Saint of the day

Saint of the day

December 23: Saint John of Kęty

A teacher in the service of the poor

Born around 1390 in Kęty, in Poland near Kraków, John showed exceptional intelligence from a young age: at just twenty-seven years of age he was already teaching philosophy. In 1416 he was ordained a priest and almost immediately entrusted with the direction of the school attached to the Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Miechów. He remained there for about eight years, until 1429, when he returned to the University of Kraków.

22 December: Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini

A Mother to Migrants

The youngest child in a large family of ten, Maria Francesca Cabrini was born on 15 July 1850 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, near Milan. From an early age she listened with fascination to the stories of missionaries, and these accounts awakened in her the desire to consecrate her life to God in religious life.

21 December: St. Peter Canisius

Promoter of the Church Reform 

On 8 May 1521, in the Dutch town of Nijmegen—then part of Imperial Guelders and therefore of the Holy Roman Empire—was born the man who would become one of the decisive figures of the Catholic Reform.

December 20: Saint Dominic of Silos, Abbot

Renewer of cenobitic life

Saint Dominic Manso, known as de Silos because of his long residence in the monastery that later took his name, was born around the year 1000 in the small Riojan village of Cañas, in Spain. His childhood was spent among pastures and flocks, yet while tending his family’s sheep he began to develop a deep inner attraction to the sacred life. He was welcomed by the local priest, who took him under his care and gradually shaped his formation. At the age of twenty-six, the Bishop of Nájera ordained him to the priesthood.

19 December: Saint Anastasius I, Pope

Defender of the True Faith

Anastasius, Roman by birth and son of a man named Maximus, bore a name which in Greek means “risen.” He was elected Pontiff at the end of 399, after the death of Pope Siricius, and remained at the head of the Church for just two years, until 19 December 401. Despite the brevity of his pontificate, his governance was remarkably intense. He is credited with the construction of the Basilica Crescenziana—identified by tradition with the present-day San Sisto Vecchio—and with a constant work of doctrinal vigilance in years when ancient controversies periodically returned to shake ecclesial unity.

December 18: Saint Gratian (Gatianus) of Tours, Bishop

Evangelizer of Gaul

He was one of the earliest pioneers of the faith in Gaul, a remote foundation of the Christian tradition throughout the region. Gaziano or Graziano—known in ancient sources as Catianus, Gatianus, or Gratianus, and in France as Gatien de Tours—is remembered as the first enduring preacher of the Gospel in the city of Tours and as the founder of its diocese. Information about him is scarce and comes chiefly through the work of Gregory of Tours, the great sixth-century historian, who gathered oral traditions and popular accounts preserved in the Christian memory of Gaul.