Daily Saints

Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

And the child was three years old, and Joachim said: Invite the daughters of the Hebrews that are undefiled, and let them take each a lamp, and let them stand with the lamps burning, that the child may not turn back, and her heart be captivated from the temple of the Lord.

And they did so until they went up into the temple of the Lord. And the priest received her, and kissed her, and blessed her, saying: The Lord has magnified your name in all generations. In you, on the last of the days, the Lord will manifest His redemption to the sons of Israel.

And he set her down upon the third step of the altar, and the Lord God sent grace upon her; and she danced with her feet, and all the house of Israel loved her. And her parents went down marveling, and praising the Lord God, because the child had not turned back. And Mary was in the temple of the Lord as if she were a dove that dwelt there, and she received food from the hand of an angel. ~Protoevangelium of James

Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/november-21—presentation-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary–memorial

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St. Edmund the Martyr

Daily Saints

King of East Anglia, born about 840; died at Hoxne, Suffolk, 20 November, 870.

The earliest and most reliable accounts represent St. Edmund as descended from the preceding kings of East Anglia, though, according to later legends, he was born at Nuremberg (Germany), son to an otherwise unknown King Alcmund of Saxony.

Though only about fifteen years old when crowned in 855, Edmund showed himself a model ruler from the first, anxious to treat all with equal justice, and closing his ears to flatterers and untrustworthy informers.

In his eagerness for prayer, Edmund retired for a year to his royal tower at Hunstanton and learned the whole Psalter by heart, in order that he might afterwards recite it regularly.

In 870, Edmund bravely repulsed the two Danish chiefs Hinguar and Hubba who had invaded his dominions. They soon returned with overwhelming numbers, and pressed terms upon him which as a Christian he felt bound to refuse.

In his desire to avert a fruitless massacre, Edmund disbanded his troops and himself retired towards Framlingham; on the way, he fell into the hands of the invaders. Having loaded him with chains, his captors conducted him to Hinguar, whose impious demands he again rejected, declaring his religion dearer to him than his life. His martyrdom took place in 870 at Hoxne in Suffolk.

After beating him with cudgels, the Danes tied him to a tree, and cruelly tore his flesh with whips.

Throughout these tortures Edmund continued to call upon the name of Jesus, until at last, exasperated by his constancy, his enemies began to discharge arrows at him. This cruel sport was continued until his body had the appearance of a porcupine, when Hinguar commanded his head to be struck off.

From his first burial-place at Hoxne, Edmund’s relics were removed in the tenth century to Beodricsworth, since called St. Edmundsbury, where arose the famous abbey of that name.

His feast is observed on 20th November, and he is represented in Christian art with sword and arrow, the instruments of his torture.

Source: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05295a.htm

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Saints Rasiphus and Ravennus

Daily Saints

Saints Rasiphus and Ravennus were natives of Britain who fled their country during the Anglo-Saxon invasions. They settled in Gaul and became hermits.

According to an account of their lives, the two saints founded their hermitage near the site of the current building, near a miraculous spring of water.

Since little is known about their lives, there are multiple versions of their martyrdom. According to one version, they were tossed against a great block of sandstone. Their heads dented the stone but the two saints were not hurt. They were then decapitated and buried near the present grounds of St-Aubin de Macé; a tombstone marks the site of their former grave.

Accounts also attribute many miracles to the Saints Rasiphus and Ravennus. They were venerated as great healers.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasyphus_and_Ravennus#:~:text=Their%20feast%20day%20is%2023%20July.

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Saint Wandrille

Daily Saints

Saint Wandrille, also known as Saint Wandregisel, was a Frankish courtier, monk, and abbot. He was born around 605 and educated at the Frankish court in Metz.

Saint Wandrille was part of a group of young courtiers who served Dagobert I. In 629, he retired from court to become a monk at Montfaucon under the guidance of Saint Balderic.

Saint Wandrille soon withdrew to live as a hermit in complete solitude at Saint-Ursanne in the Jura. He spent some time at the monastery of Saint Columban at Bobbio in northern Italy in 635. From there, he wished to travel to Ireland but got only as far as the abbey of Romainmôtier.

Saint Wandrille founded Fontenelle Abbey in Normandy. Fontenelle Abbey followed the rule of Saint Columbanus, and the abbey became an important center of learning. Saint Wandrille died on July 22, 668.

