Saint Damien of Molokai, or Father Damien as he is commonly known, was born Joseph de Veuster in Tremeloo, Belgium, on January 3, 1840. His father, a small farmer, sent him to a college at Braine-le-Comte, to prepare for a commercial profession; but as a result of a mission given by the Redemptorists in 1858, Joseph decided to become a religious. He entered the novitiate of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary at Louvain, and took in religion the name of Damien. He was admitted to the religious profession, 7 Oct. 1860.

Three years later, though still in minor orders, he was sent to the mission of the Hawaiian Islands, where he arrived, 19 March, 1864. Ordained priest at Honolulu 24 May of the same year, he was later given charge of various districts on the island of Hawaii, and, animated with a burning zeal, his robust constitution allowed him to give full play to the impulses of his heart. He was not only the missionary of the natives, but also constructed several chapels with his own hands, both in Hawaii and in Molokai.

On the latter island there had grown up a leper settlement where the Government kept segregated all persons afflicted with the loathsome disease. The board of health supplied the unfortunates with food and clothing, but was unable in the beginning to provide them with either resident physicians or nurses.

On 10 May, 1873, Father Damien, at his own request and with the sanction of his bishop, arrived at the settlement as its resident priest. There were then 600 lepers. “As long as the lepers can care for themselves”, wrote the superintendent of the board of health to Bishop Maigret, “they are comparatively comfortable, but as soon as the dreadful disease renders them helpless, it would seem that even demons themselves would pity their condition and hasten their death.” For a long time, however, Father Damien was the only one to bring them the succour they so greatly needed. He not only administered the consolations of religion, but also rendered them such little medical service and bodily comforts as were within his power.

He dressed their ulcers, helped them erect their cottages, and went so far as to dig their graves and make their coffins. After twelve years of this heroic service he discovered in himself the first symptoms of the disease. This was in 1885. He nevertheless continued his charitable ministrations, being assisted at this period by two other priests and two lay brothers. Father Damien died peacefully on April 15, 1889, on Molokai after sixteen years of undaunted dedication. On October 11, 2009, Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in a ceremony at the Vatican, thus becoming Saint Damien.

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Saint Pachomius was born about 292 in the Upeer Thebaid in Egypt and was inducted into the Emperor’s army as a twenty-year-old. The great kindness of Christians at Thebes toward the soldiers became embedded in his mind and led to his conversion after his discharge. After being baptized, he became a disciple of an anchorite, Palemon, and took the habit. The two of them led a life of extreme austerity and total dedication to God; they combined manual labor with unceasing prayer both day and night.

Later, Pachomius felt called to build a monastery on the banks of the Nile at Tabennisi; so about 318 Palemon helped him build a cell there and even remained with him for a while. In a short time some one hundred monks joined him and Pachomius organized them on principles of community living. So prevalent did the desire to emulate the life of Pachomius and his monks become, that the holy man was obliged to establish ten other monasteries for men and two nunneries for women. Before his death in 346, there were seven thousand monks in his houses, and his Order lasted in the East until the 11th century.

St. Pachomius was the first monk to organize hermits into groups and write down a Rule for them. Both St. Basil and St. Benedict drew from his Rule in setting forth their own more famous ones. Hence, though St. Anthony is usually regarded as the founder of Christian monasticism, it was really St. Pachomius who began monasticism as we know it today.

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The Ascension of Our Lord, which occurred 40 days after Jesus Christ rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, is the final act of our redemption that Christ began on Good Friday. On this day, the risen Christ, in the sight of His apostles, ascended bodily into Heaven (Luke 24:51; Mark 16:19; Acts 1:9-11).

The reality of the Ascension is so important that the creeds (the basic statements of belief) of Christianity all affirm, in the words of the Apostles’ Creed, that “He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” The denial of the Ascension is as grave a departure from Christian teaching as is denial of Christ’s Resurrection.

Christ’s bodily Ascension foreshadows our own entrance into Heaven not simply as souls, after our death, but as glorified bodies, after the resurrection of the dead at the Final Judgment. In redeeming mankind, Christ not only offered salvation to our souls but began the restoration of the material world itself to the glory that God intended before Adam’s fall.

The Feast of the Ascension marks the beginning of the first novena, or nine days of prayer. Before His Ascension, Christ promised to send the Holy Spirt to His apostles. Their prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit, which began on Ascension Thursday, ended with the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, ten days later.

