Saint Mary Di Rosa
That the foundress of the Handmaids of Charity, Saint Mary Di Rosa (1813-1855), had a vocation to sanctity was obvious since her childhood. The sixth of nine children, she was born in Brescia to noble and pious parents, who baptised her Paola Francesca Maria.
Saint John of the Cross
St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) is recognized as “the saintliest of poets and the most poetic of saints” (as the Spanish poet Antonio Machado called him) and called Doctor Mysticus. He not only gave us an illuminating mystical doctrine, in which he presents a sure path towards holiness, but at the same time he was a very concrete man, who supported Saint Teresa of Avila in the reform of Carmel.
Saint Lucy
A most pure model of fidelity to Christ to the point of glorious martyrdom, Saint Lucy (†December 13, 304) is centuries later among the most dear to Christian piety, an example for the faithful on their journey to God and a source of inspiration for artists and writers.
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe arises from the apparitions of 1531 to the Indian Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a tangible sign of which remains in the miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin, subjected to various scientific analyses and still preserved at the shrine dedicated to her.
Saint Damasus I
The pontificate of St. Damasus I (304-384) was quite eventful. He rose to the Petrine throne in 366 and led the Church during a phase in which the heresies on the Divine Trinity were raging.
Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto
Today the Church commemorates the relocation of the Holy House of Nazareth, which on December 10 1294 was flown by angels in the Marche region, then part of the Papal States.
Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin
On the morning of Saturday December 9, 1531, the Blessed Virgin appeared to the peasant Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (1474-1548) on the hill of Tepeyac, near Mexico City, presenting herself as “the perfect ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of the one true God.”
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
A sign of sure hope for all the faithful, with the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception the Church recalls that the Blessed Virgin Mary was kept unscathed by original sin from the first moment of her conception.
Saint Ambrose
"Ambrose for bishop!" Who knows how different the history of Milan and its diocese would have been, described for centuries with the adjective "Ambrosian,” without the voice of that child who in 374 shouted the name of the then high imperial official Ambrose (340-397), which was immediately followed by the acclamation of the faithful gathered in the church.
Saint Nicholas of Bari
The title “of Bari” is due to the transfer to the Apulian capital of many of his relics, which took place in 1087.
Saint Sabbas the Archimandrite
First a desert father and then founder of a particular type of monastery, called “lavra,” Saint Sabbas the Archimandrite (439-532) played a substantial role in the spread of Eastern monasticism.
Saint John Damascene
He has been called the “Saint Thomas of the East” and is considered the last of the Eastern Church Fathers. He wrote sublime pages about the Blessed Virgin and was able to refute the then widespread iconoclasm.
