He was the third Bishop of Antioch and governed the Church there for forty years. Because of the courage and clarity with which he declared the truths of the Catholic Faith and its necessity for salvation, he was taken to Rome and thrown to wild beasts in the amphitheater before 87,000 people. The beasts tore him to pieces. He is one of the Fathers of the Church.

She is called "the Mary of the Gael." She was so beautiful that many thought she might be the Blessed Virgin in an apparition. She was the spiritual daughter of Saint Patrick. She died at the age of seventy-two, the same age at which Our Lady died. Saint Bridget of Kildare is buried in the same grave with Saint Patrick and Saint Columbkille.

He was a disciple of Saint Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order, and became one of his greatest workers. It was through him, in no small part, that the Dominicans were established in Bologna and in Paris.

Forty days after the birth of Jesus, His virginal Mother went to the Temple to fulfill the rite of purification, for which she had no need, but to which, in her humility, she submitted because it was one of the requirements of the Jews. This was the first day Jesus ever entered a church. He was carried there by His Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph, and presented to His Eternal Father in the Temple.

Most of the Jews, men and women, in the Temple in those days were wicked and faithless people. There was one old man named Simeon whose faith and belief in the coming of the Messias was still true. He took the Child Jesus in his arms and uttered the beautiful canticle:

"Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace, because my eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of Thy people, Israel."

There was also in the Temple when Mary went there with Joseph to present Jesus to His Eternal Father as God made man, a saintly old woman, a widow, named Anna, a prophetess, who was eighty-four years old. She went around the Temple and told all the Jewish women there what had happened, and Who had come to the Temple, at last.

He was baptized by Saint Peter the Apostle, as we are told in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 10. He was later made Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. He was a Gentile, and his Baptism is commemorated in Holy Scripture because it is the clear message of the Bible that the Faith was to go to the Gentiles by way of preservation to the end of the world.

He was a doctor, a physician, who became a priest, and later was appointed Bishop of Sebaste in Armenia. He was a martyr for the Faith. At one time there were thirty churches dedicated to him in Rome. He is one of the fourteen Holy Helpers and is the protector against diseases of the throat.

This, in feast days, is the first of the fourteen Holy Helpers. Three of these Holy Helpers are women, eleven are men. Here is their list and the special needs for which we invoke them.

Saint Acacius, May 8, invoked against headaches.
Saint Aegidius (Giles), September 1, patron of cripples.
Saint Barbara, December 4, protectress against lightning.
Saint Blaise, February 3, invoked against diseases of the throat.
Saint Catherine, November 25, patroness of philosophers and invoked in law suits.
Saint Christopher, July 25, patron of travelers.
Saint Cyriacus, August 8, protector against eye diseases.
Saint Denis, October 9, invoked against demons.
Saint Erasmus, June 2, invoked against diseases of the stomach.
Saint Eustace, September 20, prayed to for protection against fire, temporal or eternal.
Saint George, April 23, invoked against diseases of the skin.
Saint Margaret, July 20, invoked against kidney diseases.
Saint Pantaleon, July 27, invoked against lung diseases.
Saint Vitus (Guy), June 15, protector against nervous diseases, epilepsy and paralysis.

He was born in France. He was a Benedictine and the first Archbishop of Hamburg. He was a great missionary in Sweden, Norway and Germany.

He was a Carmelite friar, and later the Bishop of Fiesole, a small town near Florence in Italy.

He was an Englishman who became a parish priest at Sempringham in Lincolnshire. He established an order for monks known as the Gilbertines, under the Augustinian rule. He also established an order for nuns under the rule of Saint Benedict.

She is the beautiful little virgin martyr of Catania, in Sicily, who was killed for the Catholic Faith. Her name is mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass. She is also one of the seven girls named in the Litany of the Saints.

When Saint Paul Miki was dying on the cross, at the age, as we have said, of thirty-three, these were his last words:

"I pray that all Japanese people may walk on the only true road that leads to God. How happy I am, like my Saviour, at His own age to die for Him, and like Him, on the cross."

His last two words were, "Jesus! Mary!"

Saint Titus was the beloved disciple of Saint Paul and the first Bishop of Crete. To him Saint Paul wrote one of his Epistles.

She was a radiant little Catholic virgin martyred for her Faith and her purity in Asia Minor. Her name, Dorothy, means gift of God. She was also a gift to God from the Catholic Faith.

His Latin name is Saint Guarinus. He was an illustrious cardinal, Bishop of Palestrina and a member of the Order of Saint Augustine.

He was a Benedictine monk, and later an abbot. He was the founder of the Camaldolese Order of the Benedictines in 1024. His life was written by Saint Peter Damian, Doctor of the Church.

He was an English Saxon king and the father of three saints, Saint Walburga, Saint Willibald and Saint Winibald, all of whom helped to convert Germany.

He was the cofounder with Saint Felix of Valois, in 1197, of the Order of Trinitarians for the redemption of Catholic captives who were taken by the Mohammedans.

He was a Venetian noble and a soldier who was converted from a worldly life, was ordained a priest, and devoted his life to the poor, the sick and orphans. He founded a Congregation known as the Somaschi. He is the patron of orphans and abandoned children.