The observance of this feast is of great antiquity. Although no documentary evidence of it exists prior to the beginning of the fifth century, St. Augustine says that it is of Apostolic origin, and he speaks of it in a way that shows it was the universal observance of the Church long before his time. Frequent mention of it is made in the writings of St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and in the Constitution of the Apostles. The Pilgrimage of Sylvia (Peregrinatio Etheriae) speaks of the vigil of this feast and of the feast itself, as they were kept in the church built over the grotto in Bethlehem in which Christ was born (Duchesne, Christian Worship, 491-515).

It may be that prior to the fifth century the fact narrated in the Gospels was commemorated in conjunction with the feast of Easter or Pentecost. Some believe that the much-disputed forty-third decree of the Council of Elvira (c. 300) condemning the practice of observing a feast on the fortieth day after Easter and neglecting to keep Pentecost on the fiftieth day, implies that the proper usage of the time was to commemorate the Ascension along with Pentecost. Representations of the mystery are found in diptychs and frescoes dating as early as the fifth century.

Certain customs were connected with the liturgy of this feast, such as the blessing of beans and grapes after the Commemoration of the Dead in the Canon of the Mass, the blessing of first fruits, afterwards done on Rogation Days, the blessing of a candle, the wearing of mitres by deacon and subdeacon, the extinction of the paschal candle, and triumphal processions with torches and banners outside the churches to commemorate the entry of Christ into heaven. There was the English custom of carrying at the head of the procession the banner bearing the device of the lion and at the foot the banner of the dragon, to symbolize the triumph of Christ in His ascension over the evil one. In some churches the scene of the Ascension was vividly reproduced by elevating the figure of Christ above the altar through an opening in the roof of the church. In others, whilst the figure of Christ was made to ascend, that of the devil was made to descend.

In the liturgies generally the day is meant to celebrate the completion of the work of our salvation, the pledge of our glorification with Christ, and His entry into heaven with our human nature glorified.

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Saint Victor Maurus was a native of Mauretania. He was born in the third century, and was called Maurus to distinguish him from other confessors named Victor. He is believed to have been a soldier in the Praetorian guard. Victor was a Christian from his youth, but it was not until he was an elderly man that he was arrested for the Faith.

After severe tortures, including being basted with molten lead, he was decapitated under Maximian in Milan around the year 303. Later a church was erected over his grave. According to St. Gregory of Tours, many miracles occurred at the shrine. In 1576, at the request of St. Charles of Borromeo, Victor’s relics were transferred to a new church in Milan established by the Olivetan monks. The church still bears St. Victor’s name today. After a life of adherence to the Faith during perilous times, St. Victor Maurus was taken prisoner and tortured as an old man.

Despite age, infirmity, and declining health, he remained steadfast in the Faith, gladly giving up his life for the Kingdom. His generous response to the call to martyrdom stands as a solemn sign to the modern church of the folly of the things of this world. His feast day is May 8th.

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Saint Rose Venerini was born at Viterbo in Italy, the daughter of a doctor. Following the death of her fiancé she entered a convent, but soon returned home to care for her newly widowed mother. Meanwhile, Rose invited the women of the neighborhood to recite the rosary in her home, forming a sort of sodality with them.

As she looked to her future, Rose, under the spiritual guidance of a Jesuit priest, became convinced that she was called to become a teacher in the world rather than a contemplative nun in a convent. Clearly, she made the right choice: She was a born teacher, and the free school for girls she opened in 1685 was well received.

Soon the cardinal invited her to oversee the training of teachers and the administration of schools in his Diocese of Montefiascone. As Rose’s reputation grew, she was called upon to organize schools in many parts of Italy, including Rome. Her disposition was right for the task as well, for Rose often met considerable opposition but was never deterred.

She died in Rome in 1728, where a number of miracles were attributed to her. She was beatified in 1952 and canonized in 2006. The sodality, or group of women she had invited to prayer, was ultimately given the rank of a religious congregation. Today, the so-called Venerini Sisters can be found in the United States and elsewhere, working among Italian immigrants.

She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 15, 2006.

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Saint Francois de Laval was born at St. Martin de Montigny-sur-Avre, Normandy, France. He wanted to become a priest from his earliest childhood. When he was eight years old, his father placed him with the Jesuits, where he lived for fourteen years far from his family.

