Author: Editor

(1881-1963) Pope John XXIII was born in the small village of Sotto il Monte in Italy. He was the fourth of 14 children born to poor parents who made their living by sharecropping. His given name was Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. He graduated from university with a doctorate in theology and was ordained a priest in […]

(Died 644) Paulinus was a Roman monk from St. Andrew’s monastery in Rome. St. Bede describes him as tall and thin, with a slightly stooping figure; he had black hair and an aquiline nose and was of venerable and awe-inspiring stature. He was sent by St. Gregory the Great in 601, with St. Mellitus and […]

(3rd century) St. Gregory of Tours tells us that this Denis was an Italian by birth and became a missionary bishop. With five companions he established a Christian center on an island in the Seine in the city of Paris. One of his companions was a priest called Rusticus, another a deacon called Eleutherius. They are said to […]

(4th century) Pelagia was a 15-year-old Christian virgin. Soldiers came in search of her, during the Diocletian persecution, in order to force her to offer publicly a heathen sacrifice. She was alone in the house. She came out to the soldiers and when she learned the order they had to execute, she requested permission to […]

(Died 303) St. Justina was born in Padua a city in the Veneto, northern Italy. Padua was a Roman province under the rule of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (r.284-305) who had mounted some of the fiercest persecutions of the early Church especially in the East of the Empire. The inhabitants of Padua were ordered to take […]

(c. 1030-1101) Bruno was born in Cologne, Germany, and became a famous teacher at Rheims. He was appointed chancellor of the archdiocese at the age of 45. He supported Pope Gregory VII in his fight against the decadence of the clergy and took part in the removal of his own scandalous archbishop, Manasses. A vendetta […]

(1905-1938) Faustina was born Aug. 25, 1905, in Poland, in the small village of Glogowiec. Her parents, Marianna and Stanislao Kowalski, were humble peasants. Baptized by the name of Helena, at the age of 7 she already felt the call to religious life, but without the consent of the parents, could not pursue it. The […]

(1182-1226) Francis was born in 1182 the son of a rich fabric merchant Pietro di Bernardone and a noblewoman from Provence, Pica. While his father was away on business (possibly to France), Pica had her newborn son baptized with the name Giovanni. It was Pietro who later began to call him Francesco (Francis in English), […]

(1798 -1856) Anne-Thérèse Guérin was born in Etables, France, but eventually became an American saint. Her life was shattered by her father’s murder when she was 15. For several years she cared for her mother and younger sister. She entered the Sisters of Providence in 1823, taking the name Sister St. Theodore. An illness during novitiate […]

Perhaps no aspect of Catholic piety is as comforting to parents as the belief that an angel protects their little ones from dangers real and imagined. Yet, guardian angels are not only for children. Their role is to represent individuals before God, to watch over them always, to aid their prayer and to present their […]