St. Julius

Feastday: April 12

From catholic.org

Saint Julius was the son of a Roman named Rusticus. He was elected Pope to succeed Pope St. Mark on February 6, 337. He was soon involved in the Arian controversy when Eusebius of Nicomedia opposed the return of Athanasius to the See of Alexandria in 338. Eusebius and his followers elected George, whereupon the Arians elected Pistus.

Saint Julius convened a synod in Rome in 340 or 341 that neither group attended, and in a letter to the Eusebian bishops, Julius declared that Athanasius was the rightful bishop of Alexandria and reinstated him. The matter was not finally settled until the Council of Sardica (Sofia), summoned by emperors Constans and Constantius in 342 or 343, declared Julius’ action correct and that any deposed bishop had the right of appeal to the Pope in Rome.

Saint Julius built several basilicas and churches in Rome and died there on April 12.

Read Full Post »

St. Paula

Feastday: January 26

Patron of widows
347 – 404

Saint Paula was born in Rome of a noble family on May 5, 347. She married Toxotius, and the couple had five children – Toxotius, Blesilla, Paulina, Eustochium, and Rufina. They were regarded as an ideal married couple. After the death of her husband in 379, she renounced the world, lived in the greatest austerity, and devoted herself to helping the poor.

She met St. Jerome in 382 through St. Epiphanius and Paulinus of Antioch and was closely associated with Jerome in his work while he was in Rome. The death of her daughter Blesilla in 384 left her heartbroken, and in 385 she left Rome with Eustochium, traveled to the Holy Land with Jerome, and a year later settled in Bethlehem under his spiritual direction.

She and Eustochium built a hospice, a monastery, and a convent, which Paula governed. She became Jerome’s closest confidante and assistant, taking care of him and helping him in his biblical work, build numerous churches, which were to cause her financial difficulties in her old age, and died at Bethlehem on January 26.

She is the patroness of widows. Her feast day is January 26.

Read Full Post »

St. Wilfrid

Feastday: October 12

633 – 710

Saint Wilfrid was born in Northumberland in 634. St. Wilfrid was educated at Lindesfarne and then spent some time in Lyons and Rome. Returning to England, he was elected abbot of Ripon in 658 and introduced the Roman rules and practices in opposition to the celtic ways of northern England.

St. Wilfrid was an outstanding personage of his day, extremely capable and possessed of unbounded courage, remaining firm in his convictions despite running afoul of civil and ecclesiastical authorities. He helped bring the discipline of the English Church into line with that of Rome. He was also a dedicated pastor and a zealous and skilled missionary, his brief time spent in Friesland in 678-679 was the starting point for the great English mission to the Germanic peoples of continental Europe.

His feast day is October 12th.

Read Full Post »

Sts. Marcellinus and Peter

Feastday: June 2

Died: 304

Saints Marcellinus and Peter were two 4th century Christian martyrs in the city of Rome. Very little is known about them.

According to Pope St. Damasus, he heard the story of these two martyrs from their executioner who became a Christian after their deaths. Marcellinus, a priest, and Peter, an exorcist, died in the year 304. According to a legendary account of their martyrdom, the two Romans saw their imprisonment as just one more opportunity to evangelize and managed to convert their jailer and his family. The legend also says that they were beheaded in the forest so that other Christians wouldn’t have a chance to bury and venerate their bodies.

Two women, Lucilla and Firmina, assisted by divine revelation, found the bodies, however, and had them properly buried.

Read Full Post »

St. Tatiana

Feastday: January 12

Patron of students

Very little is known about Saint Tatiana. She was born in Rome to a civil servant who secretly practiced Christianity. Her daughter was raised by his faith and she became a deaconess in the church.

She was captured by Emperor Alexander Severus who tried to torture and kill her at various times. Once she was supposed to be sacrificed at the temple when an earthquake came and destroyed the temple. On another occasion she was put in a cage along with a lion in a circus but the lion did not eat her.

She was finally given a death sentence and was beheaded on January 12.

Read Full Post »

St. Patricia

Feastday: August 25

St. Patricia according to legend, was of a noble and perhaps royal family in Constantinople. She fled to Italy to escape marriage arranged for her and became a nun. She then went to Rome and became a virgin consecrated to God. There she received the veil from Pope Liberius.

She returned to constantinople after the death of her father and distributed her wealth to the poor, and then went back to Italy. She planned to go to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage but died before she could do that in Naples.

She is a patron of Naples where it is believed that a vial filled with her blood reportedly liquefies thirteen hundred years after her death. Her feast day is celebrated on August 25.

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

St. Ulrich

Feastday: July 14

1029 – 1093

Ulrich was born at Regensburg in Bavaria (formerly also known as Ratisbon) in early 1029. His parents were Bernhold and Bucca, niece of Bishop Gebhard II of Regensburg.

