Daily Saints

Saint Joseph Cafasso

Saint Joseph Cafasso had been born with a deformed spine which contributed to his short stature and frail constitution. As a child, Saint Joseph Cafasso was seen as a model individual. It was often said that no one could recall him having sinned.

At an early age, Saint Joseph Cafasso felt called to become a priest and so commenced his ecclesial studies in Turin and Chieri in order to achieve his dream. He received his ordination to the priesthood in the archdiocesan cathedral on 21 September 1833. He underwent some further theological studies at the Turin college four months after his ordination. He came to know Luigi Guala, the co-founder of the Institute of Saint Francis of Assisi. This college was dedicated to the higher education of the diocesan priests who were still recovering from the destruction of the church’s institutions under the Napoleonic invasion a generation earlier. He would be connected to this institution for the rest of his life advancing from student to lecturer to chaplain and then at last being named Guala’s successor as the college’s rector in 1848.

In his role as a teacher he never neglected his duties as a priest and often aided those students in poor circumstances when he would provide them with books and other things needed for them to complete their studies. He likewise fought against state intrusion in the affairs of the church.

The priest was known for his practice of mortifications in the aim of becoming as frugal as possible. He never smoked nor did he drink things other than water alone. He never indulged in coffee nor things between his meals. He never complained about toothaches or headaches but bore his pain with remarkable resilience as a sign of his own personal cross.

He was also a noted confessor and spiritual director who guided people who would go on to found new religious institutions or congregations which would help the church to meet the needs of the whole world.

He died on 23 June 1860 and his friend Bosco (who wrote a biographical account of his old friend) preached though was not the celebrant for the Mass. He died from pneumonia coupled with a stomach hemorrhage and complications from congenital medical issues.

Sources:

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

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Saint Thomas More

Daily Saints

Saint Thomas More was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He was born on February 1478, he was the second of six children.

Saint Thomas More was educated at St. Anthony’s School. From 1490 to 1492, More served John Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England, as a household page. In 1492, he began his studies on classical education at Oxford. In 1496, Saint Thomas More became a student at Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court, where he remained until 1502, when he was called to the Bar. He continued the ascetic practices for the rest of his life, such as wearing a hair shirt next to his skin and occasionally engaging in self-flagellation.

Between 1503 and 1504, Saint Thomas More lived near the Carthusian monastery outside the walls of London and joined in the monks’ spiritual exercises. Although he deeply admired their piety, More ultimately decided to remain a layman, standing for election to Parliament in 1504 and marrying the following year.

In 1504, Saint Thomas More was elected to Parliament to represent Great Yarmouth, and in 1510 began representing London. From 1510, he served as one of the two undersheriffs of the City of London, a position of considerable responsibility in which he earned a reputation as an honest and effective public servant. More became Master of Requests in 1514, the same year in which he was appointed as a Privy Counsellor. Saint Thomas More was eventually knighted and made under-treasure of the Exchequer in 1521. As secretary and personal adviser to King Henry VIII, More became increasingly influential.

Saint Thomas More opposed the Protestant Reformation, directing polemics against the theology of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin and William Tyndale. Saint Thomas More also opposed Henry VIII’s separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and executed. On his execution, he was reported to have said: “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first”.

Sources:

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

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Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Daily Saints

The Lord can make saints anywhere, even amid the brutality and license of Renaissance life. Florence was the “mother of piety” for Aloysius Gonzaga despite his exposure to a “society of fraud, dagger, poison, and lust.” As a son of a princely family, he grew up in royal courts and army camps. His father wanted Aloysius to be a military hero.

At age 7 Aloysius experienced a profound spiritual quickening. His prayers included the Office of Mary, the psalms, and other devotions. At age 9 he came from his hometown of Castiglione to Florence to be educated; by age 11 he was teaching catechism to poor children, fasting three days a week, and practicing great austerities. When he was 13 years old, he traveled with his parents and the Empress of Austria to Spain, and acted as a page in the court of Philip II. The more Aloysius saw of court life, the more disillusioned he became, seeking relief in learning about the lives of saints.

A book about the experience of Jesuit missionaries in India suggested to him the idea of entering the Society of Jesus, and in Spain his decision became final. Now began a four-year contest with his father. Eminent churchmen and laypeople were pressed into service to persuade Aloysius to remain in his “normal” vocation. Finally he prevailed, was allowed to renounce his right to succession, and was received into the Jesuit novitiate.

Like other seminarians, Aloysius was faced with a new kind of penance—that of accepting different ideas about the exact nature of penance. He was obliged to eat more, and to take recreation with the other students. He was forbidden to pray except at stated times. He spent four years in the study of philosophy and had Saint Robert Bellarmine as his spiritual adviser.

In 1591, a plague struck Rome. The Jesuits opened a hospital of their own. The superior general himself and many other Jesuits rendered personal service. Because he nursed patients, washing them and making their beds, Aloysius caught the disease. A fever persisted after his recovery and he was so weak he could scarcely rise from bed. Yet he maintained his great discipline of prayer, knowing that he would die three months later within the octave of Corpus Christi, at the age of 23.

