Happy Sunday! This week we celebrated many martyrs, who were willing to endure not only great pain but even death to stay true to their faith. We should pray that we will have the same courage and love for Christ that they did.
St. Thomas More (June 22) was a lawyer who remarried after his beloved wife died for his children’s sake. A devoted husband and father, an eminent scholar, and powerful Lord Chancellor of England under his friend King Henry VIII. When More refused to approve of the king’s divorce and heresy, however, he was ruined, imprisoned, and executed. St. John Fisher (June 22), a bishop, cardinal, former Procter of Cambridge University and tutor of Henry VIII, also refused (almost alone of the English bishops) to endorse Henry’s actions, and was martyred. Read my previous piece for more details.
June 23 is the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets who came to prepare the Jews for the coming of the Messiah, John’s cousin Jesus. John preached, baptized, and was martyred for rebuking corrupt King Herod and Herodias. St. Aloysius Gonzaga (June 21) “is a patron of Catholic youth. Amid the seductions of courts the young prince, full of merits and virtues, kept his first innocence by marvels of mortification. He entered the Society of Jesus in Rome at the age of sixteen, and died there seven years later a victim to the plague, June 21, 1591.”1
St. Jude Thaddeus (June 19, Byzantine) was the son of Cleophas (see Luke 24) and the second Mary who stood at the foot of Jesus’s cross (John 19:25), and thus Jesus’s cousin. After Jesus’s Ascension, Jude wrote his canonical Epistle and preached in Syria, Persia, and Mesopotamia with Simon. Jude was a healer, an exorcist (particularly of idols), and a martyr. Tradition says Jesus sent Jude with an image of Jesus’s face to heal the king of Edessa. The similarity of Jude’s name to traitorous Judas Iscariot’s caused devotion to lag, hence Jude’s patronage of impossible causes. The Irish Martyrs (June 20) are the Irish Catholic clerics and laymen martyred by English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Bl. Margaret Ball (June 20), a wife and mother who sheltered priests and was imprisoned by her own heretic son, was one of them. Bl. Francis O’Sullivan (June 23), a Franciscan priest, was another.
Maria in the Forest (June 17) was a 19th century “apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to three young [Austrian] shepherdesses in which Mary appeared as the Immaculate Conception.” Pope St. Silverius (June 20) “was exiled by order of the Empress [Theodora] to the Island of Pontus, where he died, after many privations and sufferings, in 538.” He had refused to endorse the heresy of Theodora, and was possibly murdered.
St. Juliana Falconieri (June 19): “The noble daughter of the illustrious family of Falconieri founded at Florence the Order of the Mantellati, attached to the Order of Servites. She received Viaticum [Communion] miraculously at the moment of her death in 1340.” Sts. Mark and Marcellian (June 18): “These two brothers were pierced with arrows, after a day and a night of suffering in 286.” Sts. Gervase and Protase (June 19): “These two brothers were cruelly martyred under Nero at Milan.”
St. Romuald (June 19) was so horrified at seeing his father kill another man in a duel that he became a monk. Spent decades founding monasteries and hermitages across Italy. He suffered through spiritual dryness, false accusations, and excommunication, but was vindicated. One of his monasteries was the birthplace of the Camaldolese Benedictines (d.1027). Bl. Dermot O’Hurley (June 20), Irish scholar and Archbishop of Cashel, took office amidst Irish Catholic rebellion against the English Protestant oppressors and increased English persecution of Catholics. Betrayed, arrested, tortured, and martyred under Queen Elizabeth I in 1584; even a Protestant Earl strenuously protested Dermot’s horrible tortures.
St. Alban of Britain (June 22), first Christian martyr of Britain, was a 4th century Roman soldier converted by a persecuted priest he sheltered. Caught helping the priest, Alban was tortured and beheaded with St. Heraclius. St. Joseph Cafasso (June 23) was born a peasant and crippled in 1811 in Italy, but attained various high positions including professor and college superior. A renowned confessor, advisor to St. John Bosco, and founder of religious fellowships. Joseph had a special ministry to prisoners, and once escorted 60 newly converted criminals condemned to the gallows; he called such converts his “hanged saints.”
