, op. cit., 210-211).

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints

the monothelite heresy condemned by Pope St Martin I at the Council of the Lateran in 649.
 604 Saint Gregory Dialogus granted a vision of the Lord Himself Pope of Rome used inheritance to establish 6 monasteries
 Romæ sancti Gregórii Primi, Papæ, Confessóris et Ecclésiæ Doctóris exímii; qui, ob res præcláræ gestas atque Anglos ad Christi fidem convérsos, Magnus est dictus et Anglórum Apóstolus appellátus.
      At Rome, St. Gregory, pope and eminent doctor of the Church, who on account of his illustrious deeds and the conversion of the English to the faith of Christ, was surnamed the Great, and called the Apostle of England.
Born in Rome around the year 540. His grandfather was Pope Felix, and his mother Sylvia (November 4) and aunts Tarsilla and Emiliana were also numbered among the saints by the Roman Church. Having received a most excellent secular education, he attained high government positions.  
604 ST GREGORY THE GREAT, POPE, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
POPE GREGORY I, most justly called “the Great”, and the first pope who had been a monk, was elected to the apostolic chair when Italy was in a terrible condition after the struggle between the Ostrogoths and the Emperor Justinian, which ended with the defeat and death of Totila in 562.
The saint’s family, one of the few patrician families left in the city, was distinguished also for its piety, having given to the Church two popes, Agapitus I and Felix III, Gregory’s great-great-grandfather

Popes mentioned in articles of todays Saints

Pope Benedict XIV placed him 1456 St. Peter Regulatus noble family Franciscan reformer severe asceticism levitate ecstasies  SEE ALSO MAY 13 At Aquileria in Spain, the confessor St. Peter Regulatus, priest of the Order of Friars Minor.  He was born in Valladolid, and restored the regular discipline in the Spanish monasteries.  Pope Benedict XIV placed him on the roll of saints. b. 1390

the monothelite heresy condemned by Pope St Martin I at the Council of the Lateran in 649.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Pope Leo XIII --1550 St. John of God impulsive love embraced anyone in need St. John of God, founder of the Order of Brothers Hospitallers, famed for his mercy to the poor, and his contempt of self.  Pope Leo XIII appointed him as heavenly patron of the sick and of all hospitals.


260 Pontius of Carthage Deacon; graphic account of the life and passion of Saint Cypri

254 St. Lucius I a Roman elected Pope to succeed Pope St. Cornelius
Pope St Gregory VII-- 1123 St. Peter of Pappacarbone Benedictine bishop leadership, care, and wisdom The abbot’s opinion was abundantly justified, for Peter proved himself well among that household of holy men and he remained there for some six years. He was then recalled to Italy, having been released by St Hugh apparently at the request of the archdeacon of Rome, Hilde­brand (who was afterwards Pope St Gregory VII).
Pope St Silvester; -- 803 St. Anselm of Nonantola Benedictine abbot duke
St. Anselm also received from Pope Stephen III permission to remove to Nonantola the body of Pope St Silvester; and Langobard King Aistulf enriched the abbey with gifts and granted it many privileges it became very celebrated throughout all Italy.
Popes mentioned in articles of Saints

492 ST. FELIX III Pope helped to get the Church in Africa on its feet
492 ST. FELIX III Pope helped to get the Church in Africa on its feet
 Romæ natális sancti Felícis Papæ Tértii, qui sancti Gregórii Magni átavus fuit; qui étiam (ut ipse Gregórius refert), sanctæ Tharsíllæ nepti appárens, illam ad cæléstia regna vocávit.
       At Rome, the birthday of Pope St. Felix III, ancestor of St. Gregory the Great, who relates of him that he appeared to St. Tharsilla, his niece, and called her to the kingdom of heaven.
492 ST FELIX II (III), POPE  483 - 492
Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
468  St. Hilary, Pope from 461-468 guardian of Church unity sent decree to Eastern bishops validating decisions of General Councils Nicaea Ephesus and Chalcedon. Hilary consolidated the Church in Sandi, Africa, and Gaul
731 Saint Pope Gregory II served St Sergius I next 4 popes as treasurer of the Church, then librarian, Held synods to correct abuses, stopped heresy, promoted discipline, morality in religious and clerical life

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Benedict VII -- 1011 St. Willigis Bishop missionaries to Scandinavia, founded churches chaplain to Emperor Otto II
On the death of Otto, Willigis became one of the most important and influential people in the empire.
Confirmed by Benedict VII in the right to coronate emperors, Willigis crowned Otto III and later influenced him in favor of abandoning Italy and concentrating his resources north of the Alps. Otto III died young in 1002. The succession was disputed but ended with Willigis crowning Saint Henry II and his wife Saint Cunegund at Paderborn. He then served his third monarch faithfully.


Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Ordained by Pope Vigilius in 546.  556 St. Maximian of Ravenna Bishop of Ravenna erected St. Vitalis Basilica, which was dedicated in the presence of Emperor Justinian and his wife, Theodora Maximianus of Ravenna B (RM) Born in Pola, Italy, 499; died February 22, 556; feast day formerly February 21. Maximianus was consecrated bishop of Ravenna in 546 by Pope Vigilius.

Pope Julius II died on this day in 1513.  During his reign as pope he laid the cornerstone for St. Peter's Basilica.  
He also commissioned Michelangelo Buonarotti to paint the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chaper.


Pope Leo XIII.  1233 7 Founders of the Order of Servites On the Feast of the Assumption ; canonized in 1887 by Pope Leo XIII.

Clement VII in 1533 approved The cultus of Bd Verdiana who appears in the habit of a Vallombrosan nun, carrying a basket with two snakes in it. It seems certain she was associated with the Vallombrosan Order, but her connection with the Franciscan third order is by no means so clearly established.

Pope Callistus III allowed BD EUSTOCHIUM OF MESSINA, VIRGIN to found another convent to follow the first rule of St Francis under the Observants. 

Quote: Pope Paul VI’s 1969 Instruction on the Contemplative Life includes this passage:  
 "To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to associating themselves more intimately with Christ’s passion, and it enables them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland" (#1).

"Christianity is not a moral code or a philosophy, but an encounter with a person" -- Benedict XVI

"To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to associating themselves more intimately with Christ’s passion, and it enables them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland" (#1).

731 Pope Gregory II, 89th Pope: educated at the Lateran  restore clerical discipline, fought heresies  helped restore and rebuild churches (including Saint Paul-Outside-the-Walls), hospitals, and monasteries, including Monte Cassino under Petrona The outstanding concern of his pontificate was his difficulties with Emperor Leo III the Isaurian    (RM)

824 Pope St. Paschal elected as the 94th pope on the day Pope Stephen IV (V) died, January 25, 817 unsuccessful in attempts to end the iconoclast heresy of Emperor Leo V, encouraged SS. Nicephorous and Theodore Studites in Constantinople to resist iconoclasm, and gave refuge to the many Greek monks who fled to Rome to escape persecution from the iconoclasts.   Popes Html link here: 

731 Gregory II, 89th Pope educated at the Lateran  restore clerical discipline, fought heresies  helped restore and rebuild churches (including Saint Paul-Outside-the-Walls), hospitals, and monasteries, including Monte Cassino under Petrona The outstanding concern of his pontificate was his difficulties with Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (RM)
824 St. Paschal elected as the 94th pope on the day Pope Stephen IV (V) died, January 25, 817
Pope Innocent III had experienced a similar vision. Without hesitation Innocent provided papal approval for the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives (the Trinitarians), with John of Matha as superior.
824 St. Paschal elected as the 94th pope on the day Pope Stephen IV (V) died, January 25, 817 unsuccessful in attempts to end the iconoclast heresy of Emperor Leo V, encouraged SS. Nicephorous and Theodore Studites in Constantinople to resist iconoclasm, and gave refuge to the many Greek monks who fled to Rome to escape persecution from the iconoclasts.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
1198 - 1216 Pope Innocent III;
One of the greatest popes of the Middle Ages; a learned theologian; one of the greatest jurists of his time; held various ecclesiastical offices during short reigns of Lucius III, Urban III, Gregory VIII, and Clement III; re-established papal authority in Rome; scarcely a country in Europe over which Innocent III did not in some way or other assert supremacy he claimed for the papacy;
During his reign two great founders of the mendicant orders, St. Dominic and St. Francis, laid before him their scheme of reforming the world. Innocent was not blind to the vices of luxury and indolence which had infected many of the clergy and part of the laity.
In Dominic and Francis he recognized two mighty adversaries of these vices and he sanctioned their projects with words of encouragement.  He wrote "De quadripartita specie nuptiarum" (P. L., CCXVII, 923-968), an exposition of the fourfold marriage bond, namely, between man and wife, between Christ and the Church, between God and the just soul, between the Word and human nature - - entirely based on passages from Holy Scripture.  Popes Html link here: 

