January 23 – Saint Emerentiana

January 20, 2020

Saint Emerentiana Virgin and martyr, died at Rome in the third century. The old Itineraries to the graves of the Roman martyrs, after giving the place of burial on the Via Nomentana of St. Agnes, speak of St. Emerentiana. Over the grave of St. Emerentiana a church was built which, according to the Itineraries, was […]

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January 23 – St. Bernard

January 20, 2020

(BARNARD.) Archbishop of Vienne, France. Born in 778; died at Vienne, 23 January, 842. His parents, who lived near Lyons and had large possessions, gave him an excellent education, and Bernard in obedience to the paternal wish, married and became a military officer under Charlemagne. After seven years as a soldier the death of his […]

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The Lord of Siverey Consults the Other Knights if Going for Help Will Stain His Honor

January 16, 2020

When I and my knights came out of the camp, we found some six thousand Turks, as we reckoned, who had left their quarters and retreated into the fields. When they saw us, they came running upon us, and killed my Lord Hugh of Trichâtel, Lord of Conflans, who was with me bearing a banner. […]

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The Crusades Were Acts of Faith

January 16, 2020

“Let us only sign our hymns before the sacred walls, and kiss the spots where Jesus stood!” Well may the modern writers and politicians have affirmed that the Crusades were only acts of faith. To cause the law of God to triumph, and to gain Paradise, were the motives of the barons of the twelfth […]

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January 17 – Scanderbeg: the hero of Christendom

January 16, 2020

In a history, where so much is spoken of the regions, from whence the miraculous Image of Our Lady of Good Counsel came, it will be of great use to take a brief glance at the once entirely Catholic nation in which it so long remained, and at the great client of its Sanctuary in […]

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January 17 – Sister of the Grand Master of Malta

January 16, 2020

St. Roseline of Villeneuve (or Rossolina.) Born at Château of Arcs in eastern Provence, 1263; d. 17 January, 1329. Having overcome her father’s opposition Roseline became a Carthusian nun at Bertaud in the Alps of Dauphiné. Her “consecration” took place in 1288, and about 1330 she succeeded her aunt, Blessed Jeanne or Diane de Villeneuve, […]

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January 18 – St. Margaret of Hungary

January 16, 2020

St. Margaret of Hungary Daughter of King Bela I of Hungary and his wife Marie Laskaris, born 1242; died 18 Jan., 1271. According to a vow which her parents made when Hungary was liberated from the Tatars that their next child should be dedicated to religion, Margaret, in 1245 entered the Dominican Convent of Veszprem. […]

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January 19 – James Lainez

January 16, 2020

(LAYNEZ). Second general of the Society of Jesus, theologian, b. in 1512, at Almazan, Castille, in 1512; d. at Rome, 19 January, 1565. His family, although Christian for many generations, had descended from Jewish stock, as has been established by Sacchini (Historia Societatis Jesu, II, sec. 32). Lainez graduated in arts at the University of […]

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January 19 – Bishop Frederic Baraga

January 16, 2020

Frederic Baraga First Bishop of Marquette, Michigan, U.S.A., born 29 June, 1797, at Malavas, in the parish of Dobernice in the Austrian Dukedom of Carniola; died at Marquette, Michigan, 19 January, 1868… Read more here.

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January 19 – Noble martyrs of Persia

January 16, 2020

Sts. Maris, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum All martyred at Rome in 270. Maris and his wife Martha, who belonged to the Persian nobility, came to Rome with their children in the reign of Emperor Claudius II. As zealous Christians, they sympathized with and succoured the persecuted faithful, and buried the bodies of the slain. This […]

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January 19 – The scion of a noble family who longed to be enrolled in the noble army of martyrs

January 16, 2020

St. Blathmac A distinguished Irish monk, b. in Ireland about 750. He suffered martyrdom in Iona, about 835. He is fortunate in having had his biography written by Strabo, Benedictine Abbot of Reichenau (824-849), and thus the story of his martyrdom has been handed down through the ages. Strabo’s life of this saint is in […]

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January 19 – Archbishop Senator of the Spanish Kingdom

January 16, 2020

Blessed Marcelo Rafael José María de los Dolores Hilario Spinola y Maestre, Archbishop of Seville born: 14 January 1835. died 20 January 1906 Marcelo Spínola was born on the island of San Fernando, Cádiz Province. His parents were Juan Spínola y Osorno, Marquis of Spínola and Antonia Maestre y Osorno; they had eight children, of […]

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January 19 – Saintly King

January 16, 2020

St. Canute IV Martyr and King of Denmark, date of birth uncertain; died 10 July 1086, the third of the thirteen natural sons of Sweyn II surnamed Estridsen. Elected king on the death of his brother Harold about 1080, he waged war on his barbarous enemies and brought Courland and Livonia to the faith. Having […]

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January 20 – A dove landed on his head, and you would not believe what happened next!

