Saint of the Day – 23 February – Saint Milo of Benevento (Died c1077) Bishop, Teacher, Spiritual Guide and most zealous Shepherd of his flock and a loving father to the poor, the sick and the nedy. Born in Auvergne, France and died in c1073 in Benevento, Italy of natural causes. Patronages – of Bishops, of the poor and needy, of Teachers. Also known as – Milo of Auvergne, Milon … Milone… Additional Memorial – 25 May on some calendars.
An Unknown Bishop Saint who maybe St Milo
Saint Milo was born in Auvergne, France, in the 11th Century. From a young age he was remarkable for his piety and intelligence,and, for this reason, he was initiated into the studies required for the Priesthood. He studied in Paris, where he was Ordained a Priest and became a Canon of the Cathedral.
Milo was a man of great charity and compassion. He dedicated himself passionately to his ministry and, did his utmost to help those in need. He was also a great Teacher and was responsible for the education of several young people, including Saint Stephen of Muret, who would become the Founder of the Order of Grandmont.
The Romanesque Cathedral of Benevento
The fame of Milo’s virtues and knowledge soon crossed the borders of France. In 1068, he was elected as the Bishop of Benevento in Italy. Milo accepted the Ecclesiatical honour with great humility and dedication. He committed himself to reforming the Diocese and promoting peace and justice.
Unfortunately he was able to govern the Diocese for only two years. He died in c1070 (some sources say 1076).
Saint Milo is venerated as a Patron of Bishops, Teachers and the poor and needy. His liturgical Feast is celebrated on 23 February 23 and 25 May.
Saint of the Day – 31 December – Saint Zoticus of Constantinople (Died c350) Priest, known as “The Feeder of Orphans,” possibly a Martyr. Patronages – of the poor and of orphans. Nickname: “Orphanotrophos” the one who feeds orphans. Name means: Z: the man full of life (Greek) and O: the orphan carer (Greek).
Originally from Rome, he journeyed to Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) when it became the capital city of the Empire under Constantine the Great (r. 324-337). There he founded a hospital for the poor and defended orthodox Christianity before the pro-Arian Emperor Constantius II (r. 641-668).
Some traditions declare him a Martyr due to the above defiance of the Arian Enmperor but the Roman Martyrology does not define him as a Martyr. It says: “The same day, St Zoticus, Roman Priest, who went to Constantinople and took upon himself the care of orphans.”
Zoticus is revered as the founder of Byzantium ‘s first Orphanage
Saint of the Day – 18 April – Blessed Barbara Aurillot / Marie of the Incarnation OCD (1566-1618) Widow, Third Order Lay Discalced Carmelite Sister, Apostle of Charity, Mystic. Barbara is considered the Foundress of the French branch of Carmel. She was known for receiving visions and ecstasies and for supernatural gifts. Born on 1 February 1566 at Paris, France as Barbe Aurillot and died on 18 April 1618 at Pontoise, France of natural causes. Patronages – against impoverishment, against loss of parents, against poverty, parents separated from children, the poor, widows. Also known as – Le belle Acarie (the beautiful Acarie), as she was known in Paris, Barbara Aurillot, Barbara Avrillot, Barbe Acarie, Barbe Aurillot, Barbe Avrillot, Madame Acarie, Marie Acarie Marie or Mary of the Incarnation.
Barbara was the daughter of a French Government Official named Nicholas Aurillot,the Accountant General in the Paris Chamber and Chancellor of Marguerite of Navarre, first wife of Henri IV. Her mother, Marie Lhuillier. was a descendant of Etienne Marcel, the famous prévôt des marchands (Chief municipal Magistrate). She was educated at her Aunt’s Convent at Longchamps, the Minor Sisters of Humility of Our Lady.
Although Barbara was attracted to the religious life, at the age of 16 in 1684, through obedience, she was married to Pierre Acarie, the Viscount of Villemoran, a wealthy young man of high standing, who was a fervent Catholic and Government Treasury Official. She became the Mother of six children, three of whom became Carmelites Nuns and one a Priest.
Her husband, Pierre, supported the Catholic League, of which he was a staunch member, against Henry IV. Pierre was one of the sixteen who organised the resistance in Paris. When Henry became King, he seized the Acarie estates, impoverished the family and exiled Pierre from Paris, separated husband and father from his family. Barbara had to contend with creditors and irate businessmen. Although she had been severely injured due to a fall from her horse and medical treatment which had only made matters worse and left her an invalid for the rest of her life. Barbara still, legally challenged the matter and went to Court to fight and she won. The family was able to reclaim part of the their property and fortune.
Barbara was devoted to the writings of Saint Teresa of Avila. Her good works eventually won her the admiration and support of the same King Henry! who assisted her later when she was the greatest protagonist in bringing the reformed Carmelites of St Teresa to France. At this time, she received a vision of St Teresa who informed her that God wished Barbara to do this work.
At the beginning of the Seventeenth Century Madame Acarie was widely known for her virtue, her supernatural gifts and especially, for her charity towards the poor and the sick in the hospitals. To her residence came all the distinguished and devout people of the day. Among them was St Vincent de Paul and St Francis de Sales, the latter of whom became her Spiritual Counsellor.
Barbara was instrumental in bringing the Discalced Carmelites of Saint Teresa to France, founding five houses between 1604 and 1609. The Carmel spread rapidly and profoundly influenced the French religious and secular society of the day. In 1618, the year of Barbara’s death, Carmel numbered fourteen houses.
She also shared in two foundations of the day, that of the Oratory and of the Ursulines. She urged De Bérulle to refuse the tutorship of Louis XIII and on 11 November 1611, she, with St Vincent de Paul, assisted at the Mass of the installation of the Oratory of France.
Among the many postulants whom Mme Acarie received for the Carmel, there were some who had no vocation and she conceived the idea of getting them to undertake the education of young girls and broached her plan to her holy cousin, Mme. de Sainte-Beuve. To establish the new order they brought Ursulines to Paris and adopted their rule and name.
When Pierre died in 1613, his widow settled her affairs and begged leave to enter the Carmel, asking as a favour to be received as a lay sister in the poorest community. In 1614 she withdrew to the Monastery of Amiens, taking the name of Marie of the Incarnation. Her three daughters had preceded her into the cloister and one of them was Sub-prioress at Amiens. In 1616, by order of her Superiors for health reasons, she went to the Carmelite Convent at Pontoise, where she died at the aged of 52/53. St Francis de Sales considered her death in spiritual poverty as laudable as that of St Francis Xavier’s, who died in utter physical poverty.
Her cause was introduced at Rome in 1627 and she was Beatified on 24 April 1791 by Pope Pius VI – her Feast is widely celebrated in Paris on 18 April. Her mortal remains are in the Chapel of the Carmelites of Pontoise.
It has been said that the vigorous and saintly Madame Acarie, provided the first definite impulse towards that interior growth which made the exquisite and urbane St Francis de Sales, a fit guide for the soul of St Jane Frances de Chantal.
Saint of the Day – 8 February – Saint Cuthman of Steyning (Died 8th Century) Hermit, builder of Churches, Miracle-worker. Born in c681 at Chidham, near Bosham, Sussex (some legends say Devon or Cornwall) in England and diedin the 8th Century at Steyning, Sussex, England. Patronages – against poverty, bachelors, poor people, shepherds, of Steyning, England. Also known as – Cuthmann, Cutmano, Cutmanus.
Modern statue of St Cuthman by Penny Reeve, looking over the road to the Church he founded at Steyning.
The earliest surviving written record of Cuthman’s life is a volume of the Acta Sanctorum, published by the Bollandists at Antwerp in 1658. According to the story, Cuthman was a shepherd who grew up either in the West Country or at Chidham, near Chichester. He was probably born in the late seventh century and may have been Baptised by St Wilfrid himself, the ‘Apostle of Sussex.’
Even as a young boy, Cuthman showed signs of his closeness to God. One day, while tending his sheep, he drew a line around them with his staff so that he could get away to collect food. On his return, he found that the flock had not left the invisible boundary. This miracle may have taken place in a field near Chidham, which, for centuries was known as ‘St Cuthman’s Field’ or ‘St Cuthman’s Dell.’ It was said that a large stone in the field, ‘on which the holy shepherd was in the habit of sitting,’ held miraculous properties.
A turning point in Cuthman’s life was the death of his father, which left both him and his mother destitute. They decided to leave their home and journey eastwards – in the direction of the rising sun. By this time, Cuthman’s mother was an invalid and so he had to push her in a wheeled wooden cart. A rope that stretched from the handles to the Saint’s shoulders helped carry the burden. When the rope snapped, he made a new one out of withies (willow tree branches used for basketry). The local haymakers laughed at Cuthman’s rather pathetic efforts but Providence soon responded to their merriment by sending a sudden rainstorm, destroying their harvest. Later versions of the story say that, from that moment onwards, it always rained in that field during the haymaking season!
