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
We are the defenders of true freedom.
May our witness unveil the deception of the "pro-choice" slogan.

CAUSES OF SAINTS
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

  Novena and pray the Rosary to Our Lady of Victory

We are the defenders of true freedom.
May our witness unveil the deception of the "pro-choice" slogan.
October 27
563 St. Odhran Irish abbot monk 1/of 12 who accompanied Saint Columba to Iona
“Noble and without sin”, was an abbot from Meath and one of the twelve who sailed with St Columba out of Loch Foyle to Iona; Odhran felt death to be upon him, and he said, “I would be the first to die under the covenant of the kingdom of God in this place”. “I will give you that kingdom”, replied Saint Columba, “and moreover this also, that whoever makes a request at my burial-place shall not get it until he prays to you as well.”  Saint Columba unwilling to see his friend die, blessed him and went out of the house, and as he was walking in the yard he stopped, looking amazedly up to the heavens. Asked at what he gazed, Saint Columba answered that “he saw strife in the upper air between good and evil spirits, and angels carrying the soul of Odhran in triumph to Heaven.”
  15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary
October 27 - Our Lady of Charity (Cuba) The Rosary of the Virgin Mary (IX)  O Blessed Rosary of Mary, Sweet chain which unites us to God, Bond of love which unites us to the angels, Tower of salvation against the assaults of Hell, Safe port in our universal shipwreck, We will never abandon you. You will be our comfort in the hour of death:  Yours our final kiss as life ebbs away, And the last word from our lips Will be your sweet name, O Queen of the Rosary of Pompeii, O dearest Mother, O Refuge of Sinners, O Sovereign Consoler of the Afflicted.  May you be everywhere blessed, Today and always, On earth and in heaven.  John Paul II Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, #43 (October 2002)

However great the work that God may achieve by an individual, he must not indulge in self-satisfaction. He ought rather to be all the more humbled, seeing himself merely as a tool which God has made use of. -- St Vincent de Paul

October 27 - Our Lady of Charity (Cuba)
  When Our Lady traverses Cuba…
If there is one single symbol capable of uniting Cubans, it is the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, also known as Cachita). According to tradition, the Virgin venerated today at the Shrine of El Cobre, in the province of Santiago in southwest Cuba, was found in the early 17th century by some native fishermen from the mining town of El Cobre (cobre means "copper" in Spanish).

Around 1608 two brothers, Rodrigo and Juan de Hoyos, and a 10-year-old boy named Juan Moreno, were gathering salt from a small boat in the Bay of Nipe, when they saw something floating in the water. They picked up a small wooden object, which turned out to be a statue of Our Lady holding the Child Jesus in her arms, fastened to a small plank that read: “I am the Virgin of Charity.”

A shrine was built on the spot and immediately became a pilgrimage destination. In August 2010, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba organized a pilgrimage of approximately 30,000 km across the island as a prelude to the celebration of the 400th anniversary of discovering the miraculous statue.
Benedict XV declared Our Lady of Charity patroness of Cuba in 1916. The statue has been solemnly crowned twice; first in 1936 during the Eucharistic Congress at Santiago de Cuba and then by Blessed John Paul II in 1998. The MDN Team

October 27 - Dedication of the Basilica of Mary Our Lady, Help of Christians (Turin, Italy)
Take Mary as a model and source of help
Saint John Bosco had the Basilica of Mary Our Lady, Help of Christians, built as a monument to the Virgin Mary, as the Mother Church and spiritual center of the Salesian Congregation.  A true pilgrimage to this or any other Marian shrine should entail listening to the Word of God, prayer, Reconciliation, the Eucharist, and last but surely not least trust in Mary.  With the Eucharist, we unite with Jesus, our Savior, the meaning and guiding light of our lives. On the Cross, Jesus gave us Mary as our Mother. We trust her as our guide, taking her as a model and source of help on our path towards Christ and the Father.
Adapted from www.donbosco-torino.it source of help on our path towards Christ and the Father

Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel
Vigília sanctórum Apostolórum Simónis et Judæ.    The vigil of the holy apostles Simon and Jude.
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.
 

Pope Francis  PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR October  2023



“If Children Are Seen as a Burden, Something Is Wrong”
A society that does not like to be surrounded by children and considers them a concern, a weight, or a risk, is a depressed society.   “When life multiplies, society is enriched, not impoverished.”
Children are a gift of society, never a possession. Pope Francis

ABORTION IS A MORAL OUTRAGE

Vigília sanctórum Apostolórum Simónis et Judæ.    The vigil of the holy apostles Simon and Jude.
3rd v.St. Florentius Martyr who suffered at Trois-Chateaux, Burgundy
  303 St. Vincent, Sabina, & Christeta Three martyrs executed at Avila
  304 St. Capitolina martyred woman of Cappadocia distributed her entire wealth to the poor
  306 St Nestor of Thessalonica The Holy Martyr suffered in the city of Thessalonica together with the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica (October 26).
  367 St. Abraham the Poor Egypt holy hermit purity of heart simplicity of lifestyle
        St. Abban of Murnevin Abbot and missionary
  380 St. Frumentius Called “Abuna” or “the fa­ther”of Ethiopia
  455 St. Gaudiosus Bishop called “the African.”
  462 Saint Namatius 9th bishop of Clermont built the cathedral there
  555 St. Elesbaan Christian king of Ethiopia probably a Monophysite
  563 St. Odhran Irish abbot monk 1/of 12 who accompanied Saint Columba to Iona
  606 Saint Cyriacus patriarch of Constantinople B
  625 St. Desiderius Bishop of Auxerre  succeeded Saint Aunarius
  632 Saint Colman of Senboth-Fola associated with Bishop Saint Maidoc Abbot
        St. Namatius Bishop of Clermont
1114 Saint Nestor the Chronicler, of the Kiev Caves, Near Caves "Great is the benefit of book learning, for books point out and teach us the way to repentance, since from the words of books we discover wisdom and temperance. This is the stream, watering the universe, from which springs wisdom. In books is a boundless depth, by them we are comforted in sorrows, and they are a bridle for moderation. If you enter diligently into the books of wisdom, then you shall discover great benefit for your soul. Therefore, the one who reads books converses with God or the saints." The chief work in the life of St Nestor was compiling in the years 1112-1113 The Russian Primary Chronicle. "Here is the account of years past, how the Russian land came to be, who was the first prince at Kiev and how the Russian land is arrayed."
1203 Blessed Goswin of Chemnion Cistercian monk OSB
1271 Blessed Bartholomew of Vicenza Dominican Cyprus bishop:  See also Butlers October 23
1507 Blessed Antonia of Brescia trials with patience and humility  OP V
1539 Saint Andrew, Prince of Smolensk The Uncovering of the relics of at Pereslavl occurred through the involvement of St Daniel of Pereslavl (April 7).
1902 Bd Contardo Ferrini; Ferrini was concerned with the whole vast field of law, but it was above all in Roman law (and especially its Byzantine aspect) that he made his mark.  When Professor von Ligenthal died in 1894 Ferrini, his favourite pupil, inherited not only his master’s manuscripts but also his acknowledged leadership in these studies. Among those who in one way or another contributed to the success of his work were Don Achille Ratti, afterwards Pope Pius XI, and Dr John Mercati, later cardinal and librarian and archivist of the Holy Roman Church.
1907 Alexander The holy hierarch; tonsured a monk at the Tbilisi Monastery of the Transfiguration; traveled to Kazan theological academy graduated with honors returned home; taught the Holy Scriptures, Latin, moral theology, and archaeology at Tbilisi Seminary until July 27, 1851; appointed dean of the Abkhazeti theological school; active as a pedagogue, then as an archimandrite, and a bishop; beloved throughout all of Georgian society as he was by the local population--many called him the “Second Apostle to Abkhazeti.”; through his efforts alone 2 Sokhumi churches restored, renewed the magnificent monasteries of Shio-Mgvime, Zedazeni, Davit-Gareji, and Shemokmedi, restored Jvari Church, Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Disevi Church, and many other churches in Guria-Samegrelo, Atchara, and Imereti; devoted special attention to the Shio-Mgvime Monastery and the surrounding area, which had been devastated by that time, & founded diocesan school for women in Tbilisi;
October 27 - Our Lady of Charity (Cuba)  The Rose Garden of Our Mother
While nature itself made the name of mother the sweetest of all names and has made motherhood the very model of tender and solicitous love, no tongue is eloquent enough to put in words what every devout soul feels, namely how intense is the flame of affectionate and active charity which glows in Mary, in her who is truly our mother not in a human way but through Christ. Nobody knows and comprehends so well as she everything that concerns us: what help we need in life; what dangers, public or private, threaten our welfare; what difficulties and evils surround us; above all, how fierce is the fight we wage with ruthless enemies of our salvation. In these and in all other troubles of life her power is most far-reaching. Her desire to use it is most ardent to bring consolation, strength, and help of every kind to the children who are dear to her.
Accordingly, let us approach Mary confidently, wholeheartedly beseeching her by the bonds of her motherhood which unite her so closely to Jesus and at the same time to us. Let us with deepest devotion invoke her constant aid in the prayer which she herself has indicated and which is most acceptable to her.
Then with good reason shall we rest with an easy and joyous mind under the protection of the best of mothers.
MAGNAE DEI MATRIS - On the Rosary, articles 12-13 
Encyclical of Pope Saint Leo XIII (1810-1903) promulgated on September 8, 1892.

