Blessed John Licci

Feast date: Nov 14

John Licci is one of the longest living holy men of the Church. His 111 years on this earth in a small town near Palermo, Sicily, were filled with many miracles. His mother died during childbirth, and his father was a poor peasant who had to work the fields, and so was forced to leave John alone as an infant.

 

One day, a neighbor took the crying baby to her home to feed him. She laid the infant on the bed next to her paralyzed husband, and he was instantly cured.

 

After receiving the suggestion of Blessed Peter Geremia to enter religious life, John joined the Dominicans in 1415. He wore the habit for 96 years which is the longest known period for any religious.

 

He was ordained a priest and founded the convent of Saint Zita in his hometown, Caccamo. The entire construction of the convent is a story of miracles, from the location of the site to the very last wooden beam set in place. For example, one day when the workers ran out of materials, a large ox-drawn wagon filled with what they needed arrived at the building site. When roofbeams were cut too short, John would pray over them and they would stretch. There were also days when John miraculously multiplied bread and wine to feed the workers.

 

When John and two other Dominicans were attacked by bandits on the road, one of the bandits tried to stab John, but his hand withered and became paralyzed. The gang let the brothers go, then decided to ask for their forgiveness. John made the Sign of the Cross over them and the thief’s hand was healed.

 

His blessings also caused the breadbox of a neighboring widow to stay miraculously full, feeding her and her six children. He prevented disease from coming to the cattle of his parishioners, and cured three people whose heads had been crushed in accidents. Consequently, he is the patron saint of head injuries.

 

John was born in 1400 and died in 1511 of natural causes.

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St. Frances Cabrini

Feast date: Nov 13

On November 13, the universal Church honors St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian missionary who spent much of her life working with Italian immigrants in the United States. Mother Cabrini, who had a deathly fear of water and drowning, crossed the Atlantic Ocean more than 30 times in service of the Church and the people she was serving.

St. Frances Cabrini, from a young age, longed to be a missionary in China, but God had other plans for her. Orphaned in Italy before she was 18, she joined the Sisters of the Sacred Heart and took on the name “Xavier” in honor of St. Francis Xavier, the great missionary to the Orient.

At the advice of Pope Leo XIII, who told her “Not to the East, but to the West,” she focused her missionary efforts on the United States. Accepting Archbishop Corrigan of New York’s invitation, she came to America and spent nearly 30 years traveling back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean as well as around the United States setting up orphanages, hospitals, convents, and schools for the often marginalized Italian immigrants.

Eventually, St. Frances became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She died in 1917 and was canonized in 1946, just before a new wave of immigrants began to arrive in the U.S.

St. Frances Cabrini is the patron of immigrants.

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St. Josaphat

Feast date: Nov 12

Today, on the day of his martyrdom, Nov. 12, Roman Catholics and some Eastern Catholics remember St. Josaphat Kuntsevych, a bishop and monk whose example of faith inspired many Eastern Orthodox Christians to return to full communion with the Holy See.

Other Eastern Catholics, including the Ukrainian Catholic Church, celebrate St. Josaphat’s feast day on Nov. 25.

Born in 1580 in the western Ukrainian region of Volhynia, John Kuntsevych did not become “Josaphat” until his later life as a monk. He also was not initially a full member of the Catholic Church, born to Orthodox Christian parents whose church had fallen out of communion with the Pope.

Although the Eastern churches began to separate from the Holy See in 1054, a union had existed for a period of time after the 15th century Ecumenical Council of Florence. But social, political and theological disputes caused the union to begin dissolving even before the Turkish conquest of Byzantium in 1453. By John’s time, many Slavic Orthodox Christians had become strongly anti-Catholic.

During this time, Latin missionaries attempted to achieve reunion with the individual eastern patriarchs. The approach was risky, sometimes politicizing the faith and leading to further divisions. But it did yield some notable successes, including the reunion of John’s own Ruthenian Church in the 1596 Union of Brest.

John was trained as a merchant’s apprentice and could have opted for marriage. But he felt drawn to the rigors and spiritual depth of traditional Byzantine monasticism. Taking the monastic name of Josaphat, he entered a Ukrainian monastery in 1604.

