Saints

The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Feast date: Jun 19

The heart has always been seen as the “center” or essence a person (“the heart of the matter,” “you are my heart,” “take it to heart,” etc.) and the wellspring of our emotional lives and love (“you break my heart,” “my heart sings,” etc.) Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is devotion to Jesus Christ Himself, but in the particular ways of meditating on his interior life and on His threefold love — His divine love, His burning love that fed His human will, and His sensible love that affects His interior life.

Pope Pius XII of blessed memory writes on this topic in his 1956 encyclical, Haurietis Aquas (On Devotion To The Sacred Heart).

The Friday that follows the Second Sunday in Time After Pentecost is the Feast of the Sacred Heart which brings to mind all the attributes of His Divine Heart mentioned above. Many Catholics prepare for this Feast by beginning a Novena to the Sacred Heart on the Feast of Corpus Christi, which is the Thursday of the week before. On the Feast of the Sacred Heart itself, we can gain a plenary indulgence by making an Act of Reparation to the Sacred Heart.

From the earliest days of the Church, “Christ’s open side and the mystery of blood and water were meditated upon, and the Church was beheld issuing from the side of Jesus, as Eve came forth from the side of Adam. It is in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that we find the first unmistakable indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Through the wound in the side, the wound in the Heart was gradually reached, and the wound in the Heart symbolized the wound of love.” (Catholic Encyclopedia)

This general devotion arose first in Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries of that time, especially in response to the devotion of St. Gertrude the Great, but specific devotions became popularized when St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), a Visitation nun, had a personal revelation involving a series of visions of Christ as she prayed before the Blessed Sacrament. She wrote, “He disclosed to me the marvels of his Love and the inexplicable secrets of his Sacred Heart.” Christ emphasized to her His love — and His woundedness caused by Man’s indifference to this love.

He promised that, in response to those who consecrate themselves and make reparations to His Sacred Heart, that:  

• He will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life.
• He will establish peace in their homes.
• He will comfort them in all their afflictions.
• He will be their secure refuge during life, and above all, in death.
• He will bestow abundant blessings upon all their undertakings.
• Sinners will find in His Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.
• Lukewarm souls shall become fervent.
• Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection.
• He will bless every place in which an image of His Heart is exposed and honored.
• He will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts.
• Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in His Heart.
• In the excessive mercy of His Heart that His all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays in nine consecutive months the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in His disgrace, nor without receiving their sacraments. His divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment.

Saint of the Day – rosary.team

St. Romuald

Feast date: Jun 19

Saint Romuald, who founded the Camaldolese monastic order during the early eleventh century, has his liturgical memorial on June 19.

Working within the Western Church’s Benedictine tradition, he revived the primitive monastic practice of hermit life, allowing for greater solitude in a communal setting.

Born into an aristocratic family during the middle of the tenth century, Romuald grew up in a luxurious and worldly environment, where he learned little in the way of self-restraint or religious devotion. Yet he also felt an unusual attraction toward the simplicity of monastic life, prompted by the beauty of nature and the experience of solitude .

It was not beauty or tranquility, but a shocking tragedy that spurred him to act on this desire. When Romuald was 20 years old, he saw his father Sergius kill one of his relatives in a dispute over some property. Disgusted by the crime he had witnessed, the young man went to the Monastery of St. Apollinaris to do 40 days of penance for his father.

These 40 days confirmed Romuald’s monastic calling, as they became the foundation for an entire life of penance. But this would not be lived out at St. Apollinaris, where Romuald’s strict asceticism brought him into conflict with some of the other monks. He left the area near Ravenna and went to Venice, where he became the disciple of the hermit Marinus.

Both men went on to encourage the monastic vocation of Peter Urseolus, a Venetian political leader who would later be canonized as a saint. When Peter joined a French Benedictine monastery, Romuald followed him and lived for five years in a nearby hermitage.