October 27 - OUR LADY OF THE BASILICA (Turin, Italy, built by St John Bosco between 1863 and 1868)
Excellence of the Rosary in the Prayers that Compose It (III)
The Angelic Salutation, or Hail Mary, is so sublime and so beyond us in the depth of its meaning,
that Blessed Alan de la Roche thought that no mere creature could ever understand it,
and that only our Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, could explain it.
Its enormous value is due to Our Lady to whom it was addressed, for the purpose of the Incarnation of the Word, for which reason this prayer was brought from heaven, and also to the archangel Gabriel who was the first ever to say it.

The Angelic Salutation is a most concise summary of all that Catholic theology teaches about the Blessed Virgin. It is divided into two parts, that of praise and that of petition. The first shows everything that goes to make up Mary's greatness; and the second, all we need to ask, and all that we can expect from her goodness.

The Most Holy Trinity revealed the first part; Saint Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gave the second; and the Church added the conclusion in the year 430 when she condemned the Nestorian heresy at the Council of Ephesus and defined that the Blessed Virgin is truly the Mother of God. The council commanded us to invoke the Holy Virgin under this glorious title with these words: "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death."

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort  The Admirable Secret of the Rosary (# 35)


3rd v. St. Florentius Martyr who suffered at Trois-Chateaux, Burgundy
 Apud castrum Tyle, in Gállia, sancti Floréntii Mártyris.    At Tilchatel in France, St. Florentius, martyr.
Florentius of Burgundy M (RM) 3rd century. Saint Florentius suffered martyrdom at Trois- Châteaux in Burgundy (Benedictines).
303 St. Vincent, Sabina, & Christeta Three martyrs executed at Avila
Abulæ, in Hispánia, pássio sanctórum Vincéntii, Sabínæ et Christétæ.  Hi primum in equúleo ádeo sunt exténti, ut omnes membrórum compáges laxaréntur; deínde cápita eórum, lapídibus superpósita, usque ad cérebri excussiónem válidis véctibus sunt contúsa, atque ita ipsi martyrium complevérunt, sub Præside Daciáno.
    At Avila in Spain, under the governor Dacian, the Saints Vincent, Sabina, and Christeta.  They were first stretched on the rack in such a manner that all their limbs were dislocated; then stones being laid on their heads, and their brains beaten out with heavy bars, their martyrdom was fulfilled.
Spain, during the persecutions of Emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305). Their Acts are considered dubious.

Vincent, Sabina & Christeta MM (RM). Untrustworthy acta record that Vincent was a young Christian in Ávila, Spain, when Governor Dacian ordered the suppression of all Christians during the break up of the Roman Empire. Today there are some countries where the Christians are so inoffensive that nobody bothers with them, and there are other countries where they are persecuted because they are true Christians. We should ask ourselves which of the two most deserves our pity.

Vincent's crime was his freedom and independence. He felt that he was in the right, and so risked upsetting all the old traditional obsolete beliefs. He was dangerous, but he was right to be dangerous as are all other Christians of every place and every age.

They tried to set him on the "right" path: the path of apathy, tradition, numbness, and idolatry. But in his eyes Jupiter was a scoundrel deserving blows, not worship. He preferred the man who had been crucified in Jerusalem and, brushing away the dust and mold of the old religion, he let in the fresh air of the new. And even if the particular details of Vincent's story are not absolutely authentic, his story is true in a wider sense, for the powerful empire was crumbling and the new light of Christianity was inspiring Vincent and many others--feebly at first but shining ever more brightly.

Vincent was condemned to death. We know from legends what happened to him, but not what happened inside him, for only he and Jesus Christ know that. It is the most essential part of a person's life, and yet one which is only rarely mentioned by historians, critics, or writers. We cannot blame them, for no one on earth can tell you about your life with Jesus Christ, and that is as it should be. Therefore what we have to say about a person is relatively unimportant; and if none of the things which are recorded of Vincent ever actually happened, that would in no way alter the essential and only truth, which is his life with Jesus Christ.
It is said that Vincent left the imprint of his foot on a stone and that was enough to convert his guards. His guards, however, were no more simple-minded than we are, and if they were converted it was because they saw more in Vincent than a foot which could leave its imprint on a stone: it was because they saw in him the imprint of Jesus Christ. Wherever Vincent went he left the imprint of Jesus, his "odor" as the old books used to call it. There are few of us today who leave an imprint likely to inspire those around us to convert. Dacian has nothing to worry about and can stay at home.

For a while everything went well for Vincent. His guards were converted and with the help of his sisters Sabina and Christeta he was able to escape. But Christ is not especially fond of those who win too easily. They had barely arrived at Alba when all three were arrested. They were scourged, beaten, quartered, and crushed between stones. This time they left no imprint on the stones, but an enormous imprint on the whole of Spain (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

In art they are identified as a man and two women broken on wheels. They are venerated at Ávila, Spain, where they were martyred (Roeder).
304 St. Capitolina martyred woman of Cappadocia distributed her entire wealth to the poor with her handmaid, Erotheis.
 In Cappadócia sanctárum Mártyrum Capitolínæ, ejúsque ancíllæ Erothéidis, quæ sub Diocletiáno sunt passæ.
    In Cappadocia, the holy martyrs Capitolina, and Erotheides, her handmaid, who suffered under Diocletian.
They died in the persecutions conducted by Emperor Diocletian.
Capitolina and Erotheis MM (RM). Capitolina, a wealthy Cappadocian lady, and her handmaid, were martyred under Diocletian, after Capitolina distributed her entire wealth to the poor (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
306 Nestor of Thessalonica The Holy Martyr suffered in the city of Thessalonica together with the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica (October 26).
The name of St Nestor (not the Chronicler) is mentioned in the General Service to the Monastics of the Far Caves: “The Word of God, understood by man, instructed you not by written wisdom, O holy Nestor, but from on high; you beheld it through the prayers of the angel, and you foresaw your death. May we also be made partakers with you, we pray, in honoring your memory.” His memory is celebrated also on August 28 and on the second Sunday of Great Lent.
367 St. Abraham the Poor, Egypt holy hermit, purity of heart, simplicity of lifestyle.
listed in some records as “the Poor” or “the Child,” allusions to his purity of heart and to the simplicity of his lifestyle ways. He was born in Menuf “or Minuf”, Egypt, a site northwest of Cairo in the Delta region of the Nile.
He became a disciple of St. Pachomius, the founder of cenobitic monasticism.
Abraham spent almost two decades in a cave near Pachomius' foundations in the Delta.
Abraham the Child, Hermit (RM) (also known as Abraham the Poor) Born at Menuf, Egypt; died 366-377; feast day formerly on March 16. Abraham became a disciple of Saint Pachomius. After 23 years he retired to a cave where he spent 17 years. His cultus is widespread among the Copts (Benedictines, Encyclopedia). Abraham is shown as an old man with a blowing beard clothed in skins. Sometimes he is in his cell with his niece Mary in the adjoining cell (Roeder).
380 St. Frumentius Called “Abuna” or “the fa­ther ”of Ethiopia venerated as the first evangelizer of  Etheopia.
Apud Indos sancti Fruménti Epíscopi, qui, primum ibi captívus, deínde, Epíscopus a sancto Athanásio ordinátus, Evangélium in ea província propagávit.
    In India, St. Frumentius, bishop.  While he was a captive there he was consecrated bishop by St. Athanasius, and propagated the Gospel in that country. Etheopia
380 ST FRUMENTIUS, Bishop of Axsum
SOMEWHERE about the year 330 a philosopher of Tyre, named Meropius, out of curiosity and a wish to see the world and improve his knowledge, undertook a voyage to the coasts of Arabia. He took with him two young men, Frumentius and Aedesius, with whose education he was entrusted. In the course of their voyage homeward the vessel touched at a certain port of Ethiopia, or as it is now often called, Abyssinia. The natives fell out with some of the sailors, attacked them, and put the whole crew and all the passengers to the sword, except the two boys, who were studying their lessons under a tree at some distance. When they were found they were carried to the king, who resided at Aksum in the Tigre country. He was attracted by the bearing and knowledge of the young Christians, and not long after made Aedesius his cupbearer and Frumentius, who was the elder, his secretary. This prince on his deathbed thanked them for their services and, in recompense, gave them their liberty. The queen, who was left regent for her eldest son, entreated them to remain and assist her, which they did.

