Bishop successor of St. Ascolus in the see of Salonika, in Greece. A friend of St. Ambrose, Anysius was appointed bishop in 383. Pope Damasus also named him vicar apostolic of Illyricum. A loyal defender of St. John Chrysostom, Anysius was one of the sixteen Macedonian bishops to appeal to Pope...
Saint of the Day
St. Thomas was born in London, England around the year 1117. He was the son of a gentleman and a woman who was converted to Christianity by the example and teachings of his father. From his early youth, Thomas was educated in religion and holiness. After his childhood, Thomas was educated at a...
The children mentioned in St. Matthew, II, 16-18:
Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry; and sending killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had...
St. John, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of St. James the Great, was called to be an Apostle by our Lord in the first year of His public ministry. He became the "beloved disciple" and the only one of the Twelve who did not forsake the Savior in the hour of His Passion. He stood faithfully...
Just after Christmas, the Catholic Church remembers its first martyr, and one of its first deacons, Saint Stephen. Roman Catholics celebrate his feast Dec. 26, while Eastern Catholics honor him one day later.
In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke praises St. Stephen as “a man full...
The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038, and Cristes-messe, in 1131. In Latin Dies Natalis,
Early Celebration
Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their...
In the first ages, during the night before every feast, a vigil was kept. In the evening the faithful assembled in the place or church where the feast was to be celebrated and prepared themselves by prayers, readings from Holy Writ (now the Offices of Vespers and Matins), and sometimes also by...
The Scandinavian island nation of Iceland celebrates its national patron, St. Thorlak Thorhallsson, on Dec. 23.
Although Iceland's national assembly declared him a saint in 1198,
only five years after his death, this “unofficial” canonization did not
become an official part of...
St. Chaeromon was a bishop of Nilopolis in Egypt who was advanced in age when Emperor Trajanus Decius began the intense persecution of Christians. Chaeromon and his companions fled to Arabia and are believed to have been martyred.
Saint Peter was born on May 8, 1521, in Niemguen, Holland.Called the 'Hammer of Protestantism,' Peter Canisius was a bright and well educated youth, excelling at his university studies in Cologne. In a Germany under the wave of Lutheranism, and under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop Hermann...