Ivo di Chartres

 Martyr of Canon Law ;) collected and reordered all the various rules and regulations giving them consistency and a more handy format. Relatively so anyway as two volumes  resulted from his labours: Decretum and Panormia.

1116 the year of  the death of this Bishop...895 years later and we can contemplate the possibility of equipping each Bishop with a pocket Kindle to consult the Canon in a click. With an Ask a Canonist a question section. Add to it a Buzzwhenitsensesanheresy App and we can stay assured all our Bps (and clergy) travel in safety.

Zaccaria and Elisabeth

Had Zacharia possessed an ipod, he could have communicated the message by typing. Times were not ripe yet...and the Lord was still at work with old fashioned traditional miracles.

A babe to us is born!

 Frances Cabrini


Would a lady saint (or saintly lady) have better dealt with the emergency below? We shall never know. But we can entrust her all the pregnant women living in difficult immigration circumstances. All women facing the same when delivering a baby but circumstances not always equally favourable.


Leonardo di Noblat

 An abbot and a delivering Queen...not delivering a speech but a baby. A miraculous turning out of the events that Leonardo happened to be  living in his hermitage not far from the spot where King Clodoveo found himself facing an emergency outside of his regular kingly tasks.Worth having renounced the episcopacy?;)

Ernesto

Martyrised when he became prisoner of the Saracens.That was back in the XII century.


Pietro Canisio

Post with which I have already stepped into tomorrow's. 'Followers of new doctrines': we are only in the 16th century and this is the PC wording he used to refer to Lutherans. JP II woud have rubber stamped this ecumenical opening and touch.

Ursicino da Pagliara 

Trusting the will of the Lord, he blindly threw his stick to get the sign of where he was to build his monastery (following Colombanus rule)

Adeudato I

A consoling figure in times of darkness.

Casting these posts in the darkness of your doubts praying it will bear light and fruit ;)

Berardo from Pagliara

 Gifted with taumaturgical powers. XII century.


  Oreste

 A doctor who was accused of exploiting the frail state of the ones he cured to convert them to Christianity. When? already between II and III century.

Leone I Magno

 A stronghold against the barbaric invasions, this Pope stood up to Attila and then Genserico, put Rome's pieces together and set the basis for the Pontifical State keeping a number of emperors under his thumb and setting the relationship between spiritual and temporal level restoring Orthodoxy via a number of conciliums.

Vinibaldus

With his sister Valburga another Saint along with other three members of the family founded in Heidenheim  a monastery that was a stronghold for cultural and missionary work.

Nowadays he would have sat in an appropriately structured office along with another keeping up the defence against secular press.

Giosafat
Bishop  - looked after the body of Christ wounded by the Orthodox Catholic schism.

 Paola Francesca di Rosa

Woman manager for her family silk business, she also led the Ancelle della carità taking care of the bodies wounded by cholera.

 Martin of Tours

Iron soldiery fist against all oppressors and heresies. Silk smooth handling with those in need of his episcopal charity. One wonders what quality he called upon in battling...converting from paganism.

 Adelaides

Empreress. Managed the Kingdom after the death of her husband and son. Many monasteries and chapels were built thanks to this lady. Chapels the name derives from 'cape' and is taken from Martin's gesture of donating his to a beggar.

John of the Cross

Discalced Carmelite

Omobono
Market stall owner specialised in wool products.

Giocondo

 Bishop. Remembered also for having embellished churches.

Valerico

A young shepard who dreamt of living in the nearby Benedectine monastery. The shade of an oak was his favourite praying spot.

Lucy

Patron Saint of eyesight.

An oak or a decoratated cathedral...hard to say which is a better eye opener on the Mystery of God.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe


A poor and humble Indian meets, or better is found, by Our Lady on the Tepeyec  hills...


Alberto Magno

 Thanks to his interest in Aristotle too, faith meets science and reason. Reason is recognised autonomy and the scientific method is given recognition. Wondering how as a scientifical methods inclined Bishop he would have dealt with the recounting with such (epi)phenomenal encounter. With more openness than the skeptically blind Bishop of Juan times.

(note to the faithful readers: I shall pick along with the daily Saint one of the missed ones stepping backwards till ends meet again)

Damasus 

Restored the catacombs in Rome and is the author of the Tituli, epitaphs dedicated to the Saints therein buried.

;) A most blessed finding for my catching up blog work with missed on Saints

Elisabeth of Hungary

And I shall call you fishermen of Saints: curious to find how many Kings and Queens raised to Sainthood I stumbled into a couple of apronfuls

http://www.paradoxplace.com/Photo%20Pages/France/France_History/French_Saints_&_Kings.htm

http://www.paradoxplace.com/Photo%20Pages/UK/British%20History/English_Saints_&_Kings.htm

In England and France only. Back to Hungary. The Lord gave a miraculous helping hand to this Queen with the  family she married into. Humble and generous she met with their hostility and the bread she carried in her apron was often transformed into roses before the eyes that had caught her sneaking out could see.

