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Saint Agatha, virgin and martyr (February 5th)

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Of the Saints and Feast Days celebrated this week: February 2nd - Feast of the Presentation of the Lord February 3rd - Saint Blaise, Bishop and Martyr February 3rd - Saint Ansgar, Bishop  February 3rd - Bl. Joachim of Siena, OSM February 5th - Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr  February 6th - Saint Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs  February 8th - 5th SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (A) February 8th - Saint Jerome Emiliani February 8th - Saint Josephine Bakhita, Virgin I’ve chosen to write about Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr Like many other other women martyrs of the early Church – St. Agnes of Rome  (Jan. 21st) , St. Cecilia (Nov. 22nd) , St. Barbara (Dec. 4th) , St. Lucy (Dec. 13th) – the future St. Agatha , born in 231 AD in Catania in the Roman Province of Sicily to Christian parents, was pressured by a powerful man, a Roman (pagan) prefect named Quintianus, to marry him.  She refused. Quintianus threatened her with torture, then had her tortured and brutally mu...
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Saint John Bosco, Priest (January 31st)

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Of the Saints and Feast Days commemorated this week: January 26th - Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops January 27th - Saint Angela Merici, Virgin January 28th - Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church January 31st - Saint John Bosco, Priest February 1st - 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A) I’ve decided to write about  Saint John Bosco, Priest The future Saint John Bosco , patron saint to youth ministers, and inspired in good part by the work of St. Francis de Sales who lived a few centuries before but in the same region - just on the other side of the Alps - was born to a poor family of laborers (farm hands) on August 16, 1815 in a village called Becchi in the commune (municipality) then called Castelnuovo d'Asti but which has been since renamed Castelnuovo Don Bosco in the saint's honor, in the Piedmont region (capital Turin ) of today's Italy . The youngest son of Francesco Bosco and Margherita Occhiena , his father died when John was two leaving his moth...
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St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (January 24th)

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Of the Saints and Feast Days commemorated this week: Jan 20th -- St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr   Jan 20th -- St. Sebastian, Martyr   Jan 21st -- St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr Jan 22nd -- Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children (USA) Jan 23rd -- St. Vincent, Deacon and Martyr Jan 23rd -- St. Marianne Cope, Virgin (USA) Jan 24th -- St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church   Jan 25th – THIRD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (A) Jan 25th -- The Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle   I’ve decided to write about St. Francis de Sales . The future St. Francis de Sales was born in 1567 in the Château de Sales into the noble Sales family of the Duchy of Savoy , in what is today Thorens-Glières , Haute-Savoie , in the alpine region France , near the border with Switzerland .   The Château de Sales was destroyed in 1630 by French King Louis XIII during France’s invasion of Savoy after the Sales family refused to submit to the (new) French ord...
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