FEATURE Image: St. Joan of Arc’s capture of Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier from Anglo-Burgundian forces on November 4, 1429, during the Hundred Years War in L’église Saint-Pierre at Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier, France. Seotember 1993. Author’s photograph.
The stained-glass window at Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier commemorates a pivotal moment in Joan of Arc’s military career, illustrating how her unwavering faith, personal courage, and conviction in divine assistance transformed a near-defeat into a decisive French victory during the Hundred Years’ War.
The Saint Peter Church of Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier (Nièvre) is a 12th-century Roman Catholic building, a former Benedictine priory, classified as a historical monument since 1886. Photo by MOSSOT / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 3.0
The Window and Its Setting
This stained‑glass window captures one of the most electrifying moments in the epic of Joan of Arc. It is part of a modern cycle in the town church of Saint‑Pierre de Saint‑Pierre‑le‑Moûtier, crafted in the mid‑20th century by the Mauméjean brothers. The artwork commemorates an event that unfolded in this very town — and inside this very church — during the Hundred Years’ War.
On November 4, 1429, Joan led a French royal force to seize Saint‑Pierre‑le‑Moûtier, a fortified stronghold held by Anglo‑Burgundian troops. The attack stalled under fierce resistance. French soldiers broke formation and began to fall back. Amid the chaos, Joan’s officer Jean d’Aulon — wounded during the fighting — suddenly realized she had been left almost alone near the moat with only a handful of men.
Author’s photograph. All rights reserved.
Joan’s Defiance and Her “Fifty Thousand”
D’Aulon mounted a horse, rode to her, and urged her to retreat before she was killed or captured. Joan removed her helmet and shouted that she was not alone. The window preserves her words across its lower banners: “+ J’AI EN MA / COMPAGNIE . . CINQVANTE MILLE / DE MES GENS.” She claimed she had fifty thousand of her people with her — the heavenly host of angels she believed fought at her side. D’Aulon saw only four or five soldiers, but Joan’s unshakable resolve reignited the army.
The Turning of the Battle
Joan ordered her men to gather wood and brush to build a makeshift bridge across the moat. The retreating French troops saw The Maid standing her ground, turned back, and launched a sudden, overwhelming assault that broke the defenses and captured the town. The upper portion of the window shows Joan on her white horse in the heat of battle, while the faces gathered in the arc above represent the “fifty thousand” she invoked — angels, Saint Michael, and the voices she believed guided her.
Aftermath and Joan’s Devotion
Following the victory, Joan prevented her troops from sacking the town. She then spent several days praying inside this church before marching on to her next campaign, leaving behind both a military triumph and a moment of mystic conviction that the Mauméjean window preserves with vivid force.
The nave of Saint-Pierre Church at Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier, where Joan of Arc spent several days in prayer following her remarkable victory against overwhelming odds at the Battle of Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier in November 1429. Photo by MOSSOT / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
More than a scene of battlefield heroism, the Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier window presents Joan of Arc’s conviction that military success flowed from divine providence, portraying the inseparable relationship between faith, vision, and leadership that defined her extraordinary career.
The neoclassical facade of the colonial-era Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Santiago de Cuba, southeastern Cuba. As Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba from 1851 to 1857, St. Anthony Mary Claret used this cathedral as his primary pastoral seat, tirelessly preaching to the public and overseeing structural recovery efforts after a devastating earthquake left the building in ruins in 1852. Faced with widespread poverty, illness, and systemic inequalities, he championed the people’s well-being by establishing hospitals, schools, and diverse family-owned farms to combat the economic hardships of the local populations and enslaved workers. Photo Credit: BluesyPete / CC BY-SA 3.0
St. Anthony Mary Claret (1807-1870) combined intense personal holiness with tireless missionary activity, becoming one of the nineteenth century’s most influential Catholic reformers. From preaching missions and extensive pamphlet writing across Spain and the Canary Islands to servingas Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, Claret devoted his life to evangelization, education, social justice, and the reform of Church and society.
Photograph of Saint Anthony Mary Claret taken by Jean Laurent in 1862. At the time, Claret was serving as personal confessor to Queen Isabella II of Spain. The year marked a particularly productive period in his ministry, including the completion of his celebrated Autobiography in May, an intensive six-week preaching campaign during which he delivered more than 200 sermons to laypeople, clergy, seminarians, and charitable communities, and important developments in the growth of the Claretian order he had founded. Public Domain.
Early Spiritual Awakening
St. Anthony Mary Claret (1807-1870), whose feast day is October 24, was one of the great missionaries and social reformers of the nineteenth-century Catholic Church.
Born in Sallent, Catalonia, Spain, Anthony grew up in a devout Catholic family. At the age of five, lying awake one night, he reflected on God, judgment, Heaven, and Hell, lessons he had learned from his parents. As he tried to comprehend eternity, he became deeply troubled by the thought of souls separated forever from God’s love. The experience left a profound impression on him and inspired a lifelong desire to bring others closer to Christ.
Devotion to Mary and Extraordinary Graces
Throughout his life, Anthony reported receiving visions and special spiritual consolations, although he spoke of them only when doing so might strengthen the faith of others.