The young monk was taking on an ambitious task, striving to re-incorporate the Eastern Orthodox tradition with the authority of the Catholic Church in the era of its “Counter-reformation.” Soon, as a priest, subsequently an archbishop, and ultimately a martyr, he would live and die for the union of the churches.

While rejecting the anti-Western sentiments of many of his countrymen, Josaphat also resisted any attempt to compromise the Eastern Catholic churches’ own traditions. Recognizing the urgent pastoral needs of the people, he produced catechisms and works of apologetics, while implementing long overdue reforms of the clergy and attending to the needs of the poor.

Josaphat’s exemplary life and zeal for the care of souls won the trust of many Orthodox Christians, who saw the value of the churches’ union reflected in the archbishop‘s life and works. Nevertheless, his mission was essentially controversial, and others were led to believe lurid stories and malicious suggestions made about him. In 1620, opponents arranged for the consecration of a rival archbishop.

As tensions between supporters and opponents began to escalate, Josaphat lamented the onset of attacks that would lead to his death. “You people of Vitebsk want to put me to death,” he protested. “You make ambushes for me everywhere, in the streets, on the bridges, on the highways, and in the marketplace. I am here among you as a shepherd, and you ought to know that I would be happy to give my life for you.”

He finally did so, on a fall day in 1623. An Orthodox priest had been shouting insults outside the archbishop’s residence, and trying to force his way inside. Josaphat had him removed, but the man assembled a mob in the town. They arrived and demanded the archbishop’s life, threatening his companions and servants. Unable to escape, Josaphat died praying for the men who shot and then beheaded him before dumping his body in a river.

St. Josaphat’s body was discovered incorrupt, five years later. Remarkably, the saint’s onetime rival – the Orthodox Archbishop Meletius – was reconciled with the Catholic Church in later years. St. Josaphat was canonized in 1867.

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St. Martin of Tours

Feast date: Nov 11

On Nov. 11, the Catholic Church honors St. Martin of Tours, who left his post in the Roman army to become a “soldier of Christ” as a monk and later bishop.

Martin was born around the year 316 in modern-day Hungary. His family left that region for Italy when his father, a military official of the Roman Empire, had to transfer there. Martin’s parents were pagans, but he felt an attraction to the Catholic faith which had become legal throughout the empire in 313. He received religious instruction at age 10, and even considered becoming a hermit in the desert.

Circumstances, however, forced him to join the Roman army at age 15, when he had not even received baptism. Martin strove to live a humble and upright life in the military, giving away much of his pay to the poor. His generosity led to a life-changing incident, when he encountered a man freezing without warm clothing near a gate at the city of Amiens in Gaul.

As his fellow soldiers passed by the man, Martin stopped and cut his own cloak into two halves with his sword, giving one half to the freezing beggar. That night, the unbaptized soldier saw Christ in a dream, wearing the half-cloak he had given to the poor man. Jesus declared: “Martin, a catechumen, has clothed me with this garment.”

Martin knew that the time for him to join the Church had arrived. He remained in the army for two years after his baptism, but desired to give his life to God more fully that the profession would allow. But when he finally asked for permission to leave the Roman army, during an invasion by the Germans, Martin was accused of cowardice.

He responded by offering to stand before the enemy forces unarmed. “In the name of the Lord Jesus, and protected not by a helmet and buckler, but by the sign of the cross, I will thrust myself into the thickest squadrons of the enemy without fear.” But this display of faith became unnecessary when the Germans sought peace instead, and Martin received his discharge.

After living as a Catholic for some time, Martin traveled to meet Bishop Hilary of Poitiers, a skilled theologian and later canonized saint. Martin’s dedication to the faith impressed the bishop, who asked the former soldier to return to his diocese after he had undertaken a journey back to Hungary to visit his parents. While there, Martin persuaded his mother, though not his father, to join the Church.

In the meantime, however, Hilary had provoked the anger of the Arians, a group that denied Jesus was God. This resulted in the bishop’s banishment, so that Martin could not return to his diocese as intended. Instead Martin spent some time living a life of severe asceticism, which almost resulted in his death. The two met up again in 360, when Hilary’s banishment from Poitiers ended.

