Daily Saints

Saint John Cantius

Saint John Cantius was born in Kęty, a small town near Oświęcim, Poland, to Anna and Stanisław Kanty. He attended the Kraków Academy at which he attained bachelor, and licentiate. In 1418 he became a Doctor of Philosophy. Upon graduation he spent the next three years conducting philosophy classes at the university, while preparing for the priesthood.

Upon his ordination, he became rector at the school of the Canons Regular of the Most Holy Sepulcher in Miechow. While there, he was offered a professorship of Sacra Scriptura (Holy Scripture) back at his alma mater, the Kraków Academy. He obtained a doctorate in theology and eventually became director of the theology department. He held the professorship until his death in 1473. Cantius spent many hours copying manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures, theological tracts, and other scholarly works.

During his time in Kraków, Cantius became well known in the city for his generosity and compassion toward the poor, especially needy students at the university. He subsisted on what was strictly necessary to sustain his life, giving alms regularly to the poor. He made one pilgrimage to Jerusalem and four pilgrimages on foot to Rome. He died while living in retirement at his alma mater on 24 December 1473, aged 83.

Sources:

The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company
St. John Kanty", Catholic Faith Community of Saint John Cantius, St. Cloud, Minnesota
Patron Saints Index: "Saint John Cantius" Archived 2008-10-18 at the Wayback Machine
Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice 1969), p. 111

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Saint Hunger

Daily Saints

Saint Hunger, also referred to as Hungerus Frisus, was the was the Bishop of Utrecht from 854 to 866. At first his relations with the Vikings were peaceful, but eventually Utrecht was threatened by the Vikings, which caused the bishop and the entire clergy of Utrecht to flee to Sint Odiliënberg, near Roermond. In 858 king Lothair II made a monastery available for them. Later the bishop settled in Prüm and then in Deventer.

Saint Hunger seems to have been a godly man who, unlike his predecessors, did not engage in nepotism. In the case of the childless marriage between Lothair II and his wife Teutberga, he defended the sanctity of their marriage on biblical and theological grounds, but to secure his succession, Lothair II repudiated his wife and married Waldrada, with whom he had a son.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3822

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Hunger

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Saint Peter Canisius

Daily Saints

Saint Peter Canisius was born in 1521 in Nijmegen in the Duchy of Guelders, which, until 1549, was part of the Habsburg Netherlands within the Holy Roman Empire and is now the Netherlands. His father was a wealthy burgermeister, Jacob Kanis. His mother, Ægidia van Houweningen, died shortly after Peter’s birth. He was sent to study at the University of Cologne, where he earned a master’s degree in 1540, at the age of 19.

While there, he met Peter Faber, one of the founders of the Society of Jesus. Through him, Canisius became the first Dutchman to join the newly founded Society of Jesus in 1543. Through his preaching and writings, Peter Canisius became one of the most influential Catholics of his time. He supervised the founding and maintenance of the first German-speaking Jesuit colleges, often with little resources at hand. At the same time he preached in the city and vicinity, and debated and taught in the university.[1] Due to his frequent travels between the colleges, a tedious and dangerous occupation at the time, he became known as the Second Apostle of Germany.

Canisius exerted a strong influence on the Emperor Ferdinand I. The king’s eldest son (later Maximilian II) appointed Phauser, a married priest, to the office of court preacher. Canisius warned Ferdinand I, verbally and in writing, and opposed Phauser in public disputations. Maximilian was obliged to dismiss Phauser and, on this account, the rest of his life he harboured a grudge against Canisius.

He was initially buried at the Church of St Nicholas. His remains were later transferred to the church of the Jesuit College, which he had founded and where he had spent the last year of his life, and interred in front of the main altar of the church; the room he occupied during those last months is now a chapel open for the veneration of the faithful.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Peter-Canisius

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=93

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Saint Dominic of Silos

Daily Saints

Our saint today, Dominic of Silos, was born in Spain around the year 1000 into a peasant family. As a young boy he spent time in the fields, where he welcomed the solitude. He became a Benedictine priest and served in numerous leadership positions. Following a dispute with the king over property, Dominic and two other monks were exiled. They established a new monastery in what at first seemed an unpromising location. Under Dominic’s leadership, however, it became one of the most famous houses in Spain. Many healings were reported there.
About 100 years after Dominic’s death, a young woman who experienced difficult pregnancies made a pilgrimage to his tomb. There Dominic of Silos appeared to her and assured her that she would bear another son. The woman was Joan of Aza, and the son she bore grew up to be the “other” Dominic—Dominic Guzman, the one who founded the Dominicans.
For hundreds of years thereafter, the staff used by Saint Dominic of Silos was brought to the royal palace whenever a queen of Spain was in labor. That practice ended in 1931.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=6440

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Saint Nemesius of Alexandria

Daily Saints

Nemesius of Emesa was a Christian philosopher, and the author of a treatise De natura hominis (“On Human Nature”). According to the title of his book, he was the Bishop of Emesa (in present-day Syria). His book is an attempt to compile a system of anthropology from the standpoint of Christian philosophy; it was very influential in later Greek, Arabic and Christian thought.

