Saint Michael Center

AUGUST SAINTS CALENDAR
1.	Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1787)
	Saint Samona and Her Seven Sons (168 B.C.)
	Saint Faith, Saint Hope and Saint Charity (120)
2.	Saint Eusebius of Vercelli (371)
2.	Our Lady of the Angels
3.	Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1868)
3.	Saint Lydia (First Century)
4.	Saint John Marie Vianney (1859)
5.	Our Lady of the Snows (355-366)
6.	The Transfiguration (32)
7.	Saint Sixtus II (258)
	Saint Cajetan (Gaetano) (1547)
	Saint Claudia (First Century)
8.	Saint Dominic (1221)
8.	Saint Cyriacus (Fourth Century)
9.	Saint Romanus (258)
9.	Saint Edith Stein (1981)
10.	Saint Laurence (258)
11.	Saint Clare (1253)
	Saint Susanna (295)
	Saint Philomena (304)
	Blessed Peter Faber (1546)
12.	Saint Hilaria (Fourth Century)
13.	Saint Pontian (235) and Saint Hippolytus (236)
	The Death of Our Lady (58)
	Saint John Berchmans (1621)
14.	Saint Maximilian Kolbe (1941)
14.	Saint Athanasia (860)
15.	The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven (58)
	Saint Tarsicius (255)
	Saint Alfred (874)
	Saint Stephen (1038)
	Saint Beatrice (1490)
	Saint Rocco (1327)
17.	Saint Hyacinth (1257)
18.	Saint Helena (330)
19.	Saint John Eudes (1680)
20.	Saint Bernard (1153)
	Saint Ronald (1158)
	Saint Samuel (Eleventh Century B.C.)
21.	Saint Pius X (1914)
21.	Our Lady of Knock (1879)
22.	The Queenship of Mary
23.	Saint Rose of Lima (1617)
23.	Saint Philip Benizi (1285)
24.	Saint Bartholomew (72)
25.	Saint Louis of France (1270)
	Saint Joseph Calasanctius (1648)
	Saint Genesius (300)
	Saint Patricia (665)
26.	Saint Zephyrinus (217)
26.	Blessed Earl (1079)
27.	Saint Monica (387)
28.	Saint Augustine (430)
29.	The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (32)
30.	Saint Fiacre (670)
31.	Saint Raymond Nonnatus (1240)

He was born in 1696. He was in his ninety-first year when he died. He founded the Redemptorist Order in 1732. He became a Doctor of the Church by constantly preaching and writing about the Holy Eucharist and about the Virgin Mary. No saint is more complete or superlative in the praise of the virginal Mother of God than he. Three members of the Redemptorist Order have been canonized saints, thanks to the prayers and example of their father and founder, Saint Alphonsus Maria. These saints are: Saint Gerard Majella, whose feast day is October 16, Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer, whose feast day is March 15 and Saint John Neumann, whose feast day is January 5.

Among the Catholic men saints who have taken the name Mary are these: Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (August 1), Saint Anthony Mary Gianelli (June 7), Saint Anthony Mary Claret (October 24), Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria (July 5), Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer (March 15), Saint Louis Marie de Montfort (April 28), Saint Peter Louis Marie Chanel (April 28), Saint Vincent Mary Strambi (January 1), Saint Francis Xavier Maria Bianchi (January 31).

This is the feast of the heroic mother of Machabees, and her seven sons who were cruelly martyred one by one and encouraged to die by their mother for the true faith of Israel and the belief in the Messiah to come. Their story is dramatically told in the Second Book of the Machabees, Chapter 7. Their relics were brought to Constantinople by Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, ad later were translated to Rome.

These heroic little sisters, aged twelve, ten and nine, were martyred for the Catholic Faith in the early days of the Church. Saint Sophia, their mother, died three days after her little daughters were killed. She died of grief, and they by shedding of their blood for Jesus. Saint Sophia’s feast is September 30.

He was Bishop of Vercelli in northern Italy. The Arian Emperor Constantius banished him form his see for his strenuous opposition to the Arian heretics, who denied the divinity of Our Lord. Later he returned to his see where he was martyred by Arians.

We know in simple, childlike faith that the Blessed Virgin Mary is, in flesh and blood, holier, more beautiful, more powerful and closer to God in divine union that all the choirs and hierarchies of angels put together. Mary is the Queen of Angels. The angels obey her slightest command with royal, angelic love. A little ruined church, belonging to the Benedictines of Subasio, about a mile from Assisi and called the Portiuncula, which Saint Francis of Assisi repaired in 1207 and which had been named for Our Lady of the Angels, gave us the first feast of Our Lady under this title. It was on the feast of Our Lady, Queen of Angels, August 2, 1492, that Christopher Columbus, knowing there was a plenary indulgence granted to all who received Holy Communion on that day, went with all his crew to Mass, received Holy Communion, finished packing his boat-called the Santa Maria, the Holy Mary- and set sail for the New World. It took Columbus seventy-two days to cross the ocean. The day of his landing in America was a special feast of Our Lady, October 12, and we will speak of that day when it comes.