In his autobiography, he recounts an incident from his youth when he was swept out to sea by a powerful wave while wading near a beach with friends. Unable to swim and facing almost certain death, he prayed to the Blessed Virgin Mary for help. Moments later, he found himself safely on shore. Anthony viewed the event as a sign of Mary’s maternal protection and frequently encouraged others to seek her intercession in times of danger and distress.
A panoramic view of Sallent from the castle, located in Catalonia, Spain, the historic birthplace of St. Anthony Mary Claret. Anthony Mary Claret was born in this small manufacturing town on December 23, 1807. The Llobregat River running through the town powered the local textile industry. Claret spent his youth here working as a weaver in his father’s textile mill, mastering the trade before moving to Barcelona to further his studies in manufacturing.Photo Credit: Joan / CC BY 3.0
Missionary Across Spain and the Canary Islands
Ordained a priest in 1835, Anthony quickly became known as one of Spain’s most dynamic and effective preachers. Unable to enter the foreign missions because of poor health, he instead devoted himself to missionary work throughout Catalonia and the Canary Islands, often traveling on foot from town to town. His powerful sermons attracted enormous crowds, and he became renowned for his ability to communicate Catholic teaching in a direct and compelling manner.
Recognizing the growing influence of the printed word, he also published books, pamphlets, and catechetical materials on a massive scale, making religious instruction accessible to ordinary people. In 1849, he founded the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, today known as the Claretians.
A Lifelong Admiration for the Jesuits
As a young priest, Anthony Mary Claret felt strongly drawn to the missionary spirit of the Society of Jesus. In 1839, he traveled to Rome and entered the Jesuit novitiate, hoping to dedicate himself to missionary work abroad. Although recurring health problems forced him to leave before completing his formation, the experience left a lasting mark on him.
Claret never lost his admiration for the Jesuits. He was deeply influenced by their discipline, intellectual rigor, missionary zeal, and devotion to the service of the Church. Throughout his life, he maintained close relationships with members of the order and frequently recommended the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola as a means of spiritual growth. The Jesuit emphasis on evangelization, education, and obedience to the Church resonated strongly with Claret’s own vocation and would help shape his ministry as a preacher, founder, bishop, and reformer. Even though he did not remain a Jesuit, he carried many Ignatian ideals into the missionary work that made him one of the most influential Catholic figures of nineteenth-century Spain and Cuba.
Historic photograph depicts St. Anthony Mary Claret engaged in his extensive writing ministry, commonly referred to as his “apostolate of the pen.” It was taken by French photographer Antoine René Trinquart in Paris in December 1868. Public Domain.
Archbishop and Reformer in Cuba
Later in 1849, Pope Pius IX appointed Anthony Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba, a position he held until 1857. His years in Cuba were among the most demanding and fruitful of his ministry.
He traveled tirelessly throughout his vast archdiocese, preaching missions, hearing confessions, founding schools, and promoting religious education. Determined to improve both the spiritual and material conditions of the people, he established savings banks, supported agricultural initiatives, aided the poor, and spoke out against abuses associated with slavery. Local, wealthy landowners and plantation owners reacted to St. Anthony Mary Claret’s reforms with intense and often violent hostility. Because Cuba’s wealthy elite relied heavily on a rigid, slave-reliant agricultural monopoly, they viewed his social and economic initiatives as an existential threat to their power. By dividing land, teaching modern agricultural techniques, and encouraging poor peasants and enslaved workers to run self-sufficient family farms, he threatened the cheap labor supply that major sugar plantations depended on.
Preaching Human Dignity
His fierce advocacy for racial equality, the defense of enslaved workers, and his efforts to legitimize marriages across racial lines directly disrupted the social order the plantation owners fought to maintain control over.
Anthony also undertook sweeping reforms of the clergy. Priests were required to demonstrate their ability to celebrate Mass properly and to fulfill their pastoral duties. He famously argued that it was better for a village to have no priest than to have an unworthy one. In his records explaining why he refused to ordain or assign substandard candidates, he wrote his full reasoning: “If God does not send me men who are truly called, God himself will have to take care of the men and souls by means of his angels. A call is God’s gift. I must not bring the unworthy into the sheepfold to destroy it instead of tending it.” His insistence on moral reform extended to society at large as he preached forcefully against adultery, concubinage, and other practices he believed undermined Christian family life.
His efforts won him widespread admiration among the faithful but also powerful enemies among those whose interests were threatened. The elite tried to silence him by launching a series of smear campaigns, labeling him a dangerous subversive, and hiring hitmen to eliminate him. In 1856, he survived a violent assassination attempt in Holguín, Cuba, where an assassin slashed his face and arm with a knife. Yet he responded with forgiveness and mercy toward his attacker and later successfully advocated to commute his attacker’s death sentence to a prison term.
Cloister garden of Fontfroide Abbey, founded in 1093 by Aymeric I, Viscount of Narbonne. In 1870, St. Anthony Mary Claret found refuge here after fleeing political persecution in Spain. Sheltered by the abbey’s Cistercian monks and hidden for his own safety within these ancient walls, Claret spent his final weeks walking, praying, and preparing for death among these Gothic cloisters constructed largely in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He died peacefully at Fontfroide on October 24, 1870. Photo Credit: Nancy / CC BY-SA 4.0
First Vatican Council, Exile, and Death (1870)
St. Anthony Mary Claret died in exile on October 24, 1870, at the Cistercian Monastery of Fontfroide near Narbonne in southern France at the age of 62. Following the Glorious Revolution of 1868, which deposed Queen Isabella II, Claret fled Spain alongside the royal family. After spending time in Paris and attending the First Vatican Council in Rome—where he spoke ardently in favor of Papal Infallibility—his presence continued to draw intense hostility from his Spanish political enemies, a powerful coalition of anticlerical revolutionaries, radical liberals, and Freemasons.
