St. Apollonius was a Roman senator who was denounced as a Christian by one of his slaves. The Praetorian prefect, Sextus Tigidius Perennis, arrested him, also putting the slave to death as an informer. Perennis demanded that Apollonius denounce the faith, and when he refused, the case was remanded to the Roman senate. There a debate took place between Perennis and Apollonius that clearly...

Harding was born in Sherborne, Dorset, in the Kingdom of England, and spoke English, Norman, French, and Latin. He was placed in Sherborne Abbey at a young age and educated at Sherborne, but eventually left the monastery and became a travelling scholar, journeying with one devout companion into Scotland and afterwards to Paris and then to Rome. He eventually moved to Molesme Abbey in Burgundy,...

St. Bernadette Soubirous (1844–1879) was the eldest of nine children born to an impoverished family from Lourdes, France. She was a sickly child who suffered from severe asthma her entire life. While out collecting firewood on February 11, 1858, at the age of 14, Bernadette saw an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a grotto cave on the banks of the Gave River. It was the first of...

Labre was born in 1748 in the village of Amettes, near Arras, in the former Province of Artois in the north of France. He was the eldest of fifteen children of a prosperous shopkeeper, Jean-Baptiste Labre, and his wife, Anne Grandsire. Labre had an uncle, a parish priest, living some distance from his family home; this uncle gladly received him, and undertook his early education for the...

Peter was a boy born of Castilian nobility who misspent a worldly youth. He was educated by his uncle, the bishop of Astorga, Spain. He was ordained a priest, primarily as a step to high office. He then obtained a special papal dispensation to become Canon of Palencia when he was officially still too young. During a grand Christmas Day entrance into the city, his horse was spooked by the noise...