Cuthman decided that once this replacement rope made of withies broke, it would be a sign from God to settle at that place and build a Church. This happened at Steyning, which, according to the Acta Sanctorum, was ‘a place lying at the base of a lofty hill, then woody, overgrown with brambles and bushes but now rendered by agriculture fertile and fruitful, enclosed between two streams springing from the hill above. The Bollandist Monks have also provided us with Cuthman’s prayer as he reached this blessed spot:
“Father Almighty, Thou hast brought my wanderings to an end; now enable me to begin this work. For who am I, Lord, that I should build a house to Thy Name? If I rely on myself, it will be of no avail but it is Thou Who will assist me. Thou hast given me the desire to be a builder; make up for my lack of skill and bring the work of building this holy house to its completion.”
And so, this unlikely builder began constructing a worthy Sanctuary in honour of the One who had guided him safely along his journey ad orientem. Many of the local inhabitants helped him in this great task and on one occasion, according to the legend, he even received Divine assistance. The builders were having trouble with a roof-beam, when a stranger appeared and provided them with a solution. When asked his name, the newcomer replied: ‘I am He in Whose name you are building the Church.‘
He built a wooden Chapel in Steyning, probably on the site of the present Church of St Andrew’s. This building was certainly well established by 857, when King Ethelwulf (father of St Alfred the Great) was buried there.
It seems that pilgrims visited the Tomb of St Cuthman and that his intercession led to many miraculous cures. During the reign of St Edward the Confessor, the Church at Steyning was given to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity at Fécamp, Normandy. This Benedictine house, founded in the seventh century, is famous for its ‘Benedictine’ liqueur, which today is commercially produced in the grounds of the old Abbey. It was to this Monastery that the Black Monks took the body of St Cuthman and his Feast (8 February) was celebrated at many of the religious houses of Normandy. Thus, St Cuthman became well known on the continent – as can be seen in a mid fifteenth century German engraving of the saint by Martin Schongauer and in the writings of the seventeenth century Bollandists.
Meanwhile, the Church at Steyning was rebuilt and dedicated to St Andrew. However, St Cuthman was not forgotten in his beloved land. A ‘Guild of St Cuthman’ was in existence at Chidham on the eve of the Reformation and a misericord in Ripon Cathedral depicts him pushing his mother in a three-wheeled barrow. There are quite a few Churches dedicated to St Cuthman in England but in Steyning, he is particularly loved and venerated.
St Andrew’s Church in Steyning
The colourful tale of St Cuthman presents us with a charming example of filial piety, prayer, evangelisation and Church building in Saxon England. In the words of Christopher Fry:
It is there in the story of Cuthman, the working together Of man and God like root and sky; the son Of a Cornish shepherd, Cuthman, the boy with a cart, The boy we saw trudging the sheep-tracks with his mother Mile upon mile over five counties; one Fixed purpose biting his heels and lifting his heart. We saw him; we saw him with a grass in his mouth, chewing And travelling. We saw him building, at last, A Church among whortleberries…
Saint of the Day – 14 January – St Macrina the Elder (Died c 340) Widow, Mother of the elder St Basil and, therefore, the Grandmother of St Basil the Great, St Gregory of Nyssa, St Peter of Sebaste and St Macrina the Younger. Macrina was a native of Cappadocia, in what is now eastern Turkey. Patronages – against poverty, of the poor, of widows. Also known as – Macrina of Caesarea.
The Roman Martyrology says today: “St Macrina, disciple of St Gregory Thaumaturgus and the grandmother of St Basil, whom she brought up in the Faith.”
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, Gregory of Nyssa (Vita Macrinae Junioris) and the panegyric of St Gregory of Nazianzen on St Basil.
Two of these grandsons helped shape the Faith which we proclaim today—Basil the Great, a Doctor of the Church and his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, who helped the Church better articulate her understanding of the Trinity. Both of these men played crucial roles in formulating the Nicene Creed which Catholics still recite every Sunday at Mass. Macrina raised both of these men and their influential younger sister, Macrina the Younger. She gave all these great Saints their first religious instruction as children.
The works of Basil indicate that she studied under Gregory Thaumaturgus (or the Wonderworker), the great father of the Faith in Cappadocia, he of whom it is said that when he arrived in the territory, there were only seventeen Christians in the Town of Neocaesarea; when he died in 268, there were only seventeen pagans. It was his teachings, handed down through Macrina to Basil and Gregory that were particularly formative for the two Cappadocian brothers.
Her home was at Neocaesarea in Pontus and according to Gregory Nazianzen, during the persecution of Christians under Galerius and Diocletian, Macrina fled with her husband to the shores of the Black Sea. They left their home and hid in the woods for seven years. They were often hungry and had to live off the land and whatever animals they could hunt. After they were finally allowed to go home to Neocaesarea, another round of persecution took effect and their possessions were confiscated. These trials are the reason for her patronage of the poor.
She was widowed and is also the Patron of widows. She is said to have died in the early 340s
Saint of the Day – 7January – St Valentine of Passau (Died 475) Bishop in Passau in the Rhaetia region, Switzerland, an area in the border region of modern Italy, Austria and Switzerland, Monk, Abbot, Missionary, Hermit, Miracle-worker. Died on 7 January 475 at Mais, Tyrol, Austria of natural causes. Patronages – against convulsions, against cramps/stomach pain, against epilepsy, against gout, against plague/epidemics, against demonic possession, of cattle diseases, of pilgrims, poor people, City and Diocese of Passau. Also known as • Valentine of Mais • Valentine of Raetia • Valentine of Ratien • Valentine of Retie • Valentine of Rezia • Valentine of Rhaetia • Valentine of Rhétie • Valentin, Valentinus.Additional Memorial – 4 August (translation of relics), 29 October a combined Feast with the other Patrons of Passau, St Stephen, the Protomartyr and St Maximillian Martyr Bishop of Passau for 20 years, who died in c 284 (Feast day 12 October)..
The 3 Patrons of Passau, St Valentine left, st Stephen centre and St Maximillian right
According to tradition, Valentine came to Passau around 430; there the construction of the first Church on the site of today’s Cathedral is attributed to him.
Valentine had been sent by the Pope to preach the Gospel in the Passau. He found that his work was without fruit and returned to Rome to implore the Holy Father to send him elsewhere. But the Pope Consecrated him Bishop and sent him back to Passau, to preach in season and out of season, whether it produced fruit or not.
The Bishop renewed his efforts but the pagans and Arians combined to drive him out of the City. Thereupon, he went into the Rhætian Alps and his teaching produced abundant fruit in the region. His Vita states, St Valentine was “teaching the word of God and doing great good, such that he was able to expel demons from the obsessed and cure those who were sick of all sorts of diseases.”
At length he resolved to serve God and purify his own soul, in a life of retirement. He, therefore, built a little Chapel and Monastery at Mais, in Tyrol and there he died. His Relics are enshrined at Passau.
A Monk who died in 482 wrote a Vita of the Bishop of Raetia. St Venantius Fortunatus knew of a Church dedicated to Saint Valentine in the Upper Inn Valley and another, probably on the Brenner Pass in the Alps.
otive image, 1843 from the Mariahill pilgrimage Church in Passau. Next to Bishop Valentin appears the Mother of God with the Jesus Child in her arms in a wreath of clouds. The text asks for a devotional Lord’s Prayer to Maria for the sinful person.
Around 1200, on the occasion of the discovery of his grave in the forecourt of Passau Cathedral, a life story was written by an Cathedral Chaplain – who said that Valentin worked in the area around Passau but was unsuccessful because of the wildness of the residents and finally retreated to the Alps after abuse and expulsion.
Below is a Painting by Franz de Neve “The Cures Wrought by Saint Valentine and the Beheading of St Maximilian” (after 1689) which resides in the Cathedral of St Stephen, Passau. In the foreground, St Valentine cures the sick. The beheading of St Maximilian is barely visible in the left edge of the background.
Saint of the Day – 1 December – “Good St Eligius”- St Eligius of Noyon (c 588-660) Bishop, Goldsmith, Royal Courtier and adviser to the King, peace-maker, servant of the poor and of slaves. He founded Monasteries and donated his own property for the founding of the first female Monastery in the area. Born in c 588 at at Catelat, near Limoges, France and died on 1 December 660 at Noyon, France of high fever, Also known as – Alar, Elaere, Elar, Elard, Eler, Eloi, Eloy, Eloye, Iler, Loie, Loije, Loy, Additional Memorials – 24 June (translation of relics, and blessing of horses), 8 November as one of the Saints of the Diocese of Evry. Patronages – carpenters, cartwrights, clock/watch makers, coin collectors, craftsmen of all kinds, cutlers, gilders, goldsmiths, harness makers, horses especially sick horses, jewelers; jockeys; knife makers; labourers, locksmiths, metalworkers in general, miners, minters, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, saddlers, tool makers, Veterinarians, against boils, against epidemics, against equine diseases, against poverty, against ulcers, agricultural workers, basket makers, Eloois-Vijve, Belgium, Sint-Eloois-Winkel, Belgium, Schinveld, Netherlands.
