St. Giles, an Athenian, fled to the south of France, where he lived as a hermit in a vast forest. Discovered by king Theodoric, he founded a renowned monastery and was so famous on account of his miracles that a great number of churches were dedicated to him. He died in the 6th century.

TWELVE HOLY BROTHERS. These Saints, natives of Africa, were martyred at Beneventura (Italy) under the emperor Valerian in 258.
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ST. GILES, whose name has been held in great veneration for several ages in France and England, is said to have been an Athenian by birth, and of noble extraction. His extraordinary piety and learning drew the admiration of the world upon him in such a manner that it was impossible for him to enjoy in his own country that obscurity and retirement which was the chief object of his desires on earth. He therefore sailed to France, and chose a hermitage first in the open deserts near the mouth of the Rhone, afterward near the river Gard, and lastly in a forest in the diocese of Nismes. He passed many years in this close solitude, living on wild herbs or roots and water, and conversing only with God. We read in his life that he was for some time nourished with the milk of a hind in the forest, which, being pursued by hunters, fled for refuge to the Saint, who was thus discovered. The reputation of the sanctity of this holy hermit was much increased by many miracles which he wrought, and which rendered his name famous throughout all France. St. Giles was highly esteemed by the French king, but could not be prevailed upon to forsake his solitude. He, however, admitted several disciples, and settled excellent discipline in the monastery of which he was the founder, and which, in succeeding ages, became a flourishing abbey of the Benedictine Order.

Reflection—He who accompanies the exercises of contemplation and arduous penance with zealous and undaunted endeavors to conduct others to the same glorious term with himself, shall be truly great in the kingdom of heaven.

St. Stephen consecrated his kingdom, Hungary, to our Blessed Lady. This apostolic king won over his enemies and converted his people to Christianity. He died famous for his justice and his boundless charity in 1038.
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Geysa, 4th Duke of Hungary, was, with his wife, converted to the Faith, and saw in a vision the martyr St. Stephen, who told him that he should have a son who would perfect the work he had begun. This son was born in 977, and received the name of STEPHEN. He was most carefully educated, and succeeded his father at an early age. He began to root out idolatry, suppressed a rebellion of his pagan subjects, and founded monasteries and churches all over the land. He sent to Pope Sylvester, begging him to appoint bishops to the eleven sees he had endowed, and to bestow on him, for the greater success of his work, the title of king. The Pope granted his requests, and sent him a cross to be borne before him, saying that he regarded him as the true apostle of his people. His devotion was fervent. He placed his realms under the protection of our blessed Lady, and kept the feast of her Assumption with peculiar affection. He gave good laws, and saw to their execution. Throughout his life, we are told, he had Christ on his lips, Christ in his heart, and Christ in all he did. His only wars were wars of defense, and he was always successful. God sent him many and sore trials. One by one his children died, but he bore all with perfect submission to the will of God.

When St. Stephen was about to die, he summoned the bishops and nobles, and gave them charge concerning the choice of a successor. Then he urged them to nurture and cherish the Catholic Church, which was still as a tender plant in Hungary, to follow justice, humility, and charity, to be obedient to the laws, and to show ever a reverent submission to the Holy See. Then, raising his eyes towards heaven, he said, “O Queen of Heaven, august restorer of a prostrate world, to thy care I commend the Holy Church, my people, and my realm, and my own departing soul.” And then, on his favorite feast of the Assumption, in 1038, he died in peace.

Reflection—“Our duty,” says Father Newman, “is to follow the Vicar of Christ whither he goeth, and never to desert him, however we may be tried; but to defend him at all hazards and against all corners, as a son would a father, and as a wife a husband, knowing that his cause is the cause of God.”

Joseph Sarto was born at Riese in Venetia on June 2, 1835. He was successively curate, parish priest, bishop of Mantua, patriarch of Venice. He was elected Pope on August 4, 1903. As chief pastor of the Church he realized to the full the value of the liturgy as the prayer of the Church and spared no effort to propagate the practice of frequent and daily Communion. In his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, he exposed and condemned the modernist heresy with force and clarity (1907). He died on August 20, 1914, and was canonized on May 29, 1954.
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POPE PIUS X, born in June, 1835, was head of the Catholic Church from August 1903 to his death in 1914. Pius X is known for opposing modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting liturgical reforms and scholastic philosophy and theology. He initiated the preparation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first comprehensive and systemic work of its kind.

Pius X was devoted to the Marian title of Our Lady of Confidence; while his papal encyclical took on a sense of renewal that was reflected in the motto of his pontificate. He advanced the Liturgical Movement by formulating the principle of active participation of the faithful. He encouraged the frequent reception of Holy Communion, and he lowered the age for First Communion, which became a lasting innovation of his papacy. Like his predecessors, he promoted Thomism as the principal philosophical method to be taught in Catholic institutions.

Pius X was known for his firm demeanor and sense of personal poverty. He regularly gave homily sermons in the pulpit, a rare practice at the time. After the 1908 Messina earthquake he filled the Apostolic Palace with refugees, long before the Italian government acted. He rejected any kind of favors for his family; his close relatives chose to remain in poverty living near Rome.

After his death, a strong cult of devotion followed his reputation of piety and holiness. He was beatified in 1951 and was canonized on 29 May 1954. The traditionalist Catholic priestly Society of Saint Pius X is named in his honor while a grand statue bearing his name stands within St. Peter’s Basilica; and his birth town was renamed Riese Pio X after his death.

Reflection—Many saints, who were not martyrs, have longed to shed their blood for Christ. We, too, may pray for some portion of their spirit; and the least suffering for the faith, borne with humility and courage, is the proof that Christ has heard our prayer.

ST. ROSALIA was daughter of a noble family descended from Charlemagne. She was born at Palermo in Sicily, and despising in her youth worldly vanities, made herself an abode in a cave on Mount Pelegrino, three miles from Palermo, where she completed the sacrifice of her heart to God by austere penance and manual labor, sanctified by assiduous prayer and the constant union of her soul with God. She died in 1160. Her body was found buried in a grot under the mountain, in the year of the jubilee, 1625, under Pope Urban VIII, and was translated into the metropolitan church of Palermo, of which she was chosen a patroness. To her patronage that island ascribes the ceasing of a grievous pestilence at the same time.

Reflection—Rose lived but 17 years, saved the Church’s cause, and died a Saint. We have lived, perhaps, much longer, and yet with what result? Every minute something can be done for God. Let us be up and doing.

St. Lawrence, of the noble family of Giustiniani, Bishop and first Patriarch of Venice, was “the pride and the ornament of the Catholic Episcopate.” He died in 1455.
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LAWRENCE from a child longed to be a Saint; and when he was 19 years of age there was granted to him a vision of the Eternal Wisdom. All earthly things paled in his eyes before the ineffable beauty of this sight, and as it faded away a void was left in his heart which none but God could fill. Refusing the offer of a brilliant marriage, he fled secretly from his home at Venice, and joined the Canons Regular of St. George. One by one he crushed every natural instinct which could bar his union with his Love.

When Lawrence first entered religion, a nobleman went to dissuade him from the folly of thus sacrificing every earthly prospect. The young monk listened patiently in turn to his friend’s affectionate appeal, scorn, and violent abuse. Calmly and kindly he then replied. He pointed out the shortness of life, the uncertainty of earthly happiness, and the incomparable superiority of the prize he sought to any his friend had named. The nobleman could make no answer; he felt in truth that Lawrence was wise, himself the fool. He left the world, became a fellow-novice with the Saint, and his holy death bore every mark that he too had secured the treasures which never fail. As superior and as general, Lawrence enlarged and strengthened his Order, and as bishop of his diocese, in spite of slander and insult, thoroughly reformed his see. His zeal led to his being appointed the first patriarch of Venice, but he remained ever in heart and soul an humble priest, thirsting for the sight of heaven. At length the eternal vision began to dawn. “Are you laying a bed of feathers for me?” he said. “Not so; my Lord was stretched on a hard and painful free.” Laid upon the straw, he exclaimed in rapture, “Good Jesus, behold I come.” He died in 1435, aged 74.

Reflection—Ask St. Lawrence to vouchsafe you such a sense of the sufficiency of God that you too may fly to Him and be at rest.

Wonderful simplicity and spirit of compunction were the distinguishing virtues of this holy man. ST. ELEUTHERIUS was chosen abbot of St. Mark’s near Spoleto, and favored by God with the gift of miracles. A child who was possessed by the devil, being delivered by being educated in his monastery, the abbot said one day: “Since the child is among the servants of God, the devil dares not approach him.” These words seemed to savor of vanity, and thereupon the devil again entered and tormented the child. The abbot humbly confessed his fault, and fasted and prayed with his whole community till the child was again freed from the tyranny of the fiend. St. Gregory the Great not being able to fast on Easter-eve on account of extreme weakness, engaged this Saint to go with him to the church of St. Andrew’s and put up his prayers to God for his health, that he might join the faithful in that solemn practice of penance. Eleutherius prayed with many tears, and the Pope, coming out of the church, found his breast suddenly strengthened, so that he was enabled to perform the fast as he desired. St. Eleutherius raised a dead man to life. Resigning his abbacy, he died in St. Andrew’s monastery in Rome, about the year 585.

Reflection—“Appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father Who is in heaven, and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, He will repay thee.”

ST. CLOUD is the first and most illustrious Saint among the princes of the royal family of the first race in France. He was son of Chlodomir, King of Orleans, the eldest son of St. Clotilda, and was born in 522. He was scarce three years old when his father was killed in Burgundy; but his grandmother Clotilda brought up him and his two brothers at Paris, and loved them extremely. Their ambitious uncles divided the kingdom of Orleans between them, and stabbed with their own hands two of their nephews. Cloud, by a special providence, was saved from the massacre, and, renouncing the world, devoted himself to the service of God in a monastic state. After a time he put himself under the discipline of St. Severinus, a holy recluse who lived near Paris, from whose hands he received the monastic habit. Wishing to live unknown to the world, he withdrew secretly into Provence, but his hermitage being made public, he returned to Paris, and was received with the greatest joy imaginable. At the earnest request of the people, he was ordained priest by Eusebius, Bishop of Paris, in 551, and served that Church some time in the functions of the sacred ministry. He afterward retired to St. Cloud, two leagues below Paris, where he built a monastery. Here he assembled many pious men, who fled out of the world for fear of losing their souls in it. St. Cloud was regarded by them as their superior, and he animated them to all virtue both by word and example. He was indefatigable in instructing and exhorting the people of the neighboring country, and piously ended his days about the year 560.

Reflection—Let us remember that “the just shall live for evermore; they shall receive a kingdom of glory, and a grown of beauty at the hand of the Lord.”

The BIRTH of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY announced joy and the near approach of salvation to the lost world. Mary was brought forth in the world not like other children of Adam, infected with the loathsome contagion of sin, but pure, holy, beautiful, and glorious, adorned with all the most precious graces which became her who was chosen to be the Mother of God. She appeared indeed in the weak state of our mortality; but in the eyes of Heaven she already transcended the highest seraph in purity, brightness, and the richest ornaments of grace. If we celebrate the birthdays of the great ones of this earth, how ought we to rejoice in that of the Virgin Mary, presenting to God the best homage of our praises and thanksgiving for the great mercies He has shown in her, and imploring her mediation with her Son in our behalf! Christ will not reject the supplications of His mother, whom He was pleased to obey whilst on earth. Her love, care, and tenderness for Him, the title and qualities which she bears, the charity and graces with which she is adorned, and the crown of glory with which she is honored, must incline Him readily to receive her recommendations and petitions.

ST. ADRIAN suffered martyrdom with twenty-five others at Nicomedia under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian in 303.

PETER CLAVER was a Spanish Jesuit. In Majorca he fell in with the holy lay-brother Alphonsus Rodriguez, who, having already learned by revelation the saintly career of Peter, became his spiritual guide, foretold to him the labors he would undergo in the Indies, and the throne he would gain in heaven. Ordained priest in New Granada, Peter was sent to Cartagena, the great slave-mart of the West Indies, and there he consecrated himself by vow to the salvation of those ignorant and miserable creatures.

For more than 40 years he labored in this work. He called himself “the slave of the slaves.” He was their apostle, father, physician, and friend. He fed them, nursed. them with the utmost tenderness in their loathsome diseases, often applying his own lips to their hideous sores. His cloak, which was the constant covering of the naked, though soiled with their filthy ulcers, sent forth a miraculous perfume. His rest after his great labors was in nights of penance and prayer. However tired he might be, when news arrived of a fresh slave-ship, Saint Peter immediately revived, his eyes brightened, and he was at once on board amongst his dear slaves, bringing them comfort for body and soul. A false charge of reiterating Baptism for a while stopped his work. He submitted without a murmur till the calumny was refuted, and then God so blessed his toil that 40,000 were baptized before he went to his reward, in 1654.

At Nicomedia, St. GORGONIUS, an officer of Diocletian’s household, converted many servants of the imperial court. His cruel master condemned him and his companions to the most atrocious death in 302.

Reflection—When you see anyone standing in need of your assistance, either for body or soul, do not ask yourself why someone else did not help him, but think to yourself that you have found a treasure.

From his childhood St. Nicholas was a model of virtue and innocence. He entered the Order of St. Augustine and became a famous preacher. He died in 1310.
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Born in answer to the prayer of a holy mother, and vowed before his birth to the service of God, NICHOLAS never lost his baptismal innocence. His austerities were conspicuous even in the austere Order—the Hermits of St. Augustine—to which he belonged, and to the remonstrances which were made by his superiors he only replied, “How can I be said to fast, while every morning at the altar I receive my God?” He conceived an ardent charity for the Holy Souls, so near and yet so far from their Savior; and often after his Mass it was revealed to him that the souls for whom he had offered the Holy Sacrifice had been admitted to the presence of God. Amidst his loving labors for God and man, he was haunted by fear of his own sinfulness. “The heavens,” said he, “are not pure in the sight of Him Whom I serve; how then shall I, a sinful man, stand before Him?” As he pondered on these things, Mary, the Queen of all Saints, appeared before him. “Fear not, Nicholas,” she said, “all is well with you: my Son bears you in His Heart, and I am your protection.” Then his soul was at rest; and he heard, we are told, the songs which the angels sing in the presence of their Lord. He died September 10, 1310.

Reflection—Would you die the death of the just? there is only one way to secure the fulfilment of your wish. Live the life of the just. For it is impossible that one who has been faithful to God in life should make a bad or an unhappy end.

According to tradition, PROTUS and HYACINTH were brothers, and slaves in the household of St. Basilla at Rome. They were burned alive around 257, during the persecution of Valerian and Gallian. The unshakable fortitude of the martyrs throughout the Christian ages should serve as a stimulating reproach to us when we are tempted to lose patience under the most ordinary trials.

The NAME of MARY brings grace, hope, and sweetness to the hearts of men. First fostered in Spain, then invoked against the Turks at Vienna in 1683, this devotion to Mary inspired King John Sobieski of Poland to put the misbelievers to flight, and thus to save Christendom from devastation. Pope Innocent XI extended observance of the feast to the whole Church.

