The beautiful daughter of Gabinius, a priest, and niece of Pope Caius, St. Susanna refused Emperor’s Diocletian request that she marry his son-in-law, Maximian. She converted two of her uncles, Claudius and Maximus, to Christianity. They were court officers sent by Diocletian to persuade her to marry. Diocletian was enraged by her actions. He sent one of his favorites, Julian, to deal with the matter. Julian executed Maximus, Claudius, his wife Praepedigna, and their two sons by burning them to death at Cumae. Then, he beheaded Susanna and her father. There was a Susanna who lived in Rome, but the details of the story are fictitious. Her feast day is August 11th.
St. Ada is a lesser-known early Christian saint venerated primarily in parts of Europe. She lived in the 7th century and is often associated with the Benedictine tradition. Ada was the abbess of a convent in France, most likely in Le Mans, where she devoted her life to the service of God and the care of her fellow sisters. Her leadership and sanctity earned her a lasting reputation of holiness.
Though not much is documented about her life, she is often remembered for her piety and dedication to her monastic community. Ada’s feast day is celebrated on December 4. As with many early saints, details of her life may be scarce, but her example as a religious leader remains significant within the Church.
St. Seraphina, also known as St. Fina, was born in 1238 in San Gimignano, Italy. She is a beloved saint known for her great patience and acceptance of suffering. Fina was afflicted with a severe and debilitating illness at a young age, which left her paralyzed. Despite her immense physical pain and the hardship of her condition, she offered her suffering to God with remarkable grace and trust in His will.
Fina’s devotion to God deepened through her suffering. She lived on a wooden board for several years, as her body was too weak to move. According to tradition, during her illness, she experienced a vision of St. Gregory the Great, who told her that she would pass away on the anniversary of his death, which she did on March 12, 1253.
One of the most well-known miracles attributed to St. Fina happened after her death. As her body was being prepared for burial, white violets bloomed on the board where she lay, and these flowers still bloom every spring in San Gimignano.
St. Fina is honored as a patron of those who suffer from chronic or terminal illnesses, and her story is one of hope, endurance, and trust in God’s providence, even in the midst of great suffering.
St. Rita of Cascia (1381–1457) is a beloved saint in the Catholic Church, known as the “Saint of the Impossible” and a powerful intercessor for difficult situations. Born in Roccaporena, near Cascia, Italy, she faced many challenges throughout her life but is celebrated for her deep faith, patience, and devotion to God.
Key Aspects of St. Rita’s Life:
Marriage and Family Life: At a young age, Rita was married to an abusive man named Paolo Mancini, with whom she had two sons. Despite her husband’s harsh treatment, she maintained a peaceful and forgiving attitude, eventually leading to Paolo’s conversion before his death. After Paolo was murdered in a feud, Rita forgave his killers, even though her sons initially sought revenge. Through her prayers, they also came to forgive, and both died of illness soon after.
Religious Life: Following the deaths of her husband and sons, Rita sought to enter the Augustinian convent in Cascia. Initially, the nuns refused her due to her past association with a violent family feud. However, through prayer and persistence, Rita was eventually accepted. Her life as a nun was marked by deep humility, charity, and mystical experiences.
The Stigmata: Toward the end of her life, Rita received a partial stigmata, specifically a wound on her forehead, said to resemble the wound of Christ from the crown of thorns. She bore this wound for the remaining 15 years of her life, offering her suffering for the love of Christ and the Church.
Legacy: St. Rita is invoked as a patroness of impossible causes, marital difficulties, and those suffering from physical or emotional wounds. Her feast day is celebrated on May 22. Pilgrims visit her shrine in Cascia, and many attest to her miraculous intercessions.
St. Rita’s life is an inspiring example of forgiveness, endurance in suffering, and faith in God’s providence, even in seemingly impossible circumstances.
St.Marianne Cope, O.S.F. is also known as St. Marianne of Moloka’i. She was born in Germany on January 23, 1838 and spent much of her life working in Hawai’i working with lepers on the island of Moloka’i.
She was beatified in 2005 and declared a saint by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
Cope was born on January 23, 1838 in Heppenheim, in what was then the Grand Duchy of Hesse. Today, that region is part of Germany. She was baptized Maria Anna Barbara Koob, which was later changed to Cope.
