Daily Saints

Saint Andrew the Apostle

Patron Saint of boatmen, butchers, farm workers, fish dealers, fishermen, happy marriages, maidens, miners, paralytics, pregnant women, ropemakers, sailmakers, sailors, singers, spinsters, textile workers, water carriers, and women who wish to become mothers Invoked against cramps, convulsions, dysentery, fever, gout, neck pain, paralysis, sore throats, and whooping cough

Saint Andrew, one of the Twelve Apostles, was most likely born in Bethsaida, just north of the Sea of Galilee, in what is today the Golan Heights. As a young man, he and his brother, Peter, worked as fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. John’s Gospel reveals that Andrew was a disciple of Saint John the Baptist prior to his encounter with Jesus. This shows that Andrew was searching and took his faith seriously.

As is recorded in John 1:35–42, Andrew and another disciple were listening to John preach in the desert. As they listened to him, the Baptist saw Jesus in the distance and prophetically exclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” After Andrew and the other disciple inquired of Jesus where He was staying, Jesus invited them to follow Him by saying, “Come, and you will see.” They then spent the rest of the day with Jesus. Andrew is, therefore, the first of the Apostles to be called and to respond to that call. For that reason, the Greek Church calls Andrew the “Protokletos,” meaning, “the first called.”

Shortly after this encounter, Andrew becomes an apostle to his brother, Simon Peter. He tells Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” This statement says much about Andrew’s interior spiritual sensibilities. First, he clearly understood that John the Baptist’s ministry was special. Andrew followed John the Baptist, discerning that he was a prophet.

When John points Andrew to Jesus, Andrew immediately follows Him, engages Him, and believes in Him. It’s clearly an act of supernatural revelation that enabled Andrew to profess his faith in Jesus as the Messiah within a day of meeting Him. And the fact that he wanted his brother to share in this discovery shows that this grace was overflowing.

Though Andrew’s missionary work after Pentecost is not recorded in the New Testament, later traditions emerged from the late second or early third century. According to those traditions, Andrew traveled to Scythia, a region that today makes up part of Ukraine, southern Russia, and parts of Kazakhstan. He is also believed to have founded the Church in Byzantium, which became known as Constantinople when Emperor Constantine made it the capital of the Roman Empire. Today it is the city of Istanbul, Turkey. Byzantium-Constantinople became the central Church for the East, the Greeks. Many have seen it as significant that Peter founded the Church of Rome in the West, and his brother founded the Church in the East, revealing the unity of East and West.

In addition to other legends that Andrew preached in Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, his life is said to have ended in the city of Patras, Greece, where he was crucified on an X-shaped cross. Peter is believed to have requested to be crucified upside-down because he did not deem himself worthy of dying on a cross like Jesus. Andrew is said to have requested the X-shaped cross for the same reason.

According to that tradition, which comes to us in a second-century document called Acts of Andrew, Proconsul Ægeates was visiting the city of Patras, where Andrew was preaching. Ægeates sought to put an end to the new Christian religion and to convince Christians to honor the Roman gods and offer sacrifice to them. When Andrew heard of this, he ran to meet Ægeates, telling him that the Son of God “came on account of the salvation of men.” Of the Roman gods he said, “…these idols are not only not gods, but also most shameful demons, and hostile to the human race…” Ægeates was outraged but carried out a long dialogue in which he inquired about Jesus’ death on the Cross, suggesting that Jesus’ death was foolish and was because of Jesus’ false doctrine.

Andrew, however, proclaimed to him the true mystery of the Cross in which Christ embraced it freely so that He could win the salvation of those who would believe in Him. By the end of their conversation, Ægeates ordered Andrew’s crucifixion. Saint Andrew did not see Christ’s Cross as an instrument of torture and death but as a glorious means of eternal salvation. He saw his own suffering and death as a sharing not only in Christ’s sufferings but also in Christ’s redemption. Thus, he ran to that cross and embraced it wholeheartedly.

Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/november-30–st-andrew-apostle

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Saint Saturninus of Toulouse

Profile

Saturninus was born to the third century Roman nobility. He was a missionary to Gaul, the Pyrenees, and the Iberian peninsula. He worked with Saint Papoul. He converted many, including the farmer now known as Saint Honestus who joined him as a missionary.

