Catholic Saints & Feasts

March 23: Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo, Bishop 1538–1606 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Violet (Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of Latin American Bishops and native people’s rights He died in the field six thousand miles from home Today’s saint was the second Archbishop of the second most important city in Spain’s Latin American empire in the 1500s. Lima, Peru, stood only behind Mexico City in i...

March 19: Saint Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary First Century Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of the Universal Church, fathers, and a happy death Jesus and Mary lived under his gentle, fatherly authority The husband of Mary had a perfect spouse, untouched by original sin. He was also the foster father to a boy who was the Son of God and the Second Person of the Holy Trin...

March 18: Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor c. 315–386 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Violet (Lenten Weekday) A wise and persevering bishop teaches his flock It is the Christ-given obligation of every Catholic bishop, and the priests and deacons who share in his ministry, to teach, sanctify, and govern all people under their spiritual care. Regarding teaching, the letters of Saint...

March 17: Saint Patrick, Bishop Fifth Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Violet (Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of Ireland The black arts of pagandom bowed to this one-man fortress Today’s saint, the Patron of Ireland, was English. He was born in an unknown year to Catholic parents in an educated home in Roman Britain. His father was a deacon and his grandfather a married priest. When he f...

March 9: Saint Frances of Rome, Religious 1384–1440 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet when Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of motorists and widows Just to be near her was thought a blessing Today’s saint, born into a wealthy noble family in the Eternal City, was married to a man from a similarly privileged family when she was just thirteen. Saint Frances earnestly sought to do the wi...

March 8: Saint John of God, Religious 1495–1550 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet when Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of hospitals, printers, the sick, and alcoholics He walked the fine line between madness and holiness There are many “Johns” who are saints, beginning with those found in Scripture itself: Saint John the Baptist, Saint John the Evangelist, Saint John of the Cross, Sa...

March 7: Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs c. Late Second Century–203 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red (When Lenten Weekday, Optional Memorial; Violet) Patron Saints of expectant mothers, widows, and butchers They bled to death as pagan eyes drank in the spectacle Many centuries ago in the desert lands of North Africa, now populated by millions of the adherents of Islam, there was once a thrivi...

March 4: Saint Casimir 1458–1484 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet when Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of Poland and Lithuania A prince crowned with humility lives well but not long Ever since the Three Kings left their gifts at the altar of the crib in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, has drawn generations of nobles, kings, and emperors to Himself. Today we commemorat...

March 3: Saint Katharine Drexel, Virgin (U.S.A.) 1858–1955 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet when Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of racial justice and philanthropists From riches to rags, she lived the Catholic dream Today’s saint wove in and out of oncoming traffic. She travelled north while everyone else was zooming south. Friends and acquaintances in her refined, educated, upper-...

February 27: St. Gregory of Narek, Abbot and Doctor 950–c. 1003 Optional Memorial: Liturgical Color: White Widely venerated in Armenia A mystical eastern monk praises God like a troubadour A crowning glory of the Armenian people is that their nation was the first to adopt Christianity as its official religion. Approximately twelve years before the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity i...

February 23: Saint Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr c. 69–c. 155 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red (When Lenten Weekday, Optional Memorial; Violet) Patron Saint of earache sufferers A venerable bishop’s martyrdom ends the sub-apostolic age A Catholic bishop is brutally executed in Turkey. His assassin yells “Allahu Akbar,” stabs his victim repeatedly in the heart, and then cuts his head off. There are wi...

February 22: Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle Feast; Liturgical Color: White The gift of authority serves order and truth in the Church It’s unusual to have a feast day for a chair. When we think of a chair, perhaps we think of a soft recliner into which our body sinks as if into a warm bath. Or our mind turns to a classroom chair, a chair in a waiting room, or one at a restaurant. But the chair the...

February 21: Saint Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor 1007–1072 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet on Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of Faenza and Font-Avellana, Italy A wise monk becomes a Cardinal and thunders for reform Every Catholic knows that the Pope is elected by, and from, the Cardinals of the Church gathered in the Sistine Chapel. Every Catholic knows that the Pope then goes t...