Just a year after her birth, her family emigrated to the United States, settling in Utica. New York. Cope attended a parish school until she reached the eighth grade. By that time, her father had become an invalid and she went to work in a factory to support the family.
Her father died in 1862, and this along with her siblings maturity, permitted her to leave the factory to pursue a religious life. She became a novitiate of the Sisters of the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis based in Syracuse, New York. She took the name Marianne when she completed her formation.
German-speaking immigrants settled in large numbers in her area of New York state, so she became a teacher and later a principal at a school for immigrant children.
Cope also helped direct the opening of the first two Catholic hospitals in central New York. She arranged for students from the Geneva Medical College in New York to work at the hospital, but also stipulated that patients should be able to refuse treatment by them. It was one of the first times in history that the right of a patient to refuse treatment was recognized.
By 1883, Cope had become the Superior General of her congregation. It was at this time she received a plea for help from leprosy sufferers in Hawaii. King Kalakaua himself sent the letter asking for aid in treating patients who were isolated on the island of Moloka’i. The King had already been declined by more than 50 other religious institutes.
Mother Marianne, as she was then known, left Syracuse with six sisters to attend to the sick, and arrived on November 8,1883.
Once arrived, Mother Marianne managed a hospital on the island of O’ahu, where victims of leprosy were sent for triage. The most severe patients were sent to the island of Moloka’i.
The next year, Mother Marianne helped establish the Malulani hospital on the island of Maui.
Her tenure at Malulani hospital did not last as she was soon called back to O’ahu to deal with claims of abuse from the government-appointed administrator there. Upon arrival and following an initial investigation, Mother Marianne demanded that he resign or she would leave. The government dismissed the administrator and gave her full management of the hospital there.
Although Mother Marianne was getting older, he workload only seemed to increase. Soon, she was responsible for orphans of women who had contracted the disease as well as clergy who had contracted the disease while working with lepers.
Eventually, Mother Marianne’s work became a burden on her frail body and she was confined to a wheelchair. Despite this limitation, she continued to work tirelessly. Many noticed that despite all her years of work she never contracted leprosy herself, which many regarded as a miracle in itself.
Mother Marianne passed away on August 9, 1918 and was buried at Bishop Home.
In the years following her death, several miracles were reported in her name. In 1993, a woman was miraculously cured after multiple organ failure following prayers to Mother Marianne. The woman’s subsequent recovery was certified by the Church and Mother Marianne was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on May 14, 2005.
After her beatification, Mother Marianne’s remains were moved to Syracuse, New York and placed in a shrine.
On December 6, 2011, an additional miracle was credited to her and approved by Benedict.
On October 21, 2012, she was officially canonized by Benedict.
“They didn’t know who they were.” This is how Hilary summed up the problem with the Arian heretics of the fourth century.
St.Hilary, on the other hand, knew very well who he was — a child of a loving God who had inherited eternal life through belief in the Son of God. He hadn’t been raised as a Christian but he had felt a wonder at the gift of life and a desire to find out the meaning of that gift. He first discarded the approach of many people who around him, who believed the purpose of life was only to satisfy desires. He knew he wasn’t a beast grazing in a pasture. The philosophers agreed with him. Human beings should rise above desires and live a life of virtue, they said. But Hilary could see in his own heart that humans were meant for even more than living a good life.
If he didn’t lead a virtuous life, he would suffer from guilt and be unhappy. His soul seemed to cry out that wasn’t enough to justify the enormous gift of life. So Hilary went looking for the giftgiver. He was told many things about the divine — many that we still hear today: that there were many Gods, that God didn’t exist but all creation was the result of random acts of nature, that God existed but didn’t really care for his creation, that God was in creatures or images. One look in his own soul told him these images of the divine were wrong. God had to be one because no creation could be as great as God. God had to be concerned with God’s creation — otherwise why create it?
At that point, Hilary tells us, he “chanced upon” the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. When he read the verse where God tells Moses “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14), Hilary said, “I was frankly amazed at such a clear definition of God, which expressed the incomprehensible knowledge of the divine nature in words most suited to human intelligence.” In the Psalms and the Prophets he found descriptions of God’s power, concern, and beauty. For example in Psalm 139, “Where shall I go from your spirit?”, he found confirmation that God was everywhere and omnipotent.
