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
November 15
St. Albert the Great
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Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
November 16
St. Margaret of Scotland
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November 17
Pope St. Leo the Great
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November 18
St. Elizabeth of Hungary
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November 19
St. Pontianus
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November 20
St. Felix of Valois
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Presentation of Mary
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“Mary is the Divine Page on which the Father wrote the Word of God, His Son.”
— St. Albert the Great
November 15
St. Albert the Great
“The Universal Doctor”
As a result of the spread of Islam into Europe, Western philosophers and theologians became exposed to the teachings of the Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle. Most Christian philosophers and theologians viewed his writings with anything from suspicion to outright hostility. More than anyone else, Albertus Magnus – Albert the great – made Aristotle’s reason and logic a valuable tool for subsequent theologians, including his student, Thomas Aquinas.
Albert von Bollstadt was born in Bavaria at the beginning of the 13th century. He was the eldest son of a powerful and wealthy German lord, educated in the liberal arts at the University of Padua. His inquiring mind and wide range of interests made him the perfect student and scholar. In fact, it was that scope of knowledge and expertise that led to his being the only scholar in history to be named “the Great.” He was a keen observer of the natural world, demanding experimental proof and evidence for his writings. According to one biographer, he specialized in “everything created.” During his life, Albert wrote thirty eight volumes covering topics ranging from philosophy to geography, astronomy, law, friendship and love.
Albert entered the Dominican novitiate in Padua around 1229 and was ordained 4 years later. He became a lecturer for the Dominicans at Cologne. In 1245 Albert became a master of theology, the first German Dominican to achieve the title. He later went on to teach theology at the University of Paris; one of his students was the famous Thomas Aquinas who would also become a doctor of the Church and a saint, just as did his mentor, Albert. He later became a Dominican provincial, and ws appointed bishop of Regensburg for a short time. In 1259, Albert participated in the General Chapter of the Dominicans along with Thomas Aquinas and several other contemporary leaders of the Order. They created a program of study for the Dominican order and developed a curriculum for philosophy.
In his later years, Albert became renowned as a papal mediator. He mediated disputes between individuals as well as resolving a dispute between the people of Cologne and their bishop. He also founded Germany’s oldest university in that city. He was preceded in death by his beloved student, Thomas Aquinas, whose name he could not hear without weeping. Albert spent his last years defending the work of Aquinas which is among the most important work in the Church.
“We are made loveless by our possessions.”
— St. Elizabeth of Hungary
November 17
St. Elizabeth of Hungary
St. Elizabeth of Hungary was a 13th century princess, betrothed in infancy to Ludwig of Thuringia. Married to him in 1221, she nevertheless led an austere and simple life, building a hospital at the foot of the mountain on which her castle stood, tending to its sick personally.
She performed all types of charitable acts; she put herself at the service of widows, orphans, the sick, the needy. During a famine she generously distributed all the grain from her stocks, cared for lepers in one of the hospitals she established, kissed their hands and feet. For the benefit of the indigent she provided suitable lodging.
She took food to many of the poorest in the surrounding town, on a daily basis. Once when she was taking food to the poor and sick, Prince Ludwig stopped her and looked under her mantle to see what she was carrying; the food had been miraculously changed to roses.
Upon Ludwig’s death on crusade in 1227, her husband’s enemies hounded her out of the country, seizing the goods that were her due as a widow,. She was forced into the winter cold with her three children, one a baby. Fear of her enemies kept people from aiding her. She eventually found shelter in a pig sty. In 1228, after the return of Ludwig’s allies, she made arrangements for her children and renounced the throne to become a Third Order Franciscan. She lived in a mud hut and saw to all of her meager needs by spinning. She died at the age of 24.