ST.

 ALOYSIUS DE GONZAGA 
St. Aloysius was an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Society of Jesus. While still
a student at the Roman College, he died as a result of caring for the victims of a serious
epidemic. He was beatified in 1605 and canonized in 1726.

Gonzaga was born the eldest of seven children, at his family's castle in Castiglione delle
Stiviere, in northern Italy in what was then part of the Duchy of Mantua, into the illustrious
House of Gonzaga. "Aloysius" is the Latin form of Aloysius de Gonzaga's given name in Italian,
Luigi. He was the son of Ferrante de Gonzaga (1544–1586), Marquis of Castiglione, and Marta
Tana di Santena, daughter of a baron of the Piedmontese Della Rovere family. His mother was
a lady-in-waiting to Isabel, the wife of Philip II of Spain.

As the first-born son, he was in line to inherit his father's title and status of Marquis. His father
assumed that Aloysius would become a soldier, as that was the norm for sons of the aristocracy
and the family was often involved in the minor wars of the period. His military training started at
an early age, but he also received an education in languages and the arts. At age five, Aloysius
was sent to a military camp to get started on his training. His father was pleased to see his son
marching around camp at the head of a platoon of soldiers. His mother and his tutor were less
pleased with the vocabulary he picked up there.

He grew up amid the violence and brutality of Renaissance Italy and witnessed the murder of
two of his brothers. In 1576, at age 8, he was sent to Florence along with his younger brother,
Rodolfo, to serve at the court of the Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici and to receive further
education. While there, he fell ill with a disease of the kidneys, which troubled him throughout
his life. While he was ill, he took the opportunity to read about the saints and to spend much of
his time in prayer. He is said to have taken a private vow of chastity at age 9. In November
1579, the brothers were sent to the Duke of Mantua. Aloysius was shocked by the violent and
frivolous lifestyle he encountered there.

Aloysius returned to Castiglione where he met Cardinal Charles Borromeo, and from him
received First Ces in India, Aloysius felt strongly that he wanted to become a missionary. He
started practicing by teaching catechism classes to young boys in Castiglione in the summers.
He also repeatedly visited the houses of the Capuchin friars and the Barnabites located in
Casale Monferrato, the capital of the Gonzaga-ruled Duchy of Montferrat where the family spent
the winter. He also adopted an ascetic lifestyle.

The family was called to Spain in 1581 to assist the Holy Roman Empress Maria of Austria.
They arrived in Madrid in March 1582, where Aloysius and Rodolfo became pages for the young
Infante Diego. Aloysius started thinking in earnest about joining a religious order. He had
considered joining the Capuchins, but he had a Jesuit confessor in Madrid and decided instead
to join that order. His mother agreed to his request, but his father was furious and prevented him
from doing so.

In July 1584, a year and a half after the Infante's death, the family returned to Italy. Aloysius still
wanted to become a priest, but several members of his family worked hard to persuade him to
change his mind. When they realized there was no way to make him give up his plan, they tried
to persuade him to become a secular priest and offered to arrange for a bishopric for him. If he
were to become a Jesuit he would renounce any right to his inheritance or status in society. His
family's attempts to dissuade him failed; Aloysius was not interested in higher office and still
wanted to become a missionary.

In November 1585, Aloysius gave up all rights of inheritance, which was confirmed by the
emperor. He went to Rome and, because of his noble birth, gained an audience with Pope
Sixtus V. Following a brief stay at the Palazzo Aragona Gonzaga, the Roman home of his
cousin, Cardinal Scipione Gonzaga, on 25 November 1585 he was accepted into the novitiate of
the Society of Jesus in Rome. During this period, he was asked to moderate his asceticism
somewhat and to be more social with the other novices.

Aloysius' health continued to cause problems. In addition to the kidney disease, he also suffered
from a skin disease, chronic headaches and insomnia. He was sent to Milan for studies, but
after some time he was sent back to Rome because of his health. On 25 November 1587, he
took the three religious vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. In February and March 1588,
he received minor orders and started studying theology to prepare for ordination. In 1589, he
was called to Mantua to mediate between his brother Rodolfo and the Duke of Mantua. He
returned to Rome in May 1590. It is said that, later that year, he had a vision in which the
Archangel Gabriel told him that he would die within a year.

In 1591, a plague broke out in Rome. The Jesuits opened a hospital for the stricken, and
Aloysius volunteered to work there. After begging alms for the victims, Aloysius began working
with the sick, carrying the dying from the streets into a hospital founded by the Jesuits. There he
washed and fed the plague victims, preparing them as best he could to receive the sacraments.
But though he threw himself into his tasks, he privately confessed to his spiritual director, Fr.
Robert Bellarmine, that his constitution was revolted by the sights and smells of the work; he
had to work hard to overcome his physical repulsion.

At the time, many of the younger Jesuits had become infected with the disease, and so
Aloysius's superiors forbade him from returning to the hospital. But Aloysius—long accustomed
to refusals from his father—persisted and requested permission to return, which was granted.
Eventually he was allowed to care for the sick, but only at another hospital, called Our Lady of
Consolation, where those with contagious diseases were not admitted. While there, Aloysius
lifted a man out of his sickbed, tended to him, and brought him back to his bed. But the man
was infected with the plague. Aloysius grew ill and was bedridden by 3 March 1591, a few days
before his 23rd birthday.

Aloysius rallied for a time, but as fever and a cough set in, he declined for many weeks. It
seemed certain that he would die in a short time, and he was given Extreme Unction. While he
was ill, he spoke several times with his confessor, the cardinal and later saint, Robert
Bellarmine. Aloysius had another vision and told several people that he would die on the Octave
of the feast of Corpus Christi. On that day, 21 June 1591, he seemed very well in the morning,
but insisted that he would die before the day was over. As he began to grow weak, Bellarmine
gave him the last rites and recited the prayers for the dying. He died just before midnight. As Fr.
Tylenda tells the story, "When the two Jesuits came to his side, they noticed a change in his
face and realized that their young Aloysius was dying. His eyes were fixed on the crucifix he
held in his hands, and as he tried to pronounce the name of Jesus he died."

Purity was his notable virtue. The Carmelite mystic St. Maria Magdalena de Pazzi claimed to
have had a vision of him on 4 April 1600. She described him as radiant in glory because of his
"interior works," a hidden martyr for his great love of God.
Aloysius was buried in the Church of the Most Holy Annunciation, which later became the
church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (Sant'Ignazio) in Rome. He was beatified only fourteen years
after his death by Pope Paul V, on 19 October 1605. On 31 December 1726, he was canonized
together with another Jesuit novice, Stanislaus Kostka, by Pope Benedict XIII.

Feast day: June 21, patron saint of Roman Catholic youth.

ST. MARIA GORETTI
St. Maria Goretti is an Italian virgin-martyr of the Catholic Church, and one of the youngest
canonized saints. She was born to a farming family. Her father died when she was nine, and
they had to share a house with another family, the Serenellis. Maria took over household duties
while her mother, brothers, and sister worked in the fields.

Maria Teresa Goretti was born on October 16, 1890 in Corinaldo, in the Province of Ancona,
then in the Kingdom of Italy, to Luigi Goretti and Assunta Carlini. She was the third of seven
children.

By the time Maria was five, her family had become so poor that they were forced to give up their
farm, move, and work for other farmers. In 1896, they moved to Colle Gianturco, about fifty
miles outside Rome; and then in 1899 to Le Ferriere, where they lived in a building, "La Cascina
Antica," they shared with another family which included Giovanni Serenelli and his son,
Alessandro. Soon, her father became very sick with malaria, and died when she was just
nine.:21 While her mother and siblings worked in the fields, she would cook, sew, watch her
younger sister, and keep the house clean. It was a hard life, but they were very close.