   Frumentius had the principal management of affairs and induced several Christian merchants who traded there to settle in the country. He procured them privileges and all conveniences for religious worship, and by his own fervour and example strongly recommended the true religion to the infidels. When the young king came of age and, with his brother, took the reins of government into his own hands, the Tyrians resigned their posts, though he urged them to stay.

  Aedesius went back to Tyre, where he was ordained priest and told his adventures to Rufinus, who incorporated them in his Church History. But Frumentius, having nothing so much at heart as the conversion of the whole nation, took the route to Alexandria, and entreated the bishop, St Athanasius, to send some pastor to that country. Whereupon Athanasius ordained Frumentius himself bishop of the Ethiopians, judging no one more proper to finish the work which he had begun. Thus began the association of the Christians of Abyssinia with the church of Alexandria which has continued to this day.

The consecration of St Frumentius took place probably just before the year 340 or just after 346 (or perhaps c. 355—356). He went back to Aksum and gained numbers to the faith by his preaching and miracles the two royal brothers are said to have themselves received baptism, and as Abreha and Asbeha are venerated as saints in the Ethiopic calendar. But the Arian emperor Constantius conceived an implacable suspicion against St Frumentius, because he was linked in faith and affection with St Athanasius; and when he found that he was not even to be tempted, much less seduced by him, he wrote a letter to the two kings, in which he urged them to send Frumentius to George, the intruded bishop of Alexandria, who would be responsible for his “welfare”. The emperor also warned them against Athanasius as guilty “of many crimes”. The only result was that this letter was communicated to St Athanasius, who has inserted it in his apologia against the Arians.

Conversion even of the Aksumite kingdom was far from completed during the lifetime of St Frumentius. After his death he was called Abuna, “Our father”, and Aba salama, “Father of peace”, and abuna is still the title of the primate of the dissident Church of Ethiopia.

The story told by Rufinus maybe read with other matter in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. xii. This other matter includes a copy of a long Greek inscription found at Aksum, commemorating the exploits of Aïzanas, King of the Homeritae, and his brother Saïzanas. Now it was precisely to Aïzanas and Saïzanas that Constantius addressed his letter, of which St Athanasius has preserved the text, demanding the surrender of Frumentius. There can consequently be no doubt that the last-named really was at Aksum preaching the Christian faith. Although the earlier adventures of Frumentius, as Rufinus recounts them, may have been misunderstood or disfigured with legendary additions, his presence in Aksum, as a bishop, consecrated for this mission by St Athanasius, is a certain fact. See Professor Guidi in the Enciclopedia italiana, vol. xiv, pp. 480—481, and in DHG., vol. i, cc. 210—212 Leclercq in DAC., vol. v, cc. 586—594 Duchesne, Histoire ancienne de l’Église, vol. iii, pp. 576—578 and cf. the account given of St Frumentius in the Ethiopic Synaxarium (ed. Budge, 1928), vol. iv, pp. 1164—1165. According to F. G. Holweck, the old diocese of Louisiana, U.S.A. (erected 1787) observed the feast of St Frumentius: was this a gesture towards the slaves of African origin in America ?

Frumentius was born in Tyre, Lebanon. While on a voyage in the Red Sea with St. Aedesius, possibly his brother, only Frumentius and Aedesius survived the shipwreck.
Taken to the Ethiopian royal court at Aksum, they soon attained high positions. Aedesius was royal cup bearer, and Fruementius was a secretary. They introduced Christianity to that land. When Abreha and Asbeha inherited the Ethiopian throne from their father, Frumentius went to Alexandria, Egypt, to ask St. Athanasius to send a missionary to Ethiopia. He was consecrated a bishop and converted many more upon his return to Aksum. Frumentius and Aedesius are considered the apostles of Ethiopia.
Frumentius of Ethiopia B (RM) (also known as Fremonat) . According to their contemporary Rufinus, two young Christian brothers named Frumentius and Aedesius (Aedisius) were studying philosophy in Tyre under Meropius (or Metrodorus), who decided around the year 330 that he would like to take a voyage along the coasts of Arabia. To the young men's overwhelming delight, he offered to take them with him.
The journey went well, but on their homeward trip the ship docked at Adulis, Abyssinia (Ethiopia), to take on fresh supplies. The sailors got into a fight with the locals, leading to the murder of Meropius and everyone on ship. The boys escaped because they were studying their lessons under a tree a distance from the ship. When they were discovered, they were taken as slaves to the court of the king of Aksum (Axum) in Tigre.
The king was impressed by their bearing and learning and the fortunes of the young Christians prospered. Frumentius, the elder brother, was made the king's chief secretary. Aedesius became his cup-bearer. They gained permission even for Greek merchants to open some churches in Ethiopia and to try to convert the people. And when the king died, he gave the two men their freedom. They remained for a time at the request of the widowed queen to help rule the country.
Eventually the two princes, named Abreha and Asbeha, came to the throne. The Tyrian brothers resigned their posts although their new king urged them to stay. Aedesius returned to Tyre where he was ordained and met Rufinus, who incorporated their story into his Church History.
Frumentius, desiring to convert the whole of his adopted country, made his way to Alexandria and explained the Ethiopian situation to Saint Athanasius. He urgently asked Athanasius to send a bishop to Aksum to consolidate all that had been done there for Christ. Either Athanasius or a synod unanimously chose Frumentius for the work, ordained him bishop, and sent him back to plant the Christian church in Ethiopia, which he did in Aksum.
"Apostolic signs accompanied his ministry, and great numbers of heathen were won to the faith" (Rufinus). Among those converted were Abreha and Asbeha, the two royal brothers, despite the attempts of the Arian Emperor Constantius to discredit him because of his connection with Athanasius.
Whatever the exact details of the Tyrian youths' adventures, there is strong confirmation of the presence in Ethiopia of a bishop named Frumentius, consecrated by Saint Athanasius about the middle of the fourth century.  After his death the Abyssinians dubbed him Abuna (which means 'Our Father') and Aba salama (which means 'Father of peace'). Abuna is still the title of the primate of the Church of Ethiopia (Attwater, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Walsh).
In art Frumentius is represented as a bishop elevating a Host, sometimes with Saint Athanasius, sometimes shipwrecked with his brother Saint Aedesius. Saint Frumentius is venerated as the first evangelizer of Ethiopia (Roeder).
455 St. Gaudiosus Bishop called “the African.”
Neápoli, in Campánia, sancti Gaudiósi, Epíscopi Africáni, qui ob Wandalórum persecutiónem venit in Campániam, et, in monastério apud eam urbem, sancto fine quiévit.
    At Naples, St. Gaudiosus, an African bishop who came to Campania because of the Vandal persecution, and died a holy death in a monastery in that city.
He was the bishop of Abitina in North Africa, exiled by Geiseric, the Vandal king, in 440. Gaudiosus went to Naples, Italy, where he founded a monastery.

Gaudiosus of Naples B (RM) (also known as Gaudiosus the African). Saint Gaudiosus, bishop of Abitina in northern Africa, was exiled by the Arian Vandal king Genseric about 440. He took refuge at Naples where he founded a monastery, which was later governed by Saint Agnellus (Benedictines).
462 Saint Namatius ninth bishop of Clermont built the cathedral there B (AC).
(also known as Namace) Saint Namatius, ninth bishop of Clermont, France, built the cathedral there (Benedictines).
5th v. St. Abban of Murnevin Abbot and missionary.
called Ewin, Evin, Neville, or Nevin. He is listed as a nephew of St. Kevin and is confused with St. Abban of Magh-Armuidhe. Abban is best known for his association with the monastery of Rosmic-Treoin of New Ross.
Abban of Wexford, Abbot (AC)
Born in Ireland, 6th century. Saint Abban, nephew of Saint Kevin, founded many monasteries, mostly in southern Ireland. His name is especially connected with that of Magh-Armuidhe, now Adamstown, Wexford. The lives of this saint are hopelessly confused with that of Saint Abban of Leinster and others of the same name (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
555 St. Elesbaan Christian king of Ethiopia probably a Monophysite.
In Æthiópia sancti Elésbaan Regis, qui, Christi hóstibus expugnátis, ac, témpore Justíni Imperatóris, misso régio diadémate Hierosólymam, monásticam vitam, ut vóverat agens, migrávit ad Dóminum.
    In Ethiopia, in the time of Emperor Justin, St. Elesbaan, king.  After having defeated the enemies of Christ and sent his royal diadem to Jerusalem, he led a monastic life, as he had vowed, and went to his reward.
called Calam-Negus by the Abyssinians. He fought the Jewish usurper Dunaan, who had committed atrocities against Christians. Elesbaan was also guilty of dreadful revenges against Dunaan’s followers. He resigned, leaving the throne to his son, and ended his life as an eremite.
563 St. Odhran Irish abbot monk 1/of 12 who accompanied Saint Columba to Iona.

OTTERAN, “noble and without sin”, was an abbot from Meath and one of the twelve who sailed with St Columba out of Loch Foyle to Iona; Adamnan says he was a Briton. Soon after their arrival St Otteran felt death to be upon him, and he said, “I would be the first to die under the covenant of the kingdom of God in this place”. “I will give you that kingdom”, replied Columba, “and moreover this also, that whoever makes a request at my burial-place shall not get it until he prays to you as well.”

