SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY – AUGUST 17TH

MEMORIAL OF SAINT HYACINTH, CONFESSOR; SAINT JOAN OF THE CROSS (JEANNE DELANOUE), RELIGIOUS; SAINT LIBERATUS  AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS; SAINT NICHOLAS POLITI, RELIGIOUS; SAINT BEATRICE OF SILVA, RELIGIOUS AND BLESSED MARIE ELIZABETH TURGEON, RELIGIOUS ~ FEAST DAY – AUGUST 17TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Hyacinth, Confessor; Saint Joan of the Cross (Jeanne Delanoue), Religious; Saint Liberatus and his Companions, Martyrs; Saint Nicolas Politi, Religious; Saint Beatrice of Silva, Religious and Blessed Marie Elisabeth Turgeon, Religious. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for all marriages, we pray for peace, love, and unity in our marriage, our families and our world. We pray for the safety and well-being of our children and children all over the world. We pray for the sick and dying, especially those who are sick and suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for the poor and needy in our world. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, the Bishops, the Clergy, for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world.🙏

SAINT HYACINTH, CONFESSOR: St. Hyacinth, Apostle of Poland (1185-1257) was born of noble lineage and reared in a Polish castle. His parents took great care of the development of his mind and soul, entrusting his education to his uncle, a priest who became the Bishop of Krakow. He was well educated and excelled in his studies and was sent to the best universities in Europe, earning a Doctorate of Canon Law and Divinity. After earning two doctorates, he visited Rome in 1220 and met St. Dominic, who had recently received papal approval for the founding of the Order of Preachers. St. Hyacinth became one of the first Dominican friars and receiving the Dominican habit from St. Dominic himself, who sent him to preach and establish the order in Poland. He was so effective in his preaching for the salvation of souls that he also preached in many other countries including Austria, Prussia, Lithuania, Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, China and Tibet. He founded many monasteries and Churches, Convents, and Catholic communities and multitudes were converted to the faith through his astounding miracles, even the extraordinary feat of raising a dead boy to life. One day, while saying Mass in Kiev, the enemy Tartars invaded and  attacked the city. After he finished the Mass, he took the ciborium containing the Holy Eucharist, but he stopped when he heard a voice from a statue of the Virgin Mary asking that he take her with him. Although the statue was much too heavy to carry, he found that it became so light that he lifted it with ease. He took the beloved statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and fled, leading the people to the deep river Dnieper. When he came to the Dnieper river with the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Mother in his arms, he, along with his companions, walked dry-shod across the river as they fled from the Tartars, infuriating the pursuing Tartars who could not follow them. It’s said that St. Hyacinth’s footprints remained on the water and could be seen for centuries afterward. Worn out by his constant labors and vast journeys, Hyacinth spent the last few months of his life in a convent he had founded at Cracow. There on the Feast of St. Dominic, 1257, he fell sick with a fever that was to terminate his earthly life. On the eve of the feast of the Assumption, he was warned of his coming death. In spite of his condition, he celebrated Mass on the feast day, as a dying man. He was anointed at the altar, and died the same day on the feast of Assumption on August 15, 1257. He was canonized in 1594 by Pope Clement VIII. St. Hyacinth is the Patron Saint of those in danger of drowning, Poland, Lithuania, UST-College of Tourism and Hospitality, Basilica of St. Hyacinth, Krakow, and Poland. His feast day is August 17th.

