All Saints

Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god. They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Savior. [Psalm 24:3-5 NIV]

Edith of Wilton

St. Edith was the daughter of King Edgar the Peaceable and Queen Wilfrida. At the age of two, she began her course of education at Wilton Abbey, and effectively remained a part of that community her entire life. It is unclear whether she ever actually became a nun but it is much more likely that she participated as a secular member and royal patron, retaining her royal privileges and luxuries, but freely putting them at the service of the abbey. When her half-brother, King Edward the Martyr died, she was one of the possible candidates for the throne of England, but refused to have anything to do with it, and instead continued her life at Wilton, where she ministered to the sick and poor and helped to maintain and expand the abbey. Not long after she had paid for and completed a new chapel, which was consecrated by St. Dunstan, she suddenly died, in about 984, at the age of twenty-three. She might well have just been remembered as a wealthy but pious woman, but there were a few scattered stories of miracles, and both King Aethelred II, who was her brother, and King Cnut at various times had political reasons for keeping her memory public and supporting any tendency to her veneration. St. Dunstan seems also to have supported her cultus. Her feast day is September 16.

Pier Giorgio Frassati

Born in Turin, Italy, in 1901, Pier Giorgio Frassati's father was Alfredo Frassati, a newspaper owner active in liberal politics, and his mother was Adélaïde Ametis, an internationally recognized painter. As a young man, he began actively to engage in charitable activities, mostly, although not exclusively, through Catholic organizations, and when he began attending college for engineering he became active in social protest, as well. In 1922 he became a Third Order Dominican. When he completed his studies, his father offered him a car or an equivalent amount of money in a fund; he chose the fund and began using it for his charitable work. He was very physically active, enthusiastic particularly about mountaineering but enjoying a wide variety of activities. In 1925, while boating with friends, he began to experience severe pain and fever; he was eventually diagnosed as having polio. On July 4, he received last rites and died. A short life, but an unusually large number of people, most of whom had been personally helped by Frassati at one point or another, attended his funeral, and many of them went on to petition the Archbishop of Turin to open a cause for canonization for him. His younger sister, Luciana Frassati Gawronska, would eventually become famous for using her status as an Italian citizen to assist the Polish Resistance in World War II, and she would actively support the canonization cause, writing a biography of her brother. He was beatified by St. John Paul II in 1990, and canonized by Leo XIV in 2025. His feast day is July 4.

Ingrid of Skänninge

Born in the early thirteenth century to a noble family from  Östergötland in Sweden, Ingrid lived most of her life quite normally as a Swedish noblewoman, but after the death of her husband sometime around 1270, she became actively involved with a group of women who were attempting to further their devotion through prayer and ascetic practice under the guidance of a Dominican named Petrus of Dacia, a friend and correspondent of Bl. Christina von Stommeln. The women founded a Dominican convent with Ingrid as prioress, Skänninge Abbey, with Ingrid donating the land and buildings. It was formally recognized in 1281, and she died the following year. He feast day is September 2.

Xi Guizi

Born in the early 1880s in Hebei, China, in Dechao, Xi Guizi (also known in English as Chi Zhuze) became a Catholic catechumen. However, it was a hard time to be Catholic, as the Boxer Rebellion led to intense animosity against Catholics, Catholicism being seen as a foreign intrusion. During an anti-Western riot on June 1, 1900, he was recognized as a Catholic catechumen and dragged into the town square and killed.  He was beatified by Pius XII in 1955 and canonized by St. John Paul II in 2000. His feast day is July 20.

Pedro Claver y Corberó

Peter Claver was born in Verdú, Spain in 1580. After studying at the University of Barcelona, he joined the Society of Jesus and continued his studies in Mallorca, where he met St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, who told him that he should go into service in the Spanish colonies in the Americas. He followed this advice, and ended up in the New Kingdom of Granada, mostly in modern-day Colombia. While studying and working there, he found himself extremely disturbed by the practices of the Spanish slave trade; Cartagena was a major hub for it, and thus the nature, consequences, and sheer extent of it were far more visible than they had been in Spain. One of Claver's predecessors in Cartagena was Alonso de Sandoval, who had begun what he called el ministerio de los morenos, devoted to alleviating the condition of African slaves and providing religious instruction for those who were baptized; he began to train Claver for the work, and when Claver finished his studies, he signed his final profession with the words, aethiopum semper servus, forever servant (or slave) of the Africans. Feeling that there was a need for more active service than anyone had previously done, Claver began meeting slave ships, bringing food and medicine and learning supplies to teach the slaves the language. In the off season for the slave trade, he traveled the countryside, seeking out slaves on plantations, treating them as equals and sleeping in the slave quarters. He baptized and catechized vast numbers of people and preached against slavery in church, where he welcomed them as brothers. All of this was done under sometimes severe criticism; Church officials often held that he was being tactless and creating more problems than he was solving, local government officials were often reluctant to work with him, and wealthy families often avoided his churches. But he never stopped for almost four decades of ministry. As he grew older, he grew quite infirm, and suffered greatly, because he was largely neglected and perhaps occasionally abused by the servant the Society hired to tend to him.He died on September 8, 1564. He was canonized in 1888 by Leo XIII, and his feast is September 9.