The Roman Martyrology states: “In Noyon in Neustria, now in France, Saint Eligius, Bishop, who, goldsmith and adviser to King Dagobert, after having contributed to the foundation of many Monasteries and built Sepulchral buildings of outstanding art and beauty in honour of the Saints, was raised to the See of Noyon and Tournai, where he zealously evangelised.”
The Legend of Saint Eligius and Saint Godeberta, by Petrus Christus.
Eligius was born around 588, originally from Chaptelat in Limousin. He belonged to a wealthy rural family who worked their own land, unlike many landowners who left the cultivation to slaves. He left the care of the family farm to one of his brothers and entered trade as a Goldsmith apprentice in a shop in which the Royal Coin was hammered, according to ancient Roman methods. He saved some of the income from his family and gave it in charity to the poor and to slaves. He was as clever in enamel as in gold chiselling. These professional qualities went hand-in-hand with a scrupulous honesty. When they asked him to make a golden throne for King Clothair II (613-629), he made a second with the extra gold he did not want to hold for himself.
This gesture, extraordinary at the time, earned him the trust of the King, who asked him to reside in Paris as the Royal Goldsmith, a Royal Court Officer and Court Counselor. Named coinmaster in Marseilles, he would redeem many of the slaves sold at the Port. When Dagobert became King in 629, he was summoned to Paris where he directed the shops of the Frankish kingdom in which coin was minted, which were in Paris on the Quai des Orfèvres at the present-day Rue de la Monnaie. Among others, he had the task of embellishing the tombs of Saint Genevieve and Saint Denis.
He made Reliquaries for Saint Germain, Saint Severinus, Saint Martin and Saint Columba and numerous Liturgical objects for the new Abbey of Saint Denis. Thanks to his honesty, his frankness and his capacity for peaceable judgement, he came so far into the King’s trust, that the latter called him to himself, and entrusted him with a peace mission to the Breton king, King Judicael.
St Eligius Consecrated Bishop of Novon
Great was the piety and prayer life of this layman, who often attended monastic offices. In 632 he founded the Solignac Monastery south of Limoges. While Eligius still lived, the Monastery had grown to count more than 150 Monks under the two rules of St Benedict and St Colomba: – the Monastery was under the protection of the King and not under the authority of the Bishop. The religious fervour and the ardour of the Monks, made it one of the most illustrious Monasteries of the time. One year after the foundation of Solignac, Eligius founded, in his Ile de la Cité home, the first Monastic house for women religious in Paris, whose direction he entrusted to Saint Aurea.
A year after the death of King Dagobert, whom he had seen in the last moments of his life, Eligius left the Court together with Saint Audenus, who had served as adviser and Chancellor under Dagobert . Like Audenus, Eligius also entered formation and was Ordained Priest. On the same day, 13 May 641, they received the Episcopate: Saint Audenus to the See of Rouen; Eligius to that of Noyon and Tournai. Eligius put all his zeal into apostolic mission.
He died in 660, on the eve of his departure for Cahors. Holy Queen Bathilde travelled to greet him but she arrived too late.
There is a wonderful legend of St Eligius – the devil appeared to him dressed as a woman and he, Eligius, quickly grabbed him by the nose with his pincers. This colourful legend is depicted in two French Cathedrals (Angers and Le Mans) and in the Milan Cathedral, with the stained glass window by Niccolò da Varallo, a gift from the Milanese Goldsmiths in the fifteenth century. Ungfortunately, I cannot find any of these artworks.
In Paris, a Church was dedicated to him in the quarter of the blacksmiths, locksmiths and cabinet-makers. The Church of Saint Eligius was rebuilt in 1967. A church destroyed in 1793 was dedicated to him in the Rue des Orfèvres near the Hôtel de la Monnaie (the mint). In Notre Dame Cathedral, in the Chapel of Saint Ann, once home to the jewellers’ and goldsmiths’ confraternity, the jewellers and goldsmiths of Paris have placed his Statue and restored his Altar.
These are the Representations of this our little-known but o so holy and worthy Saint: • anvil • Bishop with a Crosier in his right hand, on the open palm of his left a miniature Church of chased gold • Bishop with a hammer, anvil and horseshoe • Bishop with a horse • Courtier • Goldsmith • hammer • horseshoe • man grasping a devil’s nose with pincers • man holding a Chalice and Goldsmith’s hammer • man holding a horse’s leg, which he detached from the horse in order to shoe it more easily • man shoeing a horse • man with hammer and crown near a smithy • man with hammer, anvil and Saint Anthony • pincers • man with Saint Godebertha of Noyon • man giving a ring to Saint Godebertha • man working as a Goldsmith. (catholicsaintsinfo.mobi).
St Eligius at the feet of the Virgin and Child by Gerard Seghers
Saint of the Day – 22 February – St Margaret of Cortona TOSF (1247–1297) Penitent, Franciscan Tertiary, Mystic, Apostle of Charity, Founder of a charitable Lay Apostolate and an Order of Sisters – born in 1247 at Loviano, Tuscany, Italy and died on 22 February 1297 at Cortona, Italy of natural causes. Patronages – against insanity or mental illness, against sexual temptation, against temptations, of falsely accused people, beggars and homeless people, against the death of parents, stepchildren, midwives, penitent women, people ridiculed for their piety, reformed prostitutes, single laywomen, tertiaries, Arezzo-Cortona-Sansepolcro, Italy, Diocese of, Cortona, Italy, Diocese of, Cortona, Italy.
Margaret was born of farming parents, in Laviano, a little town in the diocese of Chiusi. At the age of seven, Margaret’s mother died and her father remarried. Stepmother and stepdaughter did not like each other. As she grew older, Margaret became more wilful and reckless and her reputation in the town suffered. At the age of 17 she met a young man, according to some accounts, the son of Gugliemo di Pecora, lord of Valiano and she ran away with him. Soon Margaret found herself installed in the castle, not as her master’s wife, for convention would never allow that but as his mistress, which was more easily condoned. For ten years, she lived with him near Montepulciano and bore him a son.
When her lover failed to return home from a journey one day, Margaret became concerned. The unaccompanied return of his favourite hound alarmed Margaret and the hound led her into the forest to his murdered body.
That crime shocked Margaret into a life of prayer and penance. Margaret returned to his family all the gifts he had given her and left his home. With her child, she returned to her father’s house but her stepmother would not have her. Margaret and her son then went to the Franciscan friars at Cortona, where her son eventually became a friar. She fasted, avoided meat and subsisted on bread and vegetables.
In 1277, after three years of probation, Saint Margaret joined the Third Order of Saint Francis and chose to live in poverty. Following the example of St Francis of Assisi, she begged for sustenance and bread. She pursued a life of prayer and penance at Cortona and there established a hospital for the sick, homeless and impoverished. To secure nurses for the hospital, she instituted a congregation of Tertiary Sisters, known as “le poverelle” (Italian for “the little poor ones”).
While in prayer, Margaret heard the words, “What is your wish, poverella?” (“little poor one?”) and she replied, “I neither seek nor wish for anything but You, my Lord Jesus.” She also established an order devoted to Our Lady of Mercy and the members bound themselves to support the hospital and to help the needy.
On several occasions, St Margaret participated in public affairs. Twice, following divine command, she challenged the Bishop of Arezzo, Guglielmo Ubertini Pazzi, in whose diocese Cortona lay, because he lived and warred like a prince. She moved to the ruined Church of St Basil, now Santa Margherita and spent her remaining years there, she died on 22 February 1297.
After her death, the Church of Santa Margherita in Cortona was rebuilt in her honour. In the church of Santa Margherita you can view her incorrupt body of Saint Margaret. Hundreds of reports of miracles, both physical and spiritual, were reported by those who come here to venerate her. Saint Margaret was Canonised by Pope Benedict XIII on 16 May 1728.
Saint of the Day – 6 December – St Nicholas (270-343) Bishop
The absence of the “hard facts” of history is not necessarily an obstacle to the popularity of saints, as the devotion to Saint Nicholas shows. Both the Eastern and Western Churches honour him and it is claimed that after the Blessed Virgin, he is the saint most pictured by Christian artists. And yet historically, we can pinpoint only the fact that Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a city in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor.
As with many of the saints, however, we are able to capture the relationship which Nicholas had with God through the admiration which Christians have had for him—an admiration expressed in the colourful stories which have been told and retold through the centuries.
Perhaps the best-known story about Nicholas concerns his charity toward a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters of marriageable age. Rather than see them forced into prostitution, Nicholas secretly tossed a bag of gold through the poor man’s window on three separate occasions, thus enabling the daughters to be married. Over the centuries, this particular legend evolved into the custom of gift-giving on the saint’s feast.
Fra Angelico’s St Nicholas donating the dowries
In the English-speaking countries, Saint Nicholas became, by a twist of the tongue, Santa Claus—further expanding the example of generosity portrayed by this holy bishop.
