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
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
February 15
St. Claude de la Colombiere
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Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 16
St. Onesimus
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February 17
The Seven Holy Founderx of the Servite Order
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February 18
Bl. Jerzy Kaszyra
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February 19
Bl. John Sullivan
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February 20
Bl. Jacinta and Francisco Marto
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February 21
St Peter Damian
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February 17
The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order
These seven men, by name Bonfilius, Alexis, Manettus, Amideus, Hugh, Sostene and Buonagiunta of Florence, were the founders of the Servite Order, a community instituted for the special purpose of cultivating the spirit of penance and contemplating the passion of Christ and Mary’s Seven Sorrows. Due to the spirit of humility cherished by the members of the Order, their accomplishments are not too widely known. But in the field of home missions great things are to their credit, and certainly they have benefited millions by arousing devotion to the Mother of Sorrows.
The Breviary tells us that in the midst of the party strife during the thirteenth century, God called seven men from the nobility of Florence. In the year 1233 they met and prayed together most fervently. The Blessed Mother appeared to each of them individually and urged them to begin a more perfect life. Disregarding birth and wealth, in sackcloth under shabby and well-worn clothing they withdrew to a small building in the country. It was September 8, selected so that they might begin to live a more holy life on the very day when the Mother of God began to live her holy life.
Soon after, when the seven were begging alms from door to door in the streets of Florence, they suddenly heard children’s voices calling to them, “Servants of holy Mary.” Among these children was St. Philip Benizi, then just five months old. Hereafter they were known by this name, first heard from the lips of children. In the course of time they retired into solitude on Monte Senario and gave themselves wholly to contemplation and penance. Leo XIII canonized the Holy Founders and introduced today’s feast in 1888.
February 20
Sts. Jacinta and Francisco Marto
Between May 13 and October 13, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared six times near Fatima, a city 110 miles north of Lisbon. She visited three Portuguese shepherd children: Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto, Portuguese shepherds from Aljustrel. At that time, Europe was involved in an extremely bloody war. Portugal itself was in political turmoil, having overthrown its monarchy in 1910; the government disbanded religious organizations soon after.
At the first appearance, Mary asked the children to return to that spot on the thirteenth of each month for the next six months. Mary repeatedly asked the children to offer themselves in prayer and penance “to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war,” the First World War then ravaging Europe. They were to pray for sinners and for the conversion of Russia, which had recently overthrown Czar Nicholas II and was soon to fall under communism. Up to 90,000 people gathered for Mary’s final apparition on October 13, 1917.
Of the three children, Francisco alone was unable to hear Mary, although he saw her and felt her presence. But, in him as in the others, the apparitions would effect a profound change. Light-hearted and even mischievous before the apparitions, afterward Francisco became serious beyond his years, sneaking often to the church to pray before the tabernacle, the “hidden Jesus.” His father once found him quite sad because of the “sins that were committed against Jesus.” Francisco insisted that he wanted, above all, “to console Jesus and make him happy.” He once said he did not want to grow up but only to “go to heaven.” When Francisco and Jacinta contracted the Spanish Flu, they continued their daily prayers and penances. Francisco begged for and received his First Holy Communion on April 3, 1919. He died the next day, at the age of eleven, with a smile on his face. He was buried in the parish cemetery and then re-buried in the Fatima basilica in 1952.
Only seven at the time of the first appearance, Jacinta exuberantly shared the story with her mother. When word spread, the children were exposed to endless questions and ridicule, yet all three hearkened to the Blessed Mother’s words: “Pray, pray much and make sacrifices for sinners; many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.” Jacinta led the others in the daily sacrifices; she willingly gave her lunch to the poor and fasted from water in the heat of the day. After contracting the Spanish flu in 1918, Jacinta patiently endured painful treatments until her death in February 1920. When her body was exhumed fifteen years later, it was found to be incorrupt. She was re-buried in the Fatima basilica in 1951.
“We were burning in that light which is God and we were not consumed.
St. Francisco Marto
“What is God like?
“It is impossible to say. In fact, we will never be able to tell people”