Saint of the day and Feast days.

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August 6

Today we commemorate the
Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord

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Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord

The Transformation, traditionally believed to have taken place on Mount Tabor, is the fourth Luminous Mystery, or Mystery of Light.
On this day, we remember the revelation of Christ as the beloved Son of the Father, This miracle, the special moment on Mount Tabor, is meant to give the three chosen disciples, Peter, James and John, strength and courage and also to prepare them for the agony in the garden to which they will also be chosen to accompany the Lord.

Taken from Saints of the Liturgical Year.

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August 7

Today is the Feast day of
Saint Sixtus II and Companions
Among many other Saints

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Saint Sixtus II and Companions
Pope and martyr, martyrs.
Sixtus was a Greek and a philosopher. He converted to Christianity in his adult years and was deacon in Rome Italy before his election to pope on August 30, 257. He succeeded Pope Stephen I. During his short era which lasted just one year, Saint Sixtus was known for his conciliatory and peaceful nature. He was able to restore relations with the African and Eastern churches following strained relations under Pope Stephen I. The problem was a controversy about the validity of Baptism by heretics.

"Pope St. Sixtus II believed that anyone who was baptized with a desire to be a Christian, even if the Baptism was performed by a heretic, was truly baptized into the faith; the validity of his faith was based on his own desire and actions, not the errors of the person who performed the sacrament."

The Seventh Persecution, that under Emperor Decius, that started in 250 A.D and continued by his successor, Valerian, was one of the most violent faced by the Church. In 257, there was an imperial edict that forbade Christians to assemble to prayer and demanding them to worship pagan gods.
The Pope used to meet secretly with his clergy for the Eucharist in the catacombs or underground caverns which were used as cemeteries. On 6 August 258 they were found in the cemetery by Praetextatus on the Appain Way. Sixtus, together with four of his deacons, Sts Januarius, Vincent, Magnus and Stephen were seized and beheaded. Another deacon, St Lawrence was martyred 4 days later. Sixtus was buried in the nearby cemetery of St Callistus.

Saint Sixtus II and Companions
Pray for us!

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“Pray that we may think of immortality rather than death…. We know that soldiers of Christ are properly not killed, but crowned”

 St Cyprian.

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“Pray that we may think of immortality rather than death…. We know that soldiers of Christ are properly not killed, but crowned”

 St Cyprian.

I love that one odhiambo!

[odhiambo]

 

“Pray that we may think of immortality rather than death…. We know that soldiers of Christ are properly not killed, but crowned”

 St Cyprian.

I love that one odhiambo!

 

[odhiambo]

August 8
 
Today is the Feast day of
Saint Dominic Guzman
Among many other Saints.

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Saint Dominic Guzman
Founder of the Dominican Order.
 
Dominic, whose name, Domingo, in Spanish means “belonging to God or
I belong to God”, was born in Calarogo, now Caleruega, Spain, around the year 1170. His father was a Spanish nobleman named Felix Guzman. His mother, Joanna of Aza, was a holy woman, renowned for her charity to the poor and her miracles,
She was, as a matter of interest, beatified in 1828 by Pope Leo XII. Dominic was said to be christened after Saint Dominic of Silas whose nearby shrine was a favorite of his mother.
While pregnant with Dominic, Joanna had a vision that her unborn child was a dog who would set the world on fire with a torch it carried in its mouth; a dog bearing a torch in its mouth became a symbol for the Dominicans. At his baptism, his mother saw a star shining from his chest
Dominic was not an only child; there were three other children besides Dominic. They were all raised in the ways of the Lord with the good example of their parents before them.
Dominic's oldest brother, Antonio, became a secular priest. He distributed his patrimony to the poor, and then entered a hospital where he spent his life ministering to the sick. Following in the footsteps of Dominic, his other brother, Manes, became a Friar Preacher and was beatified by Pope Gregory XVI. There was also a sister who married. Two of her children would later follow in their uncle’s footsteps to join the Dominican Order.

 At the age of seven, Dominic was placed in the care of his maternal uncle, a parish priest at the church of Gumiel d-Izan near Calaruega. At age fourteen, Dominic left his uncle's care and went to school in Palencia. At this time, Palencia was considered the best educational center in Spain. Dominic studied in Palencia for about ten years. He first studied medieval arts, including logic, and then theology.
 