On July 5, 1902, eleven-year-old Maria was sitting on the outside steps of her home, sewing
one of his brother’s shirts and watching her sister, while Alessandro was threshing beans in the
barnyard. Knowing she would be alone, he returned to the house and threatened to stab her
with an awl if she did not do what he said; he was intending to rape her. She would not submit,
however, protesting that what he wanted to do was a mortal sin and warning him that he would
go to Hell.:46 She fought desperately and kept screaming, "No! It is a sin! God does not want it!"
He first choked her, but when she insisted she would rather die than submit to him, he stabbed
her eleven times. She tried to reach the door, but he stopped her by stabbing her three more
times before running away.

Teresa, her sister, awoke with the noise and started crying, and when Assunta and Giovanni
came to check on her, they found Maria on the floor bleeding and took her to the nearest
hospital in Nettuno. She underwent surgery without anesthesia, but her injuries were beyond the
doctors' help. Halfway through the surgery, she woke up. The pharmacist said to her, "Maria,
think of me in Paradise." She looked at him and said, "Well, who knows, which of us is going to
be there first?" "You, Maria," he replied. "Then I will gladly think of you," she said. She also
expressed concern for her mother's welfare. The following day, 24 hours after the attack, having
expressed forgiveness for Alessandro and stating that she wanted to have him in Heaven with
her, she died of her injuries.

Journalist Noel Crusz provided a more detailed account:

On July 5 in 1902, at 3 pm whilst [Maria's mother] Assunta and the other children were at the
threshing floor, Serenelli who persistently sought sexual favours from the 12-year-old girl
approached her. She was taking care of her infant sister in the farmhouse. Allesandro
threatened her with a 10-inch awl, and when she refused, as she had always done, he stabbed
her 14 times.
The wounds penetrated her throat, with lesions of the pericardium, heart, lungs, and diaphragm.
Surgeons at Orsenigo were surprised that she was still alive. In a dying deposition, in the
presence of the Chief of Police, she told her mother of Serenelli's sexual harassment, and two
previous attempts made to rape her. She was afraid to reveal this earlier since she was
threatened with death.
A third account of the assault was presented by Italian historian Giordano Bruno Guerri in 1985.
He asserted that, while in prison, Alessandro stated that he did not complete the assault and
Maria died a virgin. Guerri identifies the weapon as an awl rather than a dagger.

Meanwhile, Alessandro, after having been released from prison, visited Assunta and begged
her forgiveness. She forgave him, saying that if Maria had forgiven him on her death bed then
she could not do less, and they attended Mass together the next day, receiving Holy
Communion side by side.:88 He reportedly prayed to her every day and referred to her as "my
little saint.":88–91 He attended her canonization in 1950.

Alessandro later became a lay brother of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, living in a
monastery and working as its receptionist and gardener until he died peacefully in 1970 at age
87.[

Maria was beatified on April 27, 1947, and was canonized on on June 24, 1950 by Pius XII.

Maria's feast day, celebrated on July 6. She is the patron saint of chastity, rape victims, girls,
youth, teenage girls, poverty, purity and forgiveness.
SAINT CECILIA
St. Cecilia is the patroness of musicians. It is written that as the musicians played at her
wedding she "sang in her heart to the Lord". She is one of seven women, in addition to the
Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.

While the details of her story appear to be fictional, her existence and martyrdom are
considered a historical fact. She is said to have been beheaded with a sword. An early church,
Santa Cecilia, was founded in the 3rd century by Pope Urban I in the Trastevere section of
Rome, reputedly on the site of the house in which she lived. A number of musical compositions
are dedicated to her, and her feast day has become the occasion for concerts and musical
festivals.

It was long supposed that she was a noble lady of Rome who, with her husband Valerian, his
brother Tiburtius, and a Roman soldier named Maximus, suffered martyrdom in about year 230,
under the Emperor Alexander Severus. The research of Giovanni Battista de Rossi agrees with
the statement of Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers (d. 600), that she perished in Sicily
under Emperor Marcus Aurelius between 176 and 180.

According to the story, despite her vow of virginity, she was forced by her parents to marry a
pagan nobleman named Valerian. During the wedding, Cecilia sat apart singing to God in her
heart, and for that she was later declared the saint of musicians. When the time came for her
marriage to be consummated, Cecilia told Valerian that watching over her was an angel of the
Lord, who would punish him if he sexually violated her but would love him if he respected her
virginity. When Valerian asked to see the angel, Cecilia replied that he could if he would go to
the third milestone on the Via Appia and be baptized by Pope Urban I. After following Cecilia's
advice, he saw the angel standing beside her, crowning her with a chaplet of roses and lilies.

The martyrdom of Cecilia is said to have followed that of her husband Valerian and his brother
at the hands of the prefect Turcius Almachius. The legend about Cecilia's death says that after
being struck three times on the neck with a sword, she lived for three days, and asked the pope
to convert her home into a church.

Cecilia was buried in the Catacomb of Callixtus, and later transferred to the Church of Santa
Cecilia in Trastevere. In 1599, her body was found still incorrupt, seeming to be asleep.

Her feast day is celebrated on November 22.

ST. JOSEPH OF CUPERTINO
St. Joseph of Cupertino was an Italian Conventual Franciscan friar who is honored as a
Christian mystic and saint. He was said to have been remarkably unclever, but prone to
miraculous levitation and intense ecstatic visions that left him gaping.:iii

St. Joseph was born in 1603 at Cupertino, in the diocese of Nardo in the Kingdom of Naples.
After spending his childhood and adolescence in simplicity and innocence, he finally joined the
Franciscan Friars Minor Conventual. After his ordination to the holy priesthood, he gave himself
up entirely to a life of devotion to the Lord and his church. His deep devotional life led him to the
kind of holiness which is forged through humility, voluntary mortification, and obedience. He was
consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and promoted devotion to her among all classes of
people as wonderful path to a deeper Christian life and love for Jesus Christ.

It is said that his mother often considered him a nuisance and treated him harshly. Joseph was
purported to be slow to learn and absent-minded. He was said to frequently wander aimlessly,
with his mouth gaping open. And, he had a bad temper, so, he was not at all popular. He tried to
learn the trade of shoemaking, but failed. He asked to become a Franciscan, but they initially
would not accept him. Finally he did join the Capuchins. However, for a very short period of
time. Eight months later, they sent him away. Sources say it was because he could not seem to
do anything right.

He dropped piles of dishes and kept forgetting to do what he was told. His mother was not at all
pleased to have the eighteen-year-old Joseph back home again, so she finally got him accepted
as a servant at the Franciscan monastery. He was given the friars habit and put to hard work
taking care of the horses.

About this time, Joseph began to change. He grew in humility and gentleness, fruits of the Holy
Spirit at work in a person. He became more careful and successful at his work. He also began
to pray more do more voluntary acts of penance. Finally, he was able to enter the Franciscan
order and, eventually, study for the priesthood. Although he was a good and holy friar, he had a
very hard time with studies. During his seminary exams, the examiner happened to ask him to
explain the only thing he knew well, and so he was ordained a deacon, and later a priest.

After this, the Holy Spirit began to work many amazing miracles through St. Joseph. Over
seventy times, people say they saw him rise from the ground while offering mass or praying.
Often he went into ecstasy and would be caught up in talking with God. He fell so deeply in love
with God that everything he saw only drew him into a deeper union. He said that all the troubles
of this world were nothing but the "play" battles children have with popguns. St. Joseph became
so famous for the miracles that he was finally kept hidden from the public, but he was happy for
the chance to be alone with his beloved Lord. On His part, Jesus never left him alone and one
day came to bring him to Heaven.

