Saint Michael Center

January is the month of the Holy Name. It is a month filled with feast days of many well-known saints, including our own patron saint, St. John Bosco. We invite you to pray to or with them…visit our PRAYER section

JANUARY SAINTS CALENDAR
1	Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God
2	Saint Basil (379) and Saint Gregory Nazianzen (389).
3	Saint Genevieve (512).
4	Saint Elizabeth Anne Seton
5	Saint John Neumann (1860). Saint Telesphorus (154).
6	The Epiphany The Baptism of Jesus The Marriage Feast at Cana Saint Gaspar, Saint Melchior and Saint Balthasar (First Century). Blessed Andre Bessette (1937).
7	Saint Raymond of Pennafort (1275). The Bringing Back of the Child Jesus from Egypt
8	Saint Apollinaris (180).
9	Saint Julian of Antoich (313).
10	Saint Nicanor (76).
11	Saint Hyginus (158).
12	Saint Benedict Biscop (690).
13	Saint Hilary of Poitiers (368).
14	Saint Malachias (Fifth Century B.C.).
15	Saint Paul, the First Hermit (342).
16	Saint Marcellus (309). Saint Priscilla (First Century).
17	Saint Anthony the Abbot (356).
18	Saint Prisca (270).
19	Saint Marius and Saint Martha
20	Saint Fabian (250) and Saint Sebastian (288).
21	Saint Agnes
22	Saint Vincent (304).
23	The Solemn Espousals of Our Lady and Saint Joseph
24	Saint Francis de Sales
25	The Conversion of Saint Paul
27	Saint Angela Merici
28	Saint Thomas Aquinas
31	The Holy Infant of Prague
31	Saint John Bosco

The custom of liturgically commemorating the Divine Maternity of Our Lady in the Christmas season began soon after the Council of Ephesus. It was at this council, in the year 431, that the Catholic Church infallibly declared and defined the Divine Maternity of Our Lady. The Catholic Church tells us that in order to be saved we must believe with our full hearts that the same Person Who is the Son of God the Eternal Father in His Divine nature is also the Child of Mary the Virgin in His human nature. Anyone who refuses or hesitates to call Mary the Mother of God will never be saved. Saint Elizabeth, the cousin of Our Lady, cried out for joy in her doorway when Mary came to visit her after the Annunciation and said, “And whence is this to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me!” (Luke 1:43). Saint Paul clearly tells us in the Epistle to the Galatians, Chapter 4, verse 4, “God sent His Son born of a woman.” The dignity of the Mother of God transcends anything that can ever be imagined. It is God giving Himself in fullness to a creature in relationship and in love. Now that God has become man, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity through all eternity must call God the Father His Father and Mary the Virgin His mother. What God the Father is to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity by nature, Mary the Virgin is to Him by grace. At the command of Mary, God must now obey.

This is the day on which Jesus first shed His Precious Blood. It is the day on which Jesus was given His Holy Name. Mary, the virginal Mother of Jesus, held her Divine Child in her arms while His Precious Blood was being shed for the first time. This was in the rite of circumcision, a required religious observance of the Jews. It was the purpose of Jesus to fulfill perfectly all the requirements of the Old Law until the Old Law was abolished and the New Law established in its place. Because of the sacredness of the body of Jesus, and because he was liturgically allowed to do so as head of the family, Saint Joseph circumcised Mary’s Child in the cave where He was born. Circumcision was a rite of the Old Law, but by virtue of shedding the blood of the Lamb of God in this rite, Saint Joseph participated in the priesthood of the New Law. The circumcision was a sorrow to Our Lady, but it was a sorrow mingled with joy. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, knew that all true Christians would see, in the circumcision of Jesus, how incarnate God had become when He could shed blood.

Saint Joseph gave Jesus His Holy Name. This he was told to do by the Angel Gabriel. Jesus is a name which is substantially the same in sound in all the languages of the world. In the early ages of the Church, when Catholics were so persecuted and lived in the catacombs, the beautiful abbreviation of the Holy Name for those who used it was HIS. These are the first three letters of the name of Jesus when written in Greek: IHSOUS. This symbol Catholics still retain.

