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Saint Patrick's real name was Maewyn Succat. Born around 385 in Scotland, he was the son of a Roman centurion from Great Britain.
When Maewyn was 16 years old, he was kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave to a Druid in what is now Ulster, Ireland. During his six years of slavery, he worked as a shepherd for an Irish clan leader and discovered Christianity, becoming a practicing Christian.
Elizabeth, born in 1207 in Hungary into a royal family and destined for marriage to the ruler of Thuringia, lived in the same years as Francis of Assisi. From a young age, she showed a natural inclination toward those who suffered and were in need—an inclination further strengthened through her contact with the Friars Minor, especially Brother Rüdiger, her first spiritual advisor, and later Brother Conrad. They merely helped direct, in an evangelical sense, a heart already inclined toward the most vulnerable.
Guido di Pietro, known as John of Fiesole, or better, Fra Angelico, was a Dominican friar with a great talent for painting.
He was known as Angelico because of the great message of faith that imbued his works and the humility that distinguished them, and for the mystical value he gave to light.
Cyril was born around 315 in Jerusalem or close to it and was well educated in literature, which became the basis for his ecclesiastical knowledge, centred on the study of the Bible.
The figure of Saint Odo stands within the vast panorama of medieval monasticism, that era in which the Benedictine ideal spread to such an extent that it gave rise, throughout Europe, to a dense constellation of monasteries. These centers of prayer and culture contributed to shaping the spiritual identity of the continent. Among them, the monastery of Cluny held an absolutely prominent role: a place celebrated for its inner discipline, care for study, and above all for the solemnity of divine worship. Odo was its second abbot and one of its most eminent personalities.
Born in Antioch to a pagan family, Luke was a physician who was concerned about his patients and who was well aware of their weaknesses and misery. After hearing Saint Paul speak about Jesus, Luke embraced the faith and never left the Apostle again, following him to his martyrdom in Rome in 67 A.D.
Saint Joseph, adoptive father of Jesus and husband of Mary, is a key figure in Christian tradition, both because of his role in the economy of salvation and because he was a model of virtue. Joseph is not mentioned in detail in the Bible. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are the ones which reveal the most about him.
Among the brightest figures of the monastery of Helfta in the 13th century stands Mechthild of Hackeborn, a woman of extraordinary spirituality and a distinctive voice in medieval mysticism. Her fellow nun, Gertrude the Great, in the sixth book of the Liber specialis gratiae—a work collecting the divine revelations received by Mechthild—acknowledges that what was written represents only a small portion of what the Saint actually experienced. She explains that it would have been unjust to remain silent about such abundant gifts, for they were granted by God not only for Mechthild herself, but as a spiritual treasure offered to the Church of every age.
The Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, 40 days after Christmas. The feast is better known as the Feast of the Candelora (Candlemas) or the Festival of Lights, because it is inspired by a verse from the Gospel of Luke (2:22-40), in which Simeon prophesies that Jesus is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel”.
The Bible is filled with the constant presence of angels, passing through the history of salvation. It contains many episodes that refer to their action and to their role as instruments and messengers of God. Suffice it to remember the Old Testament’s account of Jacob wrestling with the angel from whom he receives the name, Israel; (Gen. 32:25-29) the ladder from earth to heaven, from which a multitude of angels ascend and descend (Gen. 28:12); the angel who meets the slave, Hagar, and announces that she will give birth to Ishmael (Gen. 16:7); the angel that goes before the people of Israel as they wandered in the desert (Ex 14:19); the two angels that lead Lot and his family out of Sodom (Gen 19:1); the intervention of the angel who stops Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac (Gen 22:11-13); Daniel who was saved from the fiery furnace by an angel (Dan. 3:17); and the angel that brings food to the prophet Elijah in the desert (1Kings 19:5-10).
We do not have much information about the life of Saint Sebastian. According to the Passio Santi Sebastiani Martyris, a text long attributed to Saint Ambrose of Milan (340-397), he was born around 250 A.D., and raised in Milan by his father from Narbonne and his mother from Milan. Educated in the Christian faith, he moved to Rome in 270 A.D., enlisted sometime around 283 A.D., and eventually became a tribune of the first cohort of the imperial guard. Unaware of his faith, Emperors Maximian and Diocletian entrusted him with important responsibilities.
Saint Edmund holds a special place in Christian memory as a courageous sovereign and an unshakeable witness to the faith. His story unfolds in the 9th century, when still very young, he became ruler over East Anglia, an English region shaken by the tensions and violence brought by Norse incursions.
Saint Pius X, in the world Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, wrote the following words in his will and testament: “I was born poor, I have lived in poverty, and I wish to die poor”. He was a Pope from a humble social background, who was elected to the See of Peter, after going through all the steps of the ecclesiastical career: Chaplain, Parish Priest, Bishop, Cardinal and Patriarch.
Peter Damian is one of the most well-known writers of the 11th century and one of the greatest advocates of the pre-Gregorian reform, along with several Popes who fought against the evils afflicting the Church at that time – in particular against simony, the buying and selling of an ecclesiastical office or dignity and Nicolaism, which rejected celibacy. With his advice and without taking radical positions, he served the Popes and wrote about these themes in Liber Gratissimus.
Saint Agnes was a 13-year-old girl from Rome, who did not hesitate to sacrifice her life to bear witness to her faith in Christ. Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, wrote that her witness to Christ was twofold: her chastity and her faith (De Virginitate II. 5-9). Pope Damasus wrote an epitaph in her honour.
Nicholas was a hermit, who mediated and advised his fellow citizens and reconciled opposing hearts. Although he lived far away from the world in the solitude of a cell nourished by the Eucharist alone, he was able to prevent the onset of war between brothers, using the Rosary he always carried with him as his only weapon. Known as Bruder Klaus and Saint Nicholas of Flüe, he was born in 1417 in the small village of Flüeli, Obwalden, which was part of the Confederation of eight Cantons of central Switzerland. His family earned a living from agriculture.
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.
There is not much historical information on the Apostle Matthew. The origin of his name is an abbreviation of Matthias or Mattaniah, which means “Gift of God”.
According to the Roman Martyrology, he died on 21 September and his body was translated from Ethiopia to Salerno on 6 May, with a stop in Paestum. Tradition says he was killed while he was celebrating Mass.
“From the earliest ages of the catholic church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with a mother's solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a Queen”. With these words in the Encyclical Letter Ad Caeli Reginam, of 11 October 1954, Pius XII instituted the liturgical feast day of the “Queenship of the Blessed Virgin”.
The Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter the Apostle commemorates the moment when the Lord said, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church”. On the day in which Romans traditionally honoured their deceased, we honour the See of Saint Peter’s birth in Heaven, which draws glory from victory on the Vatican Hill and presides over the universal communion of charity, states the Roman Martyrology.
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