He was a French priest who founded a beautiful Religious Order known as “the Priests of the Blessed Sacrament.” He was a great advocate of early Communion for Catholic children. “A Catholic youth who had never made his First Communion,” he said, “may be regarded as lost to the Church.” He was a great friend to Saint John Marie Vianney, the Cur’e of Ars. After a long period of suffering from sickness and other trials, Saint Peter Julian Eymard died at the age of fifty-seven.

Saint Lydia was Saint Paul’s first convert on his second missionary journey. Later on, he stayed at her house, as we are told by Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles. Her home was at Thyatira, a city of Asia Minor.

This glorious parish priest was born in eastern France, three years before the French Revolution broke out. He was a simple farmer’s boy. He received his first Holy Communion secretly in a barn when he was thirteen years of age. He later began studies or the priesthood. Because of the simple innocence of his mind, he found it very hard to pass the seminary examinations. His great devotions were to the Blessed Sacrament and to Our Blessed Lady. After months of prayer to Our Blessed Lady, he finally obtained the favor of being ordained a priest in 1815. He got encouragement to pursue his vocation to the priesthood at the tomb of Saint John Francis Regis. He was first made an assistant pastor at Ecully, and later a pastor at the little village of Ars. He stayed there for forty-one years, until he died. He is always referred to as the Cur’e of Ars. So great was his sanctity that people from all over Europe came to see him. He used to spend from sixteen to eighteen hours in the confessional every day. Heads of the State, army officers, university professors, bishops and priest, all went to him for direction. Toward the end of his life, nearly 20,000 pilgrims visited him every year. Pope Pius XI proclaimed him the patron of all parish priests. He was one of the most loved priests in the history of the Catholic Church. Everyone remembers him either as siting in the confessional or kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament or before an image of Our Blessed Mother, always with the rosary beads in his hand.

During the night of August 4 in the year 355, in the middle of summer, snow fell on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, on the exact spot where Our Lady wanted a church to be built in her honor. She let a nobleman named John, and his wife, and also the Holy Father, Pope Liberius, know that that was her will. It took eleven years to build this lovely church of Our Lady in Rome. In the year 435, after it had been defined in the Council of Ephesus dogmatically that Our Lady was the Mother of God, this great church of Our Lady in the Eternal City was rebuilt by Pope Sixtus III.

Our Lady’s favorite church I Rome is on the Esquiline Hill. It was first called the Church of Our Lady of the Snows. It was also called the Liberian Basilica. But its prevailing name, and the name which is now holds, is the church of Saint Mary Major. Sometimes it is referred to as the Church of Saint Mary of the Crib because the crib in which Our Lord was placed when He was born in Bethlehem is kept in this church. The body of Saint Jerome is there, and the relics of Saint Matthias, the Apostle, who took the place of Judas among the Twelve. Saint Jerome died with his head in the crib where Jesus was born.

The Transfiguration of Our Lord occurred on a mountain in Galilee, one year before He died. Three Apostles were with Jesus at the time. They were Peter, James and John. This was a glorious mystery. The same three Apostles were with Jesus in the joyful mystery of the raising of the daughter of Jairus to like from her bed after she ad died, and in the sorrowful mystery of the Agony in the Garden, when Jesus sweat blood, the night before he died.

On the mountain of Transfiguration, the body of Jesus shone, radiant with light. Moses, the greatest writing prophet, and Elias, the greatest speaking prophet, of the Old Testament, came and stood beside Him there. It was at this moment that the voice of God the Father, the First Person and the Blessed Trinity-to show us the divine and adorable dignity of Jesus, true God and true Man, and transcending the majesty of any other being that ever had been in this world-said, “This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him.” The tree Apostles fell on their faces on the ground When they looked up, there was no Moses and no Elias. There was only Jesus, standing humbly beside them and telling them, as Mary’s Child, that they had nothing to fear.

He was Pope from 257 to 258. He was beheaded seated on his papal throne. While he was on his way to be executed, his deacon, Saint Laurence, ran up and asked him where he was going without his deacon. Saint Sixtus told Saint Laurence that he would follow him in three days, and so he did.

He was a saint in northern Italy who did valiant work to protect the Holy Catholic Faith there against the heresies and hatreds of the Protestant Reformation. He refused all ecclesiastical dignities. He devoted his life to the service of the sick and the poor. He founded an Order called the Theatines, named after a town in Italy. He died in southern Italy, in Naples, when he was sixty-seven years old.

