Daily Saints

Saint Noel Chabanel

Saint Noel Chabanel was a Jesuit missionary and one of the Canadian martyrs.

Chabanel entered the Jesuit novitiate at Toulouse at the age of seventeen, and was a professor of rhetoric at several Jesuit colleges. He was highly esteemed for virtue and learning. In 1643, he was sent to New France along with Fathers Leonard Garreau and Gabriel Druillettes. Although he studied the Algonquin language for a time, he never made much headway.He was appointed to the mission at Sainte-Marie. In his apostolic labours he was the companion of Fr. Charles Garnier.

As he felt a strong repugnance to the life and habits of the Huron, and feared it might result in him withdrawing from the work, he bound himself by vow never to leave the mission except under obedience. Chabanel was sent to help Charles Garnier among the Petun. One month later, Brébeuf and Lalemant were captured in an Iroquois raid on the St. Louis mission and taken to the nearby mission off St. Ignace where they were killed.

After the deaths of Brébeuf and Lalement, the Jesuits decided to abandon Sainte-Marie among the Hurons and burned the mission rather than risk it being desecrated or taken over by Iroquois. In early December 1649, Chabanel was directed to go to St. Joseph Island.

Chabanel was martyred on December 8, 1649, by what is described as a “renegade” Huron.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=795
Pouliot, Léon (1979) [1966]. "Chabanel, Noël". In Brown, George Williams (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. I (1000–1700) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
Campbell, T.J., Pioneer priests of North America, 1642-1710, Vol. 2, Fordham University Press, 1910, p. 367
Spillane, Edward (1908). "Noel Chabanel". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 6 February 2014.

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Saint Eugenia

Daily Saints

Saint Eugenia, also known as Eugenia of Rome, was an early Christian Roman martyr.

Her legend states that she was converted by and martyred with Protus and Hyacinth, her Chamberlains, during the persecution of Valerian. She was said to have been the daughter of Philip, “duke” of Alexandria and governor of Egypt. She had fled her father’s house dressed in men’s clothing and was baptized by Helenus, bishop of Heliopolis. She later became an abbot, still pretending to be a man. As the story goes, while she was an abbot and still dressing like a man, she cured a woman of an illness, and when the woman made sexual advances, which she rebuffed, the woman accused her publicly of adultery. She was taken to court, where, still disguised, she faced her father as the judge. At the trial, her real female identity was revealed and she was exonerated.

Her father converted to the faith and became Bishop of Alexandria but the emperor had him executed for this. Eugenia and her remaining household moved to Rome where she converted many, especially maidens, but this did not prevent their martyrdom. Protus and Hyacinth were beheaded on September 11, 258, and Eugenia followed suit after Christ appeared to her in a dream and told her that she would die on the Feast of the Nativity. She was beheaded on December 25, 258.

Sources:

Commemoration of the Virgin Eugine, her father - Philippus, her mother Klothia and her two servants". Araratian Patriarchal Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
Patrick J. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 48.

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Saint Tarsilla

Daily Saints

Saint Tarsilla was one of the aunts of Gregory the Great. She is one of the venerated virgin saints of the sixth century.

Saint Tarsilla came from a noble family in ancient Rome. Her brother, Gordian, was a senator and was a very rich patrician. Saint Tarsilla and her two other sisters devoted themselves to a religious life and led a life of virginity, fasting, and prayer. They practiced their faith in their father’s house, located on the Clivus Scauri in Rome. Although one of the sisters later abandoned this calling and is thus not venerated as a saint.

Tradition states that Felix III, an ancestor, appeared to Trasilla and bade her to enter Heaven, and on the eve of Christmas Trasilla died, seeing Jesus Christ beckoning.The legend also states that Trasilla a few days later appeared to Emiliana, inviting her to celebrate Epiphany in heaven.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1912
The Saints Tarsilla and Emiliana of Rome", Diocese of Oslo
Mershman, Francis. "Sts. Trasilla and Emiliana." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 29 May 2016

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Saint John Cantius

Daily Saints

Saint John Cantius was born in Kęty, a small town near Oświęcim, Poland, to Anna and Stanisław Kanty. He attended the Kraków Academy at which he attained bachelor, and licentiate. In 1418 he became a Doctor of Philosophy. Upon graduation he spent the next three years conducting philosophy classes at the university, while preparing for the priesthood.

Upon his ordination, he became rector at the school of the Canons Regular of the Most Holy Sepulcher in Miechow. While there, he was offered a professorship of Sacra Scriptura (Holy Scripture) back at his alma mater, the Kraków Academy. He obtained a doctorate in theology and eventually became director of the theology department. He held the professorship until his death in 1473. Cantius spent many hours copying manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures, theological tracts, and other scholarly works.

During his time in Kraków, Cantius became well known in the city for his generosity and compassion toward the poor, especially needy students at the university. He subsisted on what was strictly necessary to sustain his life, giving alms regularly to the poor. He made one pilgrimage to Jerusalem and four pilgrimages on foot to Rome. He died while living in retirement at his alma mater on 24 December 1473, aged 83.

