St. Pelagia

Feast date: May 04

Pelagia (originally Margarita) was born as the beautiful daughter of pagan parents, and was said to have caught the eye of the Emperor Diocletian’s son. However, she had no desire to marry. One day, she attended mass, given by the bishop. She was so inspired by his sermon that she anonymously sought counsel through writing on wax tablets. He asked her to come in person.

Under his inspiration, Pelagia was baptized. As a result of this, the emperor’s son turned against her, as did her mother. Together they reported her to the emperor in hopes that her faith would weaken under torture. Diocletian interviewed her, but he failed to persuade her to change her mind and heart about being a Christian.

She ran from home, giving away all of her possessions and setting her slaves free, and lived as a hermit within the mountains. She was called “the beardless hermit,” and went by the name of “Pelagius.” She then died three or four years later, apparently as a result of extreme asceticism, which had emaciated her to the point she could no longer be recognized.

Sts. Philip and James the Less, Apostles

Feast date: May 03

Philip was born in Bethsaida in Galilee and was one of the 12 Apostles that Jesus called. Immediately, Philip began to convert others, finding his friend Nathaniel and telling him that Jesus was the one whom Moses and the other prophets had foretold.

James the Lesser is called “Lesser” because he was younger than the other Apostle by the same name, James the Great. James the less was related in some way to Jesus, and after Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, he became the head of the Church in Jerusalem. He was martyred in the year 62.

St. Athanasius, doctor of the Church

Feast date: May 02

Catholics honor St. Athanasius on May 2. The fourth century bishop is known as “the father of orthodoxy” for his absolute dedication to the doctrine of Christ’s divinity.

St. Athanasius was born to Christian parents living in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 296. His parents took great care to have their son educated, and his talents came to the attention of a local priest who was later canonized as St. Alexander of Alexandria. The priest and future saint tutored Athanasius in theology, and eventually appointed him as an assistant.

Around the age of 19, Athanasius spent a formative period in the Egyptian desert as a disciple of St. Anthony in his monastic community. Returning to Alexandria, he was ordained a deacon in 319, and resumed his assistance to Alexander who had become a bishop. The Catholic Church, newly recognized by the Roman Empire, was already encountering a new series of dangers from within.

The most serious threat to the fourth-century Church came from a priest named Arius, who taught that Jesus could not have existed eternally as God prior to his historical incarnation as a man. According to Arius, Jesus was the highest of created beings, and could be considered “divine” only by analogy. Arians professed a belief in Jesus’ “divinity,” but meant only that he was God’s greatest creature.

Opponents of Arianism brought forth numerous scriptures which taught Christ’s eternal pre-existence and his identity as God. Nonetheless, many Greek-speaking Christians found it intellectually easier to believe in Jesus as a created demi-god, than to accept the mystery of a  Father-Son relationship within the Godhead. By 325, the controversy was dividing the Church and unsettling the Roman Empire.

In that year, Athanasius attended the First Ecumenical Council, held at Nicea to examine and judge Arius’ doctrine in light of apostolic tradition. It reaffirmed the Church’s perennial teaching on Christ’s full deity, and established the Nicene Creed as an authoritative statement of faith. The remainder of Athanasius’ life was a constant struggle to uphold the council’s teaching about Christ.

Near the end of St. Alexander’s life, he insisted that Athanasius succeed him as the Bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius took on the position just as the Emperor Constantine, despite having convoked the Council of Nicea, decided to relax its condemnation of Arius and his supporters. Athanasius continually refused to admit Arius to communion, however, despite the urgings of the emperor.

A number of Arians spent the next several decades attempting to manipulate bishops, emperors and Popes to move against Athanasius, particularly through the use of false accusations. Athanasius was accused of theft, murder, assault, and even of causing a famine by interfering with food shipments.

Arius became ill and died gruesomely in 336, but his heresy continued to live. Under the rule of the three emperors that followed Constantine, and particularly under the rule of the strongly Arian Constantius, Athanasius was driven into exile at least five times for insisting on the Nicene Creed as the Church’s authoritative rule of faith. 

Athanasius received the support of several Popes, and spent a portion of his exile in Rome. However, the Emperor Constantius did succeed in coercing one Pope, Liberius, into condemning Athanasius by having him kidnapped, threatened with death, and sent away from Rome for two years. The Pope eventually managed to return to Rome, where he again proclaimed Athanasius’ orthodoxy.

Constantius went so far as to send troops to attack his clergy and congregations. Neither these measures, nor direct attempts to assassinate the bishop, succeeding in silencing him. However, they frequently made it difficult for him to remain in his diocese. He enjoyed some respite after Constantius’ death in 361, but was later persecuted by Emperor Julian the Apostate, who sought to revive paganism.

