AGATHA
Memorial 5 February
Profile
We have little reliable information about this martyr, who has been honored since ancient times, and whose name is included in the canon of the Mass. Young, beautiful and rich, Agatha lived a life consecrated to God. When Decius announced the edicts against Christians, the magistrate Quinctianus tried to profit by Agatha's sanctity; he planned to blackmail her into sex in exchange for not charging her. Handed over to a brothel, she refused to accept customers. After rejecting Quinctianus' advances, she was beaten, imprisoned, tortured, her breasts were crushed and cut off. She told the judge, "Cruel man, have you forgotten your mother and the breast that nourished you, that you dare to mutilate me this way?" One version has it that Saint Peter healed her. Imprisoned further, then rolled on live coals, she was near death when an earthquake stuck. In the destruction, the magistrate's friend was crushed, and the magistrate fled. Agatha thanked God for an end to her pain, and died.
Legend says that carrying her veil, taken from her tomb in Catania, in procession has averted eruptions of Mount Etna. Her intercession is reported to have saved Malta from Turkish invasion in 1551.
Born in prison at Catania or Palermo, Sicily (sources vary)
Died martyred c.250 at Catania, Sicily by being rolled on coals
Name Meaning good
Patronage bell-founders, breast cancer, breast disease, Catania Italy, against fire, earthquakes, eruptions of Mount Etna, fire, fire prevention, jewelers, martyrs, natural disasters, nurses, Palermo Italy, rape victims, single laywomen, sterility, torture victims, volcanic eruptions, wet-nurses, Zamarramala Spain
AGNES of Rome
Also known as Ines; Ines del Campo; Ynez
Memorial 21 January
Profile
At age 12 or 13 Agnes was ordered to sacrifice to pagan gods and lose her virginity by rape. She was taken to a Roman temple to Minerva (Athena), and when led to the altar, she made the Sign of the Cross. She was threatened, then tortured when she refused to turn against God. Several young men presented themselves, offering to marry her, whether from lust or pity is not known. She said that to do so would be an insult to her heavenly Spouse, that she would keep her consecrated virginity intact, accept death, and see Christ. Martyr,
mentioned in first eucharistic prayer. On her feast day two lambs are blessed at her church in Rome, and then their wool is woven into the palliums (bands of white wool) which the pope confers on archbishops as symbol of their jurisdiction.
Died: beheaded and burned, or tortured and stabbed to death, or stabbed in the throat (sources vary) on 21 January 254 or 304 (sources vary) at Rome; buried beside the Via Nomentana in Rome
Name Meaning chaste; lamb; pure one
Patronage: affianced couples, betrothed couples, bodily purity, chastity, Children of Mary, Colegio Capranica of Rome, crops, engaged couples, gardeners, Girl Scouts, girls, rape victims, diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, virgins
Representation: crown of thorns; lamb; woman with long hair and a lamb, sometimes with a sword at her throat; woman with a dove which holds a ring in its beak; woman with a lamb at her side
Alice
Also known as Aleidis; Alethe; Aleth of Dijon
Memorial 4 April
Profile
Daughter of the lord of Montbard. Lay woman, married to a man named Tecolin. Mother of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and other holy children.
Died 1105; relics at Clairvaux
Representation: Christ appearing to Alice as she receives viaticum; standing with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
ANDREW the Apostle
Also known as Andreas the Apostle; Endres the Apostle
Memorial 30 November
Profile
The first Apostle. Fisherman. Brother of Simon Peter. Follower of John the Baptist. Went through life leading people to Jesus, both before and after the Crucifixion. Missionary in Asia Minor and Greece, and possibly areas in modern Russia and Poland. Martyred on an saltire (x-shaped) cross, he is said to have preached for two days from it.
Some peculiar marriage-related superstitions have attached themselves to Saint Andrew's feast day.
An old German tradition says that single women who wish to marry should ask for Saint Andrew's help on the Eve of his feast, then sleep naked that night; they will see their future husbands in their dreams.
