JULY SAINTS
The Month of the Most Precious Blood
1. Saint Aaron (Fifteenth Century B.C.).
Aaron was chosen by God to be the first High Priest of the Old Law. Aaron was the brother of Moses and Miriam. He belonged to the tribe of Levi, the clerical (Levitical) tribe of the Jews. Aaron lived fourteen hundred years before the coming of Christ. Aaron was the ancestor in blood and in priestly lineage of Saint Zachary, the father of Saint John the Baptist. Saint Elizabeth, the mother of Saint John the Baptist-who gave us the second invocation in the Hail Mary, “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb”-was, as we are hold in the Gospel of Saint Luke, “one of the daughters of Aaron.”
Aaron died, and was buried on a mountain (Mount Hor) just outside the Promised Land. Aaron as a priest was a type of what Jesus was to be. That is why he is honored among the saints. Jesus is the sole High Priest of the New Law. He gave us His Precious Blood in sacrifice at the Last Supper. And in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, administered by Catholic bishops-the successors of the Apostles-Jesus has given us the true priesthood of our day. Aaron’s priesthood perished on the first Good Friday with the rending of the veil of the Temple of Jerusalem. In the year 70 A.D., with the total destruction of the Temple, Aaron’s credentials were no more.
Feastday: July 1
Miguel Jose Serra was born on the island of Majorca on November 24, 1713, and took the name of Junipero when in 1730, he entered the Franciscan Order. Ordained in 1737, he taught philosophy and theology at the University of Padua until 1749. At the age of thirty-seven, he landed in Mexico City on January 1, 1750, and spent the rest of his life working for the conversion of the peoples of the New World.
In 1768, Father Serra took over the missions of the Jesuits (who had been wrongly expelled by the government)in the Mexican province of Lower California and Upper California (modern day California). An indefatigable worker, Serra was in large part responsible for the foundation and spread of the Church on the West Coast of the United States when it was still mission territory. He founded twenty-one missions and converted thousands of Indians. The converts were taught sound methods of agriculture, cattle raising, and arts and crafts.
Junipero was a dedicated religious and missionary. He was imbued with a penitential spirit and practiced austerity in sleep, eating, and other activities. On August 28, 1784, worn out by his apostolic labors, Father Serra was called to his eternal rest. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 25, 1988. His statue, representing the state of California, is in National Statuary Hall. His feast day is July 1.
(Source: Catholic Online)
2. This is the day on which Our Lady returned to Nazareth following her three month Visitation to her cousin, Saint Elizabeth. The feast of the Visitation has been transferred to May 31.
Saint Processus and Saint Martinian (67).
These were the guards of Saints Peter and Paul when they were kept in the Mamertime Prison in Rome. Along with forty-seven prisoners they were converted by Saint Peter. Since there was no water with which to baptize them, Saint Peter by his prayer caused to gush forth a miraculous spring which continues to flow to the present day. This lets us know that God will never fail to provide the water necessary for the sacrament of Baptism without which no one can enter Heaven. Saints Processus and Martinian were cruelly tortured and finally beheaded.
Saint Thomas the Apostle, who is also called Didymus, which means twin, was the great and outstanding apostle to the East after the death and resurection of Our Lord. Persia and India both leaned the true message of the Catholic Faith from this heroic and courageous soldier of the truth. It was Saint Thomas who baptized the Magi, in the year 40. In the year 58, he was miraculously transported back to Jerusalem, on the third day after Our Lady's death. It was his love for Mary and his eagerness to open her grave and see her body that revealed to all the Apostles and those gathered with him that she had been assumed into Heaven. Saint Thomas was martyred by being stabbed to death. His body is now reverently and lovingly kept in the town of Ortona in Italy.
Saint Thomas was the age as Our Lord. He was seventy –four years old when he died in the year 74 A.D. Saint John, the youngest of the Apostles, was eighteen when he was called, twelve years younger than our Lord, and died in the year 100 at the age of eighty-eight. Saint James the Less was the oldest of the Apostles. He was sixty-five when he was called and ninety-six when he died in the year 62.
