KING SAPOR, of Persia, in the eighteenth year of his reign, raised a bloody persecution against the Christians, and laid waste their churches and monasteries, Jonas and Barachisius, two brothers of the city Beth-Asa, hearing that several Christians lay under sentence of death at Hubaham, went thither to encourage and serve them. Nine of that […]
Lessons without end, at once lofty and hallowing, might be deduced from the triumphant entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, celebrated by the Church on this day. We limit ourselves, however, to considering the event under one aspect merely in order to draw therefrom a moral lesson for our spiritual instruction. Our Lord enters Jerusalem, […]
ST. GONTRAN was the King of Burgundy (present day east-central France) from 561 to 593. Gontran was the second surviving son of King Clotaire, and the grandson of Frankish King Clovis I and St. Clotilda. His brother Charibert reigned at Paris, and Sigebert in Ostrasia. When compelled to take up arms against his ambitious brothers […]
TILL he was twenty-five, John worked as a carpenter with his father. Then feeling a call from God, he left the world and committed himself to a holy solitary in the desert. His master tried his spirit by many unreasonable commands, bidding him roll the hard rocks, tend dead trees, and the like. John obeyed […]
ST. LUDGER was born in Friesland (northern Netherlands) about the year 743. His father, a nobleman of the first rank, at the child’s own request, committed him very young to the care of St. Gregory, the disciple of St. Boniface, and his successors in the government of the see of Utrecht. Gregory educated him in […]
“HAIL, flowers of the martyrs!” the Church sings in her Office of the Holy Innocents, who were the first to die for Christ; and in every age mere children and infants have gloriously confessed His name. In 1472 the Jews in the city of Trent determined to vent their hate against the Crucified by slaying […]
HUNERIC, the Arian king of the Vandals in Africa, succeeded his father Genseric in 477. He behaved himself at first with moderation towards the Catholics, but in 480 he began a grievous persecution of the clergy and holy virgins, which in 484 became general, and vast numbers of Catholics were put to death. Victorian, one […]
ST. CATHARINE was daughter of Ulpho, Prince of Nericia in Sweden, and of St. Bridget. At seven years of age she was placed in the nunnery of Risburgh, and educated in piety under the care of the holy abbess of that house. Being very beautiful, she was, by her father, contracted in marriage to Eggard, […]
ST. BENEDICT, blessed by grace and in name, was born of a noble Italian family about 480. When a boy he was sent to Rome, and there placed in the public schools. Frightened by the licentiousness of the Roman youth, he fled to the desert mountains of Subiaco, and was directed by the Holy Spirit […]
His father was an officer in the armies of King Dagobert, and the Saint spent some years in the court of King Clotaire III and of his mother, St. Bathildes. But Wulfran occupied his heart only with God, despising worldly greatness as empty and dangerous, and daily advancing in virtue. His estate of Maurilly he bestowed […]
CYRIL was born at or near the city of Jerusalem, about the year 315. He was ordained priest by St. Maximus, who gave him the important charge of instructing and preparing the candidates for Baptism. This charge he held for several years, and we still have one series of his instructions, given c. 347. They […]
ABRAHAM was a rich nobleman of Edessa in present day Syria. At his parents’ desire he married, but escaped to a cell near the city as soon as the feast was over. He walled up the cell-door, leaving only a small window through which he received his food. There for fifty years he sang God’s […]
ST. ZACHARY succeeded Gregory III., in 741, and was a man of singular meekness and goodness. He loved the clergy and people of Rome to such a degree that he hazarded his life for them during the troubles in Italy when the Dukes of Spoleto and Benevento rebelled against King Luitprand. Out of respect to […]
THIS princess (also called Matilde) was daughter of Theodoric, a powerful Saxon count. Her parents placed her very young in the monastery of Erford, of which her grandmother Maud was then abbess. Our Saint remained in that house, an accomplished model of all virtues, till her parents married her to Henry, son of Otho, Duke […]
ST. EULOGIUS was of a senatorial family of Cordova, at that time the capital of the Moors in Spain. Our Saint was educated among the clergy of the Church of St. Zoilus, named for a martyr who suffered with nineteen others under Diocletian. Here he distinguished himself, by his virtue and learning, and, being made […]
THE FORTY MARTYRS were soldiers quartered at Sebaste in Armenia, about the year 320. When their legion was ordered to offer sacrifice they separated themselves from the rest and formed a company of martyrs. After they had been torn by scourges and iron hooks they were chained together and led to a lingering death. It […]
FRANCES was born at Rome in 1384. Her parents were, of high rank. They overruled her desire to become a nun, and at twelve years of age married her to Rorenzo Ponziano, a Roman noble. During the forty years or their married life they never had a disagreement. While spending her days in retirement and […]
NOTHING in John’s early life foreshadowed his future sanctity. He ran away as a boy from his home in Portugal, tended sheep and cattle in Spain, and served as a soldier against the French, and afterwards against the Turks. When about forty years of age, feeling remorse for his wild life, he resolved to devote […]
ST. THOMAS was born of noble parents at Aquino in Italy, in 1226. At the age of nineteen he received the Dominican habit at Naples, where he was studying. Seized by his brothers on his way to Paris, he suffered a two years’ captivity in their castle of Rocca-Secca; but neither the caresses of his […]
AFTER a holy childhood, Colette joined a society of devout women called the Beguines; but not finding their state sufficiently austere, she entered the Third Order of St. Francis, and lived in a hut near her parish church of Corbie in Picardy. Here she had passed four years of extraordinary penance when St. Francis, in […]
IN the seventh year of Diocletian’s persecution, continued by Galerius Maximianus, when Firmilian, the most bloody governor of Palestine, had stained Cæsarea with the blood of many illustrious martyrs, Adrian and Eubulus came out of the country called Magantia to Cæsarea, in order to visit the holy confessors there. At the gates of the city […]
CASIMIR, the second son of Casimir III., King of Poland was born A. D. 1458. From the custody of a most virtuous mother, Elizabeth of Austria, he passed to the guardianship of a devoted master, the learned and pious John Dugloss. Thus animated from his earliest years by precept and example, his innocence and piety […]
ST. CUNEGUNDES was the daughter of Siegfried, the first Count of Luxemburg, and Hadeswige, his pious wife. They instilled into her from her cradle the most tender sentiments of piety, and married her to St. Henry, Duke of Bavaria, who, upon the death of the Emperor Otho III., was chosen king of the Romans, and […]
ST. SIMPLICIUS was the ornament of the Roman clergy under Sts. Leo and Hilarius, and succeeded the latter in the pontificate in 468. He was raised by God to comfort and support his Church amidst the greatest storms. All the provinces of the Western Empire, out of Italy, were fallen into the hands of barbarians. […]
