Agnes was a no-nonsense, energetic holy woman. She died aged forty-nine.
As pope, Leo encouraged reform, discouraged clerical marriage, simony and nepotism.
Laserian was a strong proponent of the Roman method of calculating Easter
Donan and all his fifty two monks were herded into the refectory and it was set on fire.
Summary: St Bernadette Soubirous, visionary, was a simple shepherd girl of fourteen, who hadn’t even made her first communion, when Our Lady appeared to her at the rock of Massabielle near Lourdes. Lourdes itself grew to be the foremost Marian shrine in the world.
Patrick Duffy tells [...]
Damien had worked with the lepers for twelve years when he himself was diagnosed with the disease.
Benedict collapsed just after attending Mass. That evening he died. He was thirty-five.
Summary: St Benedict Joseph Labre is the patron saint of beggars and the homeless. Born in Boulogne, France, he spent most of his life as [...]
Martin, wishing to avoid bloodshed, forbade resistance and was brought before the Emperor Constans for trial.
Zeno probably lived as a monk in the city until in 362 when he was chosen as bishop.
Summary: Gemma Galgani was an extraordinary young Italian woman, who had intense mystical experiences and a great love for the passion of Jesus. When she died at the age of twenty-five, a Passionist convent was founded in her home town of Lucca.
Patrick [...]
Stanislaus of Krakow was martyred by King Boleslaus II and is the patron saint of Poland.
King Boleslaus attacked and murdered Stanislaus while he was saying Mass.
After trying out her vocation with the Carmelites, she realised she really wanted to serve the needy without restriction.
"She bought three loaves and went to live in the desert, where she lived on the bread which never diminished."
John-Baptist encountered opposition especially from those who felt that the poorer classes should not be educated beyond manual skills
Michael Rua was Don Bosco's closest collaborator in the development of the new Salesian congregation
Associated with anti-pope Pedro de Luna (called Benedict XIII) at Avignon, Vincent later withdrew his support.
St Isidore's encyclopedic knowledge, not always original or accurate, led to his being proclaimed patron saint of the internet !
Henry III confiscated all Richard's diocesan property and decreed that no one should give him shelter.
Francis dedicated himself to a life of solitude, setting himself up as a hermit in a cave by the sea.
Ceallach deserves to be better known and acknowledged.
"Whatever help, spiritual or material, he was asked to give, he gave. In total poverty he possessed all things."
The Name 'John of the Ladder' comes from a classic in ascetical literature which he wrote entitled 'The Ladder of Divine Ascent.'
After Restituta refused to take down crucifixes in her hospital wards, she was decapitated by order of Hitler's secretary Martin Bormann.
Stephen, feeling that life had become too easy at Molesme, went with two other monks to Citeaux, and founded a very strict monastery in the wilderness there.
Rupert, abbot and bishop, preached throughout Bavaria, and succeeded in converting or re-converting all that region.
Ludger, abbot and bishop, brought the faith to the people of Frisia in Holland and the Saxons of north-west Germany, died while on a preaching tour.
Summary: St Margaret Clitherow, a young English mother and martyr, was among the forty English martyrs canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Paul Hurley SVD tells her story.
Some people complain that Pope [...]
She did not cry, "I cannot, I am not worthy," nor "I have not the strength."Bravest of all humans. Consent, courage unparalleled, opened her utterly.
