“Il facchino del monastero – the Monastery’s handyman”! That was the nickname the Capuchin Poor Clares of Saint Mary of the Snow (Santa Maria della Neve) in Brescia, Northern Italy gave Sister Mary Magdalen Martinengo. During her thirty two years in religious life she had been at one stage or another novice, dish-washer, kitchen hand, porter, gardener, baker, sweeper,...

George Preca was a Maltese Catholic priest and the founder of the Society of Christian Doctrine as well as a Third Order Carmelite. He is known as "Dun Ġorġ" in Maltese and Pope John Paul II dubbed him "Malta’s second father in faith". He assumed the religious name of "Franco" after becoming a Third Order Carmelite. He was a popular figure among some groups,...

St. Christopher (3rd c.) is a highly popular saint, though little is known about him with certainty. According to one account, a pagan queen prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary for a child, whom she named Offerus and dedicated to the pagan gods. The child grew into a man of exceptional size and strength, and he endeavored to serve only the strongest and most courageous of masters. At first he...

There is an oddity in today’s martyrology (listing of the saints) in that we find two different St. Christines and a St. Christiana. St. Christina the Astonishing (1150-1224) was born to a peasant family in Belgium. She was orphaned as a child and raised by her two older sisters. When she was 21 she had what was believed to be a severe seizure, and was pronounced dead. At her funeral...

St. Gualtero was the only child of Aliprando and Adelazia, pious parents who were childless so long that they promised God they would devote any child of theirs to the Church. They kept their pledge, giving the boy a good education, and by age fifteen Gualtero was working as a Hospitaller friar in the San Raimondo il Palmerio hospital in Piacenza, Italy, beginning his lifelong devotion to care...