After their reunion Hilary granted Martin a piece of land to build what may have been the first monastery in the region of Gaul. During the resulting decade as a monk, Martin became renowned for raising two people from the dead through his prayers. This evidence of his holiness led to his appointment as the third Bishop of Tours in the middle of present-day France.

Martin had not wanted to become a bishop, and had actually been tricked into leaving his monastery in the first place by those who wanted him the lead the local church. Once appointed, he continued to live as a monk, dressing plainly and owning no personal possessions. In this same spirit of sacrifice, he traveled throughout his diocese, from which he is said to have driven out pagan practices.

Both the Church and the Roman Empire passed through a time of upheaval during Martin’s time as bishop. Priscillianism, a heresy involving salvation through a system of secret knowledge, caused such serious problems in Spain and Gaul that civil authorities sentenced the heretics to death. But Martin, along with the Pope and St. Ambrose of Milan, opposed this death sentence for the Priscillianists.

Even in old age, Martin continued to live an austere life focused on the care of souls. His disciple and biographer, St. Sulpicius Severus, noted that the bishop helped all people with their moral, intellectual and spiritual problems. He also helped many laypersons discover their calling to the consecrated life of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Martin foresaw his own death and told his disciples of it. But when his last illness came upon him during a pastoral journey, the bishop felt uncertain about leaving his people.

“Lord, if I am still necessary to thy people, I refuse no labour. Thy holy will be done,” he prayed. He developed a fever, but did not sleep, passing his last several nights in the presence of God in prayer.

“Allow me, my brethren, to look rather towards heaven than upon the earth, that my soul may be directed to take its flight to the Lord to whom it is going,” he told his followers, shortly before he died in November of 397.

St. Martin of Tours has historically been among the most beloved saints in the history of Europe. In a 2007 Angelus address, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his hope “that all Christians may be like St Martin, generous witnesses of the Gospel of love and tireless builders of jointly responsible sharing.”

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Pope St. Leo the Great

Feast date: Nov 10

Nov. 10 is the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgical memorial of the fifth-century Pope Saint Leo I, known as “St. Leo the Great,” whose involvement in the fourth ecumenical council helped prevent the spread of error on Christ’s divine and human natures.

St. Leo intervened for the safety of the Church in the West as well, persuading Attila the Hun to turn back from Rome.

Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians also maintain a devotion to the memory of Pope St. Leo the Great. Churches of the Byzantine tradition celebrate his feast day on Feb. 18.

“As the nickname soon attributed to him by tradition suggests,” Pope Benedict XVI said in a 2008 general audience on the saint, “he was truly one of the greatest pontiffs to have honoured the Roman See and made a very important contribution to strengthening its authority and prestige.”

Leo’s origins are obscure and his date of birth unknown. His ancestors are said to have come from Tuscany, though the future pope may have been born in that region or in Rome itself. He became a deacon in Rome in approximately 430, during the pontificate of Pope Celestine I.

During this time, central authority was beginning to decline in the Western portion of the Roman Empire. At some point between 432 and 440, during the reign of Pope St. Celestine’s successor Pope Sixtus III, the Roman Emperor Valentinian III commissioned Leo to travel to the region of Gaul and settle a dispute between military and civil officials.

Pope Sixtus III died in 440 and, like his predecessor Celestine, was canonized as a saint. Leo, away on his diplomatic mission at the time of the Pope’s death, was chosen to be the next Bishop of Rome. Reigning for over two decades, he sought to preserve the unity of the Church in its profession of faith, and to ensure the safety of his people against frequent barbarian invasions.

Leo used his authority, in both doctrinal and disciplinary matters, against a number of heresies troubling the Western church – including Pelagianism (involving the denial of Original Sin) and Manichaeanism (a gnostic system that saw matter as evil). In this same period, many Eastern Christians had begun arguing about the relationship between Jesus’ humanity and divinity.

As early as 445, Leo had intervened in this dispute in the East, which threatened to split the churches of Alexandria and Constantinople. Its eventual resolution was, in fact, rejected in some quarters – leading to the present-day split between Eastern Orthodoxy and the so-called “non-Chalcedonian churches” which accept only three ecumenical councils.