In the meantime, Romuald’s father Sergius had followed his son’s course, repenting of his sins and becoming a monk himself. Romuald returned to Italy to help his father, after learning that Sergius was struggling in his vocation. Through his son’s guidance, Sergius found the strength to persist in religious life.

After guiding his penitent father in the way of salvation, Romuald traveled throughout Italy serving the Church. By 1012 he had helped to establish or reform almost 100 hermitages and monasteries, though these were not connected to one another in the manner of a distinct religious order.

The foundations of the Camaldolese order were not laid until 1012 – when a piece of land called the ”Camaldoli,” located in the Diocese of Arezzo, was granted to Romuald. It became the site of five hermits’ quarters, and a full monastery soon after. This combination of hermits’ cells and community life, together with other distinctive features, gave this monastery and its later affiliates a distinct identity and charism.

Romuald’s approach to the contemplative life, reminiscent of the early Desert Fathers, can be seen in the short piece of writing known as his “Brief Rule.” It reads as follows:

“Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish. The path you must follow is in the Psalms – never leave it.”

“If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them with your mind. And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up; hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.”

“Realize above all that you are in God’s presence, and stand there with the attitude of one who stands before the emperor. Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with the grace of God, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him.”

St. Romuald of Ravenna died in his monastic cell on June 19, 1027. Pope Gregory XIII canonized him in 1582.
Saint of the Day – rosary.team

St. Osanna Andreasi

Feast date: Jun 18

St. Osanna was a Dominican tertiary, who spent her adult life serving the poor and the sick and offering spiritual direction to many. However, she was also a mystic and a visionary, eventually bearing the pain and red marks of the stigmata, though not the bleeding.

She was born in 1449 to a noble Italian family. Her visions, first of angels and of the Trinity, began at the young age of five. She felt a call to religious life and became a tertiary at 17, having already rejected a marriage arranged by her father.

Her visions continued into her adult life, and she often fell into ecstasies. She was also a strong critic of the lack of morality of her day. She died in 1505.

Saint of the Day – rosary.team

St. Albert Chmielowski

Feast date: Jun 17

Founder of the Albertine Brothers and Sisters, and one of the saints who inspired the vocation of the young Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II was born on August 20, 1845 in (near Kraków) as Adam Hilary Bernard Chmielowski. Born into a wealthy and aristocratic family, Adam was the oldest of four children. Actively involved in politics from his youth, Adam lost a leg fighting in an insurrection against Czar Alexander III at age 18. In Krakow, he became a popular artist and his talent in the subject led him to study in Munich and Paris.

A kind and compassionate person, Adam was always deeply aware of human suffering, and felt called to help those in need.  Realizing that God was calling Him to a life of service, he returned to Krakow in 1874, determined to dedicate his talents to the glory of God.  Instead of continuing his work as an artist, he decided to care for the poor and became a Secular Franciscan, taking the name Albert.

In 1887, Albert founded the Brothers of the Third Order of Saint Francis, Servants of the Poor, known as the Albertines or the Gray Brothers.  Then, in 1891, he founded a community of Albertine sisters, known as the Gray Sisters.

The Albertines organized food and shelter for the poor and homeless of any age or religion.  Albert preached on the great crisis that results from a refusal to see and aid the suffering individuals in society.

In 1949, Pope John Paul II, who was at the time Father Karol Wojtyla, wrote a well-received play about Albert called Our God’s Brother.  John Paul II later said that he found great spiritual support for his own vocation in the life of St. Albert, whom he saw as an example of leaving behind a world of art, literature, and theater to make a radical choice for the priesthood.

Brother Albert died on Christmas Day, 1916.  He was canonized on November 12, 1989 by Pope John Paul II.  The Church celebrates St. Albert’s feast day on June 17.

St. John Francis Regis

Feast date: Jun 16

On June 16 the Catholic Church celebrates the memory of Saint John Francis Regis, a 17th-century French Jesuit known for his zealous missionary efforts and his care for the poor and marginalized.

