Catholic Saints & Feasts

January 31: Saint John Bosco, Priest 1815–1888 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of editors, publishers, schoolchildren, and juvenile delinquents His fatherly heart radiated the warm love of God Some saints attract the faithful by the raw power of their minds and the sheer force of their arguments. Think of Saint Thomas Aquinas or Saint Augustine. Other saints write so eloquently, wit...

January 28: Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor 1225–1274 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of universities and students A theological Grand Master, he positioned every piece exquisitely on the chessboard The silhouette of Saint Thomas Aquinas hovers like a giant on the highest summit of human thought, casting so wide and deep a shadow over the landscape that all subsequent thinke...

January 27: Saint Angela Merici, Virgin 1474–1540 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of disabled and physically challenged people and illnesses A holy woman tries to change the world one girl at a time Although not common, some older images and statues of Saint Francis of Assisi show him balancing three orbs on his shoulders. They appear to be globes, heavenly realms, or the e...

January 26: Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops First Century Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saints of stomach disorders Saint Paul could not do it alone Today’s saints were two bishops from the apostolic period of the Church, those decades immediately following the death and resurrection of Our Lord. In this grace-filled time, the Apostles and Saint Paul were carving the first deep furrows...

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

1567–1622 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of writers and journalists A talented gentleman of sterling character embodies holiness It is almost an act of rudeness to limit the life of today’s saint to a page or two. Saint Francis de Sales was a religious celebrity in his own day and age. He was an erudite, humble, tough, and zealous priest and bishop. He was holy and known to be holy...

January 23: Saint Marianne Cope, Virgin (U.S.A.) 1838–1918 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Hawaiʻi, lepers, outcasts, and sufferers of HIV/AIDS She learned generosity at home and lived it her whole life Today’s saint was a model female Franciscan who emulated Saint Francis’ heroic example of personally caring for the outcasts of all outcasts—lepers. Saints are not born,...

January 22: Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children (U.S.A.) Memorial; Liturgical Color: White or Violet Abortion is a black eye on the handsome face of America At 3:00 a.m. on March 13, 1964, a young woman parked her car next to her apartment building in Queens, New York. She got out and started walking toward the door when, in the darkness, she spotted someone in her path. She...

January 22: Saint Vincent, Deacon and Martyr Late Third Century–c. 304 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of vintners, brickmakers, and sailors A Deacon’s bloody witness impresses the Christian world There are a few famous saints who bear the name Vincent. Today’s saint is the first Vincent. He was a deacon from the town of Zaragoza, Spain. Zaragoza hosts a famous shrine to Our Lady of t...

January 21: Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr c. 291–c. 304 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red or White Patron Saint of young girls, rape victims, and chastity A child knows that God is a person who deserves to be loved The names of only the earliest saints and martyrs are embedded in the Roman Canon, Eucharistic Prayer I. Saint Agnes is among those listed (Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecil...

January 20: Saint Sebastian, Martyr Late Third Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of athletes, soldiers, and victims of the plague A Roman soldier makes a rugged convert and stoic martyr The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary are the most universally depicted scenes in Christian art. There is perhaps not a Catholi...

January 20: Saint Fabian, Pope and Martyr c. 200–250 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of Rome The popes of the third century knew how to die In the present-day suburbs of Rome, tour buses navigate winding, narrow, tree-lined roads to carry modern pilgrims to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus. The pilgrims descend a steep staircase until they find themselves in a vast, dark, under...

January 17: Saint Anthony of the Desert, Abbot 251–356 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of butchers, skin diseases, gravediggers, and swine A solitary monk trades the world for the desert sands Many extraordinary people who live heroic, path-breaking lives remain unknown to posterity for one simple reason—no one writes their biography. How many other saints, heroes, and martyrs would...

January 13: Saint Hilary, Bishop and Doctor c. 310–c. 367 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of lawyers A pagan discovers Christ, converts, and then suffers for Him Today’s saint was born a pagan, to pagans, in a pagan city. But his broad and deep education brought him into contact with Holy Scripture, where he found the truth he did not know he was seeking. He became a Cathol...

The Baptism of the Lord First Century; Sunday after January 6 or the Monday after the Epiphany Feast; Liturgical Color: White/Gold He humbly bowed His head as an example, not because He was imperfect Who would not want a doctor who, before he cuts, lifts his shirt a little, shows his own scar, and says to the patient, “I had the same. It’s going to be alright!” What soldier would not be just a lit...

January 7: Saint Raymond of Peñafort, Priest c. 1175–1275 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of canon lawyers and medical record librarians He wove scripture and the law into a harmonious tapestry Today’s saint lived numerous lives inside of his one hundred years on earth. He was an intellectual prodigy who was teaching university-level philosophy by the age of twenty and who...

January 6: Saint André Bessette, Religious (Canada; U.S.A.) 1845–1937 Optional Memorial (Canada & U.S.A.); Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of family caregivers He loved the Word of God, though he could not read Saint Paul teaches in his letter to the Romans that faith comes by hearing. It’s a good thing it doesn’t come only by reading. Until modern times, a relatively small percentage of...

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...

January 6: The Epiphany of the Lord January 6 or the first Sunday after January 1 where this feast is not a Holy Day of Obligation Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White/Gold Catholicism did multiculturalism before anyone else The Feast of the Epiphany has traditionally been considered more theologically important than almost any other Feast Day, including Christmas. The early Christians had only Scri...

January 3: The Most Holy Name of Jesus Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Names are powerful, and none is more powerful than Jesus Mary and Joseph did not sit across from each other at the kitchen table in the evenings debating a name for their child. They didn’t flip through the pages of a book of saints or bounce ideas off of their friends and family. The baby’s name was chosen for them...

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,...

January 1: Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God Solemnity; Holy Day of Obligation (in USA: unless a Saturday or Monday) Eighth Day of the Octave of Christmas; Liturgical Color: White No one knew Jesus like Mary No one falls in love with a nature. We fall in love with a person. A woman loves a man, not mankind. And a mother pinches the pudgy little cheeks of a newborn baby, not the cheeks of a newb...

December 31: Saint Sylvester I, Pope c. Late Third century—335 Optional Memorial; Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of the Benedictines A new captain pilots the ship of the Church in calmer seas One thousand four hundred years before Christ, approximately when Moses led the Jewish people out of Egypt, a pharaoh ordered his slaves to hew an enormous obelis...

December 29: Saint Thomas Becket, Bishop and Martyr c. 1119–1170 Optional Memorial; Liturgical color: Red Patron Saint of the clergy Murder in the Cathedral! Four knights hustled down the nave of England’s Canterbury Cathedral, weighed down with tackle, and found the church’s strong man. Eyes narrowed. Teeth clenched. Hard words were spit back and forth. Tempers. A tussle. Then the four knights br...

December 28: The Holy Innocents, Martyrs c. 1 A.D. Feast; Fourth day in the Octave of Christmas; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saints of babies  No one is less deserving of death than a baby Herod the Great was not great. He was evil. Herod the Sociopath, or Herod the Devil, would be more accurate titles. Herod murdered his own wife and preserved her corpse in honey. He had two of his own sons stra...