Because Claret was the Queen’s personal confessor, the new radical secular government viewed him as a dangerous political opponent and a symbol of the monarchy they were determined to destroy. They weaponized the legal system against him, trumping up political charges of treason and subversion to justify his arrest, suppress his religious orders, and seize Church property. Suffering from rapidly failing health, Claret initially sought peace with an exiled Claretian community in Prada de Conflent in the French Pyrenees. However, when Spanish government agents and diplomats tracked him there to execute the warrant, he was forced to flee once more in the middle of the night.
He found his final sanctuary at the isolated Cistercian Abbey of Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide near Narbonne and the Spanish border, where the monks shielded him under practical house arrest for his own safety. He passed away peacefully at the monastery shortly after his arrival, succumbing to his illnesses. Although he was initially buried in France, his remains were later returned to his homeland and are entombed today at the Claretian sanctuary in Vic, Spain.
Legacy of a Missionary Saint
St. Anthony Mary Claret was officially recognized by the Catholic Church as Venerable in 1899 by Pope Leo XIII; Beatified in 1934 by Pope Pius XI; and formally canonized a saint on May 7, 1950, by Pope Pius XII.
St. Anthony Mary Claret was a preacher, publisher, missionary, bishop, social reformer, and founder. Whether traveling through rural Spain, evangelizing in the Canary Islands, or reforming the Church in Cuba, he was driven by a profound concern for the salvation of souls and the welfare of the poor. Remembered as the “Spiritual Father of Cuba,” he remains a powerful example of missionary zeal, devotion to Mary, and courageous Christian leadership.
FEATURE image: Feature Image: Newly-Blessed Fulton J. Sheen posing for an official promotional portrait for the wildly popular NBC radio program, The Catholic Hour, which he hosted on Sunday nights. He launched the show with NBC in 1930, where his voice reached millions of households across the America each week, establishing him as America’s first true “media priest.” During his 20-year run on the radio Fulton Sheen pioneered a distinct blend of deep theology, patriotism, and sharp cultural commentary. For example, in the midst of the Great Depression (1929-1941) Sheen frequently attacked the moral failures of unbridled greed and monopoly capitalism, while simultaneously warning the poor not to fall for the “siren song” of class warfare. He consistently hosted sociology and labor experts on the program to advocate for worker rights, fair wages, and interracial justice, declaring that all people “have equal rights as children in the house of the Lord.” Public Domain. Fulton Sheen’s Beatification Illuminates His Message – WSJ – retrieved September 24, 2026.
How Fulton J. Sheen’s Irish-American family heritage, Catholic education, intellectual gifts, academic accomplishments, and disciplined spiritual life combined to form the future priest, bishop, evangelist, and eventual Blessed of the Catholic Church.
On September 24, 2026, the Catholic Church officially beatified Bishop Fulton J. Sheen during a historic ceremony in St. Louis, declaring him a Blessed of the Church. This milestone recognizes a lifetime of profound faith, intellectual brilliance, and pioneering media evangelization that began from immigrant Irish and Midwestern roots.
Family Roots and Early Life
Blessed Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979), known for his perfect Catholic school penmanship, rarely made mistakes during his live, unscripted broadcasts. Born into an everyday working-class background in El Paso, Illinois, near Peoria, he was the eldest of four sons of Newton and Delia Sheen, both of Irish descent. Delia (1864–1943) grew up on a farm near Kickapoo in Peoria County, and Newton (1863–1944) was born in El Paso. Bishop Sheen’s maternal grandparents were born in Ireland; his paternal grandfather was from Dublin, Ireland, and his grandmother from Indiana.
Relatives remembered Delia—“Aunt Dee”—as laid back, cordial, sociable, and an excellent cook. Newton, short and slim, was generally quiet with a mechanical bent of mind. Newt first married Ida, a woman from Ohio, in 1886; she died in 1892, leaving him with a daughter (Eva Sheen married Luke Walsh in 1907). Afterward he married Delia, and the couple settled in El Paso, where Newton and his brother opened a hardware store. In 1900, while operating two farms on each side of Peoria, the family moved to 111 Seventh Street in Peoria, where Newt, Delia, their four sons, and Delia’s parents lived together. Fulton inherited his mother’s dark hair and deep-set eyes. The family moved from the farm directly into the city of Peoria for the express purpose that Fulton and his brothers could enroll in school.
Sheen’s holiness, intellectual achievement, disciplined spiritual life, and groundbreaking use of mass media were all deeply rooted in the formative influences of his family, education, and early experiences in Peoria.
