Feast Day: July 30 St. Germanus gave little sign of sanctity in his youth. He was of noble birth, and at first practised the law at Rome. After a time the emperor placed him high in the army. But his one passion was the chase. He was so carried away as even to retain in his sports the superstitions of the pagan huntsmen. Yet it was revealed to the Bishop of Auxerre that … [Read more...]
St. Augustine
Feast Day: August 28 St. Augustine was born in 354, at Tagaste in Africa. He was brought up in the Christian faith, but without receiving baptism. An ambitious school-boy of brilliant talents and violent passions, he early lost both his faith and his innocence. He persisted in his irregular life until he was thirty-two. Being then at Milan professing rhetoric, he tells us … [Read more...]
St. Gal I (Bishop of Clermont)
Feastday: July 1 Earthly Life: 489 - 554 (approx) Cannonized: Pre-Congregation Of all the bishops who have occupied the see of Clermont-Ferrand (Auvergne) the sixteenth and twenty-third bore the name of Gal, and both are honoured as saints. The first and most illustrious was bishop from 527 to 551. Gal was born of a senatorial family of Auvergne, the first St. Gal early … [Read more...]
St. John Chrysostom
St. John was born at Antioch in 344. In order to break with a world which admired and courted him, he in 374 retired for six years to a neighboring mountain. Having thus acquired the art of Christian silence, he returned to Antioch, and there labored as priest, until he was ordained Bishop of Constantinople in 398. The effect of his sermons was everywhere marvellous. He was … [Read more...]
St. Blaise
Feast Day: February 3rd Patron of Throat & Illness Earthly Life: Died 316 Cannonized: Pre-Congregation St. Blaise devoted the earlier years of his life to the study of philosophy, and afterwards became a physician. In the practice of his profession he saw so much of the miseries of life and the hollowness of worldly pleasures, that he resolved to spend the rest of his … [Read more...]