Saint Michael Center

OCTOBER SAINTS CALENDAR
1	Theresa of Lisieux, Carmelite nun
2	The Holy Guardian angels
4	Francis of Assisi, Deacon
7	Our Lady of the Rosary
15	Teresa of Avilla, Carmelite Nun
16	Margaret Mary Alocoque, Religious
18	Luke, Evangelist
19	Isaac Jogues S.J., and Companions, the North American Martyrs
28	Jude the Apostle

Saint Therese of Lisieux (1897). This beautiful little girl of the last century was called Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. She is now one of the best-known saints in the whole world. She became a Carmelite nun when she was fifteen years old. She died of consumption when she was only twenty-four. In nine short years as a nun, she shed the luster of her love so that all might know it by her prayers, her works ans her simple and innocent writing. Her prayers were especially for priests and the foreign missions. She has been united with Saint Francil Xavier and made one of the great patrons of all missionary work done by Catholic priests.

Saint Therese called herself the "Little Flower of Jesus," and by that name she is known everywhere. Her great divotions were to the Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady, who once appeared to her in a grave sickness. It is in no small way due to Saint Therese of Lisieux that daily Communion was restored by Saint Paul X, the holy Pope who loved the Little Flower so much.

The Holy Guardian Angels. The mission of the Guardian Angels is, as Saint Paul tells us, to serve the future heirs of salvation. Every kingdom, country, diocese, church and religious order has its protecting Guardian Angel. So has every person. Each bishop of the Catholic Church has two Guardian Angels. Our Guardian Angel is given us at the moment of birth, stays with us all through life, comforts us in Purgatory, and escorts us, if we are saved, into Heaven. There is a special angel in each church to record all distractions and irreverences that occur there. The greatest joy any of us can give our Guardian Angel is to receive Holy Communion and make our breast a tabernacle of the Eternal God before Whom this angel can adore. Many of the saints saw their Guardian Angels. Saint Rose of Lime did, and so did Saint Gemma Galgani. And so did Saint Frances of Rome, Saint Margaret of Cortona and Saint Gridget of Sweden. A great Pope, Saint Gregory the Great, was tenderly devoted to his Guardian Angel. Saint Catherine of Siena saw her Guardian Angel. Saint Francis de Sales had, as one of his special devotions, reverence for the Holy Angels who have charge of the care of the tabernacle in every Catholic Church.

There are nine choirs of angels, and three hierarchies. These choirs and hierarchies are: first hierarchy, Angels, Archangels and Principalities; second hierarchy, Powers, Virtues and Dominions; third hierarchy, Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim. This is in the order of ascent. It is from the first hierarchy- Angels, Archangels and Principalities- that guardians are chosen by God for man. Angels are for individuals. Archangels are for parishes, churches and religious communities. And Principalities are for provinces, countries and nations. Saint Augustine says, "Go where we will, our angels are always with us." Saint Jerome says, "So sublime is the dignity of the human soul that from its birth there is appointed to each one a Guardian Angel." And Saint Bernard says, "Make the holy angels your friends. No matter how weak we may be, or lowly our condition, or how great the dangers which surround us, we have nothing to fear under the protection of these guardians." In every difficulty, danger and temptation, Saint Bernard urges us to invoke our Guardian Angel.

Saint Francis of Assisi (1226). Saint Francis of Assisi was called by Pope Benedict XV the "greatest image of Our Lord that has ever been." He was born in 1182. His name was John Bernardone. His father was a rich cloth merchant who had to travel frequently to France and who spoke French so well that he was called, in Italy, "Francesco," which means "the Frenchman". When he became a religious he gave up his family name and took his nickname for his title.

Saint Francis of Assisi, in imitation o Jesus with His Twelve Apostles, chose twelve companions with which to begin his Religious Order of the Friars Minor. His Order was approved in 1215. He made a journey to foreign lands so as to be martyred for the Catholic Faith. But he came back unharmed by way fo Palestine. Saint Francis of Assisi built the first Christmas crib in 1223. He was given the stigmata, the five wounds of Jesus, in his hands and feet and side, when he was praying on a mountain in 1224. This was when he was making a forty-day crusade of prayer and fasting to Saint Michael, the great Archangel who protects the Catholic Church from its enemies. Along with Saint Clare of Assisi, a beautiful and radiant young girl who joined him when she was eighteen, Saint Francis founded the Poor Clares, an Order for women under the Franciscan Rule. He also founded a Third Order of Saint Francis for the sanctification of lay people who want to practice some of the works of humility and poverty for which the Franciscans are noted. There are various branches of the first Order of Saint Francis, including the Friars Minor, the Capuchins and the Conventuals. The Franciscan Order has given the Catholic Church more than one hundred canonized saints.

