Catholic Saint of the Day

In October of 1717, three Brazilian fishermen were out fishing, in order to supply a banquet the townspeople of Guaratinguetá were giving in honor of a visiting nobleman. Since it was outside the season for finding fish, they prayed to the Immaculate Conception for help.

Although few people had as great an impact on the 20th century as Pope John XXIII, he avoided the limelight as much as possible. Indeed, one writer has noted that his “ordinariness” seems one of his most remarkable qualities. The date assigned for the liturgical celebration (where authorized) of Blessed John XXIII is not June 3, the anniversary of his death, as would be usual, but October 11, the anniversary of his opening of the Second Vatican Council.

Saint Francis Borgia, 4th duke of Gandía, 3rd Father General of the Jesuit Order, Grandee of Spain, (Gandía, 28 October 1510 – 30 September 1572, Rome) was a Spanish Jesuit and third Superior General of the Society of Jesus. He was canonized on 20 June 1670.

Bishop of Paris, martyred along with his deacons Rusticus and Eleutherius in about 275.

Saint Pelagia was a well-known actress (some say prostitute) of Antioch. One day, with a throng of boys and girls dressed in gold she passed, sitting on a donkey and beautifully attired in gold, pearls and precious stones, close to where a group of bishops were in open-air conference. All the bishops hid their faces at the sight, except one, Bishop Nonnus, who gazed after her intently for a long time. "Were you not delighted by her beauty?" he exclaimed to his colleagues almost in tears. "This lady spends more time and care in adorning herself for those she will meet than we do in preparing our souls to meet our God."

Apart from the signal defeat of the Albigensian heretics at the battle of Muret in 1213 which legend has attributed to the recitation of the Rosary by St. Dominic, it is believed that Heaven has on many occasions rewarded the faith of those who had recourse to this devotion in times of special danger. More particularly, the naval victory of Lepanto gained by Don John of Austria over the Turkish fleet on the first Sunday of October in 1571 responded wonderfully to the processions made at Rome on that same day by the members of the Rosary confraternity.

Saint Bruno of Cologne (Cologne, c. 1030 – Serra San Bruno, 6 October 1101), the founder of the Carthusian Order, personally founded the order's first two communities. He was a celebrated teacher at Reims, and a close advisor of his former pupil, Pope Urban II.

Saint Faustina Kowalska, an apostle of the Divine Mercy, belongs today to the group of the most popular and well-known saints of the Church. Through her the Lord Jesus communicates to the world the great message of God's mercy and reveals the pattern of Christian perfection based on trust in God and on the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors.

Saint Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally—not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit and without a sense of self-importance. Volumes could be written about this most holy man and no short biography can truly give justice to the humble and inspiring life that he led.

St. Mother Theodore (Anne-Therese) Guerin was born October 2, 1798, in Etables, France. She entered the Sisters of Providence of Ruille-sur-Loir in 1823. Mother Theodore educated children and cared for the sick poor in France for 17 years. In 1840, in response to a request from the bishop of Vincennes, Indiana, Mother Theodore led a group of five Sisters of Providence to the United States to establish a motherhouse and novitiate, to educate children of pioneer families and to care for the sick poor.