   Columba, unwilling to see his friend die, blessed him and went out of the house, and as he was walking in the yard he stopped, looking amazedly up to the heavens. Asked at what he gazed, Columba answered that he saw strife in the upper air between good and evil spirits, and angels carrying the soul of Otteran in triumph to Heaven.
So he was the first by his death and burial there to seal Iona to the Irish monks, and the place of his burying, the only cemetery on the island, is still called Reilig Orain. This is said to be the Otteran who founded the monastery at Leitrioch Odrain (Latteragh in Tipperary). Although this is all that is known of St Otteran his feast (as a bishop) is kept today throughout Ireland.

How little is known concerning St Odhran appears clearly from the glosses to the Filire of Oengus, which suggest more than one alternative as to Odhran’s identity. A notice in very vague terms is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. xii. See also Forbes, KSS., p. 426. In the Annals of Ulster we are told that he died in the year 548. Odhran is the correct form of the name.
Also Otteran and Oran. After serving as abbot of Meath, he journeyed to Scotland with St. Columba to promote the faith and died at Lona. Odhran was the first Irish monk to die at Lona. He may have founded Latteragh Abbey in Tipperary He is considered the principal patron saint of Waterford, Ireland.
Otteran of Iona, Abbot (RM) (also known as Odhran, Oran) Born in Britain. Otteran, abbot of Meath, was one of the 12 who accompanied Saint Columba to Iona. Other historians say that Otteran was at Iona before Columba, based on the fact that the ancient cemetery there is called Reilig Oran. He died soon after their arrival, the first of the monks from Ireland to die at Iona. Soon thereafter, Columba saw Otteran's soul ascending to heaven following a battle between angels and devils. Otteran may have founded the monastery at Leitrioch Odrain (Latteragh, Tipperary). He has given his name to Oronsay. His feast is kept throughout Ireland (Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer, Montague).
606 Saint Cyriacus patriarch of Constantinople B (AC).
feast day in the Greek Church is celebrated on October 29. Cyriacus was administrator and, later, patriarch of Constantinople (Benedictines).
625 St. Desiderius Bishop of Auxerre  succeeded Saint Aunarius.
France, the successor of St. Anacharius.
Desiderius of Auxerre B (AC). Saint Desiderius succeeded Saint Aunarius (Aunaire) in the see of Auxerre, France. He has often been confused with Saint Desiderius of Vienne (Benedictines).
St. Namatius Bishop of Clermont.
sometimes listed as Namace. He founded the local cathedral.
632 Colman of Senboth-Fola associated with Bishop Saint Maidoc Abbot (AC).
Born in Ireland. Abbot Saint Colman of Senboth-Fola, in the diocese of Ferns, was associated with Bishop Saint Maidoc of Ferns (January 31) (Benedictines).
1114 Saint Nestor the Chronicler, of the Kiev Caves, Near Caves
 “Great is the benefit of book learning, for books point out and teach us the way to repentance, since from the words of books we discover wisdom and temperance. This is the stream, watering the universe, from which springs wisdom. In books is a boundless depth, by them we are comforted in sorrows, and they are a bridle for moderation. If you enter diligently into the books of wisdom, then you shall discover great benefit for your soul. Therefore, the one who reads books converses with God or the saints."

The chief work in the life of St Nestor was compiling in the years 1112-1113 The Russian Primary Chronicle. "Here is the account of years past, how the Russian land came to be, who was the first prince at Kiev and how the Russian land is arrayed.”

Nestor was born at Kiev in 1050. He came to St Theodosius (May 3) as a young man, and became a novice. St Nestor took monastic tonsure under the successor to St Theodosius, the igumen Stephen, and under him was ordained a hierodeacon.

Concerning his lofty spiritual life it says that, with a number of other monastic Fathers he participated in the casting out of a devil from Nikita the Hermit (January 31), who had become fascinated by the Hebrew wisdom of the Old Testament. St Nestor deeply appreciated true knowledge, along with humility and penitence. “Great is the benefit of book learning,” he said, “for books point out and teach us the way to repentance, since from the words of books we discover wisdom and temperance. This is the stream, watering the universe, from which springs wisdom. In books is a boundless depth, by them we are comforted in sorrows, and they are a bridle for moderation. If you enter diligently into the books of wisdom, then you shall discover great benefit for your soul. Therefore, the one who reads books converses with God or the saints.”

In the monastery St Nestor had the obedience of being the chronicler. In the 1080s he wrote the “Account about the Life and Martyrdom of the Blessed Passion Bearers Boris and Gleb” in connection with the transfer of the relics of the saints to Vyshgorod in the year 1072 (May 2). In the 1080s St Nestor also compiled the Life of the Monk Theodosius of the Kiev Caves. And in 1091, on the eve of the patronal Feast of the Kiev Caves Monastery, he was entrusted by Igumen John to dig up the holy relics of St Theodosius (August 14) for transfer to the church.

The chief work in the life of St Nestor was compiling in the years 1112-1113 The Russian Primary Chronicle. “Here is the account of years past, how the Russian land came to be, who was the first prince at Kiev and how the Russian land is arrayed.” The very first line written by St Nestor set forth his purpose. St Nestor used an extraordinarily wide circle of sources: prior Russian chronicles and sayings, monastery records, the Byzantine Chronicles of John Malalos and George Amartolos, various historical collections, the accounts of the boyar-Elder Ivan Vyshatich and of tradesmen and soldiers, of journeymen and of those who knew. He drew them together with a unified and strict ecclesiastical point of view. This permitted him to write his history of Russia as an inclusive part of world history, the history of the salvation of the human race.

The monk-patriot describes the history of the Russian Church in its significant moments. He speaks about the first mention of the Russian nation in historical sources in the year 866, in the time of St Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople. He tells of the creation of the Slavonic alphabet and writing by Sts Cyril and Methodius; and of the Baptism of St Olga at Constantinople. The Chronicle of St Nestor has preserved for us an account of the first Orthodox church in Kiev (under the year 945), and of the holy Varangian Martyrs (under the year 983), of the "testing of the faiths" by St Vladimir (in 986) and the Baptism of Rus (in 988).

We are indebted to the first Russian Church historian for details about the first Metropolitans of the Russian Church, about the emergence of the Kiev Caves monastery, and about its founders and ascetics. The times in which St Nestor lived were not easy for the Russian land and the Russian Church. Rus lay torn asunder by princely feuds; the Polovetsian nomads of the steppes lay waste to both city and village with plundering raids. They led many Russian people into slavery, and burned churches and monasteries. St Nestor was an eyewitness to the devastation of the Kiev Caves monastery in the year 1096. In the Chronicle a theologically thought out patriotic history is presented. The spiritual depth, historical fidelity and patriotism of the The Russian Primary Chronicle establish it in the ranks of the significant creations of world literature.
St Nestor died around the year 1114, having left to the other monastic chroniclers of the Kiev Caves the continuation of his great work. His successors in the writing of the Chronicles were: Igumen Sylvester, who added contemporary accounts to the The Russian Primary Chronicle; Igumen Moses Vydubitsky brought it up to the year 1200; and finally, Igumen Laurence, who in the year 1377 wrote the most ancient of the surviving manuscripts that preserve the Chronicle of St Nestor (this copy is known as the “Lavrentian Chronicle”). The hagiographic tradition of the Kiev Caves ascetics was continued by St Simon, Bishop of Vladimir (May 10), the compiler of the Kiev Caves Paterikon. Narrating the events connected with the lives of the holy saints of God, St Simon often quotes, among other sources, from the Chronicle of St Nestor.
St Nestor was buried in the Near Caves of St Anthony. The Church also honors his memory in the Synaxis of the holy Fathers of the Near Caves commemorated September 28 and on the second Sunday of Great Lent when is celebrated the Synaxis of all the Fathers of the Kiev Caves. His works have been published many times, including in English as “The Russian Primary Chronicle”.
1203 Blessed Goswin of Chemnion Cistercian monk OSB Cist. (AC).
Goswin was a Cistercian monk, first at Clairvaux and then at Chemnion (Benedictines).
1271 Blessed Bartholomew of Vicenza Dominican Cyprus bishop  see also Butlers October 23 .
Dominicans honor one of their own today, Blessed Bartholomew of Vicenza. This was a man who used his skills as a preacher to challenge the heresies of his day. Bartholomew was born in Vicenza around 1200. At 20 he entered the Dominicans. Following his ordination he served in various leadership positions. As a young priest he founded a military order whose purpose was to keep civil peace in towns throughout Italy.
In 1248, Bartholomew was appointed a bishop. For most men, such an appointment is an honor and a tribute to their holiness and their demonstrated leadership skills. But for Bartholomew, it was a form of exile that had been urged by an antipapal group that was only too happy to see him leave for Cyprus. Not many years later, however, Bartholomew was transferred back to Vicenza. Despite the antipapal feelings that were still evident, he worked diligently—especially through his preaching—to rebuild his diocese and strengthen the people’s loyalty to Rome.
During his years as bishop in Cyprus, Bartholomew befriended King Louis the Ninth of France, who is said to have given the holy bishop a relic of Christ’s Crown of Thorns. Bartholomew died in 1271. He was beatified in 1793.

