Saint of the day and Feast days.

[odhiambo]

odhiambo, I just want to say that I really truly appreciate this service you are providing.  I read these posts whenever I can even when I don't actually post here.  Blessings!

Thanks Bailey for the thumbs up 
I am encouraged by your words and appreciate the fact that others are taking the time to read the posts .

[odhiambo]

I've no doubt that the sacrafices of these English martyrs will be the price paid for the reconversion of England in the Lords good time.

On Saturday coming we have the feast day of St Margaret Clitherow (probably one of the better known English martyrs) and one whom I invoke daily. I visited her house in the Shambles while I was in York and got to learn much about her life and martyrdom.

Holy martyrs of England orate pro nobis.

Could you post a short biography of her or something on that day?
The American Catholic Calender of Saints which I am following, lists somebody else on that day.

[Shin]

I will have to pretend not to know it.   


March 21st is also St. Nicholas of Flue's day, the Patron Saint of Switzerland.

'My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you.
My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you.
My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you.'

St. Nicholas of Flue

 

A wonderful prayer!
Doesn't the first line ring a bell? Everything that distances us from the Lord is the flesh as Brigid has said in her post "the flesh"
Saint Nicholas of Flue,
Pray for us!

Yes it truly does. 

[odhiambo]

23 March

Today is the Feast day of
Saint Turibius of Mongrovejo
Among many other saints.

[odhiambo]

Turibius of Mongrovejo
Also known as
Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo.

Turibius was born on 16 November 1538 in Mayorga, Spain to a noble and wealthy family. He
was named after another Spanish saint, Turibius of Astorga. He was very highly educated. He studied law and became a lawyer, then a professor of law at the highly reputed University of Salamanca. His education and virtuous reputation led to his appointment as Grand Inquisitor of Spain by King Philip II on the Court of the Inquisition at Granada in February 1571, although he was a layman.
He was ordained priest in 1578 and sent to Peru, and in May 1579, he was named Archbishop of Lima, Peru.
He arrived at Paita, Peru, 600 miles (970 km) from Lima, on May 24, 1581. He began his mission work by travelling to Lima on foot, baptizing and teaching the natives. His favourite topic was:

"Time is not our own, and we must give a strict account of it."

Three times he traversed the 450,000 square kilometers (180,000 square miles) of his diocese, generally on foot, frequently defenceless and often alone; exposed to tempests, torrents, deserts, wild beasts, tropical heat, fevers and sometimes threats from hostile tribes; baptizing and confirming nearly one half million people, among them St. Rose of Lima, and St. Martin de Porres.

He built roads, schoolhouses and chapels, many hospitals and convents, and at Lima, in 1591, founded the first seminary in the Western hemisphere. He inaugurated the first part of the third Lima Cathedral on February 2, 1604.

Turibius was seen as a champion of the rights of the natives against the Spanish masters. There was great opposition to him from the governors of Peru whose authority he challenged. He learned local dialects so that he could communicate with and convert the natives.
He is said to have predicted the day and hour of his death, years before he died.
Towards the end of his life, Turibius contracted fever at Pacasmayo, but continued to work to the last. He arrived at Sana (or Saña) when he was critically ill. Dragging himself to the sanctuary he received the Viaticum, dying shortly after on March 23, 1606
He was canonized in 1726.

Saint Turibius,
Pray for us!

[Shin]

'Time is not our own, and we must give a strict account of it.'

This means so much.. so much more than we comprehend..

[odhiambo]

'Time is not our own, and we must give a strict account of it.'

This means so much.. so much more than we comprehend..

That is true. The purpose of our existence here on earth is to get to know and love God so that we can be united with Him in Heaven. Our time on earth should be put to good use for this purpose otherwise as today's Saint stresses, the Master will demand an account.

[odhiambo]

25 March

Today is the Feast day of
Saint Catherine of Genoa
Among many other saints.

[odhiambo]

Saint Catherine of Genoa (Caterina Fieschi Adorno)
Mystic.