Saint of the Day – rosary.team

St. Lutgardis

Feast date: Jun 16

St. Lutgardis is the patron saint of the blind and physically disabled. Born in the 12th century, she came to her vocation in part due to her father’s bad business sense. Her father lost her dowry in a failed business venture and sent her to a Benedictine convent at the age of 12.

A few years later, she received a vision of Christ showing her his wounds, and at age 20 she became a Benedictine nun. Her visions continued and she is said to have levitated and dripped blood from her head when meditating on the Passion.

Seeking a stricter life, she joined the Cistercians and displayed the gifts of healing, prophecy, spiritual wisdom and teaching on the Gospels.

She accepted the blindness that afflicted her for the last 11 years of her life as a gift that helped reduce the distractions of the outside world. In her last vision, Christ told her when she was to die, the day after the Feast of the Holy Trinity, June 16, 1246. She was 64.

Saint of the Day – rosary.team

St. Germaine Cousin

Feast date: Jun 15

June 15 is the feast day of St. Germaine Cousin, a simple and pious young girl who lived in Pibrac, France in the late 1500s. Germaine was born in 1579 to poor parents. Her father was a farmer, and her mother died when she was still an infant. She was born with a deformed right arm and hand, as well as the disease of scrofula, a tubercular condition.

Her father remarried soon after the death of her mother, but his new wife was filled with disgust by Germaine’s condition. She tormented and neglected Germaine, and taught her siblings to do so as well.

Starving and sick, Germaine was eventually kicked out of the house and forced to sleep under the stairway in the barn, on a pile of leaves and twigs, because of her stepmother’s dislike of her and disgust of her condition. She tended to the family’s flock of sheep everyday.

Despite her hardships, she lived each day full of thanksgiving and joy, and spent much of her time praying the Rosary and teaching the village children about the love of God. She was barely fed and had an emaciated figure, yet despite this she shared the little bread that she had with the poor of the village.

From her simple faith grew a deep holiness and profound trust in God. She went to Mass everyday, leaving her sheep in the care of her guardian angel, who never failed her. Germaine’s deep piety was looked upon with ridicule by the villagers, but not by the children, who were drawn to her holiness.

God protected Germaine and showered his favor upon her. It was reported that on days when the river was high, the waters would part so that she could pass through them on her way to Mass. One day in winter, when she was being chased by her stepmother who accused her of stealing bread, she opened her apron and fresh summer flowers fell out. She offered the flowers to her stepmother as a sign of forgiveness.

Eventually, the adults of the village began to realize the special holiness of this poor, crippled shepherdess. Germaine’s parents eventually offered her a place back in their house, but she chose to remain in her humble place outside.

Just as the villagers were realizing the beauty of her life, God called her to Himself. Her father found her body on her bed of leaves one morning in her 22nd year of life.

Forty-three years later, when a relative of hers was being buried, Germaine’s casket was opened and her body was found incorrupt. People in the surrounding area began praying for her intercession and obtaining miraculous cures for illnesses.

St. Germaine was canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1867 and inscribed into the canon of virgins.
Saint of the Day – rosary.team

St. Methodius of Constantinople

Feast date: Jun 14

St. Methodius worked for unity and reconciliation in the Eastern Church and served as the Patriarch of Constantinople the last five years of his life.

Born in Syracuse, he first felt the call to enter religious life while in Constantinople, where he had gone to seek a position at court. He left for the island of Chinos, where he built a monastery and started a monastic community.

However, his time at the monastery was short-lived since he was summoned by the Patriarch of Constantinople to help govern the diocese and create unity after a debate broke out on the use of icons in worship. While in Rome seeking the Pope’s help, he was exiled for seven years. He returned as patriarch in 842 and continued to work for unity.

