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June 23: Blessed Marie of Oignes
Blessed Marie of Oignes was born into a wealthy family in Nivelles, Belgium, in 1167. Though she wanted to be a nun, she agreed to an arranged marriage when she was only fourteen, and she talked her husband into living chastely. Together, they made their home into a hospice for lepers, and she cared for […]
June 22: Saint Alban of Britain
Saint Bede, a great English saint and Doctor of the Church, wrote the best and only history of the early days of Catholicism in England. In his Ecclesiastical History, he wrote about today’s saint, Alban. Saint Alban was a soldier living in Britain during the late third or early fourth century, when it was ruled […]
June 21: Saint Leutfridis of La Croix
Saint Leutfridis was born into a noble and devout family—his brother is also acclaimed a saint—in Evreux, France, in the late seventh century. He became a teacher, then a Benedictine hermit, and then a founder of a new abbey. It’s said that when he was abbot, a fire started in the monastery; he prayed, and […]
June 20: Saint Gobain
Saint Gobain was born in Ireland, but he traveled to France in the company of another future saint named Fursey. Gobain decided to live as a hermit in a cell there and even built a church. Some traditions also say that marauding tribes from Germany invaded the countryside and that Gobain was killed by them […]
June 19: Blessed Michelina of Pesaro
Blessed Michelina (1300-1356) was born into a wealthy family of the Italian nobility. She married and had a son. But when both her son and husband died, she was still a young woman. Her grief overwhelmed her at first, but her maid, who was a faithful Catholic and is now known as Blessed Soriana, led […]
June 18: Saint Amandus of Bordeaux
Most of what we know about today’s saint, Saint Amandus, we know through the writings of one of his friends. That friend, Saint Paulinus of Nola (354-431), is known to us today as a father of the Church, that is, a leader in orthodoxy in the days of the early Church. According to his friend, […]
June 17: Saint Avitus
It is certain that Saint Avitus was the abbot of Micy in the French province of Perche, that he lived during the sixth century, and that his holiness caused those who knew him in life to call him a saint after his death. Other details are not so certain. Later traditions about Avitus may have […]
June 16: Saint Benno of Meissen
Saint Benno was a priest and a canon when he was made bishop of Meissen, Germany, in the year 1066. Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV was involved in a bitter dispute with the pope because Henry demanded the right to choose the men serving as bishops in his dominions, giving the king greater money and […]
June 15: Saint Benildus of Cordoba
On June 14, 853, a Catholic monk and priest named Anastasius was arrested by the Muslim rulers of Cordoba, Spain, for the crime of being a Christian. When he refused to renounce his faith, he was beheaded. Since this was done publicly and since there were still Catholics living in Cordoba, though practicing their faith […]
June 14: Saint Protus of Aquileia
Saint Protus served a wealthy, noble family in Rome during the late fourth century as tutor to the children of the family. As a Christian, he also taught the children about the faith. When the Roman emperor Diocletian began a vigorous persecution of Christians in the year 304, Protus and his students moved to Aquileia. […]
June 13: Saint Felicula of Rome
Catholics living in the city of Rome were persecuted sporadically but brutally for the first few centuries of the Church’s existence. Saint Felicula was living as a consecrated virgin—an early form of religious life for women—when the Roman empire renewed its persecution of Christians. She was arrested, thrown into prison, starved for two weeks, and […]
June 12: Blessed Mercedes Molina
Blessed Mercedes Molina was born in 1828 in Baba, Ecuador. She lost both parents by the time she was fifteen years old, and she went through a deep conversion soon afterward due to a serious fall from a horse. As a young woman, she became a nun, but then she founded her own religious order, […]
June 11: Saint Parisio
Two Italian cities claim Saint Parisio as their native son: Treviso and Bologna. Whichever is right, he spent most of his life in Treviso during the thirteenth century. Parisio was one of those rare saints who seem to have been pure and devout from childhood. He was allowed to enter the Camaldolese order when he […]
June 10: Blessed Henry of Treviso
Blessed Henry of Treviso was born into a poor family in Bolzano, Italy, in the thirteenth century. He never learned how to read or write, and he spent his whole life working as a day laborer. Yet this poorly dressed man with a long nose, who was sometimes ridiculed by children and strangers, was a […]
June 9: Blessed Joseph Imbert
During the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century, the anti-Catholic government imprisoned and killed many priests, nuns, and vowed religious. Blessed Joseph Imbert was born around 1720 in the city of Marseilles and became a Jesuit priest. He was the apostolic vicar of Moulins when he was arrested for being a faithful Catholic priest […]
June 8: Saint Mariam Chiramel Mandkidiyan
Saint Mariam Chiramel Mandkidiyan was born in 1876 in Trichur, India. Devout from a young age, she decided to give her life to prayer and service of the poor, sick, and lonely members of her parish. The prayer group she started even served those considered “untouchables” in India’s caste culture. She was only twenty-seven years […]
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