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
June 1
St. Junipero Serra
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Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
June 2
Sts. Marcellinus and Peter
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June 3
St. Charles Lwanga and Companions
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June 4
Bl Jose Maria Gran Cirera
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June 5
St. Boniface
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June 6
St. Norbert
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June 7
St. Robert of Newminster
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June 3
Sts. Charles Lwanga and Companions
“It is as if you are pouring water on me. Please repent and become a Christian like me.”
Saint Charles Lwanga to his executioner
One of 22 Ugandan Catholic martyrs, Charles Lwanga was one of the young men serving in the court of King Mwanga II in present day Uganda during the 1880’s. Mwanga was a notoriously brutal ruler and pedophile who forced himself on the young men serving as pages and attendants. When the Catholic head page Joseph Mkasa confronted Mwanga over his murder of an Anglican missionary bishop and his companions, he was in turn murdered. The position of head page fell to Charles Lwanga, who requested and received baptism that same day. Charles continued to protect his charges from the violent advances of the king.
When the pages were questioned by the ruler and his court, any who were discovered to be catechumens or baptized Christians were forced to choose between agreeing to the king’s advances or death. Charles and his fellow Catholic pages, aged 13 to 30, were imprisoned; Charles encouraged and sustained them in their decision to remain chaste and hold fast to their faith.
After being marched almost 40 miles to an execution site at Namugongo, they were tortured for a week in an effort to force them to recant. None did. Finally, the young men were wrapped tightly in reed mats and thrown onto a pyre, including Mbaga, the son of the chief executioner. In all 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican young men suffered death during this period rather than give up their faith.
June 5
St. Boniface
“My children, cease your resistance; Spill no useless blood. The long-expected day is come at last.”
St. Boniface, as he and his companions were martyred
Born in 675 in England, the young man Winfrith was educated at the Benedictine monastery at Exeter, England. He felt a vocation to spread Christianity in Northern Europe, and traveled to Thuringia, in present day Holland, as a missionary; unaware of the fact that the country’s ruler had declared war on Christianity. Returning to England he started planning for his second missionary journey, by journeying first to Rome to gain papal authority for his missionary work. Pope Gregory II was initially skeptical, but eventually backed Winfrith’s mission to Germany; in fact, in his commission, Pope Gregory referred to Winfrith by the name “Boniface” for the first time. Ironically, as it turned out, the day before he received his commission was the feast day of a martyr named Boniface.
Boniface spent three years in Thuringia, the place of his former debacle, working with the famous missionary Willibrord. With that experience to rely upon, he traveled to Rome, where he was consecrated bishop by the Pope, and who instructed him to reform the German Church. Then on to Hesse; in Hesse he had to start from scratch, since it had never been evangelized. To demonstrate the power of Christ over the pagan gods, he cut down a giant sacred oak tree dedicated to Thor. Standing on the six foot trunk, he proclaimed, “How stands your mighty god? My God is stronger than he.” Boniface made the first real inroads in the conversion of the inhabitants.
He journeyed as a missionary to several Northern Europe regions, including a return to Thuringia. He appealed to English monks and nuns for help and they responded enthusiastically over the years. During a final mission to the Frisians, Boniface and 53 companions were massacred while he was preparing converts for confirmation. St. Boniface is known as the apostle of the Germans