St. Kateri Tekakwitha

Feast date: Jul 14

On July 14, the Church celebrates the feast day of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American to be canonized. Known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” Kateri lived a life of holiness and virtue, despite obstacles and opposition within her tribe.

Kateri was born in Auriesville, New York, in 1656 to a Christian Algonquin woman and a pagan Mohawk chief. When she was a child, a smallpox epidemic attacked her tribe and both her parents died. She was left with permanent scars on her face and impaired eyesight. Her uncle, who had now become chief of the tribe, adopted her and her aunts began planning her marriage while she was still very young.

When three Jesuit fathers were visiting the tribe in 1667 and staying in the tent of her uncle, they spoke to her of Christ, and though she did not ask to be baptized, she believed in Jesus with an incredible intensity. She also realized that she was called into an intimate union with God as a consecrated virgin.

Kateri had to struggle to maintain her faith amidst the opposition of her tribe who ridiculed her for it and ostracized her for refusing the marriage that had been planned for her. When she was 18, Fr. Jacques de Lamberville returned to the Mohawk village, and she asked to be baptized.

The life of the Mohawk village had become violent and debauchery was commonplace. Realizing that this was proving too dangerous to her life and her call to perpetual virginity, Kateri escaped to the town of Caughnawaga in Quebec, near Montreal, where she grew in holiness and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

Kateri lived out the last years of her short life here, practicing austere penance and constant prayer. She was said to have reached the highest levels of mystical union with God, and many miracles were attributed to her while she was still alive.

She died on April 17, 1680 at the age of 24. Witnesses reported that within minutes of her death, the scars from smallpox completely vanished and her face shone with radiant beauty.

Devotion to Kateri began immediately after her death and her body, enshrined in Caughnawaga, is visited by many pilgrims each year. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1980, and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 21, 2012.

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St. Henry II

Feast date: Jul 13

On July 13, the Catholic Church celebrates the memory of St. Henry II, a German king who led and defended Europe’s Holy Roman Empire at the beginning of the first millennium.

St. Henry was born in 972 to Duke Henry of Bavaria and Princess Gisela of Burgundy. During his youth, Henry received both an education and spiritual guidance from a bishop who was himself canonized, St. Wolfgang of Regensberg. Henry was an intelligent and devout student, and for a period of time he was considered for the priesthood.

St. Wolfgang’s lessons in piety and charity left a lasting mark on Henry’s soul. But it was ultimately in the political realm, not the Church, that he would seek to exercise these virtues. He took on his father’s position as Duke of Bavaria in 995, one year after St. Wolfgang’s death. The Church supported his accession to the throne as King of Germany in 1002.

As king, Henry encouraged the German bishops to reform the practices of the Church in accordance with canon law. During the same period he is said to have brought a peaceful end to a revolt in his territory, which ended with the king mercifully pardoning the rebels. Henry also acted decisively, but not harshly, against an Italian nobleman who set himself up as a rival king.

In 1014, the German king journeyed to Rome where Pope Benedict VIII formally crowned him as head of the Holy Roman Empire. The emperor demonstrated his loyalty to the Pope by confirming Benedict VIII’s authority over the city of Rome. Henry made his journey from Rome back to Germany into a pilgrimage of sorts, stopping at various monasteries along the way.

Henry became a great patron of churches and monasteries, donating so much of his wealth to them that his relatives complained that he was behaving irresponsibly. But Henry was far from irresponsible, as his leadership of the Western Empire in both war and peace demonstrated. The emperor was also a great patron of the poor, making enormous contributions for their relief.

The emperor’s extraordinary generosity was made possible in part by his lack of an heir. He was married to a woman who was later canonized in her own right, St. Cunigunde of Luxembourg, but the two had no children. Some accounts say that the couple took vows of virginity and never consummated their marriage, though this explanation of their childlessness is not universally accepted.

For the last several years of his life, Henry had to deal with serious illness, and an additional ailment that crippled his left leg, along with his imperial responsibilities. He found support in prayer during these trials, and seriously considered resigning his imperial leadership in order to become a monk.

After several years of illness, St. Henry II died in July of 1024. The public mourned sincerely for the monarch who had managed to lead his earthly kingdom so responsibly without losing sight of the Kingdom of God. Pope Eugene III canonized him in 1146.