ST. EULOGIUS was a Syrian by birth, and while young embraced the monastic state in that country. The Eutychian heresy had thrown the Churches of Syria and Egypt into much confusion, and a great part of the monks of Syria were at that time become remarkable for their loose morals and errors against faith. Eulogius learned from the fall of others to stand more watchfully and firmly upon his guard, and was not less distinguished by the innocence and sanctity of his manners than by the purity of his doctrine. Having, by an enlarged pursuit of learning, attained to a great variety of useful knowledge in the different branches of literature, he set himself to the study of divinity in the sacred sources of that science, which are the Holy Scriptures, the tradition of the Church as explained in its councils, and the approved writings of its eminent pastors. In the great dangers and necessities of the Church he was drawn out of his solitude, and made priest of Antioch by the patriarch St. Anastasius. Upon the death of John, the Patriarch of Alexandria, St. Eulogius was raised to that patriarchal dignity toward the close of the year 583. About two years after his promotion our Saint was obliged to make a journey to Constantinople, in order to concert measures concerning certain affairs of his Church. He met at court St. Gregory the Great, and contracted with him a holy friendship, so that from that time they seemed to be one heart and one soul. Among the letters of St. Gregory we have several extant which he wrote to our Saint. St. Eulogius composed many excellent works against different heresies, and died in the year 606.

Reflection—We admire the great actions and the glorious triumph of the Saints; yet it is not so much in these that their sanctity consisted, as in the constant, habitual heroic disposition of their souls. There is no one who does not sometimes do good actions; but he can never be called virtuous who does well only by humor, or by fits and starts, not by steady habits.

Constantine was still wavering between Christianity and idolatry when a luminous cross appeared to him in the heavens, bearing the inscription, “In this sign shalt thou conquer.” He became a Christian, and triumphed over his enemies, who were at the same time the enemies of the Faith. A few years later, his saintly mother having found the cross on which Our Savior suffered, the feast of the “Exaltation” was established in the Church; but it was only at a later period still, namely, after the Emperor Heraclius had achieved three great and wondrous victories over Chosroes, King of Persia, who had possessed himself of the holy and precious relic, that this festival took a more general extension, and was invested with a higher character of solemnity. The feast of the “Finding” was thereupon instituted, in memory of the discovery made by St. Helena; and that of the “Exaltation” was reserved to celebrate the triumphs of Heraclius. The greatest power of the Catholic world was at that time centered in the Empire of the East, and was verging toward its ruin, when God put forth His hand to save it: the re-establishment of the great cross at Jerusalem was the sure pledge thereof. This great event occurred in 629.

Reflection—Herein is found the accomplishment of the Savior’s word: “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Myself.”

The psalms of David and the prophecies of Isaias told rather plainly what would happen to Mary’s Son. But to help extend God’s mercy to all men, Mary suffered the seven great swords of her life and the multitude of little swords. All of them were the cost of mothering the earth’s Redeemer and His members. Calvary was the climax of her sorrows. The graces and merits won by the anguish of Jesus and His Mother continually come to us through her hands. This fruit of her tears makes her also the “cause of our joy” and the sweetness and hope of the world.

ST. NICOMEDES, a priest of Rome, was scourged to death under Domitian in the first century.

Reflection—What words can ever describe the unspeakable anguish that rent the sacred heart of Mary as she looked upon her Divine Son hanging on the cross! Every wound in Jesus’ body was also a wound in the heart of Mary: every fiber, every nerve throbbing in agony, every pang He suffered re-echoed in her heart. She endured by her compassion a share in all the anguish of His Passion. Why did Mary suffer all this? That she might be our Mother, the Mother of mankind. She who brought forth her Divine Son without a pang suffered many a piercing pang when from the cross her dying Son commended to her the sinful sons of men. It was indeed a motherhood of sorrow that she suffered for our sins: for mine.

ST. CORNELIUS, the successor of St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, was one of the greatest Popes of the third century. He was beheaded in 253.

St. Cyprian, a barrister, and later Bishop of Carthage and Primate of Africa, wrote works which are among the most precious documents of the Catholic Church. He suffered martyrdom in 258.
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CYPRIAN was an African of noble birth, but of evil life, a pagan, and a teacher of rhetoric. In middle life he was converted to Christianity, and shortly after his baptism was ordained priest, and made Bishop of Carthage, notwithstanding his resistance. When the persecution of Decius broke out, he fled from his episcopal city, that he might be the better able to minister to the wants of his flock, but returned on occasion of a pestilence. Later on he was banished, and saw in a vision his future martyrdom. Being recalled from exile, sentence of death was pronounced against him, which he received with the words “Thanks be to God.” His great desire was to die whilst in the act of preaching the faith of Christ, and he had the consolation of being surrounded at his martyrdom by crowds of his faithful children. He was beheaded on the 14th of September, 258, and was buried with great solemnity. Even the pagans respected his memory.

Reflection—The duty of almsgiving is declared both by nature and revelation: by nature, because it flows from the principle imprinted within us of doing to others as we would they should do to us; by revelation, in many special commands of Scripture, and in the precept of divine charity which binds us to love God for His own sake, and our neighbor for the sake of God.

In 1224, two years before his death, three years after he had laid down active leadership of his order, Francis of Assisi received the greatest gift of his singularly blessed life—the Stigmata. During the course of a 40-day fast on Mount Alvernia in honor of St. Michael, Francis was visited by a dazzling seraphic figure whose feet and hands were nailed to a cross—to indicate to Francis that the martyrdom he yearned for would be of the mystical, rather than the physical order. He was then afflicted with the five wounds of the Crucifixion, and bore their sufferings until his death.

St. Joseph, a humble Franciscan Friar of Cupertino in Italy, who could acquire but little of book knowledge and needed divine help to qualify for the priesthood, was favored by his crucified God with a marvelous grace of contemplation, and with the remarkable power of miracles. He died at Orsino in 1663.
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JOSEPH DESA was born the 17th of June, 1603, at Cupertino, a small village of the diocese of Nardo, between Brindisi and Otranto, six miles from the coast of the gulf of Tarento. His parents were poor, but virtuous. His mother brought him up in great sentiments of piety; but treated him with great severity, punishing him frequently for the least fault, to inure him to an austere and penitential life. From his infancy he gave signs of an extraordinary fervor, and everything in him seemed to announce that he already tasted the sweets of heavenly consolations. He was very attentive to the divine service, and in an age when the love of pleasure is generally predominant, he wore a hair shirt, and mortified his body by divers austerities. He was bound apprentice to a shoemaker, which trade he applied himself to for some time.

When he was seventeen years of age he presented himself to be received amongst the Conventual Franciscans, where he had two uncles of distinction in the Order. He was, nevertheless, refused because he had not made his studies. All he could obtain was to be received amongst the Capuchins in quality of lay-brother; but after eight months he was dismissed as unequal to the duties of the Order. Far from being discouraged he persisted in his resolution of embracing a religious state. At length the Franciscans, moved with compassion, received him into their convent of Grotella, thus called from a subterraneous chapel dedicated to God under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin. This convent was situated near Cupertino. The saint having finished his novitiate with great fervor, he made his vows, and was received as lay-brother amongst the Oblates of the Third Order.

After having received the priesthood he passed five years without tasting bread or wine; during which time he lived only on herbs and dry fruits; and even the herbs that he ate on Fridays were so distasteful that only himself could use them. His fast in Lent was so rigorous that for seven years he took no nourishment but on Thursdays and Sundays, except the Holy Eucharist, which he received every day. His countenance in the morning was extremely pale; but after the communion it became florid and lively. He had contracted such a habit of fasting, that his stomach could no longer bear any food. His desire of mortification made him invent different instruments of penance. During two years he suffered many interior trials which tormented him exceedingly; but to this storm a profound calm succeeded.

Reflection—We learn a lot from the prudence of St. Joseph, which was remarkable in the conduct of souls, drew to him a great concourse of people, and even of cardinals and princes.

St. Januarius, Bishop of Beneventum, was beheaded with his companions Acutius, Eutychius, Desiderius, Festus, Proculus, and Socius at Puteoli in the persecution of Diocletian in 305. St. Januarius is the patron of Naples, where year by year the liquefaction of his blood, preserved in a phial, takes place.
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Many centuries ago, ST. JANUARIUS died for the Faith in the persecution of Diocletian, and to this day God confirms the faith of His Church, and works a continual miracle, through the blood which Januarius shed for Him. The Saint was Bishop of Beneventum, and on one occasion he travelled to Misenum in order to visit a deacon named Sosius. During this visit Januarius saw the head of Sosius, who was singing the gospel in the church, girt with flames, and took this for a sign that ere long Sosius would wear the crown of martyrdom. So it proved. Shortly after Sosius was arrested, and thrown into prison. There St. Januarius visited and encouraged him, till the bishop also was arrested in turn. Soon the number of the confessors was swollen by some of the neighboring clergy. They were exposed to the wild beasts in the amphitheater. The beasts, however, did them no harm; and at last the Governor of Campania ordered the Saints to be beheaded. Little did the heathen governor think that he was the instrument in God’s hand of ushering in the long succession of miracles which attest the faith of Januarius. The relics of St. Januarius rest in the cathedral of Naples, and it is there that the liquefaction of his blood occurs. The blood is congealed in two glass vials, but when it is brought near the martyr’s head it melts and flows like the blood of a living man.

Reflection—Thank God Who has given you superabundant motives for your faith; and pray for the spirit of the first Christians, the spirit which exults and rejoices in belief.

Eustace was commander-in-chief in the army of the Emperor Trajan. Having refused to thank the gods for a triumph, he was burned to death with his wife and two children, after undergoing many cruel tortures in 120.
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The legend relates that EUSTACHIUS (before baptism, Placidus), a Roman general under Trajan, while still a heathen, saw a stag coming towards him, with a crucifix between its horns; he heard a voice telling him that he was to suffer much for Christ’s sake. He received baptism, together with his wife Tatiana (or Trajana, after baptism Theopista) and his sons, Agapius and Theopistus. The place of the vision is said to have been Guadagnolo, between Tibur and Praeneste (Tivoli and Palestrina), in the vicinity of Rome. Through adverse fortune the family was scattered, but later reunited. For refusing to sacrifice to the idols after a victory, they suffered death in a heated brazen bull. Baronius would identify him with Placidus mentioned by Josephus Flavius as a general. Sts. Eustachius and Companions became martyrs under the Emperor Hadrian, in the year 118. The church of Sant’ Eustachio in Rome, title of a cardinal-deacon, existed in 827, according to the Liber Pontificalis, but perhaps as early as the time of Gregory the Great (d. 604). It claims to possess the relics of the saint, some of which are said to be at St-Denis and at St-Eustache in Paris. An island in the Lesser Canilles and a city in Canada bear his name.

Reflection—St. Eustachius is honored as one of the Holy Helpers, is invoked in difficult situations, and is patron of the city of Madrid and of hunters.

St. Matthew was at first a publican at the toll station at Capharnaum. The publicans, on account of their many acts of injustice and extortion, were looked upon as the greatest sinners by the Jews. Matthew himself by his humble confession gratefully acknowledged the gracious condescension of the Lord to sinners. At his Master’s invitation he promptly joined Him. He wrote the first Gospel and preached the Good News in Palestine and in Ethiopia, where he was attacked and killed while saying Mass in 60.
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One day, as Our Lord was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw, sitting at the receipt of custom, MATTHEW the publican, whose business it was to collect the taxes from the people for their Roman masters. Jesus said to him, “Follow Me”; and leaving all, Matthew arose and followed Him. Now the publicans were abhorred by the Jews as enemies of their country, outcasts, and notorious sinners, who enriched themselves by extortion and fraud. No Pharisee would sit with one at table. Our Savior alone had compassion for them. So St. Matthew made a great feast, to which he invited Jesus and His disciples, with a number of these publicans, who henceforth began eagerly to listen to Him. It was then, in answer to the murmurs of the Pharisees, that He said, “They that are in health need not the physician. I have not come to call the just, but sinners to penance.” After the Ascension, St. Matthew remained some years in Judaea, and there wrote his gospel, to teach his countrymen that Jesus was their true Lord and King, foretold by the prophets. St. Matthew afterward preached the Faith far and wide, and is said to have finished his course in Parthia.

Reflection—Obey all inspirations of Our Lord as promptly as St. Matthew, who, at a single word, “laid down,” says St. Bridget, “the heavy burden of the world to put on the light and sweet yoke of Christ.”

St. Thomas, born in Spain, religious of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, Archbishop of Valencia, died having given away to the poor all he possessed in 1555.

St. Maurice and his Companions, Martyrs. These soldiers of the famous Theban legion were put to the sword by order of Maximian at Agaune, now called St. Maurice (Switzerland) in 285.
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ST. THOMAS, glory of the church of Spain, was born at Fuenlana in Castile in 1488: but received his surname from Villanova de los Infantes, a town where he had his education, situate about two miles from the place of his birth. His parents, Alphonsus Thomas Garcias and Lucy Martinez, were also originally of Villanova. Their fortune was not affluent; but it contented all their wishes, and with their prudent frugality enabled them liberally to assist the poor. Instead of selling that corn which was not necessary for the subsistence of their family, they made bread of it, which they bestowed on the necessitous, and they usually observed the same rule with regard to their cattle, and the rest of the produce of their small estate. The first words which his parents had taught him to pronounce were the names of Jesus and Mary; and during his whole life he had the most tender devotion to the mother of God.

His behavior in his novitiate was such as showed he had been long inured to austerities, to the renouncing his own will, and the exercises of holy contemplation. The simplicity of his behavior in his whole conduct charmed his fellow-religious, and made them admire how he seemed totally to forget that he had been professor in a famous university. Soon after the term of his novitiate was expired, he was promoted to priestly orders in 1520, and employed in preaching the word of God, and in administering the sacrament of penance. Of these functions he acquitted himself with such dignity and success that he was surnamed the apostle of Spain.

He rendered his soul into the hands of God, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, the eleventh of his episcopal dignity, of our Lord 1555. He was buried, according to his desire, in the church of the Austin Friars at Valentia: was beatified by Paul V., in 1618, and canonized by Alexander VII., in 1658. His festival was appointed to be celebrated on the 18th of September. His sermons, and his exposition of the book of Canticles, printed in two volumes in quarto, breathe an admirable spirit of humility, and the ardent love of God and our Blessed Redeemer. The relation of many miracles wrought through his intercession and by his relics, with most authentic attestations, may be seen in the process of his canonization prefixed to his works.

Reflection—Nothing can be more vehement or more tender than his exhortation to divine love. “O wonderful beneficence!” he cries out; “God promises us heaven for the recompense of his love. Is not his love itself a great reward? a blessing the most desirable, the most amiable, and the most sweet! Yet a recompense, and so immense a recompense, further waits upon it!”

The successor of St. Peter in the Apostolic See ruled the Church for about nine years. He was martyred, and was buried next to the Prince of the Apostles in 78.

