portraitsofsaints

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Saint Josemaría Escrivá

1902-1975

Feast day: June 25

José María Mariano Escriva Albás was a Roman Catholic priest from Spain who founded Opus Dei, an organization of laypeople and priests dedicated to the teaching that everyone is called to holiness and that ordinary life is a path to sanctity. He was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, who declared Saint Josemaría should be "counted among the great witnesses of Christianity."

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

[portraitsofsaints]

The Nativity of St. John the Baptist.

Happy Birthday, Saint John!

He lept for joy at the greeting from the Blessed Virgin Mary.

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

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Saint Audrey (Etheldreda)

640-679

Feast Day: June 23

Patronage: Cambridge University, neck and throat ailments, and widows

Saint Audrey was an English princess, who took a vow of perpetual virginity at an early age, even though she consented to be married two times for diplomatic reasons. Her first husband died after 3 years and the 2nd husband (Egfrid) was a boy when they married. After 12 years, Egfrid wanted to consummate the marriage. The bishop of York, St.Wilfrid, upheld Audrey’s claim of virginity and helped her separate from him. The marriage was annulled, and Audrey took the veil at the Monastery of Ely. She eventually died of an enormous and unsightly tumor on her neck, which she gratefully accepted as Divine retribution for all the necklaces she had worn in her early years. Her hand is incorrupt to this day.

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

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Saint Joseph Cafasso

Jan 15, 1811 - Jun 23, 1860

Feast Day: June 23

Patronage: Prison Chaplains, Italian prisons, prisoners, captives

Saint Joseph Cafasso was an Italian peasant that had a spinal disability but that didn’t hold him back from becoming a priest and moral theology professor to seminarians. He actively opposed Jansenism and state intrusions into church affairs. He became the Rector of The Insitute of St. Francis, forming and educating his students, one being St. John Bosco. He’s called the “Priest of the Gallows” and a “Social Saint” for his work with prisoners and the poor.

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

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Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Corpus Christi

“not as common bread & drink do we receive these; but as Jesus Christ our Saviour having been made flesh by the Word of God had both flesh & blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word … is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” – St. Justin Martyr

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

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Saint Thomas More

1478-1535

Feast day: June 22 (New), July 9 (Trad)

Patronage: adopted children, civil servants, court clerks, difficult marriages, large families, politicians, lawyers, and statesmen

St. Thomas More was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a counselor to Henry VIII and Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to 16 May 1532. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, in particular, the theology of Martin Luther and William Tyndale. He also wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an ideal and imaginary island nation. More opposed the King's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to accept him as Supreme Head of the Church of England, and what he saw as Henry's bigamous marriage to Anne Boleyn. Tried for treason, More was convicted and beheaded.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase.

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Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

1568 - 1591

Feast Day: June 21

Patronage: young students, Christian youth, Jesuit novices, the blind, AIDS patients

Aloysius Gonzaga was an Italian aristocrat who became a member of the Society of Jesus. He came under the spiritual guidance of St. Charles Borromeo, and from him received First Holy Communion. While still a student at the Roman College, he died as a result of caring for the victims of an epidemic.

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

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Saint Florentina

Died: 612

Feast Day: June 20

Patronage: Diocese of Plasencia

Saint Florentina was born in Cartagena, Spain, and was the sister of three bishops, St. Leander, St. Isidore of Seville, and St. Fulgentius. Losing their parents at an early age, Florentina was raised by her brother, St. Leander. Under his guidance she embraced the ascetic life. St. Leander founded a convent for her, where she became abbess as a cloistered nun.

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

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Saint Juliana Falconieri

1270-1341

Feast Day: June 19

Patronage: bodily ills, sick people, chronic illness

Saint Juliana Falconieri was born into a noble Florentine family. Her father died when she was young and she was raised by her mother and Uncle Alexis, who was one of the founders of the Servites. At 15, she became a Servite Tertiary, dedicating her life to prayer, penance, and caring for the sick and those in need. Eventually, other women joined her and she founded the Servite Tertiary Sisters. When she was dying, she couldn’t receive the Eucharist in her mouth so the priest laid the host on her breast, and then it disappeared then she died.

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

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Venerable Matt Talbot

1856-1925

Feast Day: June 19

Patronage: Alcoholism, Sobriety

Venerable Matt Talbot, a Secular Franciscan, was born in Dublin, Ireland to a poor family. After little education, he obtained work for liquor merchants as a teen and started drinking excessively for 15 years. Then at 28, he took the “pledge” to stop drinking and kept it, by daily Mass, spiritual reading, hard work and penance until he died in 1925. He would have been unknown if it were not for the penitential chains found on his body.

