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 12
Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin
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Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 13
St. Henry
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July 14
St. Kateri Tekakwitha
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July 15
St. Bonaventure
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July 16
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
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July 17
St. Albert Adam Chmielowski
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July 18
St. Camillus de Lellis
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July 14
St. Kateri Tekakwitha
St. Kateri Tekakwitha, born in 1656, is the first Native American to be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. Her mother was an Algonquin, who was captured by the Mohawks and who took a Mohawk chief for her husband.
At the age of four, her entire family died of smallpox. She herself survived and was adopted by her uncle, but was terribly scarred and nearly blinded by the disease. When her adoptive parents arranged a husband for her, she refused to marry. At age 19, she converted to Catholicism, taking a vow of chastity and pledging to marry only Jesus Christ. She was viciously persecuted by her tribe and fled to a Christian community near Montreal.
Kateri was very devout and prayed for the conversion of her fellow Mohawks. According to the Jesuit missionaries that served the community where Kateri lived, she often fasted and when she would eat, she would taint her food to diminish its flavor. Always sickly, she sadly died only five years after her conversion. Admired for her piety and austere lifestyle, she became known as the “Lily of the Mohawks.” Her grave became a pilgrimage site for Native Americans and French settlers.
“Who will teach me what is most pleasing to God, that I may do it?”
St Kateri Tekakwitha
July 18
St. Camillus de Lellis
Camillus de Lellis was born in the Kingdom of Naples in 1550. He was a professional soldier who was powerfully built, some saying he topped six feet six inches in height. He fought for the Venetians against the Turks, and later for Naples. For his entire life, he suffered severely from a leg injury received while fighting the Turks. He was admitted to San Giacomo Hospital for treatment, but was made to leave due to his continual quarrelsomeness and reckless behavior.
He was addicted to gambling and, after his father died, he was penniless. Unable to find any other job to pay his gambling debts, he wound up working a construction job in a Capuchin friary. He was converted by the monks of that order and overcame his gambling and violent temper to attempt to join the Capuchins. But his novitiate with the Capuchins was repeatedly interrupted while he had his wound cared for. Humbled and contrite he once again was admitted to San Giacomo. Unable to pay for his care, he began ministering to the sick and dying.
Lacking education, he began to study with children to become a Jesuit when he was 32 years old. He was ordained in 1584.
After he received permission from his confessor, St. Philip Neri, he founded the Congregation of the Servants of the Sick (the Camillians or Fathers of a Good Death) to minister to the sick and dying in hospitals, prisons and private houses. Several hospitals were built by the Camillians and they formed the first field medical units in the battlefield, to minister to wounded troops in Hungary and Croatia. The red cross symbol was their sign of charity and service. He was so successful organizing assistance to the wounded on the battlefield, that the International Organization for assisting the sick would later adopt the Red Cross as its symbol and name.
Despite his wound, St. Camillus continued caring for the sick and wounded, often crawling from bed to bed when he could not walk. After years of suffering from that battle wound, he died in Rome in 1614.
“I rejoice in what has been told me. We shall go into the house of the Lord.”
St. Camillus de Lellis, on learning that he was incurably ill