Formative Education in Peoria
His parents prioritized their children’s education, enrolling Fulton in St. Mary’s Cathedral grade school and later the elite $60,000 Spalding Institute boys’ academy founded in 1899 by Peoria’s first bishop. There, Sheen not only served as an altar boy and discovered his priestly vocation but, in his class of 43 aspiring boys, graduated as the valedictorian of the class of 1913. His time there was highly influential, formed by the rigorous discipline of the Marianist brothers (not to be confused with the Marist Brothers), a French order founded in Bordeaux in 1817 by Blessed William Joseph Chaminade who staffed the school (Brother Gerald, S.M. was its first principal) from its founding until 1933 when the Benedictines took over (those were the days when they had the numbers to do that!).
Fulton J. Sheen’s high school graduation portrait from 1913. He was 18 years old having just concluded his time at the Spalding Institute in Peoria, Illinois. It was for this exact graduation milestone that he earned top academic honors and delivered the commencement address as the class valedictorian. A classmate recalled that at 18, Sheen possessed a terrifyingly good memory and a “golden tongue” that kept the entire auditorium pinned to their seats. Core themes of Sheen’s address included moral integrity over intellect, devotion to the truth, and a call to action as the vocation of the educated Christian man. Public Domain.
Higher Education, Debating, and Ordination
Fulton Sheen entered St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, Illinois, where he earned a combined B.A./M.A. in philosophy in 1917. Sheen was a star debater at the school, leading St. Viator to a legendary triumph over the University of Notre Dame, showing the golden dome fellows that the real fighting Irish lay everywhere (though that is a slightly later moniker under Knute Rockne and Notre Dame President Father Matthew Walsh). After college, Sheen entered the seminary in Minnesota and was ordained a priest in September 1919 at St. Mary’s Cathedral, where he had gone to grade school and served as an acolyte.
Fulton Sheen’s official ordination portrait taken in September 1919.He was 24 years old and had just been ordained a Roman Catholic priest on September 20, 1919, at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria, Illinois. As a priest he made two resolutions that he kept for the rest of his life: He resolved to offer the Holy Eucharist every Saturday in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary to petition her lifelong protection over his priesthood. He noted that according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, a priest must offer sacrifices not just for his congregation, but for his own soul. He also resolved to spend one continuous, uninterrupted hour every single day in prayer and adoration directly in front of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament (the Tabernacle). While the Saturday Masses anchored his weeks, the Daily Holy Hour became the defining spiritual signature of his life. Even when he became a massive television celebrity with an exhausting travel schedule, Blessed Bishop Sheen never broke the vow. PHOTO: Public Domain. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016860626/
Academic Brilliance and the “Peoria Product”
Sheen’s aspiration and capability led him to become a canon lawyer where he completed his studies at The Catholic University of America in 1920. The arguably not yet over-educated Sheen now earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium (where he became the first American to win their prestigious Cardinal Mercier Prize) as well as an S.T.D. (Sacrae Theologiae Doctor) at the Angelicum in Rome.
This man from an everyday Midwestern family’s first assignment was a parish priest at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Peoria, Illinois, in 1926. This was partly so that the church could show off their new product to the folks at home and to see how he plays in Peoria—a time of perfect joy for Sheen—though some narratives imply it as a mere test of his humility. The only thing humbled is the diocese itself, who closed St. Patrick’s in Sheen’s lifetime in 1976 for dwindling attendance for shattered perceptions of the Church, liturgical confusion, and an unintended loosening of strict church laws after Vatican II. see – Review: Why did so many Catholics leave after Vatican II? – America Magazine – retrieved September 25, 2026.
Young Rev. Sheen in a portrait taken around 1930 by Harris & Ewing Washington D.C. portrait studio. Rev. Sheen was approximately 35 years old. At the time Sheen was a young professor teaching philosophy at The Catholic University of America (CUA). This was the exact year Sheen launched into the national spotlight by becoming the first regular host of The Catholic Hour—a Sunday night NBC radio program that quickly grew to reach an estimated 4 million weekly listeners. Public Domain.
The Catholic University of America and National Fame
The Catholic University of America now called him to Washington to join their School of Theology, become a professor, launch his radio career, and begin his path to international fame and holiness. The first course Sheen regularly taught was “God and Religion in Contemporary Thought.” He taught at CUA until 1950, where his course offerings expanded as he transitioned into the School of Philosophy.
Consecrated as an auxiliary bishop of New York the previous year (1951), this photograph was taken in 1952 on the custom-designed library set of his groundbreaking, Emmy-winning television series, Life Is Worth Living. Dressed in his formal clerical attire—including his cassock, zucchetto, pectoral cross, and flowing structural ferraiolo cape—the image captures him at the absolute height of his national cultural influence. Airing on Tuesday nights on the DuMont Television Network, his unscripted, chalkboard-driven program surprisingly went head-to-head with “Mr. Television” Milton Berle, drawing up to 30 million weekly viewers of all faiths and backgrounds. PHOTO: “Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, full-length” by libraryofcongress is marked with CC0 1.0.
Blessed Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979), known for his perfect Catholic school penmanship, rarely made mistakes during his live, unscripted broadcasts.
On a personal visit in August 2007 (my wife Deb is pictured) to the Archbishop Fulton John Sheen Spiritual Center and Communication Room, located inside the Historic Railroad Depot in his birthplace of El Paso, Illinois. The vintage studio spotlight on the left, old radios, and typewriter props in the room are deliberate design choices meant to recreate the atmosphere of Bishop Sheen’s pioneering mid-20th-century radio and Emmy-Award-winning television programs like The Catholic Hour and Life Is Worth Living. In October 2000, the museum founder first set up a modest Bishop Sheen exhibit in the “Reading Corner” of the newly restored historic depot. By July 2001 this dedicated, separate large, full-size room officially opened within the depot— the exact space in this photo. At his beatification Mass on September 24, 2026, the papal delegate and presider, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, called Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen a “son of Illinois, son of the United States of America,” and “indeed, son of the world.” Author’s photograph.