St. Flavius Clemens (June 22) was the brother and uncle of Roman emperors and husband of St. Flavia Domitilla. Flavius was consul under Domitian, but was soon martyred by that same emperor in 96. St. Paulinus of Nola (June 22) was admired by many great contemporary saints, including Augustine, and was a distinguished lawyer and consul who converted with his wife. After the death of their only infant, they gave away much of their property and Paulinus became a priest. He was chosen bishop of Nola, was very charitable to those in need, and composed the earliest extant Christian wedding song (d.431).
St. Herve (June 17) was born blind in 6th century Brittany raised by a holy man, and became a hermit, bard/minstrel, teacher, miracle-worker, abbot, and founder of a religious house. Famed for healing animals, he once made a wolf who killed his ox plow a field. St. Demetria of Rome (June 21), sister of St. Bibiana and daughter of Sts. Flavian and Dafrosa, was arrested in 363 but dropped dead before she could be killed. Bl. Ranieri Scacceri (June 17) was a wild and wealthy Italian, a wandering minstrel, who was convinced to reform. He became a successful merchant, but one day his money smelled terrible and he became a penitential monk, a pilgrim, an oblate, a healer, and finally a biblical scholar and preacher (d.1161).
St. Terence (June 21) was one of Christ’s 72 disciples, first Bishop of Iconium, mentioned in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and a martyr. St. Etheldreda (June 23) was a royal widow, whose second husband tried to get her to break her vow of virginity. She refused and fled her husband, the marriage was annulled, and she founded and entered the great abbey of Ely. Died in 679 of a neck tumor.
St. Ephrem of Nisibis (June 18) “in Mesopotamia was cast forth from his home by his father, a pagan priest. At first he lived as a hermit; he was later ordained a Deacon of Edessa and became renowned as a poet, an orator, and a holy monk. He died in 379.” St. Adalbert of Magdeburg (June 20), “Apostle of the Slavs,” was sent by the emperor to convert Russia. Facing bloody opposition, he returned to be archbishop of Magdeburg in Saxony, where he continued his evangelizing (d.981).
St. Botulph of Ikanhoe (June 17) and his brother St. Adolph of Utrecht were Saxon nobles sent to study in monasteries. Botulph returned to East Anglia to establish the Benedictine Order and a monastery there. He not only founded a flourishing community but became a traveling missionary (d.680). Adolph was a missionary bishop and miracle-worker. St. Gregory Barbarigo (June 18) was a 17th century diplomat, bishop, and cardinal who enacted the reforms of Trent. Famous for his zeal and care of the poor. St. Methodius of Patara (June 20) was a bishop known for his humility, care for his flock, and opposition to heresy. He composed many theological and moral works, and was martyred by pagans in 312.
Pope Bl. Innocent V (June 22) was a scholar and the first Dominican pope who tried during his brief reign to reunite the Eastern Christians and make peace with the Guelphs and Ghibellines (d.1276). St. Julian of Antioch (June 21) was a 4th century Roman of senatorial rank, tortured and martyred by being “sewn up in a sack half-filled with scorpions, sand, and vipers, and cast into the sea.” St. Zeno of Philadelphia (June 23) was a wealthy noble and Roman soldier who was so inspired by the martyrs that he freed his slaves, gave away his possessions, and became a Christian and martyr too in 304. St. Zenas, his former slave, was also martyred. St. Theresa of Portugal (June 17) married King Alfonso IX of Leon, Spain, but the marriage was dissolved after three children, and she founded and entered a Cistercian convent (d.1250). St. Albert Chmielowski (June 17) founded the Albertine brothers in 1887 to care for the poor and homeless; Pope John Paul II wrote a play about him. Bl. Osanna Andreasi (June 8) was a 15th century Italian visionary and Bible scholar taught theology by Our Lady herself.