The life of this saint was marked by ecstasies and levitations. The mere mention of God or a
spiritual matter was enough to take him out of his senses; at Mass he is said to have frequently
floated in the air in rapture. Once as Christmas carols were being sung, he soared to the high
altar and knelt in the air, in ecstatic prayer. The people flocked to him in droves seeking help
and advice in the confessional, and he assisted many in living a truly devout Christian life.
However, this humble man had to endure many severe trials and terrible temptations throughout
his life. He died on September 18, 1663.
Pope Clement XIII canonized him in 1767. He is the patron saint of air travelers, pilots and
learning disabled.
ST. JOSEPHINE MARGARET BAKHITA
St. Josephine was a Sudanese-Italian Canossian religious sister active in Italy for 45 years,
after having been a slave in Sudan. In 2000 she was declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

She was born around 1869 in Darfur (now in western Sudan) She belonged to the prestigious
Daju people; her respected and reasonably prosperous father was brother of the village chief.
She was surrounded by a loving family of three brothers and three sisters; as she says in her
autobiography: "I lived a very happy and carefree life, without knowing what suffering (was)".

Sometime between the age of seven to nine, she was seized by Arab slave traders, who had
abducted her elder sister two years earlier. She was forced to walk barefoot about 960
kilometres (600 mi) to El Obeid and was sold and bought twice before she arrived there. Over
the course of twelve years (1877–1889) she was sold three more times and then given away.

Bakhita was not the name she received from her parents at birth. It is said that the trauma of her
abduction caused her to forget her own name; she took one given to her by the slavers, bakhita,
Arabic for "lucky" or "fortunate". She was also forcibly converted to Islam.

Life as a slave:

In El Obeid, Bakhita was bought by a rich Arab who used her as a maid for his two daughters.
They liked her and treated her well. But after offending one of her owner's sons, possibly by
breaking a vase, the son lashed and kicked her so severely that she spent more than a month
unable to move from her straw bed. Her fourth owner was a Turkish general, and she had to
serve his mother-in-law and his wife, who were cruel to their slaves. Bakhita says: "During all
the years I stayed in that house, I do not recall a day that passed without some wound or other.
When a wound from the whip began to heal, other blows would pour down on me."

She says that the most terrifying of all of her memories there where was when she was (along
with other slaves) was marked by a process resembling both scarification and tattooing, which
was a traditional practice throughout Sudan. As her mistress was watching her with a whip in
her hand, a dish of white flour, a dish of salt and a razor were brought by a woman. She used
the flour to draw patterns on her skin and then she cut deeply along the lines before filling the
wounds with salt to ensure permanent scarring. A total of 114 intricate patterns were cut into her
breasts, belly and into her right arm.

By the end of 1882, El Obeid came under the threat of an attack of Mahdist revolutionaries. The
Turkish general began making preparations to return to his homeland and sold his slaves. In
1883 Bakhita was bought in Khartoum by the Italian Vice Consul Callisto Legnani, who treated
her kindly and did not beat or punish her. Two years later, when Legnani himself had to return to
Italy, Bakhita begged to go with him. By the end of 1884 they escaped from besieged Khartoum
with a friend, Augusto Michieli. They travelled a risky 650-kilometre (400 mi) trip on camel back
to Suakin, which was the largest port of Sudan. In March 1885 they left Suakin for Italy and
arrived at the port of Genoa in April. They were met there by Augusto Michieli's wife Signora
Maria Turina Michieli. Callisto Legnani gave ownership of Bakhita to Turina Michieli. Bakhita's
new owners took her to their family villa at Zianigo. She lived there for three years and became
nanny to the Michieli's daughter Alice, known as Mimmina, born in February 1886. The Michielis
brought Bakhita with them to the Sudan for nine months before returning to Italy.
Suakin on the Red Sea was besieged but remained in Anglo-Egyptian hands. Augusto Michieli
acquired a large hotel there and decided to sell his property in Italy and to move his family to
Sudan permanently. Selling his house and lands took longer than expected. By the end of 1888,
Signora Turina Michieli wanted to see her husband in Sudan even though land transactions
were not finished. Since the villa in Zianigo was already sold, Bakhita and Mimmina needed a
temporary place to stay while Turina went to Sudan without them. On the advice of their
business agent Illuminato Cecchini, on 29 November 1888, Turina Michieli left them in the care
of the Canossian Sisters in Venice. There, cared for and instructed by the Sisters, Bakhita
encountered Christianity for the first time. Grateful to her teachers, she recalled, "Those holy
mothers instructed me with heroic patience and introduced me to that God who from childhood I
had felt in my heart without knowing who He was."

When Mrs. Michieli returned to take her daughter and maid back to Suakin, Bakhita firmly
refused to leave. For three days Mrs. Michieli tried to force the issue, finally appealing to the
king's attorney general; while the superior of the Institute for baptismal candidates
(catechumenate) that Bakhita attended contacted the cardinal of Venice about her protegeé's
problem. On 29 November 1889 an Italian court ruled that because the British had induced
Sudan to outlaw slavery before Bakhita's birth and because Italian law did not recognize
slavery, Bakhita had never legally been a slave. For the first time in her life, Bakhita found
herself in control of her own destiny. She chose to remain with the Canossians. On 9 January
1890 Bakhita was baptized with the names of Josephine Margaret and Fortunata (which is the
Latin translation for the Arabic Bakhita). On the same day she was also confirmed and received
Holy Communion from Archbishop Giuseppe Sarto, the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, the future
Pope Pius X.

On 7 December 1893 Josephine Bakhita entered the novitiate of the Canossian Sisters and on
8 December 1896 she took her vows, welcomed by Cardinal Sarto. In 1902 she was assigned
to the Canossian convent at Schio, in the northern Italian province of Vicenza, where she spent
the rest of her life. Her only extended time away was between 1935 and 1939, when she stayed
at the Missionary Novitiate in Vimercate (Milan); mostly visiting other Canossian communities in
Italy, talking about her experiences and helping to prepare young sisters for work in Africa. A
strong missionary drive animated her throughout her entire life - "her mind was always on God,
and her heart in Africa".

During her 42 years in Schio, Bakhita was employed as the cook, sacristan and portress (door
keeper) and was in frequent contact with the local community. Her gentleness, calming voice,
and ever-present smile became well known and Vicenzans still refer to her as Sor Moretta ("little
brown sister") or Madre Moretta ("black mother"). Her special charisma and reputation for
sanctity were noticed by her order; the first publication of her story (Storia Meravigliosa by Ida
Zanolini) in 1931, made her famous throughout Italy. During the Second World War (1939–
1945) she shared the fears and hopes of the town people, who considered her a saint and felt
protected by her mere presence. Bombs did not spare Schio, but the war passed without a
single casualty.

Her last years were marked by pain and sickness. She used a wheelchair but she retained her
cheerfulness, and if asked how she was, she would always smile and answer: "As the Master
desires." In the extremity of her last hours her mind was driven back to the years of her slavery
and she cried out: "The chains are too tight, loosen them a little, please!" After a while she came
round again. Someone asked her, "How are you? Today is Saturday," probably hoping that this
would cheer her because Saturday is the day of the week dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus.
Bakhita replied, "Yes, I am so happy: Our Lady ... Our Lady!" These were her last audible
words.

Bakhita died on 8 February 1947. For three days her body lay on display while thousands of
people arrived to pay their respects. Her remains were transferred to the Church of the Holy
Family of the Canossian convent of Schio in 1969.

On 17 May 1992, she was declared Blessed and given February 8 as her feast day. On 1
October 2000, she was canonised as Saint Josephine Bakhita. She is venerated as a modern
African saint, and as a statement against the brutal history of slavery. She has been adopted as
the patron saint of Sudan and human trafficking survivors.
ST. RITA OF CASCIA
St. Rita was an Italian widow and Augustinian nun venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic
Church. Rita was a child bride, married before the age of 12. The marriage lasted for eighteen
years, during which she is remembered for her Christian values as a model wife and mother
who made efforts to convert her husband from his abusive behavior. Upon the murder of her
husband by another feuding family, she sought to dissuade her sons from revenge.

