Reflecting on the Saints

Of the various saints and feast days celebrated this week: May 18th -- FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - C May 20th -- Saint Bernardine of Siena, Priest May 21st -- Saint Christopher Magallanes, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs May 22nd -- Saint Rita of Cascia, Religious May 25th – SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - C In a nod to our new pope Leo XIV , I’ve chosen to write about Augustinian saint, St. Rita of Cascia .   Though a popular saint for many years, indeed many centuries … whe was only canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1900, and has been both on and then off and then on again the general Calendar of the century plus ever since. Why?  Well she makes for an interesting if at times troublesome saint! The future St. Rita was born as Margherita “Rita” Lotti in 1381 in the village of Roccaporena , a small hamlet near Cascia in the Italian province of Umbria , then one of the papal states . She was married off to a rich but ill-tempered nobleman Paolo di Ferdinando di Mancino who made many ...

Of the various saints that we remember this week: May 11 -- FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (Good Shepherd Sunday) May 12 -- Saints Nereus and Achilleus, Martyrs   May 12 -- Saint Pancras, Martyr May 12 -- Blessed Francis of Siena, OSM, Religious May 13 -- Our Lady of Fatima May 14 -- Saint Matthias, Apostle May 15 -- Saint Isidore the Laborer, USA I’ve chosen to write about St. Pancras an early Christian child martyr who was beheaded during the Persecution of Diocletian after he refused to renounce his faith. I’ve chosen to write about him because both his story and his fame became surprisingly widespread across the Christian world.   Born around 289 A.D. in Phrygia Salutaris in Asia Minor (the interior of the modern state of Turkey today), to parents who were Roman citizens, he became an orphan by the age of 10.  His uncle brought him back to Rome , and they lived in a villa on Caelian Hill , the hill over from Palatine Hill where the Emperor had his palace.  Bo...

After a number of weeks of very few Saints on the Liturgical Calendar, this week we have quite a few: April 28 -- Saint Peter Chanel, Priest and Martyr April 28 -- Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, Priest April 29 -- Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church April 30 -- Saint Pius V, Pope May 1 -- Saint Joseph the Worker May 2 -- Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church May 3 -- S aints Philip and James, Apostles May 4 -- THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER May 4 -- Saint Peregrine Laziosi, OSM , religious Of the fairly large choice, I’ve decided to write about St. Athanasius sometimes called St. Athanasius of Alexandria (where he was from ) and even St. Athanasius the Great (because of his impact on the Church). To be honest, there is a part of me that has always found St. Athanasius to be “boring”, the “patron saints of ideologies / bureaucrats.”  However, his concern in the Church at his time were key in preserving it. At issue was the very nature of Christ an...