• 19 November

Profile

Martyred in the persecutions of Valerian.

Died

• martyred c.255 in Rome, Italy

Canonized

• Pre-Congregation

MLA Citation

• “Saint Maximus of Rome”. Saints.SQPN.com. 19 November 2009. Web. {today’s date}. <http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-maximus-of-rome/>

• Toto
• Totto

Memorial

• 19 November

Profile

Founded Ottobeuren Abbey in Ottobeuren, Germany in 764.

Died

• 815

Canonized

• Pre-Congregation

MLA Citation

• “Saint Tuto”. Saints.SQPN.com. 19 November 2009. Web. {today’s date}. <http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-tuto/>

• Saint Tuto

• 19 November

Profile

Fourth century bishop of Ecija, Andalusia, Spain. Martyred in the persecutions of Maximian Herculeus.

Canonized

• Pre-Congregation

MLA Citation

• “Saint Crispin of Ecija”. Saints.SQPN.com. 18 November 2009. Web. {today’s date}. <http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-crispin-of-ecija/>

• 19 November

Profile

First Abbot of Tordino Abbey near Teramo, Italy.

Died

• c.1010

Canonized

• Pre-Congregation

MLA Citation

• “Saint Atto of Tordino”. Saints.SQPN.com. 18 November 2009. Web. {today’s date}. <http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-atto-of-tordino/>

To what do we owe Saint Aloysius? To his having had a good mother. To how many Monicas and how many Blanches do we owe great servants of God, whom they begot more to heaven by the throes of their hearts than they gave to earth in the order of nature! Saint Aloysius’ mother lived to be present at the Mass offered in his honor as a saint. So soon did God glorify him on earth after taking him to heaven in his youth; and - may we not think it also? - so did He wish to reward that blessed mother for having so perfectly accomplished her duty in His sight in the education of her son. This pious mother was Martha de Tana Santena, and the father of Aloysius was Ferdinand, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire and Marquis of Castiglione. Of these noble parents Aloysius was born on the 9th of March 1568.

Who has not heard of the innocence of his childhood, of his gift of prayer, obtained by his determination to remain on his knees till he had passed an hour without distraction? of his wonderful mortification? of his modesty? of his horror of sin, so great that, at his first confession, he fainted at the feet of his confessor through grief for the faults of his infancy? And this in the midst of luxury! The world was no place for Aloysius; but it was only after years of pious persistency that he wrung from his father, permission to enter the novitiate of the Society of Jesus. His reason for choosing the Society was the vow taken by the Fathers to refuse all ecclesiastical dignities. In the novitiate he was a model of all the virtues , especially did he delight in the practice of holy poverty, humility, and obedience. To save his health, his superiors forbade his indulging in his habits of prayer; but in vain, for he could not fly from the presence of God, which was always with him. During the course of his studies, after his novitiate, an epidemic broke out in Rome, and Aloysius volunteered to assist the sick. He took the distemper, and, as he had received his first Communion from the hands of Saint Charles Borromeo, so he was assisted in his last illness by the Venerable Cardinal Bellarmin, as famous for his piety as for his great erudition. He died, as he foretold, on the octave of Corpus Christi, in the twenty-fourth year of his age. During life Aloysius was called by his brethren the Angelical.

After death he appeared to Saint Mary Magdalen of Pazzi in vision. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “what glory Aloysius, the son of Ignatius, enjoys! I could not have conceived so great a glory unless my Jesus had shown it tome! I could, traverse the world to tell all men that Aloysius, the son of Ignatius, is a great saint! Aloysius was a hidden martyr. Oh, how much he loved whilst he was on earth!”

Father Francis Pacheco, a Portuguese, Provincial of the Jesuits in Japan when they had been reduced by persecution to sixteen priests, and administrator of the diocese, with Father Zola, an Italian, and Father de Torres, a Spaniard, and six Japanese Brothers, were all burned to death on the Mount of Martyrs, at Nangasaki, in the year 1626, They died praising God and invoking the names of Jesus and Mary.

Saint John Francis Regis was born in the south of France in 1597. He began his missionary career at the age of thirty-four, and died when only forty-three. How much can be done both for one’s personal sanctification and for the salvation of souls in a short while by a fervent soul!

