May The Month of Our Lady May is one of the four months especially dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. The other three months are: August, dedicated to her Immaculate Heart; September, dedicated to her Seven Sorrows; and October, dedicated to her most Holy Rosary.

 

1. Saint Joseph, the Patron of Workers. Saint Joseph, the virginal spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who guarded and protected her in her Divine Maternity, is, as a member of the Holy Family, one of a trinity in Heaven which every Christian heart must turn to in veneration and prayer. Saint Joseph was thirty years old when he married Our Lady, and sixty years old when he died. His genealogy is the first one given in the New Testament. He is foretyped in the Old Testament by Joseph, the son of Jacob, tall handsome, noble, and with a coat of many colors. Saint Joseph died in the arms of Jesus and Mary. Saint Joseph has two feast days: one on March 19, to commemorate his death, and now, one on May 1, to commemorate his vocation as a carpenter by Saint Joseph in order to show us what sanctity can be attached to the simple and humble role of a workman, provided all one's work is done in prayerful dedication to God. Lowly and laborious trades are elevated and exalted in the sigh of God because the foster father of Jesus on this earth was a carpenter. This is the childlike lesson of

 

May 1. Saint Jeremias (590 B.C.). Jeremias was one of the four major prophets of the Old Testament. His Prophecy and his Lamentations constitute a book in the Old Testament. There are forty-five books in the Old Testament and twenty-seven books in the New Testament. There are seventy-two books in the whole Bible. One of the most quoted texts from the prophet Jeremias is from his Lamentations, Chapter 3, verse 27, where he says that, "It is good for a man to have borne the yoke from his youth," thereby letting us know that when one is to become a saint, or even to save one's soul, it is good to start as a child. Saint Peregrine (1354). He was an Italian boy who spent a life of pleasure in the world until one day he met Saint Philip Benizi. He struck Saint Philip in the face and when Saint Philip, in his humility, turned the other cheek, it so impressed Peregrine that he was converted and joined the Servites. While he was in ecstasy he was instantaneously cured of cancer. He is invoked as the patron saint to cure cancer.

 

May 2. Saint Athanasius (373). He was one of the greatest Doctors of the Catholic Church. He was only a deacon at the Council of Nicea, in 325, when he courageously denounced Arius as a heretic for denying the full divinity of Jesus Christ. Saint Athanasius became Patriarch of Alexandria, in Egypt, and was its bishop for forty-six years. He suffered great hardships and persecutions. He was excommunicated by practically every influential bishop in the East and five times banished from his See, to which he always returned. Saint Athanasius is one of the four great Doctors of the Universal Church. The other three are Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory the Great. A creed has been named in honor of Saint Athanasius. It is known as the Athanasian Creed, and alone with the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, it is one of the three greatest dogmatic professions of Faith the Catholic Church uses in its liturgy. Saint Athanasius has been called "the Father of Orthodoxy" and "the Champion of Christ's Divinity." Saint Gregory Nazianzen calls Saint Athanasius "a pillar of the Church." So courageous was his defense of the Catholic Faith and its dogmas against the weak and sometimes heretical bishops of his day that this has given rise to the well-known saying "Athanasius against the world!" (Athanasius contra mundum). This means that one courageous priest or bishop professing the true Faith can be fully suppressed or silenced by no one.

 

May 3. Saint Philip (61) and Saint James (62). These are two of the Twelve Apostles, whose feasts are commemorated on the same day. This is because their bodies are kept in the same church in Rome, in the Basilica of the Holy Apostles. Saint Philip was crucified for the Faith. Saint James (James the Less), brother of Saint Simon and Saint Jude, and the fist Bishop of Jerusalem, was thrown from the top of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Jews, and then clubbed to death in the street.

 

May 4. Saint Florian (304). He was an officer in the Roman army who courageously professed his Faith during the persecution of Diocletian. He was terribly scourged and then thrown into a river with a stone around his neck. He is the patron of firemen and also one of the great patrons of Poland.

