St. Bruno was a school rector and professor, a priest and monk, and founder of an enduring religious order. Bruno was born c. 1030 at Cologne (modern-day Germany) to the prominent Hartenfaust family. Cologne in the Middle Ages was a hub of Catholic culture, scholarship, and monasticism. Little is known...

Blessed Dina Bélanger was a French-Canadian religious sister and mystic, known as “The Little Flower of Canada”. Dina was born in 1897 to devout Catholic parents Olivier and Séraphia Bélanger. The family lived in the city of Québec in the Province of Québec, Canada. The Bélangers were not only devout,...

St. Mary of Jesus Crucified was a Carmelite religious and mystic. Mariam Baouardy was born to George Baouardy and his wife Mariam in 1846 at Abellin in what was Ottoman Syria, near the ancient town of Nazareth. They were Melkite Greek Catholics. Her parents had lost twelve sons in infancy,...

St. Junípero Serra was a Franciscan priest, professor, and an intrepid missionary known as “The Apostle of California”. He was born to farmers Antonio and Margarita Serra, who named him Miguel in 1713. The family farm was on the island of Majorca off the coast of Spain. As a child,...

St. Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad was a convert, religious sister and a foundress. Mary Elizabeth was born in 1870 in the village of Faglavik, Sweden. She was the fifth of thirteen children born to Augusto Hesselblad and his wife Cajsa and she went by the name Elizabeth. She was baptized into...

St. Bernard of Montjoux was a priest, missionary, and a caretaker of pilgrims. He is sometimes known as Bernard of Menthon, as some believe him to be of the noble Menthon family, born at the family chateau, but that is not certain. He was born c.1020, most likely in northern...

Pope St. Pius V was a priest in religious life who became pope during one of the most tumultuous and critical periods in Church history. Antonio Ghislieri was born in 1504 at Bosco, near Alessandria, Italy. When he was fourteen, he joined the Dominican order and took the name Michele...

Blessed Marcel Callo was a pious French layman who was a martyr of Nazi Germany. Marcel was born in 1921 to a devout couple of modest means, Marcel Callo and his wife Felicita. Young Marcel was one of nine children and the family lived at Rennes in western France. He...

St. Anne Line was a convert, wife and widow, and a martyr of Elizabethan Protestant England. She was born Alice Heigham c.1563 at Dunmow, Essex, England. Her father, Willaim Heigham, was a Calvinist landowner and was the son of one of King Henry VIII’s Protestant “reformers”. In her late teens,...

St. David Galván Bermúdez was a teacher, a priest, and a martyr of the Mexican Cristero War. David was born in 1881 in Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco in western Mexico. His parents were José Galván and his wife Mariana Bermúdez and José operated a shoe store. Mariana died...