2. Saint Basil (379) and Saint Gregory Nazianzen (389). Saint Basil is one of the thirty-two Doctors of the Catholic Church. He came from a family of saints. He is called the father of eastern monasticism. He declared that he would not allow his soul to be turned aside form God by his love of any single earthly thing.

Saint Gregory Nazianzen is also a Doctor of the Church and one of the greatest saints of the fourth century. He is called Nazianzen because he was bishop of a small town in that name in Capadocia, in Asia Minor. His father and his mother are both listed in the calendar of the saints. He also had a brother and a sister who are saints. Saint Gregory’s great friend and companion was Saint Basil the Great. With Saint Basil he is remembered as one of the four great Eastern Doctors of the Church. He was the leading theologian and was in charge at the Second Ecumenical Council of the church, held at Constantinople in 381. Its purpose was to defend the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, and to redefine the Divinity of Jesus.

Saint Abel (First Age of the World). Abel was the son of Adam. He was the first one ever to die. The first death in the history of all creation was a murder, and the first one to die was a saint. Abel is mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass and is invoked for the dying. The holy ones of the Old Testament are not usually called saints when they are referred to scripturally or historically. The one day on which they are granted the title of saint is the day on which the Catholic Church especially commemorates them. There are forty-two of these holy ones. In the order in which their feasts occur in the year, they are: Abel (January 2), Malachias (January 14), Micheas and Habacuc (January 15), Amos (March 31), Ezechiel (April 10), Jeremias (May 1), Job (May 10), Eliseus (June 14), Aaron (July 1), Osee and Aggeus (July 4), Isaias (July 6), Joel and Esdras (July 13), Elias (July 20), Daniel (July 21), Samona, the mother of the Machabees, and her seven sons (August 1), Samuel (August 20), Josue and Gedeon (September 1), Moses (September 4), Zacharias (September 6), Jonas (September 21), Abraham (October 9), Abdias (November 19), Nahum (December 1), Sophonias, (December 3), Ananias, Azarias and Misael (December 16), Adam and Eve (December 24), Baruch (December 28) and King David (December 29).

Blessed Stephanie (Stephana) (1530). Blessed Stephana de Quinzanis was born near Brescia and became a Dominican nun at the age of fifteen. Rapt in the love of God she bore the mark of the sacred stigmata, the wounds of Our Lord.

3. Saint Genevieve (512). Saint Genevieve is the patroness of Paris. At the age of seven, under the protection of her spiritual father, Saint Germanus of Auxerre, she dedicated herself completely to God. At the age of fifteen, she took the veil of a nun. When she was twenty-nine, in 451, she protected the whole city of Paris from destruction by the pagan army of Attila and the Huns. Saint Genevieve died in her ninetieth year. Her relics were placed in a church dedicated to her name, in Paris. These relics were burned during the French Revolution. The church of Saint Genevieve was then turned into a temple, called the Pantheon, and used as a public burial place for French notables and unbelievers.

Of the many saints named Elizabeth, the one most gloried in by all Americans is Saint Elizabeth Anne Seton who was born in New York City in 1774. After her husband’s death she converted to the Catholic Faith from Episcopalianism. She became a nun and founded the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph. She died in Emmitsburg, Maryland in 1821, the same year as Napoleon, when she was forty-six years old. She was canonized in 1975.

5. Saint John Neumann (1860). He was born in Bohemia in 1811 and came to the United States in 1836. After being ordained he worked among the immigrants around Buffalo. He joined the Redemptorist Order and became the superior in America. In 1851 he was made Bishop of Philadelphia where he stared the Catholic parochial school system and inaugurated the Forty Hours Devotion in this country. He spent many hours in the confessional. At the age of forty-nine he died. He was simple, poor and unassuming, but he performed all his duties extraordinarily well, and for this he was canonized in 1977.