 

May 5. Saint Angelus (1220). Saint Angelus was born at Jerusalem and was the son of Jewish parents who had been converted to Christianity. He became a Carmelite priest and worked many miracles. He was martyred by heretics at Palermo in Sicily for defending the Catholic Faith.

 

May 6. Saint John before the Latin Gate (95). In the year 95, Saint John the Apostle, the beloved disciple of Our Lord and Our Lady's priest, was arrested at Ephesus and brought to Rome. He was there thrown into a caldron of boiling oil. He was eighty-three years old at the time. He miraculously came out unharmed. In fear of him, the pagan Romans exiled him to the Island of Patmos. There he wrote his great prophetical book, the Apocalypse. He then returned to Ephesus where, in the year 96, he wrote his Gospel, and later his three Epistles. Saint John died in the year 100, when he was eighty-eight years old. He was the youngest of all the Apostles, but the last to leave this world. His body as well as his soul have been assumed into Heaven, as Saint Robert Bellarmine assures us and as the tradition of the Faith clearly indicates. When his grave was opened, there was found nothing but bread, and in the eleventh century, Saint Peter Damian tells us that miraculous bread was still being renewed there whenever the tomb of Saint John was opened.

 

May 7. Saint John of Beverley (721). He was an English Benedictine monk who became a bishop. He founded a monastery at Beverley. Saint Bede, the one English Doctor of the Church, was taught and ordained by Saint John.

 

May 8. The Apparition of Saint Michael (525). The great Archangel Michael, the special Guardian Angel of Saint Joseph, and the Guardian Angel of each one of the Popes, and one of the seven great angels who stand before the throne of God appeared on a mountain named Gargano, in southern Italy, in 525. Saint Michael asked that a cave there be turned into a shrine, to make amends to God for the pagan worship that once occurred in that place. This was done, and the shrine was named in honor of Saint Michael. It is one of the most wonderful shrines in all Italy. Saint Acacius (303). He was a centurion in the Roman Army who was tortured and beheaded under Diocletian. He is one of the fourteen Holy Helpers and is invoked against headaches.

 

May 9. Saint Pachomius (348). He was one of the greatest Fathers of the Desert. He built several monasteries in Egypt and was the first to write a rule for monastic life. Saint Pachomius was given instructions by an angle.

 

May 10. This is the earliest day that Pentecost can occur. The latest day on which it can fall is June 13. Saint Antonius (1459). Saint Antonius was a little man, born in Florence. He was admitted to the Dominican Order when he was sixteen years old. He was the Pope's special theologian at the Council of Florence, and later on was made archbishop of that city. He was called "the Father of the Poor." He died holding a crucifix in his hand, and kissing it. His motto was, "To serve God is to reign."

 

May 11. Saint Mamertus (477). He was Bishop of Vienne in France. In order to avert some impending calamities he introduced the custom of penitential processions, later adopted by the entire Catholic Church as the three Rogation Days preceding Ascension Thursday.

 

May 12. Saint Nereus and Saint Achilleus (100). They were brothers who had been baptized by Saint Peter the Apostle. They were soldiers. For refusing to sacrifice to idols they were tortured and finally beheaded. Saint Pancratius (304). He is one of the best loved of all the boy saints in the Catholic Church. Saint Pancratius was martyred at the age of fourteen. By way of a gift, one of the Popes in the seventh century sent one of his relics to England. There, to this very day, English Catholics - who call him Saint Pancras - love and venerate this heroic Christian martyr. Blessed Imelda (1333). Blessed Imelda Lambertini was the daughter of an Italian count, at Bologna, in Italy. She was a student at a Dominican convert in that city. They accepted her as a novice at the age of nine. She had an intense love for the Blessed Sacrament, but had not received it. At the age of eleven, when she was kneeling in chapel at Mass, the Sacred Host miraculously left the hands of the priest and went into her mouth. She made a long, long thanksgiving. When the nuns came to call her, they found she had died of sheer love.