Rita subsequently joined an Augustinian community of religious sisters, where she was known
both for practicing mortification of the flesh and for the efficacy of her prayers. Various miracles
are attributed to her intercession, and she is often portrayed with a bleeding wound on her
forehead, which is understood to indicate a partial stigmata.

Rita (Margherita Lotti) was born in 1381 in the city of Roccaporena a small suburb of Cascia
(near Spoleto, Umbria, Italy) where various sites connected with her are the focus of
pilgrimages. Her parents, Antonio and Amata Ferri Lotti, were known to be noble, charitable
persons, who gained the epithet Conciliatore di Cristo (English: Peacemakers of Christ).
According to pious accounts, Rita was originally pursued by a notary named Gubbio but she
resisted his offer. She was married at age twelve to a nobleman named Paolo Mancini. Her
parents arranged her marriage, a common practice at the time, despite her repeated requests to
be allowed to enter a convent of religious sisters. Her husband, Paolo Mancini, was known to be
a rich, quick-tempered, immoral man, who had many enemies in the region of Cascia. Rita had
her first child at the age of twelve.

Rita endured his insults, physical abuse, and infidelities for many years. According to popular
tales, through humility, kindness, and patience, Rita was able to convert her husband into a
better person, more specifically renouncing a family feud known at the time as La Vendetta. Rita
eventually bore two sons, Giangiacomo (Giovanni) Antonio, and Paulo Maria, and brought them
up in the Christian faith. As time went by and the family feud between the Chiqui and Mancini
families became more intense, Paolo Mancini became congenial, but his allies betrayed him
and he was violently stabbed to death by Guido Chiqui, a member of the feuding family.

Rita gave a public pardon at Paolo's funeral to her husband's murderers. Paolo Mancini's
brother, Bernardo, was said to have continued the blood family feud and hoped to convince
Rita's sons to seek revenge. Bernardo convinced Rita's sons to leave their manor and live at the
Mancini villa ancestral home. As her sons grew, their characters began to change as Bernardo
became their tutor. Rita's sons wished to revenge their father's murder. Rita, fearing that her
sons would lose their souls, tried to persuade them from retaliating, but to no avail. Accordingly,
she petitioned God to take her sons rather than submit them to possible mortal sin and murder.
Her sons died of dysentery a year later, which pious Catholics believe was God's answer to her
prayer, taking them by natural death rather than risk them committing a mortal sin punishable by
Hell.

After the deaths of her husband and sons, Rita desired to enter the monastery of Saint Mary
Magdalene in Cascia but was turned away. Although the convent acknowledged Rita's good
character and piety, the nuns were afraid of being associated with her due to the scandal of her
husband's violent death. However, she persisted in her cause and was given a condition before
the convent could accept her: the task of reconciling her family with her husband's murderers.
She implored her three patron saints (John the Baptist, Augustine of Hippo, and Nicholas of
Tolentino) to assist her, and she set about the task of establishing peace between the hostile
parties of Cascia. Popular religious tales recall that the bubonic plague, which ravaged Italy at
the time, infected Bernardo Mancini, causing him to relinquish his desire to feud any longer with
the Chiqui family. She was able to resolve the conflicts between the families and, at the age of
thirty-six, was allowed to enter the monastery.

For the last 15 years of her life she received a stigmata-like thorn wound in answer to her
prayers to be more profoundly conformed to the passion of the Lord Jesus. Rita was bedridden
for the last four years of her life, consuming almost nothing except for the Eucharist. She died of
tuberculosis at the age of 70 on May 22, 1456.

Pope Leo XIII canonized Rita on 24 May 1900. Her feast day is celebrated on May 22. At her
canonization ceremony she was bestowed the title of Patroness of Impossible Causes, while in
many Catholic countries, Rita came to be known to be as the patroness of abused wives and
heartbroken women.
ST. GERMAINE COUSIN
When Hortense decided to marry Laurent Cousin in Pibrac, France, it was not out of love for his
infant daughter. Germaine was everything Hortense despised. Weak and ill, the girl had also
been born with a right hand that was deformed and paralyzed. Hortense replaced the love that
Germaine has lost when her mother died with cruelty and abuse.

Laurent, who had a weak character, pretended not to notice that Germaine had been given so
little food that she had learned to crawl in order to get to the dog's dish. He wasn't there to
protect her when Hortense left Germaine in a drain while she cared for chickens -- and forgot
her for three days. He didn't even interfere when Hortense poured boiling water on Germaine's
legs. With this kind of treatment, it's no surprise that Germaine became even more ill. She came
down with a disease known as scrofula, a kind of tuberculosis that causes the neck glands to
swell up. Sores began to appear on her neck and in her weakened condition to fell prey to every
disease that came along. Instead of awakening Hortense's pity this only made her despise
Germaine more for being even uglier in her eyes.

Germaine found no sympathy and love with her siblings. Watching their mother's treatment of
their half-sister, they learned how to despise and torment her, putting ashes in her food and
pitch in her clothes. Their mother found this very entertaining.

Hortense did finally get concerned about Germaine's sickness -- because she was afraid her
own children would catch it. So she made Germaine sleep out in the barn. The only warmth
Germaine had on frozen winter nights was the woolly sheep who slept there too. The only food
she had were the scraps Hortense might remember to throw her way.

The abuse of Germaine tears at our hearts and causes us to cry for pity and justice. But it was
Germaine's response to that abuse and her cruel life that wins our awe and veneration.
Germaine was soon entrusted with the sheep. No one expected her to have any use for
education so she spent long days in the field tending the sheep. Instead of being lonely, she
found a friend in God. She didn't know any theology and only the basics of the faith that she
learned the catechism. But she had a rosary made of knots in string and her very simple
prayers: "Dear God, please don't let me be too hungry or too thirsty. Help me to please my
mother. And help me to please you." Out of that simple faith, grew a profound holiness and a
deep trust of God.

And she had the most important prayer of all -- the Mass. Every day, without fail, she would
leave her sheep in God's care and go to Mass. Villagers wondered that the sheep weren't
attacked by the wolves in the woods when she left but God's protection never failed her. One
day when the rains had swollen the river to flood stage, a villager saw the river part so that she
could cross to get to the church in time for Mass.

No matter how little Germaine had, she shared it with others. Her scraps of food were given to
beggars. Her life of prayer became stories of God that entranced the village children.
But most startling of all was the forgiveness to showed to the woman who deserved her hatred.
Hortense, furious at the stories about her daughter's holiness, waited only to catch her doing
wrong. One cold winter day, after throwing out a beggar that Germaine had let sleep in the barn,
Hortense caught Germaine carrying something bundled up in her apron. Certain that Germaine
had stolen bread to feed the beggar, she began to chase and scream at the child. As she began
to beat her, Germaine opened her apron. Out tumbled what she had been hiding in her apron --
bright beautiful flowers that no one had expected to see for months. Where had she found the
vibrant blossoms in the middle of the ice and snow? There was only one answer and Germaine
gave it herself, when she handed a flower to her mother and said, "Please accept this flower,
Mother. God sends it to you in sign of his forgiveness."

As the whole village began to talk about this holy child, even Hortense began to soften her
feelings toward her. She even invited Germaine back to the house but Germaine had become
used to her straw bed and continued to sleep in it. There she was found dead at the age of 22,
overcome by a life of suffering.