Matilda of Ringelheim

Born to a count and countess in the Ducy of Saxony in the 890s, she studied at Herford Abbey more or less until she was married to the Duke of Saxony, Henry the Fowler, in 909. Henry was in a dispute with King Conrad I of Francia over various lands, and headed a rebellion against him for a number of years, which ended in a settlement; but when Conrad was nearing his death in 918, he recommended that Henry as his successor, having become convinced that Henry was the only one competent enough to be likely to hold off the increasing encroachments of the Magyar. When Henry became King of Francia in 919, Matilda as queen was put in a position to do extensive good for others, but the major opportunity came in 929, when Henry gave her her dower. The dower (not the same as a dowry) was a provision in marriage contracts in which the bride is guaranteed a support in case of widowhood; anything set aside as a dower (unlike a dowry) could not be spent by the husband. Henry's position had changed so considerably, however, that it made sense to rework the original provision, and the arrangement that was decided was for Henry to hand over completely to Matilda a very large amount of land. She would use this this to build monasteries and convents, the most important of which was perhaps that of Quedlinburg Abbey, which she had built in 939, the year of Henry's death, and where she became the first abbess. Matilda's son, Otto the Great, who became Holy Roman Emperor, eventually became displeased with some of his mother's decisions with regard to her property, and attempted to seize it; Matilda had to flee, and was only allowed to return when she swore off all her wealth. She grew sick and died in 968. Her feast day is March 14.

Germaine Cousin of Pibrac

St. Germaine, or Germana, was born in 1579 in Pibrac, near Toulouse, France. She was born with a deformed hand, and suffered from scrofula from an early age; because of this, she is said to have been mistreated by her stepmother. In order to keep her away from other children (due to the scrofula), she spent much of her childhood as a shepherdess, tending flocks in the countryside each day, punctuated mostly just by attending Mass each day. The local villagers over time shifted from avoiding her or mocking her to respecting her piety and her willingness to help others. She died in her sleep in 1601. In 1644, when the family grave was opened for another internment, her body was found incorrupt, which began a local movement toward her veneration, and over time she became associated with a large number of cures and healings. She was beatified by Bl. Pius IX in 1854 and canonized by him in 1867. She is a patron saint of the disabled and abandoned, and her feast day is June 15.

