“In Madame de Chantal I have found the perfect woman, whom Solomon had difficulty finding in Jerusalem”. – St. Francis de Sales, her spiritual director. St. Jane Frances de Chantal was born in Dijon, France, on January 28, 1572, and died at the Visitation Convent Moulins on December 13, 1641. …

On August 9 the Catholic Church remembers St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein. St. Teresa converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher, and later entered the Carmelite Order. She died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz …

St. Panteleon, whose feast we celebrate on July 27, is the patron saint of bachelors and physicians. As lifelong layperson, he was the physician for emperor Maximinianus. At one point in his life he had abandoned his faith, but he eventually returned to the Church, and gave his fortune to …

On July 5, the Catholic Church remembers Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria. A renowned preacher and promoter of Eucharistic adoration, he founded the order of priests now known as the Barnabites. In 2001, the future Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, wrote the preface for a book on St. Anthony Mary …

The universal Church celebrates the life of St. Leo IV on July 17. Both a Roman and the son of Radoald, Leo was unanimously elected to succeed Sergius II as Pope. At the time of his election, there was an alarming attack of the Saracens on Rome in 846, which …

Saints Aquila and Priscilla were a Jewish couple from Rome who had been exiled to Corinth, and were friends of St. Paul in the first century. They hosted St. Paul on his visit to that city and were probably converted by him. They are mentioned a few times in the …

On July 3, the Church celebrates the feast day of St. Thomas the Apostle. Best known for his initial unwillingness to believe the other apostles in their claim that Jesus had risen from the dead, St. Thomas can teach the faithful about believing without seeing. As an apostle, Thomas was …

On June 16 the Catholic Church celebrates the memory of Saint John Francis Regis, a 17th-century French Jesuit known for his zealous missionary efforts and his care for the poor and marginalized. In a 1997 letter to the Bishop of Viviers, Pope St. John Paul II commemorated the fourth centenary …

June 15 is the feast day of St. Germaine Cousin, a simple and pious young girl who lived in Pibrac, France in the late 1500s. Germaine was born in 1579 to poor parents. Her father was a farmer, and her mother died when she was still an infant. She was …

St. Methodius worked for unity and reconciliation in the Eastern Church and served as the Patriarch of Constantinople the last five years of his life. Born in Syracuse, he first felt the call to enter religious life while in Constantinople, where he had gone to seek a position at court. …