She was an Egyptian girl who was martyred under Decius. Because she would not worship idols, her feet were tied to a horse and she was dragged through the streets.

He is a Doctor of the Church, and was "the soul of the Council of Ephesus" in 431. This was an Ecumenical Council, the third one and it defended the Divine Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary against a diabolical heretic, a bishop named Nestorius. It was this Council, and largely due to Saint Cyril's inspiration, which gave us the last half of the Hail Mary: "Holy Mary, Mother of God. pray for us sinners," to which was later added, "now and at the hour of our death, Amen."

She was a noble and valiant Catholic woman of Alexandria in Egypt. She was burned to death for professing the Catholic Faith, after all her teeth were torn out. Saint Apollonia is the patroness of Catholic dentists.

She was the twin sister of Saint Benedict, the great founder of the Benedictine Order. She became a nun when her brother became a monk. She lived a life of radiant holiness. Saint Scholastica died forty days before her brother, Saint Benedict. They were both buried in the same grave. Other noted twins among the saints are:

• Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian,
• Saint Gervase and Saint Protase,
• Saint Mark and Saint Marcellian,
• Saint Medard and Saint Gildard.

This is the feast of the first of the eighteen apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a little fourteen-year-old French girl in southern France, in 1858. The name of the little girl was Marie Bernadette Soubirous. The first of Our Lady's apparitions to her was on February 11. The last was on July 16, the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The greatest was on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation. The Mother of God, on March 25, said to Saint Bernadette, in keeping with the doctrine defined four years before by Pope Pius IX, affirming that she had been immaculately conceived, not "I was immaculately conceived," but "I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION," thereby letting us know that she was God's very notion of this grace from all eternity.

This Order was dedicated to the virginal Mother of God in complete love and loyalty, and is known as the Servites. Their founders were seven noblemen of Florence who dedicated their whole lives to the cult and honor of the Immaculate Mother of God, and who believed that no revealed truth of God can be understood without reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The great devotion of these seven Holy Servites was to Our Lady's Seven Sorrows, a devotion commemorated on September 15. The seven Holy Servites have separate feast days because all are saints, but February 12 is their joint feast. Their names are:

• Saint Bonfilius Monaldius,
• Saint Bonajuncta Manettus,
• Saint Manettus Antellensis,
• Saint Amideus de Amadeis,
• Saint Uguccio Uguccionum,
• Saint Sosteneus de Sosteneis and
• Saint Alexis Falconieri.

They were all canonized together in 1887. Saint Alexis was one hundred and ten years old when he died.

She was a glorious Spanish virgin from Barcelona who was tortured and finally crucified under Diocletian. She was only fourteen years old when she was martyred.

He was a Roman officer martyred for the Catholic Faith by the Emperor Valerian. The story of his martyrdom is so dramatic that it was put into a classical play by Corneille, one of the famous French dramatists.

He was a priest at Rome, beheaded for the Catholic Faith. Because this day is considered by many to be the first approach of Spring, and so connected with romance, Saint Valentine's Day is celebrated for other than a religious reason.

This was the brilliant and saintly priest of the Society of Jesus who was the spiritual director and complete supporter of Saint Margaret Mary in establishing devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He died eight years before Saint Margaret Mary, when he was only forty-one years old, but he let her know how pleasing to God was her work, to propagate devotion to the Sacred Heart, and also told her how welcome she would be in Heaven. In one of the apparitions of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary, Our Lord referred to Blessed Claude de la Colombiere as "My faithful servant and perfect friend."

Saint Anthony died in 1231, when he was thirty-six years old. His body was exhumed thirty two years later and examined, and it was found to be all corrupt except his tongue, which was as fresh as the day he died. This favor was given to Saint Anthony of Padua because by his tongue he was "a hammer of heretics." Four notable tongues we remember among the saints: first, the tongue of Saint John the Baptist, which was stabbed with a knife by Herodias, after his head had been served on a platter at the order of Herod Antipas, in payment of a promise to Salome, the daughter of Herodias, his wicked wife, whom John the Baptist had rebuked; second, the tongue of Saint Anthony, the feast of the finding of which is this day; third, the tongue of Saint John Nepomucene, which was found incorrupt 336 years after his death, because he had laid down his life as a Catholic priest, choosing to be thrown into a river and drowned rather than violate the seal of the confessional; and fourth, the tongue of Saint Christina of Lake Bolsena, in Italy, who had her tongue cut out because she sang beautiful hymns to Jesus and Mary. She went right on miraculously singing, with no tongue, until she was shot down with arrows, in the persecution of the Christians by the Emperor Diocletian.

She was a virgin of Auvergne who withdrew from the world and lived a life of prayer and fasting. Saint Gregory of Tours says that angels in the form of doves accompanied her coffin to the grave.

He was a slave of Philemon, to whom Saint Paul wrote an Epistle. He ran away from Saint Philemon and met Saint Paul, who sent him back to Saint Philemon, carrying the Epistle. Saint Onesimus was converted to the Catholic Faith by Saint Paul, who baptized him. Later, he became Bishop of Ephesus. Still later, he shed his blood in Rome for the dogmatic truths of the Catholic Faith.

