Catholic Saints & Feasts

May 10: Saint John of Ávila, Priest and Doctor 1499-1569 Optional Memorial: Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Andalusia Spain and Spanish clergy His humble epitaph reads “I was a sower” Some of the most passionate and daring missionaries stayed close to home. They never sailed the high seas or crossed a snow-capped mountain. Today’s saint was one of them. He was an only child, and after his...

May 3: Saints Philip & James, Apostles  First Century Feast; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of hatmakers and pastry chefs (Philip) and pharmacists (James) The smaller the town the bigger the man The popes follow one another chronologically just like the presidents of the United States. One after another, after another, each inheriting the powers and responsibilities of his office. Presiden...

May 2: Saint Athanasius, Bishop & 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. ...

May 1: Saint Joseph the Worker Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of workers God wanted a working man to father Jesus Besides the Virgin Mary, there are just two saints who have more than one feast day dedicated to their honor on the Church’s universal calendar: Saint John the Baptist and Saint Joseph. Pope Pius XII instituted today’s feast in 1955 in direct response to the su...

April 30: Saint Pius V, Pope 1504–1572 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith One Shepherd, one flock, one Lord, one Church Saint Pius V is buried in the Sistine Chapel, but not “that” Sistine Chapel. His body lies in a glass coffin in the stunning, baroque Sistine Chapel of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome. He is not far f...

April 29: Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin & Doctor  1347–1380 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Italy, Europe, and fire prevention Her frightening intensity prayed the popes back to Rome Saint Peter was not martyred in Frankfurt, Germany; Alexandria, Egypt; or Jerusalem. He could have been. God, in His Providence, wanted Saint Peter’s blood to spill on Roman soil, so that His...

April 28: Saint Louis Grignion de Montfort, Priest 1673–1716 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of preachers Intensely in love with God, his flame burned hot but not long The English writer Graham Greene grew up Anglican with the typical anti-Catholic biases of his twentieth-century generation. One of those biases firmly held that Catholics worshipped the Virgin Mary and thus...

April 28: Saint Peter Chanel, Priest and Martyr 1803–1841 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of Oceania Musumusu axed him to death for no reason at all In Paris, just a few blocks down the Rue du Bac from the shrine of the Miraculous Medal, is a fine, imposing stone building. There are a lot of fine, imposing stone buildings in Paris, so from the outside this one is not exceptio...

April 25: Saint Mark, Evangelist c. First Century Feast; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of lions, lawyers, Venice, interpreters, and prisoners He chronicled what the first Pope witnessed John’s Gospel offers the reader this brief post-Resurrection scene: “Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat…” (Jn 21:3). Th...

April 24: Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr 1577–1622 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of lawyers & the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples His murderers cut a leg off his dead body in retaliation for his many journeys To understand the historical and religious context for today’s saint, consider an event that took place fifty years before he was b...

April 23: Saint George, Martyr c. Late Third Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of England, the nation of Georgia, and scouting Widely venerated, historically elusive, his legacy is massive Saint George suffered martyrdom in Palestine before the reign of Constantine. And that is all that can be said with certainty about Saint George. Yet where the documentary record is l...

April 23: Saint Adalbert, Bishop and Martyr 956–997 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of the Czech Republic and Poland Pagans cut down a courageous bishop in the frozen North Old, stodgy, traditional Catholic Europe in tension with new, liberal, flexible Europe is not a new dichotomy. A millennium ago the roles were reversed. It was old, stodgy, traditional pagan Europe in tens...

April 21: Saint Anselm, Bishop and Doctor c. 1033–1109 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White His pen pierced the blue sheet above, revealing God Few bishops have been canonized as saints since the Catholic Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The earlier history of the Church is, however, replete with saintly bishops. In the patristic era, in the first few centuries...

April 13: Saint Martin I, Pope and Martyr c. 590–655 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Exiled, abandoned, starving, a Pope dies for sound theology After being elected the Bishop of Rome in 649, today’s saint called a local Council which established the correct theology of the Church regarding the two wills of Christ. For this teaching and its broad dissemination, Martin was abducted in Rome by emiss...

Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White True power pardons In the Nicene Creed, we say that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. When a judge walks into a courtroom, the bailiff announces, “All rise,” and the judge sits in judgment. In his see city, a bishop rests in his cathedra, and in his palace, a king reigns from his throne. A president sig...

April 11: Saint Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr 1030–1079 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of Poland Royal fury fells a bishop For many centuries, the coronation ritual of a king was considered to be a Sacrament of the Church. Such was the importance of the king’s role in protecting and promoting the faith in his realm that his enthronement was embellished with a liturgical pomp and sple...

April 7: Saint John Baptiste de la Salle, Priest 1651–1719 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Christian teachers Great faith, charm, and skill opened school doors to millions A cowboy mounts a horse and lassos a calf to show the next cowboy how to wrangle. A fisherman tosses a net into the ocean so that his son learns to put food on the table for dinner. And a good teacher teaches a...

April 5: Saint Vincent Ferrer, Priest c. 1350–1419 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of builders He slept on the floor, fasted endlessly, performed miracles, and converted thousands Saint Dominic de Guzman, a Spanish priest, founded the Order of Preachers in the early thirteenth century. He wanted to establish an Order of priests who were well educated in theology, adept at p...

Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord c. 33 A.D. The first Sunday after the first full moon that falls on, or after, March 21 Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White or Gold Checkmate! If you want to discover what’s really going on in a story, follow the women. Curious about how the plot of a book, movie, or show is going to resolve itself? Follow the female characters, because the men...and th...

April 4: Saint Isidore, Bishop & Doctor  c. 560–636 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of the internet There was little he did not know The vast colonial ambitions of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries went hand in hand with equally epic Catholic missionary efforts. This unity of purpose, these shared goals, with civil and ecclesiastical resources and powers...

Friday of the Passion of the Lord (Good Friday) c. 33 A.D. Triduum; Liturgical Color: Red No one knew love looked like this One of the most famous Greek sculptures in the world, a larger-than-life marble statue of a female, reigns over a monumental staircase in the Louvre. A soft, unfelt breeze ripples through the thin, flowing sheets that wrap her frame. Two expansive, articulated wings sweep ele...

Thursday of Holy Week (Holy Thursday) c. 33 A.D. Triduum; Liturgical Color: White No last will and testament has been as heeded as Christ’s From the moment Christ first uttered the words at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday evening, the Church has never ceased to be faithful to them: “Do this in memory of me.” These words of a man about to die, if not a dying man, were a commandment more than a req...

April 2: Saint Francis of Paola, Hermit 1416–1507 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Calabria, mariners, and naval officers He lived a perpetual Lent The first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi were known as the “Mendicants from Assisi.” Yet as the group attracted men and women from all over Italy and beyond, a new name, not specific to Assisi, was needed. Saint Francis...

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord c. 33 A.D. The Sunday before Easter Solemnity; Liturgical Color: Red Beginning with the end we understand His greatness One way to understand a book, or to watch a movie, is to begin at the end. To read, or watch, backwards allows every character and plot twist to be interpreted in light of their conclusions. Working backwards removes much of the drama and te...

March 25: Annunciation of the Lord Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White The flutter of a wing, a rustling in the air, a voice, and the future began to begin The Feast of the Annunciation is the reason why we celebrate Christmas on December 25. Christmas comes exactly nine months after the Archangel Gabriel invited the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God, an event we commemorate on March 25. The dati...