Saint of the day

Saint of the day

26 November: Saint Leonard of Porto Maurizio

Apostle of the Way of the Cross

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.

24 November: Saints Andrew Dung-Lac and 106 Companion Martyrs

Witnesses of Christ unto the sacrifice of their lives

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.

23 November: Saint Clement, Pope

Martyr of Christ

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.

Raffaello Sanzio e aiuti, Estasi di Santa Cecilia fra i Santi Paolo, Giovanni Evangelista, Agostino e Maria Maddalena,1514 circa, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

22 November: Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

Patron Saint of Musicians and Music

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.

21 November: Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The new Temple, more glorious than the one of stone

The liturgical memorial of 21 November, dedicated to the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, has its roots not in the canonical texts but in ancient Christian traditions preserved in the apocryphal Gospels. In those pages, the early communities looked to Mary, contemplating her as she grew in familiarity with God, so that the Church too might learn from her how to prepare for the coming of the Lord.