St. Colette of Corbie was a carpenter‘s daughter whose parents were near 60 at her birth. Colette was orphaned at age 17, and left in the care of a Benedictine abbot. Her guardian wanted her to marry, but Colette was drawn to religious life. She initially tried to join the Beguines and Benedictines, but failed in her vocation.  On 17 September 1402, at age 21, she became an...

Today the Church memorializes twenty-six Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries and Japanese converts crucified together by order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Following their arrests, they were taken to the public square of Meako to the city's principal temple. They each had a piece of their left ear cut off, and then paraded from city to city for weeks with a man shouting their crimes and...

St. Agatha (231-251 A.D.) was born in Sicily into an affluent family. At a young age she made the decision to devote herself to Christ, resisting every offer of marriage. Struck by her beauty and wealth, a magistrate named Quintian desired to marry her. He plotted to use his political power to force her hand, and threatened to prosecute her for the crime of Christianity unless she accepted his...

Eufranio Desideri was the third of eight children born to John Desideri, a wool merchant, and Serafina Paolini. His parents died when the boy was 12 years old, and he was raised and educated by his uncle Battista Desideri, a teacher in Viterbo, Italy. Desideri arranged a marriage for Eufranio with a local noble family, but the young man felt a call to religious life. Worry over his vocation...

St. Blaise (d. 316 A.D.) was born into a wealthy Christian family in Armenia. He was trained as a physician before becoming a priest, and was finally ordained a bishop. When a wave of Christian persecution began, God instructed St. Blaise to hide in a desert cave. While he was in hiding, birds miraculously brought him food and sick men came to him to be healed. The king's hunters...