Womb, I nearly wrote. That was another Queen and another Bread.

Fredianus

Really, we should be all waiting for Father Fredianus – ‘the man who came from the cold’ – but alas little was he known in the Northern countries which he left to flood – one of the many Irish – the city of Florence. We have to thank him if once our city was spared from a flood.  Reason of the travel? ‘Meeting’ another of our locals: San Miniato.

Fredianus stopped the rushing waters with the flood of his words. Makes you wonder how really very few clearly spoken out lines can possibly build a  better barrier to the many dangerous streams of the contemporary relativistic society.

Faustus

Travelling martyr, he was exilded with his Bishop, Peter and Paul and  his life was ended  on Diocletianus orders (beheading).

How many Bishops self exiled in their palaces by the secularist societal pressure and press?

Edmund king of the Anglians

My kingdom for a horse. Richard III that’s  how much he was ready to pay for a horse. Is a penny too little a reward for a king who gave his life when threatened by the Danes about aburing his faith? In the Kingdom.

Rufus

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-santa-maria-in-trastevere

Wherever you go,  next time you send a postcard pray to Saint Rufus. ;) Roman courier, he is depicted  in one of the paintings being converted with Saint Anastasia by Crisogonus.

May the fragments of your trips and travels bring you a full faith 

Cecilia of Rome

Woman. Martyr. Virgin.

Have a feeling not enough harping on has been made through the centuries on male clergy celibacy. Its meaning.

Colombano from Bobbio

Born in 542 is the patron saint of motorbikers. Maybe because with quick from above thinking side tricked the devil on a number of occasions? He was also responsible for instituting private vs public confession.

 Finally, brethren, be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of his power. 11 Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. 12 For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. 13 Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. 14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, 15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace: 16 In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. 17 And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God). Eph 6 10-17

Prosperus

When under attack from the barbarians called for thick fog to descend on the city of Reggio Emilia.

May his intercession help Bishops worldwise lift the fog blinding ‘Catholic’ politicians in charge of the Catholic citizens.

Caterina d’Alessandria

Accomplished philosopher and theologician she died on a torture wheel and her body was transported on Mount Sinai by an angel.

How many theologicians nowdays try to humanly agree force spin the pope on the theology wheel in their direction – angels keeping it turned in God’s one.

Bellino

Bishop. Rebuilt the cathedral destroyed by the earthquake, assigned priests to the various chapels of the city, dealt with the misdealings of the local politicians…all in all the average episcopal life events.

Virgilius of Salzburg

Literally buried in historical memory. Interest in his life was resurrected upon finding his body buried in the very cathedral he had built.

Giacomo della Marca

Page 368 Luisa Zerbini Il grande libro dei santi – for his enticing saintly CV.

Illuminata

Another virgin converted and promised in marriage to a prefect. Also her parents later on converted to Christianity.

Andrew

Net and cross – the symbols of his apostolic mission and martyrdom. Check out your home Bibles for episodes of his life with Jesus.

Eligious from Noyon

Not how you should treat a lady. Grabbing her by the nose with some thongs. But alas that was the devil in disguise. Patron saint of goldsmiths. Shall we add modern day piercings?

Bibiana

Legend? See last line of the next entry. Patroness of mentally ill people. Her life is said to be possibly a legend.

Frances  Xavier

From his rich evangelical missionary travels only one observation: when in China he was challenged by locals saying that only Chinese wisdom  could have produced Christianity. Therefore how could it be something good?

500 or so years later China produces copy cat clergy and rubber stamps Bishops…

Barbara

Courageous and faithful woman suffered martyrdom at the hands of her own father too. Patron Saint, amongst others, of firefighters, soldiers and all called to deal with explosives, it probably rings appropriate to extend the protection to all those clergy facing explosive pastoral  issues.

Saba

Lavra (Narrow path) – the monastic community he founded in Palestine where both solitude and community life could be experienced. He chose the life of the anacoreta yet solved  conflicts between prominent political figures of his times and kept heresies at bay.

Nicholas of Bari

The sea faring saint

Ambrose

A stinging conundrum for the contemporary canonist:  buzzing bees acclaimed the  newly born as Bishop prior the celebration of his Baptism.

Macarius of Alexandria

III century. The devil and beaurocracy: Christians who accepted to venerate the pagan gods were given a certificate (libello) that graced them in front of the guards saving them from martyrdom. God only knows Who really sat in their hearts.

San Siro

The Bp of Milan kicks for the primacy of his diocesis…

 Milziade

Pope. Excommunicated Donatus proponent of the rigorism heresy: to minister or not to minister the Sacraments to those who had committed grave sins? That was the question also in the 400 century.