Feature image: Detail featuring St. Augustine of Hippo in Raphael’sSt. Cecilia Altarpiece — a more than seven‑by‑five‑foot oil on canvas painted in 1513–14 for a chapel in S. Giovanni in Monte, Bologna. The ensemble gathers St. Cecilia, St. Paul, St. John the Evangelist, St. Mary Magdalene, and Augustine himself, each rendered with Raphael’s mature serenity and monumental poise. Today the altarpiece is housed in the National Gallery of Bologna (Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna), where Augustine’s figure remains one of its most arresting presences.
Ambrose, Monica, and the Origin of “When in Rome…”
The familiar maxim “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” is attributed to St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan. He offered this advice to St. Monica and her son St. Augustine while they were living in Milan. Monica discovered that Saturday was observed in Rome as a day of fasting—a practice not followed in Milan. Ambrose’s counsel was simple adaptability: “When I am here [in Milan] I do not fast on Saturday, when I am in Rome I do fast on Saturday.”
After Augustine and his successor Boethius, Europe entered an era of transition later termed the Dark Ages. While learning was heavily restricted, the intellectual landscape was preserved in monasteries, highlighted by the brilliant Irish philosopher John Scotus Eriugena (c. 815–877), who kept rigorous philosophical development alive during the Carolingian Renaissance.
Augustine’s Place in Christian Thought
Scholars consistently claim that after St. Paul, no Christian thinker has left a greater legacy than Augustine. He died on August 28, 430, a bishop watching his city of Hippo fall to invading Vandals as the Roman world collapsed around him. By the 7th century, the cities of the West were fractured, and learning survived mainly in monasteries, where the central intellectual task remained defining God’s existence, His nature, and His relationship to humanity.
Before his conversion, Augustine explored three major worldviews:
Manicheism: A dualistic system dividing reality into good spirit and evil matter, rejecting the Bible and denying Christ’s true humanity.
Skepticism: A profound distrust of objective truth.
Neoplatonism: A lofty spiritual philosophy that lacked a personal Creator and treated the material world as an obstacle to the soul.
None satisfied Augustine’s intellect or moral hunger.
The Central Question: How Do God and Man Meet?
Christianity posed unique philosophical challenges: If creation is an act of God’s will, where and how does the Creator meet His creature? This relationship dominated Augustine’s thought. His battles with two major movements sharpened his theology:
Donatism: Which denied the objective validity of sacraments administered by flawed priests.
Pelagianism: Which denied original sin and man’s absolute need for grace.
From these conflicts emerged Augustine’s definitive Doctrines of Creation and Grace.
Augustine on Grace, Freedom, and the Human Condition
Augustine taught that fallen man cannot know God by his own power; the very desire to know God is a sign of operating grace. He insisted that one knows God fundamentally by faith—arguing that dynamic belief must precede total understanding (“I believe in order to understand”).
Against Pelagius, he insisted grace was necessary even before the Fall to draw humanity toward God. After the Fall, grace heals human nature and frees the will to pursue the true Good. From these foundations, he developed core Western ideas on self-knowledge, universals, the Trinity, sin, and political philosophy in The City of God. A distinctive feature of his episcopacy was establishing a monastic, communal life with his clergy to ensure spiritual and material stability.
Early Life: North Africa, Family, Education
Augustine was born in Thagaste (modern-day Algeria), likely of Berber descent, to Monica, a devout Christian, and Patricius, a pagan who converted on his deathbed in 371. Monica’s persistent prayer is considered the decisive force behind her husband’s and son’s conversions. Augustine loved Virgil, famously disliked Greek, and trained in rhetoric at Carthage. He lived with an unnamed female companion for years and shared a deep, lifelong bond with their natural son, Adeodatus.
Manichean Years and Intellectual Crisis
As a young man, Augustine embraced Manichean dualism, which treated matter as evil and uncreated—contradicting the Christian belief in a good material creation and the Incarnation. Traveling to Rome and Milan (384), he abandoned Manicheism amid an intellectual crisis.
Ambrose, Milan, and Conversion
In Milan, he encountered St. Ambrose, whose sophisticated preaching demonstrated the harmony of faith and reason, offering Augustine an escape from skepticism. Augustine was baptized at age 32 at the Easter Vigil on April 24, 387, alongside his son Adeodatus and his friend Alypius.
Augustine withdrew to Cassiciacum to write, but tragedy struck when Adeodatus died in 390. Returning to Africa, Augustine was ordained a priest by Bishop Valerius of Hippo, became auxiliary bishop in 395, and soon succeeded him—spending 35 years preaching, governing, and writing works that shaped Western civilization.
Death and the Vandal Invasion
Augustine died in 430 as the Vandals sacked Hippo, spending his final days praying the penitential psalms amidst the physical collapse of his world.
