This Friday in the Church Calendar, it’s the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple, or Candlemas. Candlemas officially ends the Christmas Season as it’s the 40th day of the Christmas/Epiphany Season also known as Christmastide. In Luke 2:22-40 “When the days were completed for their purification according to the …

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the memory of St. Ambrose, the brilliant Bishop of Milan who influenced St. Augustine’s conversion and was named a Doctor of the Church. Like Augustine himself, the older Ambrose, born around 340, was a highly educated man who sought to harmonize Greek and Roman intellectual …

On Dec. 6, the faithful commemorate a bishop in the early church who was known for generosity and love of children. Born in Lycia in Asia Minor around the late third or fourth century, St. Nicholas of Myra is more than just the inspiration for the modern day Santa. As …

The feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross celebrates two historical events: the discovery of the True Cross by Saint Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, in 320 under the temple of Venus in Jerusalem, and the dedication in 335 of the basilica and shrine built on Calvary …

On July 26 the Roman Catholic Church commemorates the parents of the Virgin Mary, Saints Joachim and Anne. The couple’s faith and perseverance brought them through the sorrow of childlessness, to the joy of conceiving and raising the immaculate and sinless woman who would give birth to Christ. The New …

St. Joseph has two feast days on the liturgical calendar. The first is March 19—Joseph, the Husband of Mary. The second is May 1—Joseph, the Worker. “Saint Joseph is a man of great spirit. He is great in faith, not because he speaks his own words, but above all because …

On April 28, the universal Church celebrates the feast day of Louis-Marie de Monfort, a 17th century saint who is revered for his intense devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. St. Louis-Marie is perhaps most famously known for his prayer of entrustment to Our Lady, “Totus Tuus ego sum,” which …

On March 3, the universal Church celebrates the feast of St. Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia heiress who abandoned her family’s fortune to found an order of sisters dedicated to serving the impoverished African American and American Indian populations of the United States. Katharine was born November 26, 1858 into a …

On Feb. 10, the Catholic Church remembers St. Scholastica, a nun who was the twin sister of St. Benedict, the “father of monasticism” in Western Europe. The siblings were born around 480 to a Roman noble family in Nursia, Italy. Scholastica seems to have devoted herself to God from her …

Blaise was a hard-working bishop dedicated to encouraging the spiritual and physical health of his people in Sebastea, Armenia. Although the Edict of Toleration which granted freedom of worship in the Roman empire had been signed five years prior, religious persecution still raged in the country. According to a legend, …