Born in St-Malo, France, Louis Grignion (1673-1716) was the founder of the Company of Mary, the Daughters of Wisdom and the Brothers of St. Gabriel. Ordained in 1700, he was first appointed chaplain to a hospital in Poitiers.  While his introduction of much needed reforms led to the beginning of...

BORN:  1803 – FRANCE DIED: 28 April 1841 CANONIZED: 1954 St. Peter Chanel had a strong desire to become a missionary as soon as he was ordained a priest but unfortunately he was assigned to teach in a Seminary. As a sign of an obedient child of God, he accepted...

DIED: 27 April 1278 CANONIZED: 1696 Patron of Domestic Workers Saint Zita was born into a poor family devout Christian family. Her elder sister was a Nun and her brother a Hermit. Due to the family’s poverty, she was chose to join the domestic service in one of the wealthy...

This title honouring mary appears in early Christian history.  In return for financial assistance in renovating the church of St. Mary Major in Rome, Pope Sixtus III (432-440) granted land to the people of Genazzano, Italy.  Eventually, a church consecrated to Our Lady of Good Counsel was built there and...

The author of the earliest and shortest gospel, Mark was a member of the first Christian community in Jerusalem.  Christians used his mother’s house there as a place of prayer during Peter’s imprisonment under Herod Agrippa 1 (see Acts 12.12). When Paul and Barnabas returned from Jerusalem, they took Mark...

Mary Roy was born in Swabia (Germany) in 1578.  He held doctorates in philosophy, canon law and civil law and served as a tutor to nobles in France, Italy and Spain.  Known as the ‘lawyer of the poor’, he gave up practicing law to ender the Capuchins in Freiburg, Switzerland,...

Little is known about George, who was killed for his faith in Palestine at the beginning of the fourth century.  Believed to be a soldier in the Roman army, he was involved in the organization of a Christian community at Urmiah (modern Iran) and visited Britain on an imperial expedition....

Born in 1033, Anselm was motivated to enter the monastery in Bec of Normandy, due to the reputation of the great teacher, Lanfranc.  Anselm became a monk at the age of 27, and a student and close friend of Lanfranc, eventually succeeding him as prior and abbot of Bec. After...

Esther Blondin (Sister Marie-Anne) was born in 1809 in what is now the suburb of Montreal.  She learned to read and write at 22 while working as a domestic for nuns.  Two years later, she started teaching in Vaudreuil. In 1850, with the permission of Bishop Gourget, she founded the...

The first Native American woman to be canonized, Kateri is often called the Lily of the Mohawks. Tekakwitha was born in 1656, on the southern bank of the Mohawk River at Osserneon (Auriesville, NY).  Her mother was a Christian Algonquin from Trois-Rivièrs, Quebec and her father was a non-Christian Mohawk...