Saint Hyacinth,  Confessor  ~ Pray for us 🙏

SAINT JOAN OF THE CROSS (JEANNE DELANOUE), RELIGIOUS: St. Joan of the Cross (1666-1736), Joan Delanoue was a holy woman who gave up her business in service to the poor and needy, following an encounter with a beggar. St. Joan remained open to the message of God, seeing in the poor woman she encountered the personage of Christ, giving all she had in service, and founding the order of the Congregation of Saint Anne of Providence to continue her charitable mission. St. Joan was born at Anjou, France, in 1666, the youngest of twelve children in Saumur, France. Her parents, who identified as Catholic, were not especially devout, and the faith was presented to Joan as a part of life, rather than a mystery to behold and contemplate. The family worked long hours as shopkeepers, supporting the 14 members of the household as best they could. St Joan’s mother, however, was also generous, giving alms and food to any beggars who came to the door of the shop. As the youngest of twelve children, Joan was forced to take over her mother’s religious goods store when the latter died in 1691. For a time, St. Joan’s sole preoccupation seemed to be making money. However, when she was about thirty years old, she met Frances Souchet, a widow, and changed her whole life. In 1698, St. Joan closed her shop and volunteered to help with orphans. After six years, in 1704, St. Joan, her niece, and two companions adopted the religious life, forming a community called the Sisters of St. Anne of the Province of Saumur. After two years, Joan professed vows, and with help from St. Louis Grignion de Montfort as well as the Oratorians, she continued her work with orphans. In 1709, the Bishop of Angers gave St. Joan’s community canonical approval, and by 1721, her community had spread to other towns in France. St. Joan continued to live a life of austerity, while also suffering painful ailments. Worn out by her labours, St. Joan Delanoue died on August 17, 1736 at Fencet, France, of natural causes. At the time of her death, there were twelve communities of her Sisters spread throughout France, serving the poor and needy. The order St. Joan founded was renamed Congregation of St. Anne of Providence on December 3, 1964. St. Joan was beatified in 1947 by Pope Pius XII an canonised in October 1982 by Pope John Paul II. Today the congregation she founded numbers about 400 sisters and serves the poor in France, Madagascar and Sumatra. St. Joan became widely known for healings obtained through her intercession. St. Joan died on August 17, 1736. She was beatified in 1947 by Pope Pius XII and canonized in 1982 by Pope John Paul II.

PRAYER: God, You showered heavenly gifts on St. Joan. Help us to imitate her virtues during our eartly life and enjoy eternal happiness with her in heaven. Amen 🙏

SAINT LIBERATUS AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS: Abbot Liberatus and six monks of the Augustinian–inspired monastery of Gafsa (Saints Liberatus, Boniface, Servus, Rusticus, Rogatus, Septimus, Maximus), the youngest of whom was Maximus, were living in a monastery near Capsa. They were at that time summoned to Carthage and imprisoned under the African Vandal king Huneric who in the seventh year of his reign in Africa, published new edicts against the Catholics, and ordered that all their monasteries be demolished. St. Liberatus and his Companions were imprisoned for refusing to abandon either their Catholic faith or their monastery. They were first tempted with great promises, but as they remained constant in their confession of the Trinity and of one Baptism, they were charged with irons and thrown into a dark dungeon. The faithful by bribing the guards were able to visit the Saints, and did so day and night to be instructed by them. All mutually encouraged one another to suffer for the faith of Christ. The king, learning of this, commanded them to be more closely confined, loaded with heavier irons, and tortured with a cruelty never heard of before that time. Soon after, he condemned them to be put into an old ship and burnt with it at sea. The martyrs walked cheerfully to the shore, indifferent to the insults of the Arians as they passed by. Particular endeavors were used by the persecutors to gain the young monk Maximus; but God, who makes the tongues of children eloquent in His praises, gave him strength to withstand all their efforts. He boldly told them that they would never be able to separate him from his holy Abbot and his brethren, with whom he had borne the labors of a penitential life for the sake of everlasting glory. They were bludgeoned to death in the year 484 after an old boat on which they were to be burned alive had failed to ignite. An old vessel was filled with dry branches, and the seven martyrs were placed on board and bound tightly to the wood. Fire was put to it several times but went out immediately, and all endeavors to kindle it were vain. The tyrant, in rage and confusion, gave orders that the martyrs’ brains should be dashed out with oars, which was done, and their bodies cast into the sea, whose waves carried them all to the shore. The Catholics interred them honorably in a monastery at Bigua. Their long-standing cult was confirmed by the Church in 1671. The seven died for the sake of Christ, united in their faith and Augustinian fraternity.

Saint Liberatus and his Companions, Martyrs ~ Pray for us 🙏

SAINT NICHOLAS POLITI, RELIGIOUS: St . Nicholas Politi, (1117-1167) was born into nobility in the twelfth century in Sicily in the city of Adrano, an only child of aged parents. He received a good cultural and religious education. He was a pious child with a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and contemplation of the Passion of Christ, and was early drawn to a life consecrated to God. Wed at age 17 in an arranged marriage; the wedding was a crisis point in his discernment of a vocation, and he fled to become a lay monk with the Basilian monastery of Santa Maria Del Rogato. He retired to become a cave hermit on Mount Calanna, Arcaria, Sicily. He lived a life of severe asceticism, but returned to the monastery of Rogato every weekend to go to Confession and receive Communion. He remained a virgin in mind and body with prayer, penance and hermit life for some time on the slopes of Etna and then at the Calanna in the Nebrodi Mountains at Alcara li Fusi. Anchorite and Hesychast, he enriched his existence weekly by participating in the cenobitic life at the Byzantine monastery of the Holy Mother of God at the Rogato Monastery, confessing and feeding on the Holy Eucharist. After having given his sweet soul to Heaven, his body was found on his knees by a good man named Leone Rancuglia on August 17, inside a cavern between the slopes of Monte Calanna, near Alcara li Fusi. Two women gave testimony of him who some time before his death had met him begging for some pears that they carried along the way. Portentous prodigies accompanied his death, his discovery and the transport of his body to the land of Alcara and the decision, by divine will, to place it at the Rogato church. The categumeno (Italian-Greek abbot monk) Cusmano Theologian, who was honored to have known the great penitential fervor of the saint during his life, composed a hymn in Greek to celebrate his virtues, faith, heroism, miracles and holiness. A contemporary monk extensively narrated his life. The sanctity was also celebrated in some liturgical passages of the Italo-Greek office of the twelfth century. On the occasion of his powerful patronage, which took place on May 10, 1503 with numerous prodigies, conversions and miraculous healings, his fame spread greatly.

