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Known as the Apostle to the Germans, he is considered one of the most important Anglo-Saxon missionaries and the one who brought Christianity to the Germanic lands of old.
He is considered one of the promoters of perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and one of the Eucharistic Saints par excellence. This is Saint Francis Caracciolo, born Ascanio, son of Ferrante of the noble Caracciolo family and Isabella, in Villa Santa Maria on October 13, 1563. Educated according to his noble status, at the age of twenty-two he was struck by a form of elephantiasis. He promised God that if he were healed, he would become a priest. After obtaining his recovery, two years later he was ordained to the priesthood.
He called himself “John the Sinner.” He gathered abandoned sick people, begged alms for the poor, and died while practicing charity toward plague victims, from whom he contracted the disease himself. He is Saint John Grande, born in Carmona, Seville, Spain, on March 6, 1546. His father, a blacksmith, died when he was eleven years old, and his mother Isabel remarried.
Information about the life of Saint Erasmus is scarce and derives from a Passio dating back to the 6th century. His date of birth is unknown. According to tradition, Erasmus was Bishop of Antioch. When persecutions against Christians broke out, he hid for seven years in a cave. Discovered and arrested, he was thrown into prison for refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods.
“Rogate”: the discovery of the necessity of prayer for vocations, according to the Gospel — “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray [Rogate] the Master of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Mt 9:38; Lk 10:2) — is the essence of the charism of Saint Hannibal Mary Di Francia. The premature death of his father also led him to develop a special tenderness and loving care toward orphans.
An illiterate, simple, and humble Franciscan friar, he asked the rich for alms in order to distribute them to the poor. For forty years, he walked through the streets of his town, proclaiming the Gospel through both word and example.
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