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Gregory IV (827-44) # 102
Elected near the end of 827; died January, 844. When Gregory was born is not known, but he was a Roman and the son of John. Before his election to the papacy he was the Cardinal-Priest of the Basilica of St. Mark, which he adorned with mosaics yet visible. For his piety and learning he was ordained priest by Paschal I. This man, of distinguished appearance and high birth, was raised to the chair of Peter, despite his protestations of unfitness, mainly buy the instrumentality of the secular nobility of Rome who were then securing a preponderating influence in papal elections. But the representatives in Rome of the Emperor Louis the Pious would not allow him to be consecrated until his election had been approved by their master. This interference caused such delay that it was not, seemingly, till about March, 828, that he began to govern the Church.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Clement IX 1667-1669: 1670 St. Charles of Sezze Franciscan Pope Clement IX called Charles to his bedside for a blessing;

Pope Pius XI -- 1888 ST JOHN BOSCO, FOUNDER OF THE SALESIANS OF DON Bosco
“IN his life the supernatural almost became the natural and the extraordinary ordinary.” These were the words of Pope Pius XI in speaking of that great lover of children, Don Bosco.

At Paris St. Thomas was honored with the friendship of the King, St. Louis, with whom he frequently dined. In 1261, Urban IV called him to Rome where he was appointed to teach, but he positively declined to accept any ecclesiastical dignity. St. Thomas not only wrote (his writings filled twenty hefty tomes characterized by brilliance of thought and lucidity of language), but he preached often and with greatest fruit. Clement IV offered him the archbishopric of Naples which he also refused. He left the great monument of his learning, the "Summa Theologica", unfinished, for on his way to the second Council of Lyons, ordered there by Gregory X, he fell sick and died at the Cistercian monastery of Fossa Nuova in 1274.
St. Thomas declared Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius V.

 Romæ sancti Vitaliáni Papæ.       At Rome, St. Vitalian, pope.
Whereas in the Lord's Prayer, we are bidden to ask for 'our daily bread,' the Holy Fathers of the Church all but unanimously teach that by these words must be understood, not so much that material bread which is the support of the body, as the Eucharistic bread, which ought to be our daily food. -- Pope St. Pius X
Then in 1525, since it was a Holy Year of Jubilee, Angela Merici went as a pilgrim to Rome to gain the great jubilee indulgence. When she had an audience with the Pope Clement VII, he tried to persuade her to stay at Rome and head a congregation of nursing sisters. But she was still convinced of her calling to education work. In fact, years before, she had experienced a vision in which she saw a group of young women ascending to heaven on a ladder of light. A voice had then said:
“Take heed, Angela; before you die you will found at Brescia a company of maidens similar to those you have just seen.”
     It was April 1533 that she made this prophecy come true. The Ursalines

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Pope Gregory IX 1227-1241 , having called St Raymund to Rome in 1230, nominated him to various offices and took him likewise for his confessor, in which capacity Raymund enjoined the pope, for a penance, to receive, hear and expedite im­mediately all petitions presented by the poor. Gregory also ordered the saint to gather into one body all the scattered decrees of popes and councils since the collection made by Gratian in 1150. In three years Raymund completed his task, and the five books of the “Decretals” were confirmed by the same Pope Gregory in 1234. Down to the publication of the new Codex Juris Canonici in 1917 this compilation of St Raymund was looked upon as the best arranged part of the body of canon law, on which account the canonists usually chose it for the text of their commentaries.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints

250 St. Fabian layperson dove descended this stranger was elected Pope able built Church of Rome
Pope ST FABIAN succeeded St Antherus in the pontificate about the year 236. Eusebius relates that in an assembly of the people and clergy held to elect the new pope, a dove flew in and settled on the head of St Fabian.

