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September 18 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

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Catholic Saints for Kids

Junior Edition · September 18, 2026

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

A head-and-shoulders detail of a fresco showing St. Clare of Assisi in a pale habit and dark veil, with a gold halo, standing beneath a painted Gothic arch.

Start here 3 min read

The big question

Fifty sisters, one loaf of bread, and enough for everyone

The sisters at San Damiano owned nothing, so every bite of their food came to the door as someone else's gift.

How many: About fifty sisters
Where: San Damiano, below Assisi
When: The years after 1212 AD

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More from this edition

A painted portrait of a veiled woman with a halo of rays behind her head and a small mark on her forehead, holding a slender pointed object in one hand.

Story 02 2 min read

The hardest prayer

She hid the shirt so her sons wouldn't want revenge

St. Rita of Cascia knew who had killed her husband, and she would not give her two sons the names.

An engraving showing Christ, robed and haloed, extending his hand toward a flaming, thorn-crowned heart in the clouds, while a kneeling nun in a Visitation habit looks up at the vision from a balustraded terrace, an altar visible behind her.

Story 03 3 min read

The long wait

The nun her sisters didn't believe gets Rome's cannon

She died in Burgundy 173 years ago, and today Pope Pius IX said Catholics may call her Blessed.

A small tempera panel of a mountain hamlet: a plain stone parish church with an open round-arched door, through which a dark wooden crucifix hangs above a stone altar, houses with red tiled roofs and walled kitchen gardens around it, a high grey rock spur rising behind with a river and a pale earth road passing either side of its foot, and a walled hill town on the slope beyond. — About this picture
AI-generated, in the manner of Umbrian quattrocento tempera on gessoed panel, after the painted sarcophagus that held the body of St. Rita (unknown Umbrian painter, 1457, Monastery and Sanctuary of Santa Rita, Cascia, Umbria) View source artwork.

Story 04 2 min read

How it worked

Each Lent a priest picked two people to stop killings

The priest at Roccaporena picked the same husband and wife year after year — and then the killing reached their own family.

A half-length portrait of an elderly nun in a white Carmelite habit and black veil, hands joined in prayer, a halo and a banderole reading MISERICORDIAS DOMINI IN AETERNUM CANTABO above her head and a white dove at upper left.

Story 05 2 min read

Who decided

She founded this convent. She left it without breakfast.

St. Teresa of Ávila had been travelling since the end of July when her superior told her she could not go home to Ávila.

A black-and-white photograph of a young nun in a dark habit and white wimple, seated and turned slightly to one side.

Story 06 2 min read

The big question

A girl asked for a name, and got a smile

Before he would do anything about a chapel, the priest of Lourdes wanted two things: the name, and a wild rose bush in flower in the middle of winter.

Today in the Church for kids

Friday of the twenty-fourth week in Ordinary Time

Saint of the day for kids

Saint Joseph of Cupertino

Saint Joseph of Cupertino was a priest. Joseph of Cupertino.

On this day in the Church for kids

1814 Pope Pius VII, just back from being sent away to France, spread the feast of the Seven Dolours of Our Lady to the whole Latin Church.Our Lady of Sorrows Source
1864 St. Margaret Mary Alacoque was declared Blessed in the Basilica of St Peter, 173 years after she died at Paray-le-Monial.Our report Source