In 369, Athanasius managed to convene an assembly of 90 bishops in Alexandria, for the sake of warning the Church in Africa against the continuing threat of Arianism. He died in 373, and was vindicated by a more comprehensive rejection of Arianism at the Second Ecumenical Council, held in 381 at Constantinople.

St. Gregory Nazianzen, who presided over part of that council, described St. Athanasius as “the true pillar of the church,” whose “life and conduct were the rule of bishops, and his doctrine the rule of the orthodox faith.”

Feast of St. Joseph the Worker

Feast date: May 01

St. Joseph has two feast days on the liturgical calendar. The first is March 19—Joseph, the Husband of Mary. The second is May 1—Joseph, the Worker.

“Saint Joseph is a man of great spirit. He is great in faith, not because he speaks his own words, but above all because he listens to the words of the Living God. He listens in silence. And his heart ceaselessly perseveres in the readiness to accept the Truth contained in the word of the Living God,” Pope John Paul II had once said.

There is very little about the life of Joseph in Scripture but still, we know that he was the chaste husband of Mary, the foster father of Jesus, a carpenter and  a man who was not wealthy. We also know that he came from the royal lineage of King David.

We can see from his actions in scripture that Joseph was a compassionate man, and obedient to the will of God. He also loved Mary and Jesus and wanted to protect and provide for them.

Since Joseph does not appear in Jesus’ public life, at his death, or resurrection, many historians believe Joseph had probably died before Jesus entered public ministry.

Joseph is the patron of many things, including the universal Church, fathers, the dying and social justice.

Saint Pius V, Pope

Feast date: Apr 30

St. Pius V was born Michele Ghislieri in 1504 to poor parents of noble lineage at Bosco, near Alexandria, Lombardy on January 17, 1504. He worked as a shepherd until the age of 14 when he encountered two Dominicans who recognized his intelligence and virtue. He joined the Dominicans and was ordained a priest at 24. He taught philosophy and theology for 16 years during which he was elected prior of many houses. He was known for his austere penances, his long hours of prayer and fasting, and the holiness of his speech.

He was elected Bishop of Sutri in 1556, and served as an inquisitor in Milan and Lombardi, and then as inquisitor general of the Church and a cardinal in 1557. He was known in this capacity as an able, yet unflinching man who rigorously fought heresy and corruption wherever he encountered it.

He was elected Pope on January 7, 1566, with the influential backing of his friend St. Charles Borromeo, and took the name Pius V.  He immediately put into action his vast program of reform by getting rid of many of the extravagant luxuries then prevalent in his court. He gave the money usually invested in these luxuries to the poor whom he personally cared for, washing their feet, consoling those near death, and tending to lepers and the very sick. He spent long hours before the Blessed Sacrament despite his heavy workload.

His pontificate was dedicated to applying the reforms of the Council of Trent, raising the standard of morality and reforming the clergy, and strongly supporting foreign missions. The Catechism of the Council of Trent was completed during his reign, and he revised the Roman Breviary and Missal, which remained in use until the reforms of Vatican II.

His six year pontificate saw him constantly at war with two massive enemy forces; the Protestant heretics and the spread of their doctrines in the West, and the Turkish armies who were advancing from the East. He encouraged efforts to battle Protestantism by education and preaching, and giving strong support to the newly formed Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. He excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, and supported Catholics who were oppressed and intimidated by Protestant princes, especially in Germany.

He worked hard to unite the Christian armies against the Turks, and perhaps the most famous success of his papacy was the miraculous victory of the Christian fleet in the battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. The island of Malta was attacked by the Turkish fleet, and nearly every man defending the fortress was killed in battle. The Pope sent out a fleet to meet the enemy, requesting that each man on board pray the Rosary and receive communion. Meanwhile, he called on all of Europe to recite the Rosary and ordered a 40 hour devotion in Rome during which time the battle took place. The Christian fleet, vastly outnumbered by the Turks, inflicted an impossible defeat on the Turkish navy, demolishing the entire fleet.

In memory of the triumph, he declared the day the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary because of her intercession in answering the mass recitation of the Rosary and obtaining the victory. He has also been called ‘the Pope of the Rosary’ for this reason.

Pope Pius V died seven months later on May 1, 1572, of a painful disease, uttering “O Lord, increase my sufferings and my patience!” He is enshrined at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, and was beatified by Clement X in 1672. He was canonized by Clement XI in 1712.

St. Catherine of Siena

Feast date: Apr 29

St. Catherine was a third-order Dominican, peacemaker and counselor to the Pope. She singlehandedly ended the Avignon exile of the successors of Peter in the 14th century.

