Catholic Saints & Feasts

December 27: Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist c. Early First Century–c. 100 Feast; Third day in the Octave of Christmas; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of authors, loyalty, and friendship Outside of Christianity, few people believe God is love Saint Jerome, while living in Palestine in the late 300s, relates a touching anecdote still being told at that time about John the Evangelist.  When...

December 26: Saint Stephen, Martyr c. Early First Century–c. 36 Feast; Second day in the Octave of Christmas; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of deacons, altar servers, stonemasons, and headaches Christ rises in indignation as the first martyr is brutalized The practical explanation for a historical event is normally the most convincing. Psychological analysis, guesswork, and overinterpreting f...

December 25: The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas) c. 0 Solemnity Liturgical Color: White God robes Himself in flesh, and mission impossible begins Since the dawn of time the pages of pagan mythology filled men’s imaginations to the brim with wondrous stories. Educated men who could read and write Latin and Greek, broad-minded men trained in philosophy, believed that the forests were thick with fai...

December 23: Saint John of Kanty, Priest 1390–1473 Optional Memorial; Liturgical color: Violet Patron Saint of Poland and Lithuania Humility, austerity, work, and intelligence unite in one man Conquering generals returning home from the rim of the Empire were awarded triumphal parades through Rome’s crowded masses. The booty of war entered the city first on carts—gold plate, silver goblets, piles...

December 21: Saint Peter Canisius, Priest and Doctor 1521–1597 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Violet Patron Saint of Germany A zealous Jesuit is the tip of the Counter-Reformation spear The deep impact of today’s saint so shook Germany that the reverberations of his work were still being felt centuries after his death. Saint Peter Canisius composed question and answer German-language catechi...

December 14: Saint John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor 1542–1591 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of contemplatives, mystics, and Spanish poets A priest’s love of God is purified by the blue flames of contemplation and mistreatment The Protestant Reformation sparked a purifying fire in the Catholic Church. Like a prairie fire scorches the thick grasses, thistle, and weeds, so the he...

December 13: Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr c. Late third century–304 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of virgins, the blind, and Syracuse, Sicily A garden enclosed, no man would lock her in his embrace Today’s saint is one of only eight women (Mary included) commemorated in Eucharistic Prayer I: “Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and all the Saints…” It was P...

December 12: Our Lady of Guadalupe (U.S.A.) 1531 Feast; Liturgical Color: White Patroness of the Americas A miracle hangs, frozen in time, in Mexico City The humble Indian Juan Diego and his wife, Maria Lucia, had accepted baptism from the Franciscan missionaries laboring in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), the greatest city of Spain’s most impressive colony, the future Mexico. After his wife died in 1...

December 11: Saint Damasus I, Pope c. 305–384 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Archaeologists A dynamic pope mentors Jerome and embellishes catacombs Damasus reigned in the era when the popes died in their beds. The long winter of Roman oppression had ended. The arenas were empty. Christians were still occasionally martyred, but not in Rome. The many popes of the 200s who...

December 10: Our Lady of Loreto Optional Memorial; Liturgical color: white Patron Saint of air crews and builders Heaven will reinforce what we know of Christ and Mary When Jesus said, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock” (Mt 7:24), He likely had a specific house in mind—His own house in Nazareth where He grew up. The fo...

December 9: Saint Juan Diego, Hermit 1474–1548 Optional Memorial; Liturgical color: white Patron Saint of indigenous people Mary said to Juan: "Am I not here, I who am your mother?" Good things happen to those who go to daily Mass. A very good thing happened to today’s saint on his long trek to daily Mass, something so extraordinary that it permanently altered a continent. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatz...

December 8: The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary c. 15 B.C. Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White Patroness of Brazil, Korea, Philippines, Spain, and the United States Only one person ever chose His own mother The Ark of the Covenant was a sumptuously adorned chest housing the Jews’ most sacred objects: the tablets of the Ten Commandments, a pot of manna, and Aaron’s staff. Before its...