Ignatius Shoukrallah Maloyan

Shoukrallah Maloyan was born in 1869 to an Eastern Catholic family in Mardin (in modern-day Turkey) in the Ottoman Empire. An Armenian Catholic, he went to study at the Armenian Catholic Cathedral in Bzoummar, Lebanon, where he became a priest and took the religious name, Ignatius. He worked for some time in the Armenian Catholic Eparchy of Alexandria, based in Cairo, and then in 1904 moved to Constantinople (modern Istanbul) to serve with the Armenian Catholic Catholicos, Paul Petros XII Sabbaghian, as a member of the ICPB (Patriarchal Congregation of Bzoummar), a religious order specifically devoted to assisting the Catholicos in his patriarchal duties. In 1908, the Young Turks began to create a large number of problems for Armenian Catholics, with increasing talk of the extermination of all Christians, all Armenians, all Assyrians, and the like, and Paul Petros XII stepped down to avoid controversy over what was seen as his non-handling of it; he was replaced by Paul Petros XIII Terzian. To help stabilize the Armenian Catholic Church during the increasingly troubled time, Rome agreed to appoint a number of additional bishops to Armenian Catholic eparchies, and Ignatius Maloyan was made the Archbishop of Mardin in 1911 at the Armenian Catholic Synod of Rome. The Ottoman Empire, taking this as a sign that Armenian Catholics were attempting to build a space for independence from Ottoman oversight, and retaliated by forcibly deposing Paul Petros XII and appointing their own preferred candidate for Catholicos instead, which Rome inevitably declared illicit. Nonetheless, papal reach into the Ottoman Empire was quite limited, so when Maloyan finally arrived in his see, he found plenty of trouble, as the Armenian Catholic Church found itself in a superposition of public puppet-church ruled by the Ottomans and underground-church in communion with Rome. It became worse when the 1913 coup put the Three Pashas government into power, and worse still with the beginning of World War I. Armenian Catholics were regularly harassed and occasionally murdered; things seemed likely to improve with the arrival in Mardin of Mustarrif Hilmi Bey, but rumors circulated in March 1915 that the Three Pashas government issued the order to exterminate all Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and on Palm Sunday, Turkish soldiers went throughout the churches of Maloyan to arrest Christians, ostensibly on charges of desertion; 'ostensibly' because they consistently just arrested the most important members of the Christian community. This continued throughout the Holy Week celebrations. Archbishop Maloyan publicly affirmed the loyalty of Armenian Catholics to the Ottoman Empire, and he was awarded a medal by the Sultan Mehmed V, which was no doubt the Sultan's attempt to provide the Catholics what protection he could against the anti-Christian and anti-Armenian factions that dominated his government, but the Sultan was by this point effectively a figurehead -- he claimed that some of his public orders were literally done at gunpoint -- and on May 25, 1915, Hilmi Bey was ordered to arrest all the Christian leaders in Mardin. To his great credit, he refused, on the grounds that he had no actual reason to do so, but in June a scheme was implemented to make it necessary for him to be away and allow the arrest of Christians while he was gone. Maloyan was arred on June 3 or 4, accused of being a rebel supplying Armenian nationalists with guns, and given the option of being Muslim or being executed. He was tortured over a period of time. Hilmi Bey had meanwhile returned and made efforts to free the Christians who had been arrested, but this just gave the government material to remove him and replace him with someone more amenable to genocide. The Christians, including Archbishop Maloyan, were force-marched into the desert on the night of June 10 and shot. Ignatius Maloyan was beatified by St. John Paul II in 2001 and canonized by Pope Leo XIV in 2025. His feast day is June 11.

Galdino della Sala

Born in Milan near the end of the eleventh century, Galdino della Sala, or Galdinus, seems to have led a relatively quiet life, mostly known for his charitable work for those who were sick or in debt, until the death of Pope Adrian IV in 1159. The College of Cardinals split into pro-Imperial and anti-Imperial factions. The anti-Imperial faction, which had a slight majority at the time, elected Rolando Bandinelli, who took the name, Alexander III. The pro-Imperial faction regarded him as unacceptable and elected Octaviano Monticelli, who took the name, Victor IV. It is unclear whether this was done under the instigation of the Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa; he would certainly not have been happy at Bandinelli's election, but he can't actually have been much happier about a papal schism, and instead of trying to push the matter himself at the beginning, he called a synod at Pavia to determine which candidate should be considered the pope. However, when Pope Alexander III refused to attend, Barbarrossa backed Victor IV. Alexander excommunicated the Emperor; the Emperor attempted to install Victor IV, and found that it was much harder than he had expected. In 1164, Victor died, and the pro-Imperial cardinals around Victor elected Guido di Crema, who became Paschal III. Paschal III was succeeded by Callixtus III in 1168. Frederick Barbaross suffered a major defeat at Legagno in 1176, which made it politically necessary for him to support Alexander III, and Callixtus III himself formally submitted to Alexander III in 1178. Officially the schism was ended, although the stubborn holdouts tried electing a fourth antipope, Innocent III, whom Pope Alexander was able to capture and imprison, ending the schism de facto as well as de jure. All this time, there was a huge back-and-forth over whether Alexander or his rivals had the upper hand. Milan, however, favored Alexander, and Galdino, who was an archdeacon when the schism began, was vehemently in support of him. The Emperor was not amused; he besieged Milan, and supporters of Alexander had to flee. Alexander, barred from Rome at the time, was in Genoa, and Galdino went to support him there, following Alexander through the various locations Alexander visited in an attempt to stay out of the clutches of the Emperor: southern France, Sicily, and finally Rome again in 1165. Desperately in need of support, Alexander on his return to Rome made Galdino a cardinal and named him Archbishop of Milan and apostolic legate for Lombardy. He was eventually able to return to Milan, and continued actively supporting Pope Alexander, but he never saw the end of the schism. Having just finished a homily on April 18, 1176, he collapsed and died. He was canonized by Pope Alexander III at some time before the latter's death in 1181. His feast day is April 18.