4. Saint Elizabeth of Portugal (1336).
She was Queen of Portugal. She was the daughter of Peter II, King of Aragon. She was espoused when a young girl to Denis of Portugal. Her husband was a weak and unsaintly man. Elizabeth’s whole life as his queen was a trial. She considered the first of her queenly duties to be that of hearing Mass and reciting the Divine Office every day. Frequently reception of Holy Communion was her greatest joy. When her husband died, she took off her queenly robes and put on the habit of the Third Order of Saint Francis. She was the great grandniece of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, whose feast is November 17. She died when she was sixty-five years old.
He was a bishop of Cyrene in Lybia, and had great skill in copying holy manuscripts, especially those of the Holy Scripture. For refusing to give these sacred manuscripts to pagans to desecrate, he was seized, fiercely tortured and finally beheaded.
She was a noble woman in Germany who, after her husband’s death, became a nun and an abbess in the Benedictine Order.
5. Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria (1539).
He was born at Cremona in Lombardy, in northern Italy. He was first a doctor of medicine, and later became a priest. He founded the Clerics Regular of Saint Paul, who because they ministered to the people in the Church of Saint Barnabas in Milan, are called “the Barnabites.” Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria was only thirty-seven years old when he died, one year older than his patron saint, Saint Anthony of Padua.
Saint Blanche (Fifth Century).
She was an English woman whose husband and three children were also saints. She had to flee from England.
She was an Irish saint who lived near the River Shannon. She succeeded Saint Hilda as abbess of Whitby.
6. Saint Maria Goretti (1902).
Maria Goretti was a little Italian girl, almost twelve years old, martyred for the preservation of her purity. The young man who killed her was nineteen. He stabbed her with a dagger while she cried out in protestation of what he would do to her: “No! No! it is a sin! God does not want it!” Saint Maria Goretti is one of the glories of our century. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
Saint Isaias (Seventh Century B.C.).
The great prophet Isaias, who deserves to be remember as a saint on his feast day, was the one who foretold of the Blessed Virgin Mary-in Chapter 7, verse 14 of his great prophetical book-“Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel.” No reader of the Old Testament can ignore this prophecy. One who does not sincerely look in the Old Testament for the beautiful, virginal maiden who was to be its fulfillment, and one who does not immediately find her in Mary, the virginal spouse of Joseph, is an unbeliever and a desecrator of the inspired word of God. He pretends to love the Bible, while he ignores its greatest prophet and its greatest prophecy.
Saint Willibald was the son of Saint Richard, King of the Saxons, and the brother of Saint Walburga and Saint Winibald. He became a Benedictine monk and was later made Bishop of Eichstadt in Germany by Saint Boniface, the Apostle of Germany.
He was a king in England whose spiritual director was Saint Dunstan. He did wonderful things for the Catholic Faith in England.
9. Saint Veronica Giuliani (1727).
Saint Vernonica Giuliani was a Franciscan nun who lived in Italy. Because of her transcendent holiness, Jesus gave her visions, revelations and the imprint of His Five Wounds on her body. She died at Citta di Castello in Italy, when she was sixty-seven years old.
10. Saint Felicitas and Her Seven Sons (165).
There are three glorious mothers among the saints who were martyred along with their seven sons. They are: Saint Felicitas, Saint Symphorosa and, from the Old Testament, Saint Samona. This last is known as the Mother of the Machabees.
Saint Felicitas was a widow. She was tried with her seven boys before the Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Rome. She encouraged every one of her sons to shed his blood for the Catholic Faith. She stood by and watched each one of them as he suffered and died. Four months later on November 23, she was herself beheaded. But it is beautiful to put her in commemoration along with her seven sons on July 10, in the month of the Precious Blood of Jesus.
She was a Benedictine nun at Maubeuge in France.
This is the great Saint Benedict of Nursia, father of all Western monks. Saint Benedict was born in Italy, in 480. In 529, on a mountain called Monte Cassino, he built the first great abbey of the Benedictines. His twin sister, Saint Scholastica, became a nun and a saint. She died forty days before him, on February 10, and they were both buried in the same grave. Saint Benedict died on March 21, standing before the altar, just after he had received Holy Communion. In his humility, he never became a priest. His life was written by the Pope, Saint Gregory the Great. The Benedictine Order, as we are told in the martyrologies of its monasteries, has given the Catholic Church 57,000 known saints. This great Order has also given the catholic Church thirty-five Popes, of whom seventeen have been declared either Saints or Blesseds.