She was the mother of Saint Praxedes, Saint Pudentiana, Saint Novatus and Saint Timothy, and the wife of Saint Pudens. It was the mother of Saint Pudens, Saint Priscilla, who was the hostess of Saint Peter when he went to Rome in the year 42.

He was the founder of the great Dominican Order known as the Order of Preachers. He was born in 1170 in Spain and died when he was only fifty-one years old. His mother, also a saint -- Blessed Jane of Aza (August 8) -- had had two sons who became priests, and wanted a third son who would be her heir. She prayed to Saint Dominic of Silos, whose holy death occurred in 1073 and whose feast day is December 20, and by his intercession her son was born. That is why he was called Dominic. She also saw at one that he was meant to be God’s heir and not her own.

Saint Dominic had his Order approved in 1216. Saint Dominic’s full name was Dominic de Guzman. The great apostolate of Saint Dominic was that of the most Holy Rosary. Saint Dominic was given the Holy Rosary by the Blessed Virgin Mary herself, in Toulouse, in France. Every time any Catholic says the rosary it is somehow an honor to the great Saint Dominic. Saint Dominic raised the dead to life and rescued Christians from the Albigenses.

Two hundred and ninety members of the Dominican Order-two hundred and sixty-six men and twenty-four women-have been declared blessed by the Catholic Church. And there are nineteen Dominican canonized saints-fourteen men and five women. Here are their names: Saint Dominic, Saint Raymond of Pennafort, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Albertus Magnus, Saint Peter the Martyr, Saint Hyacinth, Saint Antoninus, Saint Vincent Ferrer, Saint Pius V, Saint John of Gorkum, Saint Louis Bertrand, Saint Peter Gonzalez, Saint Martin de Porres, Saint John Massias, Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Catherine de Ricci, Saint Rose of Lima, Saint Agnes of Montepulciano and Saint Margaret of Hungary.

He was a deacon of the Church of Rome and was imprisoned, tortured and finally beheaded along with several others. He is one of the fourteen Holy Helpers and is invoked against eye diseases. March 16 was the day on which he died, but his body was enshrined on the eight of August.

He was a Roman soldier who witnessed the torments of Saint Laurence and was thereby converted. Saint Laurence baptized him while in prison and Saint Romanus also became a martyr.

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)Virgin and Martyr Edith Stein, born in 1891 in Breslau, Poland, was the youngest child of a large Jewish family. She was an outstanding student and was well versed in philosophy with a particular interest in phenomenology. Eventually she became interested in the Catholic Faith, and in 1922, she was baptized at the Cathedral Church in Cologne, Germany.

Eleven years later Edith entered the Cologne Carmel. Because of the ramifications of politics in Germany, Edith, whose name in religion was Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was sent to the Carmel at Echt, Holland. When the Nazis conquered Holland, Teresa was arrested, and, with her sister Rose, was sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Teresa died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1942 at the age of fifty-one.

In 1987, she was beatified in the Cologne cathedral by Pope John Paul II. Out of the unspeakable human suffering caused by the Nazis in western Europe in the 1930's and 1940's, there blossomed the beautiful life of dedication, consecration, prayer, fasting, and penance of Saint Teresa. Even though her life was snuffed out by the satanic evil of genocide, her memory stands as a light undimmed in the midst of evil, darkness, and suffering. She was canonized on October 11, 1998.

Saint Laurence was an archdeacon to Pope Saint Sixtus II. He was martyred there days after Saint Sixtus because he would not tell the pagans where the treasures were concealed for the Holy Father’s support of the parishes, the priest and the poor of Rome. Saint Laurence was martyred. He is buried in Rome in a church named for him. It is one of the seven great churches of Rome. Saint Stephen, the protomartyr, is buried beside Saint Laurence there. When Saint Stephen’s body was brought to the tomb of Saint Laurence, Saint Laurence’s lifeless body moved aside and extended a hand to welcome the body of Saint Stephen. Saint Laurence was a Spaniard by birth and is very greatly honored in Spain. His name is mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass. It is also recited in the Litany of the Saints.

She was the beautiful nun who took the veil from Saint Francis of Assisi when she was eighteen years old, and under his direction established the Religious Order of nuns known as the Poor Clares. She was born in 1193, and died when she was exactly sixty years old. Two years after she died she was canonized a saint. So radiant and childlike was her evangelical wisdom that Popes, cardinals and bishops all consulted her about their problems. Her sister, Saint Agnes of Assisi, five years younger than she- and whose feast is November 16-was with her when she died, and died three months after her. Saint Clare’s devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was so extraordinary that one day, when the Saracens were besieging Assisi and trying to enter the Convent of Saint Damian where she and her nuns lived, she lifted up a monstrance in which the Blessed Sacrament had been placed and called upon Jesus to put the Saracens to flight. They trembled before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and all of them fled in fright and never returned.