Another says that young women should note the location of barking dogs on Saint Andrew's Eve: their future husbands will come from that direction.
On the day after Andrew's feast, young people float cups in a tub; if a boy's and a girl's cup drift together and are intercepted by a cup inscribed "priest", it indicates marriage.
There are several explanations for why Andrew became the patron of Scotland.
In 345, Emperor Constantine the Great decided to translate Andrew's bones from Patras to Constantinople. Saint Regulus was instructed by an angel to take many of these relics to the far northwest. He was eventally told to stop on the Fife coast of Scotland, where he founded the settlement of Saint Andrew.
In the 7th century, Saint Wilfrid brought some of the saint's relics with him after a pilgrimage to Rome. The Scots king, Angus MacFergus, installed them at Saint Andrew's to enhance the prestige of the new diocese.
When the Pictish King Angus faced a large invading army, he prayed for guidance. A white cloud in the form of a saltire cross floated across the blue sky above him. Angus won a decisive victory, and decreed that Andrew would be the patron saint of his country. Following Robert Bruce's victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the Declaration of Arbroath officially named Saint Andrew the patron saint of Scotland. The Saltire became the national flag of Scotland in 1385.
Born at Bethsaida
Died crucified on a saltire (x-shaped) cross in Greece
Name Meaning strong, manly
Patronage Achaia, Amalfi Italy, anglers, Burgundy, diocese of Constantinople, diocese of Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, fish dealers, fish mongers, fishermen, gout, Greece, Lampertheim, Germany, maidens, old maids, Patras Greece, Russia, Scotland, singers, sore throats, spinsters, University of Patras, unmarried women, women who wish to become mothers
Representation - fish; fishing net; man bound to a cross; man preaching from a cross; preacher holding some fish; Saint Andrew's cross; saltire (x-shaped) cross
St. Apollonia, who died
in the year 249, was martyred for not renouncing her faith during the reign of
Emperor Philip. The account of the life of St. Apollonia was written by St.
Dionysius to Fabian, Bishop of Antioch. Apollonia had all her teeth knocked out
after being hit in the face by a Christian persecutor under the reign of Emperor
Philip. After she was threatened with fire unless she renounced her faith,
Apollonia jumped into the flames voluntarily. She is considered the patron of
dental diseases and is often invoked by those with toothaches. Ancient art
depicts her with a golden tooth at the end of her necklace. Also in art, she is
seen with pincers holding a tooth.
ST. CHARBEL
Memorial: 24 December
Son of a mule driver. Raised by an uncle who opposed the boy's youthful piety. The boy's favorite book was Thomas a
Kempis' The Imitation of Christ. At age 23 he snuck away to join the Baladite monastery of Saint Maron at Annaya where he took the name Charbel in memory of a 2nd century martyr. Professed his solemn vows in 1853. Ordained in 1859, becoming a heiromonk.
He lived as a model monk, but dreamed of living like the ancient desert fathers. Hermit from 1875 until his death 23 years later, living on the bare minimums of everything. Gained a reputation for
holiness and was much sought for counsel and blessing. He had a great personal devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and was known to levitate during his prayers. Briefly paralyzed for unknown reasons just before his death.
Several post-mortem miracles attributed him, including periods in 1927 and 1950 when a bloody "sweat" flowed from his corpse. His tomb has become a place of pilgrimage for Lebanese and non-Lebanese, Christian and non-Christian alike.
Born: 8 May 1828 at Beka-Kafra, Lebanon as Joseph Zaroun Makhlouf
Died: 24 December 1898 at Annaya of natural causes
Beatified: 1965 by Pope Paul VI
Canonized: 9 October 1977 by Pope Paul VI
ST. GERMAINE COUSIN
Also known as Germana Cousin; Germaine of Pibrac; Germana
Memorial 15 June
Profile
Daughter of Laurent Cousin, a farm worker, and Marie Laroche. Her mother died while Germaine was an infant. A sickly child, she suffered from scrofula, and her right hand was deformed. Ignored by her father and abused by her step-family, she was often forced to sleep in the stable or in a cupboard under the stairs, was fed on scraps, beaten or scalded with hot water for misdeeds, real or imagined.
