St. Agnes
Feast Day - January 21st
Roman maiden age 12 or 13 and martyred under Diocletian. In art, she is represented with a lamb.
St. Anne
Feast Day - July 26th
Mother of our Blessed Mother. Although the Gospels do not mention the names of the Blessed Mother's parents, tradition gives us the name of Anne or Hannah, which means Grace. St. Anne is usually represented as teaching her little daughter to read the Bible.
St. Bathildis
Feast Day - January 30th
An English girl sold as a slave to the mayor of a palace of King Clovis II. King Clovis II married her and she became the mother of three future kings.
St. Blandina
Feast Day - June 2nd
One of the martyrs of Lyons. The slave-girl Blandina enmeshed in a net was tossed by a wild bull. While the others were suffering, St. Blandina strove to comfort them like a mother.
St. Bridget of Sweden
Feast Day - October 8th
Born to a noble family, she married a Swedish prince before she was fifteen years old. They lived happily for twenty-eight years and she bore him eight children. She proved to be the ideal, busy, home-loving wife. She founded a religious order, the Bridgettines after she became a widow. She is famous for the visions and revelations with which she was favored by God and which she recorded in writing.
St. Catherine of Alexandria
Feast Day - November 25th
According to legend, she was a maiden matryed at Alexandria. In art, she is represented as arguing with the pagan philosophers.
St. Elizabeth
Feast Day - November 5th
The mother of Saint John the Baptist. She was barren for many years until God permitted her to conceive a child in her old age.
St. Eulalia
Feast Day - December 10th
The most celebrated vigin martyr of Spain. At tthe age of thirteen, she was burnt at the stake in her native city under Diocletian
St. Felicitas
Feast Day - March 7th
A married slave, who along with Vivia Perpetua and others were imprisoned together at Carthage. They were martyred at being thrown to the wild beasts in the amphitheater
St. Frances of Rome
Feast Day - March 9th
She was married for forty years and succeeded during all this time in never once annoying him. Her life was a model of fidelity and devotedness to her domestic duties. She patiently bore many sever trials, among them being the death of her children, her husband's banishment and the confiscation of the estates. She had a great devotion to her guardian angel.
St. Albert the Great
Feast Day - November 15th
He was a Dominican appointed lector of theology. St. Thomas Aquinas was his disciple and St. Albert the Great was the first to recognize Thomas' genius and to foretell the future work of his pupil. His printed works fill thirty-eight quarto volumes and deal with all branches of learning. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1931.
St. Aloysius Gonzaga
Feast Day - June 21st
Born in a castle, he later served as a page. At the age of eighteen he entered the Society of Jesus, after overcoming the opposition of his family. Six years later, while nursing the plague stricken, he died. Pope Benedict XIII declared him special protector of young students and Pius XI proclaimed him patron of Christian Youth.
St. Bede
Feast Day - May 27th
As a child, he was offered as a child to the double abbey of Ss. Peter and Paul at Wearmouth-Jarrow. He spent his whole life always writing, always praying, always reading, always teaching. The Bible was his principlal study and then history. He is the type of the Benedictine scholar of all periods and has been declared Doctor of the Church.
St. Cassian of Imola
Feast Day - August 13th
When he refused to worship idols, the persecutor summonded certain boys who hated Cassian as their schoolmaster, and afforded them the opportunity of killing him.
St. Charles Borromeo
Feast Day - November 4th
Appointed archbishop of Milan and cardinal at age twenty-two. He did not receive priestly or episcopal orders until the year 1563. He was the most imposing and influential figure of the counter-reformation in Italy. He was a model bishop, zealous, selfless, prodigal even of his life.
St. Charles Lwanga
Feast Day - June 3rd
One of the twenty-two Uganda Martyrs. They were young men and boys between the ages of thirteen and thirty years old. They were converts of the White Fathers and were martyred with horrible crulty. Their heroic courage rivalled that of the early martyrs.
Blessed Contrad Ferrini
Feast Day - October 17th
He studied at the University of Pavia. After taking degrees in civil and canon law, he taught. He was the model of a Catholic professor and remarkable for his inexhaustible desire for prayer.
St. Dogmael
Feast Day - June 14th
He was a Welsh monk and toddlers of Brittany were placed under his protection.
St. Dominic Savio
Feast Day - March 9th
A pupil of St. John Bosco who wrote his biography. He died shortly before his fifteenth birthday, having given proof of his high virtue. He is the youngest non-martyr to receive offical canonization in the history of the Church
St. Eustace
Feast Day - September 20th
From a Roman family of distinction. He and his family were marytred under Habrian.
St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows
Feast Day - February 27th
Francis Possenti was born at Assisi and educated at Soleto under the Jesuit Fathers. He attained perfection by heroic self-denial in small things.
St. Gabriel the Archangel
Feast Day - March 24th
He first appeared in the Book of Daniel. Later he appeared to Zachary and especially to our Blessed Mother to tell her that she was chosen to be the Mother of God. He is for this reason called "The Angel of the Annunciation".
St. Gangulphus
Feast Day - May 11th
A Burgundian and a courtier, who retired from public life to lead the life of a recluse and was killed by his wife's paramour.
St. George the Great
Feast Day - April 23rd
He was a martyr who suffered at Diospolis in Palestine, probably under Diocletian. All the other stories, including the one of his battling the dragon may be regarded as legend. He is held universally as the model of knighthood and avenger of women.
St. Gerard Majella
Feast Day - October 16th
He was apprenticed to a tailor before asking to be received by the Redemptionists as a lay-brother. His life was a series of supernatural phenomena - bilocations, reading of consciences, prophecies, multiplying of food, etc.
St. Gummarus or Gomer
Feast Day - October 11th
A courtier of King Pepin who married a wife of extravagant and tiresome disposition. After long and patient endurance of her perversity, he was at last obliged to separate from her and died a recluse.
The following books were the source for the information on the patron saints listed here:
This page was last updated on June 11, 2006.
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