 

May 13. Our Lady of Fatima. The first of the great Fatima apparitions, to three children in Portugal, occurred on May 13, 1917. There were five more apparitions, on eon June 13, one on July 13, one on August 19, one on September 13 and the last one on October 13. At the last of these apparitions, 70,000 people saw the sun whirl round and round in the sky for ten or more minutes. The three children to whom Our Lady appeared at Fatima were a little ten-year-old girl named Lucia dos Santos, and her two cousins, a boy and a girl, nine and seven years old respectively, whose names were Francisco and Jacinta. All three were shepherds, in a little village north of Lisbon. Before the Fatima apparitions an angel had been sent by Our Lady with a chalice containing the Precious Blood of Jesus, to give to the two younger children, and with a consecrated Host for Lucia, the oldest child. In all the apparitions to the Fatima children, Our Lady held a rosary in her hand. She was seen with Jesus as a Child and with Saint Joseph. She was seen as Our Lady of Sorrows, with Jesus. She was seen as Our Lady of Mount Carmel, holding her Divine Child. Francisco and Jacinta died shortly after these apparitions. Lucia is now Sister Mary of the Immaculate Heart, and lives in a Carmelite convent in Coimbra, in Portugal. Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. This feast was first promoted by Saint Peter Julian Eymard, in 1868, the year he died. The purpose of this feast is to let us know that without Mary there would be no Blessed Sacrament, because it was she who gave Jesus the body and the blood, which are sacrificed at every Catholic Mass, and then given to the faithful as their Divine Food.

 

May 14. Saint Matthias (65). Saint Matthias was the Apostle chosen in place of Judas Iscariot, the traitor and suicide. Saint Matthias was beheaded by Jews in Jerusalem. His body is kept in the Church of Saint Mary de la Cabaña.

 

May 15. Saint Isidore the Farmer (1170). Saint Isidore was born in Madrid, in Spain. He worked all his life in the field. He is the patron saint of Madrid. His wife, too, was a saint. Her name is Saint Mary de la Cabeza. Saint Dymphna (Seventh Century). She was a beautiful virgin and martyr, the daughter of an Irish King, who was beheaded by the order of her pagan father. Martyred with her was her chaplain, Saint Gerebernus.

 

May 16. Saint John Nepomucene (1393). This is the great and wonderful Catholic priest born at Nepomuk, in Bohemia, who became court chaplain at Prague and confessor to the wife of King Wenceslaus IV. Because he would not reveal to the king what the queen had told him in confession. Saint John Nepomucene was thrown into the River Moldau in Prague, and drowned. He was only fifty-three years old at the time. Lights shone on the place where the saintly priest was drowned when he had been thrown from the a bridge. The morning after his martyrdom, his body was found and buried in the Cathedral of Prague. The king who martyred him was later seized and dethroned by the people. In 1719, the tongue of Saint John Nepomucene was found incorrupt. This was a tribute to his fidelity in never revealing to anyone the secrets of the confessional, a fidelity which every Catholic priest is obliged courageously to observe. In 1729 Saint John Nepomucene was canonized. Saint Simon Stock (1265). Saint Simon was born at Kent, in England, of a distinguished family. He was called "Simon Stock" because at the age of twelve he began living a contemplative life in the hallow (the stock) of a great oak tree, which he made his little chapel and home for twenty years. He became a Carmelite monk and, in time was made the sixth General of the Order, in England. It was to Saint Simon Stock, on July 16, 1251, that Our Lady gave the brown scapular. Our Lady promised to all who wore the brown scapular that she would obtain for them the grace of final perseverance in the Catholic Faith. Saint Simon Stock was one hundred years old when he died. During his life he visited Mount Carmel in the Holy Land, the great mountain dedicated so especially to Mary, the Mother of God, and where the first chapel ever built in her honor was erected, in the year 33. Saint Brendan (578). There are two great Irish saints named Brendan, and both were abbots. Saint Brendan the Younger, whose feast is May 16, was educated by Saint Ita and Saint Finian. He was the first one ever to make a voyage to the shores of America, the "Land of Promise." He did this in the sixth century, nine hundred years before Columbus discovered America. He is called "Saint Brendan the Navigator." He was ninety-four years old when he died. He founded schools and monasteries. He is the patron saint of sailors.