At age nine Germaine was put to work as a shepherdess, where she spent much time praying, sometimes using a rosary she made from a knotted string. She refused to miss Mass, and if she heard the bell, she set her crook and her distaff in the ground, declared her flock to be under the care of her guardian angel, and went to church; her sheep were unharmed during her absences. It is reported that once she crossed the raging Courbet River by walking over the waters so she could get to church.
Germaine was so poor it is hard to imagine she would be able to help others, but she was always ready to help anyone, especially children whom she gathered in the fields to teach a simple catechism and share the little food she had. The locals laughed at her religious devotion and called her 'the little bigot'.
Once in winter her stepmother, Hortense, accused her of stealing bread, and threatened to beat her with a stick. Germaine opened her apron, and summer flowers tumbled out. Neighbors and her parents were awed and began to treat her as a holy person. Her parents invited her to rejoin the household, but Germaine chose to live as she had.
In 1601 she was found dead on her straw pallet under the stairs, and she was buried in the Church of Pibrac opposite the pulpit. When accidentally exhumed in 1644 during a renovation, her body was found incorrupt. In 1793 the casket was desecrated by an anti-Catholic tinsmith named Toulza, who with three accomplices took out the remains and buried them in the sacristy, throwing quick-lime and water on them. After the French Revolution, her body was found to be still intact save where the quick-lime had done its work.
Documents attest to more than 400 miracles or extraordinary graces through the intervention of Saint Germain. They include cures of every kind (of blindness, both congenital and resulting from disease, of hip and spinal disease), and the multiplication of food for the distressed community of the Good Shepherd at Bourges in 1845.
Born 1579 at Pibrac, France
Died 1601, apparently of natural causes; relics interred in the church at Pibrac
Beatified 7 May 1864
Canonized 29 June 1867 by Pope Pius IX
Patronage: abandoned people, abuse victims, against poverty, bodily ills, child abuse victims, disabled people, girls from rural areas, handicapped people, illness, impoverishment, loss of parents, peasant girls, physically challenged people, poverty, shepherdesses, sick people, sickness, unattractive people, victims of abuse, victims of child abuse, young country girls
IGNATIUS of Loyola
Also known as Inigo Lopez de Loyola
Memorial 31 July
Profile
Spanish nobility. Youngest of twelve children. Court page. Military education. Soldier. Wounded in the leg by a cannonball at the siege of Pampeluna on 20 May 1521, an injury that left him partially crippled for life. During his recuperation the only books he had access to were The Golden Legend, a collection of lives of the saints, and the Life of Christ by Ludolph the Carthusian. These books, and the time spent in contemplation, changed him.
On his recovery he took a vow of chastity, hung his sword before the altar of the Virgin of Montserrat, and donned a pilgrim's robes. Lived in a cave from 1522 to 1523. Journeyed to Rome and the Holy Land where he worked to convert Muslims. Studied theology at Alcala and Paris, receiving his degree on 14 March 1534. His meditations, prayers, visions and insights led to forming the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) on 15 August 1534. He
traveled Europe and the Holy Lands, then settled in Rome to direct the Jesuits. His health suffered in later years, and he was nearly blind at death.
The Jesuits today have over 500 universities and colleges, 30,000 members, and teach over 200,000 students each year.
Born 1491 at Loyola, Guipuzcoa, Spain as Inigo Lopez de Loyola
Died 31 July 1556 at Rome
Beatified 27 July 1609 by Pope Paul V
Canonized 12 March 1622 by Pope Gregory XV
Patronage Basque country, Jesuit Order, Jesuits, retreats, soldiers, Spiritual Exercises (by Pope Pius XI)
PADRE PIO
Also known as Francesco Forgione; Padre Pio of Pietrelcina
Memorial 23 September
Profile: Born to a southern Italian farm family, the son of Grazio, a shepherd. At age 15
he entered the novitiate of the Capuchin Friars in Morcone, and joined the order
at age 19. Suffered several health problems, and at one point his family thought
he had tuberculosis. Ordained at age 22 on 10 August 1910.