Saint Telesphorus (154). He was the ninth Pope, and a martyr. Saint Telesphorus put the Gloria in Excelsis Deo in the Mass. This was the song which the angels in the sky sang to the shepherds of Bethlehem the night Our Lord was born. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will,” the angels sang to the shepherds, thereby letting us know that anyone who does not believe that Jesus Christ is true God is not a man of good will, and has himself to blame for his own unbelief. Saint Telesphorus gave Catholic priests the privilege of saying three Masses on Christmas day. The first of these masses may begin at midnight, the hour when Jesus was born.

This was the showing of Our Lord as a Child to the Gentile Kings. The Epiphany occurred twelve days after the birth of Jesus. The English call it Twelfth Night. It is one of the most important feasts in the Catholic Church. The Epiphany is God letting us know simply and dramatically that though He was born of the Jews, He was destined for the Gentiles. The Jews rejected Jesus. Their Temple was crashed to the ground in the year 70, and has never been built up since. Gentile Kings came over a thousand miles from the East to greet Jesus at His birth. This feast is often celebrated on the first Sunday after January 1.

Jesus was baptized when He was thirty years old and about to begin His public life. A special feast of the Baptism of Jesus is kept on the Sunday after the Epiphany. This was when the heavens opened and the Eternal Father’s voice was heard to say, “This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” In dramatic simplicity and clear revelation, the voice of God the Father let us know that the Child of Mary the Virgin is both true God and true Man. No one who does not believe this can be saved. The Baptism of Jesus also commemorates the institution of the sacrament of Baptism – of Baptism by water, essentially necessary for salvation. The presence of Jesus in the River Jordan sanctified, on this day, all the water of the world for this purpose.

This marriage feast occurred at the end of January, in the year 30, but it is celebrated today because it is, in its way, an epiphany – a showing of the power of Jesus – because it was His first miracle. This marriage feast is spoken about in the second chapter of Saint John. It was held in the little town of Cana, north of Nazareth, in Galilee, in the first year of Our Lord’s public life. At the Blessed Virgin’s request, Jesus changed six jars (120 gallons) of water into wine. This miracle, in addition to showing God’s generosity and His eagerness to grant Our Lady any favor, is by way of giving us the type and symbol of the fact that the water poured upon every Catholic at Baptism is to give him the right to another sacrament, the Blood of Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which he receives at Holy Communion.

Saint Gaspar, Saint Melchior and Saint Balthasar (First Century). January 6 is the feast of these three Magi, who brought Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. The Magi brought Jesus gold to show that He was a king; frankincense to honor Him as God; and myrrh to greet Him as man. These Magi first saw the star which led them to Bethlehem on the previous March 25, the day, and at the moment, that Jesus was conceived in Mary’s womb. It took the Magi nine months and twelve days to reach Bethlehem, guided by the star. The star left them when they were in Jerusalem. But it shone again after the Magi left Jerusalem, and led them to the cave of Bethlehem. Our Lady let each of the Magi hold Jesus in his arms. They were given some of His baby clothes to bring back to the East by way of relics. The Magi returned to the East, to Persia, and later were baptized there by Saint Thomas the Apostle, in the year 40. All three of the Magi were martyred for the Catholic Faith. Their names are now, and should always be called, Saint Gaspar, Saint Melchior and Saint Balthasar. The bodies of Saint Gaspar, Saint Melchior and Saint Balthasar were first brought to Constantinople, and then to Milan, and in the twelfth century they were place in the Cathedral of Cologne, in Germany, where they are venerated with much love by the Christians who worship thereof.

Blessed Andre Bessette (1937). Brother Andre was a simple lay brother of the Congregation of the Holy Cross at Montreal in Quebec. He had a consuming love for Saint Joseph and spent his life in spreading devotion to him. He is responsible for the famed Oratory of Saint Joseph at Montreal. Through Brother Andre’s prayers to Saint Joseph countless cures took place even during his lifetime. Nearly a million people came to pay him their last respects when he died on January 6, 1937, at the age of ninety-one.

7. Saint Raymond of Pennafort (1275). Saint Raymond was the third General of the Dominican Order. He was also the cofounder, with Saint peter Nolasco, in 1218, of the Order of Mercedarians, for the redemption of Catholic captives from the Mohammedans. Saint Raymond of Pennafort was one hundred years old when he died.

