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September 10 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

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Catholic Saints for Kids

Junior Edition · September 10, 2026

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

An empty whitewashed room with a tiled floor, where three long wooden chests stand open and packed upright with hand-written books, a fourth chest sits roped shut with carrying poles beside it, wicker baskets of books and scrolls stand about the floor, and an open book, reed pen and inkwell lie on a plain table; through a round-arched doorway an empty colonnaded street runs down to the sea, with columns of smoke rising over the roofs. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of a buon fresco on lime plaster, from the paper's reference portrait based on Fresco of Augustine, Lateran, Rome (Anonymous, c. 550-600 AD, The Lateran, Rome) View source artwork.

Start here 3 min read

The big question

The town burned down. The books got out.

Saint Augustine left no money when he died — only a room full of books, and one order he kept repeating.

The books: More than a thousand
Where: Hippo Regius, in North Africa
When: 432 AD

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More from this edition

An ink-and-wash drawing of a container terminal on a wide bay: gantry cranes stand along the quay above a moored container ship, rows of stacked shipping containers fill the left of the sheet, and the empty concrete apron runs out towards the water, with no people anywhere in the scene. — About this picture
AI-generated image, an ink-and-wash drawing of the container terminal on the bay of Cartagena. No person appears in it.

Story 02 2 min read

Where it happened

St. Peter Claver waited here for the ships from Africa

Pope Francis said the last Mass of his journey to Colombia in that same harbour, a container port that is still working.

In a sunlit market square ringed by arcaded brick and plaster houses, a small, balding, bearded man in a plain black cassock and cloak stands on a low wooden bench, his mouth open in a shout and a black hat raised above his head, while market women, tradesmen and a running boy turn towards him among tables of bread and cheese. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of mid-sixteenth-century Roman and Spanish oil painting, from the paper's reference portrait based on Portrait of Ignatius of Loyola (Jacopino del Conte (1510/1515-1598), 1556 AD, painted on the day of his death, 31 July, Curia Generalizia of the Society of Jesus, Rome; catalogued by the Fondazione Federico Zeri, Bologna) View source artwork.

Story 03 3 min read

How it worked

St. Ignatius waved his hat until a crowd came over

Four priests with no church to preach in picked four busy squares and climbed onto benches.

A trecento-style panel painting of a haloed nun in a black-and-white Dominican habit standing before a cluster of church buildings, holding up a small red heart toward Christ, who appears in a golden mandorla at the upper left with rays streaming down onto the rooftops.

Story 04 3 min read

A day in the life

St. Catherine timed her nights by a bell on the hill

Nobody asked her to stop talking — she made that rule herself. Here is what the old records say.

A painted view along a banded Roman town wall with squat tiled towers, a small newly built stone church and low convent ranges standing on the empty grass between the wall and a shallow river, with a single white bird high in the sky. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of Italian panel painting in egg tempera, from the paper's reference portrait based on De dood van de heilige Scholastica (The Death of Saint Scholastica), RP-P-OB-5367 (Francesco Bartolozzi, engraver, after the painting by Luca Giordano, 1739–1780, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) View source artwork.

Story 05 3 min read

A puzzle of bones

One basket of bones, two saints: which was St. Scholastica?

The men who carried the bones out of Italy could not tell the brother's from the sister's. Here is what the old records say.

A panel painting of the unfinished cathedral of Cologne seen from the south: at the right the completed stone choir with its steep roof, flying buttresses and tall windows; at the left the south tower standing as a squared stump ringed with timber scaffolding, a wooden lifting crane on its flat top; between them a low boarded wall under a red tiled roof closing off the western end, with a yard of stacked stone blocks, a lime pit and sawn timber below, and beyond, the tiled roofs of the city and the grey Rhine with two barges at the bank. — About this picture
AI-generated image, in the manner of an early-fifteenth-century Cologne school panel painting, tempera on oak — a view of the city and its unfinished cathedral only, with no likeness of any person and no reference image used.

Story 06 2 min read

Who decided

Images smashed in Bohemia, a new day for Our Lady

The bishops of Cologne couldn't reach Bohemia, so they gave Our Lady a new day instead. Here is what the old records say.

Today in the Church for kids

Thursday of the 23rd week in Ordinary Time

Saint of the day for kids

Saint Nicholas of Tolentino

The Roman Martyrology lists Saint Nicholas of Tolentino on this day with just one word: priest.

On this day in the Church for kids

2017 Pope Francis prayed the Angelus in front of the Church of Saint Peter Claver at Cartagena de Indias, where the saint's relics are kept, and told how St. Peter Claver had waited on the quay for the ships coming from Africa.Our report Saint Peter Claver Source
2017 Pope Francis celebrated the closing Mass of his journey to Colombia at the Port of Contecar, a working container terminal on the bay of Cartagena de Indias, and preached there about St. Peter Claver.Our report Source