May 17. This is the earliest day that Trinity Sunday can occur. The latest day on which it can fall is June 20. Saint Paschal Baylon (1592). Saint Paschal Baylon was born on the feast of Pentecost, on the twenty-fourth of May 1540. That is why he was called "Paschal." He was a little peasant boy who tended sheep. In his leisure, he read holy books and became profoundly learned in all the simple mysteries of the Catholic faith. His great love and devotion were to the Blessed Sacrament. He would spend hours kneeling before Our Lord in the tabernacle. When he could not go to church, he would kneel in the fields and face the church where the Blessed Sacrament was, and adore Jesus from a distance. He became a Franciscan lay brother at the age of twenty-four. His obedience, humility and gracious manner edified everyone. His assignment as a lay brother was that of a doorkeeper. He used to spend most of his nights in prayer and adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. On a trip through France he met some Calvinists, and so defended the Most Blessed Sacrament in disputation with a Protestant minister, that he was beaten until he nearly died. When he did die, on the seventeenth of May, in 1592, while his body lay in the coffin at the foot of the altar in the church at his funeral Mass, during the elevation of the Host and the Chalice, Saint Paschal's eyes were seen to open and close by hundreds of people in the church. This Angelic lay brother of the Franciscan Order has been made the patron of Eucharistic Congresses.

 

May 18. Saint John I (526. He was the fifty-fifth pope who died a martyr after a long imprisonment by the Arian King Theodoric. Saint Eric (1160). Saint Eric was a king of Sweden, and is one of the great Catholic patrons of that country. He was called "the Father and Lawgiver of the People." He was martyred by some pagan Danes as he was leaving a Catholic church after Mass. He was beheaded. Saint Felix of Cantalice (1587). He was a simple farmer at Abruzzi, in Italy. He entered the Capuchin Order as a lay brother when he was thirty years old. His constant prayer was Deo Gratias!" which means "Thanks be to God!" As a result of his simple invocation which he continually made, everyone called him "Brother Deo Gratias." Though a simple and unlettered man, his holiness and wisdom were so great that saints, like Saint Charles Borromeo and Saint Philip Neri, consulted him, and many learned theologians went to him for advice.

 

May 19. Saint Peter Celestine V (1296). Peter of Morone was the name of Pope Celestine V before he was elected to be a successor of Saint Peter. He spent only five months as Pope. He then resigned because of his humility and his desire to return to the life of a Benedictine hermit. There has been no Pope named Peter except the first one. As Pope, Peter Celestine is called Pope Celestine V. As a saint, he is called Saint Peter Celestine. Saint Yvonne (Yvo) (1303). This is the feminine form of Saint Yvo (Ivo). A French lawyer called the "Advocate of the Poor." He is the patron saint of lawyers.

 

May 20. Saint Bernardine of Siena (1444). Saint Bernardine of Siena was born 1380. He became a Franciscan when he was twenty-two years old. He was one of the greatest missionary priest of the fifteenth century. His especial devotion was to the Holy Name of Jesus, which he insisted that everyone should say devoutly, reverently and with the bending of one's head. He openly rebuked anyone who dared use the Holy Name of Jesus in profanity. Everywhere Saint Bernardine went, he carried a banner with the monogram IHS on it. Saint Bernardine was canonized six years after he died. The four great apostle of the Holy Name of Jesus are Saint Bernardine of Siena, Saint John of Capistrano (whose feast day is October 23), Saint Ignatius of Loyola (who called the Order which he founded the Society of Jesus, and whose feast day is July 3) and Saint John Colombini (whose feast is also July 31) who founded an Order whose members went about constantly and reverently and audibly invoking the Holy Name of Jesus.