Catherine was born in Genoa in 1447 to an aristocratic family. She was the youngest of five children. Her parents were Jacopo Fieschi and Francesca di Negro, both of illustrious Italian birth. Her family had papal connections, and Jacopo became Viceroy of Naples.
When Catherine was 13 years old, she wanted to enter a convent, like her sister Limbania who was an Augustinian nun. She was however refused admission because of her youth. She accepted this decision and thought no more of it.
When she was 14 years old, her father died. Two years later at age 16, for political and financial reasons, her brother arranged her marriage to Giuliano Adorno, a member of a rival family. The marriage was not a happy one. Giuliano was unfaithful, vile-tempered, and a spendthrift, who made the life of his wife a misery. The marriage was not fruitful although her husband had at least one child by a mistress.
Ten years after her marriage, when she was now 26 years old, Catherine experienced a religious conversion.
She was converted by a mystical experience on 22 March 1473. Her conversion is described as an overpowering sense of God's love for her. This marked the beginning of her life of close union with God in prayer.
She began to receive Communion almost daily, a practice noted as rare for lay people at the time. She also underwent remarkable mental experiences. At about the same time of her conversion, her husband became bankrupt. Catherine began a life of social work, going into Genoa's slums to help the sick and poor.
By 1477, Catherine's husband had begun to help with her work. He later became a Franciscan tertiary (a lay person affiliated with the order). Catherine herself never became associated with any religious order. In 1479 the couple moved into rooms near the large Pammatone Hospital for the poor of Genoa and worked there, without pay.

In 1490, Catherine became the director of the hospital, and worked successfully to improve the institution's financial situation. Three years later in 1493, the plague came to Genoa. 80% of those who stayed in the city died from the disease. Catherine supervised those who were taking care of the dying. Her husband was one of these people. In 1496 her husband died and she resigned her position as director, although she continued working full time until 1499, when her own health began to fail.

During the ten years before her death, Catherine wrote Trattato del Purgatorio, describing her beliefs about Purgatory.She saw purgatory as a place of joy rather than a place of physical suffering. She also wrote what would become the first part of Dialogo Spirituale: a book embodying the internal conflict she had undergone between her spiritual goals and her bodily desires. It was also during this period that she accepted, for the first time, a spiritual director, her successor as head of the hospital, Father Marabotti.
Catherine died on 15 September 1510. In 1551, 41 years after her death, a book about her life and teaching was published, entitled Libro de la vita mirabile et dottrina santa de la Beata Caterinetta de Genoa.
Her writings were examined by the Holy Office and pronounced to contain doctrine that would be enough, in itself, to prove her sanctity.

She was beatified in 1675 by Pope Clement X, and canonized in 1737 by Pope Clement XII. Her writings also became sources of inspiration for other religious leaders such as Saints Robert Bellarmine and Francis de Sales and Cardinal Henry Edward Manning.. Pope Pius XII declared her patroness of the hospitals in Italy.

Saint Catherine,
Pray for us!

[odhiambo]

From the Calender, I see that
Today is also the Feast day of
Saint Gabriel the Archangel.

[odhiambo]

Gabriel, Archangel is the “Angel of the Annunciation”.
He announced the coming of Christ in the Old Testament.
He is the Angel sent to Zachariah (Lk 1:11-19).
He told Zachariah, “I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to convey to you this good news.”(Lk 1: 19).
The good news was the birth of Saint John the Baptist; Zachariah was to finally become a father.
In the Book of Daniel, he was sent to explain Daniel’s vision of a Ram and a Goat. (8:16, 9:21).
In traditional angelology, Gabriel is also believed to guard the Tree of Life and may have been the heavenly being who expelled Adam and Eve from Aden.
He is usually depicted as a hansome archangel, holding a scroll emblazoned with the Ave Maria.
Gabriel is patron of modern telecommunications and of postal services.
His emblem is a spear and a shield emblazoned with a lily.
Saint Gabriel,
Pray for us!

[Bailey2]

Ah, St. Catherine of Genoa: another Saint plagued with depression on and off.......... and no wonder!

[Shin]

Some great quotes of the saint:

'The great importance of purgatory, neither mind can conceive nor tongue describe. I see only that its pains are as great as those of hell; and yet I see that a soul, stained with the slightest fault, receiving this mercy, counts its pains as naught in comparison with this hindrance to her love. And I know that the greatest misery of the souls in purgatory is to behold in themselves aught that displeases God, and to discover that, in spite of his goodness, they had consented to it. And this is because, being in the state of grace, they see the reality and the importance of the impediments which hinder their approach to God.'


St. Catherine of Genoa

'From this judgment there is no appeal, for after death the freedom of the will can never return, but the will is confirmed in that state in which it is found at death. The souls in hell, having been found at that hour with the will to sin, have the guilt and the punishment always with them, and although this punishment is not so great as they deserve, yet it is eternal.'

St. Catherine of Genoa

'Oh, what peril attaches to sin willfully committed! For it is so difficult for man to bring himself to penance, and without penitence guilt remains and will ever remain, so long as man retains unchanged the will to sin, or is intent upon committing it.'

