by Wyatt North
– St. Dominic Savio
Dominic Savio was born into a poor family of devout Catholics and was raised from the age of two in the village now known as Castlenuovo Don Bosco for its proximity to the birthplace of John Bosco. Dominic displayed an unusual piety from early childhood and was brought to the attention of Father Bosco (later canonized himself) by his teacher. Falsely accused by his teacher based on the lies of two students trying to escape punishment for their own misdeed, Dominic did not defend himself. When the teacher learned the truth and asked Dominic why he hadn’t denied the accusation, the boy said that he was emulating Jesus, who remained silent when unjustly accused. Father Bosco was impressed with Dominic’s knowledge of Catholicism and determination to become a priest and ensured his admission to the secondary school in Turin, where he became the boy’s teacher and mentor. After writing a report on sainthood, Dominic announced his own desire to become a saint. Dominic was 14 when he became ill and was sent home to recover, and though his doctor believed he would get better, Dominic was certain of his own impending death. Father Bosco felt the boy’s loss deeply and wrote a book about Dominic’s life of unusual piety and devotion. Venerated in 1933, beatified in 1950, and canonized in 1954, St. Dominic Savio became the youngest non-martyr ever to become a saint. He is the patron of choirboys, the falsely accused, and juvenile delinquents.
E
“It is better to say one ‘Our Father’ fervently and devoutly than a thousand with no devotion and full of distraction.”
– St. Edmund
Born in 840, Edmund became king of East Anglia when he was about 14. He was martyred in 870 when he refused to accept the terms demanded by the conquering Danes—terms he felt bound as a Christian to reject. (He felt so strongly about prayer that he had once retired to his royal tower and dedicated a year to committing the entire Psalter to memory.) To prevent the slaughter of his troops, he disbanded them after a crushing defeat and was travelling on his own when he was captured by the invading Danes and brought before the Viking king, Hinguar. Edmund again rejected the demands he deemed impious, choosing his religion over his life. He was beaten and scourged, but he clung unwaveringly to his faith. His torturers, angered by his persistence, shot arrows into his body until Hinguar ordered him to be decapitated by sword. His relics were removed from his original burial place in the tenth century to a town that has since been re-named St. Edmundsbury. He is the patron of torture victims and the Roman Catholic diocese of East Anglia, among other people, places, and causes.
“You well know that I preferred his company to all the delights of the world. But since it has pleased You to take him from me, I accept Your will completely.”
– St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (on the death of her husband)
Elizabeth found consolation in the fact that her husband had come to know God before he died. Having been born into New York’s high society, Elizabeth married the wealthy William Seton in 1794. It was a true love match, and the first four years of the marriage were happy and trouble-free. During that period, Elizabeth Ann Seton became one of the founders of the first charitable institution in New York City, the Society for the Relief of Widows with Small Children. Little did she know she would soon become one herself. The Setons’ love endured through the difficult times that followed the death of William’s father, which left the young couple with full responsibility for running the family’s business and raising his seven half-siblings. Their bond grew even stronger as William’s health deteriorated and as he was forced to declare bankruptcy. The Setons moved to Italy, where William had business friends, to improve his declining health. After his death from tuberculosis, Elizabeth moved her family back to the United States.
“If I had to advise parents, I should tell them to take great care about the people with whom their children associate . . . Much harm may result from bad company, and we are inclined by nature to follow what is worse than what is better.”
– St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Elizabeth Ann Bayley, born in 1774, was the daughter of a wealthy New York physician, but found more pleasure in reading and quiet pursuits than in the usual high society pastimes. Always fond of reading the Scriptures, her interest in the Bible and her reliance on it for comfort grew and became her bedrock in difficult times. Widowed at an early age and a convert to Catholicism, Elizabeth Ann Seton accepted an invitation from the president of St. Mary’s College to come to Baltimore and open a school for Catholic girls. She was joined by several young women in founding the first American-based sisterhood, and they took their vows in 1809. Elizabeth was thereafter known as Mother Seton. The rule the sisterhood adopted made accommodations for her to continue raising her children. The sisterhood later moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where they educated the poor girls of the parish at no cost to the families. This is widely regarded as the birth of Catholic parochial education in America. In 1812, the sisterhood became the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph and began opening new houses. By the time Mother Seton died, the order had 20 communities.
“I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic Church: for if Faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek it where true Faith first began, seek it among those who received it from God Himself.”