Saint of the Day – 13 November – St Agostina Livia Pietrantoni S.D.C. (1864-1894) – virgin, of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Jeanne Antide Thouret, medical nursing sister – Born Livia Pietrantoni on 27 March 1864 at Pozzaglia Sabina, Rieti, Italy as Livia Petrantoni and died by being stabbed to death on 13 November 1894 in Rome, Italy by Giuseppe Romanelli. Patronages – abuse victims, against impoverishment and poverty, martyrs, people ridiculed for their piety. “Once there was and there still is but with a new face now, a village named Pozzaglia. In the Sabina hills… and there was a blessed house, a cosy little nest filled with childrens’ voices, amongst which that of Olivia who was later called Livia and was to take the name of Agostina in the religious life.”
Birthplace of St Agostina
The very short life of Sister Agostina, which inspired St Paul VI, the Pope who beatified her, to relate it in extraordinarily poetical terms, began and unfolded itself: “simple, transparent, pure, loving…but ended sorrowfully and tragically… or rather symbolically.”
27th March 1864: Livia was born and baptised in the little village of Pozzaglia Sabina, at an altitude of 800 meters in the beautiful area which is bordered geographically by Rieti, Orvinio, Tivoli. She was the second of 11 children! Her parents, Francesco Pietrantoni and Caterina Costantini, were farmers and worked their small plot of land along with a few added plots which they leased. Livia’s childhood and youth were imbued with the values of an honest, hard-working and religious family, in the blessed house in which “all were careful to do good and where they often prayed”. This period was marked especially by the wisdom of Uncle Domenico who was a real patriarch.
At the age of 4 Livia received the Sacrament of Confirmation and around 1876 she received her first Holy Communion, certainly with an extraordinary awareness, judging by the life of prayer, generosity and sacrifice which followed it. Very early on, in the large family in which everyone seemed to be a beneficiary to her time and help, she learned from her mother Caterina the thoughtfulness and maternal gestures which she showed with such gentleness towards her many younger brothers and sisters. She worked in the fields and looked after the animals… Therefore, she barely experienced childrens’ games… or school which she attended very irregularly but from which she drew great benefit to the point of earning the title of “teacher” from her classmates.
At the age of 7, along with other children, she began “to work”, transporting by the thousand, sacks of stones and sand for constructing the road from Orvinio to Poggio Moiano. At the age of 12 she left with other young “seasonal workers” who were going to Tivoli during the winter months for the olive harvest. Precociously wise, Livia took on the moral and religious responsibility for her young companions. She supported them in this tough work far from their families and proudly and courageously stood up to the arrogant and unscrupulous “bosses.”
Through her wisdom, her respect for others, her generosity, her beauty, Livia was a young attractive woman… and several young men in the village had their eyes on her. Their admiring looks did not escape mother Caterina’s notice and she dreamed of marrying her daughter well. Yet what did Livia think? What was the secret of her heart? Why did she not make a choice? Why did she not make up her mind? “Make daring by the voice which spoke to her inwardly, the voice of her vocation, she surrendered; it was Christ who would be her Beloved, Christ, her Spouse.” To these in her family or in the village who attempted to dissuade her by saying she was running away from hard work, Livia replied: “I wish to choose a Congregation in which there is work both day and night.” Everyone was certain that these words were genuine. A first trip to Rome in the company of her Uncle Fra Matteo ended in bitter disillusionment; they refused to accept her. However, a few months later, the Mother General of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Jeanne-Antide Thouret, let her know that she was expecting her at the Generalate. Livia understood that this time she was saying farewell for ever. With emotion she took leave of the village people, all the loved corners of her land, her favourite prayer places, the parish and the Virgin of Rifolta; she kissed her parents goodbye, received on her knees the blessing of Uncle Domenico, “kissed the door of her house, traced the sign of the cross on it and left hurriedly…”
23rd March 1886: Livia was 22 when she arrived in Rome at Via S. Maria in Cosmedin. A few months as a postulant and novice were enough to prove that the young girl had the makings of a Sister of Charity, that is of a “servant of the poor”, in the tradition of Saint Vincent de Paul and Saint Jeanne-Antide. Indeed, Livia brought to the Convent a particularly solid human potential inherited from her family which guaranteed its success. When she received the religious habit and was given the name of Sister Agostina, she had the premonition that it fell to her to become the saint bearing this name. For Indeed she had not heard of any Saint Agostina!
Sister Agostina was sent to the Hospital of Santo Spirito where 700 years of glorious history had led it to be called “the school of Christian charity.” In the wake of the saints who had preceded her, amongst whom were Charles Borromeo, Joseph Casalanz, John Bosco, Camillus de Lellis, Sister Agostina made her personal contribution and in this place of suffering gave expression to charity to the point of heroism.
The atmosphere in the hospital was hostile to religion. The Roman question poisoned peoples’ minds. The Capuchin fathers were driven out, the Crucifix and all other religious signs were forbidden. The hospital even wanted to send the sisters away but was afraid of becoming unpopular. Instead their lives were made “impossible” and they were forbidden to speak of God.
But Sister Agostina did not need her mouth in order to “cry out for God” and no gag was able to prevent her life from proclaiming the Gospel! First in the childrens’ ward and later in the tuberculosis ward, a place of despair and death, where she caught the mortal contagion of which she was miraculously healed, she showed a total dedication and an extraordinary concern for each sick person, above all for the most difficult, violent and obscene ones like “Romanelli.”
In secret, in a small hidden corner she had found for herself to reside, in the hospital, Sister Agostina commended them all to the Virgin and promised her many more vigils and greater sacrifices in order to obtain the grace of the conversion of the most stubborn ones. How many times she offered Giuseppe Romanelli to Our Lady! He was the worst of them all, the most vulgar and insolent, especially towards Sister Agostina, who was more and more attentive towards him and welcomed his blind mother with great kindness when she came to visit him. He was capable of anything and everyone had had enough of him. When, after the umpteenth provocation at the expense of the women working in the laundry, the Director expelled him, from the hospital, he sought a target for his fury and poor Agostina was the victim he picked. ‘I will kill you with my own hands.”“Sister Agostina, you only have a month to live!,” were the threats which he had sent to her several times in little notes. The male patient Giuseppe Romanelli began to harass her at this point – he even sent her death threats and on the evening of 12 November 1894 her religious asked her to take time off since the sisters worried for her; she refused. Romanelli attacked and stabbed her to death in the morning on 13 November 1894. Pietrantoni forgave her killer moments before she died; Romanelli stabbed her in a dark corridor with three stabs at the shoulder and left arm and the jugular before a final stab in the chest. Her final words were, “Mother of mine, help me“. Professor Achille Ballori (d. 1914) – who had once warned her about Romanelli – inspected her remains and observed that “Sister Agostina has allowed herself to be slaughtered like a lamb” and noted there were no contractions of either her nerves or heart.
When Romanelli caught her unawares and struck her before she could escape, that 13th November 1894, her lips uttered nothing but invocations to the Virgin Mary and words of forgiveness.
The late nun’s funeral blocked the streets of Rome (thousands lined the streets and knelt before the casket as it passed them) and a “Messaggero” report on 16 November stated that “never a more impressive spectacle was seen in Rome”. Her remains were moved to the generalate on 3 February 1941 and then to her hometown on 14 November 2004.
The beatification process opened under Pope Pius XII on 14 December 1945 and Pietrantoni was titled as a Servant of God. The confirmation of her life of heroic virtue on 19 September 1968 allowed for St Pope Paul VI to title her as Venerable that same pope presided over her Beatification on 12 November 1972 in Saint Peter’s Square upon the confirmation of two miracles attributed to her intercession.
The final miracle required for sainthood was investigated and then received validation from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 19 March 1996. St Pope John Paul II approved this miracle on 6 April 1998 and later Canonised Pietrantoni as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on 18 April 1999.
Pietrantoni was named as the patron saint for nurses on 20 May 2003 after the Italian Episcopal Conference named her as such.
Saint of the Day – 13 June – St Anthony of Padua OFM (1195-1231) Evangelical Doctor – Hammer of Heretics – Professor of Miracles – Wonder-Worker – Ark of the Testament – Repository of Holy Scripture.
St Anthony of Padua is one of the most famous disciples of St Francis of Assisi. He was a famous preacher and worker of miracles in his own day and throughout the eight centuries since his death, he has so generously come to the assistance of the faithful who invoke him, that he is known throughout the world amongst many who are not Catholics too.
The gospel call to leave everything and follow Christ was the rule of Anthony’s life. Over and over again, God called him to something new in his plan. Every time Anthony responded with renewed zeal and self-sacrifice to serve his Lord Jesus more completely.
His journey as the servant of God began as a very young man when he decided to join the Augustinians in Lisbon, giving up a future of wealth and power to be a servant of God. Later when the bodies of the first Franciscan martyrs went through the Portuguese city where he was stationed, he was again filled with an intense longing to be one of those closest to Jesus himself: those who die for the Good News.
So Anthony entered the Franciscan Order and set out to preach to the Moors. But an illness prevented him from achieving that goal.
He went to Italy and was stationed in a small hermitage where he spent most of his time praying, reading the Scriptures and doing menial tasks.