  Around that time, a terrible famine broke out. Dominic sold whatever precious possessions he had, including his annotated, hand written books that he valued very highly. He used the proceeds for the poor.
After graduating from the University of Palencia and ordination to the priesthood, he became a Canon of St. Augustine and superior of the Canons in the Cathedral of Osma, devoting his time there to public ministry of the Sacraments.
He read many books and was particularly fond of the Conferences of the Desert Fathers by Cassian.
.In 1203, while passing through southern France with his prior, Bishop Diego d'Azevedo,
. Dominic was appalled at the confusion created in the minds of the faithful by the preaching of the Albigenses. The sect claimed to be pure Christians but held the belief that flesh and all the physical world was evil and was from the Devil; that the spirit was of God and was in conflict with the flesh. They also renounced worldly pleasures, as originating from the Devil. They denied the Incarnation and rejected the sacraments.
It was in this community that Saint Dominic found his true vocation and laid the foundation for the Order of Preachers.
Pope Innocent III launched a crusade to preach against the heresy. The Papal legates and preachers arrived in the Albigensian region in Languedoc in 1206 with much show;   a rude shock awaited them. The mission failed miserably.
Dominic was convinced that the heretics could be won over only by an austerity that equaled their own.
He once told a pompous bishop,

"... heretics are more easily won over by examples of humility and virtue than by external display or a hail of words.  Should we not rather arm ourselves with devout prayers and, carrying before us the standard of true humility, proceed in our bare feet against Goliath?"

 
The Albigensians were extremely austere, but Dominic surpassed them all by his sacrifices.  He might eat a bit of dried fish or a little bread and soup. He never ate more than two eggs. He wore an abrasive hairshirt, and had an iron chain around his waist.  He slept very little, and when he did, it was always on the floor.
To help with his apostolate among the Albigensians,  Dominic founded a three-fold religious Order.
1: one for the converted Albigensian women at Prouille, later referred to as the Dominican Sisters.
2: The Order of Friar Preachers or the Dominicans, made up of an apostolic band of friar preachers.
3: This third Order was for men and women known as tertiaries, living in the world as lay Dominicans affiliated with the Order.
Saint  Dominic died on 6 August 1221 at Bologna, Italy. He was canonized on 13 July 1234 by Pope Gregory IX at Rieti, Italy.
 
Saint Dominic,
Pray for us!

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“A man who governs his passions is master of the world”

St Dominic.
 

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August 9
 
Today is the Feast day of
Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
Among many other saints.

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Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
Also known as:
Edith Stein and as Teresia Benedicta
Teresa Benedicta was born on 12 October 1891 at Breslau, Germany, now in Poland. She was the youngest of seven children (youngest of 11 children by other accounts). Her parents, Siegfried and Augusta Stein, ware deeply devout orthodox Jews. Teresa was born on that all important day, most important of Jewish festivals, “Yom Kippur”, the Day of Atonement. This singled her out as a very special baby. They named her Edith Stein. Her father died before her second birthday.
In school, Edith turned out to be an excellent student who read widely. In 1904, however, she renounced Orthodox Judaism as her religion and became a self proclaimed atheist.
When Edith was 14 years old, she suddenly dropped out of school. This was her reaction to an anti-Semitic teacher, who, despite her excellent school work, never gave her first position in class. She went to live with a married sister. After some months, however, she returned to school
Edith was admitted to the University of Breslau where she majored in psychology. Somehow, Edith was searching for something; I doubt that she herself knew what it was that was missing in her life. Whatever it was, Edith Stein did not find it in psychology, so she switched to the University of Göttingen to study philosophy under Edmund Husserl, a proponent of the physiological school of phenomenology ( Don’t ask me what it means.)
In no time at all, Edith became Husserl’s most gifted student. She earned a doctorate in 1916 and emerged as one of Europe’s brightest philosophers.
She began to teach philosophy, first as a graduate assistant to Edmund Husserl and then, after being awarded a Ph.D, she taught as a faculty member, still working with Husserl.
Edith began to be interested in Roman Catholicism while studying at Göttingen.
After reading the biography of Saint Teresa of Avila, she converted to the Catholic faith in Cologne, Germany, and was baptized in Saint Martin’s church, on 1 January 1922.
She gave up her university post and became a teacher in the Dominican school in Speyer. In 1932, she was appointed lecturer at the Educational Institute of Munich.
Then the Nazis came to power. In 1933, she was fired from her teaching position when the Nazis pushed out academics of Jewish heritage.
In1934, Edith entered the Carmelite Convent at Cologne, where she took the name of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. With the increasing power of the Nazis, however, her convent smuggled her out of Germany to a convent in the Netherlands in 1938 to escape the mounting Nazi oppression.
On July 26, 1942, Hitler called for the arrest of all Roman Catholics not of Aryan descent. Edith Stein was caught by the Gestapo, arrested wearing her habit, with her sister, Rosa, also a Jewish convert to Christianity. They were transported to Auschwitz on August 7, 1942.
On August 9 or 10, 1942 Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
She was beatified in 1987 by Pope John Paul II, and, on October 11, 1998 was canonized. In 1999, Edith Stein was named by the Pope as a patron saint of Europe, along with Brigid of Sweden and Catherine of Siena.
For more please visit the given link.