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-aloysius-gonzaga/

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Saint Florentina

Daily Saints

Saint Florentina was born towards the middle of the sixth century in Cartagena, Hispania. She was the sister of three Iberian bishops in the time of the Visigothic dominion.

When they lost their parents at an early age, she was placed under the guardianship of her brother, Leander, who had since taken monastic vows, and it was through his influence that Florentina embraced the ascetic life. She associated with herself a number of virgins, who also desired to forsake the world, and formed them into a religious community.

Sometime before the year 600, her brother Leander, who died either in the year 600 or 601, wrote for her guidance an extant work dealing with a nun’s rule of life and with contempt for the world. Florentina regulated her life according to the advice of her brother, entered with fervour into the spirit of the religious life, and was honoured as a saint after her death. She died sometime early in the seventh century.

Saint Florentina is venerated as the patroness of the diocese of Plasencia.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Florentina#:~:text=Florentina%20is%20venerated%20as%20the,they%20continue%20to%20be%20venerated.

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Saint Gregorio Barbarigo

Daily Saints

Saint Gregorio Giovanni Gaspare Barbarigo was born in 1625 in Venice. His ancestors included the two Venetian doges Marco Barbarigo and Agostino Barbarigo. His father instructed him in philosophical studies and in mathematics while preceptors taught him Latin and Greek; he also received the rudiments of music.

In 1643 he accompanied as secretary the Venetian ambassador Aloise Contarini to Münster for the negotiations to prepare for the Peace of Westphalia which was signed on 24 October 1648. In July 1648 he returned to Venice and continued his studies in Padua. In 1650 he was elected as a member of the Collegio dei Savi and initiated his political career which he did not find to be good for him. In the winter in 1653 he went to Rome to ask the advice of Cardinal Chigi who recommended that he not retire as a hermit but follow the ecclesiastical career and begin obtaining a doctorate in law.

Saint Barbarigo obtained a doctorate in “utroque iure” both canon law and civil law on 25 September 1655 and received his ordination to the priesthood on 21 December 1655. On 9 June 1665 he was given a canonicate in the cathedral chapter of Padua without the requirement of residence and in 1656 – at the request of the pope – he organized the assistance to the Romans in the Trastevere area who had been stricken with the plague. He oversaw the care of the mothers and their children and the funerals of the deceased in this work. He nursed the sick, buried to dead, and comforted those frightened and in mourning

Cardinal Barbarigo fostered catechetical instruction and he travelled to each village in his diocese in order to teach and to preach to the people. His compassion to the poor was well known for he gave his household goods and his clothes to the poor for their comfort. He even sold his bed on one occasion to help them. He became noted as a scholar for his distinguished learning and as an able pastor for his careful attention to pastoral initiatives and frequent parish visitations.

Barbarigo died after a brief illness on 18 June 1697 in Padua where he was interred in the diocesan cathedral.

Sources:

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

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Saint Hervé

Daily Saints

Saint Hervé, also known as Harvey, was born blind. When he was seven years old, he was placed with a learned hermit who lived in the forest. At about fourteen years of age, he went to study at the monastic school at Plouvien, where his maternal uncle, Gourvoyed was abbot. Hervé grew up to become a teacher and minstrel.

With his disciple Guiharan, Hervé lived near Plouvien as a hermit and bard. He had the power to cure animals and was accompanied by a domesticated wolf. His wolf devoured the ox or donkey Hervé used in plowing. Hervé then preached a sermon that was so eloquent that the wolf begged to be allowed to serve in the ox’s stead. Hervé’s wolf pulled the plow from that day on.

He was joined by disciples and refused any ordination or earthly honour, accepting only to be ordained as an exorcist. He died in 556 AD and was buried at Lanhouarneau.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Herv%C3%A9

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Saint Lutgardis

Daily Saints

Saint Lutgardis, also known as Lutgardis of Aywieres, was born in Tongeren (Tongren) and entered monastic life at the age of twelve. She is a saint from the medieval Low Countries. She is considered as one of the leading mystics of the 13th century.

She was admitted into the Benedictine monastery of St. Catherine near Sint-Truiden at the age of twelve. She lived in the convent for several years without having much interest in religious life. She could come and go and receive visitors as she pleased.

She was visited with a vision of Jesus Christ showing her his wounds, and at age twenty she made her solemn vows as a Benedictine. Over the next dozen years, she had many visions of Christ, Mary and St. John the Evangelist. Accounts of her life state that she experienced ecstasies, levitated, and dripped blood from her forehead and hair when entranced. She refused the honor of serving as abbess. However, in 1205, she was chosen to be prioress of her community.

Saint Lutgardis was one of the great precursors of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The first recorded mystic revelation of Christ’s heart is that of Saint Lutgardis. During this time she is known to have shown gifts of healing and prophecy, and was an adept at teaching the Gospels. She was blind for the last eleven years of her life, and died of natural causes at Aywières. According to tradition, she experienced a vision in which Christ informed her of her forthcoming death. She died on June 16, 1246, the day after the Feast of the Holy Trinity, at the age of 64.

