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(1850-1917) Maria Cabrini was born in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, in northern Italy, the youngest of 13 children, only four of whom survived to adulthood. She was determined from her childhood to make religious work her life’s vocation. When Frances was 18, she applied for admission to the religious congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart […]

(1580-1623) In 1964, the embrace of Pope Paul VI and Athenagoras I, Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople made all the papers and was hailed as a step toward healing the 900-year-old rift between Rome and the Eastern Church. Today’s saint strove for similar goals 369 years before that momentous embrace. The Orthodox bishop of Brest-Litovsk (in […]

(316-397) St. Martin was born in what is now Hungary, the son of a military tribune and grew up in Pavia, Italy. Although his parents were pagan, Martin was interested in Christianity. When an imperial edict arrived, he was commanded to take up the sword and putting an end, so it seemed, to his desire […]

(400-461 AD) Leo’s pontificate took place in the middle of the fifth century (440-461) and was marked by a number of firsts: he was the first pope named Leo, and the first pope to be remembered as “the Great” (later, Gregory I and Nicholas I would also be accorded the honor). Leo is also the […]

(Died 304 AD) St. Theodore was born a heathen and as a young man went into the army. By associating with Christian soldiers, he became familiar with that faith and eventually embraced it. Following the example of many others at that time, he did not profess openly his beliefs. When his heathen comrades used to […]

(1266-1308) Today’s saint was born in Duns, county of Berwick, Scotland. The “Scotus” in his name is a derivation of “Scotia,” the Latin name for his native land. John received the habit of the Friars Minor at Dumfries, where his uncle Elias Duns was superior. After novitiate, John studied at Oxford and Paris and was […]

(658-739)      Willibrord was the son of the hermit St. Wilgis, who sent him to the Benedictine monastery of Ripon, England, under Abbot St. Wilfrid of York. After Wilfrid was deposed and exiled in 677/678, Willibrord also went into exile, spending 12 years in Ireland, where he became a disciple of St. Egbert. He was ordained […]

(1340-1391) Nicholas Tavelic (Croatian: Nikola Tavelić) was a Franciscan missionary who died a martyr’s death in Jerusalem on Nov. 14, 1391. A Croatian friar, he was beatified as part of Nicholas Tavelic, O.F.M. and companions, which included friars from Italy and France. All four members of his group have been declared saints by the Catholic […]

(First century) St. Zachary and St. Elizabeth were the father and the mother of St. John the Baptist, the last and the greatest of the prophets and the harbinger of Jesus. St. Zachary’s story is told in the first chapter of St. Luke. He spoke one of the three canticles of the New Testament, which […]