January 16, 2020

Pope St. Fabian (FABIANUS) Pope (236-250), the extraordinary circumstances of whose election is related by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., VI, 29). After the death of Anterus he had come to Rome, with some others, from his farm and was in the city when the new election began. While the names of several illustrious and noble persons […]

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January 20 – St. Sebastian

January 16, 2020

A.D. 288. St. Sebastian was born at Narbonne, in Gaul, but his parents were of Milan, in Italy, and he was brought up in that city. He was a fervent servant of Christ, and though his natural inclinations gave him an aversion to a military life, yet, to be better able, without suspicion, to assist […]

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January 14 – The Ten Year Old Saint and Some Of Her Miracles

January 13, 2020

Ven. Anne de Guigné When St. Thomas Aquinas’s sister asked him how to become a Saint, he told her to just “will it.” Venerable Anne de Guigné¹ was a child with an iron will and from the moment of her conversion, she willed only one thing…to be a Saint. “To become a Saint is to […]

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January 14 – Matriarch of Saints

January 13, 2020

St. Macrina the Elder Our knowledge of the life of the elder Macrina is derived mainly from the testimony of the great Cappadocian Fathers of the Church, her grandchildren: Basil (Ep. 204:7; 223:3), Gregory of Nyssa (“Vita Macrinae Junioris”), and the panegyric of St. Gregory of Nazianzus on St. Basil (Gregory Naz., Oratio 43). She […]

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January 14 – Blessed Devasahayam Pillai

January 13, 2020

Blessed Devasahayam Pillai Devasahayam Pillai (named Neelakanda Pillai at birth) was born into an affluent Nair-caste family at Nattalam in the present-day Kanyakumari District, on 23 April 1712. His father Vasudevan Namboodiri, hailed from Kayamkulam, in present-day Kerala state, and was working as a priest at Sri Adi Kesava Perumal temple in Thiruvattar in present-day […]

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January 15 – Most Glorious King Ceolwulp

January 13, 2020

King Ceolwulf (also CEOLWULPH or CEOLULPH) Coelwulf, King of Northumbria and monk of Lindisfarne, date and place of birth not known; died at Lindisfarne, 764. His ancestry is thus given by the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle”: “Ceolwulf was the son of Cutha, Cutha of Cuthwin, Cuthwin of Leoldwald, Leoldwald of Egwald, Egwald of Aldhelm, Aldhelm of Ocga, […]

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January 15 – St. Maurus & St. Placidus

January 13, 2020

St. Maurus Deacon, son of Equitius, a nobleman of Rome, but claimed also by Fondi, Gallipoli, Lavello etc.; died 584. Feast, 15 Jan. He is represented as an abbot with crozier, or with book and censer, or holding the weights and measures of food and drink given him by his holy master. He is the […]

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January 16 – The true disciple of St. Francis who sent the Moorish king into a fit of rage

January 13, 2020

St. Berard of Carbio (Or BERALDUS). Friar Minor and martyr; d. 16 January, 1220. Of the noble family of Leopardi, and a native of Carbio in Umbria, Berard was received into the Franciscan Order by the Seraphic Patriarch himself, in 1213. He was well versed in Arabic, an eloquent preacher, and was chosen by St. […]

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January 16 – When the Emporor insisted that the lapsed be readmitted to communion without penance, one man stood in his way. This is his story.

January 13, 2020

Pope St. Marcellus I His date of birth unknown; elected pope in May or June, 308; died in 309. For some time after the death of Marcellinus in 304 the Diocletian persecution continued with unabated severity. After the abdication of Diocletian in 305, and the accession in Rome of Maxentius to the throne of the […]

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January 16 – Irish Prince and Saint

January 13, 2020

St. Fursey An Abbot of Lagny, near Paris, died 16 Jan., about 650. He was the son of Fintan, son of Finloga, prince of South Muster, and Gelgesia, daughter of Aedhfinn, prince of Hy-Briuin in Connaught. He was born probably amongst the Hy-Bruin, and was baptized by St. Brendan the Traveller, his father’s uncle, who […]

