What is a Saint?
In the Catholic Church, the saints are ordinary people like you and I 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
July 26
SS. Anne and Joachim
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Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Natural Family Planning Week
July 27
St. Titus Brandsma
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July 28
St Alphonsa of India
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July 29
Sts Martha, Mary & Lazarus
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July 30
Bl. Solanus Casey
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International Day of Friendship
July 31
St. Ignatius of Loyola
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August 1
St Alphonsus Liguori
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July 26
Sts. Anne and Joachim
In the Scriptures, Matthew and Luke provide a legal family history of Jesus, tracing his ancestry from his adoptive father Joseph back to Adam, to show that Jesus is the culmination of the history of our salvation. But his mother’s family is neglected; even the names “Joachim” and “Anne” come from a source written more than a century after Jesus died. Information concerning these parents of Mary is taken from apocryphal sources: The Gospel of the Nativity of Mary, the Gospel of PseudoMatthew, and the Protoevangelium of James. Whether we rely on the traditions about Mary’s childhood or make guesses from the information in the Bible, we see in her a fulfillment of many generations of prayerful persons, herself steeped in the religious traditions of her people.
Anne was the wife of St. Joachim. St. Anne became popular in the Roman Church in the thirteenth century, having been venerated in the Eastern Church since earliest times. Anne and Joachim had been married for a long time without children. Both prayed for an end to their barrenness, and an angel appeared to Joachim and to Anne, while he was away, telling them that she was pregnant. The angel also told Anne that the fruit of her womb “shall be blessed by all the world.”
Many legends have flourished about Anne and Joachim, but little is known about their lives. Veneration of Anne has been constant throughout the history of the Church, particularly in Constantinople. There she was included in the calendar, one of the oldest documents of Christendom. Her feast was instituted in the Roman calendar in 1481 by Pope Sixtus IV and universally by Pope Gregory XIII. In 1969 the feast day of St Joachim and the feast day of St Anne were joined together to be celebrated on July 26 as the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne.
St. Anne is a patron saint of mothers, grandmothers, nursemaids, and women in labor; and of Naples and Florence
St. Joachim is a patron of fathers and grandfathers.
“O blessed couple, all the world is indebted to you, for it is by your means that it can offer to its Creator the most excellent gift possible, her who is worthy to be Mother of his only son.”
St. John Damascene
July 28
St. Alphonsa Muttathupadathu
“I am a daughter of suffering. It is with stones of suffering and sacrifice that we build mansions for ourselves in heaven.”
St. Alphonsa Muttathupadathu
Saint Alphonsa Muttathupadathu, (1910–1946) was a Syro-Malabar Catholic Franciscan Religious nun, the First Woman Saint of India. Anna Muttathupadathu was born on August 19, 1910 at Arpookara in Kudamalloor near Kottayam District, Kerala, India.
In her early life she had a poor, difficult childhood and experienced loss and suffering early on in life. In 1923, Anna’s feet were burnt when she fell into a pit of burning chaff. This accident left her permanently disabled.A native of Kerala, India, Anna was orphaned at a young age. Her aunt planned a great marriage for her, but Anna wanted to be Christ’s bride. At length, her aunt yielded, and Anna joined the novitiate at a Franciscan Clarist Congregation, becoming Sr. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception.
Sister Alphonsa took her permanent vows on August 12, 1936. She taught high school at St. Alphonsa Girl’s High School, but was unable to teach for more than one term, due to serious illness. When a thief entered her room one night, she suffered a severe shock and lost her memory for several months. In the midst of these trials, Alphonsa suffered gladly. She spoke words of wisdom to those who visited her. Sometimes overcome by the burden she was on her community, she wished that her suffering would end; throughout her life, she was often sick with hemorrhages, sores, typhoid fever, and pneumonia. Yet she affirmed, “When I think of the many indignities Our Lord suffers at the hands of his own chosen people, I wish to suffer not only this, but far more until the end of the world…A day without suffering is a day lost.”
Alphonsa died at the age of thirty-five, and her tomb quickly became a place of prayer and miracles. Saint John Paul II said of her: “She came to love suffering because she loved the suffering Christ. She learned to love the cross through her love of the crucified Lord.”
July 31
St. Ignatius Loyola
St. Ignatius Loyola was born in 1491, one of 13 children of a family of minor nobility in northern Spain. As a young man, Ignatius Loyola was inflamed by the ideals of courtly love and knighthood and dreamed of doing great deeds.
But in 1521 Ignatius was gravely wounded in a battle with the French. While recuperating, Ignatius Loyola experienced a conversion. Reading the lives of Jesus and the saints made Ignatius happy and aroused desires to do great things. Ignatius realized that these feelings were clues to God’s direction for him.
Over the years, Ignatius became expert in the art of spiritual direction. He collected his insights, prayers, and suggestions in his book the Spiritual Exercises, one of the most influential books on the spiritual life ever is written. With a small group of friends, Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits. Ignatius conceived the Jesuits as “contemplatives in action.” This also describes the many Christians who have been touched by Ignatian spirituality.
“If our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, we are guilty of heresy.”
St. Ignatius Loyola
Retreats, of the Society of Jesus, of Loyola University, and of the Archdiocese of Baltimore