Charles-Joseph-Eugène de Mazenod

Eugène de Mazenod was born in 1782 to an extremely wealthy family associated with the royal court. When the French Revolution began, his family was forced to flee. They wandered for some time in Italy, growing increasingly poor. Eugène's mother and sister eventually returned to France, his mother getting a formal divorce so that she could get part of their property back. Eugène eventually ended up in Palermo, where he was given protection by the Duke of Cannizaro, and as companion of their two sons began to live again the life of a wealthy noble; in his early twenties he returned to France to live with his mother, who was doing reasonably well, and he indulged himself as a rich young man. But it all seemed hollow, and only more so over time, and eventually he began to be restless in his lifestyle, and started doing more charitable work. On Good Friday, 1807, he saw a crucifix and had a religious experience in which it seemed to him that all of his life was one of sin, and he began to study for the priesthood, being ordained in 1811. In 1816, he felt compelled to live a life of total oblation to God and service to the poor and needy of Provence, and invited several other priests to join with him in this endeavor in a group that eventually became known as the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who would send missionaries all over the world. In 1837, Eugène was made Bishop of Marseilles, where he died in 1861. He was beatified by Paul VI and canonized by St. John Paul II; his feast day is May 21.

Caesarius of Arles and Caesaria the Elder

Caesarius was born near modern-day Chalon-sur-Saône; officially it was in the Holy Roman Empire, although in practice the Burgundians were mostly self-governing. Caesarius did not get along with his family, except for Caesaria, his sister, and at the age of seventeen he left home to become a monk at Lérins. He was a bright young man, and impressed by him as a student, the abbot made him cellarer of the monastery. Caesarius immediately started making enemies in this position when he refused to give monks food if he thought their discipline was not ascetic enough. The abbot removed him from the position, but then Caesarius, feeling that he needed to lead the way by example, started starving himself to death with fasting. The abbot then sent him to Arles for medical care, but probably also just to make him someone else's responsibility. The bishop of Arles turned out, to his surprise, to be a distant kinsman, who encouraged the young man to seek holiness along more normal lines and ordained him a priest. Caesarius was consecrated bishop of Arles in 502. He fulfilled the office with all the zeal that had been typical of him so far; his sheer energetic activity made him one of the most important bishops in the empire, although he also kept finding himself in controversies. For instance, when he ransomed captives, he ransomed everyone regardless of their backgrounds. His tendency to do things without much regard for how other people would see them, also led him several times to be denounced to the authorities for political reasons, but in the end he was judged innocent in each case. In 512, he helped his sister, Caesaria, found a religious community for women, writing the Rule for their community; the Rule would be a significant influence on the concept of cloistered communities. Caesaria seemed to organize the community very well; not much is known about her, but her community flourished greatly during her tenure as abbess. Under the influence of a priest from North Africa named Julianus Pomerius, Caesarius became an enthusiastic reader of St. Augustine, and became a major conduit for St. Augustine's influence on European churches in the sixth century. The culmination of this was his calling of the Council of Orange in 529 which became one of the most theologically important councils of the early Middle Ages. St. Caesarius died in 542; his feast day is August 27. It's unclear when St. Caesaria died, but her feast day is January 12.

************

2024 All Saints Post
Meinrad of Einsiedeln, Joaquima de Vedruna Vidal de Mas, Vibiana, Anne-Marie Rivier, Helier, Peter Ou, Gontrand, Theobald of Marly, Siméon-François Berneux, Marie-Nicolas-Antoine Daveluy, Lucas Hwang Sŏk-tu, Lorcán Ua Tuathail

2023 All Saints Post
Gaius Sollius Modestius Sidonius Apollinaris, Hesychius I, Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, Apollinaris, Juvenal of Jerusalem, Wilfrid of Northumbria, Peter of Athos, Mildburh, Mildrith, Mildgytha, Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, Margaret of Città di Castello, Germanus I of Constantinople, Hemma von Gurk

2022 All Saints Post
Gildas the Wise, Clelia Barbieri, Marguerite Bourgeoys, Charles Eugene de Foucauld de Pontbriand, Lazaros the Iconographer, Arialdo and Erembaldo, Devashayam Pillai, Gerard Majella, David Uribe-Velasco, Inácio de Azevedo and the Martyrs of Tazacorte, Angelus of Jerusalem, Laura of St. Catherine of Siena, Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, Damien of Molokai

2021 All Saints Post
Niklaus von Flue, Contardo of Este, Peter of Verona, Virginia Centurione Bracelli, Fulrad, Ivan of Rila, Austregisilus, Sulpitius the Pious, Desiderius, Amandus, Remaclus, Theodard, Lambert, The Martyrs of Shanxi, Tôma Khuông, Maria Teresa Goretti, Lidwina of Schiedam, Oliver Plunkett, Mariam Baouardy, Marinus, Nunzio Sulprizio

