September 25 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

event · PARIS, September 25, 1660 AD

Saint Vincent de Paul visits his successor, then falls into a deep sleep

Seventy-nine and unable to stand, he was carried to the priest he had secretly named to succeed him; at noon he slept so deeply those with him feared the end.

An old bald priest in a black soutane and skullcap sleeps upright in a wooden armchair in a bare grey room, his bandaged feet on a low stool, with crutches against the wall, a narrow bed behind him, and two men in black cassocks watching from an open doorway. — St. Vincent de Paul asleep in his chair in his room at Saint-Lazare, Paris, on September 25, 1660 AD.
About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of French oil painting of the middle of the seventeenth century, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait de saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (Anonymous, after a model by Simon Francois de Tours, circa 1660, Musee Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris) View source artwork.

Saint Vincent de Paul, seventy-nine and unable to walk, was carried to the infirmary at Saint-Lazare in Paris for a last long talk with Father René Alméras. St. Vincent had secretly chosen Father Alméras to lead, after his death, the order of priests he founded to preach to the poor of the countryside. At about noon St. Vincent fell asleep in his chair more deeply, and for longer, than ever before, and those with him thought he was dying.

4 min read

In a fresco, a half-clothed young man with a halo raises his hand to heaven while an angry father in a yellow robe, holding the bundled clothes, is pulled back by a man in red; a bishop shelters the young man with his cloak, and townspeople look on.

event · ASSISI, Umbria, 1206 AD

Before the bishop, St. Francis returns his father's money and his clothes

Pietro Bernardone, a cloth merchant, took his son, Saint Francis of Assisi, before the bishop of Assisi over cloth St. Francis had sold to repair a church. Told to pay the money back, St. Francis took off his clothes, laid them on the money and said he would now call only God his Father. Bishop Guido covered him with his own cloak.

4 min read

More in this edition

Sepia photograph of a smiling young woman with dark hair pinned up under a headband, in a dark jacket, with a figure partly visible behind her.

feature · ŚWINICE WARCKIE, Poland, 1914 AD

A mother who cannot read prepares St. Faustina for First Communion

Saint Faustina Kowalska, baptised Helena, made her First Holy Communion in 1914 AD, at nine, in the parish church at Świnice Warckie in Poland. Her mother, Marianna Kowalska, could not read, but she taught her children the faith and prepared them for the sacrament. On the way home St. Faustina walked apart from the other girls and told a friend she was walking with Jesus.

3 min read

An engraving in sepia ink of a boy in a dark jacket and bow cravat, a book under his arm, standing at a door at the top of a narrow plaster stairwell and looking back at a priest in a black cassock and broad-brimmed hat who climbs the stairs below him, seen from behind. — 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), the frontispiece plate to 'The Life of Dominic Savio' by John Bosco (unknown engraver, Salesian Press, 1915 AD, Internet Archive) View source artwork.

writings · LONDON, England, 1914 AD

St. John Bosco tells how St. Dominic Savio found a dying man

Saint John Bosco's life of his pupil Saint Dominic Savio, now published in English in London, tells how the boy took him through the streets of Turin to a house where a man who had given up his faith lay dying. St. John Bosco heard the man's confession before he died, and St. Dominic Savio never said how he had known.

4 min read

A young Passionist in a black cape with a heart-shaped badge kneels with a rosary, a halo above his head, gazing up into a golden glow in a dark blue sky, with white lilies on a step beside him.

legacy · ROME, 1897 AD

Dying Roman woman recovers after friend brings dust from St. Gabriel's grave

Violanta Moretti of Rome, given up by her doctors with an inflammation of the lungs, recovered at once this year when her friend Josephine Alessandrini brought her dust from the grave of Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. His religious order is asking the Church to declare him Blessed, and in January officials in Rome ruled that the case could go on. At his grave at Isola, in the Abruzzi, a register counted about ninety complete cures this year.

3 min read

Today in the Church

Friday of the 25th week in Ordinary Time

Saint of the day

Saint Finbar

Saint Finbar was bishop of Cork, in Ireland.

On this day in the Church

1660 At Saint-Lazare in Paris, St. Vincent de Paul fell into a deep sleep in his chair at about noon, and it lasted longer than any attack before it.Our report Source
1887 In the Church of the Gesù in Rome, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini knelt at the altar of St. Francis Xavier and vowed to go to the missions of the East with six sisters as soon as the Holy See approved her institute.Our report Source

Quote of the day

“Lest you might be surprised at not seeing me make greater preparation for my death, now at hand, let me tell you, sir, that for eighteen years I have never gone to sleep without having placed myself in readiness to die that night.”

— St. Vincent de Paul, at Saint-Lazare in 1660 AD, to a priest who had written to him of his decline, Émile Bougaud, History of St. Vincent de Paul, vol. 2 (1899), 'His Death', p. 159