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October 9 across 2,026 years of Catholic history

Catholic history · Real stories · Every day

Catholic Saints for Kids

Junior Edition · October 9, 2026

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

A painted manuscript miniature in a gold frame shows a line of tonsured monks in plain hooded robes walking up from boats on a beach, carrying a tall silver cross and a painted picture of Christ, with two laymen in short tunics among them, toward a fair-haired king in a red cloak who sits on a wooden stool on the grass, with spearmen and a round shield behind him and the sea beyond.
About this picture

AI-generated image in the manner of a sixth-century Italian manuscript illumination, after the Gospels of St. Augustine (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286, fol. 125r) View source artwork.

Start here 3 min read

The big question

Afraid of magic, a king meets the monks from Rome outdoors

The monks from Rome couldn't speak a word of English, so they came with interpreters, a silver cross and a painted picture of Jesus.

How many
Nearly forty monks
Where
Isle of Thanet, Kent, England
When
597 AD
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A painting of a young bearded priest in a black cassock with a white collar, sitting at a wooden table and writing a letter with a quill, beside an inkwell and an unlit candle, with an open window showing slate roofs, a lake and snow-capped mountains.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of 17th-century Savoyard oil painting, from the paper's reference portrait based on Saint François de Sales devant le pape Clément VIII (Anonymous, 17th century, Église Saint-Jean-au-Marché, Troyes) View source artwork.

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The big question

The question that turned Geneva's most famous minister pale

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A sepia pen-and-wash drawing of a small stone chapel with an open arched door in a grove of tall autumn oaks, a dirt path leading to it through grass and flowers, rows of small headstones and crosses on either side, a white two-storey house with a porch behind the trees at right, and a wooded ridge under a hazy evening sky.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of a nineteenth-century reportage drawing in pen, ink and sepia wash. No person appears in it.

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A family story

An archbishop asked to be buried in his aunt's grave

His aunt was Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, and he had become a Catholic, just as she had.

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Today in the Church for kids

Friday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

  • Saint Denis and his companions: Saint Denis was a bishop, and they all died for their faith in Jesus
  • Saint John Leonardi, a priest

Saint of the day for kids

Saint John Henry Newman

Saint John Henry Newman (1801–1890 AD) was an Anglican clergyman at Oxford and a leader of the Oxford Movement. He became a Catholic in 1845 AD, founded the Oratory in England, became a cardinal, and is honoured as one of the Church's great teachers.

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On this day in the Church for kids

  • 1547 At about two in the morning, a fleet from Aceh sailed into the port of Malacca and attacked the city walls while St. Francis Xavier was inside the city, and the attackers were driven off.Source
  • 1894 The Pavillon, a small property at Alençon that St. Louis Martin had bought in 1857 AD, was sold ten weeks after he died.Source