Arrested by the German Gestapo in 1944 for being “too Catholic” and sent to a concentration camp, Blessed Marcel Callo remains an exemplar for his faith devotion.
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, Italian-born foundress of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was drawn to religious life as a little girl, and dreamt of being a missionary.
Blessed by visions of Christ when she was a young nun, St. Faustina obeyed Him in launching a new mission – spreading worldwide devotion to His mercy, particularly to those oppressed in sin.
Padre Pio was a 20th-century Italian Franciscan friar and priest with mystical gifts including bilocation, ability to read hearts in the confessional, transverberation (having piercings like Christ’s), and the odor of sanctity.
Pandemics are nothing new; humanity has been ravaged by them throughout history. In Christian Europe, the clergy, religious, and laity often responded to pandemic outbreaks with heartfelt prayer and acts of penance.
St. Dominic introduced devotion to the rosary and founded one of the great Catholic orders of the 13th century, The Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans.
Pier Giorgio Frassati, “The Man of the Beatitudes,” was born in 1901 in Turin, Italy to an influential family. From his youth, the handsome and personable Frassati showed a devout nature, attending daily Mass, and joined the Marian Sodality and the Apostleship of Prayer.
Aloysius de Gonzaga was barely 23 and a seminarian when he died caring for plague victims in Rome. But the 16thcentury Jesuit’s holiness was evident even as a young child – he immersed in serious prayer, taught catechism, and fasted regularly.
Known as “The Third Apostle of Rome,” St. Philip Neri is among the great saints of the Counter Reformation, best known for founding the Congregation of the Oratory, a society of teaching priests.
Waikiki’s St. Augustine Parish in the Diocese of Honolulu, HawaiI, this year is opening a new Damien and Marianne of Molokai Education Center, a $6 million, 5,900-square-foot project spearheaded by Fr. Lane Akiona, St. Augustine’s pastor. It will tell the story of two of the Hawaiian Islands’ most popular saints, St. Damien of Molokai (1840-89) and St. Marianne Cope (1838-1918), with photographs, videos, interactive exhibits, and artifacts.
St. Catherine of Siena is among the Church’s most influential mystics and spiritual writers. Before her death at 33, Catherine became a renowned mystic who played a key role in convincing Pope Gregory XI to leave Avignon and return to Rome – during a confusing time when three men claimed to be pope.
St. Katharine Drexel was an American heiress and philanthropist who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, and donated her $20 million fortune to meet the spiritual and material needs of black and Native American people.
Centuries before Vatican II’s ‘universal call to holiness,’ St. Francis de Sales called it ‘heresy’ to say religious devotion was incompatible with the layman’s life of a soldier, tradesman, prince, or married woman.
The Bible indicates Stephen was a 1st-century deacon, and the first Christian martyr. A Jew from outside Palestine, he became Christian, then headed the first seven deacons. He studied with Saul and Barnabas under Gamaliel (a Sanhedrin member opposing persecution of the Apostles).
St. Cecilia was a 2nd-century young noble Christian woman in Rome, whose family promised her in marriage to the pagan nobleman, Valerius. Formerly, she had vowed to remain a virgin, and is said to have heard heavenly music in her heart during their wedding.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph are certainly the three people most central to salvation history. Jesus, of course, as the second person of the Trinity is not only man, but is God. Mary, who is the Mother of God, has long been venerated as the Queen of the Angles and Saints; and St. Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus, among many other titles, is honored as the Patron of the Universal Church.