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Three “Ordinary” Saints of June
If you consider yourself to be an ordinary follower of Jesus Christ, you might find the descriptions of the lives of some of the most famous saints of the Church to be somewhat annoying. After all, your everyday life probably looks nothing like the daily life of Saint Louis IX, who was the king of […]
Easter Season and Incorruption
It is fitting that we commemorate Saint Rita of Cascia on May 22. This is fitting not only because it’s the date of her death, but also because the date is situated deep in the heart of the season of Easter. Only in the light of Easter can we understand one of the many remarkable […]
Saint Margaret of Castello
When I wrote my first book about saints, I believed it was important for it to include every well-known saint and blessed, as well as many lesser-known ones. After all, it had annoyed me greatly as an adult convert to find out that some great saints had been omitted from the only saint book I […]
Growing in Virtue this Lent with the Saints
Until my daughter began attending a Catholic high school, I thought I was a patient driver. After only one week braving stop-and-go traffic during rush hour on the beltway twice a day, I realized that I was not a patient driver at all. My patience had simply not been tested so regularly before. As Lent […]
Saint of the Day
June 28: Saint Heimrad
Saint Heimrad died in Germany in the year 1019, and so many miracles occurred at his tomb when people asked for his intercession that he became known as a saint. The details of his life appear to have been collected after his death.
Some of the stories about Heimrad’s life may have been embroidered upon, but what seems most certain is that he made many pilgrimages to holy sites when he was a younger man before becoming a Benedictine monk and hermit. Since he was essentially a homeless beggar as he traveled on these pilgrimages, some thought he was a crazy homeless beggar. But the miracles tell us otherwise.
Saint Heimrad, show me how to expect miracles from our Lord.
Want to read about a saint every day? The “Saint of the Day” blog posts for the entire month of June on this web site are designed to help you do that. Every day of the month of June, there’s a blog post about a holy man or woman you’ve probably never heard of, but who is formally acknowledged as a saint or blessed of the Church. Just like the book, Saints: Becoming an Image of Christ Every Day of the Year, these blog posts show you how to start (or interrupt or finish) your day with a brief, inspirational life story of a saint. Each biography concludes with a short prayer to help you identify some aspect of that saint’s life that might help you in your own spiritual life.
(Note that none of the saints in these blog posts are included in the book, Saints: Becoming an Image of Christ Every Day of the Year, but they are present in the Church’s latest official list of saints, the Martyrologium Romanum, dated 2004.)
As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, there is nothing new under the sun, and the problems we face today are often startlingly similar to the problems that holy men and women of the past faced in their own lives. Other blog posts discuss saints celebrated in the current month or who have something to teach us about our current difficulties, such as dealing with an epidemic or how to handle suffering.
The saints and blesseds of the Church teach us that holiness is possible for anyone, in any state of life, and in any historical time period. We only have to be open to God’s grace so that He can form us into images of Jesus Christ.
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