Pope Paschal II 1086 St. Canute IV Martyred king of Denmark -- authorized the veneration of St Canute, though it is not easy to see upon what his claim to martyrdom rests. Aelnoth adds that the first preachers of Christianity in Denmark and Scandinavia were Englishmen, and that the Swedes were the most difficult to convert.

Pope Leo XIII 1924 Saint Joseph Sebastian Pelczar; Bishop of Przemysl in 1900 until his death in 1924. He made frequent visits to the parishes, supported the religious orders, conducted three synods, and worked for the education and religious formation of his priests.
He worked for the implentation of the social doctrine described in the writings of Pope Leo XIII.

The Church without Mary is an orphanage
 Pope Francis:
“It is very different to try and grow in the faith without Mary's help. It is something else. It is like growing in the faith, yes, but in a Church that is an orphanage. A Church without Mary is an orphanage. With Mary—she educates us, she makes us grow, she accompanies us, she touches consciences. She knows how to touch consciences, for repentance.”
Pope Francis Speech of October 25, 2014, to the Schönstatt Apostolic Movement on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of its founding

Pope Clement IX --  1670 St. Charles of Sezze Franciscan Pope Clement IX called Charles to his bedside for a blessing.
Pope Paul V -- St. Joan de Lestonnac The congregation was affiliated with the Benedictines, but its rule and constitutions were founded on those of Saint Ignatius Loyola. Her scheme was approved by Pope Paul V in 1607. The following year the sisters received the habit from the cardinal and, in 1610, Joan became the mother superior on the first house in Bordeaux of the Sisters of Notre Dame.
Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Pope St. Stephen.  -- 155? SS. SPEUSIPPUS, ELEUSIPPUS AND MELEUSIPPUS, MARTYRS
 Romæ Invéntio sanctórum Mártyrum Diodóri Presbyteri, Mariáni Diáconi, et Sociórum; qui, sancto Stéphano Papa Ecclésiam Dei regénte, martyrium Kaléndis Decémbris sunt assecúti.
At Rome, the finding of the holy martyrs Diodorus, priest, and Marian, deacon, and their companions.  They suffered martyrdom on the 1st of December during the pontificate of Pope St. Stephen.

308-309 Pope St. Marcellus I
Romæ, via Salária, natális sancti Marcélli Primi, Papæ et Mártyris; qui, ob cathólicæ fídei confessiónem, jubénte Maxéntio tyránno, primo cæsus est fústibus, deínde ad servítium animálium cum custódia pública deputátus, et ibídem, serviéndo indútus amíctu cilícino, defúnctus est.
       At Rome, on the Salarian Way, the birthday of Pope St. Marcellus I, a martyr for the confession of the Catholic faith.  By command of the tyrant Maxentius he was beaten with clubs, then sent to take care of animals, with a guard to watch him.  In this servile office, dressed in haircloth, he departed this life.

Popes mentioned in articles of Saints
Pope Innocent III : 1208 Bl. Peter of Castelnau  Martyred Cistercian papal legate and inquisitor
To him, aided by another of his religious brethren, Pope Innocent III in 1203 confided the mission of taking action as apostolic delegate and inquisi­tor against the Albigensian heretics, a duty which Peter discharged with much zeal, but little success.

Pope Sylvester I (r. 314-335) named St. Agrecius Bishop to this see of Treves (modern Trier), Germany Agrecius missionary trusted associate of St. Helena 

Pope Alexander VI.
Several times Christ gave to St. Martha, blessed Veronica of Binasco, virgin, of the Order of St. Augustine.in prayer important messages which she carried to influential persons such as the Duke of Milan and Pope Alexander VI.