Saint of the Day – rosary.team

St. Leo III, Pope

Feast date: Jun 12

(December 26, 795 – June 12, 816)

Leo came from a modest family in southern Italy. He was elected to the office of St. Peter unanimously by the clergy of Rome following the death of Pope Hadrian. The papacy had dramatically changed over the 8th century, and many Pope’s had separated themselves from the protection the Byzantine emperors and their governors in Ravenna. Pope Stephen II had, in 754, sought the support of the Frankish king Pepin to defeat the invading Lombards. The pope would receive from Pepin the lands formally conquered by the Lombards, therefore creating the Papal States. The Lombards remained, and Leo soon found that he had other enemies within Rome, many of the aristocratic families of the city including relatives of the late Pope Hadrian who accused the pope of perjury and adultery.

On April 25, 799, Leo was attacked while riding in a procession by a gang who sought to cut out his eyes and tongue. While Leo survived the attack, he was arrested by his enemies, deposed as pope and imprisoned in a monastery. Leo managed to escape north to the Franks, who refused to accept the deposition. Leo was escorted back to Rome where the Franks began an investigation both of the charges against the pope and the attack upon his person. The emperor Charlemagne arrived in Rome in November 800 to review the charges in solemn council. The emperor stated that no one on earth could judge the Apostolic See, but he accepted the pope’s statement of innocence after Leo took an oath purging himself of all charges on December 23rd.

At Christmas mass at St. Peters some two days later, Leo crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor, giving Charlemagne equal status with the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople. This relationship provided protection for the Holy See and allowed Leo to administer the Papal States, bestowed several decades earlier by Pepin. However Charlemagne extracted a high price for his support, often interfering in the work of the church and expecting Leo’s tacit approval in all things. Leo began a building program in Rome, restoring and embellishing churches. A great apse was added to Santa Susanna and a magnificent Byzantine mosaic was installed in the apse, depicting both Leo and Charlemagne. Leo died on June 12, 816 and was buried in the old Constantinian basilica of St. Peter. Leo is listed as a saint based on the miracle of his restored eyes and tongue, following the attack on his person in 799, his feast day is June 12.

Saint of the Day – rosary.team

St. Gaspar Bertoni

Feast date: Jun 12

St. Gasper was born in Verona, Italy in 1777. He was baptized the day after. It is known that he was from an affluent family, and that his family’s faith-life was also quite notable.

Gasper was an only child as his baby sister passed away. He had the benefit of an excellent education both at home and at St. Sebastian’s school which was run by Jesuits.

From the grace of his first Holy Communion at age 11, Gaspar Bertoni was called to a life of mystical union. His vocation to the priesthood matured, and at 18, he entered the seminary. In frequenting the theological course as an extern student, he found in his professor of moral theology, Fr. Nicholas Galvani, an excellent spiritual director.

He was known to have helped the sick and hurt during the invasion of French armies in 1796, the beginning of a 20 year period of upheaval during which he tended to those in need. He took over the spiritual direction of a community founded then by St. Magdalena of Canossa at St. Joseph’s Convent (May 1808).

On November 4, 1816, with two companions, he moved into a small house, adjacent to a suppressed Church, that bore the title of “the Sacred Stigmata of St. Francis (from this, the name of his community was eventually adapted; in this small church, he also worked to spread the devotion to the Passion and the wounds of Christ). In a very unostentatious manner, the new community opened a tuition-free school, offering this and other gratuitous services to the Church and society. The men lived together a common life of strict observance and penance. An intense life of contemplation was joined to a broad apostolate, including the Christian education of the youth, the formation of the clergy and missionary preaching, in perfect availability to the requests of the bishop.

Right after an ecstasy that he experienced praying before a Crucifix (on May 30, 1812), he suffered a first attack of “miliary fever” that brought him to the very threshold of death. Almost miraculously, he did recover but for the rest of his 41 years of life he remained in poor health, all this while giving a wonderful example of patience and heroic confident abandonment to God.Even from his sick-bed, suffering indescribable discomfort, he became the “angel of counsel” for countless persons who sought him out.

His Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ, enriched by so many sufferings, gradually spread beyond Verona, to other cities in Italy, and then to the United States, to Brazil (where it presently has 6 Bishops), to Chile, to the Philippines and to mission territories: South Africa, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Thailand.
Saint of the Day – rosary.team