While praying before a cross, he received the stigmata on 20 September 1918,
the first priest ever to be so blessed. As word spread, especially after American
soldiers brought home stories of Padre Pio following WWII, the priest himself
became a point of pilgrimage for both the pious and the curious. He would hear
confessions by the hour, reportedly able to read the consciences of those who held back.
Reportedly able to bi-locate, levitate, and heal by touch. Founded the House for the
Relief of Suffering in 1956, a hospital that serves 60,000 a year. In the 1920's he
started a series of prayer groups that continue today with over 400,000 members worldwide.
His canonization miracle involved the cure of Matteo Pio Colella, age 7, the son of a doctor who works in the House for Relief of Suffering, the hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo founded by Padre Pio. On the night of 20 June 2000, Matteo was admitted to the intensive care unit of the hospital with meningitis. By morning doctors had lost hope for him as nine of the boy's internal organs had ceased to give signs of life. That night, during a prayer vigil attended by Matteoīs mother and some Capuchin friars of Padre Pioīs monastery, the child's condition improved suddenly. When he awoke from the coma, Matteo said that he had seen an elderly man with a white beard and a long, brown habit, who said to him: "Donīt worry, you will soon be cured." The miracle was approved by the Congregation and Pope John Paul II on 20 December 2001.
Born 25 May 1887 at Pietrelcina, Benevento, Italy as Francesco Forgione
Died 23 September 1968 of natural causes
Venerable 18 December 1997 by Pope John Paul II
Beatified 2 May 1999 by Pope John Paul II
Canonized 16 June 2002 by Pope John Paul II at Rome, Italy
RITA of Cascia
Also known as Margarita of Cascia; Rita La Abogada de Imposibles
Memorial 22 May
Profile
Daughter of Antonio and Amata Lotti; known as Peacemakers of Jesus, they had Rita late in life. From her early youth, Rita visited the Augustinian nuns at Cascia, and showed interest in a religious
life, however, when she was twelve, her parents betrothed her to Paolo Mancini, an ill-tempered, abusive individual who worked as town watchman, and was dragged into the political disputes of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Disappointed but obedient, Rita married him when she was 18, and was the mother of twin sons.
She put up with Paolo's abuses for eighteen years before he was ambushed and stabbed to death. Her sons swore vengeance on their father's killers, but through Rita's prayers and interventions, they forgave the offenders.
Upon the deaths of her sons, Rita again felt the call to religious life, however, some of the sisters at the Augustinian monastery were relatives of her husband's assassins, and she was denied entry for fear of causing dissension. Asking for the intervention of Saint John the Baptist, Saint Augustine of Hippo, and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, she managed to bring the warring factions together, not completely, but sufficiently that there was peace, and she was admitted to the monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene at age 36.
Rita lived 40 years in the convent, spending her time in prayer and charity, and working for peace in the region. She was devoted to the Passion, and in response to a prayer to suffer as Christ, she received a chronic head wound that appeared to have been caused by a crown of thorns, and which bled for 15 years.
Confined to her bed the last four years of her life, eating little more than the Eucharist, teaching and directing the younger sisters. Near the end she had a visitor from her home town who asked if she'd like anything; Rita's only request was a rose from her family's estate. The visitor went to the home, but it being January, knew there was no hope of finding a flower; there, sprouted on an otherwise bare bush, was a single rose blossom.
Among the other areas, Rita is well-known as a patron of desperate, seemingly impossible causes and situations. This is because she has been involved in so many stages of life - wife, mother, widow, and nun, she buried her family, helped bring peace to her city, saw her dreams denied and fulfilled - and never lost her faith in God, or her desire to be with Him.
