11/26/2021 – St. John Berchmans
Eldest son of a shoemaker, John was born at Diest, Brabant. He early wanted to be a priest, and when thirteen became a servant in the household of one of the Cathedral canons at Malines, John Froymont. In 1615, he entered the newly founded Jesuit College at Malines, and the following year became a Jesuit […]
11/25/2021 – St Catherine of Alexandria
Saint Catherine of Alexandria is a canonized saint in the Catholic Church who, per Christian tradition, was martyred around 305 in Alexandria, Egypt. Of course, the Church of the first Millennium was undivided. She is also recognized as the Great Martyr and Saint by the Orthodox Church. There are no surviving primary sources attesting to […]
11/24/2021 – St. John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross was born Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, in Fontiveros, Avila, Spain in 1542. His father was employed by wealthy family members as an accountant, but they disowned him when he married a poor woman from the lower class. As a result of his family’s poverty, John’s family suffered greatly.
11/23/2021 – St. Columban
Columban was a native of Leinster, and seems to have been of a respectable family. Of the precise date of his birth we are not informed. According to some accounts it was about 559, but according to others it was several years earlier. He received a good classical education, and resolved early to embrace an […]
11/22/2021 – St. Cecilia
St. Cecilia is regarded as the patroness of music, because she heard heavenly music in her heart when she was married, and is represented in art with an organ or organ-pipes in her hand. Officials exhumed her body in 1599 and found her to be incorrupt, the first of all incorrupt saints.
11/21/2021 – The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Mary’s presentation was celebrated in Jerusalem in the sixth century. A church was built there in honor of this mystery. The Eastern Church was more interested in the feast, but it does appear in the West in the 11th century. Although the feast at times disappeared from the calendar, in the 16th century it became […]
11/20/2021 – St. Edmund the Martyr
St. Edmund the Martyr. Martyred king of the East Angles. He was elected king in 855 at the age of fourteen and began ruling Suffolk, England, the following year. In 869 or 870, the Danes invaded Edmund’s realm, and he was captured at Hone, in Suffolk. After extreme torture, Edmund was beheaded and died calling […]
11/19/2021 – St. Elizabeth of Hungary
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, also known as St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, was born in Hungary on July 7, 1207 to the Hungarian King Andrew II and Gertrude of Merania. As soon as her life began, she had responsibilities from being a royal pressed upon her. While Elizabeth was very young, her father arranged for her […]
11/18/2021 – St. Odo of Cluny
Odo is the glory of the great abbey of Cluny, which was responsible for a huge program of monastic and clerical reform under this great abbot. He was the second abbot of Cluny but began his religious life as canon of St. Martin of Tours, to whom he always had a deep devotion. He was […]
11/17/2021 – St. Rose Philippine Duchesne
St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, Virgin (Feast day – November 18) Born in Grenoble, France, in 1769, Rose joined the Society of the Sacred Heart. In 1818, when she was forty-nine years old, Rose was sent to the United States. She founded a boarding school for daughters of pioneers near St. Louis and opened the first […]