She is the co-patron of Italy and of Europe.

Born in Siena, on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 1347, Catherine was the 23rd of Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa’s 25 children. Her twin sister died in infancy.

She exhibited an unusually independent character as a child and an exceptionally intense prayer life. When she was seven years old she had the first of her mystical visions, in which she saw Jesus surrounded by saints and seated in glory. In the same year she vowed to consecrate her virginity to Christ. When, at the age of 16, her parents decided that she should marry, she cut off her hair to make herself less appealing, and her father, realizing that he couldn’t contend with her resolve, let her have her way. 

She joined the Dominican Tertiaries and lived a deep and solitary life of prayer and meditation for the next three years in which she had constant mystical experiences, capped, by the end of the three years with an extraordinary union with God granted to only a few mystics, known as ‘mystical marriage.’

St. Catherine suffered many intense periods of desolation alongside her mystical ecstasies, often feeling totally abandoned by God.

She ended her solitude at this point and began tending to the sick, poor, and marginalized, especially lepers. As her reputation for holiness and remarkable personality became known throughout Siena, she attracted a band of disciples, two of whom became her confessors and biographers, and together they served Christ in the poor with even greater ardor.

The Lord called her to a more public life while she was still in her 20s, and she established correspondences with many influential figures, advising and admonishing them and exhorting them to holiness, including the Pope himself who she never hesitated to rebuke when she saw fit.

Great political acts which are attributed to her include achieving peace between the Holy See and Florence who were at war, to convince the Pope to return from his Avignon exile, which he did in 1376, and to heal the great schism between the followers of the legitimate Pope, Urban VI, and those who opposed him in 1380. She achieved this while on her deathbed.

Her Dialogues, one of the classics of Italian literature, are the record of her mystical visions which she dictated in a state of mystical ecstasy.

In 1375, while visiting Pisa, she received the stigmata, even though they never appeared on her body during her lifetime, owing to her request to God. They appeared only on her incorruptible body after her death.

She died in Rome on April 29, 1380, at the age of 33.

St. Gianna Beretta Molla

Feast date: Apr 28

Gianna Beretta Molla was born on October 4, 1922 in Magenta, Italy. She was the tenth of 13 children in her family. She grew up in a devout Catholic home and quickly learned the value of prayer. As a young adult, she joined the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul.

Gianna began to study medicine during World War II. In 1950 she opened her own medical office in Mesero, which was near her hometown. A couple years later she began to specialize in pediatrics and was drawn towards mothers, babies, the elderly, and the poor.

In 1954 Gianna met Pietro Molla, an engineer who worked in her office. In September of 1955 the two became husband and wife. Between 1956 and 1959 the couple had three children, Pierluigi, Maria Zita and Laura.

Gianna embraced the vocation of being a wife and mother with all her being and completely dedicated herself to “forming a truly Christian family.”

In 1961, Gianna became pregnant with their fourth child. It was during this pregnancy that doctors discovered that Gianna had developed a uterine tumor.

The doctors gave her three choices: an abortion, which would save her life and allow her to have more children but take the life of her baby; a complete hysterectomy, which would save her life but prevent her from having more children and take her baby’s life; or removal of the fibroma only, which posed the risk of future complications but could save the life of her baby.

Gianna chose to have only the tumor removed. She was willing to lose her life for the sake of her baby’s. She knew that she may not make it through delivery, but she made it very clear that if a choice needed to be made between saving her own life or the child’s, the child needed to be saved.

Throughout her pregnancy, Gianna found strength in the Lord and asked him to take any pain away from the child.

On April 21, 1962 Gianna Emmanuel Molla was successfully delivered by Cesarean section. However, after complications arose with the tumor, Gianna passed away 7 days later on April 28.

Gianna was beatified by Saint Pope John Paul II on April 24, 1994 and canonized as a saint on May 16, 2004. Her husband and children attended her canonization.

During her canonization, Saint Pope John Paul II said, “Shortly before her wedding, in a letter to her future husband, she wrote: “Love is the most beautiful sentiment that the Lord has placed in the spirit of men.”

“Following the example of Christ, who ‘having loved his own … he loved them to the end’ (John 13:1) this holy mother of a family was heroically faithful to the commitment she took on the day of her marriage. The supreme sacrifice that sealed her life testifies that only the one who has the courage to give himself totally to God and to neighbor finds fulfillment,” he added.

The pope described her as, “a simple, but more than ever, significant messenger of divine love.”

St. Gianna Beretta Molla is the patron saint of mothers, physicians, and unborn children.