Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) left letters, a book and a great following. The story of her mother’s return from death comes from her confessor and biographer, Raymond of Capua, who finished his Legend in 1395. What makes it interesting is that he names the people who were in the room. The account Raymond introduces it … Read more
Pope Gregory the Great wrote the only early account of Saint Benedict’s life, in Book II of his Dialogues, around 593. Among its stories is one of the most dramatic: a farmer carries his dead son to the abbey gate and refuses to leave without him. The story In the Benedictine translation (chapter 32), the … Read more
The Church remembers Saint Martin of Tours on November 11. Among the stories told about him, one stands out for how close the writer stood to the man: the raising of a catechumen, recorded by Sulpicius Severus in a Life written before Martin himself had died. What the text says In chapter 7 of his … Read more
Join one Catholic order, and the pope can send you anywhere, at once. Join another, and you eat alone in your cell and talk on a weekly walk. This article puts ten Catholic religious orders on one ladder, from the most engaged with the world to the most withdrawn from it. Two things before the … Read more
On October 22, 1978, a man stood in St. Peter’s Square six days after being elected pope and told the crowd, and the world, not to be afraid. The Church now remembers Saint John Paul II on that date every year. Before he was the pope who travelled the globe, he was a student actor, … Read more
You stand to pray. You listen to the readings. You say Amen. Around the year 155, a Christian wrote those things down for the Roman emperor. This article checks ten Mass habits against his letter and against the Church’s own documents, and gives each a verdict: mistake, not a mistake, or depends where you are. … Read more
In the United States, the Church remembers Saint Paul of the Cross on October 20. In the rest of the Church the date is October 19. He was an Italian priest born in 1694, and the community he founded still carries one word in its name: the Passion. This article sticks to what the Church’s … Read more
In the year 320, forty Roman soldiers were left naked all night on a frozen pond at Sebaste, for refusing to sacrifice. Warm baths waited on the shore for any man who gave in. Before dawn, one did. The number on the ice stayed forty. This is their story, and three more like it: Marcellus, … Read more
Around the year 1205, a rich cloth merchant’s son knelt before a crucifix in a ruined church and heard it speak. Within a few years he had given up his inheritance in front of the bishop of Assisi, and within twenty he was dead on the bare floor of a chapel. Francis of Assisi is … Read more
Thérèse of Lisieux entered a Carmelite convent at 15 and died there at 24. She led no armies, founded no order and wrote no treatise. On October 19, 1997, Pope John Paul II named her a Doctor of the Church, the youngest ever given that title. How does a hidden life like that end up … Read more