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross
Pray for us!

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“Let us remember that God asks all of us from the greatest to the least, to bear sufferings with Christian faith and optimism for love of Him”

Blessed James Alberione.

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August 9,

Today is also the Feast day of
Blessed Franz Jägerstätter
Among many other Saints and Blessed.

Thanks Bailey. I was able to find a good article on Franz. I asked permission to use it and I was granted that permission. It isn't it great

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Blessed Franz Jägerstätter.
Franz was born on May 20 1907 in St Radegund, a village in Austria close to the German border. He was born out of wedlock. His parents Rosalia Huber and Franz Bachmeier were both servants and too poor to get married. Rosalia took the baby to her mother, a pious though poor woman.
Franz's father died in World War I when Franz was less than ten years old. His mother then married a local famer named Heinrich Jägerstätter who adopted Franz.
Franz had little formal education, but he was a bright child and managed to learn how to read and write. He loved reading.
At the age of 20, Franz left home. He went to Steiermark to work as a miner. During his stay in Steiermark, Franz became lukewarm in his faith. He even stopped attending Mass for some time. In short, the boy led a wild life at this point in his life.
He even fathered a child out of wedlock. By his late 20's , however, Franz had resolved to lead a responsible life and had settled down to life as a peasant farmer.
In 1936, he got married to Franziska Schwaninger. Franziska was a devout Catholic woman, slightly older than Franz. The newlyweds joined a pilgrimage group and honeymooned in Rome.
The couple was blessed with three daughters. He worked as sacristan for his parish, arranging funeral and prayer services, attended Mass daily.
In 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany and relations with Austria immediately became strained.
Bishop Gföllner, of the diocese of Linz in which St. Radegund was situated, declared in that year that Catholic doctrine was incompatible with National Socialism (Nazism). Franz held to that principle. In March 1938 Austria was annexed to Germany and Jägerstätter became a citizen of the Third Reich.
Around this time, Franz became a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis to which his wife also belonged.
Franz was called for military training sometime in 1940 and 1941. He did his training as required.
When summoned to active military service in 1943, Franz refused on the grounds that it was incompatible to be a Catholic and to be fighting for a regime that was persecuting the Catholic Church and her priests.
He was arrested and imprisoned first in Linz, Austria, then in Berlin, in Germay.
He was given a military trial on July 14 1943, and was condemned to death.
At 4 P.M., August 9th, 1943, Franz Jägerstätter was beheaded, executed by guillotine in Brandenburg, Germany. His body was cremated by order of the authorities.
Franz was proclaimed venerable on 1 June 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI. He was beatified on 26 October 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI
Canonization is still pending.
If you have information relevant to the canonization of Blessed Franz, contact:
Pfarre Saint Radegund
Hadermarkt 70
A-5121 Ostermiething, AUSTRIA

Blessed Franz Jägerstätter,
Pray for us!

[odhiambo]

Following is an excerpt from a spiritual newsletter on Blessed Franz Jägerstätter.
It is used with permission from Father Jacques Marie of  the Abbey Saint Joseph de Clairval.

August 1943. In Berlin's Tegel Military Prison, a man condemned to death clumsily writes the following lines: «Even if I write with chained hands, it is better than having my will chained. Sometimes God shows Himself by giving His strength to those who love Him and do not put earthly things above eternal realities. Neither prison, nor chains, nor even death, can separate one from the love of God, or rob him of his faith and free will. God's power is invincible.» This «martyr of conscience» was beatified by the Church on October 27, 2007, with his 94-year-old wife in attendance.