This was when Jesus was three years old. The Holy Family fled from Egypt, a land of the Gentiles, on February 17, 1 A.D. They lived in Egypt, in a town called Fostat, near Heliopolis and not far from Cairo. The Holy Family had to leave Bethlehem because of the wickedness and cruelty of the Jews, and had been warned to do so by the Angel Gabriel appearing to Saint Joseph. Herod, the King of the Jews, who tried to slaughter Jesus as an innocent Child, died in 3 A.D. Joseph and Mary then returned to Jerusalem with the Divine Child. But they had no trust in Herod’s successor, whose name was Archelaus and who was one of his sons. They were warned again by an angel to avoid him, and so, on their return to the Holy Land, they traveled north of Judea, to Galilee, to the town called Nazareth, where Jesus was conceived. There they lived for twenty-seven years in the little house where Mary also was conceived and where she was born. This holy little house, miraculously transported, first to Dalmatia in 1291, and then to Loreto, in Italy, in 1294, is known as the Holy House of Loreto.

8. Saint Apollinaris (180). He was a Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, and one of he great Fathers of the early Church.

9. Saint Julian of Antoich (313). He was a martyr, the husband of a beautiful virginal wife, Saint Basilissa, who died before him, but whose feast day is also celebrated on January 9. Saint Julian of Antioch converted great numbers to the Catholic Faith. He was noted for miracles and raised a dead man to life.

10. Saint Nicanor (76). He was one of the Seven Deacons chosen by the Twelve Apostles, as we are told in Chapter 6 of the Acts of the Apostles. One of these deacons was Saint Stephen, the protomartyr of the Church, whose feast day is December 26, the day after Christmas. Six of these Seven deacons are saints. They are: Saint Nicanor (January 10), Saint Permenas (January 23), Saint Prochorus (April 9), Saint Timon (April 19), Saint Philip (June 6), and Saint Stephen (December 26). One of the Seven deacons is not listed among the saints. His name was Nicholas. One of the Twelve Apostles was a traitor. His name was Judas. A vocation and sanctity are not one and the same thing. A vocation is a call to sanctity to which one must fully respond in order to be a saint.

11. Saint Hyginus (158). He was the tenth Pope. He fought vigorously against the heretics of this time, known as the Gnostics, who claimed that from reason and not from Revelation we could know all about God. He made beautiful regulations for the grades of rank among the clergy. The body of Saint Hyginus is buried near that of Saint Peter, the first Pope.

12. Saint Benedict Biscop (690). He was abbot of Saint Augustine’s monastery at Canterbury in England. He founded the monasteries of Wearmought and of Jarrow. “Biscop” is the old English form of bishop, and is taken from the Latin word episcopus which means bishop.

13. Saint Hilary of Poitiers (368). He was a bishop and a Doctor of the Church. He was the first Doctor of the Church to die, and suffered many things for the truth of the Catholic Faith, including banishment from his own diocese.

There are thirty-two Doctors of the Church, and their feast days, in order of months, are as follows: January 2, Saint Basil and Saint Gregory Nazianzen; January 13, Saint Hilary; January 24, Saint Francis de Sales; January 28, Saint Thomas Aquinas; February 21, Saint Peter Damian; March 18, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem; April 4, Saint Isidore of Seville; April 21, Saint Anselm; April 29, Saint Catherine of Siena; May 2, Saint Athanasius; May 25, Saint Bede, June 9, Saint Ephrem; June 13, Saint Anthony of Padua; June 27, Saint Cyril of Alexandria; July 15, Saint Bonaventure; July 21, Saint Lawrence of Brindisi; July 30, Saint Peter Chrysologus; August 1, Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori; August 20, Saint Bernard; August 28, Saint Augustine; September 3, Saint Gregory the Great; September 13, Saint John Chrysostom; September 17, Saint Robert Bellarmine; September 30, Saint Jerome; October 15, Saint Teresa of Jesus; November 10, Saint Leo the Great; November 15, Saint Albert the Great; December 4, Saint John Damascene; December 7, Saint Ambrose; December 14, Saint John of the Cross; December 21, Saint peter Canisius.