It was on the seventeenth of February, fifty five days after the birth of Jesus (Note: the term 1 A.D. is applied to the last seven days of the calendar year when Our Lord was born, and to the twelve months of the calendar year that followed them), when King Herod's soldiers--sent to slaughter all little boys in Bethlehem and its neighborhood who were two years old or under, in order to get rid of Jesus--were getting perilously near the cave at Bethlehem, where at first they little expected Our Lord to be, that Saint Joseph and Our Lady set off with their Divine Child, left the land of the Jews and went off to a land of the Gentiles. They took no one with them, by way of servants or friends, as Saint Peter Chrysologus tells us. The town to which the Holy Family fled was called Fostat. It was three hundred miles from Bethlehem. A church has been erected there, on the site of the house where the Holy Family lived during their exile.

The little town where the Holy Family stayed in Egypt was not far from Heliopolis, a city in which--when Jesus, Mary and Joseph passed through it--statues of pagan gods crashed to the ground. Both Fostat and Heliopolis are not far from Cairo in Egypt.

Marie Bernadette Soubirous was a little girl who lived in southern France, in the town of Lourdes. When she was fourteen years old, Our Lady appeared to her eighteen times, in the year 1858. Marie Bernadette later became a Sister of Charity at Nevers. She died when she was thirty-five years old. Her name is known and loved and reverenced everywhere in the Catholic world.

He succeeded the Apostle Saint James the Less as Bishop of Jerusalem. All were astonished at his fortitude and constancy when he was crucified at the age of one hundred and twenty during the persecution of Trajan.

He was the brother of Saint Caius, the twenty-ninth Pope. He was the father of the beautiful little virgin martyr, Saint Susanna, whose feast is August 11, and who was martyred for her Faith and her purity, because she would not marry the son-in-law of the pagan Emperor Diocletian. Saint Susanna was martyred in 295, and one year later, in 296, her father, Saint Gabinus, shed his blood for the Faith for which his daughter had died.

Saint Odran was the charioteer of Saint Patrick, the great apostle of Ireland. Saint Odran was martyred in place of Saint Patrick, by giving his life to some pagans who wanted to kill Saint Patrick. Saint Odran died forty-one years before Saint Patrick, who died in 493.

Thaumaturgus means wonder-worker. This was the name given to the Bishop of Catania, in Sicily, the town of Saint Agatha. Saint Leo Thaumaturgus professed and taught the Catholic Faith there, in the eighth century.

She was a Poor Clare nun and a niece of Saint Clare of Assisi.

Two of the three seers in the apparition of Our Blessed Mother as Fatima.

This is the latest day (except in leap year) when the feast of Septuagesima Sunday can fall. The earliest day on which it can fall is January 18.

He was killed by the Arabs at Damascus, the city where Saint Paul was baptized, when he said to these Arabs, "Every man who does not hold the Catholic Christian Faith is damned like Mohammed, your false prophet."

Antioch, in Syria, was the city where the first Pope of the Catholic Church, Saint Peter, set up his Chair after his departure from Jerusalem. This was at the house of a noble Gentile Christian named Theophilus, the one to whom Saint Luke dedicates his two books: the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. Nearly seven years later, in the year 42, Saint Peter set up his Chair at Rome, at the home of Saint Pudens, a senator, and his mother, Saint Priscilla. Saint Peter occupied his Chair at Rome for twenty-five years, from the year 42 to the year 67, when he was crucified for the Faith.

He was a Camaldolese monk, a cardinal, and is one of the thirty-three Doctors of the Church. He was illustrious and brilliant, simple and outspoken in his denunciation of all heresies and evils. He wrote the life of Saint Romuald, the founder of his Order.

Saint Matthias was the Apostle chosen in place of Judas Iscariot, the traitor and suicide. Saint Matthias was beheaded by the Jews in Jerusalem. His body is kept in the Church of Saint Mary Major in Rome.

She was a princess, the youngest daughter of William the Conqueror, King of England.

She was an English girl who went to Germany and died there as an abbess. She is the sister of Saint Willibald and Saint Winibald, and the daughter of Saint Richard, an English king.

He was a noble and wealthy Greek. He was first a hermit, and then a bishop, at Gaza in Palestine. He died the same year as Saint Jerome. Saint Porphyry's life was written by one of his disciples named Mark.

He was the courageous Catholic bishop who discovered the heresy of Arius, a priest, who was going about denying the Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Saint Alexander was the spiritual father and supporter of the great Saint Athanasius.

She was the sister of the great Saint Louis, King of France. She became a Poor Clare nun in practice and died the same year as her brother, in 1270.

This was an angelic young Passionist brother who, consumed with love and veneration for the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, after extreme sufferings and weakened by tuberculosis, died of sheer love at the age of twenty-four, at Isola in Italy. He had been a religious six years. He died at the same age as did the Little Flower of Jesus, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and Saint Casimir of Poland.

He was the forty-eighth Pope. He was born on the Island of Sardinia. He fought tirelessly against the heretics who denied the Divine Maternity of Mary and the abiding humanity of Jesus.