What is a Saint?
In the Catholic Church, the saints are ordinary people like you and me who made it to heaven. They’ve done nothing that you and I cannot do, if we persevere in following Jesus Christ and living our lives according to His teaching.
Catholic devotion to the saints is nothing more than respect and admiration for the memory of the deceased heroes of the Church. We honor them as men and women of heroic virtue who can serve as our role models. They were no more perfect than are we; but, at the end of their lives – and hopefully, ours – they received from Our Lord his words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
We also ask the saints to intercede for us. Have you ever asked anyone to pray for you when you were having a hard time? That is how Catholics “pray to” the saints – we pray with saints, not to them. As the Letter of James says, “The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful.”
Well-known saints like those below often are remembered in a special way on particular days during the year.
January – February – March – April – May – June
July – August – September – October – November – December
This Weeks Saints
November 9
Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica
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November 10
St. Leo the Great
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November 11
St. Martin of Tours
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November 12
St. Josaphat
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November 13
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
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November 14
St. Laurence OToole
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November 15
St. Albert the Great
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“Prayer is powerful! It fills the earth with mercy, it makes the Divine clemency pass from generation to generation; right along the course of the centuries wonderful works have been achieved through prayer.”
— Frances Xavier Cabrini
November 13
St. Frances Xavier Cabrini
Frances Xavier Cabrini was the first United States citizen to be canonized. Maria Francesca Cabrini was born on July 15, 1850 in Sant’ Angelo Lodigiano, Lombardy, Italy. She was the youngest of thirteen children, and only three of her siblings lived into adulthood. She was born two months premature, causing her to live most of her life in a fragile and delicate state of health.
She was attracted to religious life at a very early age, and was trained to be a teacher at a school run by the Daughters of the Sacred Heart. Because of her health, she was refused admission to the religious order which had educated her. She was asked to teach at an orphanage in Cadagono, Italy. She taught there for six years, gradually gathering a community of religious-minded women around her. She became Mother Cabrini after taking her final vows in 1877.
When the orphanage closed in 1880, she was asked by her bishop to found the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Pope Leo XIII then sent her to minister to the many Italian emigrants in America. She traveled with six sisters to New York City and established schools, hospitals, and orphanages there. She became an American citizen in 1909 and eventually traveled to Europe, Central and South America and throughout the United States. She made 23 trans-Atlantic crossings and established 67 institutions: schools, hospitals and orphanages. In 35 years, Frances Xavier Cabrini founded 67 institutions dedicated to caring for the poor, the abandoned, the uneducated and the sick.
“Mary is the Divine Page on which the Father wrote the Word of God, His Son.”
— St. Albert the Great
November 15
St. Albert the Great
“The Universal Doctor”
As a result of the spread of Islam into Europe, Western philosophers and theologians became exposed to the teachings of the Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle. Most Christian philosophers and theologians viewed his writings with anything from suspicion to outright hostility. More than anyone else, Albertus Magnus – Albert the great – made Aristotle’s reason and logic a valuable tool for subsequent theologians, including his student, Thomas Aquinas.
Albert von Bollstadt was born in Bavaria at the beginning of the 13th century. He was the eldest son of a powerful and wealthy German lord, educated in the liberal arts at the University of Padua. His inquiring mind and wide range of interests made him the perfect student and scholar. In fact, it was that scope of knowledge and expertise that led to his being the only scholar in history to be named “the Great.” He was a keen observer of the natural world, demanding experimental proof and evidence for his writings. According to one biographer, he specialized in “everything created.” During his life, Albert wrote thirty eight volumes covering topics ranging from philosophy to geography, astronomy, law, friendship and love.
Albert entered the Dominican novitiate in Padua around 1229 and was ordained 4 years later. He became a lecturer for the Dominicans at Cologne. In 1245 Albert became a master of theology, the first German Dominican to achieve the title. He later went on to teach theology at the University of Paris; one of his students was the famous Thomas Aquinas who would also become a doctor of the Church and a saint, just as did his mentor, Albert. He later became a Dominican provincial, and ws appointed bishop of Regensburg for a short time. In 1259, Albert participated in the General Chapter of the Dominicans along with Thomas Aquinas and several other contemporary leaders of the Order. They created a program of study for the Dominican order and developed a curriculum for philosophy.
In his later years, Albert became renowned as a papal mediator. He mediated disputes between individuals as well as resolving a dispute between the people of Cologne and their bishop. He also founded Germany’s oldest university in that city. He was preceded in death by his beloved student, Thomas Aquinas, whose name he could not hear without weeping. Albert spent his last years defending the work of Aquinas which is among the most important work in the Church.