Lawrence Justinian, C.R.S.A. is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church. He was a canon regular who was appointed as a bishop and became the first Patriarch of Venice. Lawrence Justinian was a member of the well-known Giustiniani family, which includes several saints. The piety of his mother seems to have served as an inspiration for his own spirituality, as he chose of a life of prayer...

St. Rosalia (1130–1166 A.D.) was born to a wealthy and noble Norman family, descendants of Charlemagne who had migrated to Sicily. From a young age Rosalia was strongly drawn to Christ, which caused her to leave her life of wealth and comfort to follow Him in complete solitude as a hermitess. Tradition holds that St. Rosalia was led by two angels to a cave near Palermo where she spent...

Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604 A.D.) was the son of a wealthy Roman senator. His mother and two of his aunts are also saints, which provided him with a strong and devout religious upbringing. His skill in grammar and rhetoric were exceptional, and he followed in his father's political footsteps by serving in public office as the prefect of Rome. Discerning a call to the religious...

Today the Church honors another saint of the Old Testament, Eleazar, nephew of Moses and son of Aaron. Eleazar or Elʽazar was a priest in the Hebrew Bible, the second High Priest, succeeding his father Aaron after he died. Eleazar played a number of roles during the course of the Exodus, from creating the plating for the altar from the firepans of Korah's assembly, to performing the ritual...

St. Giles (7th c.) was born to a wealthy and noble Greek family. He devoted his life to the things of God and grew in sanctity, but found that his material and spiritual riches drew unwanted praise and attention. To escape prestige, he sold all of his possessions, gave his wealth to the poor, and moved away to Gaul (present day France) to live in solitude in the wilderness as a cave-dwelling...