With all the evidence of her holiness, her life was too simple and hidden to mean much beyond
her tiny village -- until God brought it too light again. When her body was exhumed forty years
later, it was found to be undecayed, what is known as incorruptible. As is often the case with
incorruptible bodies of saints, God chooses not the outwardly beautiful to preserve but those
that others despised as ugly and weak. It's as if God is saying in this miracle that human ideas
of beauty are not his. To him, no one was more beautiful than this humble lonely young woman.
After her body was found in this state, the villagers started to speak again of what she had been
like and what she had done. Soon miracles were attributed to her intercession and the clamor
for her canonization began.

Her remains were buried in the parish church of Pibrac in front of the pulpit. In 1644, when the
grave was opened to receive one of her relatives, the body of Germaine was discovered fresh
and perfectly preserved, and miraculously raised almost to the level of the floor of the church. It
was exposed for public view near the pulpit, until a noble lady, the wife of François de
Beauregard, presented as a thanks-offering a casket of lead to hold the remains. She had been
cured of a malignant and incurable ulcer in the breast, and her infant son whose life was
despaired of was restored to health on her seeking the intercession of Germaine. This was the
first of a long series of wonderful cures wrought at her relics. The leaden casket was placed in
the sacristy, and in 1661 and 1700 the remains were viewed and found fresh and intact by the
vicars-general of Toulouse, who have left testamentary depositions of the fact. Expert medical
evidence deposed that the body had not been embalmed, and experimental tests showed that
the preservation was not due to any property inherent in the soil. In 1700 a movement was
begun to procure the beatification of Germaine, but it fell through owing to accidental causes.

The private veneration of Germaine had continued from the original finding of the body in 1644,
supported and encouraged by numerous cures and miracles. The cause of beatification was
resumed in 1850. The documents attested more than 400 miracles or extraordinary graces, and
thirty postulatory letters from archbishops and bishops in France besought the beatification from
the Holy See. The miracles attested were cures of every kind (of blindness, congenital and
resulting from disease, of hip and spinal disease), besides the multiplication of food for the
distressed community of the Good Shepherd at Bourges in 1845. On 7 May, 1854, Pius IX
proclaimed her beatification, and on 29 June, 1867, placed her on the canon of virgin saints.
Her feast is kept in the Diocese of Toulouse on 15 June. She is represented in art with a
shepherd's crook or with a distaff; with a watchdog, or a sheep; or with flowers in her apron. Her
feast day is celebrated every June 15.
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER
St. Francis Xavier, Spanish San Francisco Javier or Xavier, the greatest Roman Catholic
missionary of modern times who was instrumental in the establishment of Christianity in India,
the Malay Archipelago, and Japan. In Paris in 1534 he pronounced vows as one of the first
seven members of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, under the leadership of St. Ignatius of
Loyola.

Francis was born in Navarre (now in northern Spain), at the family castle of Xavier, where
Basque was the native language. He was the third son of the president of the council of the king
of Navarre, most of whose kingdom was soon to fall to the crown of Castile (1512). Francis grew
up at Xavier and received his early education there. As was often the case with younger sons of
the nobility, he was destined for an ecclesiastical career, and in 1525 he journeyed to the
University of Paris, the theological centre of Europe, to begin his studies.

In 1529 Ignatius of Loyola, another Basque student, was assigned to room with Francis. A
former soldier 15 years Francis’s senior, he had undergone a profound religious conversion and
was then gathering about himself a group of men who shared his ideals. Gradually, Ignatius
won over the initially recalcitrant Francis, and Francis was among the band of seven who, in a
chapel on Montmartre in Paris, on August 15, 1534, vowed lives of poverty and celibacy in
imitation of Christ and solemnly promised to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and
subsequently to devote themselves to the salvation of believers and unbelievers alike. Francis
then performed the Spiritual Exercises, a series of meditations lasting about 30 days and
devised by Ignatius in light of his own experience of conversion to guide the individual toward
greater generosity in the service of God and humankind. They implanted in Francis the
motivation that carried him for the rest of his life and prepared the way for his recurrent mystical
experiences.

Mission To India

After all the members of the band had completed their studies, they reassembled in Venice,
where Francis was ordained priest on June 24, 1537. Having for more than a year sought
passage to the Holy Land in vain, the seven, along with fresh recruits, went to Rome to put
themselves at the disposal of the pope. Meanwhile, as a result of their preaching and care of the
sick throughout central Italy, they had become so popular that many Catholic princes sought
their services. One of these was King John III of Portugal, who desired diligent priests to
minister to the Christians and to evangelize the peoples in his new Asian dominions. When
illness prevented one of the two originally chosen for the task from departing, Ignatius
designated Francis as his substitute. The next day, March 15, 1540, Francis left Rome for the
Indies, travelling first to Lisbon. In the following fall, Pope Paul III formally recognized the
followers of Ignatius as a religious order, the Society of Jesus.

Francis disembarked in Goa, the centre of Portuguese activity in the East, on May 6, 1542; his
companion had remained behind to work in Lisbon. Much of the next three years he spent on
the southeastern coast of India among the simple, poor pearl fishers, the Paravas. About 20,000
of them had accepted baptism seven years before, chiefly to secure Portuguese support against
their enemies; since then, however, they had been neglected. Using a small catechism he had
translated into the native Tamil with the help of interpreters, Francis travelled tirelessly from
village to village instructing and confirming them in their faith. His evident goodness and the
force of his conviction overcame difficulties of verbal communication. Shortly afterward the
Macuans on the southwestern coast indicated their desire for baptism, and after brief
instructions he baptized 10,000 of them in the last months of 1544. He anticipated that the
schools he planned and Portuguese pressure would keep them constant in the faith.

In the fall of 1545, news of opportunities for Christianity attracted him to the Malay Archipelago.
Following several months of evangelization among the mixed population of the Portuguese
commercial centre at Malacca (now Melaka, Malaysia), he moved on to found missions among
the Malays and the headhunters in the Spice Islands (Moluccas). In 1548 he returned to India,
where more Jesuits had since arrived to join him. In Goa the College of Holy Faith, founded
several years previously, was turned over to the Jesuits, and Francis began to develop it into a
centre for the education of native priests and catechists for the diocese of Goa, which stretched
from the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, to China.

Years In Japan

Francis’s eyes, however, were now fixed on a land reached only five years before by
Europeans: Japan. His conversations in Malacca with Anjirō, a Japanese man deeply interested
in Christianity, had shown that this people was cultured and sophisticated. On August 15, 1549,
a Portuguese ship bearing Francis, the newly baptized Anjirō, and several companions entered
the Japanese port of Kagoshima. His first letter from Japan, which was to be printed more than
30 times before the end of the century, revealed his enthusiasm for the Japanese as, “the best
people yet discovered.” He grew conscious of the need to adapt his methods. His poverty that
had so won the Paravas and Malays often repelled the Japanese, so he abandoned it for
studied display when this was called for. In late 1551, having received no mail since his arrival
in Japan, Francis decided to return temporarily to India, leaving to the care of his companions
about 2,000 Christians in five communities.

Back in India, administrative affairs awaited him as the superior of the newly erected Jesuit
Province of the Indies. Meanwhile, he had come to realize that the way to the conversion of
Japan lay through China; it was to the Chinese that the Japanese looked for wisdom. He never
reached China, however. On December 3, 1552, Francis died of fever on the island of Sancian
(now Shang-ch’uan Tao, off the Chinese coast) as he attempted to secure entrance to the
country, then closed to foreigners.

Legacy

Modern scholarship has dispelled many of the legends connected with St. Francis Xavier and
has also defended him against his critics. A 20th-century estimate puts the figure of those
baptized by him at about 30,000, as opposed to the 1,000,000 asserted by Baroque
exaggeration. In reality he had to struggle with language wherever he worked and did not
possess the gift of tongues attributed to him. He is justly credited for his idea that the missionary
must adapt to the customs and language of the people he evangelizes, and for his advocation of
an educated native clergy—initiatives not always followed by his successors.

Research has shown that he always provided for the continuing pastoral care of the
communities he founded and did not abandon them after baptism as some critics maintained. In
fact, many of his own efforts were spent instructing those baptized hastily by others. The areas
he evangelized in India have remained Catholic to the present day. Vigorous and prolonged
persecution in the 17th century did destroy the missions he founded in the Moluccas and Japan
but only after thousands had died as martyrs. Even before his death, Francis Xavier was
considered a saint, and he has been formally venerated as such by the Catholic Church since
1622. In 1927 he was named patron of all missions. His feast day is on December 3.

*It is claimed by some that during this expedition he landed on the island of Mindanao, and for
this reason St. Francis Xavier has been called the first Apostle of the Philippines. But although
this statement is made by some writers of the seventeenth century, and in the Bull of
canonization issued in 1623, it is said that he preached the Gospel in Mindanao, up to the
present time it has not been proved absolutely that St. Francis Xavier ever landed in the
Philippines.
ST. THÉRÈSE OF THE CHILD JESUS
St. Therese of Lisieux was born Marie Françoise-Thérèse Martin . She is popularly known as
"The Little Flower of Jesus", or simply "The Little Flower".

THÉRÈSE MARTIN was born at Alençon, France on 2 January 1873. Two days later, she was
baptized Marie Frances Thérèse at Notre Dame Church. Her parents were Louis Martin and
Zélie Guérin. Both her parents were devout Catholics who would eventually become the first
(and to date only) married couple canonized together by the Roman Catholic Church (by Pope
Francis in 2015).After the death of her mother on 28 August 1877, Thérèse and her family
moved to Lisieux.

Towards the end of 1879, she went to confession for the first time. On the Feast of Pentecost
1883, she received the singular grace of being healed from a serious illness through the
intercession of Our Lady of Victories. Taught by the Benedictine Nuns of Lisieux and after an
intense immediate preparation culminating in a vivid experience of intimate union with Christ,
she received First Holy Communion on 8 May 1884. Some weeks later, on 14 June of the same
year, she received the Sacrament of Confirmation, fully aware of accepting the gift of the Holy
Spirit as a personal participation in the grace of Pentecost.

She wished to embrace the contemplative life, as her sisters Pauline and Marie had done in the
Carmel of Lisieux, but was prevented from doing so by her young age. On a visit to Italy, after
having visited the House of Loreto and the holy places of the Eternal City, during an audience
granted by Pope Leo XIII to the pilgrims from Lisieux on 20 November 1887, she asked the Holy
Father with childlike audacity to be able to enter the Carmel at the age of fifteen.

On 9 April 1888 she entered the Carmel of Lisieux. She received the habit on 10 January of the
following year, and made her religious profession on 8 September 1890 on the Feast of the
Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In Carmel she embraced the way of perfection outlined by the Foundress, Saint Teresa of
Jesus, fulfilling with genuine fervour and fidelity the various community responsibilities entrusted
to her. Her faith was tested by the sickness of her beloved father, Louis Martin, who died on 29
July 1894. Thérèse nevertheless grew in sanctity, enlightened by the Word of God and inspired
by the Gospel to place love at the centre of everything. In her autobiographical manuscripts she
left us not only her recollections of childhood and adolescence but also a portrait of her soul, the
description of her most intimate experiences. She discovered the little way of spiritual childhood
and taught it to the novices entrusted to her care. She considered it a special gift to receive the
charge of accompanying two "missionary brothers" with prayer and sacrifice. Seized by the love
of Christ, her only Spouse, she penetrated ever more deeply into the mystery of the Church and
became increasingly aware of her apostolic and missionary vocation to draw everyone in her
path.

On 9 June 1895, on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, she offered herself as a sacrificial
victim to the merciful Love of God. At this time, she wrote her first autobiographical manuscript,
which she presented to Mother Agnes for her birthday on 21 January 1896.

Several months later, on 3 April, in the night between Holy Thursday and Good Friday, she
suffered a haemoptysis, the first sign of the illness which would lead to her death; she
welcomed this event as a mysterious visitation of the Divine Spouse. From this point forward,
she entered a trial of faith which would last until her death; she gives overwhelming testimony to
this in her writings. In September, she completed Manuscript B; this text gives striking evidence
of the spiritual maturity which she had attained, particularly the discovery of her vocation in the
heart of the Church.

While her health declined and the time of trial continued, she began work in the month of June
on Manuscript C, dedicated to Mother Marie de Gonzague. New graces led her to higher
perfection and she discovered fresh insights for the diffusion of her message in the Church, for
the benefit of souls who would follow her way. She was transferred to the infirmary on 8 July.
Her sisters and other religious women collected her sayings. Meanwhile her sufferings and trials
intensified. She accepted them with patience up to the moment of her death in the afternoon of
30 September 1897. "I am not dying, I am entering life", she wrote to her missionary spiritual
brother, Father M. Bellier. Her final words, "My God..., I love you!", seal a life which was
extinguished on earth at the age of twenty-four; thus began, as was her desire, a new phase of
apostolic presence on behalf of souls in the Communion of Saints, in order to shower a rain of
roses upon the world.

She was canonized by Pope Pius XI on 17 May 1925. The same Pope proclaimed her Universal
Patron of the Missions, alongside Saint Francis Xavier, on 14 December 1927.

Her teaching and example of holiness has been received with great enthusiasm by all sectors of
the faithful during this century, as well as by people outside the Catholic Church and outside
Christianity.

On the occasion of the centenary of her death, many Episcopal Conferences have asked the
Pope to declare her a Doctor of the Church, in view of the soundness of her spiritual wisdom
inspired by the Gospel, the originality of her theological intuitions filled with sublime teaching,
and the universal acceptance of her spiritual message, which has been welcomed throughout
the world and spread by the translation of her works into over fifty languages.

Mindful of these requests, His Holiness Pope John Paul II asked the Congregation for the
Causes of Saints, which has competence in this area, in consultation with the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith with regard to her exalted teaching, to study the suitability of
proclaiming her a Doctor of the Church.

On 24 August, at the close of the Eucharistic Celebration at the Twelfth World Youth Day in
Paris, in the presence of hundreds of bishops and before an immense crowd of young people
from the whole world, Pope John Paul II announced his intention to proclaim Thérèse of the
Child Jesus and of the Holy Face a Doctor of the Universal Church on World Mission Sunday,
19 October 1997.
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
Francis was the son of Pietro di Bernardone, a cloth merchant, and the lady Pica, who may
have come from France. At Francis’s birth, his father was away on a business trip to France,
and his mother had him baptized Giovanni. On his return, however, Pietro changed the infant’s
name to Francesco because of either his interest in France or his wife’s background. Francis
learned to read and write Latin at the school near the church of San Giorgio, acquired some
knowledge of French language and literature, and was especially fond of the Provenƈal culture
of the troubadours. He liked to speak French (although he never did so perfectly) and even
attempted to sing in the language. His youth was most likely without serious moral lapses, and
his exuberant love of life and a general spirit of worldliness made him a recognized leader of the
young men of the town.

In 1202 he took part in a war between Assisi and Perugia, was held prisoner for almost a year,
and on his release fell seriously ill. After his recovery, he attempted to join the papal forces
under Count Gentile against the emperor Frederick II in Apulia in late 1205. On his journey,
however, he had a vision or dream that bade him return to Assisi and await the call to a new
kind of knighthood. On his return, he dedicated himself to solitude and prayer so that he might
know God’s will for him.