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St. John Gualbert

Feast date: Jul 12

Born in Florence, Italy, around the year 993, John was born into a noble family, and led a predictably frivolous life as a youth, being concerned only with the pursuit of vain amusements and romantic intrigues.

However, when he was still a young man, his elder brother Hugh was murdered, and John was so overtaken with grief that he vowed to avenge him. His only desire was to find the murderer and kill him.

One day – it was Good Friday – as he was riding through the town, John spotted his brother’s murderer and drew his sword to kill him. The man fell to his knees and begged for mercy.  At this instant John had a vision of Christ on the Cross, and powerfully moved by the example of the love of Christ who forgave His enemies, and he did the same.

After this encounter, he went straight to a monastery and begged to join.  As a sign of his earnest desire, he shaved off all his hair. The abbot, who had been reluctant to admit John because he feared the displeasure of his influential father, agreed and John lived in the monastery for a few years before moving on to find a more solitary and strict life.

Discovering that many of the orders that he had looked into joining were tainted with the corruption that was rampant in the Church at the time, he decided that God was calling him to found something new.

On a plot of land east of Florence called Vallombrosa, together with men who were equally committed to a more austere and stricter following of the Rule of St. Benedict, he founded a humble monastery devoted to contemplation and prayer and care of the poor and sick.

Renowned for his humility, holiness of life, and his wisdom – he refused any office of privilege, and declined to receive holy orders of any kind – he was often consulted by popes.

John died at the age of 80, in 1073, and was canonized in 1193.

The Vallombrosan Benedictines are still existent today, mainly in the region of Tuscany and Lombardy, and number a handful of monasteries.

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St. Benedict

Feast date: Jul 11

On July 11, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia, the sixth-century abbot who gave Christian monasticism its lasting foundation in Western Europe.

For his historic role as the “Father of Western Monasticism,” St. Benedict was declared a co-patron of Europe (along with Saints Cyril and Methodius). St. Benedict is also the patron saint of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate.

In a 2005 general audience, Pope Benedict XVI said St. Benedict was a “powerful reminder of the indispensable Christian roots” of Europe. He cited the monk’s instruction to “prefer nothing to the love of Christ,” and asked his intercession “to help us keep Christ firmly at the heart of our lives.”

Born to upper-class parents in modern-day Italy during the year 480, Benedict was sent to Rome to study the humanities. However, he soon became disgusted with the loose morals that prevailed among the students. Withdrawing from the city, he lived briefly with a group of monks, then as a hermit.

The young man spent three years in solitude, facing and overcoming severe temptations through prayer and asceticism. Only after doing so, did he have the confidence to emerge as an organizer of monastic communities. His first monasteries were established in the Anio valley outside Subiaco.

Benedict’s monasteries in Subiaco became centers of education for children, a tradition which would continue in the order during his lifetime and beyond. His monastic movement, like its forebears in the Christian East, attracted large numbers of people who were looking to live their faith more deeply.

During 529, Benedict left Subiaco for Monte Cassino, 80 miles south of Rome. The move was geographically and spiritually significant, marking a more public emergence of the Western monastic movement. Benedict destroyed a pagan temple atop the mountain, and built two oratories in its place.

It was most likely at Monte Cassino that the abbot drew up a rule of life, the famous “Rule of St. Benedict,” which emphasised prayer, work, simplicity, and hospitality. Though known as a rule for monks, it is addressed to all those who seek “to do battle for Christ the Lord, the true King.”

Benedict’s life was marked by various intrigues and miraculous incidents, which are described in his biography written by Pope St. Gregory the Great. One of the most remarkable was his meeting in 543 with Totila, King of the Goths, in which the abbot rebuked the king’s lifestyle and prophesied his death.

St. Scholastica, Benedict’s sister, also embraced religious life as a nun. She most likely died shortly before him, around the year 543. In his final years, the abbot himself had a profound mystical experience, which is said to have involved a supernatural vision of God and the whole of creation.

Around the age of 63, Benedict suffered his final illness. He was carried into the church by his fellow monks, where he received the Eucharist for the last time. Held up by his disciples, he raised his hands in prayer for the last time, before dying in their arms.

Although his influence was primarily felt in Western Europe, St. Benedict is also celebrated by the Eastern Catholic churches, and by Eastern Orthodox Christians, on March 14.

