Saints of the Week: Our Lady of Ransom, Matthew, Padre Pio, Joseph of Cupertino, Zachary & Elizabeth, and More
Happy Sunday! Amidst all the cares and business of school and work, we should not only pause to pray, but turn everything we do into a prayer by offering it to God for His glory. There were many saints and Biblical figures honored this week who did everything in their lives for God’s glory.
Jesus’s Mother the Blessed Virgin was celebrated under at least three different titles this week. Mary appeared as Our Lady of LaSalette (Sept. 19) as a weeping lady wearing a crucifix “to two shepherd children at La Salette, a small hamlet in the French Alps. Through the children she gave her message of ‘Reconciliation’ to the world. She insisted that this message be made known to all her people.” Our Lady of Ransom or Mercy (Sept. 24) was a vision (or series of visions) of Mary holding bags of coins to use in ransoming Christians enslaved by Muslims; upon Mary’s urging, the Mercedarian religious order was founded to ransom Christian captives and slaves.
Also Sept. 24 is Our Lady of Walsingham, named for a statue of Mary and Jesus long housed in a shrine in England after Mary appeared to Lady Richeldis in England in 1061 to urge the building of a replica of the Holy House where Mary grew up and received the Annunciation from the Angel Gabriel. The shrine was destroyed by Protestants during the reign of Henry VIII but has since been re-founded and is co-run by Anglicans and Catholics.
St. Matthew the Apostle (Sept. 21), originally Levi son of Alpheus, was a tax collector, and thus perceived as a Roman collaborator and traitor by his fellow Jews (not to mention tax collectors were usually extortioners). When Jesus told Matthew to “Follow me,” however, Matthew immediately left everything to follow Christ (Matt. 9:9). His Gospel has traditionally been considered the first one written, sometime between 41 and 50 AD. It was written in either Aramaic or Hebrew (likely Aramaic) to convince Jews that Jesus was the long-expected Messiah. Likely evangelized in Ethiopia and was martyred. He is often depicted as/with an angel based on the the four living creatures, one of which is face of a man (artistically represented as an angel), in the book of Revelation (4:7).
Padre Pio (Sept. 23) is one of the most famous and popular 20th century saints. Born 1887 to pious Italian peasant farmers who worked hard to educate him, he became a Capuchin friar, but struggled with serious health problems his whole life (which led to his discharge after brief military service in WWI). A mystic, preacher, and much-sought-after confessor, he was known to levitate off the ground and perform miracles. He is the first priest in history to be recorded as receiving the stigmata, or the wounds of Christ’s Passion; the wounds bled and pained him, but smelled of roses.
St. Joseph of Cupertino (Sept. 18) was born in a stable, like Jesus, to a recently widowed and impoverished mother. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker but at age 17 applied for admittance to the Friars Minor Conventuals, though he was refused because he was uneducated. The Capuchins accepted him as a lay-brother in 1620, but he was dismissed due to his mystical ecstasies and abused by his family. Joseph was eventually accepted at a Franciscan convent where his virtues were finally recognized and he was ordained a priest at age 25. Though almost illiterate, he had deep spiritual discernment and his life was a series of visions, ecstasies, and miracles. He frequently levitated in the air (hence his patronage of air travel). His activity was restricted and he was investigated for these phenomena, but he always remained joyful and humble.
Sts. Zacharias and Elizabeth (Sept. 23) were the parents of John the Baptist (see Luke 1). Elizabeth was a relative of Mary, Jesus’s Mother, and famously attested to the unborn Messias during the Visitation (Elizabeth’s words have become part of the “Hail Mary” prayer). Zacharias or Zachary was an elderly priest struck dumb after he doubted the birth of John, foretold to him by a vision of the Angel Gabriel. He regained his speech after John’s birth, and delivered a prophetic canticle.
St. Januarius and companions (Sept. 19). Januarius was the 4th century bishop of Benevento in Italy, arrested and martyred with deacons he was visiting in jail during the persecutions of Diocletian. His blood was preserved and dried; to this day, it continues to liquefy miraculously on his feast day.
Jonas the Prophet (Sept. 21/22) is famous for fleeing when God gave him a mission and being thrown into the sea when his ship was almost wrecked, where Jonas was swallowed by a huge fish (usually considered a whale). Regurgitated by the fish, Jonas obeyed God and preached repentance to the city of Nineveh, which begged God’s mercy for their sins. His story is related in the Old Testament book of Jonas or Jonah. Rachel the Matriarch (Sept. 23) was the beloved and favorite wife of the Biblical Jacob; sterile most of her marriage, she eventually gave birth to Joseph and Benjamin, and is often considered the matriarch of the nation of Israel.