Imprisoned in Carcassone by the prefect Rufinus, Saturninus and his group were freed by an angel. He became the first bishop of Toulouse (in modern France), where he teamed with Saint Martial to perform miraculous healings. Converted and baptized Saint Firminus of Amiens.

When Saturninus began his work in Toulouse, the local pagan priests stopped receiving oracular messages from their gods. One day in 257, when the priests were hopelessly frustrated, Saturninus passed by in the street. The priests blamed the bishop, and ordered the crowd of heathens to seize him and force him to offer sacrifice to their gods. The idols fell to pieces in front of the bishop, and the crowd murdered him.

Born

  • Patras, Greece

Died

  • dragged to death by a bull c.257 in Toulouse, France
  • two Christian women gathered up his remains and buried them in a ditch
  • a church called the Taur (bull) was built where the bull stopped
  • relics at the basilica at Toulouse

Patronage

  • against ants
  • against bovine spongiform encephalopathy
  • death anxiety
  • against fraud
  • against headaches
  • against mad cow disease
  • against nausea
  • against pain
  • against plague
  • against scrapie
  • against smallpox
  • against syphilis
  • bullfighters
  • smallpox patients
  • Burgo de San Cernin, Navarra, Spain
  • Minderau, Germany
  • Motte-Saint-Jean, Burgundy, France
  • Pamplona, Spain
  • Roche-Vineuse, Burgundy, France
  • Sant Sadurni d’Anoia, Catalonia, Spain
  • Sant Sadurni d’Osormort, Catalonia, Spain
  • Sant Sadurni de l’heure, Catalonia, Spain
  • Sardinia, Italy
  • Navarre, Spain
  • St-Sernin-d’Apt, France
  • St-Sernin-du-Bois, Burgundy, France
  • St-Sernin-du-Plain, Burgundy, France
  • Toulouse, France
  • Vauban, Burgundy, France
  • Weissenau, Germany

Representation

  • bishop dragged by a bull
  • bishop with a bull at his feet
  • bull, cross and mitre

Source: https://catholicsaints.info/saint-saturninus-of-toulouse/

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Saint Catherine Laboure

Also known as

  • Zoe Laboure
  • Catherine Labore

Profile

Ninth of eleven children born to a farm family, and from an early age, Catherine felt a call to the religious life. She never learned to read or write. She was forced to take over running the house at age eight after her mother died and her older sister joined the Sisters of Charity. She worked as a waitress in her uncle’s cafe in Paris, France. Upon entering a hospital run by the Sisters of Charity, she received a vision in which Saint Vincent de Paul told her that God wanted her to work with the sick, and she later joined the Order, taking the name Catherine.

On 18 July 1830, she had a vision of Our Lady who described to her a medal which she wished struck. On one side it has the image of Our Lady, and the words, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee”; on the other are the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Our Lady told Catherine that wearers of the medal would receive great graces. It has become known as the Miraculous Medal, and its wearing and devotion has spread worldwide.

Born

  • 2 May 1806 at Fain-les-Moûtiers, Côte d’Or, Burgundy, France as Zoe Laboure

Died

  • 31 December 1876 at Enghien-Reuilly, France
  • body incorrupt
  • entombed in her convent chapel

Venerated

  • 19 July 1931 by Pope Pius XI (decree of heroic virtues)

Beatified

  • 28 May 1933 by Pope Pius XI

Canonized

  • 27 July 1947 by Pope Pius XII

Patronage

  • pigeon fanciers
  • pigeons

Source: https://catholicsaints.info/saint-catherine-laboure/

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Saint James Intercisus

Also known as

  • Jakob Intercisus
  • James the Mutilated

Profile

Military officer and courtier to King Jezdigerd I. During Jezdigerd’s persecution of Christians, James apostacized. Following Jezdigerd’s death, he was contacted by family members who had never renounced their faith. James experienced a crisis of faith and conscience, and openly expressed his faith to the new king Bahram. He was condemned, tortured and martyred.

Born

  • Beth Laphat, Persia

Died

  • slowly cut into 28 pieces, finally dying from beheading in 421

Canonized

  • Pre-Congregation

Patronage

  • lost vocations
  • torture victims

Source: https://catholicsaints.info/saint-james-intercisus/

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Pope Saint Siricius

Profile

Son of Tiburtius. Lector. Deacon. Friend of Saint Ambrose of Milan. Unanimously elected 38th pope in 384. He was opposed by the anti-pope Ursinus, but the pretender could not get any support, and nothing came of it. Expanded papal power and authority, decreeing that any papal documents should receive widespread distribution. Held a synod at Rome, Italy on 6 January 386 which re-affirmed a variety of canon laws and disciplines for both clergy and laity. A separate synod in 390 to 392 re-affirmed the merits of fasting, good works, and the need for celibate life among the religious and clergy. Opposed the Manicheans. Settled the Meletian schism at Antioch.

