Daily Saints

Saints Peter and Paul

The feast day of Saints Peter and Paul is a liturgical feast in honor of their martyrdom in Rome. It is one of five additional feasts ranked as a great feast in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and is often celebrated with an all-night vigil starting the evening before.

The New Testament clearly shows Peter as the leader of the apostles, chosen by Jesus to have a special relationship with him. With James and John he was privileged to witness the Transfiguration, the raising of a dead child to life, and the agony in Gethsemane. His mother-in-law was cured by Jesus. He was sent with John to prepare for the last Passover before Jesus’ death. His name is first on every list of apostles.

And to Peter only did Jesus say, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:17b-19).

But the Gospels prove their own trustworthiness by the unflattering details they include about Peter. He clearly had no public relations person. It is a great comfort for ordinary mortals to know that Peter also has his human weakness, even in the presence of Jesus.

Peter is willing to accept Jesus’ doctrine of forgiveness, but suggests a limit of seven times. He walks on the water in faith, but sinks in doubt. He refuses to let Jesus wash his feet, then wants his whole body cleansed. He swears at the Last Supper that he will never deny Jesus, and then swears to a servant maid that he has never known the man. He loyally resists the first attempt to arrest Jesus by cutting off Malchus’ ear, but in the end he runs away with the others. In the depth of his sorrow, Jesus looks on him and forgives him, and he goes out and sheds bitter tears. The Risen Jesus told Peter to feed his lambs and his sheep (John 21:15-17).

Paul’s central conviction was simple and absolute: Only God can save humanity. No human effort—even the most scrupulous observance of law—can create a human good which we can bring to God as reparation for sin and payment for grace. To be saved from itself, from sin, from the devil, and from death, humanity must open itself completely to the saving power of Jesus.

Paul never lost his love for his Jewish family, though he carried on a lifelong debate with them about the uselessness of the Law without Christ. He reminded the Gentiles that they were grafted on the parent stock of the Jews, who were still God’s chosen people, the children of the promise.

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saints-peter-and-paul/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Saints_Peter_and_Paul

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Saint Irenaeus

Daily Saints

Saint Irenaeus was a Greek from Polycarp’s hometown of Smyrna in Asia Minor, now İzmir, Turkey, born during the first half of the 2nd century. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he was brought up in a Christian family rather than converting as an adult.

He was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the development of Christian theology by combating heterodox or Gnostic interpretations of Scripture as heresy and defining proto-orthodoxy.

During the persecution of Christians by Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor from 161 to 180, Irenaeus was a priest of the Church of Lyon. The clergy of that city, many of whom were suffering imprisonment for the faith, sent him in 177 to Rome with a letter to Pope Eleutherius concerning the heresy of Montanism, and that occasion bore emphatic testimony to his merits. While Irenaeus was in Rome, a persecution took place in Lyon. Returning to Gaul, Irenaeus succeeded the martyr Saint Pothinus and became the second bishop of Lyon.

During the religious peace which followed the persecution by Marcus Aurelius, the new bishop divided his activities between the duties of a pastor and of a missionary (as to which we have but brief data, late and not very certain). Almost all his writings were directed against Gnosticism. His best-known work is Against Heresies, often cited as Adversus Haereses, a refutation of gnosticism, in particular that of Valentinus. To counter the doctrines of the gnostic sects claiming secret wisdom, he offered three pillars of orthodoxy: the scriptures, the tradition handed down from the apostles, and the teaching of the apostles’ successors

Nothing is known of the date of his death, which must have occurred at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. He is regarded as a martyr by the Catholic Church and by some within the Orthodox Church. He was buried under the Church of Saint John in Lyon, which was later renamed St Irenaeus in

Sources:

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

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Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Daily Saints

Saint Cyril of Alexandria was born circa 376, in the town of Didouseya, Egypt, modern-day El-Mahalla El-Kubra. Little is known for certain about his early life. He received the formal Christian education standard for his day: he studied grammar from age twelve to fourteen (390–392), rhetoric and humanities from fifteen to twenty (393–397) and finally theology and biblical studies (398–402).

Saint Cyril is well known for his dispute with Nestorius and his supporter, Patriarch John of Antioch, whom Cyril excluded from the Council of Ephesus for arriving late. He is also known for his expulsion of Novatians and Jews from Alexandria and for inflaming tensions that led to the murder of the Hellenistic philosopher Hypatia by a Christian mob. Historians disagree over the extent of his responsibility in this.

He tried to oblige the pious Christian emperor Theodosius II (AD 408–450) to himself by dedicating his Paschal table to him. Cyril’s Paschal table was provided with a Metonic basic structure in the form of a 19-year lunar cycle adopted by him around AD 425, which was very different from the first Metonic 19-year lunar cycle invented around AD 260 by Anatolius, but exactly equal to the lunar cycle which had been introduced around AD 412 by Annianus; the Julian equivalent of this Alexandrian cycle adopted by Cyril and nowadays referred to as the ‘classical (Alexandrian) 19-year lunar cycle’ would emerge a century later in Rome as the basic structure of Dionysius Exiguus’ Paschal table (AD 525).