14. Saint Malachias (Fifth Century B.C.). He was a glorious prophet of the Old Testament. There are seventeen of these writing prophets who wrote books of the Bible, and all of them are commemorated by the Catholic Church as saints. The four major prophets are: Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel and Daniel. And along with them, Baruch. And the twelve minor prophets are: Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharias, Malachias.

15. Saint Paul, the First Hermit (342). This was the first notable Catholic saint who went apart completely and absolutely from the world to live a life of perfect contemplation of God. His glorious life was written by Saint Jerome. Saint Paul the hermit was one hundred and twelve years old when he died.

16. Saint Marcellus (309). He was the thirty-first Pope, and a martyr. The Catholic Faith was completely spread in the early ages by the shedding of the blood of martyrs. From the year 36 to the year 306, there were eleven million Catholics martyred for the Faith.

Saint Priscilla (First Century). Saint Priscilla was the hostess of Saint Peter when he went to Rome in the year 42. It was at her house that the Chair of Saint Peter was first set up in Rome. She was the mother of Saint Pudens, a Roman senator, whose wife, Saint Claudia, an English girl, was also heroic in her holiness. Their children, four of them, are saints; Saint Pudentiana, Saint Praxedes, Saint Novatus and Saint Timothy – two daughters and two sons – all grandchildren of Saint Priscilla.

17. Saint Anthony the Abbot (356). This was the first great Saint Anthony. His name is mentioned in the Litany of the Saints. His life was written by Saint Athanasius. It was the story of this life, told to Saint Augustine, that helped to lead to his conversion and Baptism. Saint Anthony the Abbot was greatly loved and admired by Saint Hilarion. Saint Anthony the Abbot was one hundred and five years old when he died. He is the father of all monks.

18. Saint Prisca (270). This was a lovely virgin martyr killed in Rome for the Catholic Faith. There is a church dedicated to her there. Saint Prisca was only thirteen years old when she was martyred.

19. Saint Marius and Saint Martha, his wife, and their sons, Saint Audifax and Saint Abachum (270). This was a family of noble Persians, all martyred together for the Catholic Faith.

Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys (1700). She came from France to Montreal in Quebec in 1653 and established the first school there. She founded the Congregation of Notre Dame, the first uncloistered congregation of Sisters in the New World. The French settlers in Quebec called her the “mother of the colony.”

20. Saint Fabian (250) and Saint Sebastian (288). Saint Fabian was the twenty-first Pope, and a martyr. The first thirty-one Popes of the Catholic Church were martyred for the Faith that Catholics now possess.

Saint Agnes was a glorious virgin and martyr slain with the sword at the age of thirteen. Her name is mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass, and always in the Litany of the Saints. Saint Agnes is one of the most beloved saints in the Catholic Church, and every age has venerated her. Her name has been given to thousands of Catholic churches, and to hundreds of thousands of Catholic girls.

Saint Vincent (304). He was a Spanish deacon, tortured to death for the Catholic Faith under the diabolical Emperor Diocletian. He is greatly loved and remembered in the Catholic Church. His name is in the Litany of the Saints, the third name mentioned among the martyrs.

This marriage of Our Blessed Lady and her virginal spouse took place when he was thirty and when she was fourteen years, four months and fifteen days old. Their first espousals (their engagement) took place on the previous September 8, Our Lady’s birthday. These espousals were arranged by the providence of God so that the virginal Mother of the Eternal God might have a virginal husband who would care for her and protect her Divine Child. Saint Joseph died when he was sixty years old, in the year 29 A.D. Our Lady died when she was seventy-two years old, in the year 58 A.D. Both of them are now, in soul and in body, in Heaven, along with Jesus, the third member of the Holy Family.

He was Bishop of Geneva and a Doctor of the Universal Church. He was only fifty-five years old when he died. He was cofounder, with Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, in 1610, of the Order of Visitation nuns, the Order to which Saint Margaret Mary, the great apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, would one day belong. He converted 72,000 Calvinists to the Catholic Faith.