The call of God came again at an ordination where no one was prepared to speak. The humble and obedient Anthony hesitantly accepted the task. The years of searching for Jesus in prayer, of reading sacred Scripture and of serving him in poverty, chastity and obedience had prepared Anthony to allow the Spirit to use his talents. Anthony’s sermon was astounding to those who expected an unprepared speech and knew not the Spirit’s power to give people words.
Recognised as a great man of prayer and a great Scripture and theology scholar, Anthony became the first friar to teach theology to the other friars. Soon he was called from that post to preach to the Albigensians in France, using his profound knowledge of Scripture and theology to convert and reassure those who had been misled by their denial of Christ’s divinity and of the sacraments..
The number of those who came to hear him was sometimes so great that no church was large enough to accommodate and so he had to preach in the open air. Frequently St Anthony wrought veritable miracles of conversion. Deadly enemies were reconciled. Thieves and usurers made restitution. Calumniators and detractors recanted and apologised. He was so energetic in defending the truths of the Catholic Faith that many heretics returned to the Church. This occasioned the epitaph given him by Pope Gregory IX “the ark of the covenant.”
In all his labours he never forgot the admonition of his spiritual father, St Francis, that the spirit of prayer must not be extinguished. If he spent the day in teaching and heard the confession of sinners till late in the evening, then many hours of the night were spent in intimate union with God before the Blessed Sacrament.
After he led the friars in northern Italy for three years, he made his headquarters in the city of Padua. He resumed his preaching and began writing sermon notes to help other preachers. In the spring of 1231 Anthony withdrew to a friary at Camposampiero where he had a sort of treehouse built as a hermitage. There he prayed and prepared for death. After receiving the last sacraments he kept looking upward with a smile on his countenance. When he was asked what he saw there, he answered: “I see my Lord.” He breathed forth his soul on 13 June 1231 being only thirty six years old. Soon the children in the streets of the city of Padua were crying: “The saint is dead, Anthony is dead.”
Once a man, at whose home St Anthony was spending the night, came upon the saint and found him, in ecstasy, holding in his arms the Child Jesus, unspeakably beautiful and surrounded with heavenly light. For this reason St Anthony is often depicted holding the Child Jesus.
Saint of the Day – 16 April – Saint Bernadette Soubirous (1844-1879) Marian Visionary of Lourdes, Virgin, Consecrated Religious. Born on 7 January 1844 at Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France and died on 16 April 1879, Nevers, Nièvre, France of natural causes, aged 35. Patronages – Bodily illness, Lourdes, France, shepherds, against poverty, people ridiculed for their faith. She was Canonised on 8 December 1933 by Pope Pius XI. Her Body is incorrupt and is on display in Nevers, France.
The eldest of nine children, only four of whom survived childhood, Marie-Bernarde Soubirous was born at Lourdes, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. After her father, a miller, lost his job in 1854, the family was exposed to the direst extremes of poverty.
By the time she was 14, Bernadette had been sick so often that she hadn’t grown properly. She was the size of a much younger girl. She, her parents and her younger brothers and sisters all lived in a tiny room at the back of someone else’s house, a building that had actually been a prison many years before. They slept on three beds: one for the parents, one for the boys and one for the girls. Every night they battled mice and rats. Every morning, they woke up, put their feet on cold stone floors and dressed in clothes that had been mended more times than anyone could count. Each day they hoped the work they could find would bring them enough bread to live on that day.
“Bernadette” grew up uneducated, undernourished and asthmatic, obliged to work as a waitress and a farmhand. The little girl spoke in a Basque dialect and could scarcely read or write. She did, however, imbibe from her parents a deep Catholic devotion.
By 1856 the Soubirous were living in an abandoned prison cell which stank of sewage. On 11 February 1858 Bernadette, with her sister Toinette and a friend, went to gather firewood. In a grotto beside the River Gave, at a place used as a watering hole for pigs, she saw a vision of a “Lady” wearing a white dress, a blue girdle and a yellow rose on each foot. Bernadette’s companions saw nothing and she herself wondered whether her experience had been an illusion. Three days later, though, she returned to the grotto, and again saw the apparition. On 18 February her third visit, the vision spoke for the first time, asking for her presence over the next fortnight. Next day, the Lady instructed Bernadette to tell the priests to build a chapel at the grotto.
Crowds began to gather to witness the regular phenomenon of the small girl in ecstasy. The police, concerned, interrogated Bernadette, who related her experiences with clarity and conviction. Local interest quickened after the Lady told Bernadette to drink from a muddy trickle in the grotto. By the morrow the trickle had turned into an active spring.
On 4 March at the end of the prescribed fortnight, a crowd of 10,000 gathered to watch Bernadette. In fact, she would experience three more apparitions, bringing the total to 18. Chivied by the parish priest, she insisted that the Lady should give her name. “I am the Immaculate Conception,” came the reply, in perfect Basque dialect. Bernadette had no idea what this meant. She repeated it to herself over and over on her way back to the village so she wouldn’t forget the strange, long words. When she told her parish priest what the lady had said, he was quite surprised. The priest knew that what the mysterious lady had said meant that she was Mary, Jesus’ mother. The mysterious lady of the grotto had told Bernadette who she was. But it was not very common for people—especially poor little girls who couldn’t read—to think of Mary as the “immaculate conception,” a phrase that reminds us of how God saved Mary from sin even before she was born. The Blessed Virgin also told her: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world but in the next,” the apparition had told her.
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Disliking the attention she was attracting, Bernadette went to the hospice school run by the Sisters of Charity of Nevers where she had learned to read and write. Although she considered joining the Carmelites, her health precluded her entering any of the strict contemplative orders. On 29 July 1866, with 42 other candidates, she took the religious habit of a postulant and joined the Sisters of Charity at their motherhouse at Nevers. Her Mistress of Novices was Sister Marie Therese Vauzou. The Mother Superior at the time gave her the name Marie-Bernarde in honour of her godmother who was named “Bernarde”.
Bernadette spent the rest of her brief life there, working as an assistant in the infirmary and later as a sacristan, creating beautiful embroidery for altar cloths and vestments. Her contemporaries admired her humility and spirit of sacrifice. One day, asked about the apparitions, she replied:
“The Virgin used me as a broom to remove the dust. When the work is done, the broom is put behind the door again.” and “They think I’m a saint,” she observed. “When I’m dead they’ll come and touch holy pictures and rosaries to me, and all the while I’ll be getting boiled on a grill in purgatory.”
She later contracted tuberculosis of the bone in her right knee. She had followed the development of Lourdes as a pilgrimage shrine while she still lived at Lourdes but was not present for the consecration of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception there in 1876.
For several months prior to her death, she was unable to take an active part in convent life. She eventually died of her long-term illness at the age of 35 on 16 April 1879 (Easter Wednesday) while praying the holy rosary. On her deathbed, as she suffered from severe pain and in keeping with the Virgin Mary’s admonition of “Penance, Penance, Penance,” Bernadette proclaimed that “all this is good for Heaven!” Her final words were, “Blessed Mary, Mother of God, pray for me! A poor sinner, a poor sinner”.
In the 1858 Lourdes apparitions, the Blessed Virgin Mary declared herself as the Immaculate Conception to the innocent little shepherd girl named Bernadette: … The Immaculate Conception (CCC, 490-3)
Saint of the Day – 13 April – Blessed Margaret of Castello O.P. (1287-1320) was an Italian professed member from the Third Order of the Order of Preachers of St Dominic. Margaret was disabled and became known for her deep faith and holiness. Patronages – against poverty, disabled people, handicapped people, people rejected by religious orders,Pro-Right Groups. Her body is incorrupt.
Bl Margaret of Castello was born in the fourteenth century in Metola, Italy to noble parents who wanted a son. When the news was brought to the new mother that her newborn daughter was a blind, hunchbacked dwarf, both parents were horrified. Little Margaret was kept in a secluded section of the family castle in the hopes that her existence would be kept secret. However, when she was about six years old, she accidentally made her presence known to a guest. Determined to keep her out of the public eye, her father had a room without a door built onto the side of the parish church and walled Margaret inside this room. Here she lived until she was sixteen, never being allowed to come out. Her food and other necessities were passed in to her through a window. Another window into the church allowed her to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion. The parish priest became a good friend and took upon himself the duty to educate her. He was amazed at her docility and the depth of her spiritual wisdom.
When Margaret was sixteen years old, her parents heard of a shrine in Citta di Castello, Italy, where many sick people were cured. They made a pilgrimage to the shrine so that she could pray for healing. However, Margaret, open to the will of God, was not healed that day, or the next, so her parents callously abandoned her in the streets of the town and left for home, never to see her again. At the mercy of the passersby, Margaret had to beg her food and eventually sought shelter with some Dominican nuns.
W. R. Bonniwell writes, “Her cheerfulness, based on her trust in God’s love and goodness, was extraordinary. She became a Dominican tertiary and devoted herself to tending the sick and the dying” as well as prisoners in the city jail.
