Daily Saints

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi

Lawrence was born on July 22, 1559, and died 60 years later on his birthday in 1619. His parents William and Elizabeth Russo gave him the name of Julius Caesar, Caesare in Italian. After the early death of his parents, he was educated by his uncle at the College of St. Mark in Venice. Lawrence’s sensitivity to the needs of people, a character trait, perhaps unexpected in such a talented scholar began to surface. Lawrence was appointed papal emissary and peacemaker, a job which took him to a number of foreign countries.

An effort to achieve peace in his native kingdom of Naples took him on a journey to Lisbon to visit the king of Spain. Serious illness in Lisbon took his life in 1619. In 1956, the Capuchins completed a 15-volume edition of Lawrence’s writings. Eleven of these 15 contain his sermons, each of which relies chiefly on scriptural quotations to illustrate his teaching.

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Saint Apollinaris

Daily Saints

According to tradition, Saint Peter sent Apollinaris to Ravenna, Italy, as its first bishop. His preaching of the Good News was so successful that the pagans there beat him and drove him from the city. He returned, however, and was exiled a second time.

After preaching in the area surrounding Ravenna, he entered the city again. After being cruelly tortured, he was put on a ship heading to Greece. Pagans there caused him to be expelled to Italy, where he went to Ravenna for a fourth time.

He died from wounds received during a savage beating at Classis, a suburb of Ravenna. A beautiful basilica honoring him was built there in the sixth century.

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St. Justa and St. Rufina

Daily Saints

These sister-martyrs were two Christian women from Seville in Spain who maintained themselves by selling earthenware or clay pots. Not to concur in idolatrous superstitions, they refused to sell vessels for the use of heathen ceremonies and when the worshipers broke up their stock-in-trade, Justa and Rufina retorted by overthrowing the image of a false goddess.

Whereupon the people impeached them for their faith before the governor. The prefect, after they had boldly confessed Christ, commanded them to be stretched on the rack and their sides to be torn with hooks. An idol was placed near the rack with incense, that if they would offer sacrifice they should be released; but their fidelity was not to be shaken.

Justa died on the rack; the judge ordered Rufina to be strangled, and their bodies to be burned. They are greatly venerated in Spain, and no doubt their names represent historical martyrs in that place.

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St. Bruno of Segni

Daily Saints

Born to the Italian nobility. He studied theology at the Benedictine Monastery of Saint Perpetuus at Asti, Italy, and at Bologna, Italy. He was ordained in 1079, and assigned to a parish at Siena, Italy. Noted for defending orthodox Church wisdom, for his knowledge of Scripture, and for his teachings on the Blessed Sacrament. He has been a counselor to four popes. Ordained bishop of Segni, Italy in 1080 by Pope Gregory VII.

Fought simony and lay investiture. In 1095 he retired to a monastic life at Monte Cassino. Elected abbot in 1107. Following a chastisement of the pope for shirking his duty to others, he was soon ordered back to his diocese, a vocation he fulfilled until his death. He also became a Vatican librarian. Cardinal legate, though he declined the cardinalate. And a notable author of several works on theology.

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Saint Alexius of Rome

Daily Saints

St. Alexius was the only son of a wealthy senator of Rome, Euphemian, and his wife, Aglaë. He was born and educated in that capitol in the fifth century. From the charitable example of his parents he developed a compassionate attitude at an early age. And joining a church dedicated to the Mother of God at Edessa, there he lived for seventeen years until an image of our Lady spoke and revealed his holiness to the people, calling him “the Man of God”.

Thereupon he fled back to his home; his father did not recognize him, but received him as a beggar and gave him employment, allotting a corner under the staircase as his quarters. For another seventeen years he thus lived unknown in his father’s house, bearing the ill treatment of other servants in patience and silence. After his death a writing was found upon him, giving his name and family and an account of his life.