He became a page at the court of Empress Agnes but opted for the religious life. He was ordained a deacon by his uncle, Bishop Nidger of Freising, and became Archdeacon and provost of the Cathedral.

When he found that his position had been filled while he was on a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem, he became a Benedictine monk at Cluny in 1052. He was ordained, was named chaplain to the nuns at Mareigny, but resigned when he lost the sight of an eye and then returned to Cluny.

He served as Prior at Peterlingen, was founding Friar of Ruggersberg Priory, but returned to Cluny, when he opposed Bishop Burchard of Lausanne for his support of Henry IV against the Pope. He was founding Abbot of the monastery at Zell in the Black Forest and of a convent at nearby Bollschweil.

He became totally blind in 1091 and died two years later, on July 10, 1093 at Augsburg. He was the author of Consuetudines cluniacences, on the liturgy and the direction of monasteries and novices. He was buried in the cloister, but three years later his body was brought into the church.

His feast was celebrated for the first time on 14 July 1139, and 14 July remains his feast day.

Read Full Post »

St. Eugene

Feastday: June 2

Died: 657

St Eugene was a native of Rome, born to one Rufinianus. He was was a Roman priest who had held various positions in the Church and was known for his charity and his sanctity.

He was consecrated Pope on August 10, 654, while his predecessor, Pope St. Martin I, was still alive, an exile and prisoner in the Crimea by order of Monothelite Emperor Constans II. Martin is reported to have approved the election, but many believed Eugene was a puppet of Constans. Eugene soon asserted his independence by refusing the Emperor’s demands that he acknowledge Peter as Patriarch of Constantinople and allow toleration of the Monothelites. Constans was furious, and only the capture of Rhodes by the Moslems in 654 and their defeat of Constans at the naval battle of Phoenix in 655 saved Eugene from sharing the fate of his predecessor.

He ascended in 655, and died on 1 June 657 of natural causes. His feast day is June 2nd.

Read Full Post »

St. Philip Neri

Feastday: May 26

Patron of Rome

Saint Philip Romolo Neri (21 July 1515 – 25 May 1595), also known as Apostle of Rome, was an Italian priest, noted for founding a society of secular priests called the “Congregation of the Oratory”.

Born in 1515 in Florence, he showed the impulsiveness and spontaneity of his character from the time he was a boy. His father was not successful financially and at eighteen Philip was sent to work with an older cousin who was a successful businessman. During this time, Philip found a favorite place to pray up in the fissure of a mountain that had been turned into a chapel.

After thanking his cousin, he went to Rome in 1533 where he was the live-in tutor of the sons of a fellow Florentine. He studied philosophy and theology until he thought his studies were interfering with his prayer life. He then stopped his studies, threw away his books, and lived as a kind of hermit.

In 1548 Philip formed a confraternity with other laymen to minister to pilgrims who came to Rome without food or shelter. The spiritual director of the confraternity convinced Philip that he could do even more work as a priest. After receiving instruction from this priest, Philip was ordained in 1551.

At his new home, the church of San Girolamo, he learned to love to hear confessions. Young men especially found in him the wisdom and direction they needed to grow spiritually. The numbers of the men who attended these meetings grew rapidly. In order to handle the growth, Philip and a fellow priest Buonsignore Cacciaguerra gave a more formal structure to the meetings and built a room called the Oratory to hold them in. They became officially known as the Congregation of the Oratory, made up of secular priests and clerics.

Philip was very serious about prayer, spending hours in prayer. He was so easily carried away that he refused to preach in public and could not celebrate Mass with others around. But he when asked how to pray his answer was, “Be humble and obedient and the Holy Spirit will teach you.”

Philip died in 1595 after a long illness at the age of eighty years.

Read Full Post »

St. Catherine of Siena – Doctor of the Church

Feastday: April 29

Patron Fire prevention
1347 – 1380

The 25th child of a wool dyer in northern Italy, St. Catherine started having mystical experiences when she was only 6, seeing guardian angels as clearly as the people they protected. She became a Dominican tertiary when she was 16, and continued to have visions of Christ, Mary, and the saints.

St. Catherine was one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day, although she never had any formal education. She persuaded the Pope to go back to Rome from Avignon, in 1377, and when she died she was endeavoring to heal the Great Western Schism.

In 1375 Our Lord give her the Stigmata, which was visible only after her death. Her spiritual director was Blessed Raymond of Capua. St, Catherine’s letters, and a treatise called “a dialogue” are considered among the most brilliant writings in the history of the Catholic Church. She died when she was only 33, and her body was found incorrupt in 1430.

Read Full Post »