Saint Callistus I
Callixtus means «beautiful» in Greek. This Pope is famous for the Catacombs of St. Callixtus in Rome. He organized these catacombs, which have four floors and more than 20 kilometers of corridors. You can find the tomb of Saint Cecilia and the tombs of many martyrs here. He was a slave who was freed and […]
Saint John XXIII
Saint John Leonardi
John Leonardi founded the Company of Christian Doctrine, a group dedicated to teaching the catechism. He also founded the congregation of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God (first called the Reformed Priests), which for a time was joined with the community of Saint Philip Neri. He also served the Holy See as an […]
Saint Denis and Companions
Denis was the first bishop of Paris and, according to tradition, he was martyred together with Rusticus and Eleutherius. They were buried in the place where, later on, the famous abbey of Saint-Denis was built, just outside Paris. From the early ninth century, Denis began to be confused with another figure: a well-known theologian and […]
Our Lady of the Rosary
The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was first established to commemorate the remarkable victory at Lepanto in 1571, when Christian forces defeated the Turks in a decisive naval battle. That day happened to fall on a Sunday, when the Rosary confraternities in Rome were holding a solemn procession. The victory was attributed to […]
Saint Bruno
Bruno was born in Cologne, where he became a priest after studying at the cathedral school in Reims. Later, he returned to Reims as a teacher and director of that same school. A gifted master and theologian, Bruno left us two important biblical commentaries—one on the Psalms and another on the letters of Saint Paul. […]
Saint Faustina Kowalska
Saint Francis of Assisi
On October 3, 1226, in his hometown, Francis of Assisi asked to be laid naked on the ground. After hearing the Passion according to Saint John and while praying Psalm 141—“With my voice I cry to the Lord”—he reached the verse, “The righteous will wait for me, until you reward me,” and in that moment […]
The Holy Guardian Angels
On September 29, the liturgy used to celebrate all the angelic choirs together. That is why, for a long time, there wasn’t a separate feast for the Guardian Angels. The first time we see such a celebration is in Valencia, a city that, at the beginning of the 15th century, kept a special feast in […]
Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus
Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face (Thérèse Martin), born in Alençon (Normandy), personally asked Pope Leo XIII for permission to enter Carmel when she was only fifteen years old. The nine years she spent in religious life (she died of pulmonary tuberculosis on September 30, 1897, at the age of twenty-four) […]