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St. Amalberga

Feast date: Jul 10

St. Amalberga, otherwise Amelia, was born at Brabantrelated, and was in some way related to Pepin of Landen. Whether she was a sister or niece, the Bollandists are not sure. She was married to Witger and became the mother of three saints: Gudila, Reinelda, and Emembertus.

The Norman chroniclers speak of her as having been married twice, which seems to be erroneous. Nor are Pharailda and Ermelende admitted by the Bollandists to have been her children. She and her husband ultimately withdrew from the world; he becoming a monk, and she a nun. There is very great confusion in the records of this saint, and of a virgin who came a century after. To add to the difficulty a third St. Amalberga, also a virgin, appears in the twelfth century. The first two are celebrated simultaneously on July 10.

She died in 690 and is buried beside her husband at the Lobbes monastery. Her relics have been in Saint Peter’s abbey church in Ghent, Belgium since 1073. She is known to protect people against arm pain, bruises, and fever.

In art she is represented holding a palm and open book with a crown at her feet, standing on a giant sturgeon or other fish.

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Martyrs of Damascus

Feast date: Jul 10

Beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1926, these eight Franciscan friars and three Maronite laymen were offered the choice of converting to Islam or suffering death in Damascus on July 9, 1860.

Thousands of Maronite Christians had already been killed by the Druz in Southern Lebanon in that year and the Druz, an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam, had turned their attention to Damascus where they killed nearly two thousand more.

When they had reached the Franciscan convent there, the superior, a spaniard named Fr. Emmanuel Ruiz, who had sheltered the Christians that lived around the convent inside the chapel, was threatened with death if he did not convert immediately.

He refused and they cut him to pieces and killed the rest of his community and the three Maronites who, refusing to flee with the other Christians, chose to die rather than deny their faith.

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Sts. Aquila and Priscilla

Feast date: Jul 08

Saints Aquila and Priscilla were a Jewish couple from Rome who had been exiled to Corinth, and were friends of St. Paul in the first century. They hosted St. Paul on his visit to that city and were probably converted by him. They are mentioned a few times in the New Testament in glowing terms by their friend Paul, who calls them “my helpers in Christ, who have for my life laid down their own necks” (Romans 16:3-4).

They were tentmakers, thus sharing the same profession as Paul, and because of this it is thought that Paul may have worked with them. Acts 18:18-19 tells us that they accompanied Paul to Ephesus and stayed there with him for three years.

In the era of house churches – when Mass was always celebrated in the house of one of the Christian community – their house was an important one.

According to tradition they were martyred in Rome on their return, probably around the same time as St. Paul.

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St. Pope Benedict XI

Feast date: Jul 07

Nicholas Boccasini was born at Treviso, Italy, in 1240. Hhe entered the Dominican Order at the age of 14. After 14 years of study, he became lector of theology, an office he filled for several years.

In 1296 he was elected Master General of the Order. At this same time hostility towards Boniface VIII was becoming more pronounced, and the new general issued an ordinance forbidding his subjects to favour in any way the opponents of the reigning pontiff. He also enjoined them to defend in their sermons, when opportune, the legitimacy of the election of Boniface. This loyalty of Boccasini, which remained unshaken until the end, was recognized by Boniface, who showed him many marks of favour and confidence. Thus with the two cardinal-legates, the Dominican General formed the important embassy, the purpose of which was the concluding of an armistice between Edward I of England and Philip IV of France, then at war with each other.

In the year 1298 Boccasini was elevated to the cardinalate, and was afterwards appointed Bishop of Ostia and Dean of the Sacred College. During this time Hungary was rent by civil war, so the cardinal-bishop was sent there by the Holy See as legate a latere to labour for the restoration of peace. At the time of his return of the legate to Rome, the famous feud between Boniface VIII with Philip the Fair had reached its height. When, in 1303, the enemies of the pope had made themselves masters of the sacred palace, of all the cardinals and prelates only the two Cardinal-Bishops of Ostia and Sabina remained at the side of the venerable Pontiff to defend him from the violence of William of Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna.

A month after this scene of violence, Boniface died, and Boccasini was unanimously elected Pope on October 22, taking the name of Benedict XI. The principal event of his pontificate was the restoration of peace with the French court. He was Pope for only one year (1303-1304), dying in Perugia on July 7, 1304.

Benedict XI was beatified in the year 1773. His feast is celebrated in Rome and throughout the Dominican Order on the 7th of July. He is the author of a volume of sermons and commentaries on a segment of the Gospel of St. Matthew, on the Psalms, the Book of Job, and the Apocalypse.

