Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to an invitation from God to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintofDay/default.asp Religion & Spirituality 2010 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss en-us Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 webdev@americancatholic.org Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 720 webdev@americancatholic.org FeedForAll v2.0 (2.0.1.0) http://www.feedforall.com http://www.americancatholic.org/Webmasters/buttons/SaintofDay/SaintofDay1.gif http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintofDay/default.asp Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. 98 96 A careless and irreligious soldier for the city-state of Venice, Jerome was captured in a skirmish at an outpost town and chained in a dungeon. In prison Jerome had a lot of time to think, and he gradually learned how to pray. When he escaped, he returned to Venice where he took charge of the education of his nephews--and began his own studies for the priesthood. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1286 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod292010 For many years, Josephine Bakhita was a slave but her spirit was always free and eventually that spirit prevailed. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1453 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod282010 Colette did not seek the limelight, but in doing God's will she certainly attracted a lot of attention. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1284 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod272010 Nagasaki, Japan, is familiar to Americans as the city on which the second atomic bomb was dropped, killing hundreds of thousands. Three and a half centuries before, 26 martyrs of Japan were crucified on a hill, now known as the Holy Mountain, overlooking Nagasaki. Among them were priests, brothers and laymen, Franciscans, Jesuits and members of the Secular Franciscan Order; there were catechists, doctors, simple artisans and servants, old men and innocent children--all united in a common faith and love for Jesus and his Church. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1283 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod262010 As in the case of Agnes, another virgin-martyr of the early Church, almost nothing is historically certain about this saint except that she was martyred in Sicily during the persecution of Emperor Decius in 251. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1282 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod252010 Joseph avoided the safe compromises by which people sometimes undercut the gospel. Born at Leonissa in the Kingdom of Naples, Joseph joined the Capuchins in his hometown in 1573. Denying himself hearty meals and comfortable quarters, he prepared for ordination and a life of preaching. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1281 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod242010 We know more about the devotion to St. Blase by Christians around the world than we know about the saint himself. His feast is observed as a holy day in some Eastern Churches. The Council of Oxford, in 1222, prohibited servile labor in England on Blase's feast day. The Germans and Slavs hold him in special honor and for decades many United States Catholics have sought the annual St. Blase blessing for their throats http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1280 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod232010 At the end of the fourth century, a woman named Etheria made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her journal, discovered in 1887, gives an unprecedented glimpse of liturgical life there. Among the celebrations she describes is the Epiphany (January 6), the observance of Christ's birth, and the gala procession in honor of his Presentation in the Temple 40 days later--February 15. (Under the Mosaic Law, a woman was ritually "unclean" for 40 days after childbirth, when she was to present herself to the priests and offer sacrifice--her "purification." Contact with anyone who had brushed against mystery--birth or death--excluded a person from Jewish worship.) This feast emphasizes Jesus' first appearance in the Temple more than Mary's purification. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1279 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod222010 The "apostle of the north" (Scandinavia) had enough frustrations to become a saint--and he did. He became a Benedictine at Corbie, France, where he had been educated. Three years later, when the king of Denmark became a convert, Ansgar went to that country for three years of missionary work, without noticeable success. Sweden asked for Christian missionaries, and he went there, suffering capture by pirates and other hardships on the way. Less than two years later he was recalled, to become abbot of New Corbie (Corvey) and bishop of Hamburg. The pope made him legate for the Scandinavian missions. Funds for the northern apostolate stopped with Emperor Louis's death. After 13 years' work in Hamburg, Ansgar saw it burned to the ground by invading Northmen; Sweden and Denmark returned to paganism. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1278 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod212010 John Bosco's theory of education could well be used in today's schools. It was a preventive system, rejecting corporal punishment and placing students in surroundings removed from the likelihood of committing sin. He advocated frequent reception of the sacraments of Penance and Holy Communion. He combined catechetical training and fatherly guidance, seeking to unite the spiritual life with one's work, study and play. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1277 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1312010 Hyacintha accepted God's standards somewhat late in life. Born of a noble family near Viterbo, she entered a local convent of sisters who followed the Third Order Rule. However, she supplied herself with enough food, clothing and other goods to live a very comfortable life amid these sisters pledged to mortification. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1276 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Sat, 30 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1302010 "Would to God, my brothers, I had a whole forest of such Junipers," said Francis of this holy friar. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1275 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1292010 By universal consent Thomas Aquinas is the preeminent spokesman of the Catholic tradition of reason and of divine revelation. He is one of the great teachers of the medieval Catholic Church, honored with the titles Doctor of the Church and Angelic Doctor. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1274 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1282010 Angela has the double distinction of founding the first teaching congregation of women in the Church and what is now called a "secular institute" of religious women. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1273 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1272010 Timothy (d. 97?): What we know from the New Testament of Timothy's life makes it sound like that of a modern harried bishop. He had the honor of being a fellow apostle with Paul, both sharing the privilege of preaching the gospel and suffering for it. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1272 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1262010 Paul's entire life can be explained in terms of one experience--his meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. In an instant, he saw that all the zeal of his dynamic personality was being wasted, like the strength of a boxer swinging wildly. Perhaps he had never seen Jesus, who was only a few years older. But he had acquired a zealot's hatred of all Jesus stood for, as he began to harass the Church: "...entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment" (Acts 8:3b). Now he himself was "entered," possessed, all his energy harnessed to one goal--being a slave of Christ in the ministry of reconciliation, an instrument to help others experience the one Savior. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1271 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Mon, 25 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1252010 Francis was destined by his father to be a lawyer so that the young man could eventually take his elder's place as a senator from the province of Savoy in France. For this reason Francis was sent to Padua to study law. After receiving his doctorate, he returned home and, in due time, told his parents he wished to enter the priesthood. His father strongly opposed Francis in this, and only after much patient persuasiveness on the part of the gentle Francis did his father finally consent. Francis was ordained and elected provost of the Diocese of Geneva, then a center for Calvinists. Francis set out to convert them, especially in the district of Chablais. By preaching and distributing the little pamphlets he wrote to explain true Catholic doctrine, he had remarkable success. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1270 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1242010 Though leprosy scared off most people in 19th-century Hawaii, that disease sparked great generosity in the woman who came to be known as Mother Marianne of Molokai. Her courage helped tremendously to improve the lives of its victims in Hawaii, a territory annexed to the United States during her lifetime (1898). http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1123 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Sat, 23 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1232010 When Jesus deliberately began his "journey" to death, Luke says that he "set his face" to go to Jerusalem. It is this quality of rocklike courage that distinguishes the martyrs. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1268 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Fri, 22 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1222010 Almost nothing is known of this saint except that she was very young--12 or 13--when she was martyred in the last half of the third century. Various modes of death have been suggested--beheading, burning, strangling. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1267 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1212010 Nothing is historically certain about St. Sebastian except that he was a Roman martyr, was venerated in Milan even in the time of St. Ambrose and was buried on the Appian Way, probably near the present Basilica of St. Sebastian. Devotion to him spread rapidly, and he is mentioned in several martyrologies as early as a.d. 350. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1266 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1202010 Fabian was a Roman layman who came into the city from his farm one day as clergy and people were preparing to elect a new pope. Eusebius, a Church historian, says a dove flew in and settled on the head of Fabian. This sign united the votes of clergy and laity and he was chosen unanimously. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1265 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1192010 Charles thought that God was calling him to be a missionary in India, but he never got there. God had something better for this 17th-century successor to Brother Juniper. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1264 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1182010 The life of Anthony will remind many people of St. Francis of Assisi. At 20, Anthony was so moved by the Gospel message, "Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor" (Mark 10:21b), that he actually did just that with his large inheritance. He is different from Francis in that most of Anthony's life was spent in solitude. He saw the world completely covered with snares, and gave the Church and the world the witness of solitary asceticism, great personal mortification and prayer. But no saint is antisocial, and Anthony drew many people to himself for spiritual healing and guidance. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1263 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Sun, 17 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1172010 Preaching the gospel is often dangerous work. Leaving one's homeland and adjusting to new cultures, governments and languages is difficult enough; but martyrdom sometimes caps all the other sacrifices. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1262 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Sat, 16 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1162010 It is unclear what we really know of Paul's life, how much is fable, how much fact. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1261 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1152010 John was born of poor parents in Portugal. Orphaned early in life, he spent some years begging from door to door. After finding work in Spain as a shepherd, he shared the little he earned with those even more needy than himself. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1260 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1142010 This staunch defender of the divinity of Christ was a gentle and courteous man, devoted to writing some of the greatest theology on the Trinity, and was like his Master in being labeled a "disturber of the peace." In a very troubled period in the Church, his holiness was lived out in both scholarship and controversy. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1259 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Wed, 13 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1132010 "God closes a door and then opens a window," people sometimes say when dealing with their own disappointment or someone else's. That was certainly true in Marguerite's case. Children from European as well as Native American backgrounds in seventeenth-century Canada benefited from her great zeal and unshakable trust in God's providence. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1258 webdev@americancatholic.org Religion & Spirituality Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:00:00 -0500 sod1122010