Monthly Archives: May 2020

In 1642 at the age of 16, Francis entered the clerical state in his home town of Taranto, Italy.  He completed his education for the priesthood in Naples.  Francis taught in the Jesuit College of Nobles in Naples and was highly regarded by the students.  After four years he joined the Society of Jesus and led the life of a rural missionary working on the outskirts of Naples for the last forty years of his life.  He was a powerful and spell-binding preacher.  He was surrounded by people wherever he went.  They streamed to his confessional.  He converted countless sinners.  It is said that he brought back to God at least 400 hardened sinners every year.  He sought people everywhere, along back streets, country roads, brothels, and prisons.  He had the reputation as a wonderworker.  Throngs of people gathered round his coffin at his death in 1716.

FEAST DAY:  May 11

MEDALS

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

Preside at the Eucharist or celebrate the Mass.

Today’s Question

Men and women can be ordained deacons in the Roman Catholic Church.

St. Damien was born at Tremeloo, Belgium on January 3, 1840.  He attended the College of Braine-le-Comte.  St. Damien joined the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1860, and he took the name Damien.  He was sent as a missionary to Hawaii at his request in 1864.  He was ordained in Honolulu that same year.  For nine years he worked to evangelize the peoples of Puno and Kohala.  Again at his request, in 1873, he went to the leper colony at Molokai, and he spent his life ministering to the lepers.  He contracted the disease in 1885, but St. Damien continued to live and work with and aid the lepers until his death on April 15.  His lifetime of holiness and dedication were quickly recognized after his death though he was slandered during his lifetime.  Robert Louis Stevenson wrote an impassioned defense of his character in 1905.  Pope Paul VI declared him Venerable in 1977.

 FEAST DAY:  May 10 

DVD       BOOKS

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

 How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me?

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(a) Ordination

Today’s Question

What is another way of saying that priests offer the sacrifice of the Mass?

Born to St. Gregory Nazianzen the Elder and St. Nonna in Cappadocia.  He became acquainted with St. Basil at the rhetorical school at Caesarea, Palestine.  Then he went to Athens for ten years where both Basil and the future Emperor Julian the Apostate were also studying.   At about the age of 30 he went to Pontus to live a life of a solitary.  Two years later he returned home to assist his elderly father.  He was ordained by his father and around 372 was named Bishop of Sasima.  He never went to Sasima but remained with his father.  After his father’s death, he suffered a breakdown.  Later he was invited to Constantinople by a group of bishops to help revitalize the church in the East.  His preaching brought floods of converts.  He was abused and persecuted by the Arians, Apollinarists, and Maximus who tried to depose him.  Gregory prevailed and was made Archbishop of Constantinople.  During a controversy over his election, he resigned now that orthodoxy had been restored.  He lived a private life in great austerity and died January 25.   

 FEAST DAY:  May 9

GARDEN STATUES

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(c)  The good shepherd

Today’s Question

The liturgical act or rite by which a person is consecrated a priest is called ___________.

(a) ordination     (b) baptism     (c) confirmation

He was the son of a wealthy couple from Soissons, France, who spent all their time and possessions in helping the poor.  They were a good influence on Desideratus, and his brothers, Desiderius and Deodatus.  All three became saints.  King Clotaire made Desideratus Secretary of State.  He was a holy man and lived a holy life despite the splendors of the royal court.  He was a good influence on the King.  He wanted to retire to a monastery, but the King reminded him to put the peoples welfare before his own.  He became Bishop of Bourges and during that time he was known as a peacemaker and wonderworker.  He was a member of the Fifth Council of Orleans and the Second Council of Auvergne.  He died May 8, 550.

 FEAST DAY:  May 8

CROSSES & CRUCIFIXES

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(a)  The presence of God’s kingdom.

Today’s Answer

What biblical image provides a sense of the bishop’s pastoral service as watching over and guiding his people?

(a) the good Samaritan     (b) the good shepherd     (c) the honest steward

Born July 26, 1030 to noble parents.  He was educated at Gnesen and was ordained. Bishop Lampert Zula gave him a canonry and made him his preacher for which he became noted.  He became a spiritual advisor and was sought after.  His efforts to reform were successful.  In 1072 he was named Bishop of Cracow.  King Boleslaus was a cruel man, even to the point of kidnapping a nobleman’s beautiful wife.  St. Stanislaus incurred the King’s wrath when he denounced his cruelties.  Stanislaus excommunicated the King and stopped services when Boleslaus entered the cathedral.  Boleslaus killed St. Stanislaus while he was saying Mass in a chapel outside the city on April 11.  He was canonized by Pope Innocent IV in 1253.

FEAST DAY:  May 7

PATRON OF:  Cracow

BOOKS FOR MEN

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(b) Illness

Today’s Question

Jesus’ compassion toward the sick is a sign of ____________

(a) the presence of God’s kingdom     (b) God’s interest in medicine     (c) God’s desire to end disease

Said to be one of the seventy disciples.  Tradition says he was ordained and consecrated bishop of Antioch by one of the Apostles, probably Peter.  It is believed that he was the first person to use the word Christian.

