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September 11 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

Catholic history · Real stories · Every day

Catholic Saints for Kids

Junior Edition · September 11, 2026

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

A manuscript-style illumination of a nun in a black Benedictine habit and white veil seated at a low writing desk under a round stone arch, one hand open as she speaks, with a tonsured monk on her right and a younger nun on her left, each writing on a wax tablet with a metal stylus.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of twelfth-century Rhineland manuscript illumination, from the paper's reference portrait based on Hildegard receiving the light from Heaven — Scivias, Rupertsberg codex, folio 1 recto (unknown illuminator of the Rupertsberg workshop, working under St. Hildegard's direction, c. 1165–1179 AD; photographic plate published 1917, Wellcome Collection, London) View source artwork.

Start here 2 min read

The big question

St. Hildegard spoke a book out loud for ten years

She could read but was never taught to write, so a monk held the pen. Here is what the old records say.

Her age
Forty-two
Where
A monastery in Germany
When
1141 AD
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More from this edition

A mosaic of an empty arena floor of raked red sand below tiers of empty stone seats and an arched gateway, with a gold ground above and a single green branch bearing golden apples lying on the sand.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a Ravennate wall mosaic of about 500 AD, from the paper's reference portrait based on The martyrdom of Perpetua, Felicitas, Revocatus, Saturninus, Saturus and Secundulus, from the Menologion of Basil II (Constantinopolitan illuminators of the Menologion (Pantoleon and his fellow-painters), c. 985 AD, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1613) View source artwork.

Story 02 3 min read

What she wrote last

The prize was a green branch of golden apples

St. Perpetua was twenty-two and under sentence of death at Carthage, and the last thing she ever wrote down was a fight.

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A plain, balding priest in a worn black cassock and skullcap stands beside a cloth-covered table in a bare lime-washed hall, speaking without gesture to some twenty young men in black cassocks seated in rows before him.
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 Saint Vicent de Paul prechant la charite aux dames de la cour de Louis XIII (Charles Meynier, 1824 AD, Centre national des arts plastiques, FNAC PFH-5608) View source artwork.

Story 03 3 min read

How it started

The bishop shut his eyes — but he wasn't asleep

On a road in France in 1628 AD, a bishop closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep — and then said he had not been asleep at all.

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An engraving of a small, slight woman in a black gown, short black shoulder cape and white crimped cap, seated in strict profile beside an open twelve-paned window with a writing slope on her knees, an inkstand on the sill, a black bonnet set down on a bench by the door, and a mown field, rail fence and wooded mountain beyond the window.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of early nineteenth-century American stipple and line engraving, from the paper's reference portrait based on Mother Seton (J. Penniman, nineteenth century, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division) View source artwork.

Story 04 3 min read

The big question

She waited for an answer that was already written

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton did not know if she could keep leading her sisters. Here is what the old records say.

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A flat gold-ground panel painting of a great pale limestone palace with crenellated towers and steep grey roofs standing on a rock above a green river, a courier riding out through an open gate in a new unfinished stone wall, past two spearmen in mail.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of Sienese egg tempera and gold leaf on gessoed poplar panel, from the paper's reference portrait based on St. Catherine before the Pope at Avignon (Giovanni di Paolo (Siena, c. 1399–1482), c. 1460–1463, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (inv. 162 (1966.6))) View source artwork.

Story 05 3 min read

How it worked

Locked in one room, and then their meals got smaller

The men who had to choose the next pope were shut in together until they agreed. Here is what the old records say.

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Today in the Church for kids

Friday of the twenty-third week in Ordinary Time

Saint of the day for kids

Saints Protus and Hyacinth

The Roman Martyrology names Saints Protus and Hyacinth as martyrs at Rome. The Church remembers the two of them together on this day, and the Martyrology says just that one thing about them: martyrs at Rome.

On this day in the Church for kids

  • 1362 Pope Innocent VI died at Avignon, leaving the cardinals an empty papal throne and the question of whether the papal court would go back to Rome; they chose Pope Urban V, who made the first try at taking it back to Italy.Our reportSaint Catherine of SienaSource
  • 1811 St. Elizabeth Ann Seton wrote from Emmitsburg to her friend Eliza Sadler in New York that all was suspense — and that very day Archbishop John Carroll was writing his answer on whether she could lead the sisters she had founded.Our reportSource