October 27, 2009 Blessed Bartholomew of Vicenza (c. 1200-1271) 
Dominicans honor one of their own today, Blessed Bartholomew of Vicenza. This was a man who used his skills as a preacher to challenge the heresies of his day.

Bartholomew was born in Vicenza around 1200. At 20 he entered the Dominicans. Following his ordination he served in various leadership positions. As a young priest he founded a military order whose purpose was to keep civil peace in towns throughout Italy. In 1248, Bartholomew was appointed a bishop. For most men, such an appointment is an honor and a tribute to their holiness and their demonstrated leadership skills. But for Bartholomew, it was a form of exile that had been urged by an antipapal group that was only too happy to see him leave for Cyprus. Not many years later, however, Bartholomew was transferred back to Vicenza. Despite the antipapal feelings that were still evident, he worked diligently—especially through his preaching—to rebuild his diocese and strengthen the people’s loy alty to Rome.

During his years as bishop in Cyprus, Bartholomew befriended King Louis the Ninth of France, who is said to have given the holy bishop a relic of Christ’s Crown of Thorns.  Bartholomew died in 1271. He was beatified in 1793.
1507 Blessed Antonia of Brescia trials with patience and humility  OP V (PC).
Born 1407. Although Antonia entered the Dominican convent at Brescia as a young girl, she was not chosen prioress until she was 66. She governed Saint Catherine's Convent at Ferrara, Italy, rigorously but with justice. She underwent deposition and other trials with patience and humility (Benedictines).
1539 Saint Andrew, Prince of Smolensk The Uncovering of the relics of at Pereslavl occurred through the involvement of St Daniel of Pereslavl (April 7).
The holy Prince Andrew was the son of the Smolensk prince Theodore Fominsky. While still in his youth, he was grieved by the disputes of his brothers, and he left his native city going as a simple wanderer to Pereslavl Zalessk. In humility and meekness he spent thirty years as church warden at the church of St Nicholas, near which he is buried. After his death they discovered a princely ring, a gold chain and an inscription with the words, “I am Andrew, one of the Smolensk princes.”
1902 Bd Contardo Ferrini; Ferrini was concerned with the whole vast field of law, but it was above all in Roman law (and especially its Byzantine aspect) that he made his mark.  When Professor von Ligenthal died in 1894 Ferrini, his favourite pupil, inherited not only his master’s manuscripts but also his acknowledged leadership in these studies. Among those who in one way or another contributed to the success of his work were Don Achille Ratti, afterwards Pope Pius XI, and Dr John Mercati, later cardinal and librarian and archivist of the Holy Roman Church.

Addressing an audience of professors, lecturers and other pilgrims at this time, Pope Pius XII referred to Bd Contardo as a man who “gave an emphatic ‘Yes’ to the possibility of holiness in these days”. “The history and development of law and law-making”, he declared, “were for Ferrini simply an application of the moral and divine law, without which human legislation is useless for if they are separated from God, it is only a matter of time before social organization and its juridical enactments degenerate into tyranny and despotism…It should give us comfort that in Bd Contardo the Lord has given the Church a beatus who was a master in the field of law and at the same time a man of God, one whose exalted spirit and supremely righteous life is a model for us all.”

Giving evidence in the course of the process, the previous pope, Pius XI, had said, “My relations with him were purely scientific or were concerned with the beauties of high mountains. For him these were an inspiration to holiness and almost a natural revelation of God.”

Ferrini’s appreciation of the material creation was indeed a salient characteristic, and it was not confined to nature in her gentler aspects. “God also speaks to man in the clouds on the mountain tops”, he wrote, “in the roaring of the torrents, in the stark awfulness of the cliffs, in the dazzling splendour of the unmelting snow, in the sun that splashes the west with blood, in the wind that strips the trees bare.
    Nature lives by the breath of His omnipotence, smiles in its joy of Him, hides from His wrath—yet greets Him, eternally young, with the smile of its own youth. For the spirit of God by which nature lives is a spirit for ever young, incessantly renewing itself, happy in its snow and rain and mist, for out of these come birth and life, spring ever renewed and undaunted hope, and all the blessed prerogatives of youth a thousand times reborn.”
Bd Contardo Ferrini was in the true line of St Francis of Assisi.

Contardo Ferrini was born in 1859 in a modest apartment in the Via Passerella at Milan. His father, Rinaldo Ferrini, was a teacher of mathematics and physics, who had married Louisa Buccellati in the previous year. Rinaldo had also graduated in civil engineering and architecture, and his son inherited both his intellectual ability and scientific spirit.
Contardo indeed was a precocious lively child, and though he first went to school when he was six years old, his schooling had already begun with his father. According to a school-fellow, study and his religion were the only things that young Contardo was interested in.  As he grew up he was not free from the emotional disturbances common to adolescence—an echo of this can be detected in some verses he wrote for his mother’s name day when he was sixteen. But he weathered the storm, with the help of a wise and learned priest, Don Adalbert Catena, a friend of Manzoni and of Verdi.  While Don Catena guided him spiritually, another priest was watching over him intellectually: this was Mgr Antony Ceriani, prefect of the Ambrosian Library at Milan.

Contardo wanted to read the Bible in its original languages, and it was to Mgr Ceriani that he turned to teach him Hebrew.
    Here, too, he found his father’s insistence on a scientific approach reinforced: “Don’t trust too much in second-hand information, even from the learned”, Mgr Ceriani would say. “Go directly to the sources of the truth.”
   A third priest to whom Contardo owed much was a colleague of his father’s, Don Antony Stoppani, whose geological and other learning chimed with that love of nature that distinguished Contardo throughout his life.

In 1876 Contardo entered the law school of the Borromeo College at Pavia. He was a very serious young man, and one gets the impression that at this time he was not altogether free from what in England is called “priggishness”. This might in a measure account for some of the ill treatment he experienced at the hands of his fellow students. The patience with which he bore his trials and his general bearing gained him the nickname of “St Aloysius of the Borromeo”, used by some in respect and by others in derision.  And an apostolic flame was kindled in him: “To preach by example is good”, he wrote, “and to preach by the word is good. But what is more effective than to preach by prayer?”

He became enthusiastic for the formation of a university-students’ society, a thing then unheard of in Italy and of which he was a veritable pioneer. Nothing actually came of it till the year in which he left Pavia for Berlin; the society was then given the name of St Severinus Boethius and it exists to this day. But the greater part of Ferrini’s youthful apostolic ideals seem to have borne no fruit, at any rate visibly; only the results of certain personal contacts were seen to be lasting. There was Ettore Cappa, who never forgot that it was Ferrini who introduced him to the writings of Cardinal Newman, and the life-long friendships with Count Paul Mapelli and his brother, Count Victor. The letters that he wrote to the last-named are one of the primary sources for Ferrini’s life and thought.
    Contardo Ferrini gained his doctorate in 1880 and was awarded a bursary for a year (later extended to two) in the University of Berlin. Before setting out for this centre of Protestantism he drew up a “Programme of Life” in the form of a letter to Victor Mapelli; the document is a valuable testimony to his humble faith and the mystical trend of his spirit.
     He was somewhat depressed at leaving home, but his first impressions of Berlin cheered him: he found the Catholics there serious and observant, and the Catholic students of the university were organized and active. In his little book Un po’ d’infinito he notes how vividly the universality of the Church was brought home to him when he first went to confession in a foreign land. At the local conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society (of which he had long been a member) he became friendly with Professor Maximilian Westermaier, the botanist, and he was in close contact with Alfred Pernice, Maurice Voigt and Zachary von Ligenthal. It was the last-named he had in mind when he wrote, “Protestantism makes a man a very worthy person where our religion would make him a saint”. As was to be expected, Ferrini was not among Theodore Mommsen’s intimates, but over twenty years later, talking with Bartholomew Nogara, then director of the Etruscan Museum of the Vatican, Mommsen spoke of Ferrini with the greatest respect, saying that he had removed the primacy in Roman legal studies from Germany to Italy. “Nor are we jealous”, he added. But there was another side to Berlin, and Ferrini was “nauseated by the sad sight of so corrupt a city”. The proximity of wickedness deepened his own asceticism.
   Ferrini was then twenty-two, and concerned about what was his vocation in life. Marriage? The priesthood? The monastic state?  He heard no call to any of them; and towards the end of 1881 he made a vow of lifelong celibacy.*{ *He spoke to none, even of his intimates, about this vow. This led to occasional embarrassments, from which Ferrini extricated himself by his wit, which could be mordant. On one occasion a woman was recommending a girl to his notice as a suitable wife, emphasizing her expectations: “When her father dies, she will have so much. When her mother dies, so much. And when her uncle dies “Oh dear”, interrupted Ferrini, “What a lot of corpses!”}