Francois lost his father in 1636. His uncle, a bishop, appointed him a canon of Evreux to assist his family. He was ordained a priest on May 1, 1647. King Louis XIV chose him as the first Bishop of New France. On December 8, 1658, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the thirty-eight year old prelate was consecrated a bishop. He left for Quebec on June 16, 1659, and immediately began making pastoral visits throughout his immense diocese.

Upon his arrival, he won everyone’s confidence with his charity, piety, discernment and impartiality. His first concern consisted in advancing the organization of the Church in Canada. He contributed greatly towards both the civil and religious formation of the country. Even though he had to face many difficulties, with his wise, firm action, he succeeded in implanting the Faith all over North America

Bishop de Laval first founded the Seminary of Quebec which gathered together a community of priests; in 1663 he entrusted the formation of his clergy to this seminary. Five years later, a Minor Seminary was opened for the recruitment of his clergy. In conformity with holy practice in the early centuries of the Church, all the clerics and churchmen lived out of a common fund.

Blessed Francois de Laval had to fight with all his might against disorders that had been introduced into the country at the beginning of its colonization, chiefly the traffic of intoxicating liquor. Saint Mary of the Incarnation wrote, “The bishop has had many conflicts in New France concerning liquor given to the natives which almost led to the total ruin of this new Church.” Thanks to his apostolic zeal, this shameful commerce was absolutely forbidden.

The secular powers raised serious opposition to his evangelizing activities, but Bishop de Laval never capitulated in the face of his adversaries’ odious proceedings. With firmness and perseverance, the holy bishop resisted all encroachments of civil authorities in Church government. He rose up with authority against anyone who wanted to hinder the implantation of Christianity in the blessed land of New France. With supreme patience, he endured all the wicked actions that earthly magnates wrought against him, as well as two major fires that demolished his seminary, for which he had labored so hard.

This holy bishop, a pioneer of the Church in New France, lived in constant, heroic renouncement. He wore a hair shirt and slept very little, so as to be able to pray all his offices and rosaries. As for the brief rest he granted himself, he took it on a wretched mat laid on a bed of boards, without even a sheet to cover himself. His great evangelical simplicity was also very praiseworthy, for never did any man have a greater horror of showmanship and vanity, especially when it presented itself under a cover of religion.

This worthy, virtuous prelate wore old, patched garments. For twenty years he owned only two winter cassocks. At his death one of them was still good; the other, threadbare and patched, attested to his wonderful spirit of poverty. Hard on himself, this admirable man of God was prodigal to excess towards Christ’s poor. Every year he never failed to give the needy 1,500 to 2,000 pounds.

Blessed Francois de Laval endured the sufferings of his last years with great serenity and resignation to God’s will. During Holy Week in 1708 he contracted the illness that was to take him to the grave. On May 6, 1708, he died in the company of his priests, reciting the Rosary and the Litany of the Holy Family, which devotion he had propagated throughout Canada.

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Saint Angelus of Jerusalem, who was one of the early members of the Carmelite Order, suffered martyrdom for the Faith at Leocata, Sicily. The story of his life, as it has come down, is not very reliable. It may be summarized as follows: His parents were Jews of Jerusalem who were converted to Christianity by a vision of our Lady. She told them that the Messiah they were awaiting had already come to pass and had redeemed His people, and she promised them two sons, who would grow up as flourishing olive trees on the heights of Carmel-the one as a patriarch and the other as a glorious martyr.

From childhood the twins displayed great mental and spiritual gifts when, at the age of eighteen, they entered the Carmelite Order, they already spoke Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. After Angelus was born in Jerusalem in 1185, his parents were converted Jews. Angelus was one of the first Carmelites to come to Sicily from Mt. Carmel. According to trustworthy sources, he was killed by unbelievers in Licata during the first half of the thirteenth century. He has been named patron of many places in Sicily.had been a hermit on Mount Carmel for five years, Our Lord appeared to him and bade him go to Sicily, where he would have the grace to offer the sacrifice of his life. The saint immediately obeyed the call. During his journey from the East as well as after his arrival in Sicily, he converted many sinners by his teaching, no less than by his miracles.

At Palermo over two hundred Jews sought Baptism as the result of his eloquence. Similar success attended his efforts in Leocata, but he aroused the fury of a man called Berengarius, whose shameless wickedness he had denounced. As he was preaching to a crowd, a band of ruffians headed by Berengarius broke through the throng and stabbed him. Mortally wounded. He has been named patron of many places in Sicily.fell on his knees, praying for the people, but especially for his murderer.

