Saints

Saint Therese of Lisieux

Feastday: October 1

Patron of the Missions

Generations of Catholics have admired this young saint, called her the "Little Flower", and found in her
short life more inspiration for own lives than in volumes by theologians.

Yet Therese died when she was 24, after having lived as cloistered Carmelite for less than ten years. She
never went on missions, never founded a religious order, never performed great works. The only book of
hers, published after her death, was an brief edited version of her journal called "Story of a Soul."
(Collections of her letters and restored versions of her journals have been published recently.) But within
28 years of her death, the public demand was so great that she was canonized. Therese of Lisieux is one
of the patron saints of the missions, not because she ever went anywhere, but because of her special
love of the missions, and the prayers and letters she gave in support of missionaries. This is reminder to
all of us who feel we can do nothing, that it is the little things that keep God's kingdom growing.

St. Martin de Porres

Feastday: November 3

Patron of Barbers

1639

St. Martin de Porres was born at Lima, Peru, in 1579. His father was a Spanish gentleman and his mother
a coloured freed-woman from Panama. At fifteen, he became a lay brother at the Dominican Friary at
Lima and spent his whole life there-as a barber, farm laborer, almoner, and infirmarian among other
things. In turn, God endowed him with many graces and wondrous gifts, such as, aerial flights and
bilocation.

St. Martin's love was all-embracing, shown equally to humans and to animals, including vermin, and he
maintained a cats and dogs hospital at his sister's house. He also possessed spiritual wisdom,
demonstrated in his solving his sister's marriage problems, raising a dowry for his niece inside of three
day's time, and resolving theological problems for the learned of his Order and for bishops. A close friend
of St. Rose of Lima, this saintly man died on November 3, 1639 and was canonized on May 6, 1962. His
feast day is November 3.

St. Stephen Martyr

Feastday: December 26

Patron of Stonemasons

Stephen's name means "crown," and he was the first disciple of Jesus to receive the martyr's crown.
Stephen was a deacon in the early Christian Church. The apostles had found that they needed helpers to
look after the care of the widows and the poor. So they ordained seven deacons, and Stephen is the most
famous of these.

The saint spoke about Jesus, showing that He is the Savior, God had promised to send. He scolded his
enemies for not having believed in Jesus. At that, they rose up in great anger and shouted at him. But
Stephen looked up to Heaven and said that he saw the heavens opening and Jesus standing at the right
hand of God.

His hearers plugged their ears and refused to listen to another word. They dragged St. Stephen outside
the city of Jerusalem and stoned him to death. The saint prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" Then he
fell to his knees and begged God not to punish his enemies for killing him.
 St. Rose of Lima

Feastday: August 30

Patron of Latin America and Phillipines

b. 1586 d. 1617

Virgin, born at Lima, Peru 20 April, 1586; died there 30 August, 1617.

St. Rose of Lima is the patroness of Latin America and the Philippines. This South American Saint's real
name was Isabel, but she was such a beautiful baby that she was called Rose, and that name remained.
As she grew older, she became more and more beautiful, and one day, her mother put a wreath of
flowers on her head to show off her loveliness to friends. But Rose had no desire to be admired, for her
heart had been given to Jesus. So she put a long pin into that wreath and it pierced her so deeply, that
she had a hard time getting the wreath off afterward. Another time she became afraid that her beauty
might be a temptation to someone, since people could not take their eyes off her. Therefore, she rubbed
her face with pepper until it was all red and blistered.

Rose had many temptations from the devil, and there were also many times when she had to suffer a
feeling of terrible loneliness and sadness, for God seemed far away. Yet she cheerfully offered all these
troubles to Him. In fact, in her last long, painful sickness, this heroic young woman use to pray: "Lord,
increase my sufferings, and with them increase Your love in my heart."

Many miracles followed her death. She was beatified by Clement IX, in 1667, and canonized in 1671 by
Clement X, the first American to be so honoured. Her feast is celebrated 30 August. She is represented
wearing a crown of roses.
 St. Francis of Assisi

Feastday: October 4

Patron and Animals, Merchants & Ecology

b.1181 d.1226

Founder of the Franciscan Order, born at Assisi in Umbria, in 1181.

In 1182, Pietro Bernardone returned from a trip to France to find out his wife had given birth to a son. Far
from being excited or apologetic because he'd been gone, Pietro was furious because she'd had his new
son baptized Giovanni after John the Baptist. The last thing Pietro wanted in his son was a man of God --
he wanted a man of business, a cloth merchant like he was, and he especially wanted a son who would
reflect his infatuation with France. So he renamed his son Francesco -- which is the equivalent of calling
him Frenchman.

But Francis never got farther than one day's ride from Assisi. There he had a dream in which God told
him he had it all wrong and told him to return home. And return home he did. What must it have been like
to return without ever making it to battle -- the boy who wanted nothing more than to be liked was
humiliated, laughed at, called a coward by the village and raged at by his father for the money wasted on
armor.

Francis' conversion did not happen over night. God had waited for him for twenty-five years and now it
was Francis' turn to wait. Francis started to spend more time in prayer. He went off to a cave and wept for
his sins. Sometimes God's grace overwhelmed him with joy. But life couldn't just stop for God. There was
a business to run, customers to wait on.

His search for conversion led him to the ancient church at San Damiano. While he was praying there, he
heard Christ on the crucifix speak to him, "Francis, repair my church." Francis assumed this meant church
with a small c -- the crumbling building he was in. Acting again in his impetuous way, he took fabric from
his father's shop and sold it to get money to repair the church. His father saw this as an act of theft -- and
put together with Francis' cowardice, waste of money, and his growing disinterest in money made Francis
seem more like a madman than his son. Pietro dragged Francis before the bishop and in front of the
whole town demanded that Francis return the money and renounce all rights as his heir.
Francis never wanted to found a religious order -- this former knight thought that sounded too military. He
thought of what he was doing as expressing God's brotherhood. His companions came from all walks of
life, from fields and towns, nobility and common people, universities, the Church, and the merchant class.
Francis practiced true equality by showing honor, respect, and love to every person whether they were
beggar or pope.

Years of poverty and wandering had made Francis ill. When he began to go blind, the pope ordered that
his eyes be operated on. This meant cauterizing his face with a hot iron. Francis spoke to "Brother Fire":
"Brother Fire, the Most High has made you strong and beautiful and useful. Be courteous to me now in
this hour, for I have always loved you, and temper your heat so that I can endure it." And Francis reported
that Brother Fire had been so kind that he felt nothing at all.

How did Francis respond to blindness and suffering? That was when he wrote his beautiful Canticle of the
Sun that expresses his brotherhood with creation in praising God.

Francis never recovered from this illness. He died on October 4, 1226 at the age of 45. Francis is
considered the founder of all Franciscan orders and the patron saint of ecologists and merchants.