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He accompanied no fewer than 57 condemned prisoners to the gallows, hearing their confessions and giving them Communion to support them in their final moments. For this reason, he became known as the “Priest of the Gallows.” His concern for prisoners was part of his deep love for the marginalized and the most in need, to whom he sought to show the merciful face of God.
Saint John the Baptist is the only person, along with the Virgin Mary, whose birth is celebrated by the Church with a solemn feast. According to tradition, John was born in Ain Karem, and his coming into the world is considered the first visible sign of the beginning of the messianic times.
Pilgrim, founder of the Abbey of Montevergine and of the Benedictine Congregation closely linked to the monastery. He is known as William of Vercelli or William of Montevergine.
Born in Vercelli Italy around 1085 into a noble family, William began journeying across Europe at just 14 years old. He abandoned his noble garments, donned a simple cloak, and set out barefoot on a long pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Saint James of Compostela in Spain.
He is known as “the Saint of everyday life” because he taught that even the simplest actions of daily life can lead to holiness. This is Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, founder of the movement Opus Dei. Born on January 9, 1902, in Barbastro, Spain, he received a strong Christian upbringing.
"The heart of Christ, as the symbol of the deepest and most personal source of his love for us, is the very core of the initial preaching of the Gospel. It stands at the origin of our faith, as the wellspring that refreshes and enlivens our Christian beliefs.”
With these words, Pope Francis expressed himself in his encyclical Dilexit nos on the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, dated October 24, 2024.
“We have strayed from that path of peace. We have forgotten the lesson learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars. We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations. We have betrayed peoples’ dreams of peace and the hopes of the young.
“Basing itself on the tradition of the fathers, knows that they did not actually suffer in the course of the same day between sunrise and sunset. So Paul suffered on Peter's birthday (natalitium), not the day he emerged from his mother's womb to join the ranks of mankind, but the one on which he was released from the bonds of the flesh and born into the light of the angels.
The memory of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome is celebrated immediately after the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. This commemoration has always been connected to the location of the Circus built by Emperor Caligula, later known as Nero’s Circus. It stood in the Gardens of Agrippina (Caligula’s mother), on the southern slope of the Vatican Hill, from where the Via Aurelia, Via Cornelia, and Via Triumphalis began.
Known as the Apostle to the Germans, he is considered one of the most important Anglo-Saxon missionaries and the one who brought Christianity to the Germanic lands of old.
Saint Norbert of Xanten had an instant conversion. When he was about 35 years old he was thrown from his horse and risked death. At that moment he heard the words of the psalm: “Turn from evil and do good” (Psalm 34:15). He interpreted this episode as a divine call and decided to radically change his life. He began leading a life of penance, walking barefoot, wearing rough wool clothes, and traveling from place to place preaching the Gospel.
A woman, a layperson, a wife, a mother of seven children and a member of the Third Order of the Most Holy Trinity—this is Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, who achieved holiness through marriage. She was born in Siena on May 29, 1769 and baptized the following day. Due to financial difficulties her family—her father Luigi Riannetti and mother Maria Masi—moved to Rome when she was six years old. In the capital she was entrusted to the religious order of Maestre Pie Filippine, where she received a full education in just two years.
“An aspect of Saint Joseph that has been emphasized from the time of the first social Encyclical, Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, is his relation to work. Saint Joseph was a carpenter who earned an honest living to provide for his family. From him, Jesus learned the value, the dignity and the joy of what it means to eat bread that is the fruit of one’s own labour.” So wrote Pope Francis in the Apostolic Letter Patris Corde, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the declaration of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church.
He was called the Apostle of Andalusia, a great preacher, a spiritual Master who guided many people to holiness and who was able to inspire conversions among those who listened to him.
His name was John of Ávila. He was born in Almodóvar del Campo (Ciudad Real), Spain around 1499 or 1500 into a very religious and wealthy family who owned a silver mine.
"Pancrazio" was the name of a sport practiced in the Olympics of ancient Greece. The athletes had to compete in a cross between boxing and hand-to-hand wrestling, with no holds barred. Only biting and blinding were prohibited.
It was May 13, 1917, when Our Lady appeared to three children who were in a field grazing their sheep: Francisco Marto, aged 9, his younger sister Jacinta Marto , aged 7, and their cousin, Lucia dos Santos, aged 10. The apparition took place in Cova da Iria, a town near Fatima and was the first of a series apparitions. In fact, every 13th of the month, from May to October, the Virgin Mary appeared to the three little shepherds, entrusting them with a message.
In the Acts of the Apostles (1:15-26) it is said that in the days following the Ascension of the Lord, the Apostle Peter, presiding at the assembly of 120 brothers, proposed that they choose one amongst themselves to take the place of the traitor Judas Iscariot.
He was a humble farmer, very poor, who spared no effort and sacrifice to bring a piece of bread home. However, he had discovered Christ and everything else seemed nothing compared to his friendship with Him. His name was Isidore. He was born around 1080 in Madrid, which at the time was not yet the capital of Spain but a city like any other.
The exact year of birth of Ubaldo Baldassini is not known, probably around 1085, in the town of Gubbio in the Italian province of Umbria. He was the only son of Rovaldo Baldassini, and Giuliana. He lost his parents as a child and was taken care of by his uncle Ubaldo. In 1115 he was ordained a priest and three years later he became prior of the Cathedral of San Mariano.
He was almost illiterate, teaching himself to read and write, humble, poor, a simple lay friar following in the footsteps of Saint Francis of Assisi, a great devotee of the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar to the point of being called the "theologian and Seraphim of the Eucharist". He is Paschal Baylón, born in Torrehermosa, then Kingdom of Aragon, to Martín and Isabel Jubera, on May 16, 1540. They were a large family but very poor. For this reason, the boy was sent at an early age by his father to graze the flocks. He took advantage of his time in nature to praise God and sing hymns to the Virgin Mary.
He was called the “Friar Deo gratias”, because that was how he greeted people he met. For forty years, in fact, he wandered the streets of Rome asking for alms, taking advantage of the opportunity to give spiritual advice to commoners and aristocrats. He is Felice Porro, known as Saint Felix of Cantalice, for the name of the place where he was born in the province of Rieti in 1515. As a child he moved to Cittaducale to serve a family as a shepherd and farmer. He devoted himself to reading the Lives of the Fathers and the desire to lead an austere existence grew in him.
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