– St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Adversity and the loss of loved ones grew Elizabeth closer and closer to God, but she didn’t become a Catholic until friends in Italy, where she and her husband were living at the time of his death, guided her in the direction she had already chosen for her life. Having endured so much, she found comfort in embracing God’s will, and she longed to know Him better. She came to regard the Blessed Virgin as her own true mother, having lost her earthly mother as a child. Elizabeth studied Catholicism for months and joined the Catholic Church in 1805 in New York City, shortly after the Colonial Anti-Catholic laws were lifted.
“We know certainly that our God calls us to a holy life. We know that he gives us every grace, every abundant grace; and though we are so weak of ourselves, this grace is able to carry us through every obstacle and difficulty.”
– St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
From her early forties, Mother Elizabeth Seton had a sense that God would soon be calling her, and she looked forward to it with joyful anticipation. Ironically, she would succumb to tuberculosis, as her beloved husband William had years earlier. She was 46 when she died in 1821, having been a Catholic for only 16 years. She was beatified by Pope John XXIII in 1963 and was canonized by Pope Paul VI twelve years later, becoming the first American-born saint. She is the patron of in-law problems, against the death of children, widows, death of parents, and opposition of Church authorities.
F
“I know well that the greater and more beautiful the work is, the more terrible will be the storms that rage against it.”
– St. Faustina
Helena Kowalska, born into a poor but devout family near Lodz, Poland in 1905, was only seven when she felt called to religious life. She was still a teenager when she had her first vision of a suffering Jesus and reported that He told her to leave for Warsaw right away and enter a convent. Turned away by all the convents she approached, she finally found one that would accept her on the condition that she pay for her own habit, which she did by working as a housekeeper. At age 20, Helena entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, took the name Sister Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament.
“He who knows how to forgive prepares for himself many graces from God. As often as I look upon the cross, so often will I forgive with all my heart.”
– St. Faustina
By 1931, Faustina was showing signs of the tuberculosis that she would battle for the remainder of her too-short life. That same year, Faustina had another vision of Jesus, who appeared to her as the “King of Divine Mercy” and asked her to become an instrument for sharing God’s mercy in the world. She wrote in her diary that Jesus asked her to paint an image of Him as he appeared to her with the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
She described Him as being dressed in a white robe and having red and white rays of light emanating from his chest. Faustina had no artistic talent or skills, but eventually found an artist to create the painting for her.
“The greatest misery does not stop Me from uniting Myself to a soul, but where there is pride, I am not there.”
– St. Faustina (the words of Jesus as recorded in her diary)
Soon after taking her final vows as a perpetual sister of Our Lady of Mercy, Faustina told her confessor, Father Sopocko, about her visions and the plan Jesus had for her. Father Sopocko decided to support her in executing that plan, but only after she passed a psychiatric examination. He encouraged her to keep a written record of all her visions and the instructions she received from Jesus. In 1935, a week after Faustina had a vision in which Jesus told her he wanted the Divine Mercy painting to be honored publicly, Father Sopocko delivered the first sermon on the Divine Mercy.
“I [urge] all souls to trust in the unfathomable abyss of My mercy, because I want to save them all. On the cross, the fountain of My mercy was opened wide by the lance for all souls - no one have I excluded!”
– St. Faustina (the words of Jesus as recorded in her diary)
Faustina continued to have visions in which Jesus gave her instructions for spreading the message of his Divine Mercy, and she did everything she could to obey. Her failing health forced her to enter a sanatorium, but in 1937, she lived to see the first holy cards bearing the Divine Mercy image distributed and become extremely popular. She also passed on the instructions she said that Jesus had given her for the Novena of Divine Mercy.
“We do not know the number of souls that is ours to save through our prayers and sacrifices; therefore, let us always pray for sinners.”
– St. Faustina
Faustina wrote in her diary about her vision of hell, which she says God ordered her to visit so that she could tell others that it truly exists. She noted that most of the souls in hell were disbelievers in the existence of hell. She described the seven kinds of torture she witnessed in the abysses of hell, the first of which was the loss of God. Having seen firsthand the suffering of souls in hell, she prayed more intensely than ever for the conversion of sinners, writing “I incessantly plead God’s mercy upon them.”
“Let souls who are striving for perfection particularly adore My mercy, because the abundance of graces which I grant them flows from My mercy. I desire that these souls distinguish themselves by boundless trust in My mercy. I myself will attend to the sanctification of such souls. I will provide them with everything they will need to attain sanctity.”
– St. Faustina (the words of Jesus as recorded in her diary)
Tuberculosis of the lungs and the gastrointestinal tract, exacerbated by her long habit of extreme fasting, caused Faustina great suffering. As her health continued to decline, Faustina’s visions came more frequently until her death in October 1938. Healing miracles attributed to the intercession of Sister Faustina led to her being canonized as St. Faustina Kowalska in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. She is venerated as the “Apostle of Divine Mercy.”
“Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy.”
– St. Faustina (the words of Jesus as recorded in her diary)
Few people who knew Sister Faustina were aware of her mystical life. Her outward life was unremarkable, some might say insignificant. It was a life of service and obedience, and the occupations she was assigned were simple: cook, gardener, porter. She was regarded as kind and serene, and her appearance and conduct gave no hint of her inner life and her spiritual gifts, including visions, revelations, prophecy, hidden stigmata, and more, which she regarded as “merely ornaments of the soul.” It was only in her later years, with the growth of devotion to the Divine Mercy, that she gained a reputation for having a special relationship with God.
“Woe to me if I should prove myself but a halfhearted soldier in the service of my thorn-crowned Captain.”
– St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen
After several years of practicing law, Mark Rey, born in Sigmaringen, Prussia in 1577, had his fill of corruption and incivility and decided to become a Capuchin friar. He was given the religious name “Fidelis,” meaning “faithful,” and within a relatively short time he was assigned to be Guardian of a Capuchin friary in present-day Austria, followed by a preaching commission in eastern Switzerland. He and the friars assisting him were very successful in converting Calvinists, which earned Fidelis death threats from the remaining Calvinists. They claimed he was a spy for the Austrian emperor. Fidelis preached in a church in Seewis, Switzerland on Sunday, April 24, 1622. At the end of his sermon he fell into an ecstasy and awoke with the certainty that he would be martyred that day. Confronted on the road by 20 rebel Calvinist soldiers led by a minister, he refused their order to renounce Catholicism and was brutally stabbed and hacked to death. The minister leading the rebels later denounced Calvinism and became a Catholic.
“We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend on material success; nor on sciences that cloud the intellect. Neither does it depend on arms and human industries, but on Jesus alone.”
– St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
Maria Francesca Cabrini’s health was fragile from the beginning with her premature birth in Lombardy, Italy in 1850 to her death in Chicago, Illinois eight years after becoming a naturalized U.S citizen. She was refused entry to the religious congregation of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart at age 18 because of her health, despite having received her education in the order’s convent school. She spent six years teaching at the House of Providence Orphanage in Cadagono, Italy before she took her vows and became Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini. When the orphanage closed, at the request of the bishop, Mother Cabrini, along with several other sisters, founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart to care for poor children in both schools and hospitals. Five years later, after helping found several homes and programs for children in Italy, Mother Cabrini wanted to do mission work in China, but Pope Leo XII urged her to go to the United States, instead, to help the many needy Italian immigrants there. In March 1899 she arrived in New York City with six other sisters, determined to succeed in their mission no matter what adversities they faced.
“It is not the actual physical exertion that counts toward a man's progress, nor the nature of the task, but the spirit of faith with which it is undertaken.”
– St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
Mother Cabrini’s first project in the United States was to found an orphanage in West Park, New York, which still exists and is now called the St. Cabrini Home. Using her talent for enlisting the support of others, Frances went on to found a total of 67 orphanages, schools, and hospitals to benefit the needy, especially Italian immigrants, in New York and elsewhere in the U.S. She died in 1917 at age 67 from complications of dysentery in a hospital she had founded in Chicago. Three years later, an infant born in New York’s Columbus Hospital, founded by Mother Cabrini, was accidentally administered silver nitrate eye drops in a 50% concentration instead of the usual 1% solution. The resulting chemical burns, according to every expert, had caused permanent facial disfiguration and blindness. Told that only a miracle could save his vision, the sisters of the order founded by Mother Cabrini gathered in the hospital chapel and prayed throughout the night for her intercession with Jesus to heal the boy. The next morning, his charred skin was already healing, and his eyes showed no damage at all. A few hours later, he developed pneumonia, often a death sentence in the days before antibiotics. Once again, the sisters prayed through the night and by morning the pneumonia was gone. With these and other healing miracles attributed to her, Mother Cabrini was canonized in 1946.
“What does the poor man do at the rich man’s door, the sick man in the presence of his physician, the thirsty man at a limpid stream? What they do, I do before the Eucharistic God. I pray. I adore. I love.”
– St. Francis of Assisi
Piet
ro Bernadone’s son was born in 1182 while the merchant was away on a trip to France, a country he was infatuated with. Upon returning home and finding that the boy had been baptized Giovanni, after John the Baptist, Pietro was furious and renamed him Francesco. He wanted his son to take over his business one day, not become a man of God. Young Francesco’s life was an easy, privileged one, and everyone who met him liked him. He acquired a following of young people who indulged in wild and reckless behavior, though he later recognized this as a sinful period in his life.