Pope St. Innocent I  401-41 ;   Pope St. Celestine I  422-432;

 681  Pope St. Agatho  678-681 a holy death, concluded a life remarkable for sanctity and learning.
1276 Teobaldo Visconti Pope St. Gregory X 1210-1276; Arriving in Rome in March, he was first ordained priest, then consecrated bishop, and crowned on the 27th  of the same month, in 1272. He took the name of Gregory X, and to procure the most effectual succour for the Holy Land he called a general council to meet at Lyons. This fourteenth general council, the second of Lyons, was opened in May 1274. Among those assembled were St Albert the Great and St Philip Benizi; St Thomas Aquinas died on his way thither, and St Bonaventure died at the council. In the fourth session the Greek legates on behalf of the Eastern emperor and patriarch restored communion between the Byzantine church and the Holy See.;  miraculous cures performed by him

Saints of Previoius Days
St. Hyginus, Pope Greek 137-140 confront Gnostic heresy
 Romæ sancti Hygíni, Papæ et Mártyris; qui, in persecutióne Antoníni, glorióse martyrium consummávit.
       At Rome, St. Hyginus, pope, who suffered a glorious martyrdom in the persecution of Antoninus.
 Pope from 137-140, successorto Pope St. Telesphorus. He was a Greek, and probably had a pontificate of four years. He had to confront the Gnostic heresy and Valentinus and Cerdo, leaders of the heresy, who were in Rome at the time. Some lists proclaim him a martyr. His cult was suppressed in 1969.

Quote: Pope Paul VI’s 1969 Instruction on the Contemplative Life includes this passage:  
 "To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to associating themselves more intimately with Christ’s passion, and it enables them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland" (#1).

"Christianity is not a moral code or a philosophy, but an encounter with a person" -- Benedict XVI

"To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to associating themselves more intimately with Christ’s passion, and it enables them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland" (#1).
Christianity is not a moral code or a philosophy, but an encounter with a person” -- Benedict XVI

Nazareth is the School of the Gospel (II)
It is first a lesson of silence.
May the esteem of silence be born in us anew, this admirable and indispensable condition of the spirit, in us who are assailed by so much clamor, noise and shouting in our modern life, so noisy and hyper sensitized. O silence of Nazareth, teach us recollection, interiority, disposition to listen to the good inspirations and words of the true masters; teach us the need and value of preparation, study, meditation, personal and interior life, and prayer that God alone sees in secret.
It is a lesson of family life.
May Nazareth teach us what a family is, with its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, its sacred and inviolable character; let us learn from Nazareth how sweet and irreplaceable is the formation one receives within it; let us learn how primordial its role is on the social level.
It is a lesson of work. Nazareth, the house of the carpenter's son; it is there that we would like to understand and celebrate the severe and redeeming law of human labor; there, to reestablish the conscience of work's nobility; to remind people that working cannot be an end in itself, but that its freedom and nobility come, in addition to its economic value, from the value that finalize it; how we wish to salute here all the workers of the world and show them their great model, their divine brother, the prophet of all their just causes, Christ Our Lord.
Homily of Paul VI in Nazareth January 5, 1964

Pope Warns Against Domesticating Memory of Salvation
At Morning Mass, Says It's 'So Wonderful to Be Saved' That We Must Feast
- Pope Francis reflected today on the joy of the Christian life, specifically, the awareness that Christ came to save us.

He celebrated his habitual morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae with the eight cardinals who he has chosen to be his advisory council. The council is meeting these days at the Vatican.

Vatican Radio reported that the Holy Father's homily was drawn from the First Reading, from Chapter 8 of Nehemiah, which describes the people's rejoicing as Ezra read from the Book of the Law.
The People of God, he said, “had the memory of the Law, but it was a distant memory.” The recovery of the Law brought them "the experience of the closeness of salvation."
“This is important not only in the great moments in history, but also in the moments of our life: we all have the memory of salvation, everyone. I wonder, though: is this memory close to us, or is it a memory a bit far away, spread a little thin, a bit archaic, a little like a museum [piece]… it can get far away [from us]… and when the memory is not close, when we do not experience the closeness of memory, it enters into a process of transformation, and the memory becomes a mere recollection.”
When memory is distant, Francis added, “it is transformed into recollection, but when it comes near, it turns into joy, and this is the joy of the people.” This, he continued, constitutes “a principle of our Christian life.” When memory is close, said Pope Francis, “it warms the heart and gives us joy.”:

“This joy is our strength. The joy of the nearness of memory. Domesticated memory, on the other hand, which moves away and becomes a mere recollection, does not warm the heart. It gives us neither joy nor strength. This encounter with memory is an event of salvation, it is an encounter with the love of God that has made history with us and saved us. It is a meeting of salvation - and it is so wonderful to be saved, that we need to make feast.”