St. Catherine of Genoa

'There is no doubt that, if man could perceive the many difficulties thrown by self-love in the way of his own good, he would no longer allow himself to be deceived by it; and its malignity is the more to be dreaded because it is so powerful that were but one grain of it in the world would be sufficient to corrupt all mankind. Wherefore I conclude that self-love is the root of all evils which exist in this world and in the other. Behold Lucifer, whose present state is the result of following the suggestions of his self-love; and in ourselves it seems to me even worse. Our father Adam has so contaminated us that to my eyes the evil appears almost incurable, for it so penetrates our veins, our nerves, our bones, that we can neither say nor think nor do anything which is not full of the poison of this love - not even those thoughts and deeds which are directed toward the purification of the spirit.'

St. Catherine of Genoa

'I do not wish a love which may be described as for God, or in God. I cannot see those words, for and in, without their suggesting to me that something may intervene between God and me; and that is what pure and simple love, by reason of its purity and simplicity, is unable to endure. This purity and simplicity is as great as God is, for it is his own.'

St. Catherine of Genoa

'. . . when I see man fix his affections on creatures, even, as he sometimes does, on a dog or a cat, or any other created thing, delighting greatly in it, doing all that he can to serve it, unable to admit into his heart any other love, and as it were, breathing by it, I long to exterminate these things which hold him thus employed and cause him to lose the great reward of the love of God which alone can satisfy and make him happy.'

St. Catherine of Genoa

'If man clearly saw that by well-doing he could gain eternal life, and could imagine how great the happiness of heaven will be, he would always persevere in good; and even should he live until the end of the world, he would never occupy his memory, intellect, or will on any but celestial things. . . On the other hand, if man could know how greatly he must suffer hereafter for his sins, hold it for certain that for very fear he would not only abandon all things, but that he would not commit the smallest sin.'

St. Catherine of Genoa

'When I see that God is ever ready to give us all the interior and exterior aids necessary for our salvation, and that he observes our deeds solely for our own good; when, on the other hand, I see man continually occupied in useless things, contrary to himself and of no value; and that at the hour of death God will say to him: "What is there, O man, that I could have done for thee which I have not done?" and that man will clearly know this to be true; I believe that he will have to render a stricter account for this than for all other sins, and I am amazed and cannot understand how man can be so mad as to neglect a thing of such vast and extreme importance.'

St. Catherine of Genoa

[odhiambo]

Ah, St. Catherine of Genoa: another Saint plagued with depression on and off.......... and no wonder!

Yes, to zero in on the obvious, her marriage was rather like a bed of thorns; that could have contributed to her problems. Hey, have you come across this expression that "happiness is an inside job" ?  Also that we should not expect others to behave in a way so as to make us happy? I read it somewhere and it stuck! I look back on times when I was really , really down and I wonder, was it really my fault? could I have just looked within me and found that happiness?

[odhiambo]

25 March
Today is the The Solemnity of
The Annunciation of the Lord.

[odhiambo]

The Feast of the Annunciation

The Feast of the Annunciation commemorates the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary
that she would conceive Jesus, and the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit at that moment. The feast on this day, March 25th, is celebrated 9 months before Jesus' birth at Christmas.
The story of the Annunciation, meaning the announcing, from the Latin annuntiare, is told in Luke's gospel. At the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will conceive a Son, and his name will be Jesus. His greeting, "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you" has echoed down through the ages in many prayers, and is known as the "Hail Mary." Mary is initially confused as to how she will bear God's Son, seeing as she is a virgin. The angel then explains that the Holy Spirit would come upon her. This is why when we recite the Nicene creed we say "by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and became man." The Apostles Creed likewise affirms that Jesus was "conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit." Thus, the Feast of the Annunciation is the beginning of Jesus' miraculous life, and it begins with the the Blessed Virgin conceiving Jesus by the Holy Spirit's power
Mary's response to the angel, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word," (Latin: ecce ancilla Domini; fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum) is a statement of humble faith, and a model for how we are to respond when God calls us to do what seems impossible. This response is called Mary's fiat, from the Latin word meaning "let it be done." The Catechism addresses the significance of Mary's faith in relation to her role as Christ's mother:
By pronouncing her "fiat" at the Annunciation and giving her consent to the Incarnation, Mary was already collaborating with the whole work her Son was to accomplish. She is mother wherever he is Savior and head of the Mystical Body