But still he was troubled. He knew the giftgiver now, but what was he, the recipient of the gift? Was he just created for the moment to disappear at death? It only made sense to him that God’s purpose in creation should be “that what did not exist began to exist, not that what had begun to exist would cease to exist.” Then he found the Gospels and read John’s words including “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God…” (John 1:1-2). From John he learned of the Son of God and how Jesus had been sent to bring eternal life to those who believed. Finally his soul was at rest. “No longer did it look upon the life of this body as troublesome or wearisome, but believed it to be what the alphabet is to children… namely, as the patient endurance of the present trials of life in order to gain a blissful eternity.” He had found who he was in discovering God and God’s Son Jesus Christ.
After becoming a Christian, he was elected bishop of Poitiers in what is now France by the laity and clergy. He was already married with one daughter named Apra.
Not everyone at that time had the same idea of who they were. The Arians did not believe in the divinity of Christ and the Arians had a lot of power including the support of the emperor Constantius. This resulted in many persecutions. When Hilary refused to support their condemnation of Saint Athanasius he was exiled from Poitiers to the East in 356. The Arians couldn’t have had a worse plan — for themselves.
Hilary really had known very little of the whole Arian controversy before he was banished. Perhaps he supported Athanasius simply because he didn’t like their methods. But being exiled from his home and his duties gave him plenty of time to study and write. He learned everything he could about what the Arians said and what the orthodox Christians answered and then he began to write. “Although in exile we shall speak through these books, and the word of God, which cannot be bound, shall move about in freedom.” The writings of his that still exist include On the Trinity, a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, and a commentary on the Psalms. He tells us about the Trinity, “For one to attempt to speak of God in terms more precise than he himself has used: — to undertake such a thing is to embark upon the boundless, to dare the incomprehensible. He fixed the names of His nature: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whatever is sought over and above this is beyond the meaning of words, beyond the limits of perception, beyond the embrace of understanding.”
After three years the emperor kicked him back to Poitiers, because, we are told by Sulpicius Severus, the emperor was tired of having to deal with the troublemaker, “a sower of discord an a disturber of the Orient.” But no one told Hilary he had to go straight back to his home and so he took a leisurely route through Greece and Italy, preaching against the Arians as he went.
In the East he had also heard the hymns used by Arians and orthodox Christians as propaganda. These hymns were not based on Scripture as Western hymns but full of beliefs about God. Back at home, Hilary started writing hymns of propaganda himself to spread the faith. His hymns are the first in the West with a known writer.
Some of use may wonder at all the trouble over what may seem only words to us now. But Hilary wasn’t not fighting a war of words, but a battle for the eternal life of the souls who might hear the Arians and stop believing in the Son of God, their hope of salvation.
The death of Constantius in 361 ended the persecution of the orthodox Christians. Hilary died in 367 or 368 and was proclaimed a doctor of the Church in 1851.
In His Footsteps: In Exodus, the Prophets, and the Gospel of John, Hilary found his favorite descriptions of God and God’s relationship to us. What verses of Scripture describe God best for you? If you aren’t familiar with Scripture, look up the verses that Hilary found. What do they mean to you?
Prayer: Saint Hilary of Poitiers, instead of being discouraged by your exile, you used your time to study and write. Help us to bring good out of suffering and isolation in our own lives and see adversity as an opportunity to learn about or share our faith.
St. Julie (Julia) Billiart was born in 1751 and died in 1816. As a child, playing “school” was Julie’s favorite game. When she was sixteen, to help support her family, she began to teach “for real”. She sat on a haystack during the noon recess and told the biblical parables to the workers. Julie carried on this mission of teaching throughout her life, and the Congregation she founded continues her work.
Julie was the fifth of seven children. She attended a little one room school in Cuvilly. She enjoyed all of her studies, but she was particularly attracted to the religion lessons taught by the parish priest. Recognizing something “special” in Julie, the priest secretly allowed her to make her First Communion at the age of nine, when the normal age at that time, was thirteen. She learned to make short mental prayers and to develop a great love for Jesus in the Eucharist.
