The lives of the Saints, reported as news from their own time and place. A new edition every morning.https://catholicsaintsnews.com/enhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/pope-john-xxiii-tells-torchlit-crowd-to-give-children-his-caress/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/pope-john-xxiii-tells-torchlit-crowd-to-give-children-his-caress/Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council in St. Peter's Basilica on October 11, 1962 AD, and told the bishops the Church would meet error with mercy rather than severity. That night he came to his window over a torchlit St. Peter's Square, spoke without a text, and told the crowd to give their children a caress from the Pope.Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventsecond-vatican-councilromest-peters-squarefinal-yearshttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/told-she-will-not-die-st-margaret-mary-teases-her-doctor/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/told-she-will-not-die-st-margaret-mary-teases-her-doctor/On the first day of the autumn retreat at the Visitation convent in Paray-le-Monial, Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque cannot get out of bed and says she is dying. Doctor Billet, who has treated her for years, finds nothing serious, and her Superior refuses her Viaticum, the Communion given to those in danger of death. St. Margaret Mary keeps asking for it.Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTfeaturelast-illnessretreatviaticumparay-le-monialhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/hurrell-froudes-face-lights-up-as-newman-says-goodbye/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/hurrell-froudes-face-lights-up-as-newman-says-goodbye/St. John Henry Newman spent almost a month at Dartington, in south Devon, with his closest friend, Hurrell Froude, who was dying of consumption. St. John Henry Newman said goodbye on the Sunday evening and never saw Froude again. When Froude died the following February, St. John Henry Newman chose Froude's Breviary, the book of the Church's daily prayer, to keep.Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTplacefriendshipdartingtondevonhurrell-froudeoxford-movementconsumptionhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/anthony-of-egypt-gives-away-money-kept-for-his-sister/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/anthony-of-egypt-gives-away-money-kept-for-his-sister/Saint Anthony of Egypt, about twenty and recently orphaned, heard the Gospel of the rich young man read in the church at Coma and gave the three hundred acres his parents had left him to the people of the village. He sold the family's goods for the poor, then gave away the share he had kept for his small sister and placed her with a community of women who had given their lives to God.Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTprofilevocationgospelpovertyfamilycomaegypthttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/estranged-bishop-who-baptised-st-basil-dies-in-his-arms/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/estranged-bishop-who-baptised-st-basil-dies-in-his-arms/Saint Basil the Great refused to share the sacraments with Bishop Dianius of Caesarea, who had baptised him, after the bishop signed a creed sent from Constantinople in 360 AD. This year the dying bishop sent for him and swore he had never meant to reject the faith of the Council of Nicaea, and St. Basil took him back before Dianius died in his arms. Years later, accused of having solemnly excommunicated Dianius, St. Basil answered the charge in a letter.Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumndianiuscaesareanicaeareconciliationdeathhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/bridget-warns-king-of-cyprus-amend-or-perish/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-11/bridget-warns-king-of-cyprus-amend-or-perish/Saint Bridget of Sweden, sick after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, proclaimed a revelation for the kingdom of Cyprus at Famagusta before the boy king, the queen mother, the king's uncle and the royal council. In it Christ charged the people of Cyprus with driving him out and threatened to wipe out their generation, but offered to carry home anyone who returned. Famagusta fell to the Genoese two years later.Sun, 11 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingsrevelationscyprusfamagustapilgrimagewritingshttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/pope-declares-st-maximilian-kolbe-a-martyr/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/pope-declares-st-maximilian-kolbe-a-martyr/Pope St. John Paul II canonized Saint Maximilian Kolbe in St. Peter's Square and decreed that he be venerated as a martyr, not only for his heroic virtue. The Polish Franciscan had stepped forward at Auschwitz in 1941 AD to die in place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, a father of a family, who stood in the crowd.Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventcanonizationmartyrdomauschwitzst-peters-squarepolandhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/carlo-acutis-asks-to-be-anointed-at-monza/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/carlo-acutis-asks-to-be-anointed-at-monza/Saint Carlo Acutis, a fifteen-year-old schoolboy from Milan, asked today at San Gerardo Hospital in Monza for the Anointing of the Sick and Holy Communion, certain that he would soon die. He fell ill on October 2 with what looked like flu, was diagnosed with M3 leukaemia on October 8 and was moved to Monza the next day.Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventillnessanointing-of-the-sickeucharistmonzaleukaemiahttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/dominic-savio-learns-a-page-in-eight-minutes/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/dominic-savio-learns-a-page-in-eight-minutes/Saint Dominic Savio, a twelve-year-old blacksmith's son from Mondonio, came with his father to the Becchi near Castelnuovo to ask St. John Bosco to take him to Turin to study for the priesthood. The priest doubted the boy's health and set him a page of a booklet to learn by the next day. The boy recited it within eight minutes, and St. John Bosco said yes.Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTfeaturevocationpriesthoodoratoryjohn-boscochildhoodhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/ignatius-gives-old-roommate-in-japan-charge-of-india/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/ignatius-gives-old-roommate-in-japan-charge-of-india/In Rome on October 10, 1549 AD, Saint Ignatius of Loyola made India a province of the Society of Jesus and named Saint Francis Xavier to govern it. The two had shared a room as students in Paris and had not met since 1540 AD, and St. Francis Xavier had already landed in Japan.Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumnindiafrancis-xaviersociety-of-jesusprovincesromehttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/catherine-laboure-besieged-paris-reuilly/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/catherine-laboure-besieged-paris-reuilly/With Prussian armies surrounding Paris this autumn, the Daughters of Charity at Reuilly have turned their house into a hospital and fixed the Miraculous Medal to its doors and windows, and they live on short rations so the sick and wounded can eat. Among them is Saint Catherine Labouré, sixty-four, who works with old men at the hospice next door; only her confessor knows that Our Lady appeared to her in 1830 AD. She has told the sisters that the Virgin will guard the house and no harm will come to them.Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTplacewarsiegeparismiraculous-medalnursinghttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/roman-tribune-blushes-and-gives-way-to-perpetua/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-10/roman-tribune-blushes-and-gives-way-to-perpetua/In the army prison at Carthage, a Roman tribune made conditions harsher for the Christians condemned to the beasts. St. Perpetua, twenty-two, told him to his face that prisoners due to die at the games for the emperor's son should be brought out in good condition. He ordered them treated more humanely and let her brothers in.Sat, 10 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingsprisoncarthagemartyrdompassion-of-perpetuahttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/newman-kneels-before-a-rain-soaked-friar/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/newman-kneels-before-a-rain-soaked-friar/Saint John Henry Newman, a clergyman of the Church of England for more than twenty years, was received into the Catholic Church at Littlemore, near Oxford, on October 9, 1845 AD. Two of the young men who lived with him were received with him. The night before, St. John Henry Newman knelt at the feet of Blessed Dominic Barberi, an Italian priest who was drying his clothes by the fire after five hours on a coach in the rain, and confessed the sins of his whole life.Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventconversionlittlemoreconfessionoxford-movementdominic-barberihttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/miguel-pro-reaches-california-exile-after-last-seeing-his-mother/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/miguel-pro-reaches-california-exile-after-last-seeing-his-mother/Fourteen young Mexican Jesuits reached the Jesuit house at Los Gatos, California, after revolutionary soldiers raided their novitiate and their superiors sent them out of the country. Among them was Miguel Pro, 23, whom the Church beatified in 1988 AD. A week earlier he had embraced his mother on the platform at Guadalajara, and he never saw her again.Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventexilelos-gatosmexican-revolutionjesuitsfamilyguadalajarahttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/francis-de-sales-finds-bezas-heart-a-stone/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/francis-de-sales-finds-bezas-heart-a-stone/Father Francis de Sales, a missionary priest on the shore of Lake Geneva, wrote to Pope Clement VIII on April 21, 1597 AD, about his three-hour conversation with Theodore Beza, who had succeeded John Calvin at Geneva. He told the Pope that he had found the old man's heart unmoved, and that at eighty Beza had no time to lose.Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingslettersgenevacalvinismchablaispope-clement-viiitheodore-bezahttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/archbishop-bayley-buried-in-seton-vault/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/archbishop-bayley-buried-in-seton-vault/A special train brought the body of Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley of Baltimore, who died at Newark on October 3, to St. Joseph's in the valley below Emmitsburg, Maryland. Bishops, priests and members of the religious orders walked his coffin to the Sisters' graveyard and laid him in the vault of his aunt, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, as he had asked.Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTplaceburialemmitsburgbayleylegacyvaulthttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/pope-gregory-refuses-to-let-monks-abandon-england/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/pope-gregory-refuses-to-let-monks-abandon-england/Pope Saint Gregory the Great sent about forty monks from his own monastery in Rome to preach to the English this year. In southern Gaul they lost their nerve and sent their leader, Saint Augustine of Canterbury, back to ask that they be excused. On July 23 St. Gregory wrote ordering them to go on and made St. Augustine their abbot.Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumnenglandmissionaugustine-of-canterburymonksobediencelettershttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/future-don-bosco-beats-a-showman-then-returns-his-money/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-09/future-don-bosco-beats-a-showman-then-returns-his-money/As a schoolboy at Chieri, the future St. John Bosco beat a professional showman at running, jumping, balancing and climbing, on stakes his friends lent him. Feeling sorry for the man, the students gave back almost all he had lost in return for a dinner at the Muretto inn. Don Bosco, who now runs a house for homeless boys in Turin, wrote the story down at the order of Pope Pius IX.Fri, 09 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTprofilechieriyouthsportfriendshipcharityhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/scottish-king-refuses-to-surrender-st-margaret/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/scottish-king-refuses-to-surrender-st-margaret/After the Norman Conquest, Saint Margaret of Scotland fled England with her mother, her sister and her brother Edgar, the last male heir of the old English royal line. A storm drove their ship into a bay on the Firth of Forth, and King Malcolm III of Scots took the family in at Dunfermline. When William the Conqueror demanded that Edgar and St. Margaret be handed over, Malcolm refused.Thu, 08 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventexilestormfirth-of-forthmalcolm-iiinorman-conquesthttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/zelie-martin-baby-therese-dies-at-seven-weeks/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/zelie-martin-baby-therese-dies-at-seven-weeks/Marie-Mélanie-Thérèse Martin died at Alençon on October 8, 1870 AD, seven weeks after she was born. Her mother, Saint Zélie Martin, wrote to her sister-in-law the same afternoon and set the week down day by day. It was the fourth child the Martins had lost in less than four years.Thu, 08 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventdeathchildrenlettersalenconfamilyhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/dying-peter-claver-sends-his-teachers-handwritten-book-to-novices/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/dying-peter-claver-sends-his-teachers-handwritten-book-to-novices/When Saint Peter Claver left the Jesuit college on Majorca in 1608 AD, its old porter, Saint Alonso Rodríguez, gave him a small handwritten book on the virtues of religious life. St. Peter Claver kept it through his years among the enslaved Africans of Cartagena de Indias. In his last illness in 1651 AD, he sent it to the Jesuit novices at Tunja and asked its readers to pray for him.Thu, 08 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTfeaturealonso-rodriguezmajorcaformationmanuscriptdeparturehttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/hedwig-gives-her-widows-lands-to-trebnitz/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/hedwig-gives-her-widows-lands-to-trebnitz/Saint Hedwig of Silesia has given the convent her husband, Duke Henry, is building at Trebnitz the estate set aside to support her as a widow, about four hundred farms. The house, the first for religious women in Silesia, is endowed for a thousand people, and its nuns came from Bamberg in Germany.Thu, 08 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumntrebnitzfoundationconventcisterciansdowersilesiahttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/forli-woman-comes-unasked-to-swear-st-peregrine-cleared-her-face/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/forli-woman-comes-unasked-to-swear-st-peregrine-cleared-her-face/Magdalena de Savorellis came of her own accord before the notary of Forlì's sworn inquiry into the holiness of Saint Peregrine Laziosi, a Servite friar who died in the city in 1345 AD. She swore that about thirty years earlier a surgeon had called the growth under her eye a tumour very hard to cure. It began to heal as soon as she made a vow to St. Peregrine.Thu, 08 