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September 12 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

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event · CASCIA, Umbria, September 1833 AD

Blind girl sorting corn at Cascia calls out that she can see

Elisabetta Bergamini, blinded by smallpox seven years ago, was stirring a cup of corn in the convent yard at Cascia when she cried out that she could see.

A nun in a dark habit and orange mantle, haloed, is carried upward on billowing clouds with arms raised, a walled hill town and mountains visible below.
The Translation of Saint Rita of Cascia, a mid-1630s painting by Nicolas Poussin, shows St. Rita borne aloft on clouds above the Umbrian countryside near Cascia.

A girl of Terni sent to board with the Augustinian nuns at Cascia after smallpox destroyed her sight called out in the courtyard this month that she could see. The nuns had dressed Elisabetta Bergamini in a black votive habit touched to the body of Saint Rita of Cascia, and had touched the girl's eyes with a small silver rod. The convent's doctor, who had said that only a miracle would give her back her sight, examined her afterwards and said the saint had worked one.

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More in this edition

A sepia engraving of a single-room village school: a slight boy in a dark buttoned jacket stands alone in the open floor, head lowered and hands at his sides, while a priest in a black cassock speaks to him across a table at the front and rows of village boys watch from plank benches.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a monochrome relief engraving of the Turin devotional press of the 1850s, from the paper's reference portrait based on Dominic Savio (Pupil of the Ven. Don Bosco) — frontispiece plate to 'The Life of Dominic Savio' by St John Bosco, Salesian Press English edition (unknown engraver, after the likeness first published by St John Bosco at Turin in 1859 AD in a plate signed C. Tomatis, 1915 AD, Internet Archive) View source artwork.

A schoolmaster in Piedmont rebuked St. Dominic Savio in front of his class this year for an offence that carried expulsion, and the eleven-year-old took it without a word. He had not done it, and the boys who had were found out the next day. Asked afterwards why he had not defended himself, he said he had hoped to be forgiven and had remembered that Our Lord was unjustly accused.

4 min read

A mosaic of an elderly, gaunt man in a plain dark tunic and heavy cloak sitting at a wooden table in a bare stone room, an oil lamp beside a tied bundle of parchment leaves, an open book under his hand, a travelling cloak and staff against the wall and snow on the rocks outside a shuttered window.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a Byzantine mosaic of glass and stone tesserae, from the paper's reference portrait based on St. John Chrysostom, micromosaic icon (Anonymous Greek workshop, 14th century, Vatopedi Monastery, Mount Athos) View source artwork.

Saint John Chrysostom was deposed as Archbishop of Constantinople and is held in a mountain town on the Armenian frontier. From there he has sent a book to Saint Olympias in the capital, a widow who gave her fortune to the churches and was prosecuted over the fire that destroyed his cathedral. Its argument is that nothing done from outside — the loss of money, exile, torture, death — can harm a person who does not injure himself.

4 min read

A wall painting of an elderly Roman woman in a purple mantle and jewelled headband speaking to masons who are bricking up a window in a great hall, with a closed silver casket and two candlesticks on a draped altar behind her.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a late-Roman fresco of the Constantinian decades, from the paper's reference portrait based on Seated statue of Helena of Constantinople — head (Unknown Roman sculptor; head recut in the Constantinian period on an Antonine body; photograph by Jebulon, body: second half of the 2nd century AD; head: Constantinian, c. 306-337 AD, Musei Capitolini, Rome) View source artwork.

A portion of the wood of the Cross has been brought from Jerusalem to Rome in these years, and St. Helena has given it her own house. It was set down in a hall of the imperial palace at the south-east corner of the city, where the empress lodges when she is in Rome, and that hall is being walled into a church round the relic. Romans are calling the new church the Basilica Eleniana, or the Sessoriana after the palace.

4 min read

Today in the Church

Saturday of the twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

  • The Most Holy Name of MaryOptional Memorial

Saint of the day

The Most Holy Name of Mary

A celebration of the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, kept by the Church since the deliverance of Vienna.

On this day in the Church

  • 1693 The Portuguese army promoted St. Anthony of Padua, dead four hundred and sixty-two years, to the rank of captain, for good services and the miracles performed for the benefit of its troops.Our reportSource
  • 1924 At Grodno, St. Maximilian Kolbe set down what his movement was for: to win the whole world, all hearts and each person individually, for the Queen of Heaven and Earth.Source
  • 1932 Travelling in China and India in search of ground for a third City of the Immaculata, St. Maximilian Kolbe wrote out by hand a letter to the Blessed Virgin Mary, setting down the perils of the journey.Our reportSource

Quote of the day

“O Immaculata, Queen of Heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to you.”
— St. Maximilian Kolbe, Act of Consecration to the Immaculata, St Maximilian Maria Kolbe, Act of Consecration to the Immaculata, c. 1930s (Militia of the Immaculata)