Saints Alive! | St. Catherine del Ricci

At the age of twelve she entered the Dominican convent of St Vincent at Prato and took the religious name Catherine. Inspired by the Dominican reformer Girolamo Savonarola she worked constantly to promote the regular life. She was favoured with extraordinary mystical experiences and at the age of twenty began to experience the sacred stigmata and weekly ecstasies of the Passion. St. Catherine di Ricci knew St. Philip Neri and Sr. Mary Magdalene di Pazzi. She counseled many lay people and guided them in their spiritual lives, and was an advisor to three future popes! The Dominican Sisters have approximately 1000 of her letters. For more about this saint, please click on the image. Peace be with you!

Saints Alive! | St. Julian the Hospitaller

Saint Julian the Hospitaller was a noble layman who was a counselor to the King and was married to a wealthy widow. It was predicted that he would one day kill his parents. Tormented by this he moved far away to prevent such a horror. Returning to his own home one day after a journey, and through a fateful chain of events, the prediction occured. He went to Rome for penance to seek absolution for killing his parents. On his return home he built a Hospice on a river bed where he cared for the poor and sick and assisted travelers to cross the river for free. For more about this saint, please click on the image. Peace be with you!

Saints Alive! | Our Lady of Lourdes

In 1858 the immaculate Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, near Lourdes in France, in the cavern called “de Massabielle.” Through this poor, fourteen-year-old girl, Mary calls on sinners to change their lives. She has inspired in the Church a great love of prayer and good works, especially in the service of the poor and the sick. For more about this memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, please click on the image. Peace be with you!

Saints Alive! | St. Scholastica

What we know of the life of Scholastica is drawn from The Dialogues, Gregory the Great’s biography of her brother, Benedict, the founder of Western Monasticism. Born of a noble Roman family in Nursia in Umbria, Italy, Scholastica was dedicated to God at a young age. She led a community of virgins at Plombariola, not far from Monte Cassino, the monastery Benedict had founded. She visited her brother once a year, meeting for prayer and conversation just outside the monastery walls. It was shortly after one of these meetings, in the year 542, that Benedict, looking out from the monastery, saw his sister’s soul ascend to heaven like a dove. For more about this saint, please click on the image. Peace be with you!

Saints Alive! | Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich

She was born in Flamschen, a farming community at Coesfeld, in the Diocese of Münster, Westphalia, Germany, and died at age 49 in Dülmen, where she had been a nun, and later become bedridden. Emmerich reputedly experienced visions on the life and passion of Jesus Christ, as revealed to her by the Blessed Virgin Mary under religious ecstasy. For more about this saint, please click on the image. Peace be with you!