Deprived of all human companionship, Margaret learned to embrace her Lord in solitude. Instead of becoming bitter, she forgave her parents for their ill treatment of her and treated others as well as she could. Her cheerfulness stemmed from her conviction that God loves each person infinitely, for He has made each person in His own image and likeness. This same cheerfulness won the hearts of the poor of Castello and they took her into their homes for as long as their purses could afford. She passed from house to house in this way, “a homeless beggar being practically adopted by the poor of a city” (Bonniwell, 1955).
Bl Margaret died on 13 April 1320 at the age of 33. More than 200 miracles have been credited to her intercession since her death. She was beatified on 19 October 1609 by Pope Paul V (concession of indult for Mass and Office). Thus, the daughter that nobody wanted is now one of the glories of the Church.
Saint of the Day – 17 March – St Gertrude of Nivelles O.S.B. (626-659) was a 7th-century Religious Abbess who, with her mother Itta, founded the Abbey of Nivelles located in present-day Belgium. She was born in 626 at Landen, Belgium and died on 17 March 659 at Nivelles, Belgium of natural causes. Patronages – against fear of mice and rates, against suriphobia, fever, mental disorders, insanity, of cats, of gardeners, innkeepers, hospitals, the mentally ill, pilgrims, travellers, suriphobics, sick, poor, prisoners, Landen, Belgium, Nivelles, Belgium, Wattenscheid, Germany. Attributes – a nun with a crosier, with cats, with mice, a woman spinning.
Our Saint was born at Landen, Belgium in 626 and died at Nivelles, 659; she was just thirty-three, the same age as Our Lord. Both her parents, Pepin of Landen and Itta were held to be holy by those who knew them; her sister Begga is numbered among the Saints. On her husband’s death in 640, Itta founded a Benedictine monastery at Nivelles, which is near Brussels and appointed Gertrude its abbess when she reached twenty, tending to her responsibilities well, with her mother’s assistance and following her in giving encouragement and help to monks, particularly Irish ones, to do missionary work in the locale.
Saint Gertrude’s piety was evident even when she was as young as ten, when she turned down the offer of a noble marriage, declaring that she would not marry him or any other suitor: Christ alone would be her bridegroom.
She was known for her hospitality to pilgrims and her aid to missionary monks. She gave land to one monk so that he could build a monastery at Fosse. By her early thirties Gertrude had become so weakened by the austerity of abstaining from food and sleep that she had to resign her office and spent the rest of her days studying Scripture and doing penance. It is said that on the day before her death she sent a messenger to Fosse, asking the superior if he knew when she would die.
His reply indicated that death would come the next day during holy Mass-the prophecy was fulfilled. Her feast day is observed by gardeners, who regard fine weather on that day as a sign to begin spring planting.
Devotion to St. Gertrude became widely spread in the Lowlands and neighbouring countries.
Commonly seen running up her pastoral staff or cloak are hopeful-looking mice representing Souls in Purgatory, to which she had an intense devotion, just as with St Gertrude the Great. Even as recently as 1822, offerings of mice made of gold and silver were left at her shrine. Another patronage is to travellers on the high seas. It is held that one sailor, suffering misfortune while under sail, prayed to the Saint and was delivered safely.
Just before her death in 659, Gertrude instructed the nuns at Nivelles to bury her in an old veil left behind by a travelling pilgrimess and Gertrude’s own hair shirt. Gertrude’s choice of burial clothing is a pattern in medieval hagiography as an expression of humility and piety. Her death and the image of her weak and humble figure is in fact a critical point in her biographer’s narrative. Her monastery also benefited from this portrayal because the hair cloth and veil in which Gertrude was interred became relics. At Nivelles, her relics were only publicly displayed for feast days, Easterand other holy days.
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Shrine of St Gertrude of Nivelles, originally made in 1272-1298; this reproduction, in the Pushkin Museum, was cast from the original. In 1940, a German bomb smashed the original reliquary into 337 fragments. It was subsequently rebuilt.
Saint of the Day – 6 December – St Nicholas (270-343) Confessor, Bishop, Miracle-Worker, Apostle of Charity. Also known as – • Nicholas of Bari• Nicholas of Lpnenskij • Nicholas of Lipno • Nicholas of Sarajskij • Nicholas the Miracle Worker • Klaus, Mikulas, Nikolai, Nicolaas, Nicolas, Niklaas, Niklas. Nikolaus, Santa Claus.
Patronages -• against fire • against imprisonment • against robberies • against robbers • against storms at sea • against sterility • against thefts • altar servers • archers • boys • brides • captives • children • choir boys • happy marriages • lawsuits lost unjustly • lovers • maidens • penitent murderers • newlyweds • paupers • pilgrims • poor people • prisoners • scholars • schoolchildren, students • penitent thieves • travellers • unmarried girls • apothecaries • bakers • bankers • barrel makers • boatmen • boot blacks • brewers • butchers • button makers • candle makers • chair makers • cloth shearers • coopers • dock workers • educators • farm workers, farmers • firefighters • fish mongers • fishermen • grain merchants • grocers • grooms • hoteliers • innkeepers • judges • lace merchants • lawyers • linen merchants • longshoremen • mariners • merchants • millers • notaries • parish clerks • pawnbrokers • perfumeries • perfumers • poets • ribbon weavers • sailors • ship owners • shoe shiners • soldiers • spice merchants • spinners • stone masons • tape weavers • toy makers • vintners • watermen • weavers • Greek Catholic Church in America • Greek Catholic Union • Varangian Guard • Germany • Greece • Russia • 3 Diocese • 78 Cities.
Attributes – • anchor • bishop calming a storm • bishop holding three bags of gold • bishop holding three balls • bishop with three children • bishop with three children in a tub at his feet • purse • ship • three bags of gold • three balls • three golden balls on a book • boy in a boat. Saint Nicholas’ reputation evolved among the faithful, as was common for early Christian saints and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the traditional model of Santa Claus through Sinterklaas. St Nicholas was generous to the poor and special protector of the innocent and wronged. Many stories grew up around him prior to his becoming associated with Santa Claus.
Some examples of the Miracles of St Nicholas and the reasons for various Patronages:
• Upon hearing that a local man had fallen on such hard times that he was planning to sell his daughters into prostitution, Nicholas went by night to the house and threw three bags of gold in through the window, saving the girls from an evil life. These three bags, gold generously given in time of trouble, became the three golden balls that indicate a pawn broker’s shop.
• He raised to life three young boys who had been murdered and pickled in a barrel of brine to hide the crime. These stories led to his patronage of children in general and of barrel-makers besides.
• Induced some thieves to return their plunder. This explains his protection against theft and robbery and his patronage of them – he’s not helping them steal but to repent and change. In the past, thieves have been known as Saint Nicholas’ clerks or Knights of Saint Nicholas.
• During a voyage to the Holy Lands, a fierce storm blew up, threatening the ship. He prayed about it and the storm calmed – hence the patronage of sailors and those like dockworkers who work on the sea.
St Nicholas died in 346 at Myra, Lycia (in modern Turkey) of natural causes and his relics are believed to be at Bari, Italy.
Here is the story of St Nicholas by Prosper Dom Gueranger:
Nicholas was born in the celebrated city of Patara, in the province of Lycia. His birth was the fruit of his parents’ prayers. Evidences of his great future holiness were given from his very cradle. For when he was an infant, he would only take his food once on Wednesdays and Fridays and then not till evening but on all other days he frequently took the breast: he kept up this custom of fasting during the rest of his life.
Having lost his parents when he was a boy, he gave all his goods to the poor. Of his Christian kindheartedness there is the following noble example. One of his fellow-citizens had three daughters but being too poor to obtain them an honourable marriage, he was minded to abandon them to a life of prostitution. Nicholas having learned of the case, went to the house during the night and threw in by the window a sum of money sufficient for the dower of one of the daughters; he did the same a second and a third time and thus the three were married to respectable men.
Having given himself wholly to the service of God, he set out for Palestine, that he might visit and venerate the holy places. During this pilgrimage, which he made by sea, he foretold to the mariners, on embarking, though the heavens were then serene and the sea tranquil, that they would be overtaken by a frightful storm. In a very short time, the storm arose. All were in the most imminent danger, when he quelled it by his prayers.
His pilgrimage ended, he returned home, giving to all men example of the greatest sanctity. He went, by an inspiration from God, to Myra, the Metropolis of Lycia,which had just lost its Bishop by death and the Bishops of the province had come together for the purpose of electing a successor. Whilst they were holding council for the election, they were told by a revelation from heaven, that they should choose him who, on the morrow, should be the first to enter the church, his name being Nicholas. Accordingly, the requisite observations were made, when they found Nicholas to be waiting at the church door: they took him and, to the incredible delight of all, made him the Bishop of Myra.