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Blessed Maria Romero Meneses

Feast date: Jul 07

Blessed Maria Romero Meneses is a saint of the new millennium. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

Maria was born in Granada, Nicaragua, in 1902 to a wealthy family, her father being a government minister. At the age of 12, she became extremely sick and was paralysed for six months with rheumatic fever. She was cured through the intercession and apparition of Our Lady Help of Christians, during which she discovered her vocation to be a Salesian sister.

She entered the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters) and made her final profession in 1929. Two years later, she was transferred to San Jose, Costa Rica. She taught music, drawing, and typing to rich girls. She also trained catechists and taught the poor. She inspired many of her students to join her in her work with the poor, and was known for helping people to come to know God in a personal way.

More and more, her ministry became focused on social development, helping the rich to see how they could help the poor. She set up recreational centers in 1945, food distribution centers in 1953, a school for poor girls in 1961, and a clinic in 1966. In 1973, she organized the construction of seven homes, which became the foundation of the village of Centro San Jose, a community where poor families could have decent homes.

She died of a heart attack in 1977 in Nicaragua.

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St. Maria Goretti

Feast date: Jul 06

July 6 marks the feast day of St. Maria Goretti, a young virgin and martyr whose life is an example of purity and mercy for all Christians.

St. Maria Goretti is best known for her commitment to purity and the courageous defence of her faith at the young age of eleven that made her willing to undergo death rather than participate in a sin against God. She is also remarkable for the forgiveness she willingly granted her attacker as she lay on her deathbed.

Maria was born in Corinaldo, Italy on October 16, 1890. Her father, a farmer, died of malaria when she was young, and her mother had to work to support their six children.

Maria took care of the younger children while her mother worked, and she prayed the Rosary every night for the repose of her father’s soul. She grew in grace and maturity, and her cheerful obedience and piety were noticed by those around her.

On July 5, 1902, a neighbouring farm hand, Alessandro Serenelli, tried to rape Maria. On several prior occasions, Alessandro had harassed Maria with impure advances, all of which she has vehemently rejected. This time, he locked her in a room and tried to force himself upon her. She fought against him, shouting, “No! It is a sin! God does not want it!” and warning him that this was the path towards hell. When Maria declared that she would rather die than submit to this sin, Alessandro angrily grabbed her and stabbed her 14 times with a knife.

Maria was found bleeding to death and rushed to the hospital. As she lay dying, she forgave Alessandro for the crime he had committed against her, saying, “Yes, for the love of Jesus I forgive him…and I want him to be with me in Paradise.”

Although the doctors tried to save her, she died two agonizing days later, only eleven years old.

Alessandro was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He remained unrepentant until one night, eight years into his prison term, when Maria appeared to him, dressed in white, gathering lilies in a garden. She smiled, turned towards Alessandro, and offered him the flowers. Each lily he took transformed into a white flame. Then Maria disappeared.

From that moment, Alessandro converted and found peace. He repented of his crime and changed his life. He was released from prison three years early and begged forgiveness from Maria’s mother, which she duly granted.

Alessandro moved to a Capuchin monastery, working in the garden as a tertiary for the remainder of his life. He was one of the witnesses who testified to Maria’s holiness during her cause of beatification, citing the crime and the vision in prison.

Many miracles were attributed to Maria Goretti after her death. In 1950, she was canonised by Pope Pius XII, becoming the youngest Roman Catholic saint officially recognised by name. Her feast day is celebrated by the Church on July 6, and she is the patron saint of purity, rape victims, young women, and youth in general.

On her feast day in 2003, Pope John Paul II spoke about St. Maria Goretti at his Sunday Angelus, noting that her life provides an exemplary witness of what it means to be “pure of heart.”

“What does this fragile but christianly mature girl say to today’s young people, through her life and above all through her heroic death?” asked the Pope.

“Marietta, as she was lovingly called, reminds the youth of the third millennium that true happiness demands courage and a spirit of sacrifice, refusing every compromise with evil and having the disposition to pay personally, even with death, faithful to God and his commandments.”

“How timely this message is,” the Holy Father continued. “Today, pleasure, selfishness and directly immoral actions are often exalted in the name of the false ideals of liberty and happiness. It is essential to reaffirm clearly that purity of heart and of body go together, because chastity ‘is the custodian’ of authentic love.”

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