The Church, said Pope Francis, has “[Christ’s] memory”: the “memory of the Passion of the Lord.” We too, he said, run the risk of “pushing this memory away, turning it into a mere recollection, in a rote exercise."
“Every week we go to church, or perhaps when someone dies, we go to the funeral … and this memory often times bores us, because it is not near. It is sad, but the Mass is often turned into a social event and we are not close to the memory of the Church, which is the presence of the Lord before us. Imagine this beautiful scene in the Book of Nehemiah: Ezra who carries the Book of Israel’s memory and the people once again grow near to their memory and weep, the heart is warmed, is joyful, it feels that the joy of the Lord is its strength – and the people make a feast, without fear, simply.”

“Let us ask the Lord,” concluded Pope Francis, “for the grace to always have His memory close to us, a memory close
and not domesticated by habit, by so many things, and pushed away into mere recollection.”
Pope Francis VATICAN CITY, October 03, 2013 (Zenit.org)

"Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you shall receive it, and it shall come to you. St. Mark 11:24"
"Christianity is not a moral code or a philosophy, but an encounter with a person" -- Benedict XVI
"To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to associating themselves more intimately with Christ’s passion, and it enables them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland" (#1).
 

Pope Francis

The more "extravagant" graces are bestowed NOT for the benefit of the recipients so much as FOR benefit of others.   Non est inventus similis illis

THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 98

Let us praise Our Lady in the heavens: glorify her in the highest.

Praise her, all ye men and beasts: birds of the air, and fishes of the sea.

Praise her, sun and moon: stars, and the orbs of the planets.

Praise her, Cherubim and Seraphim: thrones and dominations and powers.

Praise her, all ye legions of angels: praise her all order of heavenly dwellers.

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

Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven; give us this day our daily Bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil; Amen
Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee, Blessed art Thou amoung women, and Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb JESUS,  Holy Mary, Mother of God pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death; Amen

Eternal rest, grant unto them of Lord, and let Thy Perpetual Light shine upon them;  Amen.
Indulgence of 500 days for each of these prayers.

Cross Not Optional, Says Benedict XVI
Reflects on Peter's "Immature" Faith CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 31, 2008 (Zenit.org).-
Taking up one's cross isn't an option, it's a mission all Christians are called to, says Benedict XVI.
The Pope said this before reciting the midday Angelus with several thousand people gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome.
Referring to the Gospel reading for today's Mass, the Holy Father reflected on the faith of Peter, which is shown to be "still immature and too much influenced by the 'mentality of this world.'”  He explained that when Christ spoke openly about how he was to "suffer much, be killed and rise again, Peter protests, saying: 'God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.'"
"It is evident that the Master and the disciple follow two opposed ways of thinking," continued the Pontiff. "Peter, according to a human logic, is convinced that God would never allow his Son to end his mission dying on the cross.  "Jesus, on the contrary, knows that the Father, in his great love for men, sent him to give his life for them, and if this means the passion and the cross, it is right that such should happen."
Christ also knew that "the resurrection would be the last word," Benedict XVI added.
Serious illness
The Pope continued, "If to save us the Son of God had to suffer and die crucified, it certainly was not because of a cruel design of the heavenly Father.  "The cause of it is the gravity of the sickness of which he must cure us: an evil so serious and deadly that it will require all of his blood. 
"In fact, it is with his death and resurrection that Jesus defeated sin and death, reestablishing the lordship of God."

Quote: Pope Paul VI’s 1969 Instruction on the Contemplative Life includes this passage:  
 “To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to associating themselves more intimately with Christ’s passion, and it enables them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland”
God calls each one of us to be a saint in order to get into heaven.