Ferrini returned to Italy in the summer of 1883. He was now engaged on a critical edition of the Greek paraphrase of the Institutes of Justinian. In furtherance of this work he visited libraries at Copenhagen, Paris, Rome and Florence, and perfected that remarkable knowledge of languages that was so valuable to him in his studies. German, Latin and Greek he spoke and wrote fluently, and with varying degrees of facility he knew French, Spanish, English, Dutch, Hebrew, Syriac, with a smattering of Coptic and Sanskrit.
    Such qualifications could not be overlooked, and a year after returning home he was appointed to a readership in Roman criminal law at the University of Pavia. Eighteen months later he was promoted to the chair of exegesis of the sources of Roman law. One of his pupils remembers that the new professor was very strict but friendly, kind and encouraging with them, witty in private conversation and never sarcastic. There was a distinction in his manner and bearing, quite free from hauteur, which well became the dignity of his position. His life was indeed entirely devoted to his Maker, but in the natural order his work, as he used to tell his friends, was his wife; Roman law was his passion, and he made of his research, his teaching and his erudition “a hymn of praise to the Lord of all learning”. It was during this period that Ferrini became a Franciscan tertiary.
    In 1887 he was appointed to the professorship of Roman law in the University of Messina, and for the next seven years he was teaching there and at Modena, always working with unremitting application and growing in reputation with each successive publication. But though he was very happy in Sicily he wanted to get back permanently to the north, to be near his home and the Ambrosian Library. When therefore he was invited in 1894 to return to Pavia as successor to Professor Mariani, he accepted with joy. Thus began the last and most fruitful period of his career.

Ferrini was concerned with the whole vast field of law, but it was above all in Roman law (and especially its Byzantine aspect) that he made his mark.  When Professor von Ligenthal died in 1894 Ferrini, his favourite pupil, inherited not only his master’s manuscripts but also his acknowledged leadership in these studies. Among those who in one way or another contributed to the success of his work were Don Achille Ratti, afterwards Pope Pius XI, and Dr John Mercati, later cardinal and librarian and archivist of the Holy Roman Church.  

 His output was very large during his short life he was responsible for over two hundred monographs, which make five stout volumes, as well as several text books.

 But he found time to interest himself in public affairs too. After the Pied­montese occupied Rome in 1870 the Holy See had decided that it was inexpedient for faithful Catholics to associate themselves publicly with the new régime, e.g. by voting in elections of deputies. Ferrini loyally observed this ruling, while deploring that “our abstention from the legislative assembly leaves our legislation unprotected from the most deplorable influences.”  This may have encouraged his own activity in social matters. He was delighted when Pope Leo XIII published his encyclical letter “Rerum Novarum”, on the condition of the working classes. In 1895 he allowed himself to be elected to the municipal council of Milan; * his duties upon which he took most seriously. {* A member of the council drew caricatures of all his fellow members. That of Ferrini he adorned with a halo of sainthood. It would be interesting to know if the drawing is still in existence, for caricatures of saints must be rare—unless Bellarmine jugs can be con­sidered such, (Literary caricatures—unintended——are of course another matter they are only too common.)}
In the following years he continued his charitable and public work, doing all he could to combat the errors of material­istic socialism, to defend the Italian legal tradition of the indissolubility of marriage, and to uphold the religion of Christ wherever it was threatened.

 Bd Contardo used to spend his vacations at Suna, on Lake Maggiore, where his father had a small house. He was prostrated by his work in the heat of the summer of 1902, and in the early autumn sought to refresh himself with his favourite recreation, mountaineering. {There has been argument among the experts about whether Ferrini was “an alpinist in the true sense of the word ”—whatever that may be. He certainly loved mountains and climbed them.}With a friend he climbed San Martino in Valle Anzasca, and came back to Suna feeling worse rather than better. On October 5, a very wet Sunday, he went to Mass, and on his return he collapsed. The doctor’s report was grave, but not alarmingly so but Bd Contardo got worse, and after some days of delirium he died, of typhus, on October 27. He was only forty-three years old. At his bedside was his father, the first and greatest of his friends. {They used to work at Suns both in the same bare room, their desks facing one another.}

 Dr Oggioni has recollected that he was once walking in Pavia with Ludovic Necchi when they passed Professor Ferrini, a wide browed, bearded man in a frock coat. He returned their greeting with his usual courtesy and characteristic sweet smile. Necchi stopped and exclaimed to his companion, “What is it about that man? He’s a saint!”
  Father Augustine Gemelli records that many students frequented Ferrini’s lectures not simply because of his reputation as a jurist but also because here, at the dawn of the twentieth century, was a professor who still believed in God. “Learning is not the road to God”, he wrote in Un po’ d’infinito, and “his letters and private papers all show a single purpose, the search for perfection, which he pursued with a serenity and simplicity of heart that was echoed by all and sundry after his quiet spirit was carried away”.
  Don Achille Ratti was one of the first publicly to eulogize the dead professor, and he was one of the promoters of the movement for introducing the cause of Contardo Ferrini, of which the moving spirit was his old friend Professor Olivi. In 1947 the beatification took place, and his feast day has been assigned to October 27.

Addressing an audience of professors, lecturers and other pilgrims at this time, Pope Pius XII referred to Bd Contardo as a man who “gave an emphatic ‘Yes’ to the possibility of holiness in these days”. “The history and development of law and law-making”, he declared, “were for Ferrini simply an application of the moral and divine law, without which human legislation is useless for if they are separated from God, it is only a matter of time before social organization and its juridical enactments degenerate into tyranny and despotism…It should give us comfort that in Bd Contardo the Lord has given the Church a beatus who was a master in the field of law and at the same time a man of God, one whose exalted spirit and supremely righteous life is a model for us all.”

Giving evidence in the course of the process, the previous pope, Pius XI, had said, “My relations with him were purely scientific or were concerned with the beauties of high mountains. For him these were an inspiration to holiness and almost a natural revelation of God.”

Ferrini’s appreciation of the material creation was indeed a salient characteristic, and it was not confined to nature in her gentler aspects. “God also speaks to man in the clouds on the mountain tops”, he wrote, “in the roaring of the torrents, in the stark awfulness of the cliffs, in the dazzling splendour of the unmelting snow, in the sun that splashes the west with blood, in the wind that strips the trees bare. Nature lives by the breath of His omnipotence, smiles in its joy of Him, hides from His wrath—yet greets Him, eternally young, with the smile of its own youth. For the spirit of God by which nature lives is a spirit for ever young, incessantly renewing itself, happy in its snow and rain and mist, for out of these come birth and life, spring ever renewed and undaunted hope, and all the blessed prerogatives of youth a thousand times reborn.”

Bd Contardo Ferrini was in the true line of St Francis of Assisi.
A biography of Contardo Ferrini by J. Fanciulli was published in 1931, and another, Contardo Ferrini Santo d’Oggi, by C. Caminada, in 1947. But the standard life is by Mgr C. Pellegrini (1928), of which Father Bede Jarrett says, “The only criticism to be made of it is that it is too monumental. Still, the book is a perfect quarry from which to hew stones for erecting a shrine to build in his memory.” And such a small shrine Father Jarrett himself built in his short biographical study of Ferrini (1933).  Bd Contardo’s own Pensieri e Preghiere has been edited by Father Gemelli, himself  “one of the most striking examples of the influence of Ferrini in Milan and in Italy generally”. See also the Miscellanea Contardo Ferrini, published at Rome in 1947 and 1948.
1907 Alexander The holy hierarch; tonsured a monk at the Tbilisi Monastery of the Transfiguration; traveled to Kazan theological academy graduated with honors returned home; taught the Holy Scriptures, Latin, moral theology, and archaeology at Tbilisi Seminary until July 27, 1851; appointed dean of the Abkhazeti theological school; active as a pedagogue, then as an archimandrite, and a bishop; beloved throughout all of Georgian society as he was by the local population--many called him the “Second Apostle to Abkhazeti.”; hrough his efforts alone 2 Sokhumi churches restored, renewed the magnificent monasteries of Shio-Mgvime, Zedazeni, Davit-Gareji, and Shemokmedi, restored Jvari Church, Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Disevi Church, and many other churches in Guria-Samegrelo, Atchara, and Imereti; devoted special attention to the Shio-Mgvime Monastery and the surrounding area, which had been devastated by that time, & founded diocesan school for women in Tbilisi;

Alexi Okropiridze in the world was born in 1824, in the village of Disevi in the Gori district, to the family of the village priest. Growing up around the church, he received his primary education at Gori Theological School and later continued his education at Tbilisi Seminary.

Having completed his course of study at the seminary in 1845, he was tonsured a monk at the Tbilisi Monastery of the Transfiguration and given the new name Alexander. From Tbilisi the young monk Alexander traveled to the theological academy in Kazan to continue his studies. He graduated with honors and returned to his homeland. Hieromonk Alexander taught the Holy Scriptures, Latin, moral theology, and archaeology at Tbilisi Seminary until July 27, 1851.

