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Virgil, born in Ireland in the 8th century, belonged to the tradition of itinerant monks who left their homeland to undertake long religious pilgrimages. Setting out around 743 with the intention of reaching Palestine, he interrupted his journey.
Paolo Girolamo Casanova, better known as Saint Leonard of Porto Maurizio, was born in Porto Maurizio—today’s Imperia—on 20 December 1676. At a very young age he moved to Rome to complete his studies at the Roman College and, fascinated by the austere life of two friars at the Retreat of San Bonaventura on the Palatine Hill, decided to enter the Order of Friars Minor at the age of twenty-one, taking the Franciscan habit in the convent of Santa Maria in Ponticelli.
According to tradition, Catherine was a young woman of noble birth from Alexandria in Egypt, known for her beauty and high level of learning.
Beginning in the early decades of the sixteenth century, the proclamation of the Gospel reached the regions of present-day Vietnam, and in 1659 the Holy See gave stable form to missionary activity by entrusting two vast areas to the Apostolic Vicariates of the North (Đàng Ngoài) and the South (Đàng Trong). Despite difficulties and hostility, that work eventually produced a remarkable growth of the Christian community.
The figure of Clement, a pontiff who lived between the end of the 1st and the beginning of the 2nd century, remains shrouded in considerable historical silence. The ancient episcopal lists place him at the head of the Christian community of Rome immediately after the first direct successors of the Apostle Peter.
Saint Cecilia, Patron Saint of music and musicians, luthiers and other musical instrument makers, was born to a noble Roman family at the beginning of the third century.
Her biographical details come from texts whose accuracy is uncertain, but the fact that she existed was never in doubt. By 496, Cecilia was already being worshipped by the Church of Rome as a virgin and martyr. A Basilica was built on the site of her house in Trastevere. Her memorial is celebrated on 22 November, and her name appears in the Roman Canon of the Mass.
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