Sources:

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

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Saint Methodius I

Daily Saints

Saint Methodius I of Constantinople was born to wealthy parents. Methodios was sent as a young man to Constantinople to continue his education and hopefully attain an appointment at court. But instead he entered a monastery in Bithynia, eventually becoming abbot.

In 815, Methodios went to Rome, perhaps as an envoy of the deposed Patriarch Nikephorοs. Upon his return in 821 he was arrested and exiled as an iconodule by the Iconoclast regime of Emperor Michael II. Methodios was released in 829 and assumed a position of importance at the court of the even more fervently iconoclast Emperor Theophilos.

The influential minister Theoktistos secured the appointment of Methodios as his successor, bringing about the end of the iconoclast controversy. A week after his appointment and after the Council of Constantinople (843), Methodios made a triumphal procession from the church of Blachernae to Hagia Sophia on March 11, 843, restoring the icons to the church. This heralded the restoration of Catholic orthodoxy, and became a holiday in the Byzantine Church, celebrated every year on the First Sunday of Great Lent, and known as the “Triumph of Orthodoxy”.

Throughout his short patriarchate, Methodios tried to pursue a moderate line of accommodation with members of the clergy who were formerly Iconoclasts. This policy was opposed by extremists. To rein in the extremists, Methodios was forced to excommunicate and arrest some of the more persevering monks.

Methodios was indeed well-educated; engaged in both copying and writing of manuscripts. His individual works included polemica, hagiographical and liturgical works, sermons and poetry.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodios_I_of_Constantinople#:~:text=St.,the%20East%20and%20the%20West.

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Saint Anthony of Padua

Daily Saints

Saint Anthony of Padua was born and raised by a wealthy family in Lisbon, Portugal. His wealthy and noble family arranged for him to be instructed at the local cathedral school. At the age of 15, he entered the Augustinian community of Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross at the Abbey of Saint Vincent on the outskirts of Lisbon. In 1212, distracted by frequent visits from family and friends, he asked to be transferred to the motherhouse of the congregation, the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Coimbra, then the capital of Portugal.

After his ordination to the priesthood, Saint Anthony of Padua was named guestmaster at the age of 19, and placed in charge of hospitality for the abbey. While he was in Coimbra, some Franciscan friars arrived and settled at a small hermitage outside Coimbra dedicated to Anthony the Great. He was strongly attracted to the simple, evangelical lifestyle of the friars, whose order had been founded only 11 years prior. He obtained permission from church authorities to leave the Canons Regular to join the new Franciscan order. Upon his admission to the life of the friars, he joined the small hermitage in Olivais.

Occasionally, Saint Anthony took another post as a teacher at universities like University of Montpellier and University of Toulouse in southern France, but his preaching was considered to be his supreme gift. According to historian Sophronius Clasen, Anthony preached “the grandeur of Christianity”. His method included allegory and symbolical explanation of scripture.

In 1228, he served as envoy from the general chapter to Pope Gregory IX. At the papal court, his preaching was hailed as a “jewel case of the Bible” and he was commissioned to produce his collection of sermons, Sermons for Feast Days.

Saint Anthony became sick with ergotism in 1231 and went to the woodland retreat at Camposampiero with two other friars for a respite. There, he lived in a room built for him under the branches of a walnut tree. Anthony died on the way back to Padua on 13 June 1231 at the Poor Clare monastery at Arcella (now part of Padua), at the age of 35.

He is especially invoked and venerated all over the world as the patron saint for the recovery of lost items and is credited with many miracles involving lost people, lost things and even lost spiritual goods.

Sources:

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

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Blessed Jolenta of Poland

Daily Saints

Blessed Jolenta of Poland was the daughter of King Béla IV of Hungary and Maria Laskarina. As a young girl, Yolanda was sent to Poland to be tutored under the supervision of her sister, Kinga, who was married to the Duke of Poland.

During the time of her marriage, she was noted for her great services to the poor and needy of the country, as well as being a major benefactor of the monasteries, friaries and hospitals connected to them. Her husband gave her so much support in her charities that he earned the nickname “the Pious”. She was widowed in 1279.

Upon the death of her husband and the marriage of two of her daughters, Jolenta and her third daughter entered the convent of the Poor Clares. War forced Jolenta to move to another convent where despite her reluctance, she was made abbess.

So well did Jolenta serve her Franciscan sisters by word and example, that her fame and good works continued to spread beyond the walls of the cloister. Her favorite devotion was the Passion of Christ. Indeed, Jesus appeared to her, telling her of her coming death. Many miracles, down to our own day, are said to have occurred at her grave.

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/blessed-jolenta-of-poland/

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

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Saint Joseph Cafasso

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Saint Thomas More

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Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

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Saint Florentina

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Saint Gregorio Barbarigo

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Saint Hervé

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Saint Lutgardis

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Saint Methodius I

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Saint Anthony of Padua

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Blessed Jolenta of Poland

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