Daily Saints

Saint Matilda

Saint Matilda, also referred to as Matilda of Ringelheim, founded several spiritual institutions and women’s convents. She was considered to be extremely pious, righteous and charitable.

Saint Matilda was born in around 892, and was raised by her grandmother. In 909, she married the Duke of Saxony who later became East Franconian King. As queen, she took an interest in women’s monasteries and is said to have had an influence on her husband’s reign by having a strong sense of justice.

After Henry’s death 936 in Memleben, he was buried in Quedlinburg, where Queen Matilda founded a convent the same year. Quedlinburg Abbey became the most important center of prayer and commemoration of the dead in the East Franconian empire.

After a long illness, Queen Matilda died on 14 March 968. Throughout her life, Matilda was dedicated to charity and her spiritual foundations – as expressed several times in her two hagiographies.

Sources:

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

Saint Matilda Read More »

Saint Leander of Seville

Daily Saints

The next time you recite the Nicene Creed at Mass, think of today’s saint. For it was Leander of Seville who, as bishop, introduced the practice in the sixth century. He saw it as a way to help reinforce the faith of his people and as an antidote against the heresy of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ. By the end of his life, Leander had helped Christianity flourish in Spain at a time of political and religious upheaval.

Leander’s own family were staunch Christians: his brothers Isidore and Fulgentius were named bishops, and their sister Florentina became an abbess. Leander entered a monastery as a young man and spent three years in prayer and study. At the end of that tranquil period he was made a bishop. For the rest of his life he worked strenuously to fight against heresy. The death of the anti-Christian king in 586 helped Leander’s cause. He and the new king worked hand in hand to restore orthodoxy and a renewed sense of morality. Leander succeeded in persuading many Arian bishops to change their loyalties.
Leander died around 600. In Spain, he is honored as a Doctor of the Church.

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-leander-of-seville/

Saint Leander of Seville Read More »

Blessed Angela Salawa

Daily Saints

Blessed Angela Salawa served Christ and Christ’s little ones with all her strength. Born in Siepraw, near Kraków, Poland, she was the 11th child of Bartlomiej and Ewa Salawa. In 1897, she moved to Kraków where her older sister Therese lived. Angela immediately began to gather together and instruct young women domestic workers. During World War I, she helped prisoners of war without regard for their nationality or religion. The writings of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross were a great comfort to her.

Blessed Angela Salawa gave great service in caring for soldiers wounded in World War I. After 1918, her health did not permit her to exercise her customary apostolate. Addressing herself to Christ, she wrote in her diary, “I want you to be adored as much as you were destroyed.” In another place, she wrote, “Lord, I live by your will. I shall die when you desire; save me because you can.”
At her 1991 beatification in Kraków, Pope John Paul II said: “It is in this city that she worked, that she suffered and that her holiness came to maturity. While connected to the spirituality of Saint Francis, she showed an extraordinary responsiveness to the action of the Holy Spirit” (L’Osservatore Romano, volume 34, number 4, 1991).

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/blessed-angela-salawa/

Blessed Angela Salawa Read More »

Saint Vindicianus

Daily Saints

Saint Vindicianus was a bishop of Cambrai-Arras. He succeeded Bishop Aubert around 668.

The events of his life after this date (686) are unknown. According to legend, In 673 Vindicianus supervised the translation of the body of St. Maxellende to Caudry. In the same year he consecrated the monastery of Honnecourt-sur-Escaut, which was given in 685 to St. Bertin. In 675, he signed a charter of donation in favour of the abbey at Maroilles, rendered illustrious by St. Humbert (Emebertus). In the same year he consecrated the church at Hasnon.

In 681, he claimed for his diocese the honour of possessing the body of St. Léger, the unfortunate victim of the political strife which was then filling Neustria with blood, but he did not succeed, the remains of St. Léger being confided to Ansoald, Bishop of Poitiers.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindicianus
Van der Essen, Léon. "St. Vindicianus." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 2 December 2021
Decraene, Claire. "Visit Mont-Saint-Eloi", Arras Pays d’Artois Tourisme

Saint Vindicianus Read More »

Saint Anastasia the Patrician

Daily Saints

Saint Anastasia the Patrician, also referred to as Anastasia Patricia, was a lady-in-waiting to the Byzantine empress. She later on left for Alexandria in Egypt.

