Saint Michael Center

APRIL SAINTS CALENDAR
5.	Saint Vincent Ferrer (1419)
8.	Saint Julie Billiart (1816)
9.	Saint Mary of Cleophas (First Century)
10.	Saint Ezechiel (Sixth Century B.C.)
11.	Saint Stanislaus of Cracow (1079)
16.	Saint Bernadette (1879)
17.	Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1680)
18.	Saint Apollonius (186)
19.	Blessed James Duckett (1602)
22.	Saint Soter (182)
23.	Saint George (303)
23.	Saint Euphrasia Pelletier (1868)
25.	This is the latest day on which Easter Sunday can fall. The earliest day Easter can occur is March 22.
25.	Saint Mark (68)
26.	Saint Cletus (90)
27.	Saint Zita (1278)
28.	Saint Peter Louis Marie Chanel (1841)
28.	Saint Louis Marie de Montfort (1716)
29.	Saint Catherine of Siena (1380)
30.	This is the earliest day that Ascension Thursday can occur. The latest day on which it can fall is June 3.
	Saint Pius V (1572)
	Blessed Marie of the Incarnation (1672)

He was one of the greatest saints of the Dominican Order. He was a Spaniard and was born at Valencia. He was one of the main forces that ended the Great Western Schism, a hardship of the Catholic Church, which lasted from 1378 to 1417, when two, and eventually three, cardinals, one at Rome, one at Avignon and one at Pisa, were all claiming to be Pope. Saint Vincent Ferrer had the gift of tongues. Speaking in his own language, all who listened to him could understand him in theirs. Saint Vincent Ferrer raised forty persons from the dead. He cured thousands of the blind, the lame, the deaf and the dumb. He extinguished a fire with one blow of his breath. A laborer at Valencia, who had fallen from a staging, was suspended by Saint Vincent Ferrer in mid-air until he brought him safely and slowly to the ground. A swarm of butterflies flew into Saint Vincent Ferrer’s room as he was dying. A great number of angels assembled there to take his soul to God. He was in his sixty-third year when he died.

At the age of fourteen, Saint Julie took a vow of perpetual chastity. Later, she became a cripple, but was miraculously cured when she was fifty-three years old. She founded the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1803. The French Revolutionists, in the horrible era of Napoleon, could not intimidate this courageous nun. She died when she was sixty-five years old.

She was one of the “three Marys” who followed Our Lord and stood at the foot of the Cross on Calvary when He died. She was the wife of Saint Cleophas, the brother of Saint Joseph. She was the mother of Saint Simon, Saint James the Less and Saint Jude, Apostles, and of Saint Mary Salome, the mother of the Apostles Saint James the Greater and Saint John. Saint Mary of Cleophas was put on a boat with others by the Jews in the year 47, and pushed out to sea without sails or oars. She died in France. The island in France where she landed, after her miraculous journey from Jerusalem, is called les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (“the Holy Marys of the Sea”), named for Saint Mary of Cleophas, Saint Mary Magdalen and Saint Mary Salome.

Ezechiel was one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament. He was put to death by a Jewish judge and buried in the tomb of Sem, one of Noah’s sons. Early Christians made many pilgrimages to the grave of this great prophet, Ezechiel, whom Catholics now call Saint Ezechiel on his feast day.

He was a saintly Polish archbishop who, because of his courage in teaching the unequivocal Catholic Faith, drew on himself the anger of King Boleslaus II, who one day entered a church where Saint Stanislaus was celebrating Mass, and split his head open with a sword. Saint Stanislaus of Cracow was only forty-nine years old when this happened.

Marie Bernadette Soubirous was a little girl who lived in southern France, in the town of Lourdes. When she was fourteen years old, Our Lady appeared to her eighteen times, in the year 1858. Marie Bernadette later became a Sister of Charity at Nevers. She died when she was thirty-five years old.

Blessed Kateri was an American Indian born at Ossernenon (Auriesville) in New York State in 1656. She was baptized at the age of twenty by a Jesuit missionary and lived a life of prayer, penance and care of the sick. She took a vow of perpetual virginity. On April 17, 1680, she died, at the age of twenty-four. The “Lily of the Mohawks,” as she is called, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980. In the United States her feast is on July 14.

He was a Roman senator who was accused of being a Christian by one of his slaves He stood on trial before the Roman Senate, and gave a most beautiful profession of his Faith in the Catholic Church. After this, he was taken out and beheaded.

He was a bookseller, in London. He was imprisoned and hanged for selling Catholic books after the Protestant Reformation had taken over England. As he was dying, this is what he said to his fellow countrymen: “It is as impossible for anyone to be saved outside the Catholic Church as it was for anyone to avoid the deluge who was outside Noah’s Ark.”

