“Bow down to the god Apollo,” advised the torturers as they advanced toward Christopher with thin rods of iron, white with heat. This is the great Saint Christopher whose Feast Day was removed from our calendar of Saints on May … Continue reading
Category: Lives of the Saints
St. Francis of Assisi on the Priesthood
Listen, my brothers: If the Blessed Virgin is so honored, as it is right, since she carried Him in her most holy womb; if the blessed Baptist trembled and did not dare to touch the holy head of God; if … Continue reading
Charlemagne and the Finding of the Body of St. Anne
The following will no doubt be taken by some as a Baroque — or worse, Romantic — example of an unenlightened and backward Catholic fascination with legend. So be it. What the critics who generally proffer these skepticisms have given … Continue reading
Saint Catherine of Siena
Siena, in the fourteenth century, was a thriving city in northern Italy situated on the summits of three hills. Here Saint Catherine of Siena, one of the greatest of all the saints of the Catholic Church, was born. Mystic, arbitrator, … Continue reading
Dream of Saint John Bosco: to Hell and Back
Introduction: At the beginning of Holy Week in 1868, haunting dreams began to trouble Don Bosco, and they “went on for several miserable nights.” “These dreams so exhausted me,” he stated, “that in the morning I felt more done in … Continue reading
Blessed Margaret of Castello
PROBABLY THE most unlikely — and yet most significant — patroness for this day and age would be Blessed Margaret of Castello. If her parents had lived today and the doctors had been able to anticipate with accuracy the little … Continue reading
Saint John Bosco: Modern Apostle of Youth
IT WAS THE YEAR 1815. The evil times were far from being over. But all in all this was a good year. Napoleon had fallen. Oppressive anti-Church laws were lifted in Italy. The exiled Pope Pius VII was able to return … Continue reading
Saint Boniface and the Missionary Culture of the Faith
Oh you who are anxious to learn what it is to enjoy the Word, prepare not your ear but your soul; for it is grace that teaches it and not language. This secret remains hidden from the wise and the … Continue reading
Saint Peregrine: Anti-Cleric to Saint
The scene is in Italy in the troubled thirteenth century. The city of Forli had revolted against the authority of the Church.
Venerable Emmanuel d’Alzon: ‘A Noble and Frank Intolerance’
Venerable Emmanuel d’Alzon first caught my attention when I came upon the following paragraph from an address he gave to his religious congregation. “We love Christ with the same kind of love as the early Christians because He still faces … Continue reading
Saint Leo the Great: No Fear, No Compromise, the Lion in the Chair
Virtue is nothing without the trial of temptation, for there is no conflict without an enemy, no victory without strife. (Pope St. Leo the Great) Attila, the great Khan of the Huns, trained his mobile soldiers to sleep on their … Continue reading
First Canonized Saint of the United States, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini
God sees all things and all acts an eternity before they are or happen. Most are aware of this paralyzing truth, of course. But, because our finite minds cannot really grasp it, we tend to give little if any thought … Continue reading
Apostle of the Infinite: The Life of Saint Vincent Pallotti
Nineteenth century Rome was not the uneventful place one may imagine. Rome of the 1800s saw Mazzini, Garibaldi, and their Masonic cohorts dare to assault the Vicar of Christ and send him into exile. It saw fickle mobs capable of … Continue reading
The Decline of Controversy by Bishop Fulton Sheen
Towards the end of his life, Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895–1979) personally gave our Brother Hugh permission to reprint this article in From the Housetops in the 1970s. We once again make it available, this time on the web. Once there … Continue reading