Sources:

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

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Saint Victor of Marseilles

Daily Saints

Saint Victor of Marseilles was an Egyptian Christian martyr. He was a Roman army officer in Marseille, who publicly denounced the worship of idols.

Due to denouncing the worship of idols, he was brought before the Roman prefects, Asterius and Eutychius, who later sent him to the Emperor Maximian. He was then racked, beaten, dragged through the streets, and thrown into prison, where he converted three other Roman soldiers, Longinus, Alexander, and Felician, who were subsequently beheaded.

After refusing to offer incense to a statue of the Roman god Jupiter, Victor kicked it over with his foot. The emperor ordered that he be put to death by being ground under a millstone, but the millstone broke while Victor was still alive. He was then beheaded.

Saint Victor’s feast day, along with Saints Longinus, Alexander and Felician, is celebrated on July 21. He is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_of_Marseilles#:~:text=Saint%20Victor's%20feast%20day%2C%20along,is%20celebrated%20on%20July%2021.

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Saint Camillus de Lellis

Daily Saints

Saint Camillus de Lellis was born in 1550. When her mother died in 1562, he grew up neglected by the family members who took him in. At the age 13, he began to accompany his father from one military camp to another. At sixteen De Lellis joined his father in the Venetian army and fought in a war against the Turks.

After a number of years of military service, he entered Rome’s San Giacomo Hospital for treatment, but was eventually turned out of the hospital because of his quarrelsome attitude. Having gambled away all his possessions, Saint Camillus de Lellis took work as a laborer at the Capuchin friary at Manfredonia. Despite his aggressive nature and excessive gambling, the guardian of the friary saw a better side to his nature, and continually tried to bring that out in him. Eventually the friar’s exhortations penetrated his heart and he had a religious conversion in 1575. He then entered the novitiate of the Capuchin friars.

He moved to Rome where he returned to San Giacomo degli Incurabili and became a caregiver at the hospital to pay for his stay. He eventually became Superintendent. He began to put things in order. In the meantime, he continued to follow a strict ascetic life, performing many penances.

He was led to invite a group of pious men to express their faith through the care of the patients at the hospital. Eventually he felt called to establish a religious community for this purpose, and that he should seek Holy Orders for this task. He founded the Order of Clerks Regular, Ministers of the Infirm, better known as Camillians, a religious order dedicated to the care of the sick.

He was ordained at the age of thirty-four on Pentecost of 1584. In 1613, he assisted in a General Chapter of the Order, after which he accompanied the new Superior General on an inspection tour of all the hospitals of the Order in Italy. In the course of that tour, he fell ill and died in Rome in 1614.

Saint Camillus de Lellis is the patron saint of the sick, hospitals, nurses and physicians. His assistance is also invoked against gambling.

Sources:

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

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Saint Marcellina

Daily Saints

Saint Marcellina was born around the year 330 into a Roman Christian family. Her father served as Praetorian prefect of Gaul. After the death of their parents, she took responsibility for the upbringing of her younger brothers, Ambrose and Satyrus. As the eldest in her family, she made it a point to pass to her younger brothers the “desire not to express their virtue, but to become truly virtuous.”

She devoted herself to the practice of piety and asceticism, and received the veil of consecrated virginity from Pope Liberius. She lived a life of great austerity, which Ambrose tried to persuade her to mitigate. According to tradition, she turned the family home into a church dedicated in Mary, which later became Sant’Ambrogio della Massima.

After Ambrose had become Bishop of Milan in 374, he summoned his sister, Saint Marcellina, and found in her a zealous assistant in fostering and extending the ascetic life among the maidens of Milan. Ambrose dedicated his work on virginity, written in 377, Libri III de virginibus ad Marcellinam to her.

Saint Marcellina survived her brother by a year, dying in 398. Honored as a saint, she was buried in the crypt under the altar of the Ambrosian Basilica in Milan.

Sources:

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

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Saint Marie-Madeleine Postel

Daily Saints

Saint Marie-Madeleine Postel was a French Catholic professed religious and the founder of the Sisters of Christian Schools. The Benedictine nuns oversaw her education in Valognes after her initial schooling and it was during that time that she discerned a call to serve God in the religious life; she took a private vow to remain chaste as a step forward in this dream.