Saint Susanna, also known as Saint Susan, was a beautiful Roman maiden who was the niece of a Pope, Saint Caius. The cruel Emperor Diocletian martyred her because she refused to marry his pagan son-in-law. A beautiful church stands dedicated to her in Rome.

One of the glories of the last century was the discovery in 1802 of the relics of a young girl, a martyr, who had been buried centuries before in the tomb of Saint Priscilla. Her name, inscribed upon her tomb, was Philomena, which means beloved. Her relics worked so many miracles that the cult of her as a saint grew enormously. Her most ardent devotee has been Saint John Marie Vianney, the parish priest of Ars, who died in 1859. Saint Philomena was martyred by the cruel Emperor Diocletian who wanted her to marry him. Saint Philomena, the Catholic virgin, refused. And her blood was shed, after many tortures. Her feast is celebrated on August 10 at Mugnano in Italy, where her body rests.

He was the first of the companions of Saint Ignatius Loyola to be admitted to the Society of Jesus by the founder of that great society. Blessed Peter Faber labored all his life against the Protestant heretics of the sixteenth century. It was due to his influence that Saint Ignatius was able to win Saint Francis Xavier for the Society of Jesus. Saint Francis Borgia and Saint Peter Canisius both admit that they owe their vocations to his example. Whenever Blessed Peter Faber entered a town to preach, he always invoked his Guardian Angle. He also invoked the Guardian Angel of every person he spoke to. He was a great lover of obedience, and a great apostle of the Guardian Angels. He died when he was in his fortieth year, burned up with fever and consumed with love.

She lived at Augsburg and was the mother of the martyr, Saint Afra. Saint Hilaria was martyred at the tomb of her daughter.

Saint Pontian was Pope from 230 to 235. He was exiled to Sardinia where he died. Saint Hippolytus had been an antipope during the pontificate of Pope Saint Callistus. He was banished to Sardinia where he submitted to the legitimate Pope and urged his followers to submit also. He atoned for his sins by his martyrdom.

This feast is more lovingly called “the Dormition” (the Sleep) of Our Lady. For although she really and truly died, Mary’s death lasted for only forty hours, the same length of time as Our Lord’s death. Then, with her body incorrupt, Mary was restored to life and was assumed, body and soul, into Heaven. The Apostles, with the exception of Saint James who had died, and of Saint Thomas who was brought later, were miraculously transported from the parts of the world where they were preaching to attend the death of Our Lady in Jerusalem, when she gave up her immaculate and spotless soul to God. Saint Timothy, Saint Denis the Areopagite and Saint Hierotheus, his friend, were also brought miraculously to Our Lady’s bedside. Jesus Himself came down from Heaven to assist at Our Lady’s death. Just before Mary died, Jesus gave her the Blessed Eucharist, the Body and Blood which she had given to Him when she conceived Him at Nazareth. Our Lady was buried reverently by the Apostles at the foot of the Mount of Olives, just below the place where Our Lord had sweat blood on the eve off his Passion. It was not far from the grave where Saint Lazarus had been buried and was raised from the dead by Jesus.

Mary’s soul, during the interval when her virginal body lay dead, was able to visit the souls in Purgatory so as to comfort and to release them, just as Our Lord’s soul, during the three days He lay dead, went to comfort the souls in the Limbo of the Just. Our Lady was seventy-two years old when she died.

He was a young Belgian who entered the Society of Jesus when he was seventeen. He was one of the most brilliant and noble young members this Order has ever had. Sensing that he would not live long, he would say, “If I do not become a saint when I am young, I shall never be one.” His obedience to his superior was perfect. He declared, “May I die rather than violate deliberately the slightest order or rule.” His companions in the Society of Jesus called him “the cheerful brother,” for his very presence dispelled all gloom and sadness. His three great loves were: Jesus, Mary and the Rules of Saint Ignatius. He died holding his crucifix, his rosary and his rule book in his hands, saying, “These three things are most dear to me, and with these I die.” Saint John Berchmans was only twenty-two years old at his death. His great joy was to serve Mass. He has been declared the patron saint of all altar boys.

Maximilian was born in 1894 in Poland and became a Franciscan. He contracted tuberculosis and, though he recovered, he remained frail all his life. Before his ordination as a priest, Maximilian founded the Immaculata Movement devoted to Our Lady. After receiving a doctorate in theology, he spread the Movement through a magazine entitled "The Knight of the Immaculata" and helped form a community of 800 men, the largest in the world.

