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Great Women, Great Saints
What does it take to be a great woman? Our culture seems to think that greatness requires an advanced degree from an Ivy League school, martial arts training, a flawless body, and/or loads of money. But the female saints that the Church celebrates in February offer a very different image of greatness. Saint Brigid of […]
Rejoicing in a busy calendar
No one likes to look at a busy calendar; it can seem overwhelming. The Church’s liturgical calendar can seem that way too. After Jesus Christ rose up into Heaven, the early Christians had to develop their own calendar of celebrations. Dates associated with our Lord, such as Easter, obviously came first. Over the centuries, as […]
Patron Saints of December
In ancient Rome, it was important to have a patron. That is, it was important to have a wealthy, powerful person to rely upon if you needed protection, money, a job, social contacts, or some other favor. The word “patron”, after all, comes from the Latin word for “father”. In that culture and time, becoming […]
Remembering All of the Saints
Who exactly do we remember on All Saints’ Day? The official liturgical calendar of the Church, the Martyrologium Romanum, says that the Solemnity of All Saints commemorates all the saints who are in Heaven with Jesus Christ. The Martyrologium Romanum also reminds us that, even though we are still pilgrims on earth, some human beings […]
Saint of the Day
June 27: Saint Marguerite Bays
Saint Marguerite Bays was born into a pious family of Swiss farmers in 1815. She never married, but she devoted herself to the care of those who were sick or poor in her community, and she supported herself as a seamstress.
Marguerite was deeply devoted to the Blessed Sacrament and our Lady, and she attributed the miraculous healing from intestinal cancer that she received to the Blessed Mother’s intercession. Attributing the cure to Mary was obvious since the healing occurred on December 8, 1854, the date that the pope declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. After her healing, Marguerite experienced Christ’s Passion every Friday. She died on this date, at 3 p.m. on a Friday in 1879.
Saint Marguerite, teach me how to draw close to Christ through His Passion.
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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