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

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Chiara Corbella Petrillo

Servant of God

1984-2012

Chiara lived a short and ordinary life in peace, with the grace of God. She married Enrico in 2008, lost two children within an hour of their birth, and learned she had cancer while pregnant with her third child. So that her unborn son could live, she refused cancer treatment until after he was born. By then, cancer had become malignant. All this time she accepted God’s trials in trust and love. She was a witness to joy and died consumed by love.

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

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Saint Emily de Vialar

1797-1856

Feast Day: June 17

Patronage: single women

Saint Emily de Vialar was born in France, to the physician of Louis XVIII. She cared for the children and sick of the town, trying to repair the harm done by the French Revolution, while also caring for her widowed father. In 1835, St. Emily and 26 women took religious vows, calling themselves the sisters of St. Joseph “of the Apparition.” (referring to The angel Gabriels’ telling St. Joseph to flee to Egypt) By the time St. Emily died, 42 foundations were established all over the world. Four years after her death her body was found incorrupt.

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

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Saint John Francis Regis

January 31, 1597 - December 31, 1640

Feast Day: June 16th

Patronage: lacemakers, medical social workers, and children who are born outside of marriage and family.

Saint John Francis Regis was born in France, who as a Jesuit priest, ministered to the faithful suffering from the civil strife between Catholics and Calvinists. He was a great missionary and preacher, who gave plain-spoken sermons that attracted and converted people of all faiths throughout France. He heard confessions, celebrated Mass, catechized all, and visited prisons and hospitals. St. John Francis Regis died of pneumonia on December 31.

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

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Saint Germaine Cousin

1579 - 1601

Feast day: June 15

Patronage: abandoned people, abuse victims, against poverty, disabled people, illness, loss of parents, the sick

When Saint Germaine was an infant her mother died. A sickly child, Germaine suffered from scrofula and was ignored by her father and abused by her step-family and made to sleep under the stairs. At age nine she was put to work as a shepherdess and spent much time in prayer and refused to miss Mass, putting her flock under the care of her guardian angel when she went. She was eventually treated as a holy person and invited to rejoin the household, but chose to live as she had. In 1601 she was found dead on her straw pallet under the stairs.

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

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Saint Alice of Schaerbeek

1220 - 1250

Feast Day: June 15

Patronage: the blind and the paralyzed

Saint Alice of Schaerbeek (also known as Adelaide or Aleydis) was entrusted to the care of the Cistercian nuns of La Cambre Abbey when she was seven years old and remained there for the rest of her life, eventually becoming a Cistercian laysister. At 20 she contracted leprosy and was isolated from the community. A year later she was stricken blind and later became completely paralyzed. Alice's greatest consolation came from reception of the Holy Eucharist, although she was not allowed to drink from the cup because of the danger of contagion. However, the Lord appeared to her with an assurance that to receive under one species, was sufficient. Known for her visions and ecstasies, she died in 1250.

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

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Saint Vitus

c.290 - c.303

Feast Day: June 15

Patronage: actors, dancers, comedians, epileptics, dogs, and against oversleeping, snake bites, storms, animal attacks, lightning and Saint Vitus Dance (Chorea).

Saint Vitus, the son of a pagan Sicilian, became a Christian along with his tutor and nurse at the age of 12. When his father found out he had them arrested and tortured. Legend has it that an angel freed them from prison and they fled to Rome. While there, Vitus exorcised a demon from Emperor Diocletian’s son. When Vitus wouldn’t sacrifice to the pagan gods, they attributed it to sorcery and threw him in a pot of boiling oil, along with a rooster (as part of a ritual against sorcery). The rooster became a symbol for Vitus, making him the patron against oversleeping. He was martyred in Lucania, Italy and is one of the 14 Holy Helpers.

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

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Saint Anthony of Padua

Doctor of the Church

1195-1231

Feast Day: June 13

St. Anthony is typically depicted with a book and the Infant Child Jesus, to whom He miraculously appeared, and is commonly referred to today as the "finder of lost articles." Upon exhumation, some 336 years after his death, his body was found to be corrupted, yet his tongue was totally incorrupt, so perfect were the teachings that had been formed upon it.

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