Maximilian went to Japan where he built a comparable monastery and then on to India where he furthered the Movement. In 1936 he returned home because of ill health. After the Nazi invasion in 1939, he was imprisoned and released for a time. But in 1941 he was arrested again and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

On July 31, 1941, in reprisal for one prisoner's escape, ten men were chosen to die. Father Kolbe offered himself in place of a young husband and father. And he was the last to die, enduring two weeks of starvation, thirst, and neglect. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1981. His feast day is August 14th.

He was a Polish Franciscan priest, completely dedicated to Our Lady, who founded the Militia of the Immaculata to convert sinners, heretics and especially enemies of the Church. The Marytown friary he set up in Poland and devoted to publishing grew to be the largest of the world. Saint Maximilian was an apostle of the Miraculous Medal of Our Lady. He died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz on August 14, 1941, having voluntarily taken the place of a prisoner who was condemned to death. He once said, “One day, you will see the statue of the Immaculata in the center of Moscow atop the Kremlin.”

She was a Greek woman who turned her house into a convent where many courageous Catholic girls went and lived as nuns. They called Saint Athanasia their abbess. She was an adviser to the royalty, including an empress, Theodora. The name Athanasia means immortal. Saint Athanasia is immortal in the love and veneration of the Catholic Church.

This is the day on which the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which did not know any corruption despite her heath, was reunited with her soul. She was on this day taken in full to the absolute heights of God’s love. To summarize how tremendous this event was to the angels in heaven and to the souls of the Just who were there in the Beatific Vision, and to Our Lord and to Saint Joseph who were both there in body and in soul waiting for her to come, the Holy Scripture tells us that at the moment of Mary’s entrance into Heaven, “There was silence in Heaven as it were, for half an hour” (Apoc. 8:1). Eternity almost stopped being eternity so as to receive into itself forever the supreme gift of all time, the Immaculate and ever-blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, the sole reason for which God created all angels and all men.

He was a noble young Christian killed while carrying the Blessed Sacrament to be given to Christians in Roman prisons. He died rather than let the Blessed Eucharist be violated by the crowed which attacked him. The angels protected Our Lord in the Eucharist from these heathens after his death.

He was a Benedictine monk and became Bishop of Hildesheim. He was one of the most devoted clients of Our Blessed Lady in the ninth century.

Saint Stephen was the great King of Hungary, after whom the famous Cathedral in Vienna, known as Stefandom, is named. Saint Stephen was crowned King of Hungary by command of Pope Sylvester II, in the year 1000. He dedicated the whole of his country to the patronage of the Mother of God. His son, Emeric, is a saint. Saint Emeric died in 1031 and his feast day is November 4. Saint Stephen filled his country with Catholic churches and monasteries. He was a royal and noble and saintly ruler who punished severely such crimes as blasphemy, murder, theft, adultery and the mission of Mass on Sunday. His great patrons in Heaven were Saint Martin of Tours and Saint George.

She was a daughter of a count of Portugal who went to Spain where she became a nun and founded an order dedicated to the Immaculate Conception. She was canonized in 1976.

He was the son of a French governor at Montpellier in France. His father and mother died when he was twenty. Though the heir of much wealth and fame, he renounced them all, gave his money to the poor and set off as a pilgrim to Rome, dressed as a beggar. Saint Rocco’s great devotion was to the Sign of the Cross. He cured countless people who were sick simply by making the Sign of the Cross over them. Once when he himself was sick, he withdrew to a cave, and while there a dog used to bring him his food miraculously. He spent the last five years of his life in a prison, completely forgotten by the world. Saint Rocco died when he was only thirty-two years old. When his body was found, the Sign of the Cross, which was miraculously printed on his breast from birth, revealed who he was. The city of Rome and, indeed, all Italians and numberless French, have great devotion to this young victim of God’s love.

Saint Hyacinth-called Saint Jacek in his native country-was one of the great saints of Poland. He has been called “the apostle of the North.” He traveled, preaching the Catholic Faith and bringing back to the Sacraments the peoples of Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Russia. He even went over to China and converted some of the Chinese. He was a Dominican priest and is lovingly commemorated by all northern Christians. He was a direct disciple of Saint Dominic.

There is no more loved or remembered royal woman among the saints than Saint Helena (also called Helen, Eleanor, Ellen, Eileen, Elaine) who was an empress and the mother of Constantine the Great. She became a Christian in 313. It was Saint Helena who discovered the True Cross In Jerusalem in 326, four years before she died. She built churches on Mount Calvary at Bethlehem and in the little town of Fostat in Egypt where the Holy Family went in flight when Jesus was a Child.