St. Phêrô Ða (June 17) was a married Vietnamese sacristan martyred in 1862. Bl. Peter Gambacorta (June 17) was a worldly youth who became a beggar and hermit and founded the Hermits of St. Jerome (d.1435). St. Elizabeth of Schönau (June 18) was a Benedictine prioress who had many visions and was instructed by Christ, His mother, and Saints (d.1165). St. Abraham of Clermont (June 18) was a Syrian who escaped imprisonment to become a hermit and popular spiritual director in 5th century Gaul. Sts. Rémi Isoré and Modeste Andlauer (June 19) were French missionaries martyred in China in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. Bl. Sebastian Newdigate, a widower who became a Carthusian monk, was martyred with fellow monks Humphrey Middlemore and William Exmew on June 19, 1535, under Henry VIII. Bl. Margareta Ebner (June 20), a 14th century Bavarian mystic, was bedridden for years, but only drew closer to God. St. Jose Isabel Flores Varela (June 21) was a Mexican priest martyred during the Cristeros rebellion in 1927. Bl. Michelina of Pesaro (June 19), a 14th century noble, lost her husband and son while young, became a Franciscan tertiary, and cared for lepers.
St. John of Pulsano (June 20) was an Italian hermit, prophet, preacher, and miracle-worker who escaped prison to found a monastery (d.1139). St. Francis Pacheco (June 20) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary to Japan, burned alive with eight companions in 1626, including novice Bl. Ioannes Kisaku. St. Eusebius of Samosata (June 22) was a 4th century bishop who opposed the Arian heresy and was therefore exiled by the emperor and murdered by an Arian. Bl. William Harcourt (June 20) was the English Jesuit superior killed in 1679 upon false accusation in the Titus Oates plot; four other Jesuits were also executed. Bl. Pierre-Joseph Cassant (June 17) was a Benedictine Cisterian Trappist monk and priest who cared for the sick while he himself was dying young of tuberculosis (d.1903). St. John Rigby (June 21) was a Lancashire gentleman, servant to a noble, and convert tortured and martyred in 1600. Bl. Mary of Oignies (June 23), a Belgian, lived chastely with her husband and cared for lepers; later, she became a hermitess, stigmatist, prophetess, and visionary (d.1213). St. Thomas Garnet (June 23) was an English court page who converted, became a priest, and was ministering in secret when he was arrested and martyred in 1608. St. Agrippina of Rome (June 23) was a Roman noble and consecrated virgin tortured and martyred in the 3rd century. Bl. Lanfranco Beccari (June 23) was a pious and charitable bishop exiled for protecting church property from secular authorities (d.1198).
You can also read about Sabel and martyrs, Hypatius of Chalcedon, Paul Burali, Philippe Papon, Himerius, Avy, Antidius, and Molling (June 17); Euphemia of Altenmünster, Marina of Spoleto, Equizio, Marina of Bithynia, Calogerus the Anchorite, Karden Hermits, Calogero, Amand of Bordeaux, and Princess Osanna (June 18); Thomas Woodhouse, Gerlando d’Alemagna, Odo of Cambrai, Nazario of Koper, Hildemarca, Deodatus of Nevers, Lambert of Saragossa, Arnaldo of Liniberio, Hildegrin, and Adleida and Lupo (June 19); John Baptist Zola, Methodius of Olympus, and Bagne (June 20); Leutfridus of La-Croix, Raymond of Barbastro, Nicholas Plutzer, Mewan, Alban of Mainz, Jacques Dupas, Ralph of Bourges, Juan of Jesus, Engelmund, Colagia, Suibhne the Sage, Melchiorre, and Corbmac (June 21); Marie Lhuilier, Eberhard of Salzburg, Aaron of Brettany, Consortia, Precia of Epinal, Hespérius of Metz, Nicetas of Remesiana, Exuperantius of Como, Gregory of Agrigento, and Samaria Martyrs (June 22); and Lietbert of Cambrai, Peter of Juilly, Frances Martel, John of Rome, Ancyra and Nicomedia Martyrs, Hidulf of Hainault, Moeliai, James of Toul, and Madonna del Sasso (June 23).
Have a blessed week!
Uncited quotes in this piece are from the Latin Mass Missal.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Catherine Salgado
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