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September 18 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

feature · ROCCAPORENA, Umbria, 1406 AD

St. Rita asks God to take her two sons before they kill

St. Rita's husband was stabbed to death outside the village, and when arguing failed to turn her two sons from revenge, she asked God to take them first.

A painted portrait of a veiled woman with a halo of rays behind her head and a small mark on her forehead, holding a slender pointed object in one hand. — St. Rita of Cascia, detail from the painted sarcophagus that has held her body at the Sanctuary of Cascia since 1457.

Saint Rita of Cascia's husband, Paolo Mancini, was ambushed and stabbed to death on the road outside Roccaporena this year, and their two sons set out to avenge him. St. Rita knows who killed him, has forgiven the men and will not name them, and that silence has turned her husband's family against her. Arguing with the two boys failed, so St. Rita asked God to change the hearts of Giangiacomo and Paolo Maria, or take them out of this life before they could kill.

3 min read

An engraving showing Christ, robed and haloed, extending his hand toward a flaming, thorn-crowned heart in the clouds, while a kneeling nun in a Visitation habit looks up at the vision from a balustraded terrace, an altar visible behind her.

legacy · ROME, September 18, 1864 AD

Pope Pius IX declares Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque Blessed in Rome

The apostolic decree of Pope Pius IX was read out in the Basilica of St Peter this morning, and Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation sister who died at Paray-le-Monial in 1690 AD, may now be called Blessed. The permission is a narrow one: her Mass may be said on October 17 in the diocese of Autun and in the houses of the Visitation, and nowhere else. The bells of Rome rang, the cannon of the Castel Sant'Angelo fired, and the veil came down from her picture.

4 min read

More in this edition

A half-length portrait of an elderly nun in a white Carmelite habit and black veil, hands joined in prayer, a halo and a banderole reading MISERICORDIAS DOMINI IN AETERNUM CANTABO above her head and a white dove at upper left.

Teresa's last journey · Part 2 · MEDINA DEL CAMPO, Castile, this week, September 1582 AD

Ordered to Alba de Tormes, St. Teresa leaves Medina fasting

Saint Teresa of Ávila founded the convent at Medina del Campo fifteen years ago. On the night she arrived there this week she pointed out something in the refectory that needed putting right, and the prioress took the remark as an injury. In the morning St. Teresa left without eating, in a carriage the Duchess of Alba had sent, bound for Alba de Tormes and not for Ávila, where she had hoped to go.

A black-and-white photograph of a young nun in a dark habit and white wimple, seated and turned slightly to one side.

writings · LOURDES, September 15, 2008 AD

Pope tells the sick at Lourdes: Our Lady answered with a smile

Preaching at the Mass for the sick at Lourdes this week, Pope Benedict XVI put a date on the smile: the apparition of Wednesday, March 3, 1858 AD. St. Bernadette had asked the Blessed Virgin Mary who she was, and Our Lady smiled instead of giving a name; the name, the Immaculate Conception, came twenty-two days later. He also told the sick that St. Bernadette, whose own life was marked by illness, received the anointing of the sick four times before she died at thirty-five.

4 min read

Today in the Church

Friday of the twenty-fourth week in Ordinary Time

Saint of the day

Saint Joseph of Cupertino

Saint Joseph of Cupertino was a priest. The Roman Martyrology keeps his memory on this day.

On this day in the Church

1814 Pope Pius VII, newly home from his exile in France, extended the feast of the Seven Dolours of Our Lady to the whole Latin Church.Our Lady of Sorrows Source
1864 St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was declared Blessed in the Basilica of St Peter, 173 years after her death at Paray-le-Monial.Our report Source

Quote of the day

“If hitherto, thou hast taken only the name of My slave, I now give thee that of the beloved disciple of My Sacred Heart.”

— Christ to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, at Paray-le-Monial, 1673 AD, in her own account, Autobiography of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (English edition, 1930), §53