He was the founder of the Sisters of Charity of Refuge. He was the first great promoter of devotion to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He dedicated himself by vow to the Blessed Virgin when he was a young boy of fourteen. He became a priest at twenty-four. He has been called one of the greatest missionaries France has ever known. Thousands of people came to listen to Saint John Eudes preach, and thousands were converted. It was due to his influence that the Good Shepherd nuns were founded, patterned after the Sister of Our Lady of Refuge.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was a Frenchman. He was born in the year 1091. When he was twenty-two years old, he joined the Cistercian Order at Citeaux. He brought with him thirty companions, among whom were his father, his uncle and four of his brothers. His mother was dead. A short time later, he was sent to be the abbot and founder of a monastery at Clairvaux. He founded one hundred and sixty-three houses of his Order. He preached the Second Crusade to send Christians out to fight as soldiers against the Turks and stop the horrible things they were doing to Christian lands and Christian shrines and Christian customs and Christian peoples.

It is said of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux that he “carried the twelfth century on his shoulders.” His great and intense devotion was to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Saint Bernard wrote the lovely prayer to Our Lady called the Memorare, which begins, “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implore thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided.” It was Saint Bernard who added to the prayer, “Hail, holy Queen,” the invocation, “O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!”

Saint Bernard calls Our Lady, “Mother of Life” and “Mother of Salvation.” He says that as through her we received God, so through her God must receive us. As Saint Benedict, in his humility, refused ever to become a priest, so Saint Bernard, in his humility, refused ever to become a priest, so Saint Bernard, in his humility, refused ever to become a bishop. He was offered three bishoprics, each of which he declined. He is often portrayed in art with three mitres at his feet.

He was a Catholic prince in England who vowed to build a cathedral, and did so. He was killed by rebels.

He was one of the great writers of the Old Testament and is responsible for the First Book of Kings. The first two Books of Kings are sometimes called the Books of Samuel. He anointed Saul as King of the Jews and replaced Saul by David.

The glorious Saint Pius X died in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War after having been Pope for eleven years. There has been no more saintly, courageous or beloved saint of modern times than Pope Saint Pius X. He was the vigorous opponent of all the Liberalism that has been trying in modern times to make its way into the Catholic Church, to water down its dogmas and to tie up Catholics with false brotherhoods that have no relationship to Jesus or to the Divine Maternity of Mary. Saint Pius X was the great Pope of daily Communion for all, and of early Communion for children. No political influences could make him alter his assignment as Vicar of Christ on earth and the sole ruler of the world in all things that directly pertain to God. Saint Pius X approached the papacy by every simple step a priest could take. He was born in Riese, in Italy; he was a curate at Tombolo; a parish priest at Salzano; a canon at Treviso, and a spiritual director of the seminary there; he was Bishop of Mantua; Patriarch of Venice; and the Pope of Rome. His name was Giuseppe Sarto. The only credentials he offered for all he did were these; “I am a simple priest.”

On August 21, 1879, in the little village of Knock, in County Mayo, in Ireland, Our Lady appeared to a group of fifteen simple Irish peasants, grown-ups and children. Our Lady wanted to bring to the Irish people by this childlike approach a full appreciation of the mystery of her glorious Assumption and her Crowning as Queen of Heaven. She also wanted to renew in the Irish a great love for Saint Joseph, her virginal husband, and for Saint John the Evangelist, her virginal adopted son, who both appeared with her. This apparition at Knock was one of a series of many apparitions of Our Lady that occurred in the last century so as to let us know that the Age of Mary has arrived.

Our Lady appeared to Catherine Laboure, a little novice nun in Paris, in 1830. Our Lady appeared to two children at La Salette in France, in 1846, wanting them to guard and protect the Holy Name of Jesus and to keep Sunday a sacred day. Our Lady appeared to Marie Bernadette, a fourteen-year old child, at Lourdes in France, in 1858, four years after the dogma of her Immaculate Conception had been defined by that saintly Pope, Pius IX.

The Queenship of Mary refers to her absolute dominion over all creation by virtue of being the Mother of the King by Whom the world was created. Mary is the Virgin Mother who brought forth the King of Heaven and earth. She is, and should be called, Queen of All Creation. Everything we look at in the order of grace and of nature should be immediately related to her. Nothing is ever done by God, or ever was done, without Mary in His mind. Hers is the Sovereign Majesty of everything God made and of everything He bestows by grace. In the Litany of Loreto, Mary is called Queen twelve times. The authors and dispensers of this book love to call Our Lady, Queen of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, set up by Pope Pius XII in 1944, has been transferred to the Saturday after the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Saint Rose of Lima, in Peru, the patroness of South America and the Philippines, was the first canonized who was born in the New World. Her great model was Saint Catherine of Siena. Her baptismal name was beautiful and flower-like charm of her face, she was called Rose. And her bishop, at her Confirmation , gave her that name. Her full, religiously, was Rose of Saint Mary, a name miraculously given her by Our Blessed Lady one day as she prayed. Saint Rose of Lima was a Dominican of the Third Order. She died when she was only thirty-one years old. Through her intercession a dead person was raised to life. Five wonderful Catholic saints lived in Lima, in Peru, in the first half of the seventeenth century. They are (and their feast days and the year they died): Saint Rose of Lima, August 23, 1617; Saint Turibius, her bishop, March 23, 1606; Saint Francis Solano, July 14, 1610; Saint Marin de Porres, November 3, 1639; and Saint John Massias, September 18, 1645.

