ABOUT fifty years after the Protestant Reformation had broken out, Our Lord raised up a mere youth to renew the face of His Church. In 1560 Charles Borromeo, then twenty-two years of age, was created cardinal, and by the side of his uncle, Pius IV, administered the affairs of the Holy See. His first care […]
ST. HUBERT’S early life is so obscured by popular traditions that we have no authentic account of his actions. He is said to have been passionately addicted to hunting, and was entirely taken up in worldly pursuits. One thing is certain: that he is the patron saint of hunters. Moved by divine grace, he resolved […]
From Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros. comes this exciting and moving film based on the real-life event when a gold and copper mine collapses, trapping 33 miners underground for 69 days. Antonio Banderas and Lou Diamond Phillips star. In theaters Nov. 13.
The Church pays, day by day, a special veneration to some one of the holy men and women who have helped to establish it by their blood, develop it by their labors, or edify it by their virtues. But, in addition to those whom the Church honors by special designation, or has inscribed in her […]
ST. QUINTIN was a Roman, descended from a senatorial family. Full of zeal for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, he left his country, and, attended by St. Lucian of Beauvais, made his way to Gaul. They preached the Faith together in that country till they reached Amiens in Picardy, where they parted. Lucian went to […]
St. Simon was a simple Galilean, called by Our Lord to be one of the twelve pillars of His Church. Zelotes, “the zealot,” was the surname which he bore among the disciples. Armed with this zeal he went forth to the combat against unbelief and sin, and made conquest of many souls for His divine […]
St. Frumentius was yet a child when his uncle, Meropins of Tyre, took him and his brother Edesius on a voyage to Ethiopia. In the course of their voyage the vessel touched at a certain port, and the barbarians of that country put the crew and all the passengers to the sword, except the two […]
THESE two glorious martyrs came from Rome to preach the Faith in Gaul toward the middle of the third century. Fixing their residence at Soissons, they instructed many in the Faith of Christ, which they preached publicly in the day. At night they worked at making shoes, though they are said to have been nobly […]
Anthony Mary Claret was a Catalan Spanish Roman Catholic archbishop and missionary, and was confessor of Isabella II of Spain. Born in Sallent, Bages comarca, near Barcelona, on December 23, 1807, the son of a small woolen manufacturer. He received an elementary education in his native village, and at the age of twelve became a […]
ST. MAGLOIRE was born in Brittany (now western France) towards the end of the fifth century. When he and his cousin St. Sampson came of an age to choose their way in life, Sampson retired into a monastery, and Magloire returned home, where he lived in the practice of virtue. Amon, Sampson’s father, having been […]
ABOUT the year 361, Julian, uncle to the emperor of that name, and like his nephew an apostate, was made Count of the East. He closed the Christian churches at Antioch, and when St. Theodoret assembled the Christians in private, he was summoned before the tribunal of the Count and most inhumanly tortured. His arms […]
ST. MELLO is said to have been a native of Great Britain; his zeal for the Faith engaged him in the sacred ministry, and God having blessed his labors with wonderful success, he was consecrated the first bishop of Rouen in Normandy, which see he is said to have held forty years. He died in […]
A number of Christian families had intrusted the education of their children to the care of the pious Ursula, and some persons of the world had in like manner placed themselves under her direction. England being then harassed by the Saxons, Ursula deemed that she ought, after the example of many of her compatriots, to […]
THE eighty-one years of this Saint’s life (1694-1775) were modeled on the Passion of Jesus Christ. In his childhood, when praying in church, a heavy bench fell on his foot, but the boy took no notice of the bleeding wound, and spoke of it as “a rose sent from God.” A few years later, the […]
The following holy Jesuit mssionaries are the first martyrs in North America: Isaac Jogues, John de Brebeuf, Noel Chabanel, Anthony Daniel, Charles Garnier, Gabriel Lalamant, priests; and Rene Goupil and John Lalande. They were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and canonized by the same Pontiff five years later. Saint Isaac Jogues was born […]
ST. HEDWIGE, the wife of Henry, Duke of Silesia, and the mother of his six children, led a humble, austere, and most holy life amidst all the pomp of royal state. Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was the key-note of her life. Her valued privilege was to supply the bread and wine for the Sacred […]
ST. IGNATIUS, Bishop of Antioch, was the disciple of St. John. When Domitian persecuted the Church, St. Ignatius obtained peace for his own flock by fasting and prayer. But for his part he desired to suffer with Christ, and to prove himself a perfect disciple. In the year 107, Trajan came to Antioch, and forced […]
St. Gall was born in Ireland soon after the middle of the sixth century, of pious, noble, and rich parents. When St. Columban left Ireland, St. Gall accompanied him into England, and afterward into France, where they arrived in 585. St. Columban founded the monastery of Anegray, in a wild forest in the diocese of […]
EDWARD was unexpectedly raised to the throne of England at the age of forty years, twenty-seven of which he had passed in exile. On the throne, the virtues of his earlier years, simplicity, gentleness, lowliness, but above all his angelic purity, shone with new brightness. By a rare inspiration of God, though he married to […]
IN the year 304, during Emperor Diocletian’s persecution, Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus, differing in age and nationality, but united in the bonds of faith, were denounced as Christians to Numerian, Governor of Cilicia. They were arrested at Pompeiopolis, and conducted to Tharsis. There they underwent an interrogation, after which their limbs were torn with iron […]
ST. BRIDGET was born of the Swedish royal family, in 1304. In obedience to her father, she was married to Prince Ulpho of Sweden, and became the mother of eight children, one of whom, Catherine, is honored as a Saint. After some years she and her husband separated by mutual consent. He entered the Cistercian […]
ST. MARK was by birth a Roman, and served God with fervor among the clergy of Rome. He advanced continually in sincere humility and in the knowledge and sense of his own weakness and imperfections; and every day he strove to surpass himself in the fervor of his charity and zeal, and in the exercise […]
ST. PLACID was born in Rome, in the year 515, of a patrician family, and at seven years of age was taken by his father to the monastery of Subiaco. At thirteen years of age he followed St. Benedict to the new foundation at Monte Casino, where he grew up in the practice of a […]
ST. FRANCIS, the son of a merchant of Assisi, was born in that city in 1182. Chosen by God to be a living manifestation to the world of Christ’s poor and suffering life on earth, he was early inspired with a high esteem and burning love of poverty and humiliation. The thought of the Man […]