He was the thirteenth Pope and was martyred for the Catholic Faith. He was a great opponent of the horrible heresy of Montanism, which claimed that there are unforgiveable sins which even Jesus cannot absolve us from.

He is known as the “great martyr.” He was an officer in the army of Diocletian, the Roman Emperor. Because he refused to offer sacrifice to a pagan god, he was tortured and beheaded. Saint George is one of the fourteen Holy Helpers. He protects those who invoke him against skin diseases. Saint George is one of the great patrons of England.

She was the foundress, in 1829, of the Good Shepherd nuns. This is one of the most charitable and apostolic orders of women in the Catholic Church. The fruits of their work among poor and wayward girls are known everywhere. Saint Euphrasia died at the age of seventy-two. This was the same age as Our Blessed Lady when she died.

25. This is the latest day on which Easter Sunday can fall. The earliest day Easter can occur is March 22.

He was an Evangelist, the disciple of Saint Peter and the first Bishop of Alexandria, in Egypt, and the writer of the second Gospel. His full name was John Mark. He was a cousin of Saint Barnabas. His mother, Saint Mary, has her feast day on June 29. Saint Mark dropped the John from his name in favor of Saint John the Evangelist, who lived in his house. Saint Mark was martyred in Alexandria. His body was tied to a rope and dragged around the streets until he died, of bleeding and exhaustion. His body was taken in 828 to Venice, where a cathedral was built for him in 830, the famous Cathedral of Saint Mark in Venice.

He was the third Pope. He ruled the Church for eleven years before his cruel martyrdom. He was of Roman blood. He was the first Pope to set up parished in Rome. His name is mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass.

She became a little servant maid for a wealthy family in Lucca, in Italy, at the age of twelve. She worked for them all her life, and was sixty years old when she died. Because of her radiant sanctity in every simple and humble thing she did, she has become the patron saint of housemaids and domestic servants.

He was a French priest, a member of the Marist order, and a missionary to Oceania. He was martyred on the island of Futuna by cannibals he had come to convert.

He was born of poor parents, in France, ordained a priest in 1700, and died in 1716 when he was only forty-three years old. He founded the Order of the Daughters of Wisdom and also the Company of Mary (the Montfort Fathers). He was one of the greatest apostles of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the whole of Catholic history. His masterpiece on this subject, called “True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin,” may well make him one day a Doctor of the Universal Church. He revived the practice of saying the Rosary, first begun by Saint Dominic, which was being neglected in his day. The true practice of saying the Rosary, according to Saint Dominic and Saint Louis Marie, and to another dear apostle of the Holy Rosary, Blessed Alan de la Roche, is to recite it daily and always to keep the Rosary beads on one’s person and in one’s house. Saint Louis Marie de Montfort was a tall, handsome, noble and heroic priest, constant in the thought of Mary, the Mother of God, in everything he did and said.

She was the twenty-fifth child of a wool dyer and his wife, who lived in northern Italy. She became a Third Order Dominican at the age of sixteen. Though never educated in any formal way, she was one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day. This was because of special graces and inspiration give her by God. She succeeded in persuading the Pope to go back to Rome from Avignon, in 1377, and when she died she was endeavoring to heal the Great Western Schism, which had begun in 1378. Her letters, four hundred or more of them, and a treatise which is innocently called “a dialogue,” are among the most brilliant writings of the saints in the history of the Catholic Church. Saint Catherine was thirty-three years old when she died, the same age as Jesus at His death. Saint Catherine of Siena is the patron saint of Italy. By way of letting her know how much He knew she loved Him, Jesus gave her the wounds of the nails and the spear in her hands, her feet and her side. She was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

30. This is the earliest day that Ascension Thursday can occur. The latest day on which it can fall is June 3.

During the age of the so-called Reformation, in the sixteenth century, this was the greatest Pope. Saint Pius V ruled the one true Church for six years, from 1566 to 1572. He is the Pope who supported the Christians in their crusade against the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto. He set up the feast of the Most Holy Rosary. He put the invocation “Help of Christians” into the Litany of Our Lady. He is the Pope who valiantly supported all the decrees of the Council of Trent. He insisted on putting these decrees into effect despite the growing Protestant opposition of his day. Saint Pius V is the Pope who courageously excommunicated Queen Elizabeth of England. He was a great lover of Church music and liturgical observances. He restored the rite of the Latin Mass to the ancient Roman usage. The lovely prayer, Domine, non sum dignus (O Lord, I am not worthy) and the last blessing were put into the Mass by Pope Saint Pius V.

She was born in France, married at eighteen, widowed at twenty, and then became an Ursuline nun. In 1639 she came to Canada where she was the first missionary Sister. She was a great contemplative but led a most active life. She is called the “Mother of the Catholic Church in Canada.”

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

APRIL SAINTS