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTlegacymiraclehealingcanonization-processforliserviteslegacyhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/thomas-more-writes-the-cardinal-he-served-into-utopia/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-08/thomas-more-writes-the-cardinal-he-served-into-utopia/Saint Thomas More was a page of thirteen in the household of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. Twenty-five years later, in Utopia, he set the old Cardinal at his own dinner table as the one man there who would hear a new idea out.Thu, 08 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingsutopiawritingscardinal-mortonboyhoodlambethhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/rosary-feast-at-cana-our-lady-says-do-whatever-he-tells-you/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/rosary-feast-at-cana-our-lady-says-do-whatever-he-tells-you/The Church keeps the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary today. At the wedding at Cana, the second of the Rosary's mysteries of light, the Blessed Virgin Mary told her Son the wine had run out and told the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.' Pope St. Paul VI closed a letter on devotion to Mary with those words, and Pope St. John Paul II called them her counsel to the Church of every age.Wed, 07 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventrosaryfeastcanamysteries-of-lightblessed-virgin-maryscripturehttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/seven-krakow-friars-join-kolbes-movement-for-mary/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/seven-krakow-friars-join-kolbes-movement-for-mary/Six student friars and the priest who trains them joined a movement Saint Maximilian Kolbe founded for people who give themselves wholly to the Virgin Mary. They signed the membership book of the Militia of the Immaculata at the Franciscan friary in Kraków on the feast of the Holy Rosary, the first members outside Italy. St. Maximilian, twenty-five and newly home from Rome, is gravely ill with tuberculosis.Wed, 07 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventmilitia-immaculataekrakowrosaryillnessfoundinghttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/pope-who-signed-1979-request-names-hildegard-doctor/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/pope-who-signed-1979-request-names-hildegard-doctor/Pope Benedict XVI today declared Saint Hildegard of Bingen and Saint John of Avila Doctors of the Church, a title for saints whose teaching has served the whole Church, at a Mass in St. Peter's Square. The German bishops asked for the title in 1979 AD, and the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, now Pope Benedict XVI, joined the request. Her canonization case, opened in the 1220s AD, had to be finished first; the Pope closed it this year.Wed, 07 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumndoctor-of-the-churchcanonizationpope-benedict-xvilegacyhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/novice-master-makes-miguel-pro-preach-again/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/novice-master-makes-miguel-pro-preach-again/Miguel Pro, whom the Church beatified in 1988 AD, is twenty and two months into his Jesuit novitiate at El Llano, in Mexico. He kept his wish to become a Jesuit from his parents until he let it slip in a fever. This month, Tradition holds, he climbed the backstop during the novices' baseball game to preach, and the novice master had him preach it again.Wed, 07 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTprofilenovitiatevocationjesuitsel-llanohumourfamilyhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/francis-xavier-sails-to-pearl-fishers-never-taught/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/francis-xavier-sails-to-pearl-fishers-never-taught/Saint Francis Xavier left Goa by sea this month for the Fishery Coast at the southern tip of India, where the Paravas lived by fishing for pearls. About twenty thousand of them had been baptised some eight years earlier to win Portuguese protection in a feud with Muslim traders, and no priest had stayed to teach them. He did not speak their language and took young clerics from that coast to interpret.Wed, 07 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTplacefishery-coastparavaspearl-fisherygoavoyagemissionhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/boniface-ix-canonizes-bridget-of-sweden/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-07/boniface-ix-canonizes-bridget-of-sweden/Pope Boniface IX declared Saint Bridget of Sweden a saint at St. Peter's in Rome early in October 1391 AD, while a rival pope sat at Avignon. His bull of canonization tells her life as the life of the valiant woman of the Book of Proverbs, from her marriage at thirteen to her death in Rome.Wed, 07 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingscanonizationbullboniface-ixavignonvadstenaromehttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/empress-eudoxia-dies-st-john-chrysostom-not-called-back/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/empress-eudoxia-dies-st-john-chrysostom-not-called-back/The Empress Eudoxia, who had chosen the mountain village of Cucusus as Saint John Chrysostom's place of exile, died at Constantinople in October 404 AD, days after a hailstorm. Many in the city took both as