There have been twelve Popes named Pius. Three of them have been declared saints by the Church: Saint Pius I, who died in 167; Saint Pius V, who died in 1572 and who established the feast of the Most Holy Rosary; and the glorious Pope Pius X, who died in 1914 at the beginning of the First World War, and who was the Great Pope of daily Communion for all, and of early Communion for children. Saint Pius I was a martyr. He was the great opponent of the Gnostic heretics who contended that man could reason out things better than they have been revealed by God. This is still one of the great heresies of our day, and infects most colleges and universities in the United States.
Saint Oliver Plunket was born in Ireland in 1629. He was one of the successors of Saint Patrick as Archbishop of Armagh. He did everything possible to keep his people free from the horrors of heresy. He was taken to London and after a mock trial was hanged, drawn and quartered. With the words "desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ" on his lips, he shed his blood for the one true Faith.
She was the daughter of an Anglo-Saxon king. She became a nun at Rouen in France.
She was the wife of a Russian duke. After he was assassinated she ruled in his domain. Eleven years before she died she became a Catholic, and made every effort to introduce Christianity into Russia. Fruits of her efforts were fully accomplished by her grandson, Saint Vladimir a king, whose success was due to her inspiration. Saint Olga died when she was ninety years old.
12. Saint Veronica of the Veil (First Century).
The greatest and most loved Veronica of the Church is a heroic Gentile woman who met Our Lord on His was to Calvary, and wiped His sacred and bleeding face with her veil. This is commemorated in the Sixth Station of the Cross. Jesus left the imprint of His sacred face on Veronica’s veil. This veil is now kept in one of the pillars of Saint Peter’s in Rome, facing the altar where the Pope says Mass. Saint Veronica left Jerusalem after Our Lord’s death and came to Rome. She gave her precious veil to the Holy Father. Saint Veronica was martyred for the Faith.
13. Saint Henry the Emperor (1024).
The greatest of all the many saints named Henry is Saint Henry II, the Roman Emperor. He was a disciple of Saint Wolfgang, whose feast is October 31. He was the husband of the illustrious Saint Cunegunda, whose feast is March 3. Saint Henry the Emperor lived from 972 to 1024. He was fifty-two years old when he died. He was one of the great supporters of the Benedictine Order. Numberless Benedictine monasteries were built or restored by him. He himself wanted to become a Benedictine, but it was his destiny to become a king. Saint Pius X declared him the patron saint of all the Oblates of the Benedictine Order. Saint Henry and his wife Saint Cunegunda, lived in perpetual chastity during the hole of their married life. Though a king and queen, he lived like a monk and she like a nun.
She was a daughter of Saint Ermenburga. She was born in England and was educated in France. She gave up her title as a princess to become a Catholic nun. She was made an abbess. The Order to which she belonged was the Benedictines. She is one of the most loved saints in England. Thousands and thousand s of English girls have been named for her.
14. Saint Camillus de Lellis (1614).
He is one of the great patrons of the sick. He founded a Religious Order to take care of them. He himself suffered great sickness all his life, until he died, at the age of sixty-four. Doctors and nurses pray to him for help in caring for the sick. None who do so lovingly ever find him wanting. He lived in Rome, and the Order he founded is called “the Fathers of the Good Death,” or “the Camillians.” The last two words Saint Camillus spoke as he died were the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary.
He was a Spaniard who professed the Franciscan rule in one of the branches of that Order, know as the Observantines. He left Spain, and went to Peru, in South America. There he preached the one true Faith for twenty years. He converted thousands of Indians to the way of salvation in South America. He died at Lima, the town of Saint Rose, who was to be the first canonized saint of the New World. Through his intercession, the dead have been raised to life.
