St. Euphrasia (380-410 A.D.) was the only child of noble Christian parents serving the court of the Christian Emperor Theodosius I, their relative, in Constantinople. After her birth her parents vowed to remain celibate in order to commit their lives fully to prayer and penance. Her father died soon after, and Euphrasia moved with her mother to Egypt near a large monastery of nuns. At the age...

St. Luigi Orione (1872-1940) was born in northern Italy and entered a Franciscan friary at the age of 13, but had to leave due to poor health. He became a pupil of St. John Bosco at his Turin oratory for boys, and later entered the diocesan seminary. While still a seminarian he opened his own oratory and boarding school to provide for the Christian training and education of boys. This...

St. Eulogius of Cordoba (9th c.) was a priest from a prominent Christian family in Cordoba (Cordova), Spain. He was well-educated, humble, gentle, friendly, and a gifted leader with the charism of encouragement, especially towards Christians facing martyrdom. In his time Cordoba was the capital of the Muslim conquerors of Catholic Spain. The Muslim leaders allowed Christians to live in...

The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty were a group of Roman soldiers in the Legio XII Fulminata whose martyrdom in 320 for the Christian faith is recounted in traditional martyrologies. They were killed near the city of Sebaste, in Lesser Armenia, victims of the persecutions of Licinius, who after 316, persecuted the Christians of the East. The earliest account of their existence and...

Some Franciscan saints led fairly public lives; Catharine represents the saints who served the Lord in obscurity. Born in Bologna, Catharine was related to the nobility in Ferrara, and was educated at court there. She received a liberal education at the court and developed some interest and talent in painting. In later years as a Poor Clare, Catharine sometimes did manuscript illumination and...