"The answers to many of life's questions can be found by reading the Lives of the Saints. They teach us how to overcome obstacles and difficulties, how to stand firm in our faith, and how to struggle against evil and emerge victorious."  1913 Saint Barsanuphius of Optina
The more "extravagant" graces are bestowed NOT for the benefit of the recipients so much as FOR benefit of others.
Non est inventus similis illis
 
Paul VI_Athenagoras_05_01_1964
  Quote: Pope Paul VI’s 1969 Instruction on the Contemplative Life includes this passage:  
 "To withdraw into the desert is for Christians tantamount to associating themselves more intimately with Christ’s passion, and it enables them, in a very special way, to share in the paschal mystery and in the passage of Our Lord from this world to the heavenly homeland" (#1).

March 22 - Marialis Cultus by Paul VI (1974) – Birth of Lucia of Fatima (1907) 
A culminating moment in the salvation dialogue between God and man 
 
With regard to Christ, the East and the West, in the inexhaustible riches of their liturgies, celebrate this solemnity as the commemoration of the salvific "fiat" of the Incarnate Word, who, entering the world, said: "God, here I am! I am coming to obey Your will." They commemorate it as the beginning of the redemption and of the indissoluble and wedded union of the divine nature with human nature in the one Person of the Word.

With regard to Mary, these liturgies celebrate it as a feast of the new Eve, the obedient and faithful virgin, who with her generous "fiat" became through the working of the Spirit the Mother of God, but also the true Mother of the living, and, by receiving into her womb the one Mediator, became the true Ark of the Covenant and true Temple of God. These liturgies celebrate it as a culminating moment in the salvific dialogue between God and man, and as a commemoration of the Blessed Virgin's free consent and cooperation in the plan of redemption.
Pope Paul VI
Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus on the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary §6, February 1974
 

Christianity is not a moral code or a philosophy, but an encounter with a person”
 -- Benedict XVI

Benedict_XVI_Patriarch_Bartholomew

Benedict XVI_Archbishop_Hilarion
 Benedict XVI receives Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion n September 18th, Pope Benedict XVI;  Archbishop Hilarion, president of the Department for External Church Affairs of the Patriarchate of Moscow.
The Orthodox Archbishop is currently visiting the Vatican at the invitation of Cardinal Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
This Pontifical Council underlined that the visit will confirm the ties of friendship between the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, with a view to closer collaboration and to favor the presence of the Church in the lives of the peoples of Europe and the world.
In addition, a further step in ecumenical relations is scheduled for the month of October in Cyprus: the meeting of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which will address the theme of Petrine Primacy.
Benedict XVI met with Aram I Catholicos of Cilicia, the highest authority of the Orthodox Church.  The Pope remembered the martyrs of the Armenian Church and the Armenian genocide, without explicitly mentioning it, and denounced the persecution of Christians in modern times.  Benedict XVI
That testimony culminated in the twentieth century, which proved a time of Unspeakable suffering for your people. Most recently we have all been saddened by the escalation of persecution and violence against Christians in parts of the Middle East and elsewhere.
The Catholicos is based in Lebanon. That is why, the Pope said, he prays every day for peace in this country and throughout the Middle East. Benedict XVI said there will only be peace in the region when each country is free to decide its own destiny and when every ethnic and religious group accepts and respects the others. Aram I emphasized that the churches must be means for peace and to achieve that they must recognize “all” genocides, even the Armenian.. The Catholicos recalled his meeting with John Paul II, adding that this visit represents a new step for ecumenical dialogue.
Aram I Catholicos
Our meeting is an opportunity to pray and reflect together, and to renew our commitment and efforts for Christian unity.
Armenian church members from all over the world join with Catholicos in making pilgrimages to Rome.
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.



THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 108

O Lady, despise not my praise: and deign to accept this Psalter dedicated to thee.

Look upon the will of my heart: and make my affection well-pleasing to thee.

Hasten to visit thy servants: under the protection of thy hand may they be preserved unhurt.

May they receive through thee the illumination of the Holy Spirit: and refreshment against the heat of cupidity.

Heal, O Lady, the contrite of heart: and revive them by the ointment of piety.

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]
To Save A Life is Earthly; Saving A Soul is Eternal Donation by mail, please send check or money order to:
Eternal Word Television Network 5817 Old Leeds Rd. Irondale, AL 35210  USA
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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 2022