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
July 6
St. Maria Gorretti
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14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 7
Bl. Peter To Rot
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July 8
Sts Priscilla & Aquila
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July 9
St. Mark Ji Tianxiang
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July 10
St. Felicity and her Seven Sons
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July 11
St Benedict of Nursia
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July 12
Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin
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July 6
St. Maria Goretti
Maria was born on October 16, 1890 in Corinaldo, in the Province of Ancona, then in the Kingdom of Italy. Her family’s prospects were so diminished that, at the age of five, her family was forced to give up their farm and work for other farmers. When she was nine, her mother and father moved to Ferriere di Conca in an effort to find better fields to till. They lived in an old barn that they shared with another family, the Serenellis, which included Giovanni Serenelli and his son, Alessandro. Two years into this venture, Maria’s father died of malaria. Her mother Assunta continued the backbreaking work and increasingly relied on Maria for help with the other five children.
When her mother broke the news to Maria that her First Communion would have to be put off because there was no time for her to be prepared. Maria was not daunted. She found the time to go to town for catechism lessons, and at twelve she was able to receive our Lord. She became a regular communicant and often was seen with a rosary wrapped about her fingers.
Only a few months later, twenty-year-old Alessandro Serenelli came in from the fields one day and attempted to sexually assault the twelve-year old Maria. Even as Maria fought his advances, her concern was for Alessandro’s soul. Despite his choking her, she refused to submit. He stabbed her cruelly with an awl, eleven times. As she tried to reach the door, he stabbed her three more times. She was found still alive, and taken to the hospital The following day, having expressed forgiveness for Alessandro and stating that she wanted to have him in Heaven with her, she succumbed to her injuries.
Alessandro was quickly captured. Subject to life imprisonment, his sentence was commted to 30 years, due to his age and relative lack of maturity. After three years in prison, he repented after a dream of Maria giving him a lily of peace that burned his hands. When he was released from prison, he sought and was given forgiveness by Assunta Goretti; they attended mass together the following day. Both he and Assunta attended Maria’s canonization proceedings in 1950. He spent the rest of his life as a lay brother of the Capuchin order, dying in 1970.
July 9
St. Mark Ji Tianxiang
When one of his grandson’s asked what was happening and where they were going, Tianziang replied, “We are going home.”
St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, at his death
Saint Mark Ji Tianxiang was born the year 1834 in the northern province of Hebei, China. He was raised in a Catholic family and grew up to be a Catholic man of good morals. He went to medical school, married, and became a well-off doctor. He was a leader in the Christian community, and served the poor for free. One day, he came down with a violent case of a stomach illness that left him incapacitated. The common home remedy of the time in China was opium, and while it helped his stomach pain, he also became addicted and dependent on the drug.
But TianXiang threw himself onto the mercy of God, Despite being cut off from the sacraments, Tianxiang still struggled with his addiction and continued praying and asking the Lord for deliverance from his affliction. For thirty years, he went to Church daily despite not being able to receive any of the sacraments. For those same thirty years, he remained addicted to opium. He prayed that he might die a martyr, as he couldn’t see any other way out of his addiction.
In 1900, the Boxer Rebellion in China turned public opinion in China against all foreigners, including Catholics. Militia United in Righteousness, expelled missionaries and persecuted Christians across China.he Boxers, or “Militia United in Righteousness” expelled missionaries and persecuted Christians across China. Thirty-two thousand Chinese Christians and 200 foreign missionaries were killed., including Tianxiang.
His entire family, including his son, two daughters-in-law, and six grandchildren were rounded up by the Boxers to be executed. He begged his captors to be executed last, so that none of his family had to die alone. One by one, as he sang the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he watched each of his family members beheaded before he too was martyred.
July 11
St. Benedict of Nursia
St. Benedict was born into a noble Roman family at Nursia in Umbria in about 480; his twin sister was St. Scholastica. He was sent to Rome to be educated, but was confounded by the apathetic attitude of his fellow students. He fled to live a solitary life at Subiaco as a hermit. After living in a cave in the mountains for two years as a hermit, he had acquired such a reputation that disciples came in numbers to join him and important Roman families entrusted him with the education of their children. Some monks asked him to be their leader, but were so resentful of his discipline that they tried to poison him; Benedict blessed the cup of poison and it shattered.
He returned to his cave, but soon after, more followers begged him for his leadership. In the beginning he founded twelve small monasteries where monks lived in groups of twelve. . He reformed monastic life, by applying a strict discipline to those who followed him. Under his guidance, as abbot, the monks vowed to seek God and devoted themselves to work and prayer.
A few years later St. Benedict left the district of Subiaco to found the great abbey of Monte Cassino on the heights of Campania, north of Naples. There he wrote his Rule in which are wonderfully combined the Roman genius and the monastic wisdom of the Christian East. The Rule became the engine that completely reformed monastic life at that time. and through the Middle Ages. It prescribed a life of liturgical prayer, study, manual labor, and living together in community under a common abbot. The rule is still observed by two great monastic orders: The Benedictines themselves and the Cistercians.
St. Benedict died in 547, just a few days after his twin sister, St. Scholastica.
Listen and attend with the ear of your heart.
St. Benedict of Nursia