He was a Franciscan who died when he was fifty-three years old. His name in Baptism was John (Giovanni), and his last name was Fidanza. The name Bonaventure, which means good fortune, was given to him by Saint Francis of Assisi, who cured him of a serious illness when he was a small child. Many believe that Saint Bonaventure was the little boy taking the place of Jesus, put in the first Christmas crib built by Saint Francis of Assisi in 1223, and that he was two years old when he portrayed Baby Jesus. When Saint Bonaventure was twenty years old he became a Franciscan. Later, he was created Cardinal-Bishop of Albano. He was a great friend of the Dominican, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Saint Thomas Aquinas is known as the Angelic Doctor. Saint Bonaventure is called the Seraphic Doctor. Saint Bonaventure says of the Blessed Virgin that when she saw the love of the Eternal Father towards men to be so great that He willed the death of His Son to redeem and save us, she united Her will to His, and made an entire offering and consent to the death of her Divine Son on the Cross, that we might be saved. Thus did the Our Father and the Hail Mary blend together in the mind of this noble Doctor of the Church, Saint Bonaventure.
Saint Donald (Eighth Century).
He was a Scotch saint whose nine daughters, known as the Nine Maidens, all became nuns.
Saint Swithin, a most saintly monk and bishop in England, died in 862. His feast day is July 2. On July 15, 964, his relics were being carried to a church built in his honor. Torrents of rain fell on that day and delayed the translation of his body. This is the origin of the tradition that is it rains on Saint Swithin’s Day, July 15, it will continue to rain for forty days. This is not necessarily so. But it is nice to remember Saint Swithin in any connection.
Mount Carmel is the beautiful mountain, facing west, just north of the Holy Land. It is midway between the country of the Jews and the cities of the Gentiles. It is the mountain where the Prophet Elias dwelt and started the long tradition of contemplative life and prayer which still prevails in the Catholic Church. It was from the mountain of Carmel that the first group wanting to be baptized by water came down to Jerusalem on the feast of Pentecost. They were many Gentiles, with a few believing Jews. They were the first large group of official and sacramental Christians given to the Church. One of the fruits of the tradition of Mount Carmel has been the Carmelite Order. This is a religious group of both men and women which has given the Catholic Church such illustrious saints as Saint John of the Cross and Saint Simon Stock, among men, and Saint Teresa of Avila and Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, among women. It was on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in 1251, that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a Carmelite priest in England, Saint Simon Stock, and gave him the brown scapular. She promised that anyone who would wear this little emblem of love and loyalty to her would receive the grace of final perseverance. Such is the generosity of the Virgin Most Powerful, the Mediatrix of All Graces, in return for a simple favor of devotion shown her by those who truly want her to be their Queen.
These were the words spoken by the Mother of God to Saint Simon Stock with regard to the brown scapular: “This shall be the privilege for you and for all Carmelites that anyone dying in this habit shall be saved.” This privilege is extended to all the laity who are willing to be invested in this scapular, and who perpetually wear it.
17. Saint Alexis the Beggar (417).
He was born in Rome, and wishing to give up, for the sake of Our Lord, all honor and prestige left home on his wedding day, and set sail for Syria. He lived at Edessa, in Syria, for seventeen years. He prayed for hours and hours in church, and worked as a lowly servant in hospitals. He returned to Rome as a beggar, and died unrecognized in his noble father’s rich palace where he worked as a slave, and where he slept in a small room under the stairs. His parents came to know who it was they had been sheltering from a manuscript found after his death on his body, and written in his own hand. All the bells in Rome started ringing at the moment of the death of Saint Alexis, as a tribute to this selfless beggar, known as “the man of God.” There is a religious Order in the Catholic Church, founded in the fifteenth century, named for him and called “the Alexian Brothers.” They devote themselves to taking care of the old, and insane and those suffering from nervous collapse.
Blessed Chester (Ceslas) (1242).
He was a Dominican and a native of Poland. He was a companion of Saint Hyacinth and a disciple of Saint Dominic himself. He was the spiritual director of a duchess, Saint Hedwig of Poland. His Polish name is Ceslas.