St. Thecla was converted by St. Paul. Under the emperor Nero vain attempts were made to compass her death by fire, by serpents, by wild beasts. After a life of solitary retirement, she died at the age of 90.
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ST. LINUS was the immediate successor of St. Peter in the see of Rome, as St. Irenaeus, Eusebius, St. Epiphanius, St. Optatus, St. Austin, and others assure us. Tertullian says that St. Clement was appointed by St. Peter to be his successor; but either he declined that dignity till St. Linus and St. Cletus had preceded him in it, or he was at first only vicar of St. Peter, to govern under him the Gentile converts, whilst that apostle presided over the whole church, yet so as to be chiefly taken up in instructing the Jewish converts, and in preaching abroad. St. Linus, succeeding St. Peter after his martyrdom, sat twelve years, and is named among the martyrs in the canon of the Roman mass, which is certainly older in this part than the sacramentary of Gelasius, and of the greatest authority in this point. It is not indeed impossible that he might be called a martyr on account of his sufferings for the faith, without dying by the sword. St. Linus was buried on the Vatican hill, near the tomb of St. Peter.

Reflection—This saint distinguished himself among the illustrious disciples of the apostles, who were formed upon their model to perfect virtue, and filled with the holy spirit of the gospel. How little are we acquainted with this spirit of fervor, charity, meekness, patience, and sincere humility; without which it is in vain that we bear the honorable name of Christians, and are a reproach and scandal to so sacred a profession!

The Blessed Virgin Mary by repeated visions inspired St. Peter Nolasco and St. Raymond of Peñafort to found with the aid of King James of Aragon the Order of Our Lady of Ransom for the redemption of Christian captives from the infidels. The Church commemorates today this incomparable work of charity.
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St. Peter of the noble family of Nolasco, was born in Languedoc, about 1189. At the age of 25 he took a vow of chastity, and made over his vast estates to the Church. Some time after, he conceived the idea of establishing an order for the redemption of captives. The divine will was soon manifested. The Blessed Virgin appeared on the same night to Peter, to Raymund of Pennafort, his confessor, and to James, King of Arragon, his ward, and bade them prosecute without fear their holy designs. After great opposition, the Order was solemnly established, and approved by Gregory IX, under the name of OUR LADY OF MERCY. By the grace of God, and under the protection of His Virgin Mother, the Order spread rapidly, its growth being increased by the charity and piety of its members, who devoted themselves not only to collecting alms for the ransom of the Christians, but even gave themselves up to voluntary slavery to aid the good work. It is to return thanks to God and the Blessed Virgin that a feast was instituted which was observed in the Order of Mercy, then in Spain and France, and at last extended to the whole Church by Innocent XII, and the 24th September named as the day on which it is to be observed.

Reflection—St. Peter Nolasco and his knights were laymen, not priests, and yet they considered the salvation of their neighbor entrusted to them. We can each of us by counsel, by prayer, but above all by holy example, assist the salvation of our brethren, and thus secure our own.

ST. FIRMIN was a native of Pampelone in Navarre, initiated in the Christian faith by Honestus, a disciple of St. Saturninus of Toulouse, and consecrated bishop by St. honoratus, successor to St. Saturninus, in order to preach the Gospel in the remoter parts of Gaul. He preached the Faith in the countries of Agen, Anjou, and Beauvais, and being arrived at Amiens, there chose his residence, and founded there a numerous church of faithful disciples. He received the crown of martyrdom in that city, whether under the prefect Rictius Varus, or in some other persecution from Decius, in 250, to Diocletian, in 303, is uncertain.

SS. JEAN (JOHN) DE BRÉBEUF, ISAAC JOGUES, GABRIEL LALEMANT, ANTHONY DANIEL, CHARLES GARNIER, NOËL CHABANEL, Jesuit priests; JOHN DE LALANDE, an Oblate; and RENÉ GOUPIL, a Jesuit Brother-coadjutor, all born in France, labored as missionaries in North America. They suffered much for Christ and in the end were cruelly put to death by the Indian tribes in 1642, 1646, 1648, and 1649.
CYPRIAN, the magician, endeavored in vain to deceive the holy virgin JUSTINA by his sorcery. He was converted to the Faith, and both were beheaded at Nicomedia under Diocletian in 304.
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The detestable superstition of ST. CYPRIAN’s idolatrous parents devoted him from his infancy to the devil, and he was brought up in all the impious mysteries of idolatry, astrology, and the black art. When Cyprian had learned all the extravagances of these schools of error and delusion, he hesitated at no crimes, blasphemed Christ, and committed secret murders. There lived at Antioch a young Christian lady called JUSTINA, of high birth and great beauty. A pagan nobleman fell deeply in love with her, and finding her modesty inaccessible, and her resolution invincible, he applied to Cyprian for assistance. Cyprian, no less smitten with the lady, tried every secret with which he was acquainted to conquer her resolution. Justina, perceiving herself vigorously attacked, studied to arm herself by prayer, watchfulness, and mortification against all his artifices and the power of his spells. Cyprian finding himself worsted by a superior power, began to consider the weakness of the infernal spirits, and resolved to quit their service and become a Christian. Agladius, who had been the first suitor to the holy virgin, was likewise converted and baptized. The persecution of Diocletian breaking out, Cyprian and Justina were seized, and presented to the same judge. She was inhumanly scourged, and Cyprian was torn with iron hooks. After this they were both sent in chains to Diocletian, who commanded their heads to be struck off, which sentence was executed.
Reflection—If the errors and disorders of St. Cyprian show the degeneracy of human nature corrupted by sin and enslaved to vice, his conversion displays the power of grace and virtue to repair it. Let us beg of God to send us grace to resist temptation, and to do His holy will in all things.

SS. Cosmas and Damian, two brothers, physicians, born at Egæa (Arabia), were beheaded after many cruel tortures in Cilicia, under Diocletian, by order of the prefect Lysias in 283.
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STS. COSMAS and DAMIAN were brothers, and born in Arabia, but studied the sciences in Syria, and became eminent for their skill in physic. Being Christians, and full of that holy temper of charity in which the spirit of our divine religion consists, they practiced their profession with great application and wonderful success, but never took any fee. They were loved and respected by the people on account of the good offices received from their charity, and for their zeal for the Christian faith, which they took every opportunity to propagate. When the persecution of Diocletian began to rage, it was impossible for persons of so distinguished a character to lie concealed. They were therefore apprehended by the order of Lysias, Governor of Cilicia, and after various torments were bound hand and foot and thrown into the sea.

Reflection—We may sanctify our labor or industry, if actuated by the motive of charity toward others, even whilst we fulfill the obligation we owe to ourselves and our families of procuring an honest and necessary subsistence, which of itself is no less noble a virtue, if founded in motives equally pure and perfect.

St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia, was persecuted by his unnatural mother Drahomira and his impious brother and successor, Boleslas, out of hatred for the Faith. He was murdered by the latter in a church where he was praying in 938.
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WENCESLAUS was the son of a Christian Duke of Bohemia, but his mother was a hard and cruel pagan. Through the care of his holy grandmother, Ludmilla, herself a martyr, Wenceslaus was educated in the true faith, and imbibed a special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. On the death of his father, his mother, Drahomira, usurped the government and passed a series of persecuting laws. In the interests of the Faith Wenceslaus claimed and obtained, through the support of the people, a large portion of the country as his own kingdom. His mother secured the apostasy and alliance of her second son, Boleslas, who became henceforth her ally against the Christians. Wenceslaus meanwhile ruled as a brave and pious king, provided for all the needs of his people, and when his kingdom was attacked, overcame in single combat, by the sign of the cross, the leader of an invading army. In the service of God he was most constant, and planted with his own hands the wheat and grapes for the Holy Mass, at which he never failed daily to assist. His piety was the occasion of his death. Once, after a banquet at his brother’s palace, to which he had been treacherously invited, he went, as was his wont at night, to pray before the tabernacle. There, at midnight on the feast of the Angels, 938, he received his crown of martyrdom, his brother dealing him the death-blow.

Reflection—St. Wenceslaus teaches us that the safest place to meet the trials of life, or to prepare for the stroke of death, is before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

This Basilica was consecrated to St. Michael by Boniface II on the site of the Roman Circus.
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“MI-CA-EL,” or “Who is like to God?” Such was the cry of the great Archangel when he smote the rebel Lucifer in the conflict of the heavenly hosts, and from that hour he has been known as “Michael,” the captain of the armies of God, the type of divine fortitude, the champion of every faithful soul in strife with the powers of evil. Thus he appears in Holy Scripture as the guardian of the children of Israel, their comfort and protector in times of sorrow or conflict. He it is who prepares for their return from the Persian captivity, who leads the valiant Maccabees to victory, and who rescues the body of Moses from the envious grasp of the Evil One. And since Christ’s coming the Church has ever venerated St. Michael as her special patron and protector. The Church invokes him by name in her confession of sin, summons him to the side of her children in the agony of death, and chooses him as their escort from the chastening flames of purgatory to the realms of holy light. Lastly, when Antichrist shall have set up his kingdom on earth, it is Michael who will unfurl once more the standard of the Cross, sound the last trumpet, and binding together the false prophet and the beast, hurl them for all eternity into the burning pool.

Reflection—“Whenever,” says St. Bernard, “any grievous temptation or vehement sorrow oppresses thee, invoke thy guardian, thy leader; cry out to him, and say, ‘Lord, save us, lest we perish!’”

St. Jerome, born in Dalmatia, educated at Rome, was soon led into the gravest disorders. Inspired by heaven, he was converted and became one of the greatest Doctors of the Latin Church, especially famous for his translation into Latin (the Vulgate) of the Holy Scriptures. He retired into a monastery at Bethlehem and died in 420.
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ST. JEROME, born in Dalmatia, in 329, was sent to school at Rome. His boyhood was not free from fault. His thirst for knowledge was excessive, and his love of books a passion. He had studied under the best masters, visited foreign cities, and devoted himself to the pursuit of science. But Christ had need of his strong will and active intellect for the service of His Church. St. Jerome felt and obeyed the call, made a vow of celibacy, fled from Rome to the wild Syrian desert, and there for four years learnt in solitude, penance, and prayer a new lesson of divine wisdom. This was his novitiate. The Pope soon summoned him to Rome, and there put upon the now famous Hebrew scholar the task of revising the Latin Bible, which was to be his noblest work. Retiring thence to his beloved Bethlehem, the eloquent hermit poured forth from his solitary cell for 30 years a stream of luminous writings upon the Christian world.

Reflection—“To know,” says St. Basil, “how to submit thyself with thy whole soul, is to know how to imitate Christ.”

St. Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, in France, converted the Merovingian king Clovis and the Frankish nation. He died in 534.
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REMIGIUS, or Remi, was born of noble and pious parents. At the age of 22, in spite of the canons and of his own reluctance, he was acclaimed Archbishop of Rheims. He was unusually tall, his face impressed with blended majesty and serenity, his bearing gentle, humble, and retiring. He was learned and eloquent, and had the gift of miracles. His pity and charity were boundless, and in toil he knew no weariness. His body was the outward expression of a noble and holy soul, breathing the spirit of meekness and compunction. For so choice a workman God had fitting work. The South of France was in the hands of Arians, and the pagan Franks were wresting the North from the Romans. St. Remigius confronted Clovis, their king, and converted and baptized him at Christmas, in 496. With him he gained the whole Frank nation. He threw down the idol altars, built churches, and appointed bishops. He withstood and silenced the Arians, and converted so many that he left France a Catholic kingdom, its king the oldest and at the time the only crowned son of the Church. He died in 533, after an episcopate of 74 years, the longest on record.

Reflection—Few men have had such natural advantages and such gifts of grace as St. Remi, and few have done so great a work. Learn from him to bear the world’s praise as well as its scorn with a lowly and chastened heart.

God’s love for us was not satisfied with giving us His Son, Jesus, for our Redeemer, and Mary for our Advocate; He has been pleased to give us also His Angels to be our guardians: “He hath given His Angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways” (Ps. 90:2). These holy spirits and princes of heaven are always present with us, and assist us in all our actions. And on this account, out of regard to our guardian Angels, we ought carefully to refrain from every action which can displease them.
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God does not abandon to mere chance any of His handiworks; by His providence He is everywhere present; not a hair falls from the head or a sparrow to the ground without His knowledge. Not content, however, with yielding such familiar help in all things, not content with affording that existence which He communicates and perpetuates through every living being, He has charged His angels with the ministry of watching and safeguarding every one of His creatures that behold not His face. Kingdoms have their angels assigned to them, and men have their angels; these latter it is whom religion designates as THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGELS. Our Lord says in the Gospel, “Beware lest ye scandalize any of these little ones, for their angels in heaven see the face of My Father.” The existence of Guardian Angels is a dogma of the Christian faith: this being so, what ought not our respect be for that sure and holy intelligence that is ever present at our side; and how great should our solicitude be, lest, by any act of ours, we offend those eyes which are ever bent upon us in all our ways!

Reflection—Ah! let us not give occasion, in the language of Holy Scripture, to the angels of peace to weep bitterly.

Mary Frances Martin was born at Alençon of parents most pious and endowed with a comfortable amount of the goods of this world. At the age of fifteen she entered the Carmel of Lisieux, living there in holiness and humility. Her whole ambition was to love God perfectly and to conquer souls for Jesus. She died in the odor of sanctity, promising to “spend her heaven in doing good upon earth” (1873-1897). His Holiness Pope Pius XI declared her Blessed on April 29, 1923, and canonized her on March 17, 1925.
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ST. THÉRÈSE was a Carmelite of Lisieux, better known as the Little Flower of Jesus, born at Alençon, France, January 2, 1873; died at Lisieux September 30, 1897.

She was the ninth child of saintly parents, Louis and Zélie Martin, both of whom had wished to consecrate their lives to God in the cloister. The vocation denied them was given to their children, five of whom became religious, one to the Visitation Order and four in the Carmelite Convent of Lisieux. Brought up in an atmosphere of faith where every virtue and aspiration were carefully nurtured and developed, her vocation manifested itself when she was still only a child. Educated by the Benedictines, when she was fifteen she applied for permission to enter the Carmelite Convent, and being refused by the superior, went to Rome with her father, as eager to give her to God as she was to give herself, to seek the consent of the Holy Father, Leo XIII, then celebrating his jubilee. He preferred to leave the decision in the hands of the superior, who finally consented and on April 9, 1888, at the unusual age of fifteen, Thérèse Martin entered the convent of Lisieux where two of her sisters had preceded her.

The account of the eleven years of her religious life, marked by signal graces and constant growth in holiness, is given by Soeur Thérèse in her autobiography, written in obedience to her superior and published two years after her death. In 1901 it was translated into English, and in 1912 another translation, the first complete edition of the life of the Servant of God, containing the autobiography, “Letters and Spiritual Counsels,” was published. Its success was immediate and it has passed into many editions, spreading far and wide the devotion to this “little” saint of simplicity, and abandonment in God’s service, of the perfect accomplishment of small duties.

The fame of her sanctity and the many miracles performed through her intercession caused the introduction of her cause of canonization only seventeen years after her death, 10 Jun, 1914. St. Thérèse is well known throughout the world, with the Basilica of Lisieux being the second largest place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes.