Saint Cyril wrote extensively and was a major player in the Christological controversies of the late-4th and 5th centuries. He is counted among the Church Fathers and also as a Doctor of the Church, and his reputation within the Christian world has resulted in his titles Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers.

Sources:

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

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Saint Josemaria Escriva

Daily Saints

Saint Josemaria Escriva was born on 9 January 1902, in the small town of Barbastro, in Huesca, Spain. When he was young, he saw footprints left in the snow by a monk walking barefoot and he felt that “he had been chosen for something”.

With his father’s blessing, Escrivá prepared to become a priest of the Catholic Church. He studied first in Logroño and then in Zaragoza, where he was ordained as deacon on Saturday, 20 December 1924. He was ordained a priest, also in Zaragoza, on Saturday, 28 March 1925. After a brief appointment to a rural parish in Perdiguera, he went to Madrid, the Spanish capital, in 1927 to study law at the Central University. In Madrid, Escrivá was employed as a private tutor and as a chaplain to the Foundation of Santa Isabel, which comprised the royal Convent of Santa Isabel and a school managed by the Little Sisters of the Assumption.

A prayerful retreat helped him to discern more definitely what he considered to be God’s will for him. In 1928, he founded “Opus Dei” which is a way by which Catholics might learn to sanctify themselves by their secular work. According to the decree of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which contains a condensed biography of Escrivá, “[t]o this mission he gave himself totally. From the beginning his was a very wide-ranging apostolate in social environments of all kinds. He worked especially among the poor and the sick languishing in the slums and hospitals of Madrid.”

In 1948 Escrivá founded the Collegium Romanum Sanctae Crucis (Roman College of the Holy Cross), Opus Dei’s educational center for men, in Rome. In 1950, Escrivá was appointed an Honorary Domestic Prelate by Pope Pius XII, which allowed him to use the title of Monsignor. In 1955, he received a doctorate of theology from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. In 1953 he founded the Collegium Romanum Sanctae Mariae (Roman College of Saint Mary) to serve the women’s section (these institutions are now joined into the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.) Escrivá also established the University of Navarre, in Pamplona, and the University of Piura (in Peru), as secular institutions affiliated with Opus Dei.

Saint Josemaria Escriva died of cardiac arrest on 26 June 1975, aged 73.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josemar%C3%ADa_Escriv%C3%A1

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Saint William of Montevergine

Daily Saints

Saint William of Montevergine was born in 1085 into a noble family of Vercelli in northwest Italy. When his parents passed away, he was brought up by a relation. He was also known as William of Vercelli and William the Abbot.

Saint William of Montevergine undertook a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. On his pilgrimage to Compostela, Saint William of Montevergine asked a blacksmith to make an iron implement that would encircle his body and increase his suffering, and he wore it throughout the pilgrimage. After he returned to Italy, he intended to go to Jerusalem and for this purpose he reached South Italy, but he was beaten up and robbed by thieves. Saint William of Montevergine considered this misfortune a sign of God’s will to stay in South Italy and spread the message of Christ.

Saint William of Montevergine decided not to travel to Jerusalem anymore and to settle in South Italy, here he lived as a hermit. Here he attracted a number of followers and founded the Monastery of Montevergine. While at Montevergine, Saint William is stated as having performed miracles.

He left Montevergine in 1128 and settled on the plains in Goleto since his hermit life was compromised due to the inflow of the faithful. He began a new monastic experience, a double monastery built mostly by women. Subsequently, he founded several other monasteries of the same rule, but mostly remained in Goleto except for some trips to Apulia. Eventually he died in Goleto on June 25, 1142.

Sources:

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

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Nativity of John the Baptist

Daily Saints

The Nativity of John the Baptist celebrates the birth of John the Baptist. It is one of the oldest festivals of the Christian church, being listed by the Council of Agde in 506 as one of that region’s principal festivals, where it was a day of rest and, like Christmas, was celebrated with three Masses: a vigil, at dawn, and at midday.

The life of John the Baptist has long been interpreted as a preparation for the coming of Jesus Christ, and the circumstances of his birth, as recorded in the New Testament, are miraculous. The sole biblical account of the birth of John the Baptist comes from the Gospel of Luke. In the Gospel, Luke gives emphasis to the announcement of his birth and the event itself, both set in parallel to the same occurrences in the life of Jesus.

Saint John the Baptist attracted countless people to the banks of the Jordan, and it occurred to some people that he might be the Messiah. But he constantly deferred to Jesus, even to sending away some of his followers to become the first disciples of Jesus.

Perhaps John’s idea of the coming of the Kingdom of God was not being perfectly fulfilled in the public ministry of Jesus. For whatever reason, when he was in prison he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah. Jesus’ answer showed that the Messiah was to be a figure like that of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. John himself would share in the pattern of messianic suffering, losing his life to the revenge of Herodias.

Sources:

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

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/nativity-of-saint-john-the-baptist/

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Saint Joseph Cafasso

Daily Saints

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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Saints Peter and Paul

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Saint Irenaeus

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Saint Cyril of Alexandria

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Saint Josemaria Escriva

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Saint William of Montevergine

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Nativity of John the Baptist

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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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