 

May 21. Saint Andrew Bobola (1657). Saint Andrew Bobola was born and died in Poland. He is called the apostle of Lithuania because of his great apostolic labors in that section. He was a priest of the Society of Jesus. He was martyred at the age of sixty-seven by the Cossacks, who beat and scourged him so severely, dragged him through the streets, half burned and choked him, that when he was beatified, the Sacred Congregation of Rites in Rome declared that his was the most cruel martyrdom ever submitted to that court. Saint Andrew Bobola was beatified in 1853 by Pope Pius IX. He was canonized in 1938 by Pope Pius XI.

 

May 22. Saint Rita of Cascia (1456). Saint Rita's full name was Margherita, which means pearl. She was born a peasant family in the mountain country of Umbria in Italy. Her birth was an answer to the prayer of her parents, who had for years waited for a child. She wished to become a nun at eighteen, but was forced to marry. After her husband's death she fulfilled her first vocation, and at the age of thirty became an Augustinian num. The convent of that Order first refused her, but her patron saints, Saint Augustine, Saint John the Baptist and Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, miraculously carried and placed her at the foot of the altar, before the Blessed Sacrament, in the chapel of the convent where she desired to enter. there the nuns found her and knew they must keep her. Saint Rita begged Our Lord to share His passions with her in the matter of wounds. One night, when she was kneeling before a fresco on the wall of her convent, a bright light came from a figure of Jesus with His Crown of Thorns to her own forehead, and pierced it, and left the mark of a thorn there for the rest of her life. Saint Catherine of Bologna, Saint John of Capistrano and Saint James of the Marches were her contemporaries. She died when she was seventy years old. Because of her power in heaven to grant favors of any king that are asked of her, Saint Rita is called in childlike affection , "the saint of the impossible." Saint Julia (Fifth Century). She was a beautiful virgin martyr from Corsica who was crucified because she would not join a pagan celebration.

 

May 23. Saint John Baptist de Rossi (1764). This heroic Roman priest was the great apostle to the farm laborers and city workers of Rome and its suburbs. He loved to do work among prisoners, the poor and the illiterate. He preached to simple folk at all hours of the day. he visited them in their hospitals and in their homes. He was given permission to hear confessions at any time in any one of the churches in Rome, and penitents constantly came to him. Saint John Baptist de Rossi is known as "the apostle of the abandoned." He was sixty-six years old when he died.

 

May 24. Our Lady, Help of Christians. The invocation "Our Lady, Help of Christians" was first put into the Litany of Loreto by the Pope, Saint Pius V, in 1571, after the Battle of Lepanto. This was the great battle in which an army of valiant Catholic soldiers, fighting against the Mohammedans, completely defeated these Turkish ememies of Our Lord and Our Lady. In 1814, when Pope Pius VII was freed from a five years' stay in prison, where he had been put by the brutal Napoleon, this Holy Father set up May 24 as the feast of Our Lady help of Christians. Our Lady of the Way. The title "Our Lady of the Way" (Madonna della Strada) comes from a beautiful shrine kept in one of the streets of Rome, where a picture painted in the fifth century was venerated. This lovely picture, to which Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, was so devoted - and before which he and his early companions used to assemble when first they came to the Eternal City - is now kept in the Church of the Gesu, in Rome, a church of the Society of Jesus. Pilgrims visit it there every day and keep constantly telling of the favors they receive from the Mother of God after kneeling and praying before it. Saint Joanna (First Century). She was the wife of Chuza, the steward of King Herod Antipas. She was one of the holy women who brought spices and ointments to the Holy Sepulcher on Easter morning to anoint the body of Our Lord, which they found had risen from the grave. Her name is mentioned twice in the Holy Gospel of Saint Luke.