Several other episodes contributed to his conversion to the apostolic life: a vision of Christ while
Francis prayed in a grotto near Assisi; an experience of poverty during a pilgrimage to Rome,
where, in rags, he mingled with the beggars before St. Peter’s Basilica and begged alms; an
incident in which he not only gave alms to a leper (he had always felt a deep repugnance for
lepers) but also kissed his hand. Among such episodes, the most important, according to his
disciple and first biographer, Thomas of Celano, occurred at the ruined chapel of San Damiano
outside the gate of Assisi when Francis heard the crucifix above the altar command him: “Go,
Francis, and repair my house which, as you see, is well-nigh in ruins.” Taking this literally,
Francis hurried home, gathered some fine cloth from his father’s shop, and rode off to the
nearby town of Foligno, where he sold both cloth and horse. He then tried to give the money to
the priest at San Damiano, whose refusal prompted Francis to throw the money out the window.
Angered, his father kept him at home and then brought him before the civil authorities. When
Francis refused to answer the summons, his father called him before the bishop of Assisi.
Before any accusations were made, Francis “without a word peeled off his garments even
removing his breeches and restored them to his father.” Completely naked, he said: “Until now I
have called you my father on earth. But henceforth I can truly say: Our Father who art in
heaven.” The astonished bishop gave him a cloak, and Francis went off to the woods of Mount
Subasio above the city.

Francis renounced worldly goods and family ties to embrace a life of poverty. He repaired the
church of San Damiano, refurbished a chapel dedicated to St. Peter the Apostle, and then
restored the now-famous little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels (Santa Maria degli Angeli), the
Porziuncola, on the plain below Assisi. There, on the feast of St. Matthias, February 24, 1208,
he listened at mass to the account of the mission of Christ to the Apostles from the Gospel
According to Matthew (10:7, 9–11): “And as you go, preach the message, ‘The kingdom is at
hand!’…Take no gold, nor silver, nor money in your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two
tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff; for the labourer deserves his food. And whatever town or villa
you enter, find out who is worthy in it, and stay with him until you depart.” According to Thomas
of Celano, this was the decisive moment for Francis, who declared, “This is what I wish; this is
what I am seeking. This is what I want to do from the bottom of my heart.” He then removed his
shoes, discarded his staff, put on a rough tunic, and began to preach repentance.

Francis preached to townspeople—even though as a layperson he was without license to do so

—and he soon attracted followers. In 1209 he composed for his mendicant disciples, or friars, a
simple rule (Regula primitiva, “Primitive Rule”) drawn from passages in the Bible: “To follow the
teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps.” He then led the group of 12
disciples to Rome to seek the approval of Pope Innocent III, an important step that
demonstrated Francis’s recognition of papal authority and saved his order from the fate of the
Waldensians, who had been declared heretics in the late 12th century. At first Innocent was
hesitant, but, following a dream in which he saw Francis holding up the church of San Giovanni
in Laterano, he gave oral approbation to the Franciscan rule of life. This event, which according
to tradition, occurred on April 16, 1210, marked the official founding of the Franciscan order.
The Friars Minor, or Lesser Brothers, as they came to be known, were street preachers with no
possessions and only the Porziuncola as a centre. They preached and worked first in Umbria
and then, as their numbers grew rapidly, in the rest of Italy.

Probably no one in history has set out as seriously as did Francis to imitate the life of Christ and
to carry out so literally Christ’s work in Christ’s own way. This is the key to the character and
spirit of St. Francis and helps explain his veneration for the Eucharist (the body and blood of
Christ) and respect for the priests who handled the elements of the communion sacrament. To
neglect this point is to present an unbalanced portrait of the saint as a lover of nature, a social
worker, an itinerant preacher, and a celebrant of poverty.

Certainly the love of poverty is part of his spirit, and his contemporaries celebrated poverty
either as his “lady,” in the allegorical Sacrum commercium (Eng. trans., Francis and His Lady
Poverty, 1964), or as his “bride,” in the fresco by Giotto in the lower church of San Francesco at
Assisi. Indeed, poverty was so important to Francis that in his last writing, the Testament,
composed shortly before his death in 1226, he declared unambiguously that absolute personal
and corporate poverty was the essential lifestyle for the members of his order. It was not,
however, mere external poverty he sought but the total denial of self (as in the Letter of Paul to
the Philippians 2:7).

Francis considered all nature as the mirror of God and as so many steps to God. He called all
creatures his “brothers” and “sisters,” and, in the most endearing stories about him, preached to
the birds and persuaded a wolf to stop attacking the people of the town of Gubbio and their
livestock if the townspeople agreed to feed the wolf. In his “Canticle of the Creatures” (less
properly called by such names as the “Praises of Creatures” or the “Canticle of the Sun”), he
referred to “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon,” the wind and water, and even “Sister Death.” He
nicknamed his long and painful illnesses his “sisters,” and he begged pardon of “Brother Ass the
body” for having unduly burdened him with his penances. Above all, his deep sense of
brotherhood under God embraced his fellow men, for “he considered himself no friend of Christ
if he did not cherish those for whom Christ died.”

In 1212 Francis organized a second order, one for women, that became known as the Poor
Clares. He gave a religious habit, or dress, similar to his own to the noblewoman later known as
St. Clare (Clara) of Assisi and then lodged her and a few companions in the church of San
Damiano, where they were joined by women of Assisi. For those who could not leave their
families and homes, he eventually (c. 1221) formed the Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of
Penance, a lay fraternity that, without withdrawing from the world or taking religious vows, would
carry out the principles of Franciscan life. As the friars became more numerous, the order
extended outside Italy.

Determined to bring the Gospel to all God’s creatures, Francis, on several occasions, sought to
take his message out of Italy. In the late spring of 1212, he set out for the Holy Land to preach
to the Muslims but was shipwrecked on the east coast of the Adriatic Sea and had to return. A
year or two later, sickness forced him to abandon a journey to the Muslims in Spain. In 1217 he
proposed to go to France, but the future Pope Gregory IX, Cardinal Ugolino of Segni, an early
and important supporter of the order, advised Francis that he was needed more in Italy. In 1219
he did go to Egypt, where the crusaders were besieging Damietta. He went into the Muslim
camp and preached to the sultan al-Kāmil, who was impressed by him and gave him permission
(it is said) to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land.

News of disturbances among the friars in Italy forced Francis to return. Although the Order of
the Friars Minor had grown at a faster rate than any previous religious order, it had not
experienced similar organizational growth and had little more than Francis’s example and his
brief rule of life to guide its increasing numbers. To correct this situation, Francis prepared a
new and more detailed rule (Regula prima, “First Rule,” or Regula non bullata, “Rule Without a
Bull”), which reasserted devotion to poverty and the apostolic life and introduced greater
institutional structure but was never officially sanctioned by the pope. He also appointed Peter
Catanii as his vicar to handle the order’s practical affairs; after Peter’s early death in 1221,
Francis replaced him with Brother Elias of Cortona. Two years later, Francis submitted a further
revision of the rule—known as the Regula secunda (“Second Rule”), or Regula bullata (“Rule
with a Bull”)—to Pope Honorius III, who approved it in the bull Solet annuere (“Accustomed to
Grant”) on November 29, 1223. As the official rule of the order, Regula bullata enjoined the
friars “to observe the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, living in obedience without anything
of our own and in chastity.” It also outlined regulations for discipline, preaching, and entry into
the order. After his rule received papal sanction, Francis withdrew increasingly from external
affairs.