Ash Wednesday Forty-six days before Easter Liturgical Color: Violet Without God we are a tiny pile of crumbs The marauding pirates of the high seas had their tough skin inked with tattoos. Roman soldiers smothered their bodies in oil before a battle. Primitive peoples ritually paint a warrior’s face before a fight, stretch earlobes with hoops, or pierce noses with large rings. When American Indian...

February 17: Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order Thirteenth Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet on Lenten Weekday) Invoked to aid in imitating the charity of Our Lady of Sorrows Groups buttress fidelity to individual good intentions There are many reasons to join a group. To quilt, play soccer, learn chess, or travel. We accomplish personal goals in a group that we woul...

February 14: Saints Cyril, Monk, and Methodius, Bishop St. Cyril: 827–869; St. Methodius: 815–884 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (When Lenten Weekday, Optional Memorial; Violet) Co-Patrons of Europe and Apostles to the Slavs Two makers of Europe light the flame of Eastern Christianity The Cyrillic alphabet, used by hundreds of millions of people in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Russia, is na...

February 11: Our Lady of Lourdes Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet on Lenten Weekday) Patroness of bodily ills A heavenly lady appears to a country girl, and miracles follow In 1858, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous told her friends that a beautiful young lady was appearing to her in a rock formation on the outskirts of her small town of Lourdes. A friend asked Bernadette to do he...

February 10: Saint Scholastica, Virgin c. Early Sixth Century–547 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (When Lenten Weekday, Optional Memorial; Violet) Patron Saint of nuns, convulsive children, education, and books A mysterious woman co-founds Western monasticism Saint Scholastica was born in the decades after the last Western Emperor was forced to abandon the crumbling city of Rome in 476. Power wa...

February 8: Saint Josephine Bakhita, Virgin 1869–1947 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet on Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of Sudan and human-trafficking survivors Out of Africa comes a slave, to freely serve the Master of all Black-on-black or Arab-on-black slavery normally preceded and made possible the white-on-black slavery practiced by the colonial powers. These powers—England,...

February 8: Saint Jerome Emiliani, Priest 1481–1537 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet on Lenten Weekday) Patron Saint of orphans and abandoned children He was forever grateful after a near-death experience In the year 1202, a wealthy young Italian man joined the cavalry of his town’s militia. The inexperienced soldiers went into battle against a neighboring town’s larger force and...

February 6: Saint Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs St. Paul Miki: c. 1562–1597; Late Sixteenth Century Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red (When Lenten Weekday, Optional Memorial; Violet) Patron Saints of Japan Native Japanese die to gain the pearl of great price The words of the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier capture the pathos of today’s memorial: “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The...

February 5: Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr c. Third Century Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red (When Lenten Weekday, Optional Memorial; Violet) Patron Saint of Sicily, breast cancer, rape victims, and bellfounders Of all the men drawn to her, she desired only one Pope Saint Gregory the Great reigned as the Supreme Pontiff of the Church from 590–604. His family loved Sicily and had property there, so...

February 3: Saint Ansgar, Bishop 801–865 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Scandinavia, Denmark, and Sweden He sowed the frozen turf of the North, though little bloomed Today’s saint walked the forests of Northern Europe during that stretch of history later known, prejudicially, as the “Dark Ages.” He lived three hundred years after the fall of Rome and yet three hundred y...

February 3: Saint Blaise, Bishop and Martyr c. Early Fourth Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of wool combers and sufferers of throat diseases The memory of an obscure bishop-martyr endures A secularist does not evaluate religion on its own terms but on its practical benefits. Is a religion true? It doesn’t matter. But if you can prove that empty stomachs are now full,...

February 2: The Presentation of the Lord Feast; Liturgical Color: White God goes to Church The various names, meanings, and traditions overlapping in today’s Feast churn like the crystals in a kaleidoscope, revealing one image and then another with every slight rotation of the tube. The Presentation of the Lord in the Temple is, rotate, also the Purification of Mary. But, rotate, it’s also known a...