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Benedetta Bianchi Porro was born on August 8, 1936, in Dovadola, in the province of Forlì, the firstborn child of engineer Guido Bianchi Porro and homemaker Elsa Giammarchi. Although the delivery was normal, it involved severe hemorrhaging that led her mother to have her baptized immediately, giving her the name Benedetta.
Saint Agnes was a 13-year-old girl from Rome, who did not hesitate to sacrifice her life to bear witness to her faith in Christ. Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, wrote that her witness to Christ was twofold: her chastity and her faith (De Virginitate II. 5-9). Pope Damasus wrote an epitaph in her honour.
We do not have much information about the life of Saint Sebastian. According to the Passio Santi Sebastiani Martyris, a text long attributed to Saint Ambrose of Milan (340-397), he was born around 250 A.D., and raised in Milan by his father from Narbonne and his mother from Milan. Educated in the Christian faith, he moved to Rome in 270 A.D., enlisted sometime around 283 A.D., and eventually became a tribune of the first cohort of the imperial guard. Unaware of his faith, Emperors Maximian and Diocletian entrusted him with important responsibilities.
Saints Marius, Martha, Audifax, and Abachus are remembered by the Catholic Church as martyrs of the early centuries of Christianity, and their liturgical memorial falls on January 19. The information concerning them is scarce and fragmentary and comes mainly from ancient hagiographical texts, in particular from a Passio dating to Late Antiquity, which was reworked in subsequent centuries with edifying aims.
Margaret of Hungary was born in 1242, probably in the castle of Turóc, the daughter of King Béla IV and Queen Maria, of Byzantine origin. Her birth was linked to a dramatic moment for the kingdom: Hungary had been devastated by the Mongol invasion, and the royal family had taken refuge in Dalmatia. On that occasion, the sovereigns made a vow that, if a daughter were born, they would consecrate her to God as a sign of gratitude for the nation’s deliverance.
Anthony is considered the Father of Monasticism. Details of his life are narrated in “The Life of Anthony”, by Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, written in 360 AD. Anthony was born to a wealthy family, in Koma, Egypt, on the left bank of the Nile, around 251. He was an orphan by the time he was 18 years old. Two years later, taking the Gospel literally, he sold all his possessions, distributed them to the poor and withdrew into the desert to live a life of penance.
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