Saint Nicolas Politi, Religious ~ Pray for us 🙏

SAINT BEATRICE OF SILVA, RELIGIOUS: St. Beatrice of Silva (1424-1492), also known as Beatriz da Silva y de Menezes and as Beatriz de Menezes da Silva, was a noblewoman of Portugal, who became the foundress of the monastic Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady in Spain. St. Beatrice was born in Campo Mayor, Portugal, around 1424 to Portuguese nobility, daughter of Count of Viana,  Rodrigo Gómez de Silva and Isabella de Meneses, who had eleven children in all. Both were descendants of noble families, related to the royal houses of Spain and Portugal. One of their children, the fifth in the order of birth, was Blessed Amedeo de Silva, founder of the Amadeites, a reformed branch that later rejoined the Order of Friars Minor. St. Beatrice spent her childhood and adolescence in Campo Mayor, where her father had moved from Ceuta before her birth. Her mother, very fond of the Friars Minor, wanted some of them to take care of the education of her children. At the same time, they taught the boys a special devotion to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. St. Beatrice was raised in the household of the future Queen Isabel of Portugal and spent some time in her royal court in Castile following the Queen’s marriage to John II. She soon got tired of the empty life at court and joined a Cistercian convent in Toledo.  She lived at the convent until 1484, when she answered a summons from God to found a religious order. The Congregation of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was begun, and with the help of the Queen, she founded a house outside of Toledo where she lived and served as superior until her death  on September 1, 1492. Saint Beatrice was Beatified on July 28, 1926, Rome, Kingdom of Italy, by Pope Pius XI and Canonized on October 3, 1976, Vatican, by Pope Paul VI.

Saint Beatrice of Silva, Religious ~ Pray for us 🙏

BLESSED MARIE ELIZABETH TURGEON, RELIGIOUS: Bl. Marie Elisabeth Turgeon, was born on February 7, 1840, in Beaumont (Quebec), the fifth of a family of ten children. A gifted student, she wanted to continue her education, but the death of her father when she is only fifteen, lead her to help her mother to bring up her four younger sisters. When she was twenty years old, Elisabeth was allowed to go to the Ecole Normale in Laval to prepare to become a teacher. She obtained her diploma and in 1863 became the principal of a school near her family home. Her bad health forced her to quit at the end of the school year, in 1872. She then opened a private class in Saint Roch, but once again was unable to continue. She therefore turned to Saint Anne and promised to teach for free if Saint Anne heals her. As she fulfilled this promise, Father Langevin, who was named Bishop of Rimouski, asked her to direct the small community of teachers that was being formed in his diocese. She hesitated because of her poor health, but ended up accepting because she believed it is God’s will for her to enter religious life. With other young women she formed the first group of the Soeurs des Petites Ecoles, dedicated to the education of the poor children of the surrounding countryside. On September 12, 1879, Elisabeth and twelve other sisters took their vows. Marie-Elisabeth was made superior and committed herself to establish the community of sisters and regularized its status (civil charter, constitutions, rule). She founded the community’s first mission on January 2, 1880 and two others the following September, in outlying and poor parts of the Diocese of Rimouski. Then she opened a private school in Rimouski, where the novices had their first teaching experience. Charity was the unifying principle in Elisabeth’s life. She offered love to everyone, especially to her sisters, by being very attentive with them and always filled with goodness. Despite her poor health, she showed extraordinary strength: she worked day and night and overcame difficulties with patience and joy. She died on August 17, 1881, only 41 years old. She was beatified on April 26, 2015.

Blessed Marie Elisabeth Turgeon, Religious ~ Pray for us 🙏