St. John Berchmans (1599-1621) was born in Flanders, Belgium, the eldest of five children of a shoemaker. He was a virtuous and well-liked child who would often rise early to serve at two or three Masses a day before he reached the age of seven. On Friday evenings he had a custom of making the Stations of the Cross outdoors while barefoot. When he was nine years old his mother suffered from a...

Saint Mercurius the Soldier, also known as Saint Mercurius, was born in the year 224 as the son of a Scythian officer in the imperial Roman army. Little is known about his early life, but it is believed that he followed in his father's footsteps and became a soldier in the same army. Mercurius gained recognition for his bravery and outstanding military skills during the defense of the city...

Little is known of the lives of saints Flora and Maria, aside from their deaths together on November 24, 851, in Cordova, Spain. Flora, born of a Mohammedan father and a Christian mother, practiced her Christian religion in secret, but, following the death of her parents, she was turned over to the authorities, the cadi, by her brother. When she would not denounce her religion, she was...

Columban (Columbanus) was the greatest of the Irish missionaries who worked on the European continent. As a young man who was greatly tormented by temptations of the flesh, he sought the advice of a religious woman who had lived a hermit’s life for years. He saw in her answer a call to leave the world. He went first to a monk on an island in Lough Erne, then to the great monastic seat of...

125 English, Scottish and Welsh Catholics were martyred during the persecutions by Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. They are commemorated together on 22 November. Saint John Almond Saint Edmund Arrowsmith Saint Ambrose Barlow Saint John Boste Saint Alexander Briant Saint Edmund Campion Saint Margaret Clitherow Saint Philip Evans Saint Thomas Garnet Saint...