During his episcopate, he never flagged in the virtues looked for in a bishop; chastity, which indeed he had always preserved, gravity, assiduity in prayer, watchings, abstinence, generosity and hospitality, meekness in exhortation, severity in reproving. He befriended widows and orphans by money, by advice and by every service in his power. So zealous a defender was he of all who suffered oppression, that, on one occasion, three Tribunes having been condemned by the Emperor Constantine, who had been deceived by calumny and having heard of the miracles wrought by Nicholas, they recommended themselves to his prayers, though he was living at a very great distance from that place: the saint appeared to Constantine and angrily looking upon him, obtained from the terrified Emperor their deliverance.
Having, contrary to the edict of Dioclesian and Maximian, preached in Myra the truth of the Christian faith, he was taken up by the servants of the two Emperors. He was taken off to a great distance and thrown into prison, where he remained until Constantine, having become Emperor, ordered his rescue and the Saint returned to Myra. Shortly afterwards, he repaired to the Council which was being held at Nicaea: there he took part with the three hundred and eighteen Fathers in condemning the Arian heresy (Tradition has it that he became so angry with the heretic Arius during the Council that he struck him in the face).
Scarcely had he returned to his See than he was taken with the sickness of which he soon died. Looking up to heaven and seeing Angels coming to meet him, he began the Psalm, In thee, O Lord, have I hoped and having come to those words, Into your hands I commend my spirit, his soul took its flight to the heavenly country. His body, having been translated to Bari in Apulia, is the object of universal veneration.
For St Nicholas traditional biscuits see here: https://anastpaul.wordpress.com/2016/12/06/st-nicholas-6-december/
Saint of the Day – 17 November – St Elizabeth of Hungary TOSF (1207-1231) Princess, Widow member of the Third Order of the Franciscans, Mother, Apostle of the poor, the sick, the needy.. Also known as St Elizabeth of Thuringia. Born in 1207 at Presburg, Hungary – 1231 at Marburg, Germany of natural causes. Her relics, including her skull wearing a gold crown she had worn in life, are preserved at the convent of Saint Elizabeth in Vienna, Austria. Patronages – hospitals, nurses, bakers, brides, countesses, dying children, exiles, homeless people, lace-makers, widows. all Catholic charities and the Third Order of Saint Francis. She was Canonised on 27 May 1235 by Pope Gregory IX at Perugia, Italy.
Elizabeth was born in 1207. Her father was Alexander II, the King of Hungary. Her marriage was arranged when she was just a child and at age four, she was sent to Thuringia for education and eventual marriage. When she was 14, she married Louis of Thuringia. They loved each other deeply.
Elizabeth went out with loaves of bread to feed those who were poor. Her husband saw her and took hold of her cape to see what she was carrying. What he saw was roses rather than bread! Because of this, she is also known as the patroness of bakers. Louis supported her in all she did to relieve the sufferings of those who were poor or sick. But Louis’s mother, Sophia, his brother and other members of court resented Elizabeth’s generosity. She was taunted and mocked by the royal family but deeply loved by the common people. Louis loved her and defended her. They had three children.
In 1227, after six years of marriage, Louis went to fight in the Crusades. He died on the way. Elizabeth was grief stricken. Her in-laws accused her of mismanaging the finances of the kingdom, forcing her and her children out of the palace. For a while, they found refuge only in barns. Finally, they were taken in by her uncle, the bishop of Bamberg. When her husband’s friends returned from the Crusades, they helped restore her to her rightful place in the palace. Elizabeth increased her service to others. She was 24 when she died.
She was canonised only four years later. Elizabeth is symbolized by a triple crown—for roles as a member of royalty, as a mother, and as a saint, crowned in heaven.
Saint of the Day – 11 November – St Martin of Tours (c 316-397) Bishop, Confessor, Miracle-Worker, Apostle of Charity (c 316 at Upper Pannonia (in modern Hungary) – 8 November 397 at Candes, Tours, France of natural causes). By his request, he was buried in the Cemetery of the Poor on 11 November 397. Patronages – • against alcoholism• against impoverishment• against poverty• beggars• cavalry• equestrians• geese• horse men• horses• hotel-keepers• Pontifical Swiss Guards• quartermasters• s• • soldiers• tailors• vintners• wine growers• wine makers• France• 5 Diocese• 31 Cities. His relics rested in the basilica of Tours, a scene of pilgrimages and miracles, until 1562 when the cathedral and relics were destroyed by militant Protestants. Some small fragments on his tomb were found during construction excavation in 1860. His shrine in France became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He has become one of the most familiar and recognisable Christian saints, sometimes venerated as a military saint. As he was born in what is now Szombathely, Hungary, spent much of his childhood in Pavia, Italy, and lived most of his adult life in France, he is considered a spiritual bridge across Europe.
His life was recorded by a contemporary, the hagiographer Sulpicius Severus. He is best known for the account of his using his military sword to cut his cloak in two, to give half to a beggar clad only in rags in the depth of winter. Conscripted as a soldier into the Roman army, he found the duty incompatible with the Christian faith he had adopted and became an early conscientious objector.
A conscientious objector who wanted to be a monk; a monk who was manoeuvred into being a bishop; a bishop who fought paganism as well as pleaded for mercy to heretics—such was Martin of Tours, one of the most popular of saints and one of the first not to be a martyr.
Born of pagan parents in what is now Hungary and raised in Italy, this son of a veteran was forced at the age of 15 to serve in the army. Martin became a Christian catechumen and was baptised when he was 18. It was said that he lived more like a monk than a soldier. At 23, he refused a war bonus and told his commander: “I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight.” After great difficulties, he was discharged and went to be a disciple of Hilary of Poitiers.
St Martin receives his discharge from the army – Simone Martini
He was ordained an exorcist and worked with great zeal against the Arians. Martin became a monk, living first at Milan and later on a small island. When Hilary was restored to his see following his exile, Martin returned to France and established what may have been the first French monastery near Poitiers. He lived there for 10 years, forming his disciples and preaching throughout the countryside.
The people of Tours demanded that he become their bishop. Martin was drawn to that city by a ruse—the need of a sick person—and was brought to the church, where he reluctantly allowed himself to be consecrated bishop. Some of the consecrating bishops thought his rumpled appearance and unkempt hair indicated that he was not dignified enough for the office.
One of the most famous stories about Martin of Tours occurred when he was still a soldier. One day, it is said, he met a beggar wearing rags. He took his sword and cut his military cloak in half and gave half to the poor man for his warmth. That night, Martin dreamed that Jesus was wearing the half of a cloak he had given away. During the Middle Ages, Martin’s cloak (cappa) became a relic that French kings would take into battle. The person whose job it was to care for the cloak was often a priest and he was called a cappellani. It is from this that the word “chaplain” evolved.
As death approached, Martin’s followers begged him not to leave them. He prayed, “Lord, if your people still need me, I do not refuse the work. Your will be done.”
Saint of the Day – 13 June – St Anthony of Padua OFM (1195-1231) Evangelical Doctor – KNOWN AS THE Hammer of Heretics – Professor of Miracles – Wonder-Worker – Ark of the Testament – Repository of Holy Scripture (1195 at Lisbon, Portugal – 13 June 1231 of natural causes). Religious Priest and Friar of the Franciscan Order, Evangelist, Preacher, Teacher, Apostle of Charity, Apostle of the Holy Eucharist, Scriptural expert, Miracle Worker, Teacher, Confessor, Defender of the Faith. He was buried on the Tuesday following his death in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Padua, Italy and legend says that all the sick who visited his new grave were healed. Also known as St Anthony of Lisbon.Patronages – against sterility, against shipwreck, against starvation, American Indians, amputees, animals – both wild and domestic, asses, mariners, elderly people, expectant mothers, for faith in the Blessed Sacrament, fishermen, for good harvests, horses, lost articles, seekers of lost articles, posted articles, oppressed people, poor people, swineherds, travel guides, travellers, Brazil, Portugal, Tigua Indians, 4 Diocese, 17 Cities.
St Anthony of Padua/Lisbon, was a Portuguese Priest and Friar of the Franciscan Order. He was born and raised by a wealthy family in Lisbon, Portugal and died in Padua, Italy. Noted by his contemporaries for his forceful preaching, expert knowledge of scripture and undying love and devotion to the poor and the sick, he was one of the most-quickly Canonised Saints in Church history. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII on 16 January 1946.
St. Anthony’s Youth & Conversion
St Anthony was born in the year 1195at Lisbon (Portugal) where his father was a captain in the royal army. Already at the age of fifteen years, he had entered the Congregation of Canons Regular of St Augustine and devoted himself with great earnestness both to study and to the practice of piety in the Monastery at Coimbra (Portugal).
About that time some of the first members of the Order of Friars Minor, which St. Francis has founded in 1206 came to Coimbra. They begged from the Canons Regular a small and very poor place, from which by their evangelical poverty and simplicity they edified everyone in the region. Then in 1219 some of these friars, moved by divine inspiration, went as missionaries to preach the Gospel of Christ to the inhabitants of Morocco. There they were brutally martyred for the Faith. Some Christian merchants succeeded in recovering their remains and so brought their relics in triumph back to Coimbra. The relics of St Bernard and companions, the first martyrs of the Franciscan Order, seized St. Anthony with an intense desire to suffer martyrdom in a like manner. So moved by their heroic example he repeatedly begged and petitioned his superiors to be given leave to join the Franciscan Order. In the quiet little Franciscan convent at Coimbra he received a friendly reception and in the same year his earnest wish to be sent to the missions in Africa was fulfilled.
