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September 7 across 2,026 years of Catholic history ← Previous Edition

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Catholic Saints for Kids

Junior Edition · September 7, 2026

True stories of the saints for curious readers ages 10–12.

A medieval painting of St. Hildegard of Bingen seated beneath an arch, tongues of flame touching her head, writing on a wax tablet, while the monk Volmar stands in a side chamber holding an open book.
Start here 3 min read

The big question

One grave, and every nun on the hill stopped singing

Saint Hildegard of Bingen said no to opening a grave, so the churchmen at Mainz took the singing away from her nuns.

Her age
Eighty
Where
Rupertsberg, above the Rhine
When
1178 AD, or the year after
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More from this edition

A black-and-white photograph of a single broad elm standing alone in a harvested field, a small straw-and-branch shelter built against its foot, with vines, a heap of cleared stones and a cart track running out to bare hills behind.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a 1910 black-and-white large-format plate photograph, reconstructed from the paper's dossier description of Piana Romana; no person appears and no reference likeness was used. The paper's reference photograph of St. Pio is Padre Pio da Pietrelcina — reproduction of an untouched 1947 portrait print (Federico Abresch, original photograph 1947; reproduction by Wikimedia user Muschio Di Quercia, 2019, Wikimedia Commons) — see the original: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Padre_Pio_da_Pietrelcina.jpg

Story 02 3 min read

A secret kept

St. Pio hid the wounds of Christ for 366 days

He was twenty-three, praying alone under a tree, and a priest for just twenty-eight days.

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A manuscript-style illumination of a young woman in white plate armour, bare-headed with dark cropped hair, standing at the edge of a water-filled ditch below a high city wall, dipping a long lance into the water with one hand and holding her white fleur-de-lys standard with the other while defenders shoot from the crenellations above.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of French manuscript illumination, from the paper's reference portrait based on Jeanne d'Arc a la porte Saint-Honore lors du siege de Paris (1429) — Les Vigiles de Charles VII, fol. 66v (Anonymous illuminator; manuscript of Martial d'Auvergne, c. 1484, Bibliotheque nationale de France, Departement des Manuscrits, Francais 5054, fol. 66v) View source artwork.

Story 03 2 min read

How it worked

Into the moat with a lance, to measure the water

St. Joan of Arc was seventeen, and the men on the wall of Paris were shooting down into the ditch where she stood.

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A manuscript-style painting of a steep Roman street: a tonsured monk in plain wool stands in the open doorway of a large brick house with a codex under his arm, two brethren behind him, while a servant carries a silver dish, coloured silk and rolled deeds out to three poor people waiting with a bowl.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a Latin manuscript illumination, from the paper's reference portrait based on St. Gregory the Great dictating the chant to the deacon Peter, Antiphonary of Hartker, St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 390, p. 13 (Hartker, monk of St. Gall, c. 990-1000 AD, Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallen, Switzerland) View source artwork.

Story 04 3 min read

Giving it all away

He gave away his house — then moved back in

At thirty-four, Saint Gregory the Great handed over all the money and land his father left him. Here is what the old records say.

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A warm-toned monochrome photograph of a rutted stone-and-earth track between drystone walls in hill country, with about a dozen sheep and lambs drifting up it and a small village with a church tower in the valley beyond, the Pyrenean ridges closing the top of the frame.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a wet-collodion photograph of the late 1850s printed on albumen paper, from the dossier's description of the place. No likeness of St. Bernadette Soubirous is depicted; the paper prints her own photographs, and none exists of Bartrès in 1857.

Story 05 3 min read

Growing up

The shepherd girl at the back of the class

Saint Bernadette Soubirous was thirteen, could not read, and spent that September minding another family's sheep above Lourdes. Here is what the old records say.

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A mosaic of a slight young man in a belted undyed tunic and pallium, seated on a stool at a low table with a reed pen, inkwell and wax tablets, holding an unrolled papyrus letter, beside an opening that looks out on an empty road leading to an arched gate.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a Byzantine wall mosaic of glass and stone tesserae, from the paper's reference portrait based on John Chrysostom, marginal miniature in the Chludov Psalter (Anonymous Byzantine illuminator, middle of the 9th century, The Chludov Psalter; the holding institution is not named on the source page). View source artwork.

Story 06 2 min read

The big question

Theodore walked out. Two letters brought him back.

St. John Chrysostom was only in his early twenties when he sat down and wrote to his friend. Here is what the old records say.

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Today in the Church for kids

Monday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

Saint of the day for kids

Saint Cloud

Saint Cloud lived in France in the 500s AD. He was a prince, the grandson of King Clovis, and he gave up the throne to become a monk and a priest. The town of Saint-Cloud, near Paris, is named after him.

On this day in the Church for kids

  • 1657 The Church in Cartagena de Indias began asking whether St. Peter Claver was a saint, three years after he died, and fifty-nine people came to say what they had seen.Source
  • 1688 The first chapel of the Sacred Heart was blessed in the convent garden at Paray-le-Monial, and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque knelt still in the convent chapel for the two hours it took, and long after.Our reportSource
  • 2022 Pope Francis spoke at his Wednesday audience about how to tell what God wants, and used St. Ignatius of Loyola getting better from his wound as his best example.Source