¤ Saint Of The Day ¤

A note before we begin — this saint is definetly a ‘lesser known’. I cannot find a picture of him.

St. Gaucherius was born in Meulan-sur-Seine, France. He recived a solid classical education.
At the age of 18, he gave up the world and retired to Aureil to lead a sloitary life.
Gradually a community grew up around him and he gave them the rule of St. Augustine.

Many hole men were trained in the order started by this saint, including St. Lambert and St.  Stephen of Grammont.

St. Gaucherius died in the year 1140.

LORD, amid the things of this world, let us be wholeheartedly committed to heavenly things in imitation of the example of evangelical perfection You have given us in St. Gaucherius the Abbot.
Amen.

St. Julia (Julie) Billiart was born in 1751. Julie was the fifth of seven children. She attended a little one room school in Cuvilly. She enjoyed all of her studies, but she was particularly attracted to her religion lessons, taught by the local priest. Recognizing something “special” in Julia, the priest allowed her to make herFirst Communion at the age of nine, though the usual age was thirteen.

As a child, playing school was St. Julia’s favorite game. When she was sixteen, to help support her family, she took up teaching in the real world.  She sat on a haystack during the noon recess and told stories from the bible to the children. St. Julia continued teaching throughout her life, which founded her Congregation.

A murder attempt on her father shocked her nervous system badly. A period of extremely poor heath for the saint began, which lasted for thirty years. For twenty-two of these years she was completely paralyzed. All of her sufferings and pain she offered up to God.

Durning the French Revolution, St. Julia offered her home as a hiding place for loyal priests, making her hunted prey. Five times in three years she was forced to flee to avoid compromising her friends who were hiding her.

While in hiding, she was privileged to receive a vision. She saw our crucified LORD surrounded by a large group of religious women dressed in a habit that she had never seen before. An inner voice told her that these would be her daughters and that she would begin an institute for the young girls. St. Julia and another young woman later founded the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.

In 1803, the two women and a few companions began living a religious life at Amiens.
In 1804, St. Julia was divinely cured of her illness and walked for the first time in twenty-two years.
In 1805, St. Julia and three companions made their profession and took their final vows. She was elected as Mother General of the young Congregation.

In 1815, Mother taxed her ever poor health by nursing the wounded and feeding the starving left from the battle of Waterloo. For the last three months of her life, she suffered much.

She died peacefully on April 8, 1816 at 64 years of age. St. Julia was beatified on May 13, 1906, and was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1969.

LORD, out God, grant that Your faithful spouse, St. Julia, may kindle in us the flame of Divine love which she enkindled in other virgins for the everlasting glory of your church.
Amen.

Today’s post is taken from www.degrandisssj.com. It’s a lovely site –check it out!

St. Marcellinus of Carthage lived during the fourth century and was a friend of St. Augustine. This friendship was so close that St. Augustine dedicated his work “City of God” to Marcellinus. At the beginning of the fifth century, Marcellinus was asked by the Emperor Honorius to act as the Secretary of State for the Empire.

In 409 the Emperor granted freedom of worship to a heretical group called the Donatists and was met with strong dissent from many of the Catholic citizens of the Empire. Soon after this decision, St. Marcellinus was sent to settle disputes between the Catholics and the Donatists. After learning the details of the situation, he asked the Donatists to return the churches they had claimed to the Catholics. Furthermore, he believed that the Donatists were in error and he told them to return to communion with the Church.

Two years after this decision Marcellinus was the victim of political intrigue worked by Donatist sympathizers. He was accused of involvement in a rebellion. The truth of these accusations were never discovered and Marcellinus was executed for treason in 413.

Today’s prayer:

Almighty, ever-living God, You enabled St. Marcellinus to fight to the death for justice. Throuh his intercession enable us to bear all adversity and with all our strength to hasten to You Who alone are life.
Amen.

Saint Francis was born around the year 1415 in Paola. Paola is a small neighborhood in Calabria, Italy.
His parents, though poor, were faithful and virtuous. Below is a little bit of amazing history, taken from the website http://www.wf-f.org/StFrancisPaola.html.

His parents were remarkable for the holiness of their lives. Remaining childless for some years after their marriage they had recourse to prayer, especially commending themselves to the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis was the eldest of three children. He suffered from a swelling which endangered the sight of one of his eyes. His parents again had recourse to Francis of Assisi, and made a vow that their son should pass an entire year in the “little habit” of St Francis in one of the convents of his order, a not uncommon practice in the Middle Ages. The child was immediately cured. From his early years Francis showed signs of extraordinary sanctity, and at the age of thirteen, being admonished by a vision of a Franciscan friar, he entered a convent of the Franciscan Order in order to fulfil the vow made by his parents. Here he gave great edification by his love of prayer and mortification, his profound humility, and his prompt obedience. At the completion of the year he went with his parents on a pilgrimage to Assisi, Rome, and other places of devotion. Returning to Paula he selected a retired spot on his father’s estate, and there lived in solitude; but later on he found a more retired dwelling in a cave on the sea coast. Here he remained alone for about six years giving himself to prayer and mortification.