Born

  • c.334 at Rome, Italy

Papal Ascension

  • December 384

Died

  • 26 November 399 of natural causes
  • buried in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria, Rome, Italy

Canonized

  • by Pope Benedict XIV

Source: https://catholicsaints.info/pope-saint-siricius/

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Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr

Patron Saint of apologists, apprentice milliners and seamstresses, archivists, attorneys, barbers, potters, spinners, the dying, educators, girls, jurists, knife sharpeners, librarians, maidens, mechanics, millers, nurses, old maids, philosophers, preachers, scholars, schoolchildren, scribes, secretaries, tanners, teachers, theologians, and unmarried girls

As a member of a noble family, Catherine received an excellent education and became well versed in literature, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, music, mathematics, and medicine. Catherine was also of exceptional physical beauty and high moral virtue. Though many noblemen proposed to her, she rejected them all.Unable to find a suitable mate, she sensed within her soul that she was called to something greater.

One day, Catherine’s mother, who was secretly a Christian, introduced her to a holy Christian monk. This monk, in turn, introduced her to her future husband, her Lord Jesus Christ, the future Bridegroom of her soul. In Him, she discovered a man of the greatest wisdom and beauty, whose moral character was unmatched and whose nobility was above all. After speaking about Jesus in detail, the monk gave Catherine an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding her young Son.

That night, Catherine had a dream in which she beheld the Blessed Mother holding her Son. Catherine tried to see the face of the Child, but He kept turning away. She realized that it was because she was not yet baptized that the Christ Child could not bear to look upon her. Soon after, she returned to the monk who had catechized her, and she received baptism.

After Catherine’s baptism, the holy monk encouraged her to beseech the Blessed Virgin Mary. She spent all night doing so and fell asleep while praying. In her dream, the Blessed Mother appeared to her with her Child who took great delight in Catherine and chose her as His bride, giving her a ring, and calling her to embrace earthly virginity. When she awoke, the ring was still on her finger.

A few years later,  Emperor Maximinus decreed that all citizens had to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods in the temple. Catherine showed up during the sacrifices and was immediately noticed for her beauty and disposition. She sent word to the emperor that she had vital information for him. Once in the emperor’s presence, Catherine chastised him for his heathen practices and for his decree requiring worship of the false gods. The emperor was not only stunned at her beauty and character, he was also struck by the depth of her wisdom and elegant speech.

The emperor was so impressed that he knew her wisdom needed a response in order to justify his continued persecution of Christians. He then gathered fifty of the wisest men from across the empire to debate Catherine and prove her error. Just the opposite happened. Catherine’s wisdom was so great that she prevailed and won over many of the wise men. She cited the best Greek philosophers to prove her points and to support the truth that Jesus was the Savior and that the Trinity was the One God. Many of the wise men converted, and, as a result, the emperor had them killed.

The emperor then took another approach. He tried to seduce Catherine, offering her half of his kingdom and a place within the royal palace. She refused. The emperor then had her scourged until her blood covered the ground, and he imprisoned her.

While in prison, a dove brought food to Catherine, keeping her healthy and strong. The emperor decided to try one more time to convince her to give up her Christian faith and worship the gods. This time, he threatened her with torture on a large wheel meant to stretch her entire body and spin her to the point of death. Before Catherine was tied to the wheel, an angel made it spin out of control and shatter before everyone’s eyes. The empress then came out and chastised her husband, revealing that she had become a Christian after listening to the wisdom of Catherine. The emperor was so enraged that he had his wife beheaded on the spot.

The following day, Catherine was brought before the emperor again, and this time he ordered her execution by beheading. Within an hour of her execution, angels came and took her body away, laying it on the heights of Mount Sinai where it remained undisturbed and undefiled. A few centuries later, a holy monk in the monastery at the base of Mount Sinai, which was built around the burning bush, had a dream that led him to discover Catherine’s relics. He took her body and buried it in the monastery chapel where she lies today.

Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/november-25—saint-catherine-of-alexandria–optional-memorial

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Saint Andrew Dung-Lac, Priest and his companions, martyrs

From the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, an estimated 130,000 to 300,000 men, women, and children; bishops, priests, and religious suffered martyrdom in Vietnam because they refused to renounce their Catholic faith. They were arrested, brutally tortured, and killed. Their torture was methodical, diabolical, and orchestrated to impose the maximum pain over the longest period of time possible.

To escape that fate, all those arrested had to do was renounce their faith, step on a crucifix, or blaspheme Christ. If they did, they were granted kindnesses by the imperial courts. If they didn’t, their suffering grew more intense until they died.

Today’s memorial honors 117 martyrs who were initially beatified in separate groups: sixty-four in 1900, eight in 1906, twenty in 1909, and twenty-five in 1951. In 1988, Pope John Paul II canonized all these martyrs together, symbolizing the countless unnamed individuals who also gave their lives for their faith.

Though the communist government of Vietnam failed to send delegates to the canonization of these holy martyrs, many thousands of exiled Vietnamese showed up in Saint Peter’s Square, and the very act of canonization resounded through the hearts and minds of the faithful within Vietnam. The group of 117 was made up of ninety-six Vietnamese, eleven Spaniards, and ten French. It includes eight bishops, fifty priests, and fifty-nine laypeople. Among the laypeople was a nine-year-old child, Saint Agnese Le Thi Thành.

As we honor this huge cloud of witnesses who gave their lives for their faith in a harsh and cruel environment, enduring some of the worst tortures ever committed in the history of the world, we are reminded that no matter how difficult life is, no matter how much we must endure, it is all worth it in the end.

One of the martyrs who died in these persecutions was Father Jean-Théophane Vénard. He first became known through the writings of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux who had a deep devotion to him and was greatly inspired by his letters which were circulating at the time she was in the convent.

Let’s conclude with a quote from Saint Théophane that Saint Thérèse copied and treasured: “I can find nothing on earth that can make me truly happy; the desires of my heart are too vast, and nothing of what the world calls happiness can satisfy it. Time for me will soon be no more, my thoughts are fixed on Eternity. My heart is full of peace, like a tranquil lake or a cloudless sky. I do not regret this life on earth. I thirst for the waters of Life Eternal.”

Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/november-24—saint-andrew-dung-lac-and-his-companions-martyrs–memorial

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Saint Clement I, Pope and Martyr

Patron Saint of sailors, mariners, sick children, and stonecutters

“Concerning the things pertaining to our religious observance which are most profitable for a life of goodness to those who would pursue a godly and righteous course, we have written to you, men and brethren, at sufficient length.

For concerning faith and repentance and true love and continence and soberness and patience, we have touched upon every passage, putting you in mind that you ought in righteousness and truth and long-suffering to be well-pleasing to Almighty God with holiness, being of one mind—not remembering evil—in love and peace with instant gentleness, even as also our fathers forementioned found favor by the humility of their thoughts towards the Father and God and Creator and all mankind.

And of these things we put you in mind with the greater pleasure, since we were well assured that we were writing to men who were faithful and of highest repute and had peered into the oracles of the instruction of God.”

~Pope Saint Clement, Letter to the Corinthians

Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/november-23—saint-clement-i-pope-and-martyr—optional-memorial

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Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

Patron Saint of bodily purity, composers, luthiers, martyrs, music, musicians, musical instrument makers, poets, and singers

Almachius urged, “Set aside your delusions and worship the gods.”
Cecilia responded, “You’re blinded. What you call gods, we see as mere stones. Touch them, and you’ll understand what your eyes can’t see.”

Furious, Almachius ordered her to be taken to her house and burned in a hot bath. However, she felt it as if it were a cool, refreshing place. Hearing this, Almachius ordered her beheading there. The executioner struck her three times but failed to behead her. By law, a fourth strike wasn’t allowed. Thus, she was left, half alive.

Over the next three days, she donated her belongings to the poor, preached her faith, and directed new believers to Urban for baptism, saying, “I’ve been granted three days to guide these souls to you and wish my home to become a church.” After three days, she passed away. Saint Urban and his followers buried her with respect, turning her home into a church, which still operates today.

~from the Golden Legend

Source: https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/november-22—saint-cecilia–memorial

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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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