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Saint Gianna Beretta Molla

1922-1962

Feast Day: April 28

Patronage: mothers, physicians, preborn children

Gianna was an Italian pediatrician, wife, and mother who is best known for refusing both an abortion and a hysterectomy when she was pregnant with her fourth child, despite knowing that continuing with the pregnancy could result in her death. Gianna died a week after giving birth to her child, who was present at her mother’s canonization in 2004.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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 Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort

1673 - 1716

Feast Day: April 28

Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, a French Catholic priest, and confessor was known in his time as a preacher and was made a missionary apostolic by Pope Clement XI. As well as preaching, Montfort wrote a number of books and is known for his particular devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Rosary.  Two of his most notable works are True Devotion to Mary and The Secret of the Rosary.  

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Saint Peter Chanel

1803-1841

Feast Day: April 28

Patronage: Oceania

Saint Peter Chanel was born in France and ended his life as the protomartyr of Oceania. Peter was attracted to the missionary life and became a Marist priest and made the 10-month journey to Futuna Island in Oceania. With courage and patience, he learned the language and endeavored to convert the natives, whose chieftain had just banned cannibalism. When the chieftain's son asked to be baptized, persecution climaxed with St. Peter being clubbed to death. Within a year after his death, the whole island converted and has remained Catholic to this day.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase.(website)

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Peter Chanel

1803-1841

Feast Day: April 28

Patronage: Oceania

Saint Peter Chanel was born in France and ended his life as the protomartyr of Oceania. Peter was attracted to the missionary life and became a Marist priest and made the 10-month journey to Futuna Island in Oceania. With courage and patience, he learned the language and endeavored to convert the natives, whose chieftain had just banned cannibalism. When the chieftain's son asked to be baptized, persecution climaxed with St. Peter being clubbed to death.  Within a year after his death, the whole island converted and has remained Catholic to this day.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Saint Zita of Lucca

c.1212-1272                 

Feast day: April 27

Patronage: Domestic workers, homemakers, lost keys, people ridiculed for their piety, rape victims, single laywomen, waitresses, Italian City of Lucca

Saint Zita of Lucca was born in Italy to a poor family. She grew up as an obedient child doing God’s will. At age 12, she became a housekeeper to a wealthy family in Lucca and ended up staying for 48 years. Daily Mass and prayers, along with her duties as a housekeeper, were part of her routine. She did these so perfectly that the other servants were jealous, but she won them over with her generous spirit. Initially, her employers were concerned with her gifts to the poor but accepted her acts of charity and “ trusted her with the keys” of freedom of the household to care for the poor, sick, and the prisoners. Her body is incorrupt to this day. On April 27th the people of Lucca bake bread and bring flowers to the church of San Frediano.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Our Lady of Good Counsel Feast Day: April 26

Our Lady of Good Counsel is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary after a miraculous painting. Tradition has it that during celebrations on the feast of St. Mark, in 1467, in Genazzano, Italy, a cloud descended on an unfinished wall of the church of Santa Maria, amid “sweet music.” When it dissipated an image of Our Lady appeared; 18” square, no thicker than an eggshell, suspended in the air. Many pilgrims visit the church including Popes UrbanVII, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Saints Aloysius Gonzaga, Alphonsus Liguori and John Bosco. Miracles continue to occur, even today.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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St. Mark the Evangelist 1AD-68 Feast Day: April 25 Patronage: notaries, secretaries, pharmacists, lawyers, lions, prisoners, glaziers, Venice

Saint Mark is one of the Gospel writers and a member of the tribe of Levi. He is believed to be "John Mark” in the Acts of the Apostles and the cousin of St. Barnabas. They joined St. Paul on the first mission to Antioch in 44AD. Mark was St. Paul’s “trusted companion” especially when Paul was imprisoned in Rome. St. Mark died a martyr in Alexandria and his relics are enshrined at the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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The Month of the Holy Eucharist

“Our sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ has no other purpose than to transform us into that which we receive.” ~Pope St Leo the Great

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Saint George

Died: 303

Feast Day: April 23

Patronage: England, crusaders, soldiers

Saint George was a Roman soldier of Greek Christian origin. He was a Praetorian guard for Diocletian who valued his service. When the Emperor ordered the soldiers to sacrifice to the gods, St. George refused, even after Diocletian offered him land, money, and slaves. George was then tortured and decapitated. He is one of the 14 Holy Helpers and a prominent military patron often depicted fighting a dragon used to represent the devil. Today he’s known and revered by both Christians and Muslims.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Saint Theodore of Sykeon 