Augustine’s Legacy and Pope Leo XIV
On May 8, 2025, Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost—a dedicated White Sox fan and an Augustinian friar—was elected Pope Leo XIV, becoming the 267th pope and the first-ever pontiff from the United States. His spiritual lineage traces directly back to the monastic rules of St. Augustine of Hippo, whose life and thought continue to shape Christian pastoral life and theology.
see- https://dacb.org/stories/tunisia/adeodatus/ – retrieved August 28, 2025. The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary, edited by John Coulson, Guild Press, New York, 1957. Medieval Thought, Gordon Leff, Humanities Press, Highland, New Jersey, 1958.
This explanatory article may be periodically updated.
FEATURE IMAGE: The monument inside Vézelay Abbey features a striking statue of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux sculpted from fine French limestone by Honoré Jean Aristide Husson (1803–1864). Depicted in traditional monastic robes, the influential Cistercian monk and reformer triumphantly raises a large Latin cross in his right hand while holding an abbot’s crozier in his left, a powerful posture that directly signifies his historical role as a passionate orator and preacher rallying the faithful. The landmark monument was completed and installed in 1846, commissioned to commemorate exactly 700 years since Bernard famously preached the launch of the Second Crusade on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1146. This installation coincided with a critical period for Vézelay Abbey, which was in a severe state of decay until the French government launched a massive restoration project headed by the famous architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Husson’s sculpture was an integral part of that grand, 19th-century revival designed to honor the abbey’s illustrious medieval legacy. Directly below the main statue, a finely carved stone relief panel depicts the historic outdoor assembly where the crusade was declared. The figures shown enthroned in the relief represent the French monarchy, specifically King Louis VII and his queen consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Because the crowd gathered to hear Bernard was far too vast to fit inside the abbey walls, the event was forced to move to an open field just outside the abbey. His sermon proved so profoundly moving that the inspired crowd immediately began shouting “Crosses! Crosses!” and eagerly tearing up their own clothing to fashion cloth crosses to stitch onto their shoulders. September 1993. Author’s photograph.
Burgundy landscape. September 1993. Author’s photograph.
A wide panorama of the Burgundy countryside reveals a landscape shifting seamlessly between plateaus, low ridges, and broad depressions, the very geology that produces the south‑ and east‑facing slopes essential to the region’s viticulture. Flat, fertile basins cut between the rolling hills, arranged in the traditional patchwork of small fields bordered by dense hedgerows and tree lines. A compact village sits naturally in the folds of a low valley, echoing the historic pattern of settlements clustering along gentle contours near water and travel routes. Higher ridges carry thick stands of deciduous and coniferous forest, breaking the farmland into measured intervals and acting as natural windbreaks. It was in this terrain that St. Bernard preached the Second Crusade in 1146, rallying the vast crowd gathered on the open meadow outside Vézelay.
Bernard’s Voice & the Call to Arms
A contemporary witness wrote that Bernard’s voice “rang out across the meadow like a celestial organ,” and when he finished, the crowd surged forward to enlist en masse. History recalls that the Second Crusade they joined would collapse into a disastrous sequence of defeats for Christendom in the East.
Early Life & Vocation
Born into a wealthy Burgundian family, Bernard was intelligent, intense, and strikingly handsome in appearance. His decision to become a monk was unusual enough; choosing Cîteaux, a new and absolutely impoverished monastery founded in 1098, horrified his relatives. Bernard’s choice presaged, a century early, the radical poverty later embraced by St. Francis: a literal return to the gospel and to St. Benedict’s rule, even as Cîteaux struggled to attract recruits.
The Cistercian Surge
In 1113, Bernard’s charisma famously drew thirty of Burgundy’s finest young men into Cîteaux, transforming the monastery overnight. Historian Christopher Holdsworth later wrote that “Bernard’s first and greatest miracle was himself.” Under Abbot Stephen Harding, Cîteaux’s English co‑founder, Bernard and the new monks began founding daughter houses. Their example ignited a movement so strong that the 12th century became the “Cistercian century.”
Interior nave of Vézelay Abbey. September 1993. Author’s photograph.
The interior nave of Vézelay Abbey (Basilica of Sainte‑Marie‑Madeleine) in Burgundy presents a Romanesque masterpiece moving confidently toward early Gothic. The most commanding feature is the series of semicircular arches (arcs doubleaux) that span the nave, each built from alternating light and dark stone voussoirs that create a striking banded pattern and echo a revived Roman design vocabulary.
Clairvaux & Opinionated Leadership
With twelve companions, Bernard founded Clairvaux, the “Valley of Light.” Life there was harsh, marked by privation and illness, but Bernard’s sharing in all the foundation’s suffering sharpened his authority. As abbot, he became a sought‑after voice on the political and ecclesiastical crises of his day. His wit was cutting, his opinions unfiltered, and his influence immense.
Reform & Conflict
Bernard championed the Hildebrand reforms of Pope Gregory VII, targeting simony, enforcing clerical celibacy, and resisting secular control of church appointments. He pushed for a purified clergy and a Church independent of royal interference. The 12th century’s chronic schisms—among popes, kings, princes, and bishops—made reform urgent. Bernard helped secure unity at the Second Lateran Council (1139), where the anti‑pope’s adherents were finally condemned.
Bernard clashed with the wealthy monks of Cluny, though he remained friendly with their abbot, and dismissed Peter Abelard as a marketplace intellectual.