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January 16 – St. Euphrosyne

January 13, 2020

Saint Euphrosyne Died about 470. Her story belongs to that group of legends which relate how Christian virgins, in order the more successfully to lead the life of celibacy and asceticism to which they had dedicated themselves, put on male attire and passed for men. According to the narrative of her life in the “Vitae […]

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Like today, the Middle Ages had great sinners. Unlike today, it also had great penitents. The story of Renaud de Montauban

January 9, 2020

[T]he following little known tale is from Renans de Montauban, in which the hero of the fine poem, after a severe retrospective examination of all his past life, takes the resolution to quit “the world,” and devote himself to Heaven. The dominant grief is that he has slain a whole troop of men in his […]

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Popes, Kings, and Church Fathers Condemned the Tournament

January 9, 2020

We are now far from the rude encounters of the early feudal period, but the grand ornamental tournaments of the fourteenth century were the outcome of the old rough and sanguinary tourneys in which the lists were strewn with the dead and dying. It was owing to the advance of Christianity that this softening influence […]

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January 10 – Patient to the Penitent, Inflexible to the Impenitent

January 9, 2020

St. William, Confessor, Archbishop of Bourges (c. 1155 – January 10, 1209) William Berruyer, of the illustrious family of the ancient counts of Nevers, was educated by Peter the hermit, archdeacon of Soissons, his uncle by the mother’s side. He learned from his infancy to despise the folly and emptiness of the riches and grandeur […]

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January 10 – Doge of Venice and Saint of Heaven

January 9, 2020

St. Peter Urseolus (Orseolo) St. Pietro I Orseolo, Doge of Venice from 976 to 978. Born at Rivo alto, Province of Udina, 928; at Cuxa, 10 January, 987 (997 is less probable). Sprung from the wealthy and noble Venetian family, the Orseoli, Peter led from his youth an earnest Christian life. In the service of […]

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January 11 – Wounded in a duel

January 9, 2020

Blessed Bernard Scammacca, O.P. He was born in 1430 to a noble family of Catania, Sicily and given the name Anthony. As was typical of young men at that time, he fought duels. In one of them, his leg was badly wounded. As Anthony convalesced, he had time to think about his life and his […]

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January 12 – Duke of Alva

January 9, 2020

(FERNANDO ALVAREZ DE TOLEDO) Born 1508, of one of the most distinguished Castilian families, which boasted descent from the Byzantine emperors; died at Thomar, 12 January, 1582. From his earliest childhood the boy was trained by a severe discipline for his future career as warrior and statesman. In his sixteenth year he took part in […]

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January 12 – He promoted the use of stained glass

January 9, 2020

St. Benedict Biscop An English monastic founder, born of a noble Anglo-Saxon family, c. 628; died 12 January 690. He spent his youth at the court of the Northumbrian King Oswy. When twenty-five years old, he made the first of his five pilgrimages to Rome. On his return to England, Benedict introduced, whenever he could, […]

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January 12 – “The English Saint Bernard”

January 9, 2020

St. Aelred Abbot of Rievaulx, homilist and historian (1109-66). St. Aelred, whose name is also written Ailred, Æthelred, and Ethelred, was the son of one of those married priests of whom many were found in England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. He was born at Hexham, but at an early age made the acquaintance […]

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January 13 – This Saint Opposed Bishop Lucifer

January 9, 2020

St. Hilary of Poitiers Bishop, born in that city at the beginning of the fourth century; died there 1 November, according to the most accredited opinion, or according to the Roman Breviary, on 13 January, 368. Belonging to a noble and very probably pagan family, he was instructed in all the branches of profane learning, […]

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January 13 – The Count Who Converted the King

January 9, 2020

St. Remigius of Rheims Apostle of the Franks, Archbishop of Rheims, b. at Cerny or Laon, 437; d. at Rheims, 13 January 533. His father was Emile, Count of Laon. He studied literature at Rheims and soon became so noted for learning and sanctity that he was elected Archbishop of Rheims in his twenty-second year. […]

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January 13 – The bold strategic vision of Cluny

January 9, 2020

Saint Berno of Cluny (c. 850 – 13 January 927) was first abbot of Cluny from its foundation in 910 until he resigned in 925. He was subject only to the pope and began the tradition of the Cluniac reforms which his successors brought to fruition across Europe. Berno was first a monk at St. […]

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January 7 – Ordered bandits of royal blood to hang from the highest mast