 Died: 613

Feast Day: April 22

Patronage: for rain, difficult marriages, against rain

Saint Theodore of Sykeon was an abbot and bishop in the Asian Minor. He was born out of wedlock and in his youth, he practiced penances and lived an austere solitary life of prayer. He was ordained a priest at 18, with gifts of prophecy, and performed miracles of healing and exorcisms, even ending a plague through prayer. St. Theodore founded a large monastic settlement at Sykeon and was made the Bishop of Anastasiopolis in 584 but resigned after 10 years because he was neglecting his prayer and monks at Sykeon. He died in 613 in peace.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Good Shepherd Sunday

I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. John 10: 14-16

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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St. Anselm of Canterbury 

Doctor of the Church

1033-1109

Feast day: April 21

Saint Anselm is a Doctor of the church and called the “Father of Scholasticism”. His writings are comparable to St. Augustine’s. He became a monk at the Abbey of Bec and with patience, gentleness and superb teaching skills, he became prior in 1063. The Abbey became an influential monastic school of philosophy and theology. In 1093, he became the Archbishop of Canterbury where he struggled with Kings Rufus and Henry I over ecclesiastical rights and independence of the church. St. Anselm had many crosses to bear throughout his life, especially in the political realm. Though gentle and mild he wouldn’t back down when principles of faith were at stake.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Saint Agnes of Montepulciano

1268 - 1317

Feast day: April 20

Agnes became known as a visionary and performed miracles.

Saint Agnes of Montepulciano was born into a noble Italian family. At a young age, her spiritual life consisted of prayer and penance. At 9 she entered the local Franciscan monastery and was elected Abbess at 15. After she had a vision from St. Dominic, she led her order to embrace the rule of St. Augustine as members of the Dominicans. Agnes was gifted with many visions, once even holding the child Jesus, and receiving Holy Communion from an angel. She interceded for people suffering from mental and physical illness. She died after a long illness and was found to be incorrupt with a perfumed liquid that flowed from her hands and feet.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website) 

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Blessed Clare (Chiara) Bosatta

1858-1887

Feast Day: April 20

Baptized Dina, also known as Chiara de Pianello, Blessed Clare Bosatta and her sister, Marcellina both cared for the poor, uneducated children and the neglected elderly at their local parish, administered by St. Luigi Guanella, their priest. So when he asked them to help start the House of Divine Providence, serving the poor and the religious order, Daughters of St. Mary of Providence, they eagerly accepted. In 1887, both sisters contracted tuberculosis. Clare served as superior of the community for a time. A contemplative, she offered God her own life to protect raise, and educate children and young people in difficulty. She died at the age of 29 and was beatified by John Paul ll, April 21, 1991.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Venerable Father Augustus Tolton

1854-1897

Father Augustus Tolton was born into slavery in 1854. During the Civil War, his mother and siblings fled to Quincy Illinois where they became members of Fr. Peter McGirr's Catholic parish. Eventually, Augustus realized he was called to the priesthood. With the help of Fr. McGirr, he studied in Rome and was ordained in 1886, becoming the first Roman Catholic priest in the United States publicly known to be black. As pastor of St. Monica's in Chicago, IL. Fr. Tolton persevered through post-Civil War America with patience, humility, and courage until he was forced to leave because of illness. He died of heat stroke in 1897. 

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Sr. Blandina (Maria Rosa) Segale 

Servant of God

1850-1941

Sister Blandina brought the Catholic faith to the American frontier. Born in Italy, her family emigrated to the U.S. when she was 4 yrs. old. She joined St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s Sisters of Charity and was soon assigned to work in Colorado and later in New Mexico. Teaching was her main work but she also started orphanages and hospitals. Living in the lawless West, she disarmed gunfighters, lynch mobs and bandits (Billy the Kid) with her kindness. Sister returned to Cincinnati in 1894 to work with the poor Italian immigrants. She died of natural causes at 91 years old.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

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Venerable Henriette DeLille

Servant of Slaves

1812-1862

Patronage: Racial justice

Henriette Delille was born, a "free woman of color" in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1812. Her father was a white man of French descent. Henriette founded the Sisters of the Holy Family, a Black religious congregation, to care for the slaves, free people of color, elderly, infirmed and poor, catechizing and providing for their physical needs. She worked heroically to bring people to God through reform, peaceful direction, and missionary work until her death at 52. She is the first United States native-born African American whose cause for canonization has been opened by the Catholic Church. 

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)