Daily Saints

Queenship of Blessed Virgin Mary

Pope Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my Lord.” As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, she is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship. We can also recall that in the Old Testament the mother of the king has great influence in court.

The feast is a logical follow-up to the Assumption, and is now celebrated on the octave day of that feast. In his 1954 encyclical To the Queen of Heaven, Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is the Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection, and because of her intercessory power.

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Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Daily Saints

Bernard was born near Dijon, in France, in 1090, of a noble family. In 1112 he joined the new monastery at Cîteaux. This had been founded fourteen years before, in a bid to reject the laxity and riches of the Benedictine Order (as exemplified by great monasteries such as Cluny) and to return to a primitive poverty and austerity of life.

Bernard was a man of great holiness and wisdom, and although he was often in very poor health, he was active in many of the great public debates of the time.
By the time of his death, the Cistercian Order had grown from one house to 343, of which 68 were daughter houses of Clairvaux itself.

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Saint Ezekiel Moreno

Daily Saints

Today’s saint, Ezekiel, was born in Alfaro in Spain on April 9, 1848. He joined the Recollect Congregation of the Augustinian Order in Monteagudo (Navarra) in 1864. He was sent to the Philippines, where he was ordained in 1871 and where he worked for 15 years. He then returned to Spain to serve as prior in Monteagudo for three years, after which he gave all of his energy to various forms of ministry in Colombia until shortly before his death. He was a leader in the restoration of the Augustinian Recollect Province of La Candelaria in Colombia. In 1899 he became bishop of Pasto. Struck by cancer, he returned to Spain at the insistence of his priests in order to receive treatment, and died there at Monteagudo on August 19, 1906 at the age of 58.

He was beatified in 1975, and canonized in the Dominican Republic by Pope John Paul II in 1992 at the close of the 5th Century Celebration of the Evangelization of Latin America.

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Saint John Eudes

Daily Saints

John was born in Normandy. He was ordained priest and spent many years preaching parish missions. He organized a congregation of nuns that grew into the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, dedicated to the care of women rescued from a disorderly life, and a congregation of priests dedicated to the running of seminaries. He shared with St. Mary Margaret Alacoque the honor of initiating devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (he composed the Mass for the Sacred Heart in 1668) and the Holy Heart of Mary, popularizing the devotions with his “The Devotion to the Adorable Heart of Jesus” (1670) and “The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God”, which he finished a month before his death at Caen on August 19th. He was canonized in 1925.

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Saint Helena

Daily Saints

Tradition says Helena brought a woman near death to the discovery of three crosses which was discovered during their search. There she had the woman place a hand on all three crosses. Nothing happened when she touched the first two crosses, but when she placed her hand on the third cross she suddenly recovered. Helena declared the third cross to be the True Cross. At this site, Constantine ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be built.

Theodoret of Cyrus, an influential theologian, wrote that that during her search, Helena also discovered the nails of the crucifixion. She had one of the nails placed in Constantine’s helmet and one in the bridle of his horse to aid him with their miraculous powers. Churches were built at these sites, as well.

Several of the relics believed to be found by St. Helena are located in Cyprus. Among these are parts of Jesus’ tunic, pieces of the holy cross, and pieces of the rope used to tie Jesus to the cross. When Helena returned to Rome from Jerusalem in 327, she brought parts of the True Cross back with her. She stored these in her palace’s chapel. They can still be seen to this day, though her palace has been converted to the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.
St. Helena died around 330 with her dearly devoted son, Emperor Constantine, by her side. She was then buried in the Mausoleum of Helena outside of Rome.

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Saint Joan of the Cross

Daily Saints

Born in 1666, in Anjou, France, Joan worked in the family business—a small shop near a religious shrine—from an early age. She has become known to be greed and insensitive to the poor. One day she was touched by the strange woman who claimed she was on intimate terms with the deity. Joan became a new person. She began caring for needy children. Then the poor, elderly, and sick came to her. Over time, she closed the family business so she could devote herself fully to good works and penance.

She went on to found what came to be known as the Congregation of Saint Anne of Providence. It was then she took the religious name of Joan of the Cross. By the time of her death in 1736 she had founded 12 religious houses, hospices, and schools. Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1982.

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Saint Roch

Daily Saints

Saint Roch is the patron saint of the sick and invalids. He was born in 1295 to a rich family in Montpellier, France. Tradition says Saint Roch was born with a birthmark of a red cross on his chest. He joined the Franciscan Order and distributed his fortune among the poor. While living in Italy, he caught the plague while ministering to the sick and was expelled from the town. Ill and starving, he was saved when a hunting dog found him and brought him bread every day.

He recovered and decided to devote himself to caring for the sick. After his recovery, Saint Roch returned to Montpellier, France. His uncle, the governor, did not recognize him and cast him into prison as a spy. After five years in the prison, he died, stretched out on the ground and after receiving the Last Sacraments.

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Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Daily Saints

The Catholic Church teaches as dogma that the Virgin Mary “having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” This doctrine was dogmatically defined by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950, in the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus, while exercising papal infallibility. But Pope Pius was not declaring the belief in the Assumption as something new or novel. There is written evidence of the belief as early as the 4th century in text that covers several different languages and a fairly wide geographical dispersion. Teaching of the Assumption of Mary became widespread across the Christian world, having been celebrated liturgically as early as the 5th century in the East.

It was celebrated in the West under Pope Sergius I in the 8th century and Pope Leo IV then confirmed the feast as official. Theological debate about the Assumption continued, following the Reformation, climaxing in 1950 when Pope Pius XII defined it as dogma for the Catholic Church. In the Eastern Orthodox churches, the Assumption is referred as the Dormition of the Theotokos (a Greek word literally meaning “God bearer”). Notice that the belief leaves open the question of Mary’s natural death.

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Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Daily Saints

Our saint today Raymund Kolbe was born on January 8, 1894, in the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. He entered the seminary of the Conventual Franciscans in Lvív- then Poland which is now Part of Ukraine. Though he achieved doctorates in Philosophy and Theology, he was deeply interested in science, the he even drew plans for rocket ships. At the young age of 24, he was ordained. He is the founder of the Militia de Immaculata, whose aim was to fight and combat evil with the witness of the good life, prayer, work, and suffering. When, Maximilian was on the last hours of his life. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. Fr. Kolbe was beatified in 1971 and was canonized in 1982.

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Sts. Pontian and Hippolytus

Daily Saints

Hippolytus was a priest and a learned man, the most important writer of the Church at Rome in the early third century. He strongly attacked the popes of the time, and was set up as a rival Pope to St Callistus. Some time later, in Maximin’s persecution, he was sent to labour in the quarries of Sardinia. There he met the then Pope, Pontian, and was reconciled with him.

Pontian was made Pope in 231, and was sent to the quarries in 235, where he resigned the papacy and died. Pontian’s successor, Fabian, had both bodies brought back to Rome for burial, and Pontian and Hippolytus were already being venerated by the Roman Church by the start of the fourth century.

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Queenship of Blessed Virgin Mary

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Saint Ezekiel Moreno

Saint John Eudes

Saint Helena

Saint Joan of the Cross

Saint Roch

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Sts. Pontian and Hippolytus

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