A murder attempt on her father shocked her nervous system badly. A period of extremely poor heath for Julie began, and was to last for thirty years. For twenty-two of these years she was completely paralyzed. All of her sufferings and pain she offered up to God.
When the French Revolution broke out, Julie offered her home as a hiding place for loyal priests. Because of this, Julie became a hunted prey. Five times in three years she was forced to flee in secret to avoid compromising her friends who were hiding her.
At this time she was privileged to receive a vision. She saw her crucified Lord surrounded by a large group of religious women dressed in a habit she had never seen before. An inner voice told her that these would be her daughters and that she would begin an institute for the Christian education of young girls. She and a rich young woman founded the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.
At Amiens, the two women and a few companions began living a religious life in 1803. In 1804, Julie was miraculously cured of her illness and walked for the first time in twenty-two years. In 1805, Julie and three companions made their profession and took their final vows. She was elected as Mother General of the young Congregation.
In 1815, Mother taxed her ever poor health by nursing the wounded and feeding the starving left from the battle of Waterloo. For the last three months of her life, she again suffered much. She died peacefully on April 8, 1816 at 64 years of age. Julie was beatified on May 13, 1906, and was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1969. Her feast day is April 8th.
Although little is known about St. Simon Stock’s early life, legend has it that the name Stock, meaning “tree trunk,” derives from the fact that, beginning at age twelve, he lived as a hermit in a hollow tree trunk of an oak tree. It is also believed that, as a young man, he went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where he joined a group of Carmelites with whom he later returned to Europe. Simon Stock founded many Carmelite Communities, especially in University towns such as Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, and Bologna, and he helped to change the Carmelites from a hermit Order to one of mendicant friars. In 1254 he was elected Superior-General of his Order at London. Simon Stock’s lasting fame came from an apparition he had in Cambridge, England, on July 16, 1251, at a time when the Carmelite Order was being oppressed. In it the Virgin Mary appeared to him holding the brown scapular in one hand. Her words were: “Receive, my beloved son, this scapular of thy Order; it is the special sign of my favor, which I have obtained for thee and for thy children of Mount Carmel. He who dies clothed with this habit shall be preserved from eternal fire.
It is the badge of salvation, a shield in time of danger, and a pledge of special peace and protection.” The scapular (from the Latin, scapula, meaning “shoulder blade”) consists of two pieces of cloth, one worn on the chest, and the other on the back, which were connected by straps or strings passing over the shoulders. In certain Orders, monks and nuns wear scapulars that reach from the shoulders almost to the ground as outer garments. Lay persons usually wear scapulars underneath their clothing; these consist of two pieces of material only a few inches square. There are elaborate rules governing the wearing of the scapular: although it may be worn by any Catholic, even an infant, the investiture must be done by a priest. And the scapular must be worn in the proper manner; if an individual neglects to wear it for a time, the benefits are forfeited. The Catholic Church has approved eighteen different kinds of scapulars of which the best known is the woolen brown scapular, or the Scapular of Mount Carmel, that the Virgin Mary bestowed on Simon Stock. His feast day is May 16th.
St. Bibiana, Virgin and Martyr (Feast day – December 2nd) Other than the name, nothing is known for certain about this saint. However, we have the following account from a later tradition.
In the year 363, Julian the Apostate made Apronianus Governor of Rome. St. Bibiana suffered in the persecution started by him. She was the daughter of Christians, Flavian, a Roman knight, and Dafrosa, his wife. Flavian was tortured and sent into exile, where he died of his wounds. Dafrosa was beheaded, and their two daughters, Bibiana and Demetria, were stripped of their possessions and left to suffer poverty. However, they remained in their house, spending their time in fasting and prayer.
Apronianus, seeing that hunger and want had no effect upon them, summoned them. Demetria, after confessing her Faith, fell dead at the feet of the tyrant. St. Bibiana was reserved for greater sufferings. She was placed in the hands of a wicked woman called Rufina, who in vain endeavored to seduce her. She used blows as well as persuasion, but the Christian virgin remained faithful.
Enraged at the constancy of this saintly virgin, Apronianus ordered her to be tied to a pillar and beaten with scourges, laden with lead plummets, until she expired. The saint endured the torments with joy, and died under the blows inflicted by the hands of the executioner.