Francis learned to read in the Franciscan convent at St. Mark’s, a town close to his home. After spending a year with the Franciscans, the young man took up living in solitude – about half a mile from Paola – in the year 1432.

      
(I’ve included two pictures today –
I couldn’t decide which I liked better! )

Before he was twenty, two other men joined him to share in his devout exercises. A group of locals built the them three cells and a chapel.
This was the beginning of the Order of Minims, the foundation of which is placed in 1436.
In 1474, the order was confirmed, and Francis named the Superior General. The first monastery was built in 1454, and many others followed.

When his life of penance drew near it’s close, St. Francis spent the last three months in his cell, preparing for death and eternity.
On Palm Sunday, 1508, he fell sick, and died shortly thereafter at the age of 91.

God, the exultation of the humble, You raised St. Francis to the glory ofYour saints. Through his merits and example, grant that we may happily obtain the rewards promised to the humble.
Amen.

Links I like:
http://www.wf-f.org/StFrancisPaola.html
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06231a.htm
http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1341

Today’s post is taken from the book, “Lives of the Saints:, by Alban Butler, published in the late 1800s.
Enjoy!

(A Note – There are two “Saint Hugh, Bishops”s. Today’s saint is Bishop of Grenoble, not Bishop of Lincoln.)

It was the happiness of this Saint to receive from his cradle the strongest impressions of piety by the example and care of his illustrious and holy parents. He was born at Chateau-neuf, in the territory of Valence in Dauphiné, in 1053. His father, Odilo, who served his country in an honorable post in the army, labored by all the means in his power to make his soldiers faithful servants of their Creator, and by severe punishments to restrain vice. By the advice of his son, St. Hugh, he afterwards became a Carthusian monk, and died at the age of a hundred, having received Extreme Unction and Viaticum from the hands of his son. Our Saint likewise assisted, in her last moments, his mother, who had for many years, under his direction, served God in her own house, by prayer, fasting, and plenteous alms-deeds. Hugh, from the cradle, appeared to be a child of benediction. He went through his studies with great applause, and having chosen to serve God in an ecclesiastical state, he accepted a canonry in the cathedral of Valence. His great sanctity and learning rendered him an ornament of that church, and he was finally made Bishop of Grenoble. He set himself at once to reprove vice and to reform abuses, and so plentiful was the benediction of Heaven upon his labors that he had the comfort to see the face of his diocese in a short time exceedingly changed. After two years he privately resigned his bishopric, presuming on the tacit consent of the Holy See, and, putting on the habit of St. Bennet, he entered upon a novitiate in the austere abbey of Casa-Dei in Auvergne. There he lived a year, a perfect model of all virtues to that house of Saints, till Pope Gregory VII. commanded him, in virtue of holy obedience, to resume his pastoral charge.

He earnestly solicited Pope Innocent II. for leave to resign his bishopric, that he might die in solitude, but was never able to obtain his request. God was pleased to purify his soul by a lingering illness before He called him to Himself. Some time before his death he lost his memory for everything but his prayers. He closed his penitential course on the 1st of April in 1132, wanting only two months of being Eighty years old, of which he had been fifty-two years bishop. Miracles attested the sanctity of his happy death, and he was canonized by Innocent II. in 1134.

Reflection—Let us learn from the example of the Saints to shun the tumult of the world as much as our circumstances will allow, and give ourselves up to the exercises of holy solitude, prayer, and pious reading.

St. Guntramnus was the fourth son of the king Clovis. Clovis was the first king to unite all of the Frankish tribes under one king.

St. Guntramnus is the patron saint of divorced couples, and murderers.
This is most likly because he gave in to many earthly temptations, including divorcing his first wife and having an unsuccessful doctor of his second wife killed.
 During St. Guntramnus’s reign, his kingdom was ravanged by a disease called known as “Saint Anthony’s Fire”, which we now know as Ergotism.
Instead of shuting himself up in his castle, as others may have done, he worked among his people, making sure that the lowliest were cared for.

St. Guntramnus was a just ruler, and a supporter of religious works. He died in the year 592, and was buried in the basement of the church of Saint Marcellus, which he founded.

Sadly, there is not a lot of information about St. Guntramnus on the internet. He is definetly a lesser known saint. I was, however, able to dig up this site, totally devoted to him – enjoy!
St. Guntramnus’ “Profile”