Lazarus (or Lazzaro) was elected bishop of Milan, Italy, around the year 439, a time when the Ostrogoths controlled the region. According to tradition, he popularized the penitential “Rogation” litanies, praying for protection for the city and its people. Little else is known about his life, although he might have imitated Pope Saint Leo the Great in working to stop the spread of...

St. Euphrasia (380-410 A.D.) was the only child of noble Christian parents serving the court of the Christian Emperor Theodosius I, their relative, in Constantinople. After her birth her parents vowed to remain celibate in order to commit their lives fully to prayer and penance. Her father died soon after, and Euphrasia moved with her mother to Egypt near a large monastery of nuns. At the age...

St. Luigi Orione (1872-1940) was born in northern Italy and entered a Franciscan friary at the age of 13, but had to leave due to poor health. He became a pupil of St. John Bosco at his Turin oratory for boys, and later entered the diocesan seminary. While still a seminarian he opened his own oratory and boarding school to provide for the Christian training and education of boys. This...

St. Eulogius of Cordoba (9th c.) was a priest from a prominent Christian family in Cordoba (Cordova), Spain. He was well-educated, humble, gentle, friendly, and a gifted leader with the charism of encouragement, especially towards Christians facing martyrdom. In his time Cordoba was the capital of the Muslim conquerors of Catholic Spain. The Muslim leaders allowed Christians to live in...

The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty were a group of Roman soldiers in the Legio XII Fulminata whose martyrdom in 320 for the Christian faith is recounted in traditional martyrologies. They were killed near the city of Sebaste, in Lesser Armenia, victims of the persecutions of Licinius, who after 316, persecuted the Christians of the East. The earliest account of their existence and...