Saint Francis Borgia – Second Founder of the Jesuits

Saint Francis Borgia (1510 - 1572) was a true renaissance man, who lived two lives in one - first, as a married layman, then...

Saint Denis of Paris and Saint John Leonardi of Lucca

Besides the great John Henry Newman, we also commemorate two other saints on this day: Saint Denis, patron of Paris, was the first bishop of...

Newman the Kindly Prophet

Although he died on August 11th, in 1890, the Church commemorates Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman on October 9th. For it was on this...

Fortunate Faustina and the Divine Mercy

Today we celebrate one of the newest of saints in the liturgical calendar, placed therein only a few years ago, with October 5th, the...

Saint Francis: A Most Radical Man

There are as many ways to follow Christ as there are humans beings, even if many seem not to avail themselves of the grace...

Angels Guardian

This memorial of the Guardian Angels goes back to the year 1500, the very dawn of the Protestant ‘Reformation’, seventeen years before Luther would...

Thérèse of Lisieux of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face

On the first day of October we celebrate the Saint of the Little Way, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face...

Saint Jerome’s Holy Vulgarity

All saints change history, often in ways that are mysterious and opaque, but at times more obviously. Such is Saint Jerome (347 - 420),...

Wenceslaus and Lorenzo, Incidental Martyrs

This is not the stuff of which martyrs are made - So purportedly said Thomas More, who loved all the good things of life,...

Blessed Hermanus Contractus

Hermanus of Reinchenau (1013 – 1054) called ‘Contractus’ due to the deformity purportedly caused by spina bifida and a cleft palate (as well as...