God's judgment on his removal, but the persecution of his followers went on and no order came to bring him back. He spent the autumn at Cucusus, writing to his friend Saint Olympias.Tue, 06 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventexileeudoxiaconstantinoplecucususolympiaspersecutionhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/emperors-telegram-brings-down-fence-at-lourdes-grotto/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/emperors-telegram-brings-down-fence-at-lourdes-grotto/The wooden fence that had closed the grotto of Massabielle at Lourdes since June came down on October 5, 1858 AD, pulled up by the men who had put it there. Napoleon III, petitioned at Biarritz by the townspeople and the Archbishop of Auch, had a telegram sent to the prefect ordering it removed. The prefect and the police commissioner who enforced the closure were moved to other posts.Tue, 06 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventlourdesmassabiellenapoleon-iiiapparitionsgrottohttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/catherine-tells-urban-vi-incarnate-demons-elected-his-rival/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/catherine-tells-urban-vi-incarnate-demons-elected-his-rival/Saint Catherine of Siena wrote to Pope Urban VI on October 5, 1378 AD, as word reached Siena that the cardinals who had left Rome had elected a rival Pope at Fondi. St. Catherine called those cardinals demons in human form. She told Pope Urban to face the danger without fear and keep good shepherds near him, and promised that she and her companions would obey him until death.Tue, 06 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingslettersschismpapacysienahttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/frances-of-rome-when-when-at-sister-in-laws-coffin/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/frances-of-rome-when-when-at-sister-in-laws-coffin/Vannozza Ponziani, sister-in-law of Saint Frances of Rome and her companion since both were young wives in the Ponziani house in Trastevere, has died in Rome after a short illness. St. Frances nursed her to the end. At the funeral in Santa Maria in Aracoeli she knelt by the coffin in ecstasy through the whole service, until her confessor ordered her home to the sick she was nursing.Tue, 06 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTprofiledeathfuneralfamilyfriendshipecstasyromehttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/margaret-mary-alacoque-ulcers-close-before-novena-ends/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/margaret-mary-alacoque-ulcers-close-before-novena-ends/Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, sixteen, fell ill this winter at her family's farm at Lhautecour in Burgundy, with ulcers on her legs that a surgeon's remedies did not touch. She told her mother that God would cure her within the month, and before the nine-day novena the two of them made was over, the ulcers had closed and the pain in her side had stopped. Her health held until she entered the convent eight years later.Tue, 06 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTplaceillnesshealingnovenalhautecourfamilyhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/young-st-louis-calls-the-paris-scholars-home/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-06/young-st-louis-calls-the-paris-scholars-home/A quarrel over the price of wine ended with the city's archers killing and drowning students, and the masters and students of Paris left for the provinces and abroad. St. Louis IX, the boy king whose mother ruled for him, grieved to see learning leave France, called them back and made the townsmen make amends.Tue, 06 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumnuniversity-of-parisscholarsyouthblanche-of-castileparishttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/sister-woken-by-mistake-sees-st-faustina-die/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/sister-woken-by-mistake-sees-st-faustina-die/Saint Faustina Kowalska died of tuberculosis at about eleven at night in the infirmary of her convent at Łagiewniki, in Kraków, hours after her confessor gave her absolution and the Sacrament of the Sick. A cook, gardener and porter with three years of schooling, she had kept from most of her sisters the image and the feast of Divine Mercy that Jesus asked of her in 1931 AD. Two sisters were at her bed when she died.Mon, 05 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventdeathtuberculosiskrakowlagiewnikidivine-mercylast-sacramentshttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/st-pio-refuses-chloroform-so-no-surgeon-can-see-his-side-wound/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/st-pio-refuses-chloroform-so-no-surgeon-can-see-his-side-wound/Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, the Capuchin priest who bears the stigmata, was operated on for a hernia at the friary of San Giovanni Rotondo without anaesthetic. He refused chloroform because he understood the Vatican had ordered that no one inspect the wound in his side again. Afterwards, while St. Pio lay unconscious from exhaustion, his surgeon examined the wound anyway.Mon, 05 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventsurgerysufferingobediencestigmatahttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/pope-burns-book-against-friars-after-thomas-aquinas-answers-it/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/pope-burns-book-against-friars-after-thomas-aquinas-answers-it/Pope Alexander IV has condemned a book by the Paris master William of Saint-Amour, written to drive the Dominicans and Franciscans out of the university, and had it burnt at Anagni. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Albert the Great and Saint Bonaventure had read their answers to the book before him in Anagni Cathedral. In the same judgment the Pope ordered that the friars be admitted to the doctorate at Paris.Mon, 05 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumnuniversity-of-parisdominicansfranciscansanagnicondemnationhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/francis-xavier-first-letter-from-india/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/francis-xavier-first-letter-from-india/Saint Francis Xavier wrote from Goa to his companions in Rome on September 20, 1542 AD, the first letter he sent from India. He described his work in the city's hospital, jail and leper house and told them the Governor was sending him south. St. Francis Xavier did not expect to see his companions again in this life, so he asked them for long letters. In the same letter he called himself a useless instrument.Mon, 05 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingslettersgoaindiamissionhospitaljesuitshttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/angelo-roncalli-passes-seminary-exams/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/angelo-roncalli-passes-seminary-exams/Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the future Saint John XXIII, passed the entrance examinations of the Seminary of Bergamo on October 5 and 6, 1892 AD. Three months earlier he had missed his final examinations at the college of Celana. The ten-year-old son of sharecroppers at Sotto il Monte had spent the summer studying with his parish priest, Father Francesco Rebuzzini, who later helped pay for his place with the family's landlord, Count Giovanni Morlani.Mon, 05 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTprofileseminaryexaminationschildhoodbergamosotto-il-montehttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/red-cross-and-lamp-mark-wall-hiding-st-martins-tomb/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-05/red-cross-and-lamp-mark-wall-hiding-st-martins-tomb/In October 1860 AD a commission dug in a cellar in Tours, on the site of the lost basilica of Saint Martin of Tours, and found the foundations of its choir. The tomb lay beyond the cellar wall, under the next house, and the work stopped until the Church could get in. A red cross and a lamp burning day and night marked the spot.Mon, 05 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTplacetombexcavationtoursbasilicalegacyhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/every-church-named-for-st-francis-offers-a-plenary-indulgence/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/every-church-named-for-st-francis-offers-a-plenary-indulgence/Today is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, eight hundred years after his death in 1226 AD, and it falls in a special Year of St. Francis. Until January 10, 2027 AD, pilgrims to Franciscan churches and to churches named for him can receive a plenary indulgence. It remits all the punishment still owed for sins already forgiven, and the sick can receive it at home.Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTlegacycentenaryjubileeindulgencefeastassisihttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/francis-dies-in-a-borrowed-habit/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/francis-dies-in-a-borrowed-habit/Saint Francis of Assisi died at nightfall on October 3, 1226 AD, in a hut beside the chapel of the Porziuncola below Assisi. In his last hours he had the brothers take off his habit and lay him naked on the ground, so that he would die owning nothing. The brother he had promised to obey then lent him a habit to wear.Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumndeathporziuncolapovertyassisihttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/st-clares-sisters-kiss-st-francis-wounded-hands/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/st-clares-sisters-kiss-st-francis-wounded-hands/The morning after Saint Francis died at the Porziuncola, the people and clergy of Assisi carried his body up toward the town and stopped at San Damiano, where Saint Clare and her sisters live enclosed. The friars held him at the small window between the church and the sisters' choir, keeping a promise he had sent St. Clare in his last week. The sisters wept and kissed his wounded hands before the procession went on to the church of St. George.Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTplacefrancisfuneralsan-damianogriefstigmatahttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/quarry-blaster-tells-future-saint-john-paul-ii-to-be-a-priest/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/quarry-blaster-tells-future-saint-john-paul-ii-to-be-a-priest/In September 1940 AD Karol Wojtyła, the future Saint John Paul II, went to work as a labourer in the limestone quarry at Zakrzówek, in German-occupied Kraków. The wage kept him and his father, whose army pension had stopped, and the job kept him from being sent to forced labour in Germany. He worked beside an older blaster, Franciszek Labus, who told him he ought to be a priest, and he saw a workman killed by a blast.Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTfeatureworkwaroccupationkrakowvocationyouthhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/paris-rector-kneels-to-st-ignatius-instead-of-flogging-him/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/paris-rector-kneels-to-st-ignatius-instead-of-flogging-him/Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a former soldier of thirty-eight, began his studies at the College of Sainte-Barbe in Paris on October 1, rooming with St. Peter Faber and St. Francis Xavier. The college's rector had sworn to have him flogged in front of the students for leading them astray, and in the lectures his prayers kept pulling his mind from the lessons.Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventparissainte-barbestudypeter-faberfrancis-xaviercompanionshttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/st-agatha-tells-st-lucy-her-faith-healed-her-mother/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-04/st-agatha-tells-st-lucy-her-faith-healed-her-mother/In 301 AD Saint Lucy of Syracuse took her mother, who had been bleeding for four years, to pray at the tomb of St. Agatha in Catania. Tradition holds that St. Agatha appeared to St. Lucy in a vision and told her that her faith had healed her mother. St. Lucy had secretly vowed never to marry, and she then asked her mother to free her from the marriage and to give the dowry to the poor.Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingscataniast-agathahealingvisionvowalmsgivinggolden-legendhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/st-teresa-too-weak-to-turn-in-bed-kneels-unaided-for-communion/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/st-teresa-too-weak-to-turn-in-bed-kneels-unaided-for-communion/For two days it took two nuns to lift Saint Teresa of Ávila in her bed at the Carmelite convent of Alba de Tormes. This week she got up without help and knelt on the mattress to receive Viaticum, the Communion given to those in danger of death, and she was anointed the same night. Asked whether her body should be taken home to Ávila, St. Teresa said she had nothing of her own and asked for a little earth where she was.Sat, 03 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventviaticumalba-de-tormeslast-illnesscarmelitesobediencehttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/storm-wrecks-ship-that-refused-st-ignatius/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/storm-wrecks-ship-that-refused-st-ignatius/Saint Ignatius of Loyola sailed from Jaffa on October 3, 1523 AD, ordered out of the Holy Land and with no money for the voyage home. At Cyprus the captain of the largest ship bound for Venice refused to carry him without payment, and a small ship in bad repair took him. A storm on the first evening wrecked the large ship on the coast of Cyprus and sank a second; the small one reached Italy, and St. Ignatius landed at Venice in the middle of January 1524 AD.Sat, 03 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventvoyageshipwreckcypruspilgrimagepovertyhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/christs-touch-cures-the-dying-st-vincent-ferrer-and-sends-him-preaching/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/christs-touch-cures-the-dying-st-vincent-ferrer-and-sends-him-preaching/Saint Vincent Ferrer, a Dominican friar, was thought to be dying of a fever at Avignon on October 3, 1396 AD. He wrote years later, without giving his name, that Christ came to the sick man's bed with St. Dominic and St. Francis, cured him with a touch and commanded him to go through the world preaching. Benedict XIII, the Avignon claimant to the papacy who had made him his confessor, kept him at court for two more years before letting him go.Sat, 03 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingsvisionvocationpreachingavignonwestern-schismbenedict-xiiihttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/st-margarets-father-shuts-his-door-on-her-and-her-son/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/st-margarets-father-shuts-his-door-on-her-and-her-son/In the early 1270s AD Saint Margaret of Cortona, a farmer's daughter in her mid-twenties, went back to her father's house at Laviano with her young son after the nobleman she had lived with for nine years was murdered. Her father drove St. Margaret and the boy out. St. Margaret walked with her son about ten miles to Cortona, and the first two women she met there took mother and child in.Sat, 03 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTplacecortonalavianoconversionfamilyfriars-minorhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/newman-resigns-the-oxford-place-he-wanted-for-life/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/newman-resigns-the-oxford-place-he-wanted-for-life/Saint John Henry Newman, a clergyman of the Church of England, resigned his place among the men who run Oriel College, Oxford. He won the place, a Fellowship, at twenty-one, and at forty-four he gave no reason