 

May 25. Saint Bede the Venerable (735). Saint Bede was called the Venerable while he was still alive. He is the one English Doctor or the Catholic Church. Saint Bede was educated by a saint, Saint Benedict Biscop, and was ordained by a saint, Saint John of Beverley. he was crystal clear, simple and childlike in all his positive affirmations about the beauty, the clarity and the necessity of the Catholic Faith for the salvation of souls. He died on the eve of the Ascension, in the year 7353, at the age of sixty-two. His last words were, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost!" Saint Bede was called Venerable during his life because his writings were so challenging and holy that they were read from pulpits at Mass by other Catholic priest. Saint Gregory VII (1085). Saint Gregory VII's baptismal name was Hildebrand. He was a counselor to many Popes before he was elected Sovereign Pontiff himself. He reigned for twelve years, from 1073 to 1085. So heroically did he fight for the truths and regulations of the Catholic Faith, and so bitterly was he opposed and hated by the powerful enemies of the Church, that he had to flee from Rome to Salerno, where he died. His famous last words were, "I have loved justice, and hatred iniquity; therefore I die in exile." he was sixty-five years old when he died. Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi (1607). She was an Italian girl, born in Florence in 1566. Her baptismal name was Catherine. As a little child, she would place a crown of thorns on her head when she went to bed at night. she received her first Holy Communion when she was ten years old. She immediately bound herself by a vow of virginity to be the spouse of Jesus. at the age of sixteen she joined the Carmelite Order, and took the name of Mary. She joined that Order because the sisters there, by special permission, were allowed to receive Holy Communion every day. Because she was so sick and not expected to live, she was allowed to make her religious vows two years after her entrance. Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi enjoyed great ecstasies of love and union with God. She also suffered great darknesses of soul, sicknesses and attacks by the devil. She offered all her sufferings to God for the conversion of sinners, heretics, pagans and unbelievers. She spent the last three years of her life in bed. Her motto was, "To suffer and not to die." she did die, at the age of forty-one. her body is preserved incorrupt in the Carmelite convent, in Florence, adjacent to the church there. Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat (1865). Born before the Reign of Terror brought on by the French Revolution, Madeleine Sophie Barat was one of the most brilliant and courageous French Catholic girls in the history of the church. With heroism and charm combined, with devotion and genius mingled together, she rallied hundreds and hundreds of young women to the cause of the Church Militant in those dreadful days. In 1801, she founded the Religious of the Sacred Heart, familiarly known as the Madams of the Sacred Heart. The fruit of her work was one hundred and five religious houses, and four thousand nuns, right in her own day. One of the spiritual daughters of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat is Blessed Rose Philippine Duchesne, who is buried in Saint Charles, Missouri, outside St. Louis. Saint Madeleine Sophie was eighty-six years old when she died.

 

May 26. Saint Philip Neri (1595). Saint Philip Neri lived in the century when Protestantism was first raging. He founded the noted congregation of the Oratory. He was such a clear and authoritative teacher of the Catholic Faith to simple and poor people in streets, as well as to the highborn and noble of his day, that he is called "the second Apostle of Rome." He kept thousands of Catholics from being infected with heresy. He liked to spend twelve to fifteen hours a day in the confessional. Saint Philip Neri was noted for his radiant cheerfulness and friendliness and grace and good humor. He frequently went into an ecstasy while saying Mass. the beating of his heart for the love of God was so strong it broke two ribs in his side. He was eighty years old when he died. Saint Mariana (1645). Saint Mariana de Paredes lived in Ecuador. She is called "Lily of Quito." she wanted always to call herself Mariana of Jesus.

 

May 27. Saint Augustine of Canterbury (604). He was the great apostle of England, sent there by Saint Gregory the Great in 597. he brought forty Benedictine monks with him. On the Christmas Day after he arrived he baptized ten thousand Englishmen. Even King Ethelbert was converted. This was the beginning of the great age of the Catholic Faith in England, once a country so devout and loyal to the true Faith, and so lovely prayerful toward the Blessed Virgin Mary that it was called as a land, "Our Lady's Dowry." The best traditions of England are all Catholic. No heretic has been able completely to destroy them. Saint Ralph (700). He was a martyr of Thelus in northern France. His son was Saint Hadulph who became a bishop.