West façade of Vézelay Abbey. September 1993. Author’s photograph.
The west façade of Vézelay Abbey evolved over several centuries, merging Romanesque engineering, Gothic heightening, and 19th‑century restoration into a single composite front. While the abbey’s celebrated internal narthex tympanum dates to the 1140s, the exterior tympanum above the main entrance is a 19th‑century reconstruction. The original Romanesque Last Judgment—one of Vézelay’s masterpieces—was mutilated and destroyed by revolutionaries in 1793. The current tympanum was carved by Michel‑Pascal under the direction of Eugène Viollet‑le‑Duc, whose restoration campaign reshaped the façade’s sculptural program and stabilized its structural envelope. The south tower began around 1150 in the Romanesque style, then rose higher through 13th‑ and 14th‑century Gothic phases. A matching north tower was planned but never built, leaving the façade asymmetrical. The main stone portals and doorways were constructed between 1140 and 1150 as part of a major western porch expansion designed to handle the heavy influx of medieval pilgrims traveling to Vézelay.
The Second Crusade & Reputation
In 1142, the pope ordered Bernard to preach the Second Crusade, a duty he accepted but which later rebounded against him when the campaign failed catastrophically. The stain on his reputation lingered into his final years.
Death, Canonization & Legacy
Bernard died on August 20, 1153, now his feast day. He was canonized in 1174 and named a Doctor of the Church in 1830.
After his death, Vézelay remained a stage for major political drama. In 1166, the exiled Archbishop Thomas Becket used Vézelay to threaten King Henry II with excommunication. In 1190, Richard the Lionheart and King Philippe Auguste met there and spent three months at the abbey before departing on the Third Crusade.
This explanatory article may be periodically updated.
FEATURE image: St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), after 1600, Jan Dammeszoon de Hoey (c.1545-1615), Stiftsmuseum Xanten (Germany). The artist was a Netherlandish painter who worked at the court of French king Henry IV (reign, 1589-1610) and is associated with the School of Fontainebleau. He is best known for his history paintings. Public Domain.
Conversion: From Soldier to Penitent
Ignatius, a noble Basque knight and soldier, was wounded by a cannonball at Pamplona in 1521. During recovery he asked for “novels,” but received instead lives of the saints. The usual claim that he was disappointed is overstated; he took to the stories quickly. Their blend of peace, glory, and heroic Christian action struck him with existential force. He recognized in them the pattern his own soul wanted to imitate.
Like St. Francis of Assisi—another aristocratic soldier reshaped by war, captivity, and penitence—Ignatius responded immediately. He surrendered his knightly identity, hung up his sword, and began a life of pilgrimage.
Character Redirected Toward Grace
Ignatius had always been elegant, disciplined, risk‑tolerant, and forceful. He despised greed, valued prudence, and possessed a mature bearing even as a youth. The wonder of his conversion is how these innate qualities were redirected: taken out of the orbit of violence and ambition and placed into the service of religious purpose. He moved from the “power of darkness” into what he understood was the kingdom of divine light.
Pilgrimage and Early Formation
Ignatius traveled from shrine to shrine, eventually reaching the Holy Land in September 1523. He departed on September 23 and returned to Europe to study—first in Barcelona, then in Paris. There he gathered six companions:
Alfonso Salmeron
Diego Laynez
Francis Xavier
Nicholas Bobadilla
Simão Rodrigues
Peter Faber
His Spiritual Exercises (1548), written early in the Jesuit story, distilled his ascetic, contemplative temperament into a program of disciplined prayer.
The Road to Romeand “the finger of God”
In 1537 the seven men traveled to Rome seeking papal approval for their new order. On the way, Ignatius reported a vision of Christ carrying the cross and saying, Ego vobis Romae propitius ero—“I will be good to you in Rome.” Jesuits have long treated this as a promise of mission accompanied by grace.
Pope Paul III, reviewing Ignatius’s writings during summer retreat at Tivoli, declared: “The finger of God is here.” He judged the proposed Society of Jesus to be “an invaluable auxiliary and splendid ornament to the Church in these eventful times.”
The order was formally approved in 1540.
Global Mission
Ignatius sent his companions across Europe and around the world to establish schools, colleges, seminaries, and missions. Their impact—intellectual, cultural, and educational—was immediate and largely positive, shaping Catholic engagement with the early modern world.
St. Ignatius of Loyola died in Rome on July 31, 1556, at the Jesuit headquarters attached to the Church of the Gesu. His body was interred within the church itself, where the Jesuit motherhouse stands. The site remains the central symbolic locus of the Society of Jesus and a major point of Ignatian pilgrimage.
The feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola is observed across the Roman Catholic Church on July 31. St. Ignatius is Patron of Spiritual Retreats because of the Spiritual Exercises and his structured approach to discernment. Patron of Soldiers rooted in his own military background and the moral transformation that followed. Patron of the Jesuits whose founder and first Superior General he is and Patron of Educators by the wide global network of today’s Jesuit schools, colleges, and universities.
This explanatory article may be periodically updated.
FEATURE Image: Institution of the Crib at Greccio, c. 1297-1300, a fresco by Giotto, depicts St. Francis of Assisi preparing the first Christmas crib at Greccio in 1223. It is part of the Legend of Saint Francis fresco cycle located on the walls of the Upper Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, Italy. Giotto keeps the ox and ass that Francis insisted on having, though the artist places the event inside a magnificent church or basilica rather than the rustic cave on a cliff where the event historically took place. Public Domain.
