August

St. John Vianney

The Curé of Ars

Jean-Marie Vianney grew up on a farm near Lyon during the French Revolution, when priests had to say Mass in secret. He longed to be a priest, but his schooling had been interrupted, and he struggled terribly with his studies, especially Latin. He was nearly dismissed from the seminary. A patient teacher, Fr. Charles Balley, tutored him, and he was ordained in 1815.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

Bl. Frederic Janssoone

Friar of the Holy Land and of Canada

Frédéric Janssoone was the youngest of thirteen children of a Flemish farming family in the north of France. After working for some years as a traveling salesman to support his widowed mother, he entered the Franciscans in 1864 and was ordained a priest in 1870.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Maria Francesca Rubatto

Foundress and Missionary

Anna Maria Rubatto was born near Turin and lost her father as a small child and her mother at nineteen. She moved to Turin, where she became the companion of a devout noblewoman and spent her days teaching the catechism and visiting the sick and the poor. In 1883, while on holiday in the seaside town of Loano, she came out of Mass and saw a worker injured by a falling stone at a building site. She cleaned and bandaged his wound and gave him money to make up for his lost wages. The building was a house for a new community of sisters, and the women who saw her kindness believed God had sent them the leader they needed.

For reflection: A bandage for an injured worker began a religious family. Small acts of kindness can open the door to God’s plans.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

Bl. Agathangelus of Vendôme

Capuchin Missionary and Martyr of Ethiopia

François Noury was born at Vendôme in France and entered the Capuchins in 1619, taking the name Agathangelus. After his ordination he volunteered for the missions of the Near East. From 1629 he worked in Syria, at Aleppo, where he learned Arabic and won the friendship of Christians of many traditions. He was then sent to Cairo as superior of the Capuchin mission in Egypt, where he worked patiently for the reconciliation of the ancient Coptic Church with Rome. He visited the desert monasteries and won the respect of many Coptic monks.

For reflection: Agathangelus spent his life seeking unity among Christians. The prayer of Jesus that all may be one is still our task.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

Bl. Cassian of Nantes

Capuchin Martyr of Ethiopia

Gonzalve Vaz Lopez-Netto was born in Nantes, France, to a family of Portuguese origin. He entered the Capuchins in 1623, taking the name Cassian, and asked to be sent to the missions.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Dominic

Founder of the Order of Preachers, Friend of St. Francis

Dominic de Guzmán was born in Castile and became a priest and canon of the cathedral of Osma. Traveling through southern France with his bishop, he saw how many people had been drawn away from the Church by the Albigensian heresy, and how little the Church’s wealthy preachers had moved them.

For reflection: Dominic and Francis took different paths to the same Lord. Friendship across differences is a sign of the Kingdom.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

Bl. John of La Verna

Mystic of the Holy Mountain

John was born in Fermo, in the Marches of Italy. As a boy of ten he was received among the canons of the cathedral, but at thirteen he left to join the Friars Minor.

For reflection: John found God in the silence of the mountain and then carried that silence into the cities. Prayer is the source of all true preaching.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Clare of Assisi

Co-Foundress of the Franciscan Order

Clare was the eldest daughter of the noble family of Favarone di Offreduccio and his wife, Ortolana. As a young woman she heard Francis preach and was drawn to his way of poverty. On the night of Palm Sunday, 1212, she slipped out of her family’s house and went to the Porziuncola, where Francis cut her hair and received her vows. After a short stay with Benedictine nuns, she settled at San Damiano, the little church Francis had rebuilt. There she lived for forty-one years. Her sister Agnes, later her mother and younger sister, and many other women joined her, and from San Damiano communities of “Poor Ladies” spread across Europe.

For reflection: Clare chose to own nothing so that she could possess Christ completely. Where our treasure is, there our heart will be.

Read more: Clare, A Light in the Garden · Saint Clare of Assisi, Volume One · Saint Clare of Assisi, Volume Two · Saint Clare of Assisi, Volume Three · Saint Clare of Assisi, Volume Four · Saint Clare of Assisi, Volume Five · Begging for Stones · The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

Bl. Mark of Aviano

Preacher and Defender of Europe

Carlo Domenico Cristofori was born in Aviano, in northeastern Italy, and studied with the Jesuits. As a teenager he ran away from school, hoping to reach Crete and die as a martyr among the Turks. Exhausted and hungry, he stopped at a Capuchin friary, and the friars sent him home. A few years later he returned to join them, taking the name Mark.

For reflection: Mark’s greatest gift was to make enemies into allies. Unity among Christians is still worth working for.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Maximilian Kolbe

Martyr of Charity

Raymund Kolbe was born in Poland. As a boy he had a vision in which the Virgin Mary offered him two crowns, one white for purity and one red for martyrdom, and he chose both. He entered the Conventual Franciscans, taking the name Maximilian, and earned doctorates in philosophy and theology in Rome. There, in 1917, he founded the Militia of the Immaculata, a movement to win the world for Christ through Mary.

For reflection: Maximilian gave his life for a stranger. Greater love than this no one has.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Roch of Montpellier

Pilgrim and Healer of the Plague-Stricken

Very little is known for certain about St. Roch, but his story has been loved for centuries. According to tradition he was born to a wealthy family in Montpellier, in southern France. Orphaned as a young man, he gave his inheritance to the poor and set out as a pilgrim for Rome, dressed in the simple clothes of a penitent. Franciscan tradition holds that he belonged to the Third Order.

For reflection: Roch went toward the sick when everyone else fled. Christian love draws near to those who suffer.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Beatrice of Silva

Foundress of the Conceptionists

Beatrice de Silva was born into a noble Portuguese family. In 1447 she went to Castile as a lady-in-waiting to the Portuguese princess Isabel, who became queen when she married King John II of Castile. Beatrice was admired at court for her beauty and her goodness. The queen, however, became jealous and had Beatrice locked away in a small cell. During her imprisonment, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to her, robed in white and blue, and asked her to found a religious order in honor of her Immaculate Conception.

For reflection: Beatrice turned an injustice into an occasion for prayer and a new work for God. Grace can bring good out of every wrong.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

Bl. John-Louis Loir and Companions

Martyrs of the Rochefort Pontoons

During the French Revolution, priests who refused to swear the oath to the new state-controlled Church were hunted, imprisoned and deported. In 1794 more than eight hundred of them, gathered from all over France, were crowded onto two old slave ships anchored off the port of Rochefort, waiting to be deported to French Guiana. Most never left the harbor.

For reflection: John-Louis encouraged others even as his own strength failed. The old can still be a light for the young.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

Ven. Mary Magdalen Bentivoglio

Foundress of the Poor Clares in the United States

Anna Maria Bentivoglio was born in Rome to a noble family. She entered the Poor Clare monastery of San Lorenzo in Panisperna in Rome in 1864 and took the name Mary Magdalen.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Louis of Toulouse

Prince, Friar and Bishop

Louis was the second son of King Charles II of Naples and a great-nephew of St. Louis IX of France. In 1288, when he was fourteen, his father was released from captivity in Aragon, and Louis and two of his brothers were sent to Barcelona as hostages in his place. They remained there for seven years.

For reflection: Louis gave up a crown for a friar’s cord. What we renounce for Christ is never lost.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Pius X

Pope of the Eucharist

Giuseppe Sarto was born to a poor family in the Venetian countryside, the son of a village postman. He walked miles to school each day, and with great sacrifice his family helped him become a priest. He served for years in country parishes and then as a seminary director, Bishop of Mantua and Patriarch of Venice. All his life he was a member of the Third Order of St. Francis.

For reflection: Pius X opened the altar to children and to all the faithful. Christ in the Eucharist is the source of every renewal.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

Bl. Bernard of Offida

Shepherd and Capuchin Brother

Domenico Peroni was born to a poor and devout farming family in the Marches of Italy. As a boy he tended his family’s flocks, and he was known for teaching the other shepherd boys their prayers and the truths of the faith.

For reflection: Bernard taught the faith to shepherd boys and made peace among neighbors. Simple goodness is a powerful witness.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds

St. Louis IX

King of France, Patron of Secular Franciscans

Louis became King of France at twelve, on the death of his father. His mother, Blanche of Castile, ruled as regent and raised him in deep faith. She told him she would rather see him dead than guilty of a mortal sin.

Read more: The Encyclopedia of Franciscan Saints and Blesseds