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 of Sorrows, Who had not where to lay His head, filled him with holy envy of the poor, and constrained him to renounce the wealth and worldly station which he abhorred. The scorn and hard usage which he met with from his father and townsmen when he appeared among them in the garb of poverty were delightful to him. “Now,” he exclaimed, “I can say truly, ‘Our Father Who art in heaven.’” But divine love burned in him too mightily not to kindle like desires in other hearts. Many joined themselves to him, and were constituted by Pope Innocent III into a religious Order, which spread rapidly throughout Christendom. St. Francis, after visiting the East in the vain quest of martyrdom, spent his life like his Divine Master—now in preaching to the multitudes, now amid desert solitudes in fasting and contemplation. During one of these retreats he received on his hands, feet, and side the print of the five bleeding wounds of Jesus. With the cry, “Welcome, sister Death,” he passed to the glory of his God October 4, 1226.

Reflection—“My God and my all,” St. Francis’ constant prayer, explains both his poverty and his wealth.

St. Placid, when four years old, was committed by his father Tertullus to the care of St. Benedict, who sent him later into Sicily. He was murdered with his monks, out of hatred for the Faith, by heathen pirates in 541.
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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 13 years of age he followed St. Benedict to the new foundation at Monte Casino, where he grew up in the practice of a wonderful austerity and innocence of life. He had scarcely completed his 21st year when he was selected to establish a monastery in Sicily upon some estates which had been given by his father to St. Benedict. He spent four years in building his monastery, and the 5th had not elapsed before an inroad of barbarians burned everything to the ground, and put to a lingering death not only St. Placid and thirty monks who had joined him, but also his two brothers, Eutychius and Victorinus, and his holy sister Flavia, who had come to visit him. The monastery was rebuilt, and still stands under his invocation.

Reflection—Adversity is the touchstone of the soul, because it discovers the character of the virtue which it possesses. One act of thanksgiving when matters go wrong with us is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations.

St. Bruno, born at Cologne, retired with six of his friends to one of the desert mountains of Dauphiny in the southeast of France. There he established the first house of the Order of the Carthusians. He died on October 6, 1101.
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BRUNO was born at Cologne, about 1030, of an illustrious family. He was endowed with rare natural gifts, which he cultivated with care at Paris. He became canon of Cologne, and then of Rheims, where he had the direction of theological studies. On the death of the bishop, the see fell for a time into evil hands, and Bruno retired with a few friends into the country. There he resolved to forsake the world, and to live a life of retirement and penance. With six companions he applied to Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, who led them into a wild solitude called the Chartreuse. There they lived in poverty, self-denial, and silence, each apart in his own cell, meeting only for the worship of God, and employing themselves in copying books. From the name of the spot the Order of St. Bruno was called the Carthusian. Six years later, Urban II called Bruno to Rome, that he might avail himself of his guidance. Bruno tried to live there as he had lived in the desert; but the echoes of the great city disturbed his solitude, and, after refusing high dignities, he wrung from the Pope permission to resume his monastic life in Calabria. There he lived, in humility and mortification and great peace, till his blessed death in 1101.

Reflection—“O everlasting kingdom,” said St. Augustine; “kingdom of endless ages, whereon rests the untroubled light and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, where the souls of the Saints are in rest, and everlasting joy is on their heads, and sorrow and sighing have fled away! When shall I come and appear before God?”

This festival was instituted to implore the divine mercy in favor of the church and of all the faithful, and to thank the Almighty for the protection he has afforded them, and for the innumerable benefits he has conferred upon them, particularly for his having delivered Christendom from the arms of the Infidels by the miraculous victory of Lepanto in 1571, through the patronage and intercession of the Mother of God, implored with extraordinary fervor in the devotion of the Rosary. To the same means Pope Clement XI acknowledged the church to be indebted for the wonderful victory which prince Eugene of Savoy obtained over the Turks near Belgrade in 1716. Upon which account his holiness caused one of the five standards which were taken from the infidels, and which was sent him by the emperor, to be hung up in the Dominicans’ church of the Rosary in Rome. At that time the infidels, with an army of two hundred thousand men, held the Christian army, as it were, besieged near Belgrade, and had a garrison of twenty thousand men in that strong city, then the bulwark of their empire. The isle of Corfu was also beleaguered by an army of forty thousand of the same infidels. The victory of the Christians was followed by the taking of Belgrade, and the deliverance of Corfu, and also the preservation of all Germany and Italy, which were next threatened.

The Angelical Salutation is often repeated in the Rosary, because, as it contains a form of praise for the Incarnation, it best suits a devotion instituted to honor the principal parts of that great mystery. Though it be addressed to the Mother of God, with an invocation of her intercession, it is chiefly a praise and thanksgiving to the Son, for the divine mercy in each part of that wonderful mystery. The Holy Ghost is the principal author of this holy prayer, which the archangel Gabriel, the ambassador of the Blessed Trinity in the most wonderful of all mysteries, began; Saint Elizabeth, another organ of the Holy Ghost, continued, and the Church finished. The first and second part consist of the sacred praises which were bestowed on the Blessed Virgin by the archangel Gabriel, and by Saint Elizabeth inspired by the Holy Ghost. The last part was added by the church, and contains a petition of her intercession, styling her Mother of God, with the general council of Ephesus against the blasphemies of Nestorius.

St. MARK, successor of St. Sylvester, occupied the Holy See for a few months, and died in 336.

Reflection—Mary is truly called blessed above all other women, she having been herself always preserved from the least stain of sin, and having been the happy instrument of God in converting the maledictions laid on all mankind into blessings. How emphatically should we from our hearts pronounce her blessed above all women, who brought forth Him who is the author of all manner of spiritual and eternal blessings to us!

St. Bridget, a descendant of the royal house of Sweden, was married to prince Ulfo. After the death of the latter, she founded the Order of the Most Holy Savior, commonly called Bridgettines. She died at Rome in 1373.
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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 Order, and Bridget founded the Order of St. Savior, in the Abbey of Wastein, in Sweden. In 1344 she became a widow, and thenceforth received a series of the most sublime revelations, all of which she scrupulously submitted to the judgment of her confessor. By the command of Our Lord, Bridget went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and amidst the very scenes of the Passion was further instructed in the sacred mysteries. She died in 1373.

SERGIUS and BACCHUS, martyrs, d. in the Diocletian persecution in Coele-Syria about 303. They were officers of troops on the frontier, Sergius being primicerius, and Bacchus secundarius. They were high in esteem of the Caesar Maximianus on account of their bravery, but this favor was turned into hate when they acknowledged their Christian faith. When examined under torture they were beaten so severely with thongs that Bacchus died under the blows. Sergius, though, had much more suffering to endure; among other tortures, he had to run eighteen miles in shoes which were covered on the soles with sharp-pointed nails that pierced through the foot. He was finally beheaded. Christian art represents the two saints as soldiers in military garb with branches of palm in their hands.

The Church calendar gives the two saints MARCELLUS and APULEIUS on the same day as Sergius and Bacchus. They are said to have been converted to Christianity by the miracles of St. Peter. According to the “Martyrologium Romanum” they suffered martyrdom soon after the deaths of Sts. Peter and Paul and were buried near Rome.

Reflection—“Is confession a matter of much time or expense?” asks St. John Chrysostom. “Is it a difficult and painful remedy? Without cost or hurt, the medicine is ever ready to restore you to perfect health.”

This holy priest of Luna in Tuscany founded the Congregation of Regular Clergy called “of the Mother of God,” and other Institutes. He died at Rome on October 9, 1609. St. John Leonardi was beatified by Pope Pius XI. Pius XII extended his feast to the whole Catholic world in 1940.

St. Denis, the first bishop of Paris, together with the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius, preached the Gospel in Gaul, where they suffered martyrdom in the third century.
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GIOVANNI LEONARDI was the youngest of seven children born to middle-class parents in Diecimo (now within the comune of Borgo a Mozzano) in the Republic of Lucca. From childhood, he sought solitude and wished to dedicate himself to prayer and meditation. At age 17, he began his ten-year study to become a certified pharmacist’s assistant in Lucca. Afterward, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1572. He first dedicated himself to the Christian formation of adolescents in his local Lucca parish. He also gathered a group of laymen around him to work in hospitals and prisons. In 1574 he founded a group charged to deepen Christian faith and devotion; this foundation occurred as part of the movement known as the Counter-Reformation. Leonardi worked with this group to spread devotion to the Blessed Mother and devotion to the Forty Hours as well as spreading the message of the importance of frequent reception of the Eucharist.

He became interested in the reforms instituted by the Council of Trent, and he proposed a new congregation of secular priests to convert sinners and to restore Church discipline. In 1583, his association, which became known as the Lucca Fathers, was recognized by the bishop of Lucca with the approval of Pope Gregory XIII. In 1595, his congregation was confirmed by Pope Clement VIII. He assumed the name of “Giovanni of the Mother of God” as his religious name. This foundation received approval from Pope Paul V on January 14, 1614. The pope, encouraged by the cardinal protector Giustiniani issued a papal decree approving the union of the Lucca Fathers with the Piarists of St. Joseph Calasanctius. This union would last only until the beginning of 1617 when Paul V issued another decree making the Piarists their own separate congregation. In 1621, his community would formally be designated Clerks Regular of the Mother of God. The final Rule of his institute was published in 1851. Two houses of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God were opened when he died and three others were opened during the seventeenth century. He died on October 9, 1609, from the great plague, which he contracted while ministering to his brothers suffering from the influenza epidemic that was raging in Rome at the time. Leonardi was beatified in 1861 and canonized in 1938 by Pope Pius XI. His liturgical feast is celebrated on 9 October. His relics lie enshrined in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome.

Reflection—Our saint was venerated for his miracles and his religious fervor. His memory was held so high in the Holy City that Pope Leo XIII had his name placed in the Roman Martyrology and ordered the Roman clergy to celebrate his Mass and Office, an honor which is otherwise strictly limited to beatified popes.

After the death of his wife, St. Francis, Duke of Gandia and Viceroy of Catalonia, renounced his high position in order to enter the Society of Jesus. He was the third General of his Order and died at Rome in 1572.
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FRANCIS BORGIA, Duke of Gandia and Captain-General of Catalonia, was one of the handsomest, richest, and most honored nobles in Spain, when, in 1539, there was laid upon him the sad duty of escorting the remains of his sovereign, Queen Isabella, to the royal burying-place at Granada. The coffin had to be opened for him that he might verify the body before it was placed in the tomb, and so foul a sight met his eyes that he vowed never again to serve a sovereign who could suffer so base a change. It was some years before he could follow the call of his Lord; at length he entered the Society of Jesus to cut himself off from any chance of dignity or preferment. But his Order chose him to be its head. The Turks were threatening Christendom, and St. Pius V sent his nephew to gather Christian princes into a league for its defense. The holy Pope chose Francis to accompany him, and, worn out though he was, the Saint obeyed at once. The fatigues of the embassy exhausted what little life was left. St. Francis died on his return to Rome, October 10, 1572.

Reflection—St. Francis Borgia learnt the worthlessness of earthly greatness at the funeral of Queen Isabella. Do the deaths of friends teach us aught about ourselves?

In 1931, in commemoration of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus, Pope Pius XI decreed that henceforth in the entire Church a Feast in honor of the Motherhood of Mary should be established on the eleventh of October. The history behind the Feast is of interest. In 431, in Ephesus, a great council of the Bishops met in the Church of Mary, the Mother of God, to assert the Catholic faith in the Person Jesus Christ, true God and true man. This was done to offset and denounce the false teaching of Nestorius, who asserted that Christ was a mere man but united to God. This was done to offset and denounce the false teaching of Nestorius, who asserted that Christ was a mere man but united to God. He taught that Jesus of Nazareth and the Word of God are two distinct persons. As a consequence of this teaching, it was held that Mary was only the mother of the human person, Christ. Of course, the Council of Ephesus gave out the true teaching as we find it today, for example in the Athanasian Creed “This is true faith, to believe and confess that Our Lord Jesus Christ is God and man. Although at the same time God and man yet He is one and the same Person.” It follows from this, that Mary, in becoming the human mother of the Person Christ is the Mother of God. Pius XI commended Mary and the Holy Family of Nazareth as models of the dignity and holiness of chaste wedlock, and as patterns of the holy education of youth.

Reflection—Two of the most common prayers to the Mother of God, the Hail Mary and the Hail Holy Queen, if said frequently and with devotion will enable us to live daily under the protection of Mary.

“A quick walker, expert at all good works, with never a sour face,” such was the great ST. WILFRID, whose glory it was to secure the happy links which bound England to Rome. He was born about the year 634, and was trained by the Celtic monks at Lindisfarne in the peculiar rites and usages of the British Church. Yet even as a boy Wilfrid longed for perfect conformity in discipline, as in doctrine, with the Holy See, and at the first chance set off himself for Rome. On his return he founded at Ripon a strictly Roman monastery, under the rule of St. Benedict. In the year 664 he was elected Bishop of Lindisfarne, and five years later was transferred to the see of York. He had to combat the passions of wicked kings, the cowardice of worldly prelates, the errors of holy men. He was twice exiled and once imprisoned; yet the battle which he fought was won. He swept away the abuses of many years and a too national system, and substituted instead a vigorous Catholic discipline, modelled and dependent on Rome. He died October 12, 709, and at his death was heard the sweet melody of the angels conducting his soul to Christ.

Reflection—To look towards Rome is an instinct planted in us for the preservation of the Faith. Trust in the Vicar of Christ necessarily results from the reign of His love in our hearts.

This King-Confessor was a grandson of St. Edward, king and martyr, and the last but one of the Anglo-Saxon Kings of England. He died in 1066.
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EDWARD was unexpectedly raised to the throne of England at the age of 40 years, 27 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 content his nobles and people, he preserved perfect chastity in the wedded state. So little did he set his heart on riches, that thrice when he saw a servant robbing his treasury he let him escape, saying the poor fellow needed the gold more than he. He loved to stand at his palace-gate, speaking kindly to the poor beggars and lepers who crowded about him, and many of whom he healed of their diseases. The long wars had brought the kingdom to a sad state, but Edward’s zeal and sanctity soon wrought a great change. His reign of 24 years was one of almost unbroken peace, the country grew prosperous, the ruined churches rose under his hand, the weak lived secure, and for ages afterwards men spoke with affection of the “laws of good St. Edward.” The holy king had a great devotion to building and enriching churches. Westminster Abbey was his latest and noblest work. He died January 5, 1066.

Reflection—David longed to build a temple for God’s service. Solomon reckoned it his glory to accomplish the work. But we, who have God made flesh dwelling in our tabernacles, ought to think no time, no zeal, no treasures too much to devote to the splendor and beauty of a Christian church.

St. Callistus I, successor of St. Zephyrinus, instituted the Ember Day Fasts, and provided for the honorable interment of the Martyrs. He himself suffered martyrdom under Alexander Severus in 223.
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Early in the third century, CALLISTUS, then a deacon, was entrusted by Pope St. Zephyrinus with the rule of the clergy, and set by him over the cemeteries of the Christians at Rome; and, at the death of Zephyrinus, Callistus, according to the Roman usage, succeeded to the Apostolic See. A decree is ascribed to him appointing the four fasts of the Ember seasons, but his name is best known in connection with the old cemetery on the Appian Way, which was enlarged and adorned by him, and is called to this day the Catacomb of St. Callistus. During the persecution under the Emperor Severus, St. Callistus was driven to take shelter in the poor and populous quarters of the city; yet, in spite of these troubles, and of the care of the Church, he made diligent search for the body of Calipodius, one of his clergy who had suffered martyrdom shortly before, by being cast into the Tiber. When he found it he was full of joy, and buried it, with hymns of praise. Callistus was martyred October 14, 223.

