Daily Saints

Saint Henry

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 In that year Catholics were legally excluded from Parliament, a law which was not repealed until 1829.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 Benedict, Abbot

Daily Saints

It is unfortunate that no contemporary biography was written of a man who has exercised the greatest influence on monasticism in the West. Benedict is well recognized in the later Dialogues of Saint Gregory, but these are sketches to illustrate miraculous elements of his career.

Benedict was born into a distinguished family in central Italy, studied at Rome, and early in life was drawn to monasticism. At first he became a hermit, where he experienced series of attempts of being killed and betrayal, it was only in Monte Casino where he founded the monastery that became the roots of the Church’s monastic system. After almost 1,500 years of monastic tradition his direction seems obvious to us. However, Benedict was an innovator.

No one had ever set up communities like his before or directed them with a rule. Benedict died on 21 March 543, not long after his sister, St. Scholastica. It is said he died with high fever on the very day God told him he would. He is the patron saint of Europe and students. St. Benedict is often pictured with a bell, a broken tray, a raven, or a crosier.

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Saint Veronica Giuliani

Daily Saints

Veronica’s desire to be like Christ crucified was answered with the stigmata. Veronica was born in Mercatelli, Italy. It is said that when her mother Benedetta was dying she called her five daughters to her bedside and entrusted each of them to one of the five wounds of Jesus. Veronica was entrusted to the wound below Christ’s heart.
At the age of 17, Veronica joined the Poor Clares directed by the Capuchins. When she was 37, Veronica received the stigmata. Her life was not the same after that.
Church authorities in Rome wanted to test Veronica’s authenticity and so conducted an investigation. Though she protested against it, at the age of 56 she was elected abbess, an office she held for 11 years until her death. Veronica was very devoted to the Eucharist and to the Sacred Heart. She offered her sufferings for the missions, died in 1727, and was canonized in 1839.

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Saint Augustine Zhao and companions

Daily Saints

Christianity arrived in China by way of Syria in the 600s. Depending on China’s relations with the outside world, Christianity over the centuries was free to grow or was forced to operate secretly.

Augustine Zhao Rong was a Chinese soldier who accompanied Bishop John Gabriel Taurin Dufresse of the Paris Foreign Mission Society to his martyrdom in Beijing. Not long after his baptism, Augustine was ordained as a diocesan priest. He was martyred in 1815.

The 120 martyrs in this group died between 1648 and 1930. Eighty-seven of them were born in China, and were children, parents, catechists, or laborers, ranging in age from nine years to 72. This group includes four Chinese diocesan priests. The 33 foreign-born martyrs were mostly priests or women religious. These 120 martyrs were canonized together in Rome on October 1, 2000.

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Saint Gregory Grassi and companions

Daily Saints

Gregory Grassi was born in Italy in 1823, ordained in 1856, and sent to China five years later. Gregory was later ordained bishop of North Shanxi. With 14 other European missionaries and 14 Chinese religious, he was martyred during the short but bloody Boxer Uprising of 1900. Twenty-six of these martyrs were arrested on the orders of Yu Hsien, the governor of Shanxi province. All these martyrs were beatified in 1946, and were among the 120 martyrs canonized in 2000.

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Blessed Emmanuel Ruiz and Companions

Daily Saints

Not much is known of the early life of Emmanuel Ruiz, but details of his heroic death in defense of the faith have come down to us. Born of humble parents in Santander, Spain, he became a Franciscan priest and served as a missionary in Damascus. This was at a time when anti-Christian riots shook Syria and thousands lost their lives in just a short time.
Among these were Emmanuel, superior of the Franciscan convent, seven other friars, and three laymen. When a menacing crowd came looking for the men, they refused to renounce their faith and become Muslims. The men were subjected to horrible tortures before their martyrdom.
Emmanuel, his brother Franciscans and the three Maronite laymen were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1926.

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Saint Maria Goretti

Daily Saints

She was the daughter of a poor Italian tenant farmer, had no chance to go to school, never learned to read or write. When she was only eleven years old, Maria suffered a brutal assault. After she refused the advances of an older farmhand named Alessandro Serenelli, he stabbed her multiple times. She was taken to the hospital, but her wounds were too severe, ultimately taking her life. In the last hours of her life, Maria forgave her attacker, expressing her wish that he would repent and turn to Christ. Devotion to the young martyr grew, miracles were worked, and in less than half a century she was canonized. At her beatification in 1947, her 82-year-old mother, two sisters, and her brother appeared with Pope Pius XII on the balcony of St. Peter’s. Three years later, at Maria’s canonization, a 66-year-old Alessandro Serenelli, who became a lay brother of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, knelt among the quarter-million people.

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Saint Anthony Zaccaria

Daily Saints

During the same time when Martin Luther was attacking abuses in the Church, a reformation within the Church was already being attempted. Among the early movers of the Counter-Reformation was Anthony Zaccaria. His mother became a widow at 18, and devoted herself to the spiritual education of her son. He received a medical doctorate at 22, and while working among the poor of his native Cremona in Italy, was attracted to the religious apostolate. Greatly inspired by Saint Paul—his congregation is named the Barnabites, after the companion of that saint—Anthony preached with great vigor in church and street, conducted popular missions, and was not ashamed of doing public penance. While on a mission of peace, Anthony became seriously ill and was brought home for a visit to his mother. He died at Cremona at the age of 36.

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Saint Elizabeth

Daily Saints

Elizabeth was a Spanish princess who was given in marriage to King Dennis of Portugal at the age of twelve. She was very beautiful and very lovable. She was also very devout, and went to mass every day. Elizabeth was a holy wife, but although her husband was found of her at first, he soon began to cause her great suffering. St. Elizabeth lived for eleven more years after the death of her husband, doing even greater charity and penance. she was a wonderful model of kindness towards poor and successful peacemaker between members of her own family and between nations.

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Saint Henry

St. John Jones & St. John Wall

Saint Benedict, Abbot

Saint Veronica Giuliani

Saint Augustine Zhao and companions

Saint Gregory Grassi and companions

Blessed Emmanuel Ruiz and Companions

Saint Maria Goretti

Saint Anthony Zaccaria

Saint Elizabeth

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