He was one of the seven sons of Saint Symphorosa, all of whom, along with their mother, were martyred under the Emperor Hadrian. Saint Eugene’s father, Saint Getulius, had been martyred before the rest of his family.
Saint Frederick was a grandson of Radbod, King of the Frisians. He became a bishop as was murdered in his own church.
19. Saint Macrina the Younger (379).
She was the daughter of Saint Basil the Elder and Saint Emmelia and the sister of Saint Basil the Great, Saint Peter of Sebaste and Saint Gregory of Nyssa. She is called “the younger” to distinguish her from her grandmother, Saint Macrina the Elder.
20. Saint Margaret of Antioch (304).
She was a young girl from Antioch in Pisidia. Her father was a pagan priest. She was converted to the Catholic Faith by one of the servants in her house, and dedicated herself to Jesus as a virgin for life. Her father drove her out of his house. She then became a shepherdess on a hillside. Later, she was captured and brought back, and ordered to marry a pagan. She refused, and after many tortures, her head was cut off by the sword. She is one of the fourteen Holy Helpers, and is invoked for kidney diseases.
21. Saint Laurence of Brindisi (1619).
He was an Italian Capuchin, born at Brindisi in Italy. He died at Lisbon in Portugal. He converted thousands of heretics back to the Catholic Faith. He made countless thousands of sinners do penance and amend their lives. He was brilliant, simple and childlike preacher. Pope John XXIII made him a Doctor of the Church on the feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, 1959.
Saint Daniel (Fifth Century B.C.).
He is one of the four great prophets of the Old Testament. Though he died in Babylon, his relics have been brought to Venice and are kept there. He foretold exactly how many years would pass until the coming of the Messias, Our Lord Jesus Christ (Dan.9:25).
After Our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, whose Child was God, no one has more beautifully or nobly borne the name Mary than Saint Mary Magdalen, the sister of Saint Lazarus and Saint Martha. She is called innocently “the Penitent.” She was given the name Magdalen because, though a Jewish girl, she lived in a gentile town called Magdala, in northern Galilee, and her culture and all her manners were those of a Gentile. As referred to in Holy Scripture, she is, “Mary the penitent, “ Mary the sinner” and “Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus.” Fourteen years after Our Lord’s death, Saint Mary Magdalen was put by the Jews in a boat with out sails or oars-along with her brother and sister, Saint Lazarus and Saint Martha, and Saint Maximin, who bap5tized her, and Saint Sidonius, “the man born blind,” and her maid, Sara, and the body of Saint Anne, the mother of the Mother of God-and sent drifting out to sea.
The boat landed on the southern shore of France. Saint Mary Magdalen lived the whole rest of her life in France, as a contemplative in a cave known as Sainte-Baume, near a little town named Saint Maximin. Every day the angels carried her up into the air to hear their choirs singing. Every day she was given the Blessed Eucharist to be her only Food. Saint Mary Magdalen died when she was seventy-two years old. This was the same age as was Our Blessed Lady when she died.
23. Saint Bridget of Sweden (1373).
She was the noble and saintly woman who, in her widowhood, founded a monastery on the shore of Lake Wetten in Sweden. Her Order is known as the Bridgettines. One of her daughters is a saint, Saint Catherine of Sweden, who persuaded the man to whom she was betrothed to join her in a vow of chastity. The year before Saint Bridget died she had constant visions of Our Lord’s life and death and passion. She was even shown the humble cave at Bethlehem where Jesus was born, and she saw, at the moment of the Nativity, Our Lady kneel and adore Him, and exclaim, “O welcome, my Lord and my Child!”
Saint Apollinaris of Ravenna (79).
He was a disciple of Saint Peter the Apostle. He came with Saint Peter from Antioch to Rome. Saint Peter consecrated him the first Bishop of Ravenna, in eastern Italy. He performed great miracles there, and converted multitudes to the Catholic Faith. He was seized, imprisoned and beaten by his pagan enemies until he died. A beautiful church has been built on the spot where he was martyred.
