Blog
Latest Posts
Saint Therese of Lisieux: Day 7
Every human being has the experience of illness or injury from time to time, some of us more often than others. Whether it’s life-threatening or not, being sick forces us to do many things we don’t want to do and stop doing many things that we do want to do. Saint Therese recognized that she […]
Saint Therese of Lisieux: Day 6
In one of the most memorable passages of Saint Therese’s autobiography, The Story of a Soul, she describes a challenge she faced frequently after she had entered the Carmelite monastery. As the youngest member of the community, she was told to care for one of the oldest members of the community. The elderly sister needed […]
Saint Therese of Lisieux: Day 5
In the photo above, Saint Therese is shown in costume portraying the great French saint, Joan of Arc. Therese was a member of the Carmelite monastery of Lisieux at the time, and she not only starred as the great Saint Joan but wrote the play herself. Saint Joan, the “Maid of Orleans”, was criticized for […]
Saint Therese of Lisieux: Day 4
The late Father Benedict Groeschel was a Catholic priest, author, one of the founders of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and a psychologist. He once commented that Saint Therese of Lisieux was “spiritually precocious”, and there’s plenty of evidence to back up his professional assessment of her character. When Therese was at that delicate […]
Saint Therese of Lisieux: Day 3
Therese Martin was blessed to grow up in a loving family which practiced its faith regularly and lived a middle class life in France. Surely it was a comfortable, pain-free childhood that led her to become such a saintly young woman, right? Wrong. Therese’s family, like every family, knew tragedy first-hand. Four of the nine […]
Saint Therese of Lisieux: Day 2
When Louis Joseph Aloys Stanislaus Martin married Azelie-Marie Guerin in 1858 in Alencon, France, family and friends would probably not have been surprised to learn that both would someday become canonized saints. Both husband and wife were devout in the practice of their Catholic faith and had seriously considered religious life. According to some sources, […]
Saint Therese of Lisieux and Novenas
In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we learn that the members of the early Church—particularly Saint Peter and the other apostles along with the Blessed Mother—spent the nine days between Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven and the day of Pentecost devoted to one specific activity: prayer. Catholics have been praying novenas ever […]
Another French Saint for the Poor
Saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) only wanted to have a comfortable life as a priest in France, and it certainly appeared that the bright young man would get his wish quickly. But everything changed when he was serving as a tutor for the children of a count. In 1617, he was staying in the countryside […]
A Forgotten Saint
It was an innovative and (to some) scandalous idea at the time: letting nuns organize retreats. But when Saint Teresa (Therese) Couderc (1805-1885) was still a member of a teaching order of nuns and was invited by the priest-founder of her order to help him establish an order of nuns to run retreat houses, she […]
A French Saint for Teachers
As previous posts this month have demonstrated, many French Catholics, particularly priests, were executed during the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. Today’s saint, Marie Guillemette Emily de Rodat (called Emily by her family and friends), was born in 1787 and was therefore a young girl living in a remote area of […]
A Holy French Shepherd
When the man known to us now as Saint Peter of Tarentaise (1102-1174) was only twenty years old, he was so convinced of God’s call to religious life that he joined a Cistercian monastery in the Tarentaise hills of France—and he talked multiple relatives into entering religious life as well at the same time. Later, […]
Another French Saint of the Prisons
In 1795, the brutal violence of the French Revolution had burned itself out. Prison hulks (unseaworthy ships that were used to warehouse prisoners) in the city of Rochefort were emptied, and the prisoners were released. Many of those who had been incarcerated in these hulks were Catholic priests and religious, whose only crime was refusing […]
A French Saint for Former Slaves
Over the centuries, France has sent missionaries to many corners of the globe to preach and serve those who have never heard the Gospel before. One of them, Blessed Jacques-Desire Laval, is a more recent example. Born into a pious family of simple farmers in 1803, Jacques initially decided to become a medical doctor. But […]
A French Saint for the Poor
When most people think of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society—a charitable organization that currently serves needy people all over the world—they think of Saint Vincent de Paul. Father Vincent is indeed celebrated by the Church on another day in September, but he wasn’t the original founder of the organization that bears his name. Blessed […]
A French Saint for Trauma Survivors
When Saint Cloud (sometimes called Clodoald) was born in the year 522 in France, he was the son of a prince. His father, Clodomir, was killed in battle when he was still young, so Cloud and his two brothers were raised by their doting and faithful grandmother, Saint Clotilda. However, dysfunctional families are not a […]
A French Saint of the Prisons
During the French Revolution, some regions of France were safer for Catholic priests than others. Blessed Scipion Jerome Brigeat Lambert (1733-1794) had become a priest and vicar general for his diocese, but he fled to his hometown to escape the anti-Catholic violence that was sweeping the countryside. Unfortunately, officials from the Revolutionary government found him. […]
Sign up to Dawn’s Newsletter
Want to keep up to date with Dawn’s latest posts and occasional newsletters?