Select your language
Select your language
John Nepomucene was born in 1330 (or 1345, depending on the sources) in Nepomuk, currently part of the Czech Republic. He stood out for his intelligence from a young age and graduated in Canon Law from the University of Padua in 1387, but never had any personal ambitions of an ecclesiastical career, preferring instead to humbly dedicate himself to his vocation. He served in different roles, including as parish priest and canon of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, for which he received no financial benefit.
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.
Cardinal Karol Józef Wojtyła was elected Pope on 16 October 1978. In line with his predecessor, who died suddenly on 28 September 1978, he chose the name John Paul II. He was the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years, since the death of the last foreigner, Adrian VI from Utrecht, in 1523. He was also the first Pope from Poland and the first Pope to be a native speaker of a Slavic language. His Pontificate was among the longest in history, second only to Saint Peter and Pius IX. It lasted almost 27 years.
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.
“I only want to be a poor friar who prays”, Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, in the world Francesco Forgione, would say as he waved aside the thousands of faithful who followed him. Why was a simple Capuchin from a small village on the Gargano so popular? The secret is that everyone who met him, could glimpse a living image of the Suffering and Risen Christ, in him.
Bartholomew was one of the twelve disciples who followed Jesus after the Baptism in the Jordan River. His name is included in the Synoptic Gospels as one of the Apostles linked to his contemporary Philip. We know little about this Apostle, whose Feast Day is celebrated on 24 August, the day Catholic tradition dates as his martyrdom. He was originally from Cana in Galilee, near Nazareth. Jesus said of him: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile” (Jn 1:47). In his Gospel, John speaks of Nathanael, who is Bartholomew, at least according to the exegetes.
Born on 21 August 1567 in the Château de Sales in Thorens-Glières (Upper Savoy), Francis de Sales grew up in a Catholic family belonging to the Savoyard aristocracy. His father, who served as maître d’hôtelto Count Sébastien of Luxembourg-Martigues, was also Lord of Sales.
Catherine of Sweden was a member of the royal family of Sweden through her mother, Saint Bridget, and her father, Ulf Gudmarson. Born around 1331, she was entrusted to the care of Cistercian nuns in Riseberg from a very young age. She left the monastery against her wishes when her father arranged for her to marry the knight, Edgar von Kyren, at the age of 16. Her husband, who was also very devout, agreed to live a marriage of chastity. Throughout her marriage, Catherine took care of her disabled husband. Her father, Ulf, died in 1344.
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 Church celebrates Saint Paul’s Conversion on the road to Damascus, on 25 January. In one of the most powerful manifestations of divine grace, Saul, the fierce persecutor of Christians, became the Apostle of Nations. The event is narrated in the Acts of the Apostles.
It is a familiar scene. God proposes and waits for a response. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”. (Luke 1:26-38).
Mary becomes the Mother of God and of the Savior, and later as she stands at the foot of the Cross, the Mother of the Church. This feast is firstly the celebration of the Incarnation when God began his human life in Mary, a life that will carry this tiny embryo up to the Cross, the Resurrection and the glory of God.
According to tradition, Catherine was a young woman of noble birth from Alexandria in Egypt, known for her beauty and high level of learning.
“Our new Blessed lived that way: in the joy of the Gospel, without compromises, loving to the very end. He embodied the poverty of the disciple, which is not only detachment from material goods, but also victory over the temptation to put oneself at the centre, to seek one’s own glory”, Pope Francis said in his homily for the Beatification of John Paul I, in the world, Albino Luciani, held in Saint Peter’s Square on 4 September 2022.
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.
In a courageous and innovative way for the 16th century, Saint Angela Merici developed a new form of consecrated life for women: no longer in the cloister, but out in the world. She founded the Company of St. Ursula for these women. Angela was closely attentive to the signs of the time, and based her model on the example of the early Church, lived by the Apostles and the early Christian communities, thus paving the way for modern devotion.
Rupert was part of the Frankish nobility and was related to the Merovingian royal family (perhaps to the Robertians). He served as the Bishop of Worms at the end of the 7th century. Duke Theodo II of Bavaria (+718) invited him to Bavaria and entrusted him with important ecclesiastical and political duties. Rupert, who was related to Theodo's wife, Folchaid, converted the Duke of Ratisbon (Regensburg, Bavaria) and his followers to Christianity. According to tradition, he baptized the Duke himself, which is why he is known as the Apostle of the Bavarians.
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.
“God loves the poor, consequently, he loves those who love the poor”, Saint Vincent de Paul often said to his collaborators. Born in Pouy, a small town in Landes, France, on 24 April 1581, to a peasant family, he never forgot that as a child he tended pigs and cows. His father sent him to Dax to study at the College of the Cordeliers, directed by the Franciscans, in the hopes that he could receive an education that would help with the family’s expenses.
“Because we cannot know what God is, but rather what he is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how he is not”, Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote. Thomas was born in 1225 in Roccasecca, in the province of Frosinone, to one of the most prominent families in Italy. Because he was the youngest child, he was destined for an ecclesiastical career. At the age of five, he entered Montecassino as a “puer oblatus”, and at fifteen, he studied Aristotelian philosophy, grammar, natural sciences, Arabic science and Greek philosophy at the University of Naples.
The two Apostles, Simon and Jude Thaddeus, are celebrated on the same day, possibly because of their shared apostolate in Mesopotamia and Persia, where they went to proclaim the Gospel. Not much is known about them. The little we know is what is in the New Testament.
Page 3 of 14
Select your language