She was a little martyr, ten years old. She was born in a town then called Tiro, on the boarders of Lake Bolsena, in central Italy. Her father was a Roman nobleman. She took the Christina because she had been converted to the teachings of Christ. Her father was furious when he heard she had become a Christian. He asked his servants to beat her and throw her into a dungeon. Angels came and healed her wounds. Saint Christina was then thrown into a lake with a millstone tied around her neck. Angels again rescued her, and bore her safely to land. She was then thrown into a burning furnace and stayed there for five days, singing God’s praises, and left totally unharmed. She was brought to the Temple of Apollo, and asked to sacrifice to the pagan gods. When she stood before the idol of Apollo, it fell and crashed to the ground. Her father died at that moment of a heart attack. But her enemies still persisted. They cut out her tongue, but she still continued to sing. She was shut up in a room with snakes, and at last, shot with arrows, she died. The Cathedral of Bolsena is dedicated to Saint Christina. She is the patroness of the Venetian States, the glorious little ten-year-old girl, a virgin, a confessor and a martyr!
25. Saint James the Greater (42).
Saint James the Greater, called Greater because he was larger in size than Saint James the Less, was the brother of Saint John the Vangelist and the son of Saint Mary Salome. He was the first Apostle to die. He was beheaded by the Jews in Jerusalem. He was the great Apostle of Spain. Our Lady appeared to him there on a pillar in the year 36, in the town of Saragossa, holding her Divine Child in her arms, and letting Saint James know what a great country for the Catholic Faith Spain would one day be. It was on a visit to Jerusalem that Saint James was martyred. After his death, his body was carried back to Spain. It was buried there, at Compostella, where it still remains. Saint James is the patron saint of Spain. The story of his beheading is told in Chapter 12 of the Acts of the Apostles.
Saint Christopher was converted to the Catholic Faith in Antioch, where the Chair of Saint Peter was before Saint Peter went to Rome. Saint Christopher was baptized by a saint, Saint Babylas. He was put to death under the cruel Emperor Decius. Saint Christopher is one of the fourteen Holy Helpers. He was a strong and vigorous man. In his charity, he used to carry frail people and little ones across the river, which had no bridge. One day, he carried a child, and found that the child he was carrying was Christ Jesus Himself. And so his name, which means Christ-bearer, beautifully blended that day with his work. Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travelers.
26. Saint Joachim (4 B.C.) and Saint Anne (3 B.C.).
Saint Joachim was the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His name is sometimes contracted into Heli or Eliacim, which means God has judged. God judged him to be worthy to be the father of the greatest of all God’s creatures. Saint Joachim’s wife was Saint Anne.
When Mary was born September 8, Saint Joachim knelt beside her for three whole days, looking upon her with awe and love and admiration. On September 12, he was inspired by God-as was Saint Anne, her mother –to give her the name Mary, which means both Lady and Star of the Sea. It was on September 15, the octave of Our Lady’s nativity, that Saint Joachim called his daughter Mary.
Saint Joachim was let known before his death that his child was to be the Mother of God. Mary was the only child of Joachim and Anne. Saint Joachim died when Mary was a consecrated virgin in the Temple of Jerusalem. She sent angels to guard her father in his last agony.
“Good Saint Anne” is the loving way many Catholics address the mother of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Mary, the Child of Saint Anne, was born fifteen years three months and seventeen days before the birth of Jesus. Fifty years after Saint Anne’s death, Saint Anne’s body was brought to France by Saint Mary Magdalen and her companions in the year 47. Countless churches have been dedicated to Saint Anne all over the world. Canada is particularly devoted to her, and has a beautiful shrine named for her there, called “Saint Anne de Beaupre,” to which people come from everywhere.
Simplicity is the secret by which we gain Saint Anne’s love, her intercession and her protection. Saint Anne taught her little daughter to read the Holy Scriptures. Mary was the fulfillment of all its prophecies. Sensing her daughter’s immaculate and incomparable holiness, beauty and brilliance, Saint Anne and Saint Joachim presented Mary in the Temple when she was three years old, and gave her to God and to us forever. The feast of this Presentation is November 21.
