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…

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…