Born at Desenzano on Lake Garda in North Italy, St. Angela Merici received a solid Christian education whose value she appreciated to the full. She was fond of saying that the disorders of society are the result of disorder in the family, and that there are too few Christian mothers. To remedy this evil she…

Peter and Marcellinus are two Roman martyrs who suffered under the Diocletian persecution, about the year 303; the first was a priest, the second an exorcist. Their cultus was so important that after peace was restored to the Church, Constantine built a basilica in their honor, as he did for St. Peter, St. Paul, St.…

Going back to the thirteenth century, the feast of Corpus Christi was instituted by the Bishop of Liege, Belgium, for his diocese at the urgent request of St. Juliana, prioress of a convent on Mount Cornillon, near the gates of the city. A few years later Urban IV, a former arch-deacon of Liege, extended its…

The vocation of St. Francis Caracciolo is a curious one. A letter, delivered to him by mistake, informed him of the project of founding a new congregation of Minor Clerks Regular. He decided to join it and was practically the co-founder. His life, devoted to prayer and penance, was penetrated by a burning love of…

A monk of Exeter in England, St. Boniface is one of the great figures of the Benedictine Order and of the monastic apostolate in the Middle Ages. Gregory II sent him to preach the Gospel in Germany. He evangelized Hesse, Saxony and Thuringia and became Archbishop of Mainz. He well earned the title of Apostle…

St. Norbert was born at Xanten near Cologne about the year 1080. As a young cleric he resided at the court of the archbishop of Cologne and then at the court of the emperor where he allowed himself to be influenced by the spirit of the world. But he was won back by grace; caught…

Saint Robert began his religious life as a rector of a parish in the diocese of York, and after becoming a Benedictine monk, attempting to practice its primitive rule, his small monastery was accepted into the Cistercian order by St. Bernard. He was then asked to become abbot of a new Cistercian monastery in Northumberland…

Daughter of Louis VIII and of Blanche of Castille, Isabella was a worthy sister of Louis IX, born in 1225. From her mother she received a Christian education and also the love of virtue. When she had visited the poor in their hovels and looked after all their needs, she spent the rest of her…

Primus and Felician were brothers and lived in Rome many years. They lived for the poor and often spent both nights and days with the confessors in their dungeons or at the places of their torments and execution. They had escaped the dangers of many bloody persecutions and were grown old in the heroic exercise…

St. Margaret the great-niece of St. Edward the Confessor, after the battle of Hastings, fled to the court of Malcolm, the King of Scotland, whom shortly afterwards she married. She proved a model mother and exemplary queen who brought up her eight children in an atmosphere of great devotion and worked hard to improve the…