FEAST DAY:  May 6

GIFTS

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(c) Illness

Today’s Question

What can have a positive effect in helping us turn toward God and toward what is really important in life?

(a) lightening     (b) illness     (c) the lottery

St. Jutta was born in Sangerhausen, Thuringia.   She was married to a nobleman at age 15.  She won her husband over to her spiritually-motivated life.  He died on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  Jutta was desolate and had to raise her children herself.  Their mother’s spiritual example influenced her children to enter the religious life and left her free to follow the vocation to which she had long aspired.  She gave away all her property and spent the few remaining years of her life in religious retirement and cared for the sick.  A dilapidated building about a half mile from Kulmsee is where she settled down.  The Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights was a relative of hers.  Her home was about a half mile from the territory of the military order of the Knights.  She maintained that three things can bring one close to God – painful sickness, exile from home in some remote corner of a foreign country, and poverty voluntarily accepted for God.  She spent her whole life exemplifying this way of approach to God.   She was reported to have had visions, performed miracles, and experienced levitation.   She died in 1260.

FEAST DAY:  May 5

ROSARIES

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(a) Healing and the relief of suffering.

Today’s Question

What reminds us how limited and finite we are as human beings?

(a) health     (b) prosperity     (c) illness

Probably born in North Africa of Christian parents.  Married to Patricius, a pagan.  Patricius was known for his dissolute lifestyle and his temper.  They had three children:  Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua.  She was able to convert her husband and his mother through her prayers.  She was widowed in 371.  She prayed for years for the conversion of Augustine.   She followed him to Rome and then to Milan where he embraced Christianity in 386, and he was baptized on Easter in 387.  She lived with Augustine, his son, and associates while he was preparing for baptism.  She died at Ostia, Italy, while they were awaiting the arrival of the ship which would take them back to Africa.

 FEAST DAY:  May 4

PATRON OF:  Married women, abuse victims, difficult marriages

CHILDREN’S BOOKS               

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

 Lord, you will show us the path of life.

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(a) Priest

Today’s Question

The sacrament of anointing is associated with ________________________.

(a) healing and the relief of suffering     (b) marriage     (c) hunger

St. Philip was a native of Bethsaida in Galileee.  Our Lord called him the day after St. Peter and St. Andrew.  He was a married man with three daughters.  He left all to follow Christ.  After Jesus’ Ascension, he preached the Gospel in Phrygia, a part of Asia Minor, then a province of the Roman Empire.   He was buried at Hierapolis in Phrygia.

 FEAST DAY:  May 3

PATRON OF:   History, pastry chefs

 St. James the Less, was the son of Alphaeus of Clophas.  His mother, Mary, was a close relative of the Blessed Virgin.  That is why he sometimes is called “brother” of the Lord, according to Jewish custom.  He says he was a witness of the Resurrection of Christ.  St. Paul consulted St. James the Less about the Gospel.  James is also called a “pillar” of the church.  Tradition says he was the first Bishop of Jerusalem.  Historians Eusebius and Hegesippus say St. James was martyred for the Faith in the Spring of the year 62.  They gave him the surname of “James the Just”.   He authored an epistle and the Councils of the Church confirm its authenticity and canonicity.   He preached to those Christians outside Palestine, the “twelve tribes that are in the Dispersion.”  He endeavored to guide and direct them in the faith.  

 FEAST DAY:  May 3

PATRON OF:  Pharmacists

DVD

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Their message goes out through all the earth.

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(b) The sacrifice of his death

Today’s Question

To whom does one pray during confession in order to express true sorrow for sin and a desire for God’s forgiveness?

(a) priest     (b) baptized Christian     (c) deacon     (d) sister

St. Athanasius was born at Alexandria around the year 296 of Christian parents.  He made great progress in his education under Alexander, later the Bishop of his native city.  He succeeded Achillas in the Patriarichal See in 313 and two years later he went to the desert to spend some time with St. Anthony in retreat.  He became a deacon in 319 and had to take an active part against rising heresy of Arius.  Arius was an ambitious priest of the Alexandrian Church who denied the Divinity of Christ.  This was the life struggle of St. Athanasius.  His influence began to be felt when he assisted his Bishop at the Council of Nicaea in 325.  Alexander died five months later and on his deathbed he recommended St. Athanasius as his successor.  He was unanimously elected Patriarch in 326.  By refusing to tolerate the Arian heresy, he suffered many persecutions and trials.  He spent 46 years of his episcopate in exile.  This intrepid champion of the Catholic Faith, the greatest man of his time, who lead a life of virtue and suffering, died in peace on May 2, 373.

FEAST DAY:  May 2

BIBLES

Responsorial Psalm

One thing I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord.

QUIZ

Yesterday’s Answer

(a) The collection

Today’s Question

What event in Christ’s life is re-presented in the eucharist?

(a) the birth     (b) the sacrifice     (c) the multiplication of the loaves and fishes