St. Anthony & Our Lady of Fatima

St. Andrew Bobola Feast date: May 16 Andrew Bobola is a Polish-born martyr. He was born in Sandormir, Poland, in 1591 to a noble family. He was ordained a Jesuit in 1622 and three years later became a parish priest in Vilna, Lithuania, the town in which he had studied. He also served as superior of the Jesuit community for a time. He worked extensively with the sick and made and even stronger efforts to help them during a plague outbreak, but he is best known as a successful missionary to the Orthodox. He did this for almost 20 years, preaching along…

St. Simon Stock Feast date: May 16 On May 16, the Catholic Church remembers Saint Simon Stock, a twelfth- and thirteenth-century Carmelite monk whose vision of the Virgin Mary is the source of the Brown Scapular devotion. Simon was born during 1165 in the English county of Kent. He is said to have been strongly devoted to God from his youth, to the point that he left home at age 12 to live in the forest as a hermit. Following the customs of the earliest monks, he lived on fruit and water and spent his time in prayer and meditation….

St. Isidore Feast date: May 15 Isidore was born in 1070 in Madrid, Spain. His family was poor, and he labored as a farmer on the land owned by a rich man named John de Vergas. He was very pious and such a good worker that de Vergas allowed him to worship daily in the chapel on his property, and because of thes he was often accused by his fellow workers of neglecting his duties because he made prayer a higher priority. Isidore eventually married a woman named Mary, and together they had a son. However their son died while still very…

St. Matthias, Apostle Feast date: May 14 Matthias, whose name means “gift of God”,  was the disciple chosen to replace Judas as one of the twelve Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles state that he was also one of the 72 disciples that the Lord Jesus sent out to preach the good news. Matthias was with the Lord since His Baptism, and was “a witness to Christ’s Resurrection,” according to St. Peter in Acts. He remained with Jesus until His Ascension. According to various traditions, Matthias preached in Cappadocia, Jerusalem, the shores of the Caspian Sea (in modern day Turkey)…

Our Lady of Fatima Feast date: May 13 May 13 is the anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady to three shepherd children in the small village of Fatima in Portugal in 1917.  She appeared six times to Lucia, 9, and her cousins Francisco, 8, and his sister Jacinta, 6, between May 13, 1917 and October 13, 1917. The story of Fatima begins in 1916, when, against the backdrop of the First World War which had introduced Europe to the most horrific and powerful forms of warfare yet seen, and a year before the Communist revolution would plunge Russia and…

Feast of the Ascension Feast date: May 12 The Feast of the Ascension is the fortieth day after Easter Sunday, which commemorates the Ascension of Christ into heaven, according to Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and Acts 1:2. In the Eastern Church this feast was known as analepsis, “the taking up”, and also as the episozomene, the salvation, denoting that by ascending into His glory, Christ completed the work of our redemption. The terms used in the West, ascensio and, occasionally, ascensa, signify that Christ was raised up by His own powers. Tradition designates Mount Olivet near Bethany as the place…

St. Epiphanius of Salamis Feast date: May 12 On May 12 the Catholic Church honors Saint Epiphanius of Salamis, an early monk, bishop and Church Father known for his extensive learning and defense of Catholic teachings in the fourth century. During a 2007 visit with the Orthodox Archbishop of Cyprus, Pope Benedict XVI praised Epiphanius as “a good pastor” who “pointed out to the flock entrusted to him by Christ, the truth in which to believe, the way to take and the pitfalls to avoid.” “At the beginning of this third millennium,” the Pope reflected during the visit, “the Church…

St. Ignatius of Laconi Feast date: May 11 St. Ignatius of Laconi was a Capuchin Friar. He was born in 1701 and died in 1781. He was canonized 1951 by Pius XII. Born the second of seven children in a poor farming family, Francis Ignatius Vincent Peis was so named because his safe delivery through a difficult pregnancy was achieved through the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi.  His mother promised the saint that she would name her unborn baby Francis and that he would join the Capuchins as an adult. Since his early childhood, Francis demonstrated a capacity for hard work in the…

St. Damien of Moloka’i Feast date: May 10 The Catholic Church remembers St. Damien of Molokai on May 10. The Belgian priest sacrificed his life and health to become a spiritual father to the victims of leprosy quarantined on a Hawaiian island. Joseph de Veuser, who later took the name Damien in religious life, was born into a farming family in the Belgian town of Tremlo in 1840. During his youth he felt a calling to become a Catholic missionary, an urge that prompted him to join the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Damien’s final vows…

St. Peter of Tarantaise, bishop Feast date: May 08 Peter was born near Vienne, France in 1102 and died at Bellevaux, France in 1175. He was canonized in 1191. At the age of 20 he entered the Cistercian Order, and convinced his family to enter along with him.  His two brothers and his father entered the religious community of Bonneveaux with him, and his sister also followed thier example and became a religious. Ten years after he entered, Peter was sent to found a new house in the Tarantaise mountains near Geneva, Switzerland.  Here he opened a hospital which also served as a guest house for…