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 2
All Souls Day
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30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 3
St. Martin de Porres
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November 4
St Charles Borremeo
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November 5
Sts Zachary and Elizabeth
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November 6
St. Leonard of Limoges
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November 7
St. Willibrord
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November 8
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
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“I only cure you. It is God who heals you.”
St. Martin de Porres
November 3
St. Martin de Porres
Martin de Porres lived a life of fasting, prayer and penance as a Dominican lay brother. He was born born into poverty, the son of Ana Velasquez, a freed woman of Panama, and Juan de Porres, a Spanish grandee of Lima, Peru. His parents never married; Martin inherited the features and dark complexion of his mother, His father eventually abandoned Martin, his younger sister, and their mother. His mother apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon, where he learned how to cut hair, draw blood, care for wounds, and administer medicines. He was brutally ridiculed for his mixed parentage throughout his youth.
At 15, he joined the Dominican Convent of the Rosary in Lima as a lay brother, since descendants of Africans or Native Americans were not allowed to become full members of a religious order. He became a servant, but, because of his barbering experience, was eventually put in charge of the infirmary. His days were filled with nursing the sick and caring for the poor. He became well known for his tender care and amazing cures. Soon he was caring for the sick of the city and the slaves brought to Peru from Africa — not to mention the animals with which he is often pictured.
In 1603 at the age of 24, his religious Superior decided to disregard the law that “no black person may be received to the holy habit or profession of our Order” and Martin took vows as a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. Although he had no formal training, he was often consulted on theological questions by great churchmen of his day. Martin also founded an orphanage for abandoned children and slaves. He is unofficially called the patron of social justice. He is the first black saint from the Americas.
November 4
St. Charles Borremeo
Charles was born into an aristocratic family that was at the center of both ecclesial and political life in 1538. From an early age, Charles showed himself to be hardworking and sincerely attached to prayer. When presented with a family income at the age of 12, the young Count kept only the money required for his education and to prepare him for service to the Church. All other funds belonged to the poor of the Church and were to be passed along to them.
At twenty-two, he was made a cardinal by his uncle, the pope, and appointed to administer the Diocese of Milan. Though Charles wanted to go to his people— who had not had a resident bishop for over eighty years—he was kept in Rome, where he helped to drive the many reforms in the final session of the Council of Trent. Among the great reformers of the troubled sixteenth century, with St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Philip Neri, and others, he was responsible for significant reforms in the Catholic Church, including the founding of seminaries for the education of priests.
When he was at last freed to go to Milan in 1564, he preached his first Mass in the city on Christ’s words from Luke 22;15: I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Charles chose to live as simply his position allowed. “We ought to walk in front,” he told his priests, “and our spiritual subjects will follow us more easily.” When famine came, Charles incurred great debt helping the hungry. When the plague came, Charles prepared his soul for death and then led the people in a penitential procession, barefoot and with a noose around his neck (features that are often seen in the Church’s art). After about twenty years of unceasing labor for his people, Charles died of fever on November 3, 1584. His final words: Ecce venio, “Behold, I come!”
“You must realize that for us church men nothing is more necessary than meditation. We must meditate before, during, and after everything we do. In this way, all that you do becomes a work of love.”
St. Charles Borremeo
November 8
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
Élisabeth Catez’s life was outwardly nondescript. Born to a French Army captain and his wife, she grew up in a tight-knit middle-class family that became even tighter after her father’s death when she was 7 years old. She was a lively, popular girl, extremely stubborn, given to fits of rage, but with great reverence for God. Elizabeth’s one accomplishment of note in childhood was a top prize for piano performance at the Dijon Conservatory.
But, on the day of her First Communion, Elizabeth learned from the mother superior of the nearby Carmelite convent that her name meant “House of God.” From this time, she became more and more aware of God’s presence in her soul. At fourteen, she made a vow of virginity, and at seventeen, she announced to her mother that she wanted to enter the Carmel. When her mother insisted that she wait four years, Elizabeth dutifully pursued an active social life, with pretty clothes, parties and dancing. But she also began praying daily to the Holy Spirit, her “Consuming Fire.”
In 1901, Elizabeth entered the Carmelite monastery in Dijon, France. “I can’t find words to express my happiness,” she wrote. Here there is no longer anything but God. He is all; he suffices and we live by him alone.” She was subject to periods of emotional darkness, and her spiritual director expressed doubts over Elizabeth’s vocation. However she was much admired for her persistence in pursuing the will of God and in devoting herself to the charism of the Carmelites. Two years later she professed her final vows, and subsequently became the spiritual director to many others. Her spirituality is considered to be remarkably similar to that of her contemporary and compatriot Discalced Carmelite sister, Thérèse of Lisieux, who was cloistered at the Carmel in Lisieux; the two shared a zeal for contemplation and the salvation of souls.
About this time, she showed the first signs of Addison’s disease, a rare, incurable disease whose side effects are painful and exhausting. She died two years after, in great physical and spiritual anguish. Her dying words were, “I am going to Light, to Love, to Life”
“Everything passes. In the evening of life, nothing remains but love. Everything must be done for love.”
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity