Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

Quote:Callixtus, a Roman by birth, ruled the church in the time of the emperor Antoninus Heliogabalus. He instituted the Ember days, on which four times in the year, fasting, according to apostolic tradition, should be observed by all. He built the basilica of St. Mary across the Tiber; and enlarged the cemetery on the Appian Way, in which many holy Pontiffs and Martyrs were buried; hence this cemetery is called by his name.

The body of the blessed Calepodius, priest and martyr, having been thrown into the Tiber, Callixtus in his piety caused it to be diligently sought for, and when found to be honorably buried. He baptized Palmatius, Simplicius, Felix and Blanda, the first of whom was of consular and the others of senatorial rank; and who all afterwards suffered martyrdom. For this he was cast into prison, where he miraculously cured a soldier named Privatus, who was covered with ulcers; whom he also won over to Christ. Though so recently converted, Privatus died for the faith, being beaten to death with scourges tipped with lead.

Callixtus was Pope five years, one month, and twelve days. He held five ordinations in the month of December, wherein he made sixteen priests, four deacons, and eight bishops. He was tortured for a long while by starvation and frequent scourgings, and finally, by being thrown headlong into a well, was crowned with martyrdom under the emperor Alexander. His body was carried to the cemetery of Calepodius, on the Aurelian Way, three miles from Rome, on the day before the Ides of October. It was afterwards translated into the basilica of St. Mary across the Tiber, which he himself had built, and placed under the high altar, where it is honored with great veneration.

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

Quote:Edward, surnamed the Confessor, nephew to St. Edward king and martyr, was the last king of the Anglo-Saxon race. Our Lord had revealed that he would one day be king, to a holy man named Brithwald. When Edward was ten years old, the Danes, who were devastating England, sought his life; he was therefore obliged to go into exile, to the court of his uncle the duke of Normandy. Amid the vices and temptations of the Norman court, he grew up pure and innocent, a subject of admiration to all. His pious devotion towards God and holy things was most remarkable. He was of a very gentle disposition, and so great a stranger to ambition that he was wont to say he would rather forego the kingdom than take possession of it by violence and bloodshed.

On the death of the tyrants who had murdered his brothers and seized their kingdom, he was recalled to his country, and ascended the throne to the greatest satisfaction and joy of all his subjects. He then applied himself to remove all traces of the havoc wrought by the enemy. To begin at the sanctuary, he built many churches, and restored others, endowing them with rents and privileges; for he was very anxious to see religion, which had been neglected, flourishing again. All writers assert that, though compelled by his nobles to marry, both he and his bride preserved their virginity intact. Such were his love of Christ and his faith, that he was one day permitted to see our Lord in the Mass, shining with heavenly light and smiling upon him. His lavish charity won him the name of the father of orphans and of the poor; and he was never so happy as when he had exhausted the royal treasury on their behalf.

He was honored with the gift of prophecy, and foresaw much of England’s future history. A remarkable instance is, that when Sweyn, king of Denmark, was drowned in the very act of embarking on his fleet to invade England, Edward was supernaturally aware of the event the very moment it happened. He had a special devotion to St. John the evangelist, and was accustomed never to refuse anything asked in his name. One day St. John appeared to him as a poor man begging an alms in this manner; the king, having no money about him, took off his ring and gave it to him. Soon afterwards the saint sent the ring back to Edward, with a message that his death was at hand. The king then ordered prayers to be said for himself; and died most piously on the day foretold by St. John, the Nones of January, in the year of salvation 1066. In the following century Pope Alexander III enrolled him, famous for miracles, among the saints. Innocent XI ordered his memory to be celebrated by the whole Church with a public Office, on the day of his Translation, which took place thirty-six years after his death, his body being found incorrupt and exhaling a sweet fragrance.

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

Quote:Francis, fourth Duke of Gandia, was the son of John Borgia and of Joanna of Aragon, grand-daughter of Ferdinand the Catholic. He passed his childhood, in his father’s house, in wonderful innocence and piety; but appeared still more admirable when he showed himself a pattern of Christian virtue and austerity, first at the court of the Emperor, Charles V, and afterwards as viceroy of Catalonia. He was charged to convey the body of the Empress Isabelle to her sepulcher at Granada. Seeing the horrible change in her features, he understood how fleeting are all earthly things, and vowed to renounce every thing as soon as possible, and devote himself to the service of the King of kings. From that day forward he made such progress in virtue that, in the midst of overwhelming occupations, his life was a faithful copy of religious perfection, so that he was called the miracle of princes.

On the death of his wife Eleonora de Castro, he entered the Society of Jesus, that he might therein be more hidden, on account of the vow which closes the door to ecclesiastical preferment. Many princes followed him in embracing a severe manner of life; and Charles V himself did not hesitate to acknowledge that his advice and example had led him to abdicate the throne. Francis devoted himself to the exercises of a penitential life, and macerated his body by fasting, iron chains, a rough hair-shirt, long and bloody disciplines, allowing himself very little sleep; while at the same time he spared no effort to conquer himself and to gain souls. His great virtue caused St. Ignatius to appoint him Commissary general for Spain; and soon afterwards, against his will, he was chosen by the whole Society third General of the Order. In this position his prudence and holiness endeared him both to Popes and to temporal rulers. He founded and enlarged many houses of his Order, and introduced the Society into Poland, the islands of the Atlantic, Mexico, and Peru, and sent apostolic men into other regions who spread the Catholic, Roman faith by their preaching, their labors, and their blood.

He had a most lowly opinion of himself, always calling himself the sinner. This humility led him to persistently refuse the Roman purple, which was more than once offered him by the Pope. Filled with contempt for himself and the world, he delighted in sweeping away dirt, begging alms from door to door, and serving the sick in the hospitals. He devoted many hours every day to heavenly contemplation, spending sometimes eight or even ten hours in prayer, and genuflecting in adoration a hundred times in the day. He never omitted saying Mass. While he was offering the divine Victim, or preaching, the heavenly ardor which consumed him betrayed itself by the radiance of his countenance. He knew by a heavenly instinct where the most holy Body of Christ, hidden in the Eucharist, was kept. Saint Pius V appointed Francis companion to Cardinal Alessandrino, in an embassy for uniting the Christian princes against the Turks. Although his strength was almost exhausted, he undertook this journey in obedience; but on the way he happily closed his life, as he had wished, at Rome, in the sixty-second year of his age, and in the year of salvation 1572. By Saint Teresa, who had often sought his advice, he was called a saint, and by Gregory XIII a faithful servant of God. Finally, after many great miracles, he was canonized by Clement X.

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Catholic Cathedral in Colorado Vandalized With ‘Satan Lives Here’ (VIDEO)

Quote:“The cathedral basilica suffered similar vandalism in 2020 during the protests that swept the county in the wake of George Floyd’s death. On the same weekend fires were set to the parish house at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., vandals spray-painted messages on church property such as ‘There is no God’ and ‘God is dead,'” the Fox report noted.