The Iroquois indians seized Brébeuf and his fellow Jesuit Gabriel Lallemont and tortured them - by scalping, mock baptism with boiling water - until they died.

There is a Christian tradition, especially strong in Eastern Orthodoxy, that Luke was the first iconographer

On his way to Rome, Ignatius's only fear was that the Romans might find a way to stop his martyrdom.

Summary: St Gerard Majella, a young 18th century Italian who ‘eloped’, so to speak, in order to join the Redemptorists. He is one of Ireland’s best-loved saints, known here particularly as the ‘mothers‘ saint. He was canonized over [...]

Although the monks of Luxeuil elected Gall as their abbot and a local king, Sigebert, offered him a bishopric, he declined both and chose to remain a humble hermit.

Summary: St Margaret Mary Alacoque. In many Irish churches you will see a stained glass window depicting Our Lord Jesus revealing his Sacred Heart to St Margaret Mary Alacoque. These windows bear witness to the enormous popularity of devotion to the Sacred Heart and the influence [...]

Teresa's greatness does not consist in what she tells us about herself but in what she tells us about God and his dealings with us.

Summary: ‘ St Teresa of Avila,  Nada te turbe’ – popularised by a Taizé chant means, “Let nothing disturb you”. This a [...]

Callistus went from slave to freedman to moneylender to convict to church administrator to pope and then to being denounced by an antipope

Edward was considered the patron saint of England until 1348 but remained the patron saint of the English royal family. ever since.

Summary : St. Wilfrid was the strong man of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Educated by the Celtic monks at Lindisfarne, he went to Rome and strongly upheld the Roman way of computing Easter against the Celtic monks at the [...]

St. Canice good humour and readiness to help won him many friends and helpers in preaching the Good News.

Summary : St John XXIII, pope, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881-1963), born in Sotto il Monte in Lombardy, was ordained priest in 1904 and served (among other places) as nuncio in France, before becoming Patriarch of Venice. He served as pope from 1958 to 1963 and in his final [...]

Comboni made efforts (and had some small success) in combatting the slave trade in the region but, this was deeply embedded.

St Dennis and Companions are said to have been executed on Montmartre ("Martyrs' Hill") and their bodies thrown into the Seine

Pelagia came into the church where Bishop Nonnus was preaching and hearing what he said, wept tears of repentance.

Legend attributes the origin of the Rosary as a method of prayer to St Dominic. It was promoted as a kind of lay person's Divine Office, the 150 Hail Marys replacing the 150 psalms.

Although never formally canonised, Bruno's cult was approved for the Carthusians in 1514 and extended to the universal Church in 1623.

Faustina had a very intimate relationship with Jesus and was entrusted by him with the mission of Divine Mercy

Francis saw the icon of Christ say to him three times: "Francis, Francis, go and repair my house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins."

Summary: Abbot Columba Marmion a priest of Dublin diocese who became a Benedictine monk and eventually abbot at Maredsous, Belgium. He was beatified in 2000. His writings, especially his Christ the Life of the Soul, show the reader how to become transformed into Christ.

Dom Placid Murray [...]

Columba wrote three significant works of very positive spiritual theology: Christ, the life of the soul (1918), Christ in his mysteries (1919) and in 1922 Christ the ideal of the monk.

God has commanded his angels, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you upon their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone....(Mt 18:10)

Summary :St Thérèse of Lisieux had deep feelings of having a vocation to be a priest and how she dealt with this sense of calling in the light of its impossibility.

Catherine Broome OP examines  [...]

'Saints are always men and women of the future, witnesses of the world to come.'

Summary: St Thérése of the Child Jesus,  Doctor of the Church. Born at Alençon (France) in 1873; died of tuberculosis on 30 Sept. 1897. Coming from a devout family, she entered a Carmelite monastery at fifteen, [...]

Summary: St Jerome, priest, Doctor of the Church. died on this day in 420. Began work on a new Latin translation of the Bible, known as the Vulgate. Settled in Bethlehem where he founded monasteries, he devoted himself to studying the Scriptures, writing, and teaching, and famous for [...]

Jerome's most important work was his translation of the Bible into Latin, which came to be known as the Vulgate and has remained the accepted Latin version up to our own time.

St Augustine, said: "Angel is the name of their office, not of their nature."

Boleslaus struck Wenceslaus on the head with a sword. They struggled, and then friends of Boleslaus finished off the assassination.