Our Lady of the Rosary. The Holy Rosary is a lovely instrument of prayer. By it we direct our minds and our hearts to God as we move our mouths and our fingers while we pray. The rosary was given personally to Saint Dominic by Our Blessed Lady in the year 1214, in Toulouse, in France. Saint Dominic was the first great apostle of the Holy Rosary. Saint Dominic died in 1221, an the age of fifty-one. The last great apostle of the Holy Rosary was Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, who died in 1716 at the age of forty-three. The great Pope who promoted the cult of the Holy Rosary was Saint Pius V, who died in 1572. In the year 1571 he set up the feast of the Most Holy Rosary on October 7.

The Catholics won a great naval victory that day over the Turks at Lepanto, who were trying to crush them and blot out their Faith. Their protection was the Holy Rosary.

Another great victory of the Catholics over the Turks because of the Holy Rosary was in 1716, in Hungary, the year Saint Louis Marie died. Pope Gregory XIII, in 1573, Pope Clement XI, in 1716, and Pope Leo XIII, in 1888, all did much to make the feast of the Most Holy Rosary on October 7 more and more observed reverenced in the liturgy of the Church. The rosary is not only a prayer, it is a weapon. The little beads of love that are strung on the rosary are bullets of destruction against the enemies of the Catholic Faith and the enemies of one's salvation. In a simple chaplet, five decades of the rosary, the Holy Name of Jesus is invoked fifty-four times, and the Holy Name of Mary, one hundred and seven times. No Catholic should ever be without the rosary in his possession, night or day. The devil is afraid of these beads as they lie in our pockets or are held in our hands.

Saint Abraham (2000 B.C.). The great patriarch of pre-Christian times was Abraham, who lived two thousand years before the coming of Christ. He was first called Abram, which means "father". His name was later changed by God to Abraham, which means "great father", father of a multitude. Abraham was a type of God the Father's generosity in sacrificing His Divine Son for our salvation. Abraham agreed to do so because it was God's request. But God stopped Abraham, and Abraham sacrificed a ram instead. Abraham's name is mentioned in the genealogy of Our Lord, in the very first sentence of the New Testament, in the Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Abraham's name is mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass, in the second prayer after the consecration of the Most Precious Blood. Mary, the Mother of God, uses Abraham's name in her beautiful canticle, the Magnificat. Mary calls those who fully acknowledge her Divine Maternity and share its fruits, "the seed of Abraham forever." Abraham was one hundred and seventy-five years old when he died.

Our Lady of the Pillar (36). This feast commemorates the apparition of the Mother of God during her own lifetime to Saint James, the great apoltle of Spain, in the year 36, in the town of Saragossa Spain. This was to encourage Saint James to be the apostle to the great country of Spain, which by its valiant Catholicism and its many saints was to mean so much to the one true Faith in the centuries to come. The feast of Our Lady of the Pillar has a very important significance to us Americans. Christopher Columbus packed his boat to sail from Spain to America on August 2,1492, the feast of Our Lady of the Angels. Columbus and his men sailed all the rest of August and the whole of September without sighting the land they were loking for. And then October approached. Columbus said if he did not see land on October 12, the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar, he would turn and go back to Spain. By the special providence of Our Lady, it was on October 12 that Columbus first saw land. Columbus did not choose this day because it was October 12 simply. He chose it because it was the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar. In childlike innocence, every one of us must admit that it was because of the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, that America was discovered. The whole New World was menat to belong to her.

Saint Teresa of Avila (1582). She is the radiant Carmelite nun and prioress who was born at the beginning of the sixteenth century and died at the age of sixty-seven in the year 1582. Saint Teresa of Avila was one of twelve children. From reading the lives of the saints, when she was seven years old, she wanted to go and be martyred by the Moors. Her mother died when she was twelve. When she was eighteen she became a Carmelite. She has often been called "the greatest woman of Christendom." She wrote three wonderful spiritual books: her Autobiography, telling of her visions and revelations; the "Way of Perfection", for the direction of her nuns; and "The Interior Castle", a study in mystical theology.

It was reading Saint Jerome that gave her her vocation. And after she became a Carmelite, it was reading Saint Augustine that drove her to the heights of perfection. She suffered dreadfully from physical sicknesses, and was constantly attacked by the devil. Our Lord once appeared to her, and asked her who whe was. She replied, "I am Teresa of Jesus." Our Lord then said to her, "I am Jesus of Teresa." In the year 1558 her was piercef by the lance of an angel, which left her with a consuming love of God. Saint Teresa's special patron in Heaven was Saint Joseph, the virginal spouse of Mary. Her spiritual friends and directors among the saints were: Saint Peter of Alcantara, a Franciscan, Saint Francis Borgia, a member of the Society of Jesus, Saint John of the Cross, a Carmelite, and Saint Louis Bertrand, A Dominican. She was also indebted for spiritual direction to a townsman of her own, Saint John of Avila, a very humble and worthy priest.

When Our Lord once appeared to Saint Teresa and told her to carry out a certain work, she asked Our Lord why He did not tell some learned theologian to do this. Our Lord replied to her: "Theologians will do nothing to enter into personal communication with Me. Repulsed by them, I must choose women to open to them My Heart and speak of My affairs."

Saint Teresa's motto was, "To suffer or to die." She craved for martyrdom so that she could see God in the Beativic Vision. When she was dying, and Holy Viaticum was brought to her, she said, "O God, it is about time that we see each other." The day she died, by dramatic arrangement, Pope Gregory XIII changed the calendar to make allowance for the proper insertion of leap-year day. The days were dropped out of the calendar to commemortate one thing in one way, but to commemorate the going to God of the great Teresa of Avila in another, and though she died on October 4, her feast in on October 15. The day Saint Teresa died, she was welcomed into Heaven by the ten thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat, who were crucified there in 138 A.D., and to whom she had a gret devotion all her life. These martyrs came to welcome her and escort her to the Beatific Vision. In 1970 Pope Paul VI declared her the first woman Doctor of the Church.

Saint Margaret Mary (1690). Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was a Visitation nun who, in the year 1675, received from Our Lord, Who appeared to her out of the depths of the Blessed Sacrament, the assignment to be the great apostle of the public veneration of His Most Sacred Heart. Her spiritual supporter and director was a saintly priest of the Society of Jesus, Blessed Claude de la Colombiere. He died eight years before her. Our Lord told Saint Margaret Mary that He received in the Blessed Eucharist only irreverence and ingratitude. It was to her that Our Lord made the request that the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi be set aside as a special feast in honor of the Sacred Heart. It was to Saint Margaret Mary that Jesus made the request that Catholics receive Him in Holy Communion on each first Friday on the month, and keep the Holy Hour on the night before the first Friday with the Blessed Sacrament exposed.

Saint Luke (84). Saint Luke the Evangelist was a doctor of medicine in Antioch in Syria. He was converted to Christianity and became a disciple of Saint Paul. He is the one Gentile who wrote books in the New Testament. His two books are the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. All we know about the Incarnation, birth and childhood of Our Lord comes to us from Saint Luke. He was a great painter. He painted a most beautiful picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom his whole life was devoted. Saint Luke was martyred for the Catholic Faith.

The North American Martyrs (1642,1646,1648,1649). The eight North American martyrs were six priests and two lay brothers. Ther were heroic members of the Society of Jesus who were martyred in North America to bring the Faith that is necessary for salvation to the Huron, the Iroquois and the Mohawk Indians. Five of the eight North American martyrs were put to death in what is now Canada, and three of them in New York State. There is a shrine to the United States' martyrs at Auriesville in New York. There is a shrine to the Canadian martyrs at Fort Saint Mary near Midland, Ontario. The names of the eight North American martyrs are Saint Rene Goupil, a lay brother martyred in 1642 in New York State; Saint Isaac Jogues, a priest, and Saint John de Lalande, a lay brother, martyred in 1646in New York State; Saint Anthony Daniel, a priest, martyred in Canada in 1648; Saint John de Brebeuf, Saint Charles Garnier, Saint Noel Chabanel and Saint Gabriel Lalemant, all priests, and all martyred in Canada in 1649.

Saint Isaac Jogues, after thirteen months' imprisonment by the Mohawks, had several fingers cut off his hand. He went back to Europe, but returned again to North America and was killed by tomahawk blows at Ossernenon, now called Auriesville, in New York State. Saint John de Brebeuf declared before he died, "I have a strong desire to suffer for Jesus Christ." He was tortured terribly, and a burning torch was put into his mouth, which strangled him.

Saint Rene Goupil said, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" as he died, Saint Rene Goupil, thirty-five, was the youngest of the martyrs. Saint Noel Chabanel was thirty-six. Saint Isaac Jogues and Sait Gabriel Lalemant were thirty-nine. The oldest of the eight North American martyrs, Saint John de Brebeuf, was fifty-six when the Indians killed him.

Saint Simon and Saint Jude They were Apostles of Our Lord and were brothers. We are let know what eager and ardent apostles of the Faith Saint Simon and Saint Jude were, first by the distance they traveled to preach the Gospel (they went eventually as far as Persia), and also by the names to given them. Saint Simon is called the Zealot, both to distinguish him from Simon Peter and to show his ardor in preaching the true Faith. Saint Jude is called Thaddeus, which means "bighearted".

Saint Simon was martyred by being crucified. Saint Jude was martyred by being clubbed to death. Both were killed in the same year. Their relics were brought back and were placed near those of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the Vatican, in Rome. Saint Jude is the author of one of the Epistles in the New Testament. "Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ unto life everlasting," Saint Jude writes in his holy Epistle.

OCTOBER SAINTS