Saint John Francis Regis was eminently the apostle of the poor. This is the testimony of a priest: “He was indefatigable, and employed both night and day in his sacred functions. He was under the bitterest affliction whenever he was informed that God had been offended. Then he forgot his natural meekness, and, appearing transported with holy anger, he, with a voice of thunder, deterred the most resolute libertines. He would have sacrificed a thousand lives to prevent one sin. A word from him sufficed to inflame the coldest hearts, and to soften the hardest. After the mission, I knew not my own parishioners, so much did I find them reformed. No violence of cold, no snows blocking up all passages, no mountains, or torrents swelled by rain, could be an obstacle to his zeal. His ardor communicated an intrepidity to others; for when he went to any place, innumerable troops followed, and met him through all sorts of difficulties and dangers. I have seen him in the most rigorous season stop in the middle of a forest, to content the crowds desirous to hear him speak concerning salvation. I have seen him at the top of a mountain, raised on a heap of snow hardened by the frost, preach and instruct, the whole day, and after that spend the whole night in hearing confessions.” The zeal of St. John Francis brought upon him the enmity of the wicked; he had to suffer, moreover, that most painful trial for an humble soul, of being misunderstood by his own brethren and his ecclesiastical superiors. Indeed the excesses to which he was carried by the Spirit of God might well be considered extravagance in another man. The last years of this holy missionary’s career were spent in the bleak and mountainous country of Velay, evangelizing its sparse and wretchedly poor inhabitants. Here he lost his way in the woods, about Christmas time, and, having spent the night under an open shed, he died of fever, at a place called La Louvesc, on the 31st of December, 1640. Some twenty parish priests and their people were present at his funeral, without any one knowing how, in the midst of the great snows, they had learned of his death. Many miracles soon followed, and to-day the tomb of Saint John Francis Regis is a great object of pilgrimage. In the judgment of those who knew the secrets of his conscience, Saint John Francis in all his life never offended God by a grievous sin.

The Blessed Mary Ann was born in Quito, capital of the most Catholic country of Ecuador. Her family name was Paredes. In her tenth year she consecrated herself to God by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Hearing of the martyrdom of the first Jesuits who died in Japan, like Saint Teresa she wished to go forth to convert the heathen. Not being allowed to do this, she enclosed herself in a secluded part of her home, where she began to lead a most austere life. Her bed was a plank, her food an ounce of bread in the week; on her head she wore a crown of thorns, on her wasted body a hair shirt, little pebbles within her shoes. She scourged herself, she wore iron chains; she gathered the drops of rain in her, hand when burning with thirst, and then threw them on the ground, in honor of Our Lord’s Passion. While thus austere to herself, she was all sweetness to others, and so won many souls to God. And God rewarded her by the sublime consolation with which He fills the hearts of His saints; at the same time her sanctity was revealed to the world by the wonders which Heaven daily wrought through her intercession.

When Quito was visited by the plague in the year 1645, the Blessed Mary Ann offered herself as a victim for her fellow-citizens, and, her offering being accepted, died of the disease, at the age of twenty-six. A miraculous lily which sprung from her blood has caused her ,to be called the “Lily of Quito,” as Saint Rose is called the Rose of Lima. Not only did the Blessed Mary Ann of Jesus choose always to be directed by the Jesuit Fathers, but, during the whole of her life, showed her devotion to the Order in some very extraordinary ways.

The Blessed Andrew Bobola was a great preacher in Poland. Such was his zeal that he was called the “hunter of souls” and the apostle of Lithuania, a large country then connected with Poland, which he greatly contributed to bring back to the unity of Catholic faith. This naturally excited against him the enmity of those separated from the Church by schism. He fell into the hands of a marauding party of Cossacks, who immediately vented their fury on him in the most cruel ways they could imagine. In mockery of our holy religion, they endeavored to represent in their tortures the vestments of the Catholic priesthood. They stripped off his skin, struck his teeth, tore out his nails, had him dragged by two horses, struck him with a hatchet, burned his sides, plucked out his eyes, cut off his ears and nose. Then, as he continued all the while to pray aloud for their souls, they pulled out his tongue, and finally cleft his head in two. Father Andrew was born in 1590, entered the Society of Jesus in 1611, and suffered on the eve of the Ascension, in 1657. After a long interval of time his body was found incorrupt. He was beatified by Pope Pius IX. He has wrought a great number of miracles.