Francis’s Vision And The Stigmata Of The Crucified

At Christmastime in 1223, Francis participated in an important ceremony when he celebrated

the birth of Jesus by recreating the manger of Bethlehem at a church in Greccio, Italy. This
celebration demonstrated his devotion to the human Jesus, a devotion that would be rewarded
in most dramatic fashion in the following year. In the summer of 1224, Francis went to the
mountain retreat of La Verna (Alvernia), not far from Assisi, to celebrate the feast of the
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15) and to prepare for St. Michael’s Day
(September 29) by fasting for 40 days. He prayed that he might know how best to please God;
opening the Gospels for the answer, he came upon references to the Passion of Christ three
times. As he prayed during the morning of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September
14), he beheld a figure coming toward him from the heavens. St. Bonaventure, minister-general
of the Franciscans from 1257 to 1274 and a leading thinker of the 13th century, wrote:

As it stood above him, he saw that it was a man and yet a Seraph with six wings; his
arms were extended and his feet conjoined, and his body was fixed to a cross. Two
wings were raised above his head, two were extended as in flight, and two covered the
whole body. The face was beautiful beyond all earthly beauty, and it smiled gently upon
Francis. Conflicting emotions filled his heart, for though the vision brought great joy, the
sight of the suffering and crucified figure stirred him to deepest sorrow. Pondering what
this vision might mean, he finally understood that by God’s providence he would be
 made like to the crucified Christ not by a bodily martyrdom but by conformity in mind and
heart. Then as the vision disappeared, it left not only a greater ardour of love in the inner
man but no less marvelously marked him outwardly with the stigmata of the Crucified.

For the remainder of his life, Francis took the greatest care to hide the stigmata (marks
resembling the wounds on the crucified body of Jesus Christ). After the death of Francis,
Brother Elias announced the stigmata to the order by a circular letter. Later, Brother Leo, the
confessor and intimate companion of the saint who also left a written testimony of the event,
said that in death Francis seemed like one just taken down from the cross.

Francis lived two years longer, in constant pain and almost totally blind (he had contracted an
eye disease while proselytizing in the East in 1219). Medical treatment at Rieti was
unsuccessful, and after a stay at Siena, he was brought back to Assisi, where he died at the
Porziuncola on October 3, 1226, at age 44. He was buried temporarily in the church of San
Giorgio at Assisi. On July 15, 1228, concluding a process of unprecedented speed, Francis was
canonized by his former protector, Pope Gregory IX. On the following day, the pope laid the
foundation stone for the basilica that Brother Elias would build in Francis’s memory, and in 1230
the saint’s body was transferred to the lower church of the basilica.

In 1979 Pope John Paul II recognized him as the patron saint of ecology.
SAN PEDRO CALUNGSOD
San Pedro Calungsod was a young native of the Visayas Region in the Philippines. Little is
known about his life. Based on accounts, Pedro was taught as a lay catechist in a Jesuit minor
seminary in Loboc, Bohol. For young recruits like him, the training consisted of learning the
Catechism, Spanish, and Latin. They would be later sent with the priests to the countryside to
perform daily religious functions as altar boys or catechists. Some of them were even sent to
mission centers overseas to accompany the Jesuits in their arduous task of proclaiming the
Good News and establishing the Catholic faith in foreign lands. And that was the case of Pedro
Calungsod.

On June 18, 1668, the zealous Jesuit superior Padre Diego Luís de San Vitores, answering a
"special call," began a new mission composed of 17 young laymen and priests to the Ladrones
islands. Pedro was one of the boy catechists who went with them in the Western Pacific to
evangelize the native chamorros.

Life in the Ladrones was hard. The provisions for the mission like food and other needs did not
arrive regularly; the jungles were too thick to cross; the cliffs were very stiff to climb; and the
islands were frequently visited by devastating typhoons. Despite all these, the missionaries
persevered, and the mission was blessed with many conversions. The missionaries reached out
to the backward poblaciones (towns) and baptized over 13,000 natives. Capillas (chapels)
began to rise at various sites as Catholic instruction became extensive. A school and church
were even built and dedicated to St. Ignatius of Loyola in the city of Agadna in the northeast.
Subsequently, the islands were renamed “Marianas” by the missionaries in honor of the Blessed
Virgin Mary and of the Queen-Regent of Spain, María Ana, who was the benefactress of that
mission.

The hospitality of the natives however soon turned to hostility as the missionaries started to
change the traditional practices of the chamorros, which were incompatible with Christianity.
The missionaries objected their ancestral worship. The chamorros dug up the skulls of their
dead relatives and kept them as miraculous talismans. These were enshrined in special houses
guarded by native shamans called macanjas. The chamorros prayed to their ancestral spirits
and asked them for good luck, good harvest and victory in battle.

They also objected to the practice of young men called urritaos of consorting with young
unmarried women in public houses without the benefit of the sacrament of matrimony because
they considered this as a form of institutionalized prostitution.

They also displeased the upper caste chamorros called matuas who demanded that the
blessings of Christianity be limited to members of this group. The inferior castes should not be
given the privilege of becoming Christians.

Poisoned Water?

An influential Chinese named Choco who earlier came from a sunken wreck became envious of
the prestige that the missionaries were gaining among the chamorros. He started to spread the
talk that the baptismal water of the missionaries was poisonous. And since some sickly
chamorro infants who were baptized died by coincidence, many believed the calumniator and
eventually apostatized. The evil campaign of Choco was readily supported by the matuas,
macanjas and the urritaos who, along with the apostates, began persecuting the missionaries.
The most unforgettable assault happened on 2 April 1672, the Saturday just before the Passion
Sunday of that year. At around seven o’clock in the morning, Pedro—by then, about 17 years
old—and the superior of the mission, Padre Diego, came to the village of Tomhom, in the Island
of Guam. There, they were told that a baby girl was recently born in the village, so they went to
ask the child’s father, named Matapang, to bring out the infant for baptism. Matapang was a
Christian and a friend of the missionaries, but having apostatized, he angrily refused to have his
baby baptized.

To give Matapang some time to cool down, Padre Diego and Pedro gathered the children and
some adults of the village at the nearby shore and started chanting with them the truths of the
Catholic Faith. They invited Matapang to join them, but the apostate shouted back that he was
angry with God and was already fed up with Christian teachings.

Determined to kill the missionaries, Matapang went away and tried to enlist in his cause another
villager, named Hirao, who was not a Christian. At first, Hirao refused, mindful of the kindness of
the missionaries towards the natives; but when Matapang branded him a coward, he got
insulted and so, he consented. Meanwhile, during that brief absence of Matapang from his hut,
Padre Diego and Pedro took the chance of baptizing the infant, with the consent of the Christian
mother.

When Matapang learned of the baptism, he became even more furious. He violently hurled
spears first at Pedro. The lad skirted the darting spears with remarkable dexterity. The
witnesses said that Pedro had all the chances to escape because he was very agile, but he did
not want to leave Padre Diego alone. Those who knew Pedro personally believed that he would
have defeated his fierce aggressors and would have freed both himself and Padre Diego if only
he had some weapons because he was a very valiant boy; but Padre Diego never allowed his
companions to carry arms. Finally, Pedro got hit by a spear at the chest and he fell to the
ground. Hirao immediately charged towards him and finished him off with a blow of a cutlass on
the head. Padre Diego gave Pedro the sacramental absolution. After that, the assassins also
killed Padre Diego.

Matapang took the crucifix of Padre Diego and pounded it with a stone while blaspheming God.
Then, both assassins denuded the bodies of Pedro and Padre Diego, dragged them to the edge
of the shore, tied large stones to their feet, brought them to sea and threw them into the deep.
The remains of the martyrs were never to be found.

When the companion missionaries of Pedro learned of his death, they exclaimed, “Fortunate
youth! How well rewarded his four years of persevering service to God in the difficult mission
are: he has become the precursor of our superior, Padre Diego, in Heaven!” They remembered
Pedro to be a boy with very good disposition, a virtuous catechist, a faithful assistant, and a
good Catholic whose perseverance in the faith even to the point of martyrdom proved him to be
a good soldier of Christ (cf. 2 Tim 2:3).