Born 1386 at Roccaparena, Umbria, Italy
Died 22 May 1457 at the Augustinian convent at Cascia of tuberculosis
Beatified 1 October 1627 by Pope Urban VIII
Canonized 24 May 1900
Patronage abuse victims, against loneliness, against sterility, bodily ills, desperate causes, difficult marriages, forgotten causes, impossible causes, infertility, lost causes, parenthood, sick people, sickness, sterility, victims of physical spouse abuse, widows, wounds
ROCH
Also known as Rock; Rocco; Rollox; Roque; Rochus
Memorial 16 August
Profile
French noble who early developed a sympathy for the poor and sick. While on pilgrimage Roch encountered an area afflicted with plague. He stayed to minister to the sick, and affected several miraculous cures, but contracted the plague himself. He walked into a forest to die, but was befriended by a dog. The dog fed him with food stolen from his master's table, and Roch eventually recovered.
When Roch returned to France, he was charged with spying. He languished in jail for five years, never mentioning his noble
connections, cared for by an angel until his death.
Born 1295 at Montpelier, France
Died 1327 at Montpelier or Angleria, France
Patronage bachelors, Barano, Italy, Castropignano, Italy, cholera, Constantinople, diseased cattle, dogs, epidemics, falsely accused people, invalids, Istanbul, knee problems, Orsogna Italy, Patricia Italy, plague, relief from pestilence, skin diseases, skin rashes, surgeons, tile makers.
Franciscan Crown Rosary
(Seraphic Rosary) Rosary of the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Franciscan Crown, or the Rosary of the Seven Joys of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, is an ancient sacramental treasured by the
Franciscan order. Father Luke Wadding, a well-known Franciscan
historian, dates the inception of this chaplet to 1422, the
entrance date into the novitiate of the order of an unnamed pious
young man. This young devotee of Mary had been accustomed, before
his entrance, to decorate a statue of the Virgin with crowns of
fresh flowers. This practice was forbidden to him in the
novitiate, and fearing a lack of devotion to his Queen, he
determined to leave the order.
In a vision, Our Lady appeared to him and told him, "Do not be sad
and cast down, my son, because you are no longer permitted to
place wreaths of flowers on my statue. I will teach you to change
this pious practice into one that will be far more pleasing to me
and far more meritorious to your soul. In place of the flowers
that soon wither and cannot always be found, you can weave for me
a crown from the flowers of your prayers that will always remain
fresh."
Thereupon, Our Lady requested the young friar to say one Our
Father and ten Hail Mary's in honor of seven joyous occasions in
her life: (1) the Annunciation, (2) the Visitation, (3) the birth
of Christ, (4) the adoration of the Magi, (5) the finding of Jesus
in the Temple, (6) the resurrection of Our Lord, and (7) the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin into Heaven.
As the vision faded, the overjoyed novice began to recite the
prayers as she had instructed him to do. While he was devoutly
praying, the novice master passed by and saw an angel weaving a
wreath of roses. After every tenth rose, he inserted a golden
lily. When the wreath was finished, the angel placed it on the
head of the praying novice.
The novice master demanded under holy obedience that the novice
explain to him the meaning of the vision. The novice complied, and
the novice master was so impressed with what he had heard that he
immediately told his brother friars. The practice of reciting the
Crown of the Seven Joys soon spread to the entire Order.
In later years, two Hail Mary's were added to make the total of
the Hail Marys equal to seventy-two, the number of years that Our
Lady is said by Franciscans to have lived on earth. A final Hail
Mary and Our Father were added for the intention of the Pope. In
the twentieth century, it has become customary to add a profession
of faith such as the Apostles' Creed to the recitation of this
crown. Additionally, since 1968 it has become customary to combine
the former third and fourth mysteries and to add two other
combined mysteries as the meditation for the fourth decade-the
presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the purification of the
Blessed Virgin.