January 6, 2020

St. Canut Second son of Eric the Good, king of Denmark, he was made duke of Sleswig, his elder brother Nicholas being king of Denmark. Their father, who lived with his people as a father with his children, and no one ever left him without comfort, says the ancient chronicle Knytling-Saga, p. 71. died in […]

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January 7 – St. Kentigerna

January 6, 2020

St. Kentigerna, Widow She is commemorated on the 7th of January, in the Aberdeen Breviary, from which we learn, that she was of royal blood, daughter of Kelly, prince of Leinster in Ireland, as Colgan proves from ancient monuments. She was mother of the holy abbot St. Fœlan, or Felan. After the death of her […]

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January 7 – St. Aldric

January 6, 2020

St. Aldric Bishop of Le Mans in the time of Louis le Debonnaire, born c. 800; died at Le Mans, 7 January, 856. As a youth he lived in the court of Charlemagne, at Aix la Chapelle, as well as in that of his son and successor Louis. By both monarchs he was highly esteemed, […]

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January 8 – Hapsburg Saint

January 6, 2020

St. Gudula (Latin, Guodila) Born in Brabant, Belgium, of Witger and Amalberga, in the seventh century; died at the beginning of the eighth century. After the birth of Gudula her mother Amalberga, who is herself venerated as a saint, embraced the religious life, and according to tradition received the veil at the hands of St. […]

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January 8 – St. Severinus

January 6, 2020

St. Severinus Abbot, and Apostle of Noricum, or Austria A.D. 482. We know nothing of the birth or country of this saint. From the purity of his Latin, he was generally supposed to be a Roman; and his care to conceal what he was according to the world, was taken for a proof of his […]

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January 9 – St. Adrian of Canterbury

January 6, 2020

St. Adrian of Canterbury An African by birth, died 710. He became Abbot of Nerida, a Benedictine monastery near Naples, when he was very young. Pope Vitalian intended to appoint him Archbishop of Canterbury to succeed St. Deusdedit, who had died in 664, but Adrian considered himself unworthy of so great a dignity, and begged […]

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January 9 – St. Peter of Sebaste

January 6, 2020

St. Peter of Sebaste Bishop, born about 340; died 391. He belonged to the richly blest family of Basil and Emmelia of Caesarea in Cappadocia, from which also sprang St. Macrina the Younger (q.v.) and the two great Cappadocian doctors, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. He was the youngest of a large family, […]

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January 9 – Blessed Tommaso Reggio

January 6, 2020

Blessed Tommaso Reggio Bl. Tommaso Reggio was born in Genoa, Italy, on 9 January 1818 to the Marquis of Reggio and Angela Pareto. He had a comfortable upbringing which gave him a solid Christian and cultural background and assured him of a brilliant career. However, at the age of 20 he decided to become a […]

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On Bended Knees

January 2, 2020

Such noble traits of devotion are not confined to days gone by; in our own times we see princes who have inherited from their fathers this true devotion to the Most Holy Sacrament. Of the present Emperor of Austria it is related that, one day as he was riding through the streets of Vienna, at […]

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Light That Is Maternal

January 2, 2020

Stained glass is made in order to give man as if the impression that he has opened a hole in the stone and is seeing gazing upon God. The clarity of stained glass is a clarity that has been as if purified, a recollected clarity that is like a sister or mother to the soul, […]

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January 3 – They called him the “Archangel”

January 2, 2020

St. Odilo Fifth Abbot of Cluny, born c. 962; died 31 December, 1048. He was descended from the nobility of Auvergne. He early became a cleric in the seminary of St. Julien in Brioude. In 991 he entered Cluny and before the end of his year of probation was made coadjutor to Abbot Mayeul, and […]

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January 3 – The saint who twice saved Paris

January 2, 2020

St. Genevieve Patroness of Paris, born at Nanterre, circa 419 or 422; died at Paris, 512. Her feast is kept on 3 January. She was the daughter of Severus and Gerontia; popular tradition represents her parents as poor peasants, though it seems more likely that they were wealthy and respectable townspeople. In 429 St. Germain […]

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January 3 – Saint Joseph Mary Tomasi

January 2, 2020

Saint Joseph Mary Tomasi The very eminent servant of God Joseph Mary Tomasi, Cardinal, whom Pope Pius VII decorated with the honors of the Blessed in 1803, and whom today the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II ascribes solemnly in the book of the Saints, was born at Licata, in Sicily, the Diocese of Agrigento, on […]

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January 4 – Patroness of those afflicted by sexual temptation