Sts. Joachim and Anne, Parents of Our Lady
He was the great Pope of the Council of Ephesus, which took place the year before he died. This was the council which condemned Nestorius, the bishop and heretic who denied the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Nestorius claimed that there were two person in Jesus, and Mary was the Mother of one, and God the Father in eternity the Father of the other. This is blasphemous heresy. There is only one Person in Jesus. That one Divine Person is both the Son of God and Father and the child of Mary the Virgin. It was Saint Celestine, the Pope, who sent Saint Patrick to be the great apostle of Ireland in 432.
He was a physician of Nicomedia who was martyred for the Faith. He is one of the fourteen Holy Helpers and is invoked against lung diseases.
Saint Lilian (Liliosa) was a glorious martyr who suffered at Cordova in Spain with her husband, Saint Felix. They were killed by the Mohammedans.
28. Saint Nazarius and Saint Celsus (68).
These were two heroic martyrs beheaded at Milan under the Emperor Nero. This was one year after the martyrdom of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The mother of Saint Nazarius was Saint Perpetua, a spiritual daughter of Saint Peter. The bodies of Saint Nazarius and Saint Celsus were discovered at Milan by the great Saint Ambrose, bishop of that city, in 395, two years before he died. Beside the body of Saint Nazarius was a phial of his blood, as fresh as when he was alive.
Saint Martha was the sister of Saint Lazarus and Saint Mary Magdalen. She was often hostess to Jesus in her house in Bethany. Fourteen years after the death of Jesus, Saint Martha, with her sister and brother, and others were put on a boat without sails and oars and pushed out to sea. Saint Martha and her companions landed in France. Saint Martha started a beautiful religious community at Marseilles. Saint Martha might well be called, “the mother of all active French nuns.” Her sister, Saint Mary Magdalen, could be called, “the mother of all contemplative nuns.”
He was a prince, son of a king of Norway, who was baptized as a Catholic when he was fifteen. When he finally became a king he called missionaries to Norway to make it a Catholic country. He was driven from his kingdom and was martyred.
30. Saint Peter Chrysologus (450).
Saint Peter Chrysologus was only forty-four years old when he died. Yet he has been declared one of the thirty-two Doctors of the Catholic Church. His name Chrysologus means golden speech. All his sermons are in the clear, simple, authoritative style of Our lord when He preached to the Apostles and told them how to preach to others. Saint Peter Chrysologus was the Archbishop of Ravenna in Italy. He was one of the great crusaders for frequent Holy Communion among the faithful.
31. Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1556).
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in Spain, was the founder of the Society of Jesus. He was born in 1491, one year before America was discovered. He died in 1556, at the age of sixty-five. He was at first a page at a royal court in Spain. He was then a soldier and was wounded in battle. When he recovered, because of his reading of the lives of the saints while in bed, he decided to dedicate himself to becoming a soldier of the Catholic Faith. His most astounding literary work is his book, The Spiritual Exercises, which has been the food and nourishment of countless souls since his time. There are one hundred and thirty-three members of the Society of Jesus who have been declared blessed by the Holy See. There are thirty-eight members of the Society of Jesus, including Saint Ignatius, who have been canonized as saints. Their names are: Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Francis Borgia, Saint Francis Hieronomo Saint John Francis Regis, Saint Peter Canisius, Saint Robert Bellarmine, Saint John Berchamans, Saint Stanislaus Kostka, Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez, Saint Peter Claver, Saint Paul Miki, Saint James Kisai, Saint John de Goto, Saint Isaac Jogues, Saint John de Brebeuf, Saint Rene Goupil, Saint Noel Chabanel,, Saint Charles Garnier, Saint Anthony Daniel, Saint John de Lalande, Saint Gabriel Lalemant, Saint Andrew Bobola, Saint Bernardine Realino, Saint John de Britto, Saint Joseph Mary Pignatelli, Saint Edmund Campion, Saint Alexander Briant, Saint Robert Southwell, Saint Henry Morse, Saint Nicholas Owen, Saint Thomas Garnet, Saint Henry Walpole, Saint Edmund Arrowsmith, Saint Philip Evans, Saint David Lewis, Saint John Ogilvie.
- from “Saints to Remember from January to December,” Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
St. Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits
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