Sources:

The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company
St. John Kanty", Catholic Faith Community of Saint John Cantius, St. Cloud, Minnesota
Patron Saints Index: "Saint John Cantius" Archived 2008-10-18 at the Wayback Machine
Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice 1969), p. 111

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Saint Hunger

Daily Saints

Saint Hunger, also referred to as Hungerus Frisus, was the was the Bishop of Utrecht from 854 to 866. At first his relations with the Vikings were peaceful, but eventually Utrecht was threatened by the Vikings, which caused the bishop and the entire clergy of Utrecht to flee to Sint Odiliënberg, near Roermond. In 858 king Lothair II made a monastery available for them. Later the bishop settled in Prüm and then in Deventer.

Saint Hunger seems to have been a godly man who, unlike his predecessors, did not engage in nepotism. In the case of the childless marriage between Lothair II and his wife Teutberga, he defended the sanctity of their marriage on biblical and theological grounds, but to secure his succession, Lothair II repudiated his wife and married Waldrada, with whom he had a son.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3822

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

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Saint Peter Canisius

Daily Saints

Saint Peter Canisius was born in 1521 in Nijmegen in the Duchy of Guelders, which, until 1549, was part of the Habsburg Netherlands within the Holy Roman Empire and is now the Netherlands. His father was a wealthy burgermeister, Jacob Kanis. His mother, Ægidia van Houweningen, died shortly after Peter’s birth. He was sent to study at the University of Cologne, where he earned a master’s degree in 1540, at the age of 19.

While there, he met Peter Faber, one of the founders of the Society of Jesus. Through him, Canisius became the first Dutchman to join the newly founded Society of Jesus in 1543. Through his preaching and writings, Peter Canisius became one of the most influential Catholics of his time. He supervised the founding and maintenance of the first German-speaking Jesuit colleges, often with little resources at hand. At the same time he preached in the city and vicinity, and debated and taught in the university.[1] Due to his frequent travels between the colleges, a tedious and dangerous occupation at the time, he became known as the Second Apostle of Germany.

Canisius exerted a strong influence on the Emperor Ferdinand I. The king’s eldest son (later Maximilian II) appointed Phauser, a married priest, to the office of court preacher. Canisius warned Ferdinand I, verbally and in writing, and opposed Phauser in public disputations. Maximilian was obliged to dismiss Phauser and, on this account, the rest of his life he harboured a grudge against Canisius.

He was initially buried at the Church of St Nicholas. His remains were later transferred to the church of the Jesuit College, which he had founded and where he had spent the last year of his life, and interred in front of the main altar of the church; the room he occupied during those last months is now a chapel open for the veneration of the faithful.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Peter-Canisius

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=93

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Saint Dominic of Silos

Daily Saints

Our saint today, Dominic of Silos, was born in Spain around the year 1000 into a peasant family. As a young boy he spent time in the fields, where he welcomed the solitude. He became a Benedictine priest and served in numerous leadership positions. Following a dispute with the king over property, Dominic and two other monks were exiled. They established a new monastery in what at first seemed an unpromising location. Under Dominic’s leadership, however, it became one of the most famous houses in Spain. Many healings were reported there.
About 100 years after Dominic’s death, a young woman who experienced difficult pregnancies made a pilgrimage to his tomb. There Dominic of Silos appeared to her and assured her that she would bear another son. The woman was Joan of Aza, and the son she bore grew up to be the “other” Dominic—Dominic Guzman, the one who founded the Dominicans.
For hundreds of years thereafter, the staff used by Saint Dominic of Silos was brought to the royal palace whenever a queen of Spain was in labor. That practice ended in 1931.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=6440

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Saint Nemesius of Alexandria

Daily Saints

Nemesius of Emesa was a Christian philosopher, and the author of a treatise De natura hominis (“On Human Nature”). According to the title of his book, he was the Bishop of Emesa (in present-day Syria). His book is an attempt to compile a system of anthropology from the standpoint of Christian philosophy; it was very influential in later Greek, Arabic and Christian thought.

Nemesius was also a physiological theorist. He based much of his writing on previous work of Aristotle and Galen, and it has been speculated that he anticipated William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood. Other views included a five-theory hierarchy of divine providence. These theories are developed from an earlier Platonic theory.

Nemesius was one in a succession of advocates, from Herophilus and Erasistratus onward, of the idea that different cavities of the brain were responsible for different functions. His Doctrine of Ventricle Localisation of Mental Functioning is a reconciliation of Platonic doctrines on the soul with Christian philosophy and also emphasized Greek scientific interpretation and knowledge of the human body.

Sources:

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=6440

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Saint Flannan

Daily Saints

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Saint Olympias

Daily Saints

Saint Olympias is described as the ‘beloved daughter’ born to Seleucus and Alexandra. At eighteen years of age, Olympias married Nebridius, a nobleman who served as prefect of Constantinople. She was widowed after two years of marriage. Having refusing many offers of marriage, she dedicated her life to the church, serving as a deaconess. She would later become a friend of Saint John Chrysostom.

Her good works included building a hospital and an orphanage and looking after monks who had been led in exile from Nitria. This led John Chrysostom to tell her that she had done almost too much.[12] Her support for Chrysostom led to her exile in 404. Having lost her house, she lived the rest of her life in Nicomedia, dying on July 25, 408, after a long illness.

Sources:

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

https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=797

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Saint Noel Chabanel

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Saint Eugenia

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Saint Tarsilla

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Saint John Cantius

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Saint Hunger

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Saint Peter Canisius

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Saint Dominic of Silos

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Saint Nemesius of Alexandria

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Saint Flannan

Saint Olympias

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