Then, at the order of the Holy Synod, he was appointed dean of the theological school in Abkhazeti on September 21, 1851. He was also entrusted with overseeing monastic life in the Abkhazeti diocese and with supervising the instruction at Kutaisi Theological School.

Alexander considered a broadening of the network of theological institutions most essential to the strengthening of the Christian Faith in his country. From the very beginning of his labors in Abkhazeti, he exerted an enormous amount of effort to improve the Ilori Theological School in Ochamchire. At first Alexander was active as a pedagogue, then from February 29, 1856, as an archimandrite, and from March 4, 1862, as a bishop. He was as beloved throughout all of Georgian society as he was by the local population, and many called him the “Second Apostle to Abkhazeti.”

Alexander’s pastoral activity coincided with a difficult period in Georgian history. The divine services were no longer being celebrated in the Georgian language, and as a result many of the people began to drift away from the Church. Many Georgian churches and monasteries, considered cultural and academic centers from ancient times, were deserted. (By this time Georgia had been incorporated into the Russian Empire, and the tsarist government had initiated a policy of forced Russification.) The Georgian language was no longer being taught in schools, and the poorest families could not afford to educate their children.

The learned and erudite Bishop Alexander considered the revival of spiritual life and learning, firmly rooted in the national consciousness, the principle means by which to reinvigorate the national spirit and encourage cultural advance.

Alexander’s efforts on behalf of the revival of the churches and monasteries in Abkhazeti are, among his many labors, most worthy of note. Through his efforts alone two churches were restored in Sokhumi. Outside of Abkhazeti, Alexander renewed the magnificent monasteries of Shio-Mgvime, Zedazeni, Davit-Gareji, and Shemokmedi. He restored Jvari Church, Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Disevi Church, and many other churches in Guria-Samegrelo, Atchara, and Imereti. He devoted special attention to the Shio-Mgvime Monastery and the surrounding area, which had been devastated by that time.

Owing to St. Alexander’s generous financial contributions, a diocesan school for women was founded in Tbilisi in 1878.

By his initiative and personal contributions, a great number of spiritual and historical books, textbooks and collections of sacred hymns were published. Not a single God-pleasing project was undertaken without Alexander’s support.

St. Alexander spent the remainder of his days at the Shio-Mgvime Monastery, which he himself had restored. Only once—on September 9, 1907, the day his spiritual son St. Ilia the Righteous was buried— did he step outside the monastery walls. The eighty-three year-old Alexander outlived the great son of Georgia by two months and fell asleep in the Lord on October 27 of the same year. St. Alexander is buried at Shio-Mgvime Monastery.


THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 107

O my Lady, in thee have I hoped: from my enemies deliver me.

Shut thou the mouth of the lion and his teeth: restrain the lips of those that persecute me.

For thy name's sake delay not to accomplish thy mercy in us.

May the brightness of thy countenance shine upon us: that the Most High may keep remembrance of us.

If the enemy should persecute my soul, O Lady, may I be strengthened by thy help:
 lest his sword should strike me.

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.

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

Saint Frances Xavier Seelos  Practical Guide to Holiness
1. Go to Mass with deepest devotion. 2. Spend a half hour to reflect upon your main failing & make resolutions to avoid it.
3. Do daily spiritual reading for at least 15 minutes, if a half hour is not possible.  4. Say the rosary every day.
5. Also daily, if at all possible, visit the Blessed Sacrament; toward evening, meditate on the Passion of Christ for a half hour, 6.  Conclude the day with evening prayer & an examination of conscience over all the faults & sins of the day.
7.  Every month make a review of the month in confession.
8. Choose a special patron every month & imitate that patron in some special virtue.
9. Precede every great feast with a novena that is nine days of devotion. 10. Try to begin & end every activity with a Hail Mary
My God, I believe, I adore, I trust and I love Thee.  I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not
O most Holy trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly.  I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He is offended, and by the infite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  I beg the conversion of poor sinners,  Fatima Prayer, Angel of Peace
The voice of the Father is heard, the Son enters the water, and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove.
THE spirit and example of the world imperceptibly instil the error into the minds of many that there is a kind of middle way of going to Heaven; and so, because the world does not live up to the gospel, they bring the gospel down to the level of the world. It is not by this example that we are to measure the Christian rule, but words and life of Christ. All His followers are commanded to labour to become perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect, and to bear His image in our hearts that we may be His children. We are obliged by the gospel to die to ourselves by fighting self-love in our hearts, by the mastery of our passions, by taking on the spirit of our Lord.
   These are the conditions under which Christ makes His promises and numbers us among His children, as is manifest from His words which the apostles have left us in their inspired writings. Here is no distinction made or foreseen between the apostles or clergy or religious and secular persons. The former, indeed, take upon themselves certain stricter obligations, as a means of accomplishing these ends more perfectly; but the law of holiness and of disengagement of the heart from the world is general and binds all the followers of Christ.
God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique each the result of a new idea.
As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike.
It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints.
Dear Lord, grant us a spirit not bound by our own ideas and preferences.
 Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves.
O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory.
 Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives.
Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts.
The 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary ) Revealed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan)
1.    Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces. 2.    I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary. 3.    The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies. 4.    It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things.  Oh, that soul would sanctify them by this means.  5.    The soul that recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish. 6.    Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying themselves to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune.  God will not chastise them in His justice, they shall not perish by an unprovided death; if they be just, they shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life. 7.    Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church. 8.    Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise. 9.    I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary. 10.    The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.  11.    You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary. 12.    I shall aid all those who propagate the Holy Rosary in their necessities. 13.    I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death. 14.    All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my only Son, Jesus Christ. 15.    Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.
His Holiness Aram I, current (2013) Catholicos of Cilicia of Armenians, whose See is located in Lebanese town of Antelias. The Catholicosate was founded in Sis, capital of Cilicia, in the year 1441 following the move of the Catholicosate of All Armenians back to its original See of Etchmiadzin in Armenia. The Catholicosate of Cilicia enjoyed local jurisdiction, though spiritually subject to the authority of Etchmiadzin. In 1921 the See was transferred to Aleppo in Syria, and in 1930 to Antelias.
Its jurisdiction currently extends to Syria, Cyprus, Iran and Greece.
Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac
The exact date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa {Armenian Ourhaï in Arabic Er Roha, commonly Orfa or Urfa, its present name} is not known. It is certain, however, that the Christian community was at first made up from the Jewish population of the city. According to an ancient legend, King Abgar V, Ushana, was converted by Addai, who was one of the seventy-two disciples. In fact, however, the first King of Edessa to embrace the Christian Faith was Abgar IX (c. 206) becoming official kingdom religion.
Christian council held at Edessa early as 197 (Eusebius, Hist. Ecc7V,xxiii).
In 201 the city was devastated by a great flood, and the Christian church was destroyed (“Chronicon Edessenum”, ad. an. 201).
In 232 the relics of the Apostle St. Thomas were brought from India, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written.

Under Roman domination martyrs suffered at Edessa: Sts. Scharbîl and Barsamya, under Decius; Sts. Gûrja, Schâmôna, Habib, and others under Diocletian. 
In the meanwhile Christian priests from Edessa evangelized Eastern Mesopotamia and Persia, established the first Churches in the kingdom of the Sassanides.  Atillâtiâ, Bishop of Edessa, assisted at the Council of Nicæa (325). The “Peregrinatio Silviæ” (or Etheriæ) (ed. Gamurrini, Rome, 1887, 62 sqq.) gives an account of the many sanctuaries at Edessa about 388.
Although Hebrew had been the language of the ancient Israelite kingdom, after their return from Exile the Jews turned more and more to Aramaic, using it for parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel in the Bible. By the time of Jesus, Aramaic was the main language of Palestine, and quite a number of texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls are also written in Aramaic.
Aramaic continued to be an important language for Jews, alongside Hebrew, and parts of the Talmud are written in it.
After Arab conquests of the seventh century, Arabic quickly replaced Aramaic as the main language of those who converted to Islam, although in out of the way places, Aramaic continued as a vernacular language of Muslims.
Aramaic, however, enjoyed its greatest success in Christianity. Although the New Testament wins written in Greek, Christianity had come into existence in an Aramaic-speaking milieu, and it was the Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac, that became the literary language of a large number of Christians living in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and in the Persian Empire, further east. Over the course of the centuries the influence of the Syriac Churches spread eastwards to China (in Xian, in western China, a Chinese-Syriac inscription dated 781 is still to be seen); to southern India where the state of Kerala can boast more Christians of Syriac liturgical tradition than anywhere else in the world.