In 1774, Saint Marie-Madeleine Postel founded a school for girls in Barfleur which became a center for underground religious activities during the French Revolution for those who were unwilling to support the new regime. The school was shut down at the beginning of the Revolution but authorization was granted to her to keep the Blessed Sacrament in her house as the conflict continued and she carried it on her person at times to provide the Viaticum to those who were ill and at the verge of death.

The end of the Revolution saw Saint Marie-Madeleine Postel take up teaching and catechizing in Cherbourg where she taught around 300 children. She made her religious profession into the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1798. In 1832, she acquired a derelict convent in St-Sauveur-le-Vicomte to use as her headquarters which then prompted growth within the order.

Saint Marie-Madeleine Postel died in 1846. Her order continues its work in places such as Romania and Mozambique and in 2005 had 442 religious in 69 different locations worldwid

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Madeleine_Postel

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Saint Vladimir the Great

Daily Saints

Saint Vladimir was Prince of Novgorod and became ruler of Kievan Rus’ from 980 to 1015. He was born in 958 was the natural son and youngest son of Sviatoslav I of Kiev by his housekeeper Malusha. Hagiographic tradition of dubious authenticity also connects his childhood with the name of his grandmother, Olga of Kiev, who was Christian and governed the capital during Sviatoslav’s frequent military campaigns.

After the death of his father in 972, he was forced to flee to Scandinavia in 976 after his brother Yaropolk murdered his other brother Oleg of Drelinia. In Sweden, with the help of his relative Ladejarl Håkon Sigurdsson, ruler of Norway, he assembled a Varangian army and reconquered Novgorod from Yaropolk. By 980, Vladimir had consolidated the Rus’ realm to the Baltic Sea and had solidified the frontiers against incursions of Bulgarians, Baltic tribes and Eastern nomads.

In 987, after consultation with his boyars, Saint Vladimir reportedly sent envoys to study the religions of the various neighboring peoples whose representatives had been urging him to embrace their respective faiths. In 988, having taken the town of Chersonesus in Crimea, he allegedly boldly negotiated for the hand of emperor Basil II’s sister, Anna. In exchange for a marital tie, he also agreed to accept Christianity as his religion and to Christianize his people. When the wedding arrangements were settled, Saint Vladimir dispatched 6,000 troops to the Byzantine Empire, and they helped to put down the revolt.

During his Christian reign, Saint Vladimir lived the teachings of the Bible through acts of charity. He would hand out food and drink to the less fortunate, and made an effort to go out to the people who could not reach him. His work was based on the impulse to help one’s neighbors by sharing the burden of carrying their cross. He founded numerous churches, including the Desyatynna Tserkva (Church, or Cathedral, of the Tithes) (989), established schools, protected the poor and introduced ecclesiastical courts. He lived mostly at peace with his neighbors, the incursions of the Pechenegs alone disturbing his tranquility.

Sources:

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

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Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite

Daily Saints

Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite was born Nicholas Kallivroutsis on the Greek island of Naxos. He was an ascetic monk, mystic, theologian, and philosopher. According to his biographer, he was possessed of “great acuteness of mind, accurate perception, intellectual brightness, and vast memory”, qualities which were readily apparent to those who furthered him along in his learning.

He passed from the tutelage of his parish priest to that of Archimandrite Chrysanthos, who was the brother of Cosmas. From there he made his way to Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey), where he studied at the Evangelical School. Here he studied theology, as well as ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian. He studied at Smyrna but was forced to abandon his studies during a time of Ottoman persecution. Instead he entered the Dionysiou monastery on Mount Athos in 1775.

Saint Nicodemus decided to embrace the monastic life, following the example of three monks he had encountered, Gregory, Niphon, and Arsenios. He aligned himself with the monks known as Kollyvades, who sought a revival of traditional Orthodox practices and patristic literature, and he spent the remainder of his life at work translating and publishing those works. He also composed many original books of his own.

He wrote ascetic prayer literature and influenced the rediscovery of hesychasm, a method of contemplative prayer from the Byzantine period. He is most famous for his work with Macarius of Corinth on the anthology of monastic spiritual writings known as The Philokalia, as well as for his compilation of canons known as the Pedalion which he co-wrote with a hieromonk named Agapios Monachos.

Sources:

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

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Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

St. Edmund the Martyr

Saints Rasiphus and Ravennus

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Saint Wandrille

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Saint Victor of Marseilles

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Saint Camillus de Lellis

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Saint Marcellina

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Saint Marie-Madeleine Postel

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Saint Vladimir the Great

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Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite

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