Blessed James Miller was a religious brother, missionary, and martyr. James Alfred Miller was born in 1944 to a Catholic farming family at Stevens Point, in central Wisconsin. He was the oldest of five children and grew up in the small nearby town of Custer. He attended the local elementary...
Servant of God Prosper Guéranger was a Benedictine monk, priest, abbot and reformer. Prosper was born in 1805 to Pierre Guéranger, the head of a small school for boys, and his wife. They lived in the town of Sable in western France. Young Prosper became an avid reader at a...
St. Sharbel Makhlouf was a Maronite priest, hermit and mystic. Youssef (Arabic for Joseph) Makhlouf was born in 1828 to a devout Maronite Catholic farming family. The Maronite Church is an Eastern Rite Church in full communion with the pope and the worldwide Catholic Church, tracing its heritage to the...
St. Gertrude was a gifted cloistered nun, scholar, and mystic. Nothing is known of her family, but she was born in Thuringia (in the Holy Roman Empire) in 1256. She was but five years old when she arrived, either orphaned or left with relatives, at the Benedictine Cistercian monastery at...
St. Anthony Daniel was a devoted and intrepid Jesuit priest and missionary and a martyr. Anthony (Antoine in French) was born to a merchant and his wife in 1601 in Dieppe in northern France. At age seventeen, he attended a university, where he studied law for one year and philosophy...
MICHAEL IN SCRIPTURE St. Michael the Archangel is universally regarded as one of God’s most powerful angels against all that is evil. Michael, an angel, and thus a pure spirit, is the only angel mentioned by name four times in Holy Scripture. Most significant are his appearances in the twelfth...
St. Jane Frances de Chantal was a devoted wife and mother and the foundress of a vital women’s religious order. Jane (Jeanne Francoise) was born in 1572 at Dijon, France to Benigne and Marguerite Fremyot. Benigne was the president of the parliament of the Province of Burgundy. Marguerite died when...
Blessed Carlos Manuel Rodriguez was a layman active in service to the Church. Carlos was born in 1918 in the city of Caguas, Puerto Rico. His parents were Manuel and Herminia (Santiago) Rodriguez, and Manuel operated a small store attached to the family home. Carlos had four siblings, and the...
St. Ephrem of Syria was a deacon, hymn-writer, and teacher of the early Church. Ephrem was born C. 306 at Nisibis, Mesopotamia, (modern-day Nusaybin, Turkey on the Syrian border). Nothing is known of his family, except that he wrote that his family was Christian. As a youth, he was mentored...
OBLATE BOY St. Bede was a monk, priest, historian, scholar, and a prolific and important translator and writer. Born c. 673, nothing is known of Bede’s parents. His birthplace was near the town of Wearmouth in present day northern England. He was brought by relatives at age seven to the...