Reflection—In the body of a Christian we see that which has been the temple of the Holy Ghost, which even now is precious in the eyes of God, Who will watch over it, and one day raise it up in glory to shine forever in His kingdom. Let our actions bear witness to our belief in these truths.

The seraphic St. Teresa, born at Avila (Spain) at the age of 18 entered the convent of St. Mary of Mount Carmel. As the Reformer of the Carmelites, she re-established the primitive observance of their ancient Rule. On account of her invaluable works on mystical Theology, she may be considered one of the greatest Doctors of the Church. She died in 1582.
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When a child of seven years, Teresa ran away from her home at Avila in Spain, in the hope of being martyred by the Moors. Being brought back and asked the reason of her flight, she replied, “I want to see God, and I must die before I can see Him.” She then began with her brother to build a hermitage in the garden, and was often heard repeating “Forever, forever” Some years later she became a Carmelite nun. Frivolous conversations checked her progress towards perfection, but at last, in her 31st year, she gave herself wholly to God. A vision showed her the very place in hell to which her own light faults would have led her, and she lived ever after in the deepest distrust of self. She was called to reform her Order, favored with distinct commands from Our Lord, and her heart was pierced with divine love; but she dreaded nothing so much as delusion, and to the last acted only under obedience to her confessors, which both made her strong and kept her safe. She died on October 4, 1582.

Reflection—“After all I die a child of the Church.” These were the Saint’s last words. They teach us the lesson of her life—to trust in humble, childlike obedience to our spiritual guides as the surest means of salvation.

St. Hedwig, duchess of Poland, of royal stock and the maternal aunt of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, retired into a Cistercian convent after the death of her husband. She died in 1243.
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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 Mysteries, and she would attend each morning as many Masses as were celebrated. After the death of her husband she retired to the Cistercian convent of Trebnitz, where she lived under obedience to her daughter Gertrude, who was abbess of the monastery, growing day by day in holiness, till God called her to Himself, in 1242.

Reflection.—“If any one would be My disciple,” says Our Saviour, “let him deny himself.” The denial of self is, then, the royal road to perfection.

MARGARET MARY was born at Terreau in Burgundy, on the 22nd July, 1647. During her infancy she showed a wonderfully sensitive horror of the very idea of sin. In 1671 she entered the Order of the Visitation, at Paray-le-Monial, and was professed the following year. After purifying her by many trials, Jesus appeared to her in numerous visions, displaying to her His Sacred Heart, sometimes burning as a furnace, and sometimes torn and bleeding on account of the coldness and sins of men. In. 1675 the great revelation was made to her that she, in union with Father de la Colombière, of the Society of Jesus, was to be the chief instrument for instituting the feast of the Sacred Heart, and for spreading that devotion throughout the world. She died on the 17th October, 1690.

Reflection—Love for the Sacred Heart especially honors the Incarnation, and makes the soul grow rapidly in humility, generosity, patience, and union with its Beloved.

St. Luke was very probably born of pagan parents at Antioch. Converted, he became the missionary companion of St. Paul, who called him “the most dear physician” and “his fellow laborer.” After the death of his teacher, according to reliable authority, he preached the Gospel in Achaia, where he died at a ripe old age. He wrote a Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.
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ST. LUKE, a physician at Antioch, and a painter, became a convert of St. Paul, and afterwards his fellow-laborer. He is best known to us as the historian of the New Testament. Though not an eye-witness of Our Lord’s life, the Evangelist diligently gathered information from the lips of the apostles, and wrote, as he tells us, all things in order. The acts of the Apostles were written by this Evangelist as a sequel to his Gospel, bringing the history of the Church down to the first imprisonment of St. Paul at Rome. The humble historian never names himself, but by his occasional use of “we” for “they” we are able to detect his presence in the scenes which he describes. We thus find that he sailed with St. Paul and Silas from Troas to Macedonia; stayed behind apparently for seven years at Philippi, and, lastly, shared the shipwreck and perils of the memorable voyage to Rome. Here his own narrative ends, but from St. Paul’s Epistles we learn that St. Luke was his faithful companion to the end. He died a martyr’s death some time afterwards in Achaia.

Reflection—Christ has given all He had for thee; do thou give all thou hast for Him.

St. Peter, a Spaniard of noble birth, entered the Order of St. Francis at the age of 16. He re-established the primitive Franciscan rule, and gave St. Teresa powerful support in her work of reformation. He died in 1562.
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PETER, while still a youth, left his home at Alcantara in Spain, and entered a convent of Discalced Franciscans. He rose quickly to high posts in the Order, but his thirst for penance was still unappeased, and in 1539, being then 40 years old, he founded the first convent of the “Strict Observance.” The cells of the friars resembled graves rather than dwelling-places. That of St. Peter himself was four feet and a half in length, so that he could never lie down; he ate but once in three days; his sack-cloth habit and a cloak were his only garments, and he never covered his head or feet. In the bitter winter he would open the door and window of his cell that, by closing them again, he might experience some sensation of warmth. Amongst those whom he trained to perfection was St. Teresa. He read her soul, approved of her spirit of prayer, and strengthened her to carry out her reforms. St. Peter died, with great joy, kneeling in prayer, October 18, 1562, at the age of 63.

Reflection—If men do not go about barefoot now, nor undergo sharp penances, as St. Peter did, there are many ways of trampling on the world; and Our Lord teaches them when He finds the necessary courage.

The holy priest St. John Cantius, a native of Kenty (Poland), was a professor at the University of Cracow. Famous for his heroic charity and zeal, he died in 1473.
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ST. JOHN was born at Kenty in Poland in 1403, and studied at Cracow with great ability, industry, and success, while his modesty and virtue drew all hearts to him. He was for a short time in charge of a parish; but he shrank from the burden of responsibility, and returned to his life of professor at Cracow. There for many years he lived a life of unobtrusive virtue, self-denial, and charity. His love for the Holy See led him often in pilgrimage to Rome, on foot and alone, and his devotion to the Passion drew him once to Jerusalem, where he hoped to win a martyr’s crown by preaching to the Turks. He died in 1473, at the age of seventy. The Roman Breviary distinguishes him with three hymns; he is the only confessor not a bishop who has been given this honor in the Roman Catholic liturgy.

Reflection—He who orders all his doings according to the will of God may often be spoken of by the world as simple and stupid; but in the end he wins the esteem and confidence of the world itself, and the approval and peace of God.

St. Hilarion, a native of Palestine, was instructed by the first lawgiver of the anchorites, St. Anthony the Great, and became one of the founders of the eremetical life in the Holy Land, Syria, and Egypt. He died in 372.

St. Ursula and her British companions were driven into exile to the continent and massacred at Cologne by the Huns out of hatred for their faith and chastity in 300.
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ST. HILARION was born of heathen parents, near Gaza, and was converted while studying grammar in Alexandria. Shortly after, he visited St. Antony, and, still only in his 15th year, he became a solitary in the Arabian desert. A multitude of monks, attracted by his sanctity, peopled the desert where he lived. In consequence of this, he fled from one country to another, seeking to escape the praise of men; but everywhere his miracles of mercy betrayed his presence. Even his last retreat at Cyprus was broken by a paralytic, who was cured by St. Hilarion, and then spread the fame of the Saint. He died with the words, “Go forth, my soul; why dost thou doubt? Nigh seventy years hast thou served God, and dost thou fear death?”

A number of Christian families had entrusted 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 seek an asylum in Gaul. She met with an abiding-place on the borders of the Rhine, not far from Cologne, where she hoped to find undisturbed repose; but a horde of Huns having invaded the country, she was exposed, together with all those who were under her guardianship, to the most shameful outrages. Without wavering, they preferred one and all to meet death rather than incur shame. Ursula herself gave the example, and was, together with her companions, cruelly massacred in the year 453. The name of St. Ursula has from remote ages been held in great honor throughout the Church; she has always been regarded as the patroness of young persons and the model of teachers.

Reflection—In the estimation of the wise man, “the guarding of virtue” is the most important part of the education of youth.

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 first bishop of Rouen in Normandy, which see he is said to have held 40 years. He died in peace, about the beginning of the 4th century.

Reflection.—“Be mindful of them that have rule over you, who have spoken to you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end.”

Anthony Mary Claret founded the Missionary Sons of the Heart of Mary, the Teaching Sisters of Mary Immaculate, and other communities of nuns. For many years he labored in Catalonia, for six years in Cuba as Archbishop of Santiago, and finally in Madrid. He died in exile in France in 1870.
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ST. ANTHONY MARY CLARET was a Spanish prelate and missionary who was born at Sallent, near Barcelona, 23 Dec., 1807. Son of a small woolen manufacturer, at the age of twelve became a weaver. A little later he went to Barcelona to specialize in his trade, and remained there till he was twenty. Meanwhile he devoted his spare time to study and became proficient in Latin, French, and engraving; in addition he enlisted in the army as a volunteer. Recognizing a call to a higher life, he left Barcelona, entered the seminary at Vich in 1829, and was ordained on 13 June, 1835. He received a benefice in his native parish, where he continued to study theology till 1839. He now wished to become a Carthusian; missionary work, however, appealing strongly to him he proceeded to Rome. There he entered the Jesuit novitiate but finding himself unsuited for that manner of life, he returned shortly to Spain and exercised his ministry at Valadrau and Gerona, attracting notice by his efforts on behalf of the poor. Recalled by his superiors to Vich, he was engaged in missionary work throughout Catalonia. In 1848 he was sent to the Canary Islands where he gave retreats for fifteen months. Returning to Vich he established the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (16 July, 1849), and founded the great religious library at Barcelona which bears his name, and which has issued several million cheap copies of the best ancient and modern Catholic works.

Such had been the fruit of his zealous labors and so great the wonders he had worked, that Pius IX at the request of the Spanish sovereign appointed him Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba in 1851. In February, 1857, he was recalled to Spain by Isabella II, who made him her confessor. His influence was now directed solely to help the poor and to propagate learning; he lived frugally and took up his residence in an Italian hospice. For nine years he was rector of the Escorial monastery where he established an excellent scientific laboratory, a museum of natural history, a library, college, and schools of music and languages. His further plans were frustrated by the revolution of 1868. He continued his popular missions and distribution of good books wherever he went in accompanying the Spanish Court. In 1869 he went to Rome to prepare for the Vatican Council. Owing to failing health he withdrew to Prades in France, where he was still harassed by his calumnious Spanish enemies; shortly afterwards he retired to the Cistercian abbey at Fontfroide where he expired.

He was declared Venerable by Leo XIII in 1899. His relics were transferred to the mission house at Vich in 1897, at which time his heart was found incorrupt, and his grave is constantly visited by many pilgrims.

Reflection—God loads with His favor those who delight in exercising mercy. “According to thy ability be merciful: if thou hast much, give abundantly; if thou hast little, take care even so to bestow willingly a little.”

Benedict XV extended to the Universal Church the feast of the holy Archangel St. Raphael, who is known to us from the inspired words of the Book of Tobias as the angelical physician of soul and body.
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The name of this archangel (RAPHAEL = “God has healed”) does not appear in the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the Septuagint only in the Book of Tobias. Here he first appears disguised in human form as the travelling companion of the younger Tobias, calling himself “Azarias the son of the great Ananias.” The story of the adventurous journey during which the protective influence of the angel is shown in many ways including the binding “in the desert of upper Egypt” of the demon who had previously slain seven husbands of Sara, daughter of Raguel, is picturesquely related in Tobit 5-11, to which the reader is referred. After the return and the healing of the blindness of the elder Tobias, Azarias makes himself known as “the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord” (Tobit 12:15. Cf. Revelation 8:2). Of these seven “archangels” which appear in the angelology of post-Exilic Judaism, only three, Gabriel, Michael and Raphael, are mentioned in the canonical Scriptures. The others, according to the Book of Enoch (cf. xxi) are Uriel, Raguel, Sariel, and Jerahmeel, while from other apocryphal sources we get the variant names Izidkiel, Hanael, and Kepharel instead of the last three in the other list.

Regarding the functions attributed to Raphael we have little more than his declaration to Tobias (Tobit 12) that when the latter was occupied in his works of mercy and charity, he (Raphael) offered his prayer to the Lord, that he was sent by the Lord to heal him of his blindness and to deliver Sara, his son’s wife, from the devil. The Jewish category of the archangels is recognized in the New Testament (1 Thessalonians 4:15; Jude 9), but only Gabriel and Michael are mentioned by name. Many commentators, however, identify Raphael with the “angel of the Lord” mentioned in John 5. This conjecture is based both on the significance of the name and on the healing role attributed to Raphael in the Book of Tobias. The Church assigns the feast of St. Raphael to 24 October.

Reflection—The hymns of the Office recall the healing power of the archangel and his victory over the demon. St. Raphael, pray for us!

St. Isidore was born at Madrid, Spain, in the latter half of the 12th century. For the greater part of his life he was employed as a laborer on a farm outside the city. Many marvelous happenings accompanied his lifelong work in the fields and continued long after his holy death. He was favored with celestial visions and, it is said, the angels sometimes helped him in his work in the fields. St. Isidore was canonized in 1622.

St. Chrysanthus was converted by his wife, St. Daria. They came from the East to Rome. After many torments under the prefect Celerinus, they were buried alive in a sandpit in 284.
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ST. ISIDORE was born near Madrid, Spain, about the year 1070. He was in the service of a certain Juan de Vargas on a farm in the vicinity of Madrid. Every morning before going to work he was accustomed to hear a Mass at one of the churches in Madrid. One day his fellow-laborers complained to their master that Isidore was always late for work in the morning. Upon investigation, so runs the legend, the master found Isidore at prayer, while an angel was doing the ploughing for him.
He was married to Maria Torribia, a canonized saint, who is venerated in Spain as Maria della Cabeza, from the fact that her head (Spanish, cabeza) is often carried in procession especially in time of drought. They had one son, who died in his youth. On one occasion this son fell into a deep well and at the prayers of his parents the water of the well is said to have risen miraculously to the level of the ground, bringing the child with it, alive and well. Hereupon the parents made a vow of continence and lived in separate houses. St. Isidore is said to have appeared to Alfonso of Castile, and to have shown him the hidden path by which he surprised the Moors and gained the victory of Las Nevas de Tolosa, in 1212. When King Philip III of Spain was cured of a deadly disease by touching the relics of the saint, the king replaced the old reliquary by a costly silver one. He was canonized by Gregory XV, along with Sts. Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Teresa, and Philip Neri, on 12 March, 1622. St. Isidore is widely venerated as the patron of peasants and day-laborers. The cities of Madrid, Leon, Saragossa, and Seville also, honor him as their patron. His feast is celebrated on 15 May.

CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA were strangers, who came from the East to Rome, the first from Alexandria, the second from Athens, as the Greeks tell us in their Menaea. They add, that Chrysanthus, after having been espoused to Daria, persuaded her to prefer a state of perpetual virginity to that of marriage, that they might more easily, with perfect purity of heart, trample the world under their feet, and accomplish the solemn consecration they had made of themselves to Christ in baptism. The zeal with which they professed the faith of Christ distinguished them in the eyes of the idolaters; they were accused, and, after suffering many torments, finished their course by a glorious martyrdom in the reign of Numerian; Baillet thinks rather in the persecution of Valerian, in 237. Several others who, by the example of their constancy, had been moved to declare themselves Christians, were put to death with them. Saint Gregory of Tours says, that a numerous assembly of Christians, who were praying at their tomb soon after their martyrdom, were, by the order of the prefect of Rome, walled up in the cave, and buried alive.
Reflection.—The Angelus was established to honor the Incarnation. How often might we derive grace from this beautiful devotion so enriched by the Church yet neglected by so many Christians!

St. Evaristus, successor of St. Anacletus I, governed the Church for nine years; he was condemned to death under Trajan in 109.
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ST. EVARISTUS succeeded St. Anacletus in the see of Rome, in the reign of Trajan, governed the Church for nine years, and died in 112. The institution of cardinal priests is by some ascribed to him, because he first divided Rome into several titles or parishes, assigning a priest to each; he also appointed seven deacons to attend the bishop. He conferred holy orders thrice in the month of December, when that ceremony was most usually performed, for holy orders were always conferred in seasons appointed for fasting and prayer. St. Evaristus was buried near St. Peter’s tomb on the Vatican.

Reflection—The disciples of the apostles, by assiduous meditation on heavenly things, were so swallowed up in the life to come, that they seemed no longer inhabitants of this world. If Christians esteem and set their hearts on earthly goods, and lose sight of eternity in the course of their actions, they are no longer animated by the spirit of the primitive Saints, and are become children of this world, slaves to its vanities, and to their own irregular passions. If we do not correct this disorder of our hearts, and conform our interior to the spirit of Christ, we cannot be entitled to His promises.

The royalty of Christ rests upon a twofold basis. He is our King by right of birth and by right of conquest. The first refers us to the personality of the Son of God, whereby, in His divine nature as God and by virtue of the hypostatic union, He is the sovereign Lord and Master. The second places before us the God-Man coming down on earth to rescue fallen man from the slavery of Satan, and by the labors and sufferings of His life, and passion, and death, to win a glorious victory for us over sin and hell.

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (commonly referred to as the Feast of Christ the King) is a relatively recent addition to the western liturgical calendar, having been instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI.

SIMON was a simple Galilean, called by Our Lord to be one of the 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 Lord.

The apostle JUDE, whom the Church commemorates on the same day, was a brother of St. James the Less. They were called “brethren of the Lord,” on account of their relationship to His Blessed Mother. St. Jude preached first in Mesopotamia, as St. Simon did in Egypt; and finally they both met in Persia, where they won their crown together.

Reflection—Zeal is an ardent love which makes a man fearless in defense of God’s honor, and earnest at all costs to make known the truth. If we would be children of the Saints, we must be zealous for the Faith.

ST. NARCISSUS was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem about the year 180. He was already an old man, and God attested his merits by many miracles, which were long held in memory by the Christians of Jerusalem. One Holy Saturday in the church the faithful were in great trouble, because no oil could be found for the lamps which were used in the Paschal feast. St. Narcissus bade them draw water from a neighboring well, and, praying over it, told them to put it in the lamps. It was changed into oil, and long after some of this oil was preserved at Jerusalem in memory of the miracle. But the very virtue of the Saint made him enemies, and three wretched men charged him with an atrocious crime. They confirmed their testimony by horrible imprecations: the first prayed that he might perish by fire, the second that he might be wasted by leprosy, the third that he might be struck blind, if they charged their bishop falsely. The holy bishop had long desired a life of solitude, and he withdrew secretly into the desert, leaving the Church in peace. But God spoke for His servant, and the bishop’s accusers suffered the penalties they had invoked. Then Narcissus returned to Jerusalem and resumed his office. He died in extreme old age, bishop to the last.

Reflection—God never fails those who trust in Him; He guides them through darkness and through trials secretly and surely to their end, and in the evening time there is light.

The birthday of the Emperor Maximian Herculeus, in the year 298, was celebrated with extraordinary feasting and solemnity. MARCELLUS, a Christian centurion or captain in the legion of Trajan, then posted in Spain, not to defile himself with taking part in those impious abominations, left his company, declaring aloud that he was a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal King. He was at once committed to prison. When the festival was over, Marcellus was brought before a judge, and, having declared his faith, was sent under a strong guard to Aurelian Agricolaus, vicar to the prefect of the praetorium, who passed sentence of death upon him. St. Marcellus was forthwith led to execution, and beheaded on the 30th of October. Cassian, the secretary or notary of the court, refused to write the sentence pronounced against the martyr, because it was unjust. He was immediately hurried to prison, and was beheaded, about a month after, on the 3rd of December.

Reflection—“We are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God!” exclaimed one of the Machabees. This sentiment should ever be that of a Christian in presence of temptation.

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 Beauvais, and, having sown the seeds of divine faith in the hearts of many, received the crown of martyrdom in that city. St. Quintin stayed at Amiens, endeavoring by his prayers and labors to make that country a portion of Our Lord’s inheritance. He was seized, thrown into prison, and loaded with chains. Finding the holy preacher proof against promises and threats, the magistrate condemned him to the most barbarous torture. His body was then pierced with two iron wires from the neck to the thighs, and iron nails were thrust under his nails, and in his flesh in many places, particularly into his skull; and, lastly, his head was cut off. His death happened on the 31st of October, 287.

Reflection—Let us bear in mind that the ills of this life are not worthy to be compared to the glory “God has reserved for those who love Him.”

The Church pays, day by day, a special veneration to someone 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 calendar, how many martyrs are there whose names are not recorded! How many humble virgins and holy penitents! How many just and holy anchorites or young children snatched away in their innocence! How many Christians who have died in grace, whose merits are known only to God, and who are themselves known only in heaven! Now should we forget those who remember us in their intercessions? Besides, are they not our brethren, our ancestors, friends, and fellow-Christians, with whom we have lived in daily companionship—in other words, our own family? Yea, it is one family; and our place is marked out in this home of eternal light and eternal love.

Reflection—Let us have a solicitude to render ourselves worthy of “that chaste generation, so beautiful amid the glory where it dwells.”

THE Church teaches us that the souls of the just who have left this world soiled with the stain of venial sin remain for a time in a place of expiation, where they suffer such punishment as may be due to their offences. It is a matter of faith that these suffering souls are relieved by the intercession of the Saints in heaven and by the prayers of the faithful upon earth. To pray for the dead is, then, both an act of charity and of piety. We read in Holy Scripture: “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.” And when Our Lord inspired St. Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, towards the close of the tenth century, to establish in his Order a general commemoration of all the faithful departed, it was soon adopted by the whole Western Church, and has been continued unceasingly to our day. Let us, then, ever bear in mind the dead and offer up our prayers for them. By showing this mercy to the suffering souls in purgatory, we shall be particularly entitled to be treated with mercy at our departure from this world, and to share more abundantly in the general suffrages of the Church, continually offered for all who have slept in Christ.

Reflection.—Let us have a solicitude to render ourselves worthy of “that chaste generation, so beautiful amid the glory where it dwells.”

MARTIN DE PORRES was born in the city of Lima, Viceroyalty of Peru, on 9 December 1579. He was a Peruvian lay brother of the Dominican Order who was beatified in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI and canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII. He is the patron saint of mixed-race people, barbers, innkeepers, public health workers, and all those seeking racial harmony. He was noted for his work on behalf of the poor, establishing an orphanage and a children’s hospital. He maintained an austere lifestyle, which included fasting and abstaining from meat. Among the many miracles attributed to him were those of levitation, bilocation, miraculous knowledge, instantaneous cures, and an ability to communicate with animals.

St. Charles, Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, was one of the greatest and holiest prelates of the years when the great Council of Trent was being completed and its enactments put into execution. He reformed the clergy and renewed the spirit of the monasteries in his diocese. He died in 1584.

At Bologna, under Diocletian, St. Vitalis, the servant of Agricola, suffered the most terrible torments, praying with fortitude. His master, encouraged at this sight, became his companion by crucifixion in 304.
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About 50 years after the Protestant heresy had broken out, Our Lord raised up a mere youth to renew the face of His Church. In 1560 Charles Borromeo, then 22 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 was the direction of the Council of Trent. He urged forward its sessions, guided its deliberations by continual correspondence from Rome, and by his firmness carried it to its conclusion. Then he entered upon a still more arduous work—the execution of its decrees. As Archbishop of Milan he enforced their observance, and thoroughly restored the discipline of his see. He founded schools for the poor, seminaries for the clerics, and by his community of Oblates trained his priests to perfection. Inflexible in maintaining discipline, to his flock he was a most tender father. He would sit by the roadside to teach a poor man the Pater and Ave, and would enter hovels the stench of which drove his attendants from the door. During the great plague he refused to leave Milan, and was ever by the sick and dying, and sold even his bed for their support. So he lived and so he died, a faithful image of the Good Shepherd, up to his last hour giving his life for his sheep.

Reflection—Daily resolutions to fulfil, at all cost, every duty demanded by God, is the lesson taught by St. Charles; and a lesson we must learn if we would overcome our corrupt nature and reform our lives.

ST. BERTILLE was born of one of the most illustrious families in the territory of Soissons, in the reign of Dagobert I. As she grew up she learned perfectly to despise the world, and earnestly desired to renounce it. Not daring to tell this to her parents, she first consulted St. Ouen, by whom she was encouraged in her resolution. The Saint’s parents were then made acquainted with her desire, which God inclined them not to oppose. They conducted her to Jouarre, a great monastery in Brie, four leagues from Meaux, where she was received with great joy and trained up in the strictest practice of monastic perfection. By her perfect submission to all her sisters she seemed every one’s servant, and acquitted herself with such great charity land edification that she was chosen prioress to assist the abbess in her administration. About the year 646 she was appointed first abbess of the abbey of Chelles, which she governed for 46 years with equal vigor and discretion, until she closed her penitential life in 692.

Reflection.—It is written that the Saints raise themselves heavenward, going from virtue to virtue, as by steps.

LEONARD, one of the chief personages of the court of Clovis, and for whom this monarch had stood as sponsor in baptism, was so moved by the discourse and example of St. Remigius that he relinquished the world in order to lead a more perfect life. The Bishop of Rheims having trained Leonard to virtue, he became the apostle of such of the Franks as still remained pagans; but fearing that he might be summoned to the court by his reputation for sanctity, he withdrew secretly to the monastery of Micy, near Orleans, and afterwards to the solitude of Noblac near Limoges. His charity not allowing him to remain inactive while there was so much good to be done, he undertook the work of comforting prisoners, making them understand that the captivity of sin was more terrible than any mere bodily constraint. He won over a great many of these unfortunate persons, which gained for him many disciples, in whose behalf he founded a new monastery. St. Leonard died about the year 550.

Reflection—“The wicked shall be taken with his own iniquities, and shall be held by the cords of his own sin.”

WILLIBRORD was born in Northumberland in 657, and when 20 years old went to Ireland, to study under St. Egbert. 12 years later, he felt drawn to convert the great pagan tribes who were hanging as a cloud over the north of Europe. He went to Rome for the blessing of the Pope, and with eleven companions reached Utrecht. The pagans would not accept the religion of their enemies, the Franks; and St. Willibrord could only labor in the track of Pepin Heristal, converting the tribes whom Pepin subjugated. At Pepin’s urgent request, he again went to Rome, and was consecrated Archbishop of Utrecht. He was stately and comely in person, frank and joyous, wise in counsel, pleasant in speech, in every work of God strenuous and unwearied. Multitudes were converted, and the Saint built churches and appointed priests all over the land. He wrought many miracles, and bad the gift of prophecy. He labored unceasingly as bishop for more than fifty years, beloved alike of God and of man, and died full of days and good works.

Reflection—True zeal has its root in the love of God. It can never be idle; it must labor, toil, be doing great things. It glows as fire; it is, like fire, insatiable. See if this spirit be in you!

Four brothers: Severus, Severianus, Carpophorus, and Victorinus were cruelly put to death at Rome under Diocletian in 304.
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FOUR brothers in the persecution of Diocletian, employed in offices of trust and honor at Rome, were apprehended for declaring against the worship of idols, and whipped with scourges loaded with plummets of lead, till they expired in the hands of their tormentors. They were buried on the Lavican Way, three miles from Rome, and were at first called the Four Crowned Martyrs: their names were, SEVERUS, SEVERIANUS, CARPOPHORUS, and VICTORIOUS. Pope Gregory the Great mentions an old church of the four crowned martyrs in Rome. Pope Leo IV in 841, caused the church to be repaired, and the relies of these martyrs to be translated thither out of the cemetery on the Lavican Way. When this church had been consumed by fire Paschal II. rebuilt it; upon which occasion the relics of these martyrs were discovered under the altar in two rich urns, the one of porphyry, the other of serpentine marble, deposited in a stone vault. The new altar was built upon the same spot; and these relics were again found in the same situation under Paul V. This church is an ancient title of a cardinal-priest. Five other martyrs, called Claudius, Nicostratus, Symphorianus, Castorius, and Simplicius, who had suffered in the same persecution were buried in the same cemetery. Their precious remains were translated by Leo IV. into the same church, and are likewise honored there to this day. These martyrs are named in the martyrology of Bede and others. These five are said to have been put to death, because, being carvers by profession, they refused to make idols.

Reflection—The rage of tyrants, who were masters of the world, spread the faith which they vainly endeavored, by fighting against heaven, to extinguish. The martyrs, who died for it, sealed it with their blood, and gave a testimony to Jesus Christ, which was, of all others, the strongest and most persuasive. Other Christians, who fled, became the apostles of the countries whither they went. Whence St. Austin compares them to torches, which, if you attempt to put them out by shaking them, are kindled, and flame so much the more. The martyrs, by the meekness and fervor of their lives, and their constancy in resisting evil to death, converted an infidel world, and disarmed the obstinacy of the most implacable enemies of the truth. But what judgments must await those Christians who, by the scandal of their sloth and worldly spirit, dishonor their religion, blaspheme Christ, withdraw even the faithful from the practice of the gospel, and tempt a Christian world to turn infidel?

The Mother and Mistress of all Churches throughout the world, the Church of Saint John Lateran, or the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, was the first publicly consecrated. It was built by Constantine, the first Christian Emperor and consecrated by Pope St. Sylvester I on November 9, 324.