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Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Daily Saints

The Order of Carmelites takes its name from Mount Carmel, which was the first place dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and where a chapel was erected in her honor before her Assumption into Heaven. July 16 is also the feast of the “Scapular of Mount Carmel”. On that day in 1251, pious tradition says, the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Simon Stock, General of the Carmelites at Cambridge, England, showed him the scapular and promised supernatural favors and her special protection to his Order and to all persons who would wear the scapular. To obtain the indulgences and other benefits promised to those who wear the Carmelite scapular, a person must be invested by a priest who has the requisite faculties and must lead a consistent Christian life.

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Saint Bonaventure

Daily Saints

St. Bonaventure, born as John, known as “the seraphic doctor,” was born at Bagnoregio, in the Lazio region of central Italy, in 1221. He received the name of Bonaventure in consequence of an exclamation of St. Francis of Assisi, when, in response to the pleading of the child’s mother, the Francis prayed for John’s recovery from a dangerous illness, and, foreseeing the future greatness of the little John, cried out “O Buona ventura”-O good fortune!

Saint Bonaventure’s teaching career came to a halt when the Friars elected him to serve as their General Minister. Shortly before he ended his service as General Minister, Pope Gregory X created him a Cardinal and appointed him bishop of Albano. But a little over a year later, while participating in the Second Council of Lyon, Saint Bonaventure died suddenly on July 15, 1274. There is a theory that he was poisoned.

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Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

Daily Saints

St. Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American to be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. She was born in 1656, in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon. Her dedication to virginity was instinctive: Kateri did not know about religious life for women until she visited Montreal. She humbly accepted an “ordinary” life. She practiced extremely severe fasting as penance for the conversion of her nation.

Kateri Tekakwitha died the afternoon before Maundy Thursday. Witnesses said that her emaciated face changed color and became like that of a healthy child on her death. The lines of suffering, even the pockmarks, disappeared and the touch of a smile came upon her lips. She was beatified in 1980 and canonized in 2012. She is the patroness of ecology and the environment, people in exile and Native Americans. Her name, Kateri, is the Mohawk form of Catherine, which she took from St. Catherine of Siena.

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Saint Henry

Daily Saints

As German king and Holy Roman Emperor, Henry was a practical man of affairs. He was energetic in consolidating his rule. He crushed rebellions and feuds. On all sides he had to deal with drawn-out disputes so as to protect his frontiers. This involved him in a number of battles, especially in the south in Italy; he also helped Pope Benedict VIII quell disturbances in Rome. Always his ultimate purpose was to establish a stable peace in Europe.

According to eleventh-century tradition, Henry took advantage of his position and appointed as bishops men loyal to him. In his case, however, he avoided the pitfalls of this practice and actually fostered the reform of ecclesiastical and monastic life. He was canonized in 1146. He is the patron saint of the childless, of Dukes, of the handicapped and those rejected by Religious Order.

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St. John Jones & St. John Wall

Daily Saints

These two friars were martyred in England in the 16th and 17th centuries for refusing to deny their faith. On one hand, John Jones was Welsh. He was ordained a diocesan priest and was twice imprisoned for administering the sacraments before leaving England in 1590.

He joined the Franciscans at the age of 60. He ministered to Catholics in the English countryside until his imprisonment in 1596. He was condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. John was executed on July 12, 1598.On the other hand, John Wall was born in England but was educated at the English College of Douai, Belgium. Ordained in Rome in 1648, he entered the Franciscans in Douai several years later.

In 1656 he returned to work secretly in England. In 1678, Titus Oates worked many English people into a frenzy over an alleged papal plot to murder the king and restore Catholicism in that country. In that year Catholics were legally excluded from Parliament, a law which was not repealed until 1829. John Wall was arrested and imprisoned in 1678, and was executed the following year. These two John’s were canonized in 1970.

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Saint Lawrence of Brindisi

Saint Apollinaris

St. Justa and St. Rufina

St. Bruno of Segni

Saint Alexius of Rome

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Saint Bonaventure

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

Saint Henry

St. John Jones & St. John Wall

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