As the fifth-century Christological controversy continued, the Pope urged the gathering of an ecumenical council to resolve the matter. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Pope’s teaching was received as authoritative by the Eastern bishops, who proclaimed: “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo.”

Leo’s teaching confirmed that Christ’s eternal divine personhood and nature did not absorb or negate the human nature that he assumed in time through the Incarnation. Instead, “the proper character of both natures was maintained and came together in a single person.”

“So without leaving his Father’s glory behind, the Son of God comes down from his heavenly throne and enters the depths of our world,” the Pope taught. “Whilst remaining pre-existent, he begins to exist in time. The Lord of the universe veiled his measureless majesty and took on a servant’s form. The God who knew no suffering did not despise becoming a suffering man, and, deathless as he is, to be subject to the laws of death.”

In 452, one year after the Council of Chalcedon, Pope Leo led a delegation which successfully negotiated with the barbarian king Attila to prevent an invasion of Rome. When the Vandal leader Genseric occupied Rome in 455, the Pope confronted him, unarmed, and obtained a guarantee of safety for many of the city’s inhabitants and the churches to which they had fled.

Pope St. Leo the Great died on Nov. 10, 461. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754. A large collection of his writings and sermons survives, and can be read in translation today.

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Dedication of St. John Lateran

Feast date: Nov 09

The feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran is celebrated by the entire Church. It marks the dedication of the cathedral church of Rome by Pope Sylvester I in 324. This church is the cathedra (or chair) of the bishop of Rome, who is the Pope. A Latin inscription in the Church reads: “omnium ecclesiarum Urbis et Orbis mater et caput.” Translated, this means, “The mother and head of all churches of the city and of the world.”

The basilica was originally named the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior. However, it is called St. John Lateran because it was built on property donated to the Church by the Laterani family, and because the monks from the monastery of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Divine served it.

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St. Godfrey of Amiens

Feast date: Nov 08

St. Godfrey was the son of Frodon, a prominent citizen in a small town. He was raised from the age of 5 in the Benedictine abbey of Mont-Saint-Quentin where his godfather Godefroid was abbot. He immediately donned a Benedictine habit and lived as a tiny monk, and took his vows when he came of age. He was ordained a priest by bishop Radbod II of Noyon.

In 1096, he was made Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy, in the diocese of Rheims, in the province of Champagne. When he arrived, the place was overrun by weeds, and housed only six nuns and two children. He rebuilt, restored, and revitalized the abbey, bringing people to the Order of St. Benedict, and order to the people. He was offered the abbacy of Saint-Remi, but he refused. He was also offered the bishopric of Reims in 1097, but again he refused, claiming he was unworthy. When he was offered the bishopric of Amiens in 1104, he still considered himself unworthy of the trust. However, King Philip and the Council of Troyes each ordered him to take it, which he did.

St. Godfrey was noted for his rigid austerity with himself, those around him, and in his approach to his mission as bishop. He was an enforcer of clerical celibacy. He was also a fierce lifelong opponent of drunkenness and simony, which led to an attempt on his life. For most of his time as bishop, he wished to resign and retire as a Carthusian monk. In 1114 he moved to a monastery, but a few months later his people demanded his return, and he agreed. He also took part in the Council of Chálons.

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Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity

Feast date: Nov 08

St. Elizabeth of the Trinity was born Elizabeth Catez in Bourges, France, in 1880. Her father, a military captain, died when she was only seven, leaving her mother to raise Elizabeth and her sister, Marguerite.

 

Elizabeth was a very lively girl and a gifted pianist, but was very stubborn and experienced fits of rage. However, even in her strong temperament she had a great love for God, and an early attraction to a life of prayer and reflection. She visited the sick often and taught catechism to children.

 

Against her mother’s wishes, Elizabeth entered a monastery of Discalced Carmelites in 1901 at the age of 21. Though noted for great spiritual growth, she was also plagued with periods of powerful darkness which led her spiritual director to doubt her vocation. Nonetheless, she completed her novitiate and took her final vows in 1903. She died only three years later at the age of 26 of Addison’s disease. In her short life as a religious, she was a spiritual director for many, and she left a legacy of letters and retreat guides.

 

She is the patron of people who have lost their parents.

