Bishop of Antioch in Syria, the See founded by St. Peter, St. Ignatius is one of the finest examples of a bishop in the early Church. Condemned to be thrown to the wild beasts and sent to Rome in chains, he wrote on his journey magnificent letters in which his great love for Christ and…
This feast celebrates the Presentation of Jesus in the temple and the Purification of our Lady, forty days after the birth of our Savior; it belongs to the Christmas season. The Purification is a festival of light. The procession, in which the blessed candles are carried by clergy and faithful, recalls by its symbolism the…
Bishop of Sebaste in Armenia, St. Blaise was put to death under Licinius in 316. In the holy wars his relics were dispersed over the West, and his veneration was propagated by many miraculous cures, especially of sore throats. He is the principal patron of the commonwealth of Ragusa. No other reason than the great…
A young Florentine of the noble Corsini family, St. Andrew was converted from a sinful life and led to eminent sanctity by divine grace. He joined the Carmelite Order and soon became prior of the monastery at Florence and Provincial of Tuscany. Elected Bishop of Fiesole, despite his unwillingness, he continued as a bishop his…
In Catania, Sicily, St. Agatha, having been consecrated to God from her early years, was martyred. Quintianus, a man of consular dignity who lusted after her caused her to be apprehended and brought before him. Seeing herself in the hands of the persecutors, she made this prayer: “Jesus Christ, Lord of all things, you see…
Born a gentile, St. Titus seems to have been converted by St. Paul, who calls him his son in Christ. His extraordinary virtue and merit gained him the particular esteem and affection of this apostle; for we find him employed as his secretary and interpreter; and he styles him his brother, and co-partner in his…
St. Romuald of the family of the dukes of Ravenna was brought up in the maxims of the world. In softness and the love of pleasure, he grew every day more and more enslaved to his passions: yet he often made a resolution of undertaking something remarkable for the honor of God. His father, Sergius,…
From Provence, St. John of Matha was ordained priest in Paris and retired to a solitary life conscious that God was calling him to a special mission. He spent three years in prayer and recollection and then founded the Trinitarian Order for the ransom of Christians held by the Mohammedans. A great number of houses…
Patriarch of Alexandria, St. Cyril, one of the metropolitan sees of the Christian Church in the East, was one of the great defenders of the faith against the heresy of Nestorius who denied the oneness of person in Jesus Christ. At the Council of Ephesus in 431, over which he presided in the Pope’s name,…
The sister of St. Benedict, St. Scholastica consecrated herself to God as a virgin and lived not far from the monastery of Monte Cassino founded by her brother. In one of their annual visits together, St. Benedict refused to prolong the spiritual conversation which each year he allowed his sister in spite of St. Scholastica’s…
Between February 11 and July 16, 1858 the Blessed Virgin appeared eighteen times and showed herself to St. Bernadette Soubirous in the hollow of the rock at Lourdes. On March 25 she said to the little shepherdess who was only fourteen years of age: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” Since then, Lourdes has become a…
Today the liturgy honors seven noble Florentines who in the thirteenth century, at a time when Florence and all Italy was torn by civil strife, banded together to found, not far from Florence on Monte Senario, the Order of Servites or Servants of Mary, especially dedicated to penance and meditation on the sorrows of our…
Raised by her godmother after her mother’s death, St. Catharine was placed in a convent of Monticelli near the gates of Florence where her aunt, Louisa de Ricci was a nun. After some years her father took her home but the interruptions and dissipation gave her so much uneasiness that at age 14, with the…
Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who on finding it impossible to make him renounce his faith commanded him to be beaten with clubs and…
Faustinus and Jovita were brothers and zealous professors of the Christian religion which they preached without fear in their city of Brescia while the bishop of that place lay concealed during the persecution. We can affirm with certainty that their remarkable zeal excited the fury of the heathens against them, and procured them a glorious…
A Phrygian by birth, slave to Philemon and a person of note in the city of Colossae, Onesimus, having robbed his master, in his escape, providentially met St. Paul in his flight. In Rome St. Paul converted and baptized him and sent him with his canonical letter of recommendation to Philemon, by whom he was…
Born of a considerable family in the territory of Toulouse, St. Silvin passed his first years at the court of two successive kings, Childeric II and Theodoric III. Everything was ready for his marriage when powerfully touched by divine grace he renounced all worldly prospects and retired from court. After several devout penitential pilgrimages to…
St. Simeon was the son of Cleophas, otherwise called Alpheus, brother to St. Joseph and of Mary, sister of the Blessed Virgin. He was therefore nephew both to St. Joseph and to the Blessed Virgin, and cousin to Christ. Simeon and Simon are the same name, and this saint is, according to the best interpreters…
St. Barbatus received a Christian education and took holy orders as soon as the canons of the church allowed it. He was immediately employed by his bishop in preaching for which he had an extraordinary talent and some time afterwards made curate of St. Basil’s in Morcona, a town near Benevento. His parishioners desired only…
Daughter of Domneva and Merwald, a son of king Penda, St. Mildred was consecrated first abbess of Minstre and at the same time received to the habit seventy young women. With humility, St. Mildred behaved as the servant of her sisters and conducted them to virtue by the authority of her example for all were…
In the year 344, Daniel a priest and Verda a virgin were apprehended in the province of the Razicheans, in Persia, by an order of the governor and put to all manner of torments for three months, almost without intermission. Among other tortures, their feet being bored through, were put into frozen water for five…
To honor the dignity of the Prince to whom Jesus committed the power of the keys, the Church instituted the feast of the Chair of St. Peter which is found in the Roman calendar at this date since the year 354. Celebration of St. Peter’s Chair means veneration, in the person of Peter, of God’s…
A man of vehemence in all his actions, St. Peter Damian, brought up in the hard school of poverty, found that he had the vocation of a reformer. He exercised it in the first place against himself as one of the hermits of Fontavellana in about 1035; but he did not remain for long hidden…
The Epistle of today gives an account of the election of St. Matthias as it has been preserved for us in the Acts of the Apostles. He had been one of the disciples during the whole of our Lord’s public life and like the others, was a witness of His resurrection. He it was who…
A physician and brother of St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Caesarius studied in Alexandria with incredible success and became the first man of his age in medicine. He perfected himself in this profession at Constantinople. He was singularly honored by Julian the Apostate, nominated his first physician and excepted in several edicts which that prince published…
St. Victor became a priest but the love of heavenly contemplation being always the prevalent inclination in his soul he preferred close retirement to the mixed life of the care of souls. God glorified him by many miracles. St. Bernard says about him: “Now placed in heaven, he beholds God clearly revealed to him, swallowed…
The young Italian saint, who died at the age of twenty-four, like St. Aloysius Gonzaga, is a model of youth entirely possessed by the grace of God. Born in 1838, in 1856 he joined the Passionists, took his vows, received minor orders and died on February 27, 1862. Only an exact performance of all the…
According to the Roman Martyrology on February 28th, there is a mention for the commemoration of the following Holy Martyrs: "In Alexandria, in the reign of the emperor Valerian, the commemoration of the holy priests, deacons, and other Christians in great number, who encountered death most willingly by nursing the victims of a most deadly pestilence…