St. Theodore, a Christian soldier, was burnt alive at Amasea (Pontus) in 304.
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ST. THEODORE was born of a noble family in the East, and enrolled while still a youth in the imperial army. Early in 306 the emperor put forth an edict requiring all Christians to offer sacrifice, and Theodore had just joined the legion and marched with them into Pontus, when he had to choose between apostasy and death. He declared before his commander that he was ready to be cut in pieces and offer up every limb to his Creator, Who had died for him. Wishing to conquer him by gentleness, the commander left him in peace for a while, that he might think over his resolution; but Theodore used his freedom to set on fire the great temple of Isis, and made no secret of this act. Still his judge entreated him to renounce his faith and save his life; but Theodore made the sign of the cross, and answered: “As long as I have breath, I will confess the name of Christ.” After cruel torture, the judge bade him think of the shame to which Christ had brought him. “This shame,” Theodore answered, “I and all who invoke His name take with joy.” He was condemned to be burnt. As the flame rose, a Christian saw his soul rise like a flash of light to heaven.

Reflection—We are enlisted in the same service as the holy martyrs, and we too must have courage and constancy if we would be perfect soldiers of Jesus Christ. Let us take our part with them in confessing the faith of Christ and despising the world, that we may have our part with them in Christ’s kingdom.

The holy priest Andrew was first a member of the ecclesiastical court of Naples. He entered the congregation of Clerks Regular, called the Theatine Order. He died at the foot of the altar, while saying: “Introibo ad altare Dei” in 1608.

TRYPHON and his convert, the tribune RESPICIUS, were scourged to death at Nicea under Decius in 250.

ST. NYMPHA was a Sicilian virgin martyr.
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After a holy youth, Lancelot Avellino was ordained priest at Naples. At the age of 36 he entered the Theatine Order, and took the name of Andrew, to show his love for the cross. For 50 years he was afflicted with a most painful rupture; yet he would never use a carriage. Once when he was carrying the Viaticum, and a storm had extinguished the lamps, a heavenly light encircled him, guided his steps, and sheltered him from the rain. But as a rule, his sufferings were unrelieved by God or man. On the last day of his life, St. Andrew rose to say Mass. He was in his 89th year, and so weak that he could scarcely reach the altar. He began the “Judica,” and fell forward in a fit of apoplexy. Laid on a straw mattress, his whole frame was convulsed in agony, while the fiend in visible form advanced to seize his soul, Then, as his brethren prayed and wept, the voice of Mary was heard, bidding the Saint’s guardian angel send the tempter back to hell. A calm and holy smile settled on the features of the dying Saint, as, with a grateful salutation to the image of Mary, he breathed forth his soul to God. His death happened on the 10th of November, 1608.

Reflection—St. Andrew, who suffered so terrible an agony, is the special patron against sudden death. Ask him to be with you in your last hour, and to bring Jesus and Mary to your aid.

St. Martin, Bishop of Tours in France, was at first a soldier, then a monk under the direction of St. Hilary. Famous through his boundless charity to the poor, he died in 397.

ST. MENNAS, an Egyptian and a Roman soldier, was beheaded in Phrygia under Diocletian in 295.
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When a mere boy, Martin became a Christian catechumen against his parents’ wish; and at fifteen was therefore seized by his father, a pagan soldier, and enrolled in the army. One winter’s day, when stationed at Amiens, he met a beggar almost naked and frozen with cold. Having no money, he cut his cloak in two and gave him the half. That night he saw Our Lord clothed in the half cloak, and heard Him say to the angels: “Martin, yet a catechumen, hath wrapped Me in this garment.” This decided him to be baptized, and shortly after he left the army. He succeeded in converting his mother; but, being driven from his home by the Arians, he took shelter with St. Hilary, and founded near Poitiers the first monastery in France. In 372 he was made Bishop of Tours. His flock, though Christian in name, was still pagan in heart. Unarmed and attended only by his monks, Martin destroyed the heathen temples and groves, and completed by his preaching and miracles the conversion of the people, whence he is known as the Apostle of Gaul. His last 11 years were spent in humble toil to atone for his faults, while God made manifest by miracles the purity of his soul.

Reflection—It was for Christ crucified that St. Martin worked. Are you working for the same Lord?

St. Martin I suffered much persecution in his defense of the Catholic Faith against the Monothelite emperors of Constantinople. He was exiled and died in 655 from the evil treatment to which he was exposed.
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ST. MARTIN, who occupied the Roman See from A. D. 649 to 655, incurred the enmity of the Byzantine court by his energetic opposition to the Monothelite heresy, and the Exarch Olympius went so far as to endeavor to procure the assassination of the Pope as he stood at the altar in the Church of St. Mary Major; but the would-be murderer was miraculously struck blind, and his master refused to have any further hand in the matter. His successor had no such scruples: he seized Martin, and conveyed him on board a vessel bound for Constantinople. After a three months’ voyage the island of Naxos was reached, where the Pope was kept in confinement for a year, and finally in 654 brought in chains to the imperial city. He was then banished to the Tannic Chersonese, where he lingered on for four months, in sickness and starvation, till God released him by death on the 12th of November, 655.

Reflection—There have been times in the history of Christianity when its truths have seemed on the verge of extinction. But there is one Church whose testimony has never failed: it is the Church of St. Peter, the Apostolic and Roman See. Put your whole trust in her teaching!

Frances Xavier Cabrini, also called Mother Cabrini, was an Italian-American religious sister, who founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic religious institute that was a major support to the Italian immigrants to the United States. She was born Maria Francesca Cabrini on July 15, 1850, in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, in the Lombard Province of Lodi, then part of the Austrian Empire. In November 1880, she and seven other women who had taken religious vows with her founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (M.S.C.). Cabrini composed the Rule and Constitutions of the religious institute, and she continued as its superior general until her death.

In September 1887, Cabrini went to seek the pope’s approval to establish missions in China. Instead, he urged that she go to the United States to help the Italian immigrants who were flooding to that nation, mostly in great poverty. “Not to the East, but to the West” was his advice. Cabrini left for the United States, arriving in New York City on March 31, 1889, along with six other sisters. In New York she encountered disappointment and difficulties. Archbishop Michael Corrigan, who was not immediately supportive, found them housing at the convent of the Sisters of Charity. She obtained the archbishop’s permission to found the Sacred Heart Orphan Asylum in West Park, New York, later renamed Saint Cabrini Home. She founded 67 missionary institutions to serve the sick and poor, long before government agencies provided extensive social services—in New York; Chicago and Des Plaines, Illinois; Seattle; New Orleans; Denver and Golden, Colorado; Los Angeles; Philadelphia; and in countries throughout Latin America and Europe. Long after her death, the Missionary Sisters would achieve Cabrini’s goal of being missionaries to China. In only a short time, after much social and religious upheaval there, the Sisters left China and, subsequently, a Siberian placement.

Mother Cabrini was the first naturalized citizen of the United States to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, on July 7, 1946.

St. DIDACUS, a Franciscan lay brother, died in Spain in the odor of sanctity in 1463.

Reflection—Mother Cabrini, who faithfully served the Church and helped the poor, pray for us!

St. Josaphat, a monk of the Order of St. Basil and afterwards Archbishop of Polotsk, labored for the reunion of the schismatic Greek Church with the Church of Rome. He was murdered by the schismatics in 1623.
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ST. JOSAPHAT KUNCEVYC was born in the little town of Volodymyr in Lithuania (Volyn) in 1580 or—according to some writers—1584. Although of a noble Ruthenian stock, Josaphat’s father had devoted himself to commercial pursuits, and held the office of town-councilor. Both parents contributed to implant the seeds of piety in the heart of their child. In the school at Volodymyr, Josaphat—Johannes was the saint’s baptismal name—gave evidence of unusual talent; he applied himself with the greatest zeal to the study of ecclesiastical Slav, and learned almost the entire casoslov (breviary), which from this period he began to read daily. From this source he drew his early religious education, for the unlettered clergy seldom preached or gave catechetical instruction. Owing to the straitened circumstances of his parents, he was apprenticed to the merchant Popovyc at Vilna. In this town, remarkable for the corruption of its morals and the contentions of the various religious sects, he seemed specially guarded by Providence, and became acquainted with certain excellent men (e.g. Benjamin Rutski), under whose direction he advanced in learning and in virtue.

At the age of 24 he entered the Basilian monastery of the Trinity at Vilna. The fame of his virtues rapidly spread, and distinguished people began to visit him. After a notable life as a layman, Rutski also joined the order, bringing with him a wide erudition. When Josaphat reached the diaconate, regular services and labor for the salvation of souls had been already begun; the number of novices steadily increased, and under Rutski—who had meanwhile been ordained priest—there began the regeneration of religious life among the Ruthenians. In 1609, after private study under the Jesuit Fabricius, Josaphat was ordained priest. He subsequently became superior in several monasteries, and on 12 November, 1617, was reluctantly consecrated Bishop of Vitebsk, with right of succession to the Archbishopric of Polotsk. He became archbishop in 1618.

While each succeeding year saw fresh evidence of his fruitful labors, it also witnessed the steady growth of the hatred of the schismatic party. Finally on 12 November, 1623, an axe-stroke and a bullet brought Josaphat his martyr’s crown. After numerous miracles had occurred, a commission was appointed by Urban VIII in 1628 to inquire into the cause of Josaphat, and examined on oath 116 witnesses. Although five years had elapsed since Josaphat’s death, his body was still incorrupt. In 1637 a second commission investigated the life of the martyr, and in 1643—twenty years after his death—Josaphat was beatified. His canonization took place in 1867.

Reflection—Learn from the virtues of this saint. As a boy he shunned the usual games of childhood, prayed much, and lost no opportunity of assisting at the Divine services. He devoted leisure hour to prayer and study.

St. Albert was a famous member of the Order of Preachers, noted for his universal learning and his apostolic zeal and devotion. He had for his pupil the celebrated St. Thomas Aquinas of the same Order, and left numerous writings. He became Bishop of Ratisbon, and died in 1280, being canonized and declared Doctor of the Church in 1931.
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ALBERT, eldest son of the Count of Bollstädt, was born at Lauingen, Swabia, in the year 1205 or 1206, though many historians give it as 1193. Nothing certain is known of his primary or preparatory education, which was received either under the paternal roof or in a school of the neighborhood. As a youth he was sent to pursue his studies at the University of Padua. After completing his studies he taught theology at Hildesheim, Freiburg (Breisgau), Ratisbon, Strasburg, and Cologne. He was in the convent of Cologne, interpreting Peter Lombard’s “Book of the Sentences,” when, in 1245, he was ordered to repair to Paris. There he received the Doctor’s degree in the university which, above all others, was celebrated as a school of theology. It was during this period of teaching at Cologne and Paris that he counted amongst his hearers St. Thomas Aquinas, then a silent, thoughtful youth, whose genius he recognized and whose future greatness he foretold. The disciple accompanied his master to Paris in 1245, and returned with him, in 1248, to the new Studium Generale of Cologne, in which Albert was appointed Regent, whilst Thomas became second professor and Master of Students. In 1254 Albert was elected Provincial of his Order in Germany. He journeyed to Rome in 1256, to defend the Mendicant Orders against the attacks of William of St. Amour. During his sojourn in Rome Albert filled the office of Master of the Sacred Palace (instituted in the time of St. Dominic), and preached on the Gospel of St. John and the Canonical Epistles. He resigned the office of Provincial in 1257 in order to devote himself to study and to teaching. In the year 1260 he was appointed Bishop of Ratisbon. Albert governed the diocese until 1262, when, upon the acceptance of his resignation, he voluntarily resumed the duties of a professor in the Studium at Cologne.

Some time after 1278 (in which year he drew up his testament) he suffered a lapse of memory; his strong mind gradually became clouded; his body, weakened by vigils, austerities, and manifold labors, sank under the weight of years. He was beatified by Pope Gregory XV in 1622; his feast is celebrated on the 15th of November. The Bishops of Germany, assembled at Fulda in September, 1872, sent to the Holy See a petition for his canonization; he was finally canonized in 1931.

The influence exerted by Albert on the scholars of his own day and on those of subsequent ages was naturally great. His fame is due in part to the fact that he was the forerunner, the guide and master of St. Thomas Aquinas, but he was great in his own name, his claim to distinction being recognized by his contemporaries and by posterity.

St. Gertrude, born in 1256 in Germany, was a Benedictine abbess celebrated for her revelations concerning the Sacred Heart. Her writings are very important for mystical theology. She died in 1334.
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GERTRUDE was born in the year 1263, of a noble Saxon family, and placed at the age of five for education in the Benedictine abbey of Rodelsdorf. Her strong mind was carefully cultivated, and she wrote Latin with unusual elegance and force; above all, she was perfect in humility and mortification, in obedience, and in all monastic observances. Her life was crowded with wonders. She has in obedience recorded some of her visions, in which she traces in words of indescribable beauty the intimate converse of her soul with Jesus and Mary. She was gentle to all, most gentle to sinners; filled with devotion to the Saints of God, to the souls in purgatory, and above all to the Passion of Our Lord and to His Sacred Heart. She ruled her abbey with perfect wisdom and love for 40 years. Her life was one of great and almost continual suffering, and her longing to be with Jesus was not granted till 1334, when she had reached her 72nd year.

Reflection—No preparation for death can be better than to offer and resign ourselves anew to the Divine Will—humbly, lovingly, with unbounded confidence in the infinite mercy and goodness of God.

St. Gregory Wonderworker (St. Gregory Thaumaturgus) was Bishop of Neo-Cesarea, his native city, in Pontus. He died famous for his missionary labors in 276.
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ST. GREGORY was born in Pontus, of heathen parents. In Palestine, about the year 231, he studied philosophy under the great Origen, who led him from the pursuit of human wisdom to Christ, Who is the Wisdom of God. Not long after, he was made Bishop of Neo Caesarea in his own country. As he lay awake one night an old man entered his room, and pointed to a lady of superhuman beauty, and radiant with heavenly light. This old man was St. John the Evangelist, and the lady told him to give Gregory the instruction he desired. Thereupon he gave St. Gregory a creed which contained in all its fullness the doctrine of the Trinity. St. Gregory set it in writing, directed all his preaching by it, and handed it down to his successors. Strong in this faith, he subdued demons; he foretold the future. At his word a rock moved from its place, a river changed its course, a lake was dried up. He converted his diocese, and strengthened those under persecution. He struck down a rising heresy; and, when he was gone, this creed preserved his flock from the Arian pest. St. Gregory died in the year 270.

Reflection—Devotion to the blessed Mother of God is the sure protection of faith in her Divine Son. Every time that we invoke her, we renew our faith in the Incarnate God; we reverse the sin and unbelief of our first parents; we take our part with her who was blessed because she believed.

The two Basilicas, of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill and of St. Paul without the Walls, on the Ostian Way, were erected by Constantine on the site of the martyrdom of these Apostles. They were consecrated by St. Sylvester I on November 18, 325.
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The Vatican church, dedicated in honor of Saint Peter, is the second patriarchal church at Rome, and in it reposes one half of the precious remains of the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul. The tombs of the great conquerors and lords of the world have been long since destroyed and forgotten; but those of the martyrs are glorious by the veneration which the faithful pay to their memory. Amongst all the places which the blood of martyrs has rendered illustrious, that part of the Vatican hill which was consecrated with the blood and enriched with the relics of the prince of the apostles, has always been most venerable. “The sepulchers of those who have served Christ crucified,” says Saint Chrysostom, “surpass the palaces of kings, not so much in the greatness and beauty of the buildings (though in this also they go beyond them) as in another thing of more importance, namely, in the multitude of those who, with devotion and joy, repair to them. For the emperor himself, who is clothed in purple, goes to the sepulchers of the saints, and kisses them; and, humbly prostrate on the ground, beseeches the same saints to pray to God for him; and he who wears a royal crown upon his head, holds it for a great favor of God, that a tent-maker and a fisherman, and these dead, should be his protectors and defenders, and this he begs with great earnestness.” And Saint Austin, or another ancient father. “Now at the memory of the fisherman the knees of the emperor are bowed, and the precious stones of the imperial crown shine most where the benefits of the fisherman are most felt.”