680 Shiite saint Imam Hussein, grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad Known as Ashoura and observed by Shiites across the world, the 10th day of the lunar Muslim month of Muharram: the anniversary of the 7th century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints.  Imam Hussein died in the 680 A.D. battle fought on the plains outside Karbala, a city in modern Iraq that's home to the saint's shrine.  The battle over a dispute about the leadership of the Muslim faith following Muhammad's death in 632 A.D. It is the defining event in Islam's split into Sunni and Shiite branches.  The occasion is the source of an enduring moral lesson. "He sacrificed his blood to teach us not to give in to corruption, coercion, or use of force and to seek honor and justice."  According to Shiite beliefs, Hussein and companions were denied water by enemies who controlled the nearby Euphrates.  Streets get partially covered with blood from slaughter of hundreds of cows and sheep. Volunteers cook the meat and feed it to the poor.  Hussein's martyrdom recounted through a rich body of prose, poetry and song remains an inspirational example of sacrifice to many Shiites, 10 percent of the world's estimated 1.3 billion Muslims.
Meeting of the Saints  walis (saints of Allah)
Great men covet to embrace martyrdom for a cause and principle.
So was the case with Hazrat Ali. He could have made a compromise with the evil forces of his time and, as a result, could have led a very comfortable, easy and luxurious life.  But he was not a person who would succumb to such temptations. His upbringing, his education and his training in the lap of the holy Prophet made him refuse such an offer.
Rabia Al-Basri (717–801 C.E.) She was first to set forth the doctrine of mystical love and who is widely considered to be the most important of the early Sufi poets. An elderly Shia pointed out that during his pre-Partition childhood it was quite common to find pictures and portraits of Shia icons in Imambaras across the country.
Shah Abdul Latif: The Exalted Sufi Master born 1690 in a Syed family; died 1754. In ancient times, Sindh housed the exemplary Indus Valley Civilisation with Moenjo Daro as its capital, and now, it is the land of a culture which evolved from the teachings of eminent Sufi saints. Pakistan is home to the mortal remains of many Sufi saints, the exalted among them being Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, a practitioner of the real Islam, philosopher, poet, musicologist and preacher. He presented his teaching through poetry and music - both instruments sublime - and commands a very large following, not only among Muslims but also among Hindus and Christians. Sindh culture: The Shah is synonymous with Sindh. He is the very fountainhead of Sindh's culture. His message remains as fresh as that of any present day poet, and the people of Sindh find solace from his writings. He did indeed think for Sindh. One of his prayers, in exquisite Sindhi, translates thus: “Oh God, may ever You on Sindh bestow abundance rare! Beloved! All the world let share Thy grace, and fruitful be.”
Shia Ali al-Hadi, died 868 and son Hassan al-Askari 874. These saints are the 10th and 11th of Shia's 12 most revered Imams. Baba Farid Sufi 1398 miracle, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki renowned Muslim Sufi saint scholar miracles 569 A.H. [1173 C.E.] hermit gave to poor, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti greatest mystic of his time born 533 Hijri (1138-39 A.D.), Hazrat Ghuas-e Azam, Hazrat Bu Ali Sharif, and Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia Sufi Saint Hazrath Khwaja Syed Mohammed Badshah Quadri Chisty Yamani Quadeer (RA) 1236-1325 welcomed people of all faiths & all walks of life.
801 Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya Sufi One of the most famous Islamic mystics
(b. 717). This 8th century saint was an early Sufi who had a profound influence on later Sufis, who in turn deeply influenced the European mystical love and troubadour traditions.  Rabi'a was a woman of Basra, a seaport in southern Iraq.  She was born around 717 and died in 801 (185-186).  Her biographer, the great medieval poet Attar, tells us that she was "on fire with love and longing" and that men accepted her "as a second spotless Mary" (186).  She was, he continues, “an unquestioned authority to her contemporaries" (218).
Rabi'a began her ascetic life in a small desert cell near Basra, where she lost herself in prayer and went straight to God for teaching.  As far as is known, she never studied under any master or spiritual director.  She was one of the first of the Sufis to teach that Love alone was the guide on the mystic path (222).  A later Sufi taught that there were two classes of "true believers": one class sought a master as an intermediary between them and God -- unless they could see the footsteps of the Prophet on the path before them, they would not accept the path as valid.  The second class “...did not look before them for the footprint of any of God's creatures, for they had removed all thought of what He had created from their hearts, and concerned themselves solely with God. (218)
Rabi'a was of this second kind.  She felt no reverence even for the House of God in Mecca:  "It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?" (219) One lovely spring morning a friend asked her to come outside to see the works of God.  She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker.  Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made" (219).  During an illness, a friend asked this woman if she desired anything.
"...[H]ow can you ask me such a question as 'What do I desire?'  I swear by the glory of God that for twelve years I have desired fresh dates, and you know that in Basra dates are plentiful, and I have not yet tasted them.  I am a servant (of God), and what has a servant to do with desire?" (162)
When a male friend once suggested she should pray for relief from a debilitating illness, she said,
"O Sufyan, do you not know Who it is that wills this suffering for me?  Is it not God Who wills it?  When you know this, why do you bid me ask for what is contrary to His will?  It is not  well to oppose one's Beloved." (221)
She was an ascetic.  It was her custom to pray all night, sleep briefly just before dawn, and then rise again just as dawn "tinged the sky with gold" (187).  She lived in celibacy and poverty, having renounced the world.  A friend visited her in old age and found that all she owned were a reed mat, screen, a pottery jug, and a bed of felt which doubled as her prayer-rug (186), for where she prayed all night, she also slept briefly in the pre-dawn chill.  Once her friends offered to get her a servant; she replied,
"I should be ashamed to ask for the things of this world from Him to Whom the world belongs, and how should I ask for them from those to whom it does not belong?"  (186-7)
A wealthy merchant once wanted to give her a purse of gold.  She refused it, saying that God, who sustains even those who dishonor Him, would surely sustain her, "whose soul is overflowing with love" for Him.  And she added an ethical concern as well:
"...How should I take the wealth of someone of whom I do not know whether he acquired it lawfully or not?" (187)
She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance.  She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did.  For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself.  The story is told that once a number of Sufis saw her hurrying on her way with water in one hand and a burning torch in the other.  When they asked her to explain, she said:
"I am going to light a fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell, so that both veils may vanish altogether from before the pilgrims and their purpose may be sure..." (187-188)
She was once asked where she came from.  "From that other world," she said.  "And where are you going?" she was asked.  "To that other world," she replied (219).  She taught that the spirit originated with God in "that other world" and had to return to Him in the end.  Yet if the soul were sufficiently purified, even on earth, it could look upon God unveiled in all His glory and unite with him in love.  In this quest, logic and reason were powerless.  Instead, she speaks of the "eye" of her heart which alone could apprehend Him and His mysteries (220).
Above all, she was a lover, a bhakti, like one of Krishna’s Goptis in the Hindu tradition.  Her hours of prayer were not so much devoted to intercession as to communion with her Beloved.  Through this communion, she could discover His will for her.  Many of her prayers have come down to us:
       "I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
        But my body is available for those who seek its company,
        And my body is friendly towards its guests,
        But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul."  [224]
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.
To Save A Life is Earthly; Saving A Soul is Eternal Donation by mail, please send check or money order to:
Eternal Word Television Network 5817 Old Leeds Rd. Irondale, AL 35210  USA
  Catholic Television Network  Supported entirely by donations from viewers  help  spread the Eternal Word, online Here
Mother Angelica saving souls is this beautiful womans journey  Shrine_of_The_Most_Blessed_Sacrament
Colombia was among the countries Mother Angelica visited. 
In Bogotá, a Salesian priest - Father Juan Pablo Rodriguez - brought Mother and the nuns to the Sanctuary of the Divine Infant Jesus to attend Mass.  After Mass, Father Juan Pablo took them into a small Shrine which housed the miraculous statue of the Child Jesus. Mother Angelica stood praying at the side of the statue when suddenly the miraculous image came alive and turned towards her.  Then the Child Jesus spoke with the voice of a young boy:  “Build Me a Temple and I will help those who help you.” 

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

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

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

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

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

Father Corapi's Biography

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

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

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

God Bless you on your journey Father John Corapi


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MIRACLES
– Blessed Alfonso Maria Fusco, diocesan priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. John the Baptist (1839-1910);
– Venerable Servant of God John Sullivan, professed priest of the Society of Jesus (1861-1933);
MARTYRDOM
– Servants of God Nikolle Vinçenc Prennushi, O.F.M., archbishop of Durres, Albania, and 37 companions killed between 1945 and 1974;
– Servants of God José Antón Gómez and three companions of the Benedictines of Madrid, Spain, killed 1936;
HEROIC VIRTUES
– Servant of God Thomas Choe Yang-Eop, diocesan priest (1821-1861);
– Servant of God Sosio Del Prete (né Vincenzo), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Congregation of the Little Servants of Christ the King (1885-1952);
– Servant of God Wenanty Katarzyniec (né Jósef), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1889-1921);
– Servant of God Maria Consiglia of the Holy Spirity (née Emilia 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, 107 2022