for giving it up. The same day he wrote to his friend Edward Bouverie Pusey: "Anything may happen to me now any day."Sat, 03 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTfeatureoxfordoriellittlemorevocationlettershttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/st-vincent-de-paul-takes-on-a-priests-doubts-for-four-years/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-03/st-vincent-de-paul-takes-on-a-priests-doubts-for-four-years/In his first years in Paris, Saint Vincent de Paul asked God to free a priest from doubts about the faith and offered to carry them in his place. The priest was freed at once, and the doubts passed to St. Vincent for four years. They left him on the day he vowed to spend his life serving Jesus Christ in the poor.Sat, 03 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumntemptationfaithvowthe-poorparishttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/st-frances-of-rome-reads-at-night-by-her-guardian-angels-light/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/st-frances-of-rome-reads-at-night-by-her-guardian-angels-light/The Church keeps the memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels today. Saint Frances of Rome, a wife and mother who died in 1440 AD, told the priests who heard her confession that she saw her guardian angel beside her for more than twenty-four years. St. Frances read and wrote at night by the light around the angel, and the angel disappeared from her sight whenever she did wrong.Fri, 02 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTprofileguardian-angelsfeastfrances-of-romeromevisionsconfessorshttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/st-carlo-acutis-offers-his-life-for-the-pope-and-the-church/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/st-carlo-acutis-offers-his-life-for-the-pope-and-the-church/Saint Carlo Acutis, a fifteen-year-old schoolboy in Milan, fell ill on October 2, 2006 AD with what his family took for flu. It was the most aggressive form of leukaemia, and he died ten days later. A few days before his parents took him to hospital, he offered his life to the Lord for the Pope and for the Church.Fri, 02 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventillnessleukaemiamilaneucharistschoolhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/prioress-tells-st-therese-nine-to-wait-until-sixteen/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/prioress-tells-st-therese-nine-to-wait-until-sixteen/Pauline Martin, twenty-one, entered the convent of Carmelite nuns at Lisieux on October 2, 1882 AD. Her youngest sister, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, was nine and had chosen Pauline for a mother when their own mother died. St. Thérèse had already asked the prioress, the nun who governed the convent, to take her too, and the prioress told her to wait until she was sixteen.Fri, 02 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTfeaturecarmelpaulinechildhoodvocationfamilylisieuxhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/elizabeth-ann-seton-leaves-one-year-old-baby-sails-for-italy/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/elizabeth-ann-seton-leaves-one-year-old-baby-sails-for-italy/Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton sailed from New York for the Italian port of Leghorn on October 2, 1803 AD, with her husband, who was ill with tuberculosis. Their eldest daughter, eight, sailed with them, and the four younger children stayed in New York with an aunt. From the ship St. Elizabeth Ann Seton wrote: "I neither look behind nor before — only up."Fri, 02 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTeventvoyagefamilynew-yorkitalylettershttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/st-bernard-tells-monks-his-care-is-useless-and-angels-guard-them/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/st-bernard-tells-monks-his-care-is-useless-and-angels-guard-them/Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a twelfth-century abbot in France, told his monks in a Lenten sermon that God had not thought an abbot's care enough for them and had given them angels as guardians. St. Bernard asked the monks to respect, love and trust their angels, and gave the monks words to call out when temptation was at its worst. The Church reads a passage from the sermon in her daily prayer on the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, October 2.Fri, 02 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTwritingsguardian-angelsbernard-of-clairvauxclairvauxsermonpsalm-90lenttemptationhttps://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/irenaeus-returns-from-rome-to-replace-bishop-killed-at-lyons/https://catholicsaintsnews.com/article/2026-10-02/irenaeus-returns-from-rome-to-replace-bishop-killed-at-lyons/Christians in prison at Lyons sent one of the city's priests, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, to Rome this year with their letters to the Pope about a man who claimed to prophesy and was dividing the churches of Asia Minor. He came home to a church in which at least forty-eight Christians had been killed, among them the bishop, St. Pothinus. St. Irenaeus was made bishop in St. Pothinus's place.Fri, 02 Oct 2026 06:00:00 GMTcolumnlyonsromemartyrspersecutionmontanismbishop