Reflection—Churches are dedicated only to God, though often under the patronage of some saint; that the faithful may be excited to implore, with united suffrages, the intercession of such a saint, and that churches may be distinguished by bearing different titles.

St. Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew, king of Hungary, was given in marriage to the holy landgrave of Thuringia, Louis IV. After the death of her husband, she entered the Third Order of St. Francis and died in poverty and humiliation, exiled by her brother-in-law, in 1231.

ST. PONTIANUS was exiled under Emperor Alexander Severus and was eventually scourged to death in 235.
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ELIZABETH was daughter of a king of Hungary, and niece of St. Hedwige. She was betrothed in infancy to Louis, Landgrave of Thuringia, and brought up in his father’s court. Not content with receiving daily numbers of poor in her palace, and relieving all in distress, she built several hospitals, where she served the sick, dressing the most repulsive sores with her own hands. Once as she was carrying in the folds of her mantle some provisions for the poor, she met her husband returning from the chase. Astonished to see her bending under the weight of her burden, he opened the mantle which she kept pressed against her, and found in it nothing but beautiful red and white roses, although it was not the season for flowers. Bidding her pursue her way, he took one of the marvelous roses, and kept it all his life.

On her husband’s death she was cruelly driven from her palace, and forced to wander through the streets with her little children, a prey to hunger and cold; but she welcomed all her sufferings, and continued to be the mother of the poor, converting many by her holy life. She died in 1231, at the age of 24.

Reflection—This young and delicate princess made herself the servant and nurse of the poor. Let her example teach us to disregard the opinions of the world and to overcome our natural repugnances, in order to serve Christ in the persons of His poor.

St. Felix, of the royal family of France, with St. John of Matha founded the Order of Trinitarians for the ransom of captives. He died in 1212.
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ST. FELIX was son of the Count of Valois. His mother throughout his youth did all she could to cultivate in him a spirit of charity. The unjust divorce between his parents matured a long-formed resolution of leaving the world; and, confiding his mother to her pious brother, Thibault, Count of Champagne, he took the Cistercian habit at Clairvaux. His rare virtues drew on him such admiration that, with St. Bernard’s consent, he fled to Italy, where he led an austere life with an aged hermit. At this time he was ordained priest, and his old counselor having died, he returned to France, and for many years lived as a solitary at Cerfroid. Here God inspired him with the desire of founding an Order for the redemption of Christian captives, and moved St. John of Matha, then a youth, to conceive a similar wish. Together they drew up the rules of the Order of the Holy Trinity. Many disciples gathered round them; and, seeing that the time had come for further action, the two Saints made a pilgrimage to Rome to obtain the confirmation of the Order from Innocent III. Their prayer was granted, and the last 15 years of Felix’s long life were spent in organizing and developing his rapidly increasing foundations. He died in 1213.

Reflection—“Think how much,” says St. John Chrysostom, “and how often thy mouth has sinned, and thou wilt devote thyself entirely to the conversion of sinners. For by this one means thou wilt blot out all thy sins, in that thy mouth will become the mouth of God.”

As soon as she could walk, Mary was brought to the Temple by her holy parents, Joachim and Anne.
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Religious parents never fail by devout prayer to consecrate their children to the divine service and love, both before and after their birth. Some amongst the Jews, not content with this general consecration of their children, offered them to God in their infancy, by the hands of the priests in the Temple, to be lodged in apartments belonging to the Temple, and brought up in attending the priests and Levites in the sacred ministry. It is an ancient tradition that the Blessed Virgin Mary was thus solemnly offered to God in the Temple in her infancy. This festival of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin the Church celebrates this day. The tender soul of Mary was then adorned with the most precious graces, an object of astonishment and praise to the angels, and of the highest complacence to the adorable Trinity; the Father looking upon her as His beloved daughter, the Son as one chosen and prepared to become His mother, and the Holy Ghost as His darling spouse. Mary was the first who set up the standard of virginity; and, by consecrating it by a perpetual vow to Our Lord, she opened the way to all virgins who have since followed her example.

Reflection—Mary’s first presentation to God was an offering most acceptable in His sight. Let our consecration of ourselves to God be made under her patronage, and assisted by her powerful intercession and the union of her merits.

St. Cecilia, of an illustrious Roman family, converted her husband, Valerianus, and her brother-in-law, Tiburtius, preserved her virginity, and was beheaded during the pontificate of St. Urban I in 230.
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In the evening of her wedding-day, with the music of the marriage-hymn ringing in her ears, Cecilia, a rich, beautiful, and noble Roman maiden, renewed the vow by which she had consecrated her virginity to God. “Pure be my heart and undefiled my flesh; for I have a spouse you know not of—an angel of my Lord.” The heart of her young husband Valerian was moved by her words; he received Baptism, and within a few days he and his brother Tiburtius, who had been brought by him to a knowledge of the Faith, sealed their confession with their blood. Cecilia only remained. “Do you not know,” was her answer to the threats of the prefect, “that I am the bride of my Lord Jesus Christ?” The death appointed for her was suffocation, and she remained a day and a night in a hot-air bath, heated seven times its wont. But “the flames had no power over her body, neither was a hair of her head singed.” The lictor sent to dispatch her struck with trembling hand the three blows which the law allowed, and left her still alive. For two days and nights Cecilia lay with her head, half severed on the pavement of her bath, fully sensible, and joyfully awaiting her crown; on the third the agony was over, and in 177 the virgin Saint gave back her pure spirit to Christ.

Reflection—St. Cecilia teaches us to rejoice in every sacrifice as a pledge of our love of Christ, and to welcome sufferings and death as hastening our union with Him.

St. Clement I was a companion and a disciple of SS. Peter and Paul, and the third successor of St. Peter. He was exiled by the emperor Trajan and cast into the sea in 100.

ST. FELICITAS, the mother of the Seven Holy Brothers, martyrs, was beheaded shortly after her sons in 150.
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ST. CLEMENT is said to have been a convert of noble birth, and to have been consecrated bishop by St. Peter himself. With the words of the apostles still ringing in his ears, he began to rule the Church of God; and thus he was among the first, as he was among the most illustrious, in the long line of those who have held the place and power of Peter. He lived at the same time and in the same city with Domitian, the persecutor of the Church; and besides external foes he had to contend with schism and rebellion from within. The Corinthian Church was torn by intestine strife, and its members set the authority of their clergy at defiance. It was then that St. Clement interfered in the plenitude of his apostolic authority, and sent his famous epistle to the Corinthians. He urged the duties of charity, and above all of submission to the clergy. He did not speak in vain; peace and order were restored. St. Clement had done his work on earth, and shortly after sealed with his blood the Faith which he had learned from Peter and taught to the nations.

Reflection—God rewards a simple spirit of submission to the clergy, for the honor done to them is done to Him. Your virtue is unreal, your faith in danger, if you fail in this.

St. John of the Cross was the fellow worker of St. Teresa in the reform of the Order of Mount Carmel, and wrote invaluable treatises on mystical theology. He died in 1591.

St. Chrysogonus, a Roman, was beheaded at Aquilea under Diocletian in 303.
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The father of ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS was discarded by his kindred for marrying a poor orphan, and the Saint, thus born and nurtured in poverty, chose it also for his portion. Unable to learn a trade, he became the servant of the poor in the hospital of Medina, while still pursuing his sacred studies. In 1563, being then 21, he humbly offered himself as a lay-brother to the Carmelite friars, who, however, knowing his talents, had him ordained priest. He would now have exchanged to the severe Carthusian Order, had not St. Teresa, with the instinct of a Saint, persuaded him to remain and help her in the reform of his own Order. Thus he became the first prior of the Barefooted Carmelites. His reform, though approved by the general, was rejected by the elder friars, who condemned the Saint as a fugitive and apostate, and cast him into prison, whence he only escaped, after nine months’ suffering, at the risk of his life. Twice again, before his death, he was shamefully persecuted by his brethren, and publicly disgraced. But his complete abandonment by creatures only deepened his interior peace and devout longing for heaven.

Reflection—“Live in the world,” said St. John, “as if God and your soul only were in it; so shall your heart be never made captive by any earthly thing.”

St. Catherine, an illustrious virgin of Alexandria in Egypt, was famous for her learning. The emperor Maximian assembled learned men to bring her to the worship of idols, but they were converted to Christianity. Maximian then ordered her to be beheaded after many cruel torments in 305.
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CATHERINE was a noble virgin of Alexandria. Before her Baptism, it is said, she saw in vision the Blessed Virgin ask her Son to receive her among His servants, but the Divine Infant turned away. After Baptism, Catherine saw the same vision, when Jesus Christ received her with great affection, and espoused her before the court of heaven. When the impious tyrant Maximin II came to Alexandria, fascinated by the wisdom, beauty and wealth of the Saint, he in vain urged his suit. At last in his rage and disappointment he ordered her to be stripped and scourged. She fled to the Arabian mountains, where the soldiers overtook her, and after many torments put her to death. Her body was laid on Mount Sinai, and a beautiful legend relates that Catherine having prayed that no man might see or touch her body after death, angels bore it to the grave.

Reflection—The constancy displayed by the Saints in their glorious martyrdom cannot be isolated from their previous lives, but is their natural sequence. If we wish to emulate their perseverance, let us first imitate their fidelity to grace.

St. Sylvester, an Italian nobleman, founded the Congregation of the Sylvestrines, affiliated to the Benedictine Order. He died at the age of ninety in 1267.

St. Peter, Patriarch of Alexandria in Egypt, condemned the errors of Arius and was beheaded by order of Galerius Maximus in 311.
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ST. PETER governed the Church of Alexandria during the persecution of Diocletian. The sentence of excommunication that he was the first to pronounce against the schismatics, Melitius and Arius, and which, despite the united efforts of powerful partisans, he strenuously upheld, proves that he possessed as much sagacity as zeal and firmness. But his most constant care was employed in guarding his flocks from the dangers arising out of persecution. He never ceased repeating to them that, in order not to fear death, it was needful to begin by dying to self, renouncing our will, and detaching ourselves from all things. St. Peter gave an example of such detachment by undergoing martyrdom in the year 311.

Reflection—“How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” says Our Savior; because they are bound to earth by the strong ties of their riches.

ST. MAXIMUS, abbot of Lerins, in succession to St. honoratus, was remarkable not only for the spirit of recollection, fervor, and piety familiar to him from very childhood, but still more for the gentleness and kindliness with which he governed the monastery which at that time contained many religious, and was famous for the learning and piety of its brethren. Exhibiting in his own person an example of the most sterling virtues, his exhortations could not fail to prove all-persuasive: loving all his religious, whom it was his delight to consider as one family, he established amongst them that sweet concord, union, and holy emulation for well-doing which render the exercise of authority needless, and makes submission a pleasure. The clergy and people of Frejus, moved by such a shining example, elected Maximus for their bishop, but he took to flight; subsequently be was compelled, however, to accept the see of Riez, where he practiced virtue in all gentleness, and died in 460, regretted as the best of fathers.

Reflection—“Masters, do to your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”

The small town of Montbrandon, in the Marca of Ancona, gave birth to ST. JAMES. When young he was sent to the University of Perugia, where his progress in learning soon qualified him to be chosen preceptor to a young gentleman of Florence. Fearing that he might be engulfed in the whirlpool of world excesses, St. James applied himself to prayer and recollection. When travelling near Assisi he went into the great Church of the Portiuncula to pray, and being animated by the fervor of the holy men who there served God, and by the example of their blessed founder St. Francis, he determined to petition in that very place for the habit of the Order. He began his spiritual war against the devil, the world, and the flesh, with assiduous prayer and extraordinary fasts and watchings. For 40 years he never passed a day without taking the discipline. Being chosen Archbishop of Milan, he fled, and could not be prevailed on to accept the office. He wrought several miracles at Venice and at other places, and raised from dangerous sicknesses the Duke of Calabria and the King of Naples. The Saint died in the convent of the Holy Trinity of his Order, near Naples, on the 28th of November, in the year 1476, being 90 years old, 70 of which he had spent in a religious state.

St. Saturninus, Bishop of Toulouse, was martyred under Decius in the third century.
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SATURNINUS went from Rome, by direction of Pope Fabian, about the year 245, to preach the faith in Gaul. He fixed his episcopal see at Toulouse, and thus became the first Christian bishop of that city. There were but few Christians in the place. However, their number grew fast after the coming of the Saint; and his power was felt by the spirits of evil, who received the worship of the heathen. His power was felt the more because he had to pass daily through the capitol, the high place of the heathen worship, on the way to his own church. One day a great multitude was gathered by an altar, where a bull stood ready for the sacrifice. A man in the crowd pointed out Saturninus, who was passing by, and the people would have forced him to idolatry; but the holy bishop answered: “I know but one God, and to Him I will offer the sacrifice of praise. How can I fear gods who, as you say, are afraid of me?” On this he was fastened to the bull, which was driven down the capitol. The brains of the Saint were scattered on the steps. His mangled body was taken up and buried by two devout women.

Reflection—When beset by the temptations of the devil, let us call upon the Saints, who reign with Christ. They were powerful during their lives against the devil and his angels. They are more powerful now that they have passed from the Church on earth to the Church triumphant.

St. Andrew was the first of the disciples to know Jesus. With his brother Peter, he was called by our Lord to follow Him and to become a fisher of men. According to Tradition, he was a missionary in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Russia, with his martyrdom in Greece, where he was hoisted upon a cross to die like his divine Master. He is patron of Russia and Scotland.
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ST. ANDREW was one of the fishermen of Bethsaida, and brother, perhaps elder brother, of St. Peter, and became a disciple of St. John Baptist. He seemed always eager to bring others into notice; when called himself by Christ on the banks of the Jordan, his first thought was to go in search of his brother, and he said, “We have found the Messias,” and he brought him to Jesus. It was he again who, when Christ wished to feed the five thousand in the desert, pointed out the little lad with the five loaves and fishes.

St. Andrew went forth upon his mission to plant the Faith in Scythia and Greece, and at the end of years of toil to win a martyr’s crown. After suffering a cruel scourging at Patrae in Achaia, he was left, bound by cords, to die upon a cross. When St. Andrew first caught sight of the gibbet on which he was to die, he greeted the precious wood with joy. “O good cross! “ he cried, “made beautiful by the limbs of Christ, so long desired, now so happily found! Receive me into thy arms and present me to my Master, that He Who redeemed me through thee may now accept me from thee.” Two whole days the martyr remained hanging on this cross alive, preaching, with outstretched arms from this chair of truth, to all who came near, and entreating them not to hinder his passion.

Reflection—If we would do good to others, we must, like St. Andrew, keep close to the cross.