Saint Francis de Sales tells us concerning Saint Joseph: “His humility, as Saint Bernard explains, was the cause of his wishing to quit Our Lady when he saw that she was with child; for Saint Bernard says that he spoke thus to Himself: ‘Ah! What is this? I know that she is a virgin, for we have together made a vow to keep our virginity and purity intact – a vow which nothing would induce her to break; yet I see that she is with child. How can it be that maternity is found in virginity, and that virginity does not hinder maternity? O my God! Must not this be that glorious Virgin of whom the Prophets declare that she shall conceive and be the Mother of the Messiah? Oh, if this is so, God forbid that I should remain with her – I, who am so unworthy of such an honor! Better far that I should quit her secretly on account of my unworthiness, and that I should dwell no longer in her company.’”

Saint Paul the Apostle, whose name before his conversion was Saul, on the road to Damascus heard the voice of Jesus speaking to him from the sky and saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” He then went on to Damascus, and was baptized in the Catholic Faith by Saint Ananias. Later on, because he was meant to be the Apostle to the Gentiles, and after seeing how much the Jews as a nation despised and rejected Jesus, he changed his name from Saul, which is Jewish, to Paul, which is Gentile. This was in admiration of a Roman named Sergius Paulus (Saint Paul of Narbonne, feast day March 22), whom he met and converted.

A little Italian girl of northern Italy, she lost her parents and was completely orphaned at the age of ten. When she was thirteen, the priest, by a special favor in those days, used to give her Holy Communion several times during the week. When she was twenty-one years old, she was told in a vision to found a Religious Order for the instruction of young girls. She thought no group of young girls in all the history of the Church was more beautiful than Saint Ursula and her 11,010 companions, all martyred for their Faith and their virginity in Cologne, in Germany, in the year 383. And so Saint Angela Merici, with twelve girl companions, in 1535, founded the famous and beloved Order of nuns known as the Ursulines. They now have convent schools for girls all over the world. The last word Saint Angela Merici spoke was the Holy Name of Jesus, just before she died, at the age of sixty-six.

He was the Angelic Doctor of the Church, a member of the Dominican Order, admired for the brilliance of his mind in writing such great works as the Summa Theologica, but loved for the warmth and devotion his heart had for the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Thomas said, “I found more wisdom in prayer at the feet of the Crucified than in all the books I ever read.” When Saint Thomas Aquinas was thirty-nine years old, at the request of Pope Urban IV, he wrote the Mass and the Office for the feast of the Corpus Christi. This was in the year 1264. The Catholic hymns, Tantum Ergo, and O Salutaris, and the Panis Angelicus and Adoro Te Devote, Latens Deitas, and the beautiful sequence in his Mass of Corpus Christi, known as the Lauda Sion Salvatorem, are all the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Every time a Catholic priest gives Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, he chants a prayer of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the choir sings a hymn he composed. Saint Thomas died when he was only forty-nine years old, on his way to the Second Council of Lyons. Although a Dominican, he died in a Benedictine monastery, of Fossa-Nuova, and the monks of this monastery thought his death there one of the greatest honors their house had ever been given.

He was one of the glories of the Catholic Church in the last century. He was the founder of the Salesians, a Religious Order of men under the protection of Saint Francis de Sales, and of a Religious Order for women called the Daughters of Mary, Help of Christians. Saint John Bosco was the spiritual father of that glorious young boy, Saint Dominic Savio, whose biography he wrote.

The image of the Child Jesus known as the “Infant Jesus of Prague” was actually of Spanish origin. IN the 17^th century, this beautiful statue was brought by a Spanish princess to Bohemia and presented to the Carmelite monastery. For many years this statue has been enshrined on a side altar in the Church of Our Lady of Victory in the city of Prague. It is of wax, and is about nineteen inches high. It is clothed in a royal mantle, and has a beautiful jeweled crown on its head. Its right hand is raised in blessing: its left holds a globe signifying sovereignty. So many graces have been received by those who invoke the Divine Child before the original statue that it has been called “The Miraculous Infant Jesus of Prague.”

JANUARY SAINTS