Saint Philip Benizi was a member of the Servite Order, known better as the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He wanted to give his whole life to God as a lay brother, but was forced by his superiors to become a priest. He became a General of his Order. He had to go away and hide himself to keep from being elected Pope. He assisted at the famous Second Council of Lyons in 1274, and had the gift of tongues there. He was one of the many well-known saints who raised the dead to life. He was only fifty-two years old when he died.

Saint Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles. He was the one Apostle of noble birth. That is why he is called Bartholomew, which means son of Tolmai. His name is also Nathanael. He was brought by Saint Philip to meet Our Lord. In the Holy Gospel of Saint John, Saint Bartholomew is called “an Israelite in whom there is no guile.” He lived in the town of Cana in Galilee, where Our Lord changed water into wine at the marriage feast. After Our Lord’s Ascension, Saint Bartholomew went as far as India, and then came back to Asia Minor; and then went to Armenia, where he was skinned alive and beheaded for the Catholic Faith. His major relics are now on a little island in the River Tiber, near Rome, where there is a church dedicated to him in perpetual love and memory.

He is the glorious King of France who was born at Poissy in 1215. He died fighting in one of the crusades to regain the Holy Land for Christians when he was only fifty-five years old. Saint Louis is the king who started the custom of genuflecting during the Mass when the priest said of the Son of God in the Creed: Et Homo factus est (And [He] was made Man). Saint Louis fought in two crusades, the last two. He redeemed the Crown of Thorns of Our Lord from the Benetians and built a beautiful chapel for it in Paris, called Sainte Chapelle. All of Saint Louis’ relics were destroyed by the Masons and the Jews during the French Revolution. But his memory will never die in France, nor in the whole Catholic Church. The city of Saint Louis, Missouri, was named for him by early American Catholics who came from France.

He was a Spaniard who went to Rome after being ordained a priest. There he beautifully took care of the education of young boys and girls. This was his great apostolate. For this purpose he founded the Order of Clerks Regular of the Pious Schools, also called the Piarists. The fruit of his work in central Europe and in Spain and Italy can never be measured. Saint Joseph was called “a second Job.” Every day for fifty years he visited each of the seven churches of Rome. Saint Joseph Calasanctius was ninety-two years old when he died.

He was an actor in Rome who, while taking part in a performance that ridiculed Christian Baptism, suddenly sensed the meaning of this sacred and beautiful liturgy and was sacramentally baptized. He was then martyred under Diocletian. Another noted actor who died under the same circumstances was Saint Porphyry, whose feast is September 15, and who was martyred in 362 by Julian the Apostate.

She was a beautiful little virgin of Constantinople, a member of a royal family. By way of consecrating herself to God, she ran away from home, went to Jerusalem, and then to Rome, where she became a nun. She died in Naples, and has become one of the patron saints of that city.

He was the sixteenth Pope. He ruled the Catholic Church as Christ’s Vicar for fourteen years. He did beautiful work in taking care of the burying grounds of the Christian martyrs of the early centuries. There were eleven million of these martyrs in less than three hundred years. Saint Zephyrinus is responsible for the use of metal and, indeed, gold-lined, chalices at Mass to hold the Precious Blood of Jesus.

He was a native of Normandy and served in the royal court. On his own estate he founded a monastery and became a Benedictine abbot. His French name is Herluin.

St. Monica was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa, who was much older than she, and although generous, was also violent tempered. His mother Lived with them and was equally difficult, which proved a constant challenge to St. Monica. She had three children; Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua. Through her patience and prayers, she was able to convert her husband and his mother to the Catholic faith in 370· He died a year later. Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious Life.

St. Augustine was much more difficult, as she had to pray for him for 17 years, begging the prayers of priests who, for a while, tried to avoid her because of her persistence at this seemingly hopeless endeavor. One priest did console her by saying, "it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish." This thought, coupled with a vision that she had received strengthened her. St. Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose in 387. St. Monica died later that same year, on the way back to Africa from Rome in the Italian town of Ostia.