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St. Engelbert of Cologne

Feast date: Nov 07

St. Engelbert, was born in Berg around the year 1185 to Engelbert, Count of Berg and Margaret, daughter of the Count of Gelderland. He studied at the cathedral school of Cologne and, while still a boy, was made provost of the churches of St. George and St. Severin at Cologne and of St. Mary’s at Aachen, as it was a common abuse in the Church at the time to appoint the children of nobles to such positions.

In 1199 he was elected provost of the cathedral at Cologne. He led a worldly life, and in the conflict between  two Archbishops, Adolf and Bruno, he sided with his cousin Adolf, and waged war for him. Consequently, he was excommunicated by the pope along with his cousin. After his submission he was reinstated in 1208 and, to atone for his sin, joined the crusade against the Albigenses in 1212. On Feb. 29, 1216, the chapter of the cathedral elected him archbishop by a unanimous vote.

The mendicant orders of the Franciscans and the Dominicans settled in his realm while he was Archbishop. He was well disposed towards the monasteries and insisted on strict religious observance in them. Ecclesiastical affairs were regulated in provincial synods. He was considered a friend of the clergy and a helper of the poor.

Engelbert exerted a strong influence in the affairs of the empire. Emperor Frederick II, who had taken up his residence permanently in Sicily, gave Germany to his son, Henry VII, then still a minor, and in 1221 appointed Engelbert guardian of the king and administrator of the empire. When the young king reached the age of twelve he was crowned at Aachen by Engelbert, who loved him as his own son and honoured him as his sovereign. Engelbert watched over the young king’s education and governed the empire in his name, careful to secure peace both within and without of the realm.

Engelbert’s devotion to duty, and his obedience to the pope and to the emperor, were eventually the cause of his ruin. Many of the nobility feared rather than loved him, and he was obliged to surround himself with bodyguards. The greatest danger came from his relatives.

His cousin, count Frederick of Isenberg, the secular administrator for the nuns of Essen, had grievously oppressed that abbey. Honorius III and the emperor urged Engelbert to protect the nuns and their rights. Frederick wished to forestall the archbishop, and his wife incited him to murder. On November 7, 1225, as he was journeying from Soest to Schwelm to consecrate a church, Engelbert was attacked on a dark evening by Frederick and his associates, was wounded in the thigh, torn from his horse and killed. His body was covered with forty-seven wounds. It was placed on a dung-cart and brought to Cologne four days later. King Henry wept bitterly over the remains, put Frederick under the ban of the empire, and saw him broken on the wheel a year later at Cologne. Frederick died contrite, having acknowledged and confessed his guilt.

Engelbert’s body was placed in the old cathedral of Cologne on February 24, 1226, by Cardinal Conrad von Urach. The latter also declared him a martyr, though a formal canonization did not take place. In the martyrology, Engelbert is commemorated on November 7 as a martyr. A convent for nuns was erected at the place of his death.

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St. Leonard of Noblac

Feast date: Nov 06

St Leonard of Noblac was a Frank courtier, and during a certian invasion which they were losing, the Queen suggested to Leonard that he invoke the help of God to repel the invading army. He did, and the tide of battle turned, naming Clovis victorious. Saint Remigius, bishop of Rheims then used this miracle to convert the King, Leonard, and a thousand of thier followers to Christianity. Following his conversion, St. Leonard refused the offer of a See from his grandfather, King Clovis I.

He then began a life of austerity, sanctification, and preaching. His desire to know God grew so strong that he decided to enter the monastery at Orleans. His brother, Saint Lifiard, followed his example and, leaving the King’s court, built a monastery at Meun, and lived there.

However, Leonard desired further seclusion, so he withdrew into the forest of Limousin, converting many on the way, and living on herbs, wild fruits, and spring water. He built himself an oratory, leaving it only for journeys to churches. Others, recognizing his holiness, begged to live with him, and a monastery was formed. Leonard had a great compassion for prisoners, and converted many and obtaining their release.

He died of natural causes around 559. After his death, churches were dedicated to him in France, England, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Bohemia, Poland and other countries. Pilgrims flocked to his tomb, and in one small town in Bavaria there are records of 4,000 favors granted through Saint Leonard’s intercession.

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