Nemesius was also a physiological theorist. He based much of his writing on previous work of Aristotle and Galen, and it has been speculated that he anticipated William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood. Other views included a five-theory hierarchy of divine providence. These theories are developed from an earlier Platonic theory.

Nemesius was one in a succession of advocates, from Herophilus and Erasistratus onward, of the idea that different cavities of the brain were responsible for different functions. His Doctrine of Ventricle Localisation of Mental Functioning is a reconciliation of Platonic doctrines on the soul with Christian philosophy and also emphasized Greek scientific interpretation and knowledge of the human body.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=6440

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Saint Flannan

Daily Saints

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Saint Olympias

Daily Saints

Saint Olympias is described as the ‘beloved daughter’ born to Seleucus and Alexandra. At eighteen years of age, Olympias married Nebridius, a nobleman who served as prefect of Constantinople. She was widowed after two years of marriage. Having refusing many offers of marriage, she dedicated her life to the church, serving as a deaconess. She would later become a friend of Saint John Chrysostom.

Her good works included building a hospital and an orphanage and looking after monks who had been led in exile from Nitria. This led John Chrysostom to tell her that she had done almost too much.[12] Her support for Chrysostom led to her exile in 404. Having lost her house, she lived the rest of her life in Nicomedia, dying on July 25, 408, after a long illness.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympias_the_Deaconess

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=797

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Saint Flannan

Daily Saints

Saint Flannan was an Irish saint who lived in the 7th century and was the son of an Irish chieftain, Toirdhealbhach of Dál gCais. He entered Mo Lua’s monastery at Killaloe, where it is believed he became an Abbot. He is remembered as a great preacher.

He made a pilgrimage to Rome where Pope John IV consecrated him as the first Bishop of Killaloe, of which he is the Patron Saint. He also preached in the Hebrides. His feast day is 18 December.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=640

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flann%C3%A1n

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Saint Adelaide

Daily Saints

Adelaide of Italy, also called Adelaide of Burgundy, was Holy Roman Empress by marriage to Emperor Otto the Great. She was crowned with him by Pope John XII in Rome on 2 February 962. She was the first empress designated consors regni, denoting a “co-bearer of royalty” who shared power with her husband. She was essential as a model for future consorts regarding both status and political influence. She was regent of the Holy Roman Empire as the guardian of her grandson in 991–995.

She became involved from the beginning in the complicated fight to control not only Burgundy but also Lombardy. The battle between her father Rudolf II and Berengar I to control northern Italy ended with Berengar’s death, and Rudolf could claim the throne

Adelaide had constantly devoted herself to the service of the church and peace, and to the empire as guardian of both; she also interested herself in the conversion of the Slavs. She was thus a principal agent — almost an embodiment — of the work of the pre-schism Church at the end of the Early Middle Ages in the construction of the religious culture of Central Europe. Some of her relics are preserved in a shrine in Hanover. Her feast day, 16 December, is still kept in many German dioceses.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=525

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Adelaide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelaide_of_Italy

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Saint Mary Di Rosa

Daily Saints

Saint Mary Di Rosa, birth name Paola Francesca Di Rosa, was born on 6 November 1813 in Brescia as one of nine children born to the rich industrialist Clemente Di Rosa and Countess Camilla Albani.

Di Rosa was educated by the Visitation Sisters in their convent in Brescia; She left school after her mother died in 1824. She began working in her father’s large spinning mill in Acquafredda where she took an instant notice of the working conditions; she became the manager when she turned nineteen. She began caring for the female workers and devoted herself to looking after their material and spiritual needs which was something that her father encouraged her to do. Di Rosa lived at home for the next decade increasing her involvement in various forms of social work.

Di Rosa died at a hospital in Brescia on 15 December 1855 after suffering from a prolonged illness.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Crocifissa_di_Rosa

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=444

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Saint John Cantius

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Saint Hunger

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Saint Peter Canisius

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Saint Dominic of Silos

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Saint Nemesius of Alexandria

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Saint Flannan

Saint Olympias

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Saint Flannan

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Saint Adelaide

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Saint Mary Di Rosa

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