She was one of the most heroically beautiful Christian women in all the history of the Church. She was married by arrangement to a pagan official in North Africa who was much older than she was. She bore him three children. Her oldest child was named Augustine. She did everything possible to bring this brilliant boy into the Catholic Church. She finally was able to do so after shoe followed him from Africa to Milan, where Augustine was baptized by Saint Ambrose in the year 387, when he was thirty-three years old. This was the great Saint Augustine, the Doctor of the Universal Church, without whose name and reputation and teaching there would be a great void in Catholic tradition. Shortly after the Baptism of Saint Augustine, Saint Monica died, in the town of Ostia, in central Italy, on her way back to Africa. One thousand years after the death of Saint Augustine, in the year 1430, Saint Monica’s precious body was translated from Ostia to Rome, and place in the Church of Saint Augustine there. This day has a special feast for itself, on April 9. Saint Monica was twenty-two years old when Saint Augustine was born,. She was only fifty-five years old when she died.

This famous son of St. Monica was born in Africa and spent many years of his life in wicked living and in false beliefs. Though he was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived and though he had been brought up a Christian, his sins of impurity and his pride darkened his mind so much, that he could not see or understand the Divine Truth anymore. Through the prayers of his holy mother and the marvelous preaching of St. Ambrose, Augustine finally became convinced that Christianity was the one true religion. Yet he did not become a Christian then, because he thought he could never live a pure life. One day, however, he heard about two men who had suddenly been converted on reading the life of St. Antony, and he felt terrible ashamed of himself. "What are we doing?" he cried to his friend Alipius. "Unlearned people are taking Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of our sins!"

Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the garden and cried out to God, "How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?" Just then he heard a child singing, "Take up and read!" Thinking that God intended him to hear those words, he picked up the book of the Letters of St. Paul, and read the first passage his gaze fell on. It was just what Augustine needed, for in it, St. Paul says to put away all impurity and to live in imitation of Jesus. That did it! From then on, Augustine began a new life.

He was baptized, became a priest, a bishop, a famous Catholic writer, Founder of religious priests, and one of the greatest saints that ever lived. He became very devout and charitable, too. On the wall of his room he had the following sentence written in large letters: "Here we do not speak evil of anyone." St. Augustine overcame strong heresies, practiced great poverty and supported the poor, preached very often and prayed with great fervor right up until his death. "Too late have I loved You!" he once cried to God, but with his holy life he certainly made up for the sins he committed before his conversion.

Saint Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church, was born at Tagaste in northern Africa. His early life was spent in wicked ways. But thanks to the prayers of his holy mother, Saint Monica, at the age of thirty-three Saint Augustine was baptized a Catholic, in Milan, by Saint Ambrose. He returned to Africa and was made Bishop of Hippo. He died at the age of seventy-six. His two great works, the “Confessions” and “The City of God,” are among the most notable writings of all Catholic teachers. The body of Saint Augustine now rests at Pavia, in Italy. Any one of the sayings of Saint Augustine lets us know the golden quality of his brilliant mind. He says that “the heavenly ladder by which God came into the world was the humility of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” Saint Augustine composed, along with Saint Ambrose, the beautiful hymn known as the “Te Deum,” which has twenty-nine verses, and which is often sung in Catholic choirs.

Saint John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus, but died one year before Him. Saint John the Baptist’s head was cut off by the wicked Jewish tetrarch, Herod Antipas, at the order of a horrid woman named Herodias. The head of Saint John the Baptist was given to Herodias by her daughter Salome, and served on a dish to her and her guests at table. Herodias took a bodkin and stabbed, again and again, the tongue that had rebuked her for her viciousness and impurity. This was the tongue that had greeted Our Lord with the salutation, “Behold the Lamb of God Who takest away the sins of the world.”

“He must increase and I must decrease,” said Saint John the Baptist, referring to Our Lord. By way of a symbol of this truth, Our Lord increased in death by being raised on a Cross on the hill of Calvary. Saint John decreased by being decapitated. Our Lord was six months younger than Saint John the Baptist, but lived six months longer than he did. Our Lord was crucified, and Saint John the Baptist beheaded, on the same day – March 25 – one year apart.

He was an Irishman who went to Meaux in France where he built a hermitage and eventually a monastery. So many pilgrims still visit his shrine that in France a taxicab is called a fiacre in consequence of the constant use of taxis in conveying people there. He is a patron of gardeners and is often depicted with a shovel.

He joined the Order of Our Lady for the Redemption of Captives (the Mercedarians), and succeeded Saint Peter Nolasco as its General. He gave away all his possessions so as to free Catholic slaves from Mohammedans. He was called Nonnatus which means “not born” because he was taken from his mother’s body shortly after she had died. He was only forty years old when he died himself and was born into eternity.

-from “Saints to Remember from January to December,” by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

AUGUST SAINTS