The Martyrs of Korea (Sept. 20) were celebrated as a group this week. Among the foremost of them were Andrew Kim Taegon (see my previous piece), the first native Korean priest, and Paul Chong Hasang. Paul kept the faith alive in Korea after all the clergy in the country were martyred. Paul was a diplomatist and apologetical writer, and the pope affirmed the validity of the Korean Catholic diocese upon appeal from Paul. He entered seminary but was martyred before ordination. Augustinus Yu Chin-Kil (Sept. 22) was a Korean layman and married catechist also martyred for the faith.
St. Carolus Hyon Song-Mun (Sept. 19), from Catholicsaints.info: “Married layman and father in the apostolic vicariate of Korea. Catechist. Travelled extensively throughout Korea to help missionaries, managing their money and helping converts. Wrote a book about the persecutions of Christians in 1839. Imprisoned in June 1846 for his faith, he spent his remaining months ministering to and encouraging other prisoners. Both his father and sister were executed, and his wife and son died in prison, all for being Christian.”
The Theban Legion (Sept. 22) were slaughtered en masse in the late 200s AD. Over six thousand of these Christian Roman soldiers from Africa, led by St. Maurice, refused to participate in pagan sacrifices while putting down a revolt in modern-day Switzerland, and were all martyred.
St. Eustace and his family (Sept. 20). Eustace was a Roman military leader who converted to Christianity after seeing a stag with a cross between its antlers and heard a voice urging baptism while he was hunting. Called back into military service by Trajan during barbarian invasions, Eustace was militarily successful but martyred with his whole family by the new Emperor Hadrian for their faith.
Bl. Daudi Okelo and Jildo Irwa (Sept. 18) were born circa 1902 to the Ugandan Acholi tribe. Daudi converted around the age of 15, while Jildo converted at 11. They were both catechists, who expended great effort in instructing others in the faith and leading them in prayer, particularly the Rosary. Caught in the midst of one outbreak of frequent infighting between different groups in the area, the peaceful and zealous young Christians were martyred by being speared and knifed to death in 1918.
Bl. Francisco de Paula Victor (Sept. 23) was born to a Brazilian slave. When he grew up and entered seminary, which seemed unthinkable to many people for a black man to do in Brazil at the time, he faced severe racism and persecution from fellow seminarians, and later from the population at large. But Francisco became a priest and his humility and holiness won over many.
Pope Linus (Sept. 23) was the second pope after St. Peter, mentioned by St. Paul in II Timothy, and traditionally considered a martyr. Cadoc of Wales (Sept. 21) was a Welsh abbot, hermit, bishop, and miracle-worker who converted his parents and was martyred by pagan Saxons. Gerard Sagredo (Sept. 24) was a Benedictine monk and abbot in Italy who tutored the son of King St. Stephen in Hungary; first bishop of Csanad, Hungary, he was martyred by pagans. Anton Martin Slomsek (Sept. 24) was a Slovenian bishop in Austria, a great educator and preserver of Slovenian language and culture. The Child Martyrs of Tlaxcala (Sept. 23) were three children martyred by their tribal chief father in the 1520s, considered the New World’s first martyrs.
Thomas of Villanova (Sept. 22) was a Spanish friar and bishop known for his great charity to the poor and his mercy toward sinners. Józef Kut (Sept. 18) was a Polish priest imprisoned, tortured, and then martyred in Dachau concentration camp. Gunthildis of Suffersheim (Sept. 22) was a pious milk-maid and servant known for her charity to the poor and her miracles. Adamnan of Iona (Sept. 23) was an Irish monk and abbot who mediated political disputes, helped free prisoners, and spread Roman liturgical practices. Richardis of Andlou (Sept. 18) was the wife of King Charles the Fat and thus Holy Roman Empress; after a false accusation of infidelity, she proved her innocence and then left the throne to become a nun. Tôma Tran Van Thien (Sept. 21) was a Vietnamese seminarian and martyr, beaten and strangled in 1838. St. Theodore of Canterbury (Sept. 19) was a bishop who did great work in the 600s AD in unifying and leading the Church in England.
Also this week were José Ramón Ferragud Girbes, William Spenser, and Robert Hardesty (Sept. 24); Émilie Tavernier Gamelin, Jozef Stanek, Xantippa, and Thecla of Iconium (Sept. 23); Ignatius of Santhia (Sept. 22); François Jaccard, Jacques Honoré Chastán, Mark Scalabrini, and Caterina Aliprandi of Asti (Sept. 21); Francisco Martin Fernández de Posadas, Susanna of Eleutheropolis, and Lawrence Mary Joseph Imbert (Sept. 20); Alonso de Orozco Mena, Martyrs of Phunon, and Emily de Rodat (Sept. 19); and Salvador Chuliá Ferrandis, Ariadne, Ðaminh Trach Ðoài, and Ferreolus the Tribune (Sept. 18).
Have a blessed week!