 

May 28. Saint Bernard of Menthon (1008). He was an Augustinian monk who visited every mountain and valley in the Alps. He took care of all travelers there for over forty years. He is the patron saint of mountain climbers. The celebrated Saint Bernard dogs are named in his honor.

 

May 29. Saint Maximinus (Fourth Century). He was the Bishop of Trier, which was then the capital of the Western Roman Empire, and fought against the Arian heretics. He was host to Saint Athanasius and Saint Paul of Constantinople when they were exiled from their sees by the Arians.

 

May 30. Saint Joan of Arc (1431). She is known as the Maid of Orleans. Her fame has spread to every corner of the world. She was a young shepherd girl in France, who at command of three saints, took up arms and led a French army against English soldiers of France who were threatening to destroy its culture and its freedom. Saint Joan of Arc was only seventeen years old at this time. She was later captured and martyred by the English. Because her martyrdom occurred, according to detail, for secular reasons, she is given the title of virgins, and not martyr. She died in 1431, when she was nineteen years old. She is the patroness of France. Saint Denis is its patron. Saint Genevieve is the patroness of Paris. The voices of three saints led Saint Joan of arc to go to battle as a young girl to save her country from dishonor. These were the voices of Saint Michael the Archangel, Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Margaret of Antioch. The last word Saint Joan of Arc spoke was the Holy name of Jesus, as she was being burned to death. Saint Pius X espouse her cause for canonization. Pope Benedict XV canonized her in the year 1920. Saint Ferdinand (1252). He was a king of Castile and Leon in Spain. He fought against the Moors. He said he "feared more the curse of one old woman than the whole army of the Moors.”

 

May 31. The Visitation of Our Lady (1 B.C.) to the house of Elizabeth and Zachary, mother and father of Saint John the Baptist. As soon as Mary, the spouse of Saint Joseph, had learned from an angel that, as she had conceived a Child virginally, so Elizabeth, her cousin, had conceived one miraculously, she made haste to go and visit Elizabeth. Mary arrived at the house of Elizabeth at Ain Karim, a little town southwest of Jerusalem, on April 2. She stayed there for three months. Elizabeth greeted Mary with the phrase, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." It was standing in the door of Elizabeth's house that Our Lady sang her great canticle, the Magnificat. Mary waited for the birth of John the Baptist on June 24, and left for Nazareth on July 2, the day after Saint John the Baptist was circumcised and given his name. Mary's visit to Elizabeth was the greatest visit paid by anyone to anyone in the history of the world. All Catholics call it, in simple reference, the Visitation. The moment Mary, with Jesus in her womb, entered the house of Elizabeth, on April 2, John the Baptist was sanctified in his mother's womb. He received at that moment the use of reason, and for three months antecedent to his birth, he knew, in humility and love, who was dwelling in his house. He also knew his own purpose as the Precursor of Christ. John the Baptist was born six month before Jesus. John the Baptist was martyred one year before Jesus. The day Jesus was born, the days begin to increase. The day John the Baptist was born, they begin to decrease. "He must increase and I must decrease," is the beautiful way this seasonal fact is referred to in liturgical love in Holy Scripture by Saint John the Baptist. Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces. This title of Our Lady means that anything we get from God we get when Mary asks it, as she asks it, and to the degree with which she makes her request. She is the Mother of all favors for everyone. God will not listen to any prayer that is not offered to Him through the intercession of Mary, the Mother of God. This is the constant teaching of saints and Popes. The Mass of Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Graces, was approved by Pope Benedict XV in 1921. Saint Personally (First Century). She was a Roman Virgin, converted to the Catholic Faith by the Apostle Saint Peter. She stayed with him and ministered to him until her death, at an early age. She ended her life as a martyr. She is the spiritual daughter of Saint Peter. It was his delight to have their names substantially the same, Peter, which means rock, and Petronilla, which means little stone.

 

-from “Saints to Remember from January to December,” by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary