Catholic Saints & Feasts

July 20: Saint Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr First or Second Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of Ravenna, Italy, and invoked against gout and epilepsy An elusive early bishop’s memory is preserved in art Ravenna, a city on Italy’s eastern Adriatic Coast, is a miniature Istanbul. It has perhaps the most impressive groupings of Byzantine churches and mosaics outside of...

July 18 (U.S.A.): Saint Camillus de Lellis, Priest 1550–1614 In the U.S.A. this Optional Memorial is transferred to July 18 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of hospitals, nurses, and the sick A one-man Red Cross who burned with love for the sick Like so many saints, Camillus de Lellis ran hard in whatever direction he was heading. When he was a soldier, he ran hard toward th...

July 16: Our Lady of Mount Carmel Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patroness of the Carmelites, and for deliverance from Purgatory A Crusader legacy enriches the Church’s inner life A few miles from Lebanon near Haifa, a large city in the north of present-day Israel, is the Holy Land’s Masada of Catholic prayer and spirituality. Mount Carmel rises high into the sky, dominating the landsc...

July 15: Saint Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor 1221–1274 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of those with intestinal problems He seemed to have escaped the curse of Adam’s sin The scholarly heft of Saint Bonaventure legitimized the eccentric Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint Bonaventure was to the Franciscans what Thomas Aquinas was to the Dominicans. These contemporaries form twin summits...

July 14: Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin (U.S.A.) 1656–1680 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Canada and orphans Tough as a hide, pure as a fawn Kateri (Iroquois for “Catherine”) Tekakwitha lived a short life of twenty-four years, the same age attained by Saint Thérèse of Lisieux at her death. Kateri’s father was a pagan Mohawk Chief and her mother a Christian Algonquin. The Mohawk...

July 13: Saint Henry 973–1024 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of the childless and Benedictine Oblates A king walks the tight path of virtue Passing through the heroic-sized doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the pilgrim walks into a vast interior space, his gaze slowly rising to silently absorb the sublime vaults, criss-crossed by ethereal beams of sunlight. Yet as the...

January 4: Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious (U.S.A.) 1774–1821 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Catholic schools, widows, loss of parents She had it all, lost it all, and then found it all again In late 1803, Elizabeth Ann Seton, with her husband, left the United States for Italy, as a confident, high-born, wealthy, educated Yankee Protestant. She returned in June 180...

January 2: Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors St. Basil: 329–379; St. Gregory: c. 329–390 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saints of Russia, monks, hospital administrators, and poets Obvious truths are hard to explain, but smart theologians can explain them The persecution of the Church in the first few centuries, sometimes aggressive, more typically passive,...

Sunday in the Octave of Christmas: The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph Or December 30 if there is no such Sunday Feast; Liturgical Color: White Model for Christian families The Holy Trinity is like a family; God’s Son lived family life Language is like currency. There must be a common understanding of its value for it to function as an effective means of exchange. When that common agreement...

Fourth Thursday in November: Thanksgiving Day (U.S.A.) Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Life is a gift replete with countless gifts It’s 1542, and the Spanish Franciscan Juan de Padilla, a rugged ex-soldier, is trekking through the high, waving prairie grasses of the buffalo plains of North America at the head of a small band of explorers. Suddenly, an Indian war party of the Kansas peop...

June 26: Saint Josemaria Escriva, Priest 1902–1975 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Saint Josemaria is not on the Church’s universal calendar but is included here) Patron Saint of diabetics Work is our sacrifice and the earth is our altar When today’s saint was a young priest, he was a rather well-known speaker in Madrid, Spain. Besides being an excellent homilist, he also preached retr...

June 3: Saint Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs 1860–1886 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of African youth Young African Christians die like the martyrs of old Many of the faces of the saints in heaven that shine with the light of God are dark faces. North Africa was one of the first regions to be evangelized and was home to a vibrant, diverse, and orthodox Church for over six hu...

May 2: Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor c. 295–373 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of theologians A fiery Egyptian saves the Trinity The First Sunday of Advent of 2011 introduced to the faithful a new liturgical translation of the Mass in many English-speaking countries. The new translation had been many years in the making and had gone through numerous drafts and revisions. Of t...

The Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Apostle January 25—Feast Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of missionaries, evangelists, writers and public workers One man can change the world In the long history of the Church no conversion has been more consequential than St. Paul’s. Paul had not been ambivalent toward the Church before he converted. He had actively persecuted it, even throwing roc...

January 5: Saint John Neumann, Religious (U.S.A.) 1811–1860 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Catholic education He gave of himself until there was nothing left to give Today’s saint worked like a mule. He studied, he wrote, he prayed, he preached, he traveled, he built, he founded, he guided, he taught. And then one day, carrying construction plans for his Cathedral in Philadelphi...