September 28 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

event · ROME, September 28, 1887 AD

Told to go home, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini gets two schools in Rome

The cardinal who governed Rome's diocese for the Pope thought her seven-year-old order too new and too poor, until he talked her request over with Pope Leo XIII.

A black-and-white studio photograph of a young nun in a dark habit and headscarf, wearing a large cross on her chest, looking calmly at the camera. — St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, in a studio portrait from the 1880s, wearing the cross of her Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini asked Cardinal Lucido Maria Parocchi, who governed the diocese of Rome for the Pope, to let her young order of sisters open a house in the city. He refused and told her to go back to Codogno, in Lombardy. Within weeks, after speaking with Pope Leo XIII, he told her to open two schools instead of one.

3 min read

A painting in the fifteenth-century manner of a tall pale-ochre Gothic palace with crenellated towers and a shut pointed doorway, two red-jacketed guards with halberds on the step, and small cloaked townspeople waiting across a paved square under a clear blue sky. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of a fifteenth-century panel painting in egg tempera and early oil on gessoed poplar, from the paper's reference portrait based on Szene aus dem Leben des Hl. Vinzenz Ferrer: Der Heilige legt in Avignon in Gegenwart des Papstes und der Kardinaele das Wort aus (GG 6692) (Agnolo degli Erri, c. 1470-1490 AD, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) View source artwork.

event · AVIGNON, September 28, 1394 AD

Avignon cardinals elect the patron St. Vincent Ferrer would not follow

The cardinals at Avignon unanimously chose Cardinal Pedro de Luna to succeed Clement VII, one of two rival claimants to the papacy in a Church split since 1378 AD. De Luna had been the patron of Saint Vincent Ferrer, the Dominican preacher of Valencia, for fifteen years, and earlier in the year St. Vincent Ferrer had refused to follow him to the Avignon court. Enthroned on October 11 as Benedict XIII, de Luna called St. Vincent Ferrer to Avignon the next year to be his confessor.

More in this edition

A friar in a black-and-white habit, haloed, braces his shoulder and raised arm against a tall column-like beam outside a Roman basilica, while at right a crowned pope sleeps in a curtained bed beneath a round tower under a blue sky.

feature · ROME, 1215 AD

Pope Innocent III dreams St. Dominic holds up the falling Lateran basilica

Saint Dominic, a canon from Castile who had preached for ten years in the south of France, came to Rome in 1215 AD to ask Pope Innocent III to confirm a new order of preachers while the Pope's council was forbidding new religious orders. Tradition holds that while the Pope hesitated, he dreamed the Lateran basilica was collapsing and St. Dominic was holding it up. Pope Innocent III told St. Dominic to adopt a rule the Church had already approved, and the next Pope, Pope Honorius III, confirmed the order in December 1216 AD.

4 min read

An illuminated miniature in a gilt frame showing a rider on a grey horse approaching an arched gate between two round brick towers in a long crenellated wall, where a soldier with a round shield raises a hand to greet him, under an evening sky. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of manuscript illumination, from the paper's reference portrait based on The Procession of St. Gregory, Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, fol. 71v (the Limbourg brothers, 1411-1416 AD, Musée Condé, Chantilly) View source artwork.

column · ROME, September 27, 591 AD

St. Gregory the Great buys Rome a truce the emperor's governor forbade

In September 591 AD word reached Rome that Ariulf, the Lombard duke of Spoleto, might be marching on the city, and Saint Gregory the Great took charge of its defence while the emperor's governor of Italy stayed at Ravenna. In July 592 AD, with Ariulf's army at the walls, St. Gregory paid for a truce out of the Church's money against the governor's will.

4 min read

A painted portrait of a crowned young woman in royal dress, holding a long spear, set within an ornate oval stone frame.

writings · DURHAM, England, about 1100 AD

St. Margaret's confessor holds back what would seem too hard to believe

About 1100 AD Turgot, prior of Durham and once confessor to Saint Margaret of Scotland, wrote her life at the request of her daughter, Queen Matilda of England. In the letter that opens the book he swore he added nothing to the truth, and admitted he had left out many things for fear they would seem incredible.

3 min read

Today in the Church

Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time

Saint Wenceslaus, martyrOptional Memorial
Saint Lawrence Ruiz and companions, martyrsOptional Memorial

Saint of the day

Saint Wenceslaus

Saint Wenceslaus was Duke of Bohemia in the tenth century, raised in the Christian faith by his grandmother, Saint Ludmila. He was killed through the treachery of his brother Boleslaus, and the Church honours him as a martyr.

On this day in the Church

1230 Pope Gregory IX issued the bull Quo elongati, interpreting the Rule and the Testament of St. Francis of Assisi and forbidding friars to enter the monasteries of St. Clare's sisters without his leave.Our report Source
1975 Pope Paul VI canonized St. John Macías, the Dominican of Lima whose cause had run beside that of St. Martin de Porres since the seventeenth century.Source
2008 Father Michał Sopoćko, St. Faustina Kowalska's confessor at Vilnius, was beatified at Białystok.Source

Quote of the day

“Be calm; the Lord will soon change his heart.”

— St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, to the sister with her after the Cardinal Vicar's refusal, Rome, September 28, 1887 AD, Travels of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini