Day: February 1, 2020

Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Bishop and Martyr
(† 107)

Saint Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was the disciple of Saint John the Evangelist. Believing that the Church on earth should resemble that of the heavenly Jerusalem of which Saint John wrote in his Apocalypse, he established singing in choirs in his church at Antioch, after a vision of the celestial choirs who sang in that manner. When the emperor Domitian persecuted the Church, Saint Ignatius obtained peace for his own flock by fasting and prayer, although for his own part he desired to suffer with Christ, and to prove himself a perfect disciple. Continue reading →

Mary, the Protectress of Youth

The period of youth is a precious time, during which a boy ought to be growing in the knowledge, love, and practice of every virtue. It is a time which bears the same relation to his spiritual life as childhood does to his bodily life; and therefore, just in the same way as the tender years of his childhood needed the loving care of a mother to protect from harm, and to develop the strength of his bodily frame, so does the time of his boyhood need the watchful care of a gentle mother, to bring to maturity, and to preserve from premature harm, those seeds of virtue, sown in his heart during the happy days of his innocent childhood. Continue reading →

Saint John Bosco

Founder
(1815-1888)

Saint John Bosco accomplished what many people considered an impossibility; he walked through the streets of Turin, Italy, looking for the dirtiest, roughest urchins he could find, then made good men of them. His extraordinary success can be summed up in the words of his patron Saint, Francis de Sales: The measure of his love was that he loved without measure. Continue reading →