She founded a monastery in Pempton. She then left for Scetis, looking for help from Abba Daniel, hegumen of the monastery at that time. She took up the life of a hermit at a time when this was only permitted of men. Abba Daniel visited her every week and ensured that one of his disciples supplied her with jugs of water. Anastasia dwelt in seclusion for twenty-eight years.

In 576, aware of her approaching death, she wrote several words for Abba Daniel on a piece of broken pottery and placed it at the entrance to the cave. The disciple found an ostracon with the words “Bring the spades and come here.” When Daniel heard this, he knew Anastasia was near death. He went to visit her with his disciple and to give her communion and hear her last words. Daniel revealed the full details of her story to his disciple after her death.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_the_Patrician
Coptic Orthodox Church Network. 'Commemorations For Toba 26,' Lives Of The Saints.
Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers (2001, ISBN 0809140160), pages 72-73
Anne Commire, Deborah Klezmer. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia (1999, ISBN 0787640808), page 274.
Coquin, Rene Georges. "Anastasia, Saint", The Coptic Encyclopedia, Vol. I, MacMillan (1991)

Saint Anastasia the Patrician Read More »

Saint Frances of Rome

Daily Saints

Frances’ life combines aspects of secular and religious life. A devoted and loving wife, she longed for a lifestyle of prayer and service, so she organized a group of women to minister to the needs of Rome’s poor.
Born of wealthy parents, Frances found herself attracted to the religious life during her youth. But her parents objected and a young nobleman was selected to be her husband.
As she became acquainted with her new relatives, Frances soon discovered that the wife of her husband’s brother also wished to live a life of service and prayer. So the two, Frances and Vannozza, set out together—with their husbands’ blessings—to help the poor.
Frances fell ill for a time, but this apparently only deepened her commitment to the suffering people she met. The years passed, and Frances gave birth to two sons and a daughter. With the new responsibilities of family life, the young mother turned her attention more to the needs of her own household.
The family flourished under Frances’ care, but within a few years a great plague began to sweep across Italy. It struck Rome with devastating cruelty and left Frances’ second son dead. In an effort to help alleviate some of the suffering, Frances used all her money and sold her possessions to buy whatever the sick might possibly need. When all the resources had been exhausted, Frances and Vannozza went door to door begging. Later, Frances’ daughter died, and the saint opened a section of her house as a hospital.
Frances became more and more convinced that this way of life was so necessary for the world, and it was not long before she requested and was given permission to found a society of women bound by no vows. They simply offered themselves to God and to the service of the poor. Once the society was established, Frances chose not to live at the community residence, but rather at home with her husband. She did this for seven years, until her husband passed away, and then came to live the remainder of her life with the society—serving the poorest of the poor.

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-frances-of-rome/

Saint Frances of Rome Read More »

Saint John of God

Daily Saints

Having given up active Christian belief while a soldier, John was 40 before the depth of his sinfulness began to dawn on him. He decided to give the rest of his life to God’s service, and headed at once for Africa where he hoped to free captive Christians and, possibly, be martyred.

He was soon advised that his desire for martyrdom was not spiritually well based, and returned to Spain and the relatively prosaic activity of a religious goods store. Yet he was still not settled. Moved initially by a sermon of Saint John of Avila, he one day engaged in a public beating of himself, begging mercy and wildly repenting for his past life.

Committed to a mental hospital for these actions, John was visited by Saint John, who advised him to be more actively involved in tending to the needs of others rather than in enduring personal hardships. John gained peace of heart, and shortly after left the hospital to begin work among the poor.

He established a house where he wisely tended to the needs of the sick poor, at first doing his own begging. But, excited by the saint’s great work and inspired by his devotion, many people began to back him up with money and provisions. Among them were the archbishop and marquis of Tarifa.

Behind John’s outward acts of total concern and love for Christ’s sick poor was a deep interior prayer life which was reflected in his spirit of humility. These qualities attracted helpers who, 20 years after John’s death, formed the Brothers Hospitallers, now a worldwide religious order.

John became ill after 10 years of service, but tried to disguise his ill health. He began to put the hospital’s administrative work into order and appointed a leader for his helpers. He died under the care of a spiritual friend and admirer, Lady Ana Ossorio.

