A number of Christian families had intrusted the education of their children to the care of the pious Ursula, and some persons of the world had in like manner placed themselves under her direction. England being then harassed by the Saxons, Ursula deemed that she ought, after the example of many of her compatriots, to […]
THE eighty-one years of this Saint’s life (1694-1775) were modeled on the Passion of Jesus Christ. In his childhood, when praying in church, a heavy bench fell on his foot, but the boy took no notice of the bleeding wound, and spoke of it as “a rose sent from God.” A few years later, the […]
The following holy Jesuit mssionaries are the first martyrs in North America: Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf, Noel Chabanel, Anthony Daniel, Charles Garnier, Gabriel Lalamant, priests; and Rene Goupil and John Lalande. They were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and canonized by the same Pontiff five years later. Saint Isaac Jogues was born […]
ST. HEDWIGE, the wife of Henry, Duke of Silesia, and the mother of his six children, led a humble, austere, and most holy life amidst all the pomp of royal state. Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was the key-note of her life. Her valued privilege was to supply the bread and wine for the Sacred […]
ST. IGNATIUS, Bishop of Antioch, was the disciple of St. John. When Domitian persecuted the Church, St. Ignatius obtained peace for his own flock by fasting and prayer. But for his part he desired to suffer with Christ, and to prove himself a perfect disciple. In the year 107, Trajan came to Antioch, and forced […]
St. Gall was born in Ireland soon after the middle of the sixth century, of pious, noble, and rich parents. When St. Columban left Ireland, St. Gall accompanied him into England, and afterward into France, where they arrived in 585. St. Columban founded the monastery of Anegray, in a wild forest in the diocese of […]
EDWARD was unexpectedly raised to the throne of England at the age of forty years, twenty-seven of which he had passed in exile. On the throne, the virtues of his earlier years, simplicity, gentleness, lowliness, but above all his angelic purity, shone with new brightness. By a rare inspiration of God, though he married to […]
IN the year 304, during Emperor Diocletian’s persecution, Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus, differing in age and nationality, but united in the bonds of faith, were denounced as Christians to Numerian, Governor of Cilicia. They were arrested at Pompeiopolis, and conducted to Tharsis. There they underwent an interrogation, after which their limbs were torn with iron […]
ST. BRIDGET was born of the Swedish royal family, in 1304. In obedience to her father, she was married to Prince Ulpho of Sweden, and became the mother of eight children, one of whom, Catherine, is honored as a Saint. After some years she and her husband separated by mutual consent. He entered the Cistercian […]
ST. MARK was by birth a Roman, and served God with fervor among the clergy of Rome. He advanced continually in sincere humility and in the knowledge and sense of his own weakness and imperfections; and every day he strove to surpass himself in the fervor of his charity and zeal, and in the exercise […]
ST. PLACID was born in Rome, in the year 515, of a patrician family, and at seven years of age was taken by his father to the monastery of Subiaco. At thirteen years of age he followed St. Benedict to the new foundation at Monte Casino, where he grew up in the practice of a […]
ST. FRANCIS, the son of a merchant of Assisi, was born in that city in 1182. Chosen by God to be a living manifestation to the world of Christ’s poor and suffering life on earth, he was early inspired with a high esteem and burning love of poverty and humiliation. The thought of the Man […]
ST. GERARD was of a noble family of the county of Namur, France. An engaging sweetness of temper, and a strong inclination to piety and devotion, gained him from the cradle the esteem and affection of every one. Having been sent on an important mission to the Court of France, he was greatly edified at […]
GOD does not abandon to mere chance any of His handiworks; by His providence He is everywhere present; not a hair falls from the head or a sparrow to the ground without His knowledge. Not content, however, with yielding such familiar help in all things, not content with affording that existence which He communicates and […]
“MI-CA-EL,” or “Who is like to God?” Such was the cry of the great Archangel when he smote the rebel Lucifer in the conflict of the heavenly hosts, and from that hour he has been known as “Michael,” the captain of the armies of God, the type of divine fortitude, the champion of every faithful […]
ST. FIRMIN was a native of Pampelone in Navarre, initiated in the Christian faith by Honestus, a disciple of St. Saturninus of Toulouse, and consecrated bishop by St. Honoratus, successor to St. Saturninus, in order to preach the Gospel in the remoter parts of Gaul. He preached the Faith in the countries of Agen, Anjou, […]
St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) of whom Pope Clement VIII said: “The Church of God had not his equal in learning,” was born of a noble family at Montepulciano in Tuscany, Italy. He lived a very full life conspicuous for exemplary piety. Brilliant and unusually devout, as a young man he attended the Jesuit College in […]
AS a child Guy had two loves, the Church and the poor. The love of prayer growing more and more, he left his poor home at Brussels to seek greater poverty and closer union with God. He arrived at Laeken, near Brussels, and there showed such devotion before Our Lady’s shrine that the priest besought […]
THE holy confessor Paphnutius was an Egyptian, and after having spent several years in the desert, under the direction of the great St. Antony, was made bishop in Upper Thebais. He was one of those confessors who, under the tyrant Maximin Daia, lost their right eye, and were afterward sent to work in the mines. […]
BORN in answer to the prayer of a holy mother, and vowed before his birth to the service of God, Nicholas never lost his baptismal innocence. His austerities were conspicuous even in the austere Order — the Hermits of St. Augustine — to which he belonged, and to the remonstrances which were made by his superiors […]
GREGORY was a Roman of noble birth, and while still young was governor of Rome. On his father’s death he gave his great wealth to the poor, turned his house on the Cœlian Hill into a monastery, which now bears his name, and for some years lived as a perfect monk. The Pope drew him […]
ST. GILES, whose name has been held in great veneration for several ages in France and England, is said to have been an Athenian by birth, and of noble extraction. His extraordinary piety and learning drew the admiration of the world upon him in such a manner that it was impossible for him to enjoy […]
Zephyrinus, a native of Rome, succeeded Victor in the pontificate, in the year 202, in which Severus raised the fifth most bloody persecution against the Church, which continued not for two years only, but until the death of that emperor in 211. Under this furious storm this holy pastor was the support and comfort of […]
The mother of Louis told him she would rather see him die than commit a mortal sin, and he never forgot her words. King of France at the age of twelve, he made the defence of God’s honor the aim of his life. Before two years, he had crushed the Albigensian heretics, and forced them […]