St Anthony’s Arrival in Italy
But God had decreed otherwise. And so, St Anthony scarcely set foot on African soil when he was seized with a grievous illness. Even after recovering from it, he was so weak that, resigning himself to the will of God, he boarded a boat back to Portugal. Unexpectedly a storm came upon them and drove the ship to the east where it found refuge on coast of Sicily. St Anthony was greeted and given shelter by the Franciscans of that island and thus came to be sent to Assisi, where the general chapter of the Order was held in May, 1221. Since he still looked weak and sickly,and gave no evidence of his scholarship, no one paid any attention to the stranger until Father Gratian, the Provincial of friars living in the region of Romagna (Italy), had compassion on him and sent him to the quiet little convent near Forli (also in Italy). There St Anthony remained nine months as chaplain to the hermits, occupied in the lowliest duties of the kitchen and convent and to his heart’s content he practiced interior as well as exterior mortification.
St Anthony, Preacher and Teacher
But the hidden jewel was soon to appear in all its brilliance. For the occasion of a ceremony of ordination some of the hermits along with St Anthony were sent to the town of Forli. Before the ceremony was to begin, however, it was announced that the priest who was to give the sermon had fallen sick. The local superior, to avert the embarrassment of the moment, quickly asked the friars in attendance to volunteer. Each excused himself, saying that he was not prepared, until finally, St Anthony was asked to give it. When he too, excused himself in a most humble manner, his superior ordered him by virtue of the vow of obedience to give the sermon. St Anthony began to speak in a very reserved manner; but soon holy animation seized him and he spoke with such eloquence, learning and unction that everybody was fairly amazed.
When St Francis was informed of the event, he gave St Anthony the mission to preach throughout Italy. At the request of the brethren, St. Anthony was later commissioned also to teach theology, “but in such a manner,” St Francis distinctly wrote, ” that the spirit of prayer be not extinguished either in yourself or in the other brethren.” St Anthony himself placed greater value in the salvation of souls than on learning. For that reason he never ceased to exercise his office as preacher despite his work of teaching.
The number of those who came to hear him was sometimes so great that no church was large enough to accommodate and so he had to preach in the open air. Frequently St. Anthony wrought veritable miracles of conversion. Deadly enemies were reconciled. Thieves and usurers made restitution. Calumniators and detractors recanted and apologised. He was so energetic in defending the truths of the Catholic Faith that many heretics returned to the Church. This occasioned the epitaph given him by Pope Gregory IX “the ark of the covenant.”
In all his labours he never forgot the admonition of his spiritual father, St Francis, that the spirit of prayer must not be extinguished. If he spent the day in teaching and heard the confession of sinners till late in the evening, then many hours of the night were spent in intimate union with God.
Once a man, at whose home St Anthony was spending the night, came upon the saint and found him holding in his arms the Child Jesus, unspeakably beautiful and surrounded with heavenly light. For this reason St. Anthony is often depicted holding the Child Jesus.
St Anthony’s Death
In 1227 St Anthony was elected Minister Provincial of the friars living in northern Italy. Thus he resumed the work of preaching. Due to his taxing labours and his austere penance, he soon felt his strength so spent that he prepared himself for death. After receiving the last sacraments he kept looking upward with a smile on his countenance. When he was asked what he saw there, he answered: “I see my Lord.”He breathed forth his soul on June 13, 1231 A. D., being only thirty six year old. Soon the children in the streets of the city of Padua were crying: “The saint is dead, Anthony is dead.” Anthony is buried in a chapel within the large basilica built to honour him, where his tongue is displayed for veneration in a large reliquary. For, when his body was exhumed thirty years after his death, it was claimed that the tongue glistened and looked as if it was still alive and moist; apparently a further claim was made that this was a sign of his gift of preaching.
Pope Gregory IX enrolled him among the saints in the very next year. At Padua, a magnificent basilica was built in his honour, his holy relics were entombed there in 1263. From the time of his death up to the present day, countless miracles have occurred through St. Anthony’s intercession, so that he is known as the Wonder-Worker. In 1946 St Anthony was declared a Doctor of the Church.
Basilica of St Anthony in Padua
Why do we ask St Anthony to help us find lost things?
St. Anthony had a book of psalms that was quite special to him. It was special because in those days before the printing press, books were rare and expensive. But it was also special because it contained many notes Anthony had made to help him in his preaching and teaching.
Late one night, a young Franciscan decided to leave the community. He’d had enough of that life, so he made plans to just sneak out in the middle of the night. He saw Anthony’s book of psalms on his way out and he snatched it up and ran. He knew that he could sell this precious book for a good deal of money.
Of course, Anthony was quite upset. He prayed that God would change the young man’s heart and bring him back to the Franciscan life. He also hoped that while God was at it, he would return Anthony’s book too. The next day, the young man returned, tired and ashamed, with Anthony’s book. He also brought back his own gifts and talents, which he decided once more to offer to the Franciscan community.
So that’s why we like to ask St Anthony to help us find lost things. He was an extraordinary man who can still help us from heaven, even in the most ordinary ways.
Saint of the Day – 16 April – St Benedict Joseph Labre TOSF (1748-1783) “Beggar of Perpetual Adoration” – Patronages – against insanity and mental illness,bachelors, beggars, homeless people, mentally ill people, people rejected by religious orders, pilgrims – Attributes – beggar in a tri-cornered hat sharing his alms.
St Benedict Joseph Labre was born in 1748 in the village of Amettes, near Arras, in the former Province of Artois in the north of France. He was the eldest of fifteen children of a prosperous shopkeeper, Jean Baptist Labre and his wife, Anne Grandsire.
Labre had an uncle, a parish priest, living some distance from his family home; this uncle gladly received him and undertook his early education for the priesthood. At the age of sixteen, he approached his uncle about becoming a Trappist monk but his parents told him he would have to wait until he grew older. When Benedict was about eighteen, an epidemic fell upon the city, and uncle and nephew busied themselves in the service of the sick. While the uncle took care of the souls and bodies of the people, Benedict went to and fro caring for the cattle. He cleaned their stalls and fed them; exchanging the life of a farm labourer for that of a student under his uncle’s roof. Among the last victims of the epidemic was the uncle himself.
Labre set off for La Trappe Abbey to apply to the Order but did not come up to their requirements. He was under age, he was too delicate, he had no special recommendations. He later attempted to join the Carthusians and Cistercians but each order rejected him as unsuitable for communal life. He was, for about six weeks, a postulant with the Carthusians at Neuville. In November 1769 he obtained admission to the Cistercian Abbey of Sept-Fonts. After a short stay at Sept-Fonts his health gave way and it was decided that his vocation lay elsewhere.
Labre, according to Catholic tradition, experienced a desire, which he considered was given to him by God and inspired by the example of Saint Alexius of Rome and that of the holy Franciscan tertiary pilgrim, Saint Roch, to “abandon his country, his parents, and whatever is flattering in the world to lead a new sort of life, a life most painful, most penitential, not in a wilderness nor in a cloister but in the midst of the world, devoutly visiting as a pilgrim the famous places of Christian devotion”.
Labre joined the Third Order of Saint Francis and settled on a life of poverty and pilgrimage. He first traveled to Rome on foot, subsisting on what he could get by begging. He then travelled to most of the major shrines of Europe, often several times each. He visited the various shrines in Loreto, Assisi, Naples, and Bari in Italy, Einsiedeln in Switzerland, Paray-le-Monial in France and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. During these trips he would always travel on foot, sleeping in the open or in a corner of a room, with his clothes muddy and ragged. On one occasion he stopped at the farmhouse of Matthieu and Marie Vianney, who would later become the parents of the future saint, the Curé d’Ars. He lived on what little he was given and often shared the little he did receive with others. He is reported to have talked rarely, prayed often and accepted quietly the abuse he received.
Benedict Joseph Labre depicted by Antonio Cavallucci (1752–1795)
In so doing, Labre was following in the role of the mendicant, the “Fool-for-Christ” . He would often swoon when contemplating the crown of thorns, in particular, and, during these states, it is said he would levitate or bilocate. He was also said to have cured some of the other homeless he met and to have multiplied bread for them. In the last years of his life (his thirties), he lived in Rome, for a time living in the ruins of the Colosseum and would leave only to make a yearly pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Loreto. He was a familiar figure in the city and known as the “saint of the Forty Hours” (or Quarant’ Ore) for his dedication to Eucharistic adoration.
The day before he died, Labre collapsed in the church of Santa Maria ai Monti, blocks from the Colosseum and despite his protestations was charitably taken to a house behind the church at Via dei Serpenti 2. He died there of malnutrition on 16 April, during Holy Week, in 1783 and was buried in the Church of Santa Maria ai Monti.
S.Maria ai Monti: Tomb of St Benedict Joseph Labre
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