2020 All Saints Post
André de Soveral, Domingos Carvalho, and the Martyrs of Cunhau, Henry of Uppsala and Eric IX the Holy, Adelaide of Burgundy, Junípero Serra y Ferrer, Maria Restituta Kafka, Venantius Fortunatus, Radegund, Junian of Maire, and Gregory of Tours, Magdalene of Nagasaki, Jeanne-Antide Thouret, Louis IX, Peter Nolasco, Tarasios of Constantinople, Albert Chmielowski

2019 All Saints Post, Part III
Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, Gregory II and Gregory III, Katarina Ulfsdotter, Marko Stjepan Krizin, István Pongrácz, Melchior Grodziecki, Amandus and Bavo of Ghent, Zhang Huailu, Colette of Corbie, Alphonsus Rodriguez, Marie-Margeuerite d'Youville, Anthony of the Caves, Teresa of Calcutta

2019 All Saints Post, Part II
Bartolomeu dos Mártires, Manuel Moralez, Apollonius the Apologist, Henry II the Exuberant and Cunigunde of Luxembourg, Ramon Nonat, Francis Xavier Cabrini, Juliana of Liège, Aelia Pulcheria, John Henry Newman, Anna Schäffer, Ivo of Chartres, Paul I of Constantinople

2019 All Saints Post, Part I
Matteo Correa Magallanes, Nicholas Owen, Knud IV and Knud Lavard, Mariana de Jesús de Paredes, Joseph Vaz, Zdislava Berka, Caterina Fieschi Adorno, Pietro I Orseolo, Ðaminh Hà Trọng Mậu, Jeanne-Françoise Frémiot de Chantal, Stephen Min Kŭk-ka, Rabanus Maurus Magnentius

2018 All Saints Post
Gianna Beretta Molla, Margaret of Scotland, Yu Tae-chol Peter, Justa and Rufina of Seville, Giuseppe Moscati, Kazimierz Jagiellończyk, Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghaţţas, Salomone Leclerq, Arnulf of Metz, Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez, Frumentius of Tyre, Jeanne Jugan, Joseph Zhang Dapeng, Maroun and Abraham of Harran, Magnus Erlendsson, Callixtus I, Hippolytus, Urban I, Pontian, Anterus, Fabian, Jean de Brébeuf

2017 All Saints Post
John Ogilvie, Leo IV, Andrew Stratelates and the 2593 Martyrs, Theodore the Studite, The Martyrs of Gorkum, Margaret Ward and John Roche, Mesrop Mashtots, José María Robles Hurtado, Genevieve of Paris, Pedro Calungsod, Isaac of Nineveh, George Preca, Denis Ssebuggwawo Wasswa, Anthony of Padua

2016 All Saints Post
Theodore of Tarsus, Nilus the Younger, Anne Line, Mark Ji Tianxiang, Maria Elisabetta Hesselbad, Sergius of Radonezh, Anna Pak Agi, Jeanne de Valois, Vigilius of Trent, Claudian, Magorian, Sisinnius, Martyrius, Alexander, Euphrasia Eluvathingal, José Sanchez del Rio, Andrew Kaggwa, Roberto Bellarmino

2015 All Saints Post
Margaret Clitherow, Kaleb Elasbaan of Axum, Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin Martin, Gertrude of Nivelles, Pius V, Clare and Agnes of Assisi, Kuriakose Elias Chavara, Scholastica, Vinh Sơn Phạm Hiếu Liêm, Thorlak Thorhallson, John Damascene

2014 All Saints Post
Marie Guyart, Alphonsa Muttathupadathu, John Neumann, Hildegard von Bingen, Pedro de San José Betancurt, Benedict the Moor

2013 All Saints Post
María Guadalupe García Zavala, Antonio Primaldi, Nimatullah Kassab Al-Hardini, Gabriel-Taurin Dufresse and Augustine Zhao Rong, Josephine Margaret Bakhita, John Chrysostom

2012 All Saints Post
Jadwiga of Poland, Kateri Tekakwitha, André Bessette, Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès, Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga

2011 All Saints Post
Bonifacia Rodríguez de Castro, Celestine V, Olga of Kiev, Cyril of Jerusalem, Joseph Mukasa and Charles Lwanga

2010 All Saints Post
Moses the Black of Ethiopia, Micae Hồ Đình Hy, Katherine Mary Drexel, Robert Southwell, Lojze Grozde, Andrew Kim Tae Gon