January 2, 2020

Blessed Angela of Foligno Umbrian penitent and mystical writer. She was born at Foligno in Umbria, in 1248, of a rich family; died 4 January, 1309. Married at an early age, she loved the world and its pleasures and, worse still, forgetful of her dignity and duties as wife and mother, fell into sin and […]

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January 5 – Pope St. Telesphorus

January 2, 2020

(About 125-136.) St. Telesphorus was the seventh Roman bishop in succession from the Apostles, and, according to the testimony of St. Irenæus (Adv. hæreses, III, iii, 3), suffered a glorious martyrdom. Eusebius (Hist. eccl., IV, vii, xiv) places the beginning of his pontificate in the twelfth of Hadrian’s reign (128-129), his death in the first […]

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January 4 – American Aristrocratic Saint

January 2, 2020

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Foundress and first superior of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, born in New York City, 28 Aug., 1774, of non-Catholic parents of high position; died at Emmitsburg, Maryland, 4 Jan., 1821. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley (born in Connecticut and educated in England), was the first professor of […]

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First recorded Mass in the Americas: January 6, 1494 at La Isabela, Dominican Republic

January 2, 2020

Columbus’s second fleet of seventeen assorted ships carried between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred men and was organized to establish a permanent colony that would serve as a base for trade with the people of this new land. The fleet left Cádiz on 25 September 1493 and arrived in the Caribbean in November. Columbus was […]

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January 6 – St. Roch

January 2, 2020

St. Roch Born at Montpellier towards 1295; died 1327. His father was governor of that city. At his birth St. Roch is said to have been found miraculously marked on the breast with a red cross. Deprived of his parents when about twenty years old, he distributed his fortune among the poor, handed over to […]

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January 6 – The Three Kings made the Kingship of Christ Manifest to the Pagan World

January 2, 2020

The Epiphany of Our Lord Saints Balthasar, Caspar and Melchior Epiphany, which in the original Greek signifies appearance or manifestation, as St. Augustin observes, (1) is a festival principally solemnized in honor of the discovery Jesus Christ made of himself to the Magi, or wise men; who, soon after his birth, by a particular inspiration […]

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December 31 – The patrician girl who befriended St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and the Empress

December 30, 2019

St. Melania (the Younger) Born at Rome, about 383; died in Jerusalem, 31 December, 439. She was a member of the famous family of Valerii. Her parents were Publicola and Albina, her paternal grandmother of the same name is known as Melania, Senior. Little is known of the saint’s childhood, but after the time of […]

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December 31 – Ideal Bishop, Skilled Goldsmith

December 30, 2019

St. Marius Aventicus (Or AVENTICENSIS) Bishop of Avenches (Switzerland) and chronicler, born about 530 in the present Diocese of Autun; died at Lausanne, 31 December, 594. Of the events of his life little is known. From an inscription on his tomb in the church of St. Thyrsius in Lausanne (published in the “Monumenta Germ. Scriptores”, […]

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January 1 – The Virgin Mary was “of the house of David”

December 30, 2019

Mary’s Davidic ancestry St. Luke (2:4) says that St. Joseph went from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled, “because he was of the house and family of David”. As if to exclude all doubt concerning the Davidic descent of Mary, the Evangelist (1:32, 69) states that the child born of Mary without the intervention of […]

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January 1 – He brought to the West some of the most famous relics

December 30, 2019

St. Agricius Bishop of Trier (Trèves), in the fourth century (332 or 335). A local ninth-century tradition states that he had been Patriarch of Antioch, and that he was translated to the See of Trier by Pope Silvester, at the request of the Empress Helena. He was present at the Council of Arles in 314, […]

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January 1 – Cluny produces another hero

December 30, 2019

St. William Abbot of Saint-Bénigne at Dijon, celebrated Cluniac reformer, born on the Island of Giuglio on Lake Orta near Novara in Piedmont in 962; died at Fecamp, one of his reformed monasteries in Normandy, 1 January 1031. At the age of seven he was brought as an oblate to the Benedictine monastery of Locedia […]

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January 1 – As bishop, he was harsh to himself, to his clergy, and to any king

December 30, 2019

St. Fulgentius (FABIUS CLAUDIUS GORDIANUS FULGENTIUS). Born 468, died 533. Bishop of Ruspe in the province of Byzacene in Africa, eminent among the Fathers of the Church for saintly life, eloquence and theological learning. His grandfather, Gordianus, a senator of Carthage, was despoiled of his possessions by the invader Genseric, and banished to Italy, his […]

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