Sources:

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

Saint John of God Read More »

Saints Perpetua and Felicity

Daily Saints

“When my father in his affection for me was trying to turn me from my purpose by arguments and thus weaken my faith, I said to him, ‘Do you see this vessel—water pot or whatever it may be? Can it be called by any other name than what it is?’ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am—a Christian.’”

So writes Perpetua: young, beautiful, well-educated, a noblewoman of Carthage in North Africa, mother of an infant son and chronicler of the persecution of the Christians by Emperor Septimius Severus.

Perpetua’s mother was a Christian and her father a pagan. He continually pleaded with her to deny her faith. She refused and was imprisoned at 22.
In her diary, Perpetua describes her period of captivity: “What a day of horror! Terrible heat, owing to the crowds! Rough treatment by the soldiers! To crown all, I was tormented with anxiety for my baby…. Such anxieties I suffered for many days, but I obtained leave for my baby to remain in the prison with me, and being relieved of my trouble and anxiety for him, I at once recovered my health, and my prison became a palace to me and I would rather have been there than anywhere else.”

Despite threats of persecution and death, Perpetua, Felicity–a slavewoman and expectant mother–and three companions, Revocatus, Secundulus and Saturninus, refused to renounce their Christian faith. For their unwillingness, all were sent to the public games in the amphitheater. There Perpetua and Felicity were beheaded, and the others killed by beasts.

Felicity gave birth to a daughter a few days before the games commenced.
Perpetua’s record of her trial and imprisonment ends the day before the games. “Of what was done in the games themselves, let him write who will.” The diary was finished by an eyewitness.

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saints-perpetua-and-felicity/

Saints Perpetua and Felicity Read More »

Saint Colette

Daily Saints

Saint Colette was born Nicole Boellet (or Boylet) in the village of Corbie, in the Picardy region of France. She was affectionately called Nicolette by her parents, which soon came to be shorted to Colette, by which name she is known.

She was a French abbess and the foundress of the Colettine Poor Clares, a reform branch of the Order of Saint Clare, better known as the Poor Clares.

In 1410, she opened her first monastery at Besançon, in an almost-abandoned house of Urbanist Poor Clares. From there, her reform spread to Auxonne (1412), to Poligny (1415), to Ghent (1412), to Heidelberg (1444), to Amiens, to Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, and to other communities of Poor Clares. During her lifetime 18 monasteries of her reform were founded. For the monasteries which followed her reform, she prescribed extreme poverty, going barefoot, and the observance of perpetual fasting and abstinence.

She is honored as a saint in the Catholic Church. Due to a number of miraculous events claimed during her life, she is venerated as a patron saint of women seeking to conceive, expectant mothers, and sick children.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colette_of_Corbie
David Farmer,Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford University Press, 1996), p105.
Roest 2013, p. 169.

Saint Colette Read More »

Saint John Joseph of the Cross

Daily Saints

Self-denial is never an end in itself but is only a help toward greater charity—as the life of Saint John Joseph shows.

John Joseph was very ascetic even as a young man. At 16, he joined the Franciscans in Naples; he was the first Italian to follow the reform movement of Saint Peter Alcantara. John Joseph’s reputation for holiness prompted his superiors to put him in charge of establishing a new friary even before he was ordained.
Obedience moved John Joseph to accept appointments as novice master, guardian and, finally, provincial. His years of mortification enabled him to offer these services to the friars with great charity. As guardian he was not above working in the kitchen or carrying the wood and water needed by the friars.
When his term as provincial expired, John Joseph dedicated himself to hearing confessions and practicing mortification, two concerns contrary to the spirit of the dawning Age of Enlightenment. John Joseph of the Cross was canonized in 1839.

Sources:

https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-john-joseph-of-the-cross/

Saint John Joseph of the Cross Read More »

Saint Matilda

Sources:

Saint Leander of Seville

Sources:

Blessed Angela Salawa

Sources:

Saint Vindicianus

Sources:

Saint Anastasia the Patrician

Sources:

Saint Frances of Rome

Sources:

Saint John of God

Sources:

Saints Perpetua and Felicity

Sources:

Saint Colette

Sources:

Saint John Joseph of the Cross

Sources:

Ways to Donate

Paypal

Using Zelle

Mail a Check

Quick Links

Contact us

Location:

Contact #

Email:

Quick Links

Contact us

Location:

Contact #

Email:

Ways to Donate

Using Zelle

Mail a Check

Paypal