Catholic Saints & Feasts
"Catholic Saints & Feasts" offers a dramatic reflection on each saint and feast day of the General Calendar of the Catholic Church. The reflections are taken from the four volume book series: "Saints & Feasts of the Catholic Calendar," written by Fr. Michael Black. These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.
Episodes
First Century
Feast; Liturgical Color: Red
Patron Saint of artists, physicians, and surgeons
A disciple of Christ gives the Church two foundational works
Saint Luke was one of the four Evangelists but not one of the Twelve Apostles. Like Saint Mark, Luke was not among that select group who walked step by step alongside Jesus as he journeyed through Palestine. Luke was more likely a disciple of Saint Pa...
c. Mid First Century–c. 110
Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red
Patron Saint of the Church in Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa
An early Bishop-martyr elaborates on Catholic theology
Although not the most famous Saint Ignatius in the Church, today’s saint was the first to offer a theology of martyrdom. He also wrote seven famous letters en route to his ritual death in Rome which ...
c.1174–1243
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of brides, widows, and Silesia
A wife and mother spreads the faith like a bishop
On every limb of the tangled branches of Saint Hedwig’s family tree sits a duke, landgrave, prince, king, queen, and count. The roots of Hedwig’s aristocratic tree likewise spread up and down the hills and valleys of Europe’s heartland. Her uncles, aunts,...
1647–1690
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of those with polio, devotees of the Sacred Heart, loss of parents
A cloistered nun’s visions of the Sacred Heart impact the Church like a meteor
Today’s saint, in the eyes of the world, was nothing special. She grew up in a medium-sized town, never traveled, received a standard education, was not wealthy, had normal intell...
1515–1582
Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of headache sufferers and lacemakers
A rich, fiery personality purifies herself and the Carmelites
The call for reform of the Church has rung out through the centuries down to today. However, it is largely misplaced. Reform of Church structures is required periodically for her internal well-running. But purification is needed mo...
c. Late Second Century–222
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red
Patron Saint of cemetery workers
A slave takes charge of a catacomb and rises to the papacy
Popes owned slaves for centuries to row their boats, cook their meals, and care for their horses and carriages. Kings, nobles, and middle-class families owned slaves. Slavery was a ubiquitous institution not necessarily rooted in rac...
1881–1963
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of papal delegates
A smart, fatherly priest becomes a warm-hearted pope
The first Pope John XXIII was an amoral antipope. He was one of three competing popes between 1409–1417, the confusing, final chapter of the Western Schism whose power struggles and political intrigues tore at the fabric of the Church between 1378–1417. When today’s ...
Third Century
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red
Patron Saint of Paris
A missionary bishop is beheaded and the Church’s eldest daughter thrives
Therapod, Spinosaurus, Ornithopod, Ceratopsid, Triceratops. Creatures with strange names from long ago with three toes, sharp protruding vertebrae, duck heads, three horns and jaws that crushed like the serrated walls of a trash compactor. A c...
1541–1609
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of pharmacists
“Either Christ or nothing!” was his cure for every ill
Today’s saint was among that first wave of post-Council of Trent priests and founders whose purification of the Church started with themselves. Saint John Leonardi was a man ardently in love with Christ and Mary and the sacred field of the Catholic Church, where th...
1801–1890
Memorial; Liturgical color: White
As mellow as a breeze, as elegant as a swan, he walked alone the path to Rome
Pope Benedict XVI, a professional theologian, did not typically perform beatification ceremonies, instead entrusting them to his Cardinals. But such was Benedict’s immense respect for Cardinal John Henry Newman’s life and thought that the Pope not only personall...
Memorial; Liturgical color: White
Patroness of Malaga, Spain, and the Archdiocese of Vancouver
Mary comes to the rescue, and the Catholic West avoids the fate of the Orthodox East
In 1204 Venetian Crusaders traveling to the Holy Land sacked Constantinople. Debts were not being paid, so something had to be done. Relics were packed up and shipped back to Italy, as well as gold, silver, precious stones, a...
c. 1030–1101
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of Calabria, Italy, and of Germany
Solitary confinement is not a punishment when it is voluntary and shared with God
Today’s saint was born in an unknown year. He left his native Cologne to study in Rheims, France, as a young man and was ordained a priest around 1055. Aware of Bruno’s obvious talents, the Bishop of Rheims demanded that th...
1811–1849
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Invoked against the loss of parents
When the call came, she was prepared to say “Yes”
The story of today’s Blessed is largely one of waiting for the hammer to strike. Years of quiet, humble, and faithful generosity to family, the Church, and students prepared Eulalie (her baptismal name) for the moment when she was asked to sacri...
1905-1938
Optional Memorial: Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of Mercy
Her humble sail caught a powerful theological wind
The martyr Saint Faustino was killed in the second decade of the second century in northern Italy under the emperor Hadrian. Nothing else is known of him. Today’s saint was baptized Helen and, for unknown reasons, was given the martyr’s name when making her first religio...
1819–1867
Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Invoked against cancer
A good man becomes a great priest serving immigrants in the young United States
Ship after ship, riding low in the water with the weight of thousands of European immigrants, docked in the harbors of the great coastal cities of the United States in the nineteenth century. Transatlantic ship passage was by ...
c. 1182–1226
Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of animals, ecology, and merchants. Co-patron of Italy
A merchant’s son of eccentric sensibilities goes radical
Though originally baptized by his mother as Giovanni (John) in honor of Saint John the Baptist, today’s saint was renamed Francesco, or “Frenchy,” by his father Pietro de Bernardone after Pietro returned home from trading in France. ...
Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
A personal spiritual bodyguard watches your back
Intuition is a fully formed way of thinking. It is more than just the occasional hunch or subtle perception. Native instinct, or “gut,” is used to calculate, discern, and decide on matters big and small throughout daily life. We think we are dryly logical about a decision to trust one accountant and not another, to fr...
1873–1897
Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of florists, missions, and aviators
A sensitive country girl wades into the deep
Thérèse Martin was a weepy child, as emotionally brittle as porcelain. She was easily offended and easily pleased. A furled brow or a sideways glance from her father would dissolve her into tears. A beautiful flower or a kind word and she ...
c. 345–420
Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
Patron Saint of archeologists, Biblical scholars, and librarians
A prickly scholar translates the Bible into Latin forever and always
Today’s saint was living in Antioch in the 370s when he had a vision. Jerome was standing in the presence of the seated Christ, who asked him who he was. “I am a Christian,” Jerome responded. “LIAR!” Jesus yelled. “...
Feast; Liturgical Color: White
Patrons of soldiers (Michael); mailmen (Gabriel); travelers and the blind (Raphael)
The air between God and man is thick with mystical beings
It is a principle of Catholic theology that salvation is mediated, that individual man does not go to God alone, and that God does not come to man alone. This means that there are layers of words, symb...
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