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The Saint Florian commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on May 4th, was an officer of the Roman army, who occupied a high administrative post in Noricum, now part of Austria, and who suffered death for the Faith in the days of Diocletian.

His legendary “Acts” state that he gave himself up at Lorch to the soldiers of Aquilinus, the governor, when they were rounding up the Christians, and after making a bold confession, he was twice scourged, half-flayed alive, set on fire, and finally thrown into the river Enns with a stone around his neck. His body, recovered and buried by a pious woman, was eventually removed to the Augustinian Abbey of St. Florian, near Linz.

It is said to have been at a later date translated to Rome, and Pope Lucius III, in 1138, gave some of the saint’s relics to King Casimir of Poland and to the Bishop of Cracow. Since that time, St. Florian has been regarded as a patron of Poland as well as of Linz, Upper Austria and of firemen. There has been popular devotion to St. Florian in many parts of central Europe, and the tradition as to his martyrdom, not far from the spot where the Enns flows into the Danube, is ancient and reliable. Many miracles of healing are attributed to his intercession and he is invoked as a powerful protector in danger from fire or water. He is patron of Fire Fighters His feast day is May 4th.

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Philip was one of the first chosen disciples of Christ. On the way from Judea to Galilee Our Lord found Philip, and said, “Follow Me.” Philip straightway obeyed; and then in his zeal and charity sought to win Nathaniel also, saying, “We have found Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth.” And when Nathaniel in wonder asked, “Can any good come out of Nazareth?” Philip simply answered, “Come and see,” and brought him to Jesus.

Another saying of this Apostle is preserved for us by Saint John. Christ in His last discourse had spoken of His Father; and Philip exclaimed, in the fervor of his thirst for God, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough!” The tradition of the ancients has established that he died a martyr at Hierapolis in Phyrgia. There the remains of a church known to be dedicated to him have been identified, north of the entrance to the great necropolis. His relics were later transported to Rome, to the church of the Holy Apostles.

Saint James the Less (the Younger), author of the canonical Epistle, was the son of Alpheus, the brother of Saint Jude and a cousin of Our Lord, whom he is said to have resembled. Saint Paul tells us that he was favored by a special apparition of Christ after the Resurrection. (I Corinthians 15:7) On the dispersion of the Apostles among the nations, Saint James remained as Bishop of Jerusalem, where the Jews held in such high veneration his purity, mortification, and prayer, that they named him the Just. He governed that church for 30 years before his martyrdom.

Hegesippus, the earliest of the Church’s historians, has handed down many traditions of Saint James’s sanctity. Saint James was a celibate Nazarite consecrated to God; he drank no wine and wore no sandals. He prostrated himself so long and so often in prayer that the skin of his knees was hardened like a camel’s hoof. It is said that the Jews, out of respect, used to touch the hem of his garment.

He was indeed a living proof of his own words, “The wisdom that is from above is first of all chaste, then peaceable, modest, ready to listen, full of mercy and good fruits.” (James 3:17) He sat beside Saint Peter and Saint Paul at the Council of Jerusalem. When Saint Paul at a later time escaped the fury of the Jews by appealing to Caesar, the people took vengeance on James, and crying out, “The just one has erred!” stoned him to death. During his martyrdom he prayed for his persecutors in the same words pronounced by Jesus: “Heavenly Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

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Saint Athanasius, the great champion of the Faith was born at Alexandria, about the year 296, of Christian parents. Educated under the eye of Alexander, later Bishop of his native city, he made great progress in learning and virtue. In 313, Alexander succeeded Achillas in the Patriarchal See, and two years later St. Athanasius went to the desert to spend some time in retreat with St. Anthony.

In 319, he became a deacon, and even in this capacity he was called upon to take an active part against the rising heresy of Arius, an ambitious priest of the Alexandrian Church who denied the Divinity of Christ. This was to be the life struggle of St. Athanasius.

In 325, he assisted his Bishop at the Council of Nicaea, where his influence began to be felt. Five months later Alexander died. On his death bed he recommended St. Athanasius as his successor. In consequence of this, Athanasius was unanimously elected Patriarch in 326.

His refusal to tolerate the Arian heresy was the cause of many trials and persecutions for St. Athanasius. He spent seventeen of the forty-six years of his episcopate in exile. After a life of virtue and suffering, this intrepid champion of the Catholic Faith, the greatest man of his time, died in peace on May 2, 373. St. Athanasius was a Bishop and Doctor of the Church.

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