December 7: Saint Ambrose, Bishop and Doctor c. 337–397 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Milan and beekeepers A mighty bishop guides Augustine, admonishes an emperor, and leads his people If the noble Saint Ambrose had brought Saint Augustine into the Church and done nothing else besides, he would have done enough. Augustine’s conversion was a slow boil. He was ripe for baptism wh...

December 6: Saint Nicholas, Bishop c. Third–Fourth Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Russia, sailors, merchants, and children Santa Claus signed the Nicene Creed Traditions the world over are so embedded in the rhythms of daily life that their ubiquity goes unnoticed. Why a birthday cake with lighted candles? Why make a wish and then blow those candles out? The ori...

December 4: Saint John Damascene, Priest and Doctor c. 674–749 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of icon painters and theology students A monk defends images from Christian attack “Christ...did not save us by paintings,” a Synod of Bishops declared in Paris in 825. God, it could be added, did not become an icon. He became a man, and so sanctified creation itself, not just art...

December 3: Saint Francis Xavier, Priest 1506–1552 Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of foreign missions A missionary blazes a path for Christ in India and Japan Today’s great missionary knelt on the floor next to Saint Ignatius Loyola and five other men in a church on Montmartre overlooking Paris in 1534 and took private vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the Pope. It was th...

November 30: Saint Andrew, Apostle First Century Feast; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of Scotland, Greece, fishermen, sailors, and spinsters A big-hearted fisherman becomes a daring Apostle Andrew was a fisherman from Bethsaida in Northern Israel. He lived on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, which is really a lake, where many of Jesus’ miracles took place. Jesus chose mostly fishermen and sm...

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...

November 25: Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr c. Late third–early fourth centuries Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of philosophers, apologists, and all who work with wheels An obscure Egyptian wins the double crown of virgin-martyr The armies of Alexander the Great swept south and east from Greece three hundred and thirty years before the infant Jesus ever gen...

November 24: Saint Andrew Dũng-Lac, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs 1795–1839; Seventeenth–Nineteenth Centuries Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saints of Vietnam Thousands of priests and converts are hunted down, tortured, and cruelly murdered The tide of persecution repeatedly swelled, receded, and swelled once more against today’s martyrs in various eras of Vietnamese history from the sev...

Last Sunday in Ordinary Time: Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White or Gold The vastness of creation serves as the Lord’s footstool This last Sunday in Ordinary Time is dedicated to the very highest understanding of the nature, role, and purpose of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is multifaceted, the deep hues and contours of his personality revealing themselves t...

November 23: Saint Columban, Abbot c.543–615 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of motorcyclists and against floods He led the first wave of Irish monks who stormed Europe Throughout the sixth and seventh centuries, the great gales of Ireland filled the sails of countless boats packed with hardy Irish monks steering toward France. Once on Europe’s northern shores, these men sc...

November 23: Blessed Miguel Agustín Pro, Priest and Martyr (U.S.A.) 1891–1927 Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red The proto-martyr of the age of the image The emaciated holocaust survivor behind the barbed wire, gazing out, bewildered, as the Allied soldiers walk up to the camp. Click. The slack body of a black man hanging from a stout limb, a thick crowd of whites gathered around. Click. A s...

November 23: Saint Clement I, Pope and Martyr First Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of sailors and marble workers Primacy more than infallibility, service more than authority Our loving maternal Church expresses herself through a paternal structure which makes decisions, resolves conflicts, intercedes in disputes, and governs the people who voluntarily gather in her s...

November 22: Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr c. Third Century Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red Patron Saint of Music and Musicians A girl martyr’s mysterious death seizes the imagination The First Eucharistic Prayer, also known as the Roman Canon, is principally a liturgical document. But like so many things liturgical, it also has immense historical value. Only a tiny fraction of the ancient worl...