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July Saints: What makes a great (Catholic) leader?
One of the advantages of reading about a few saints each day is that you learn about hundreds of saints in the course of a year. One of the disadvantages is that it becomes difficult to “see the forest for the trees”; that is, it’s hard to notice what similar saints teach us. In the […]
June: A Month for Martyrs
June is traditionally known as the month of the Sacred Heart, but it could also be known as the month of martyrs because there are so many great witnesses to the faith on the Church’s calendar for June. The month ends with the First Martyrs of Rome, the title given to the Christian men and […]
Saint Makers of the Month of May
Proverbs 27:17 teaches us that, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (RSV).” Nowhere is this more obvious than in the saints of the Church in the month of May. Some saints have a particular gift for inspiring other men and women to become saints. Of course, there are many saints and blesseds commemorated […]
Saints of the Month of May
Want to find out what my book about saints is like before you buy it? Search for a date in the month of May. I created short biographies of lesser-known saints and blesseds for every day in May, and none of them are included in my book. Blessed Columba of Rieti (feast day May 20), […]
Saint of the Day
June 25: Saints Dominic Henares and Francis Do Minh Chieu
Saint Dominic Henares was born in Spain in 1765 and became a Dominican priest. He was sent to Vietnam in 1803 and served the Catholics there as their bishop.
Saint Francis Do Minh Chieu was born in Vietnam around 1797 into a Christian home and became a lay catechist. He particularly helped priests and served as an aide to Bishop Dominic.
When the persecution of Catholics in Vietnam intensified, both men were arrested. For their refusal to give up their faith, they were martyred by beheading on this date in 1838.
Holy Martyrs, show me how to stay faithful to Christ.
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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