Greccio, 1223: St. Francis and the first Christmas Crèche
In Advent of 1223, in the hill town of Greccio—about sixty miles south of Assisi—St. Francis of Assisi created the world’s first crèche, a living reconstruction of Bethlehem’s manger in his mountain hermitage there in central Italy. His simple arrangement of straw, a feeding trough, and an image of the Christ Child became the model for the Nativity scenes that endure in homes, churches, and beyond more than 800 years later.
Francis’s love of nature shaped the scene. He included the ox and ass, traditional symbols absent from the Gospels but long present in Christian imagination. Giotto’s late 13th century fresco later fixed these animals in Western iconography, following Francis’s interpretation, placing the animals beside the manger even though the biblical texts of Luke and Matthew specify only the feeding trough.
The Nativity at Greccio, Taddeo Gaddi, c. 1328–1330, Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence. Painted originally for the sacristy cupboard doors of Santa Croce in Florence, this small tempera panel adapts Giotto’s monumental fresco into an intimate narrative scene. Gaddi heightens the architectural enclosure and concentrates on the emotional responses of the witnesses as the miracle unfolds, translating his master’s broad spatial drama into a finely detailed, smaller‑scale devotional image. Reproduction of this image is permitted for personal use or study by the Italian Ministry of Heritage and Culture.
Francis’s Character and the Moment of 1223
As a young man, Francis was talkative, restless, and eager for answers. He often worked out problems by speaking until he was spent. By 1223, nearing death, he acted with directness and simplicity. Days before the Greccio crèche, Pope Honorius III formally approved the Franciscan Rule (November 29, 1223), which relieved Francis of administrative duties. The crèche was, in part, an act of gratitude. Before he departed Rome with the papal bull Solet annuere (Latin for “The Apostolic See is accustomed to grant”) issued at the Apostolic Palace of St. John Lateran confirming the rule, Francis asked the pope for his approval for his idea of recreating a manger to represent outwardly the poverty of Christ. Francis may have been thinking about the Nativity Plays that were popular in his youth but had been suppressed which featured the manger. This may have been why Francis asked the pope’s permission, which he granted although there was a Christmas crib in Rome at that time at Santa Maria in Trastevere.
Francis’s affinity for nature shaped his spirituality. He often described himself and his brothers through gentle animal metaphors. As the Franciscan movement, founded in 1209, spread rapidly, he had a dream of himself as a black hen trying to care for an overwhelming number of chicks. The Franciscan Order experienced explosive, unprecedented growth in St. Francis’s lifetime. Starting with the handful of followers in 1209, it expanded into a massive international movement so that by 1223 there was estimated 5,000 to 10,000 friars. Even before 1223, Francis urged the brothers to feed animals and birds at Christmas so that all creation could share in the feast.
The Christmas Vigil at Greccio in 1223
The Greccio crèche was prepared about two weeks before Christmas, near the Third Sunday of Advent. With his friend John Vellita of Greccio—“a man of good repute but of better life,” as Thomas of Celano writes—Francis arranged real straw, a manger, and an image of the Christ Child in a cave above the town, near the small cloister built on the cliff that Master Vellita had given to the friars. Francis said he had long considered how he wished to mark the birth of the Son of God on earth, wanting to see with his own eyes the poverty and hardship Christ chose to embrace for humanity’s sake. Meditation on the circumstances of the Nativity came naturally to him, shaped by his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and devotion to her obedience to God’s will, and that it led him to reflect on the Passion as well. From the moment of His birth to His death on the Cross thirty‑three years later, the life of the Son of God on earth was marked by danger, vulnerability, and suffering.
St. Francis and Twenty Stories from his Life (“Bardi Altarpiece”), 1245-1250, tempera and gold on wood, Coppo di Marcovaldo (c. 1225 – c.1276), attributed, Bardi Chapel of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy. While the main panel features Francis surrounded by 20 narrative scenes, one of the smaller narrative compartments specifically documents his life and actions at Greccio. It represents one of the earliest surviving visual documents of the Franciscan story within 20 years of St. Francis’s death at 44 or 45 years old in 1226. see – Coppo di Marcovaldo, Bardi Panel – Santa Croce – retrieved July 18, 2026.
The Greccio Vigil of 1223
On Christmas Eve in 1223, the people of Greccio gathered with the friars, carrying lighted torches as Vigil hymns rose through the mountain air. At Midnight Mass—celebrated in the cave where an altar was placed over the manger—Francis acted as deacon, proclaimed the Gospel, and preached in what Thomas of Celano describes as a “strong, glad, clear and ringing voice” urging all to seek the highest good.
When Francis lifted the figure of the Christ Child, witnesses said the scene seemed to come alive. St Bonaventure relates John Vellita’s story that the carved infant appeared to be sleeping, but when Francis took the figure into his arms, the child woke, seemed to smile and stroked with its tiny hands Francis’s beard and coarse habit. People gathered pieces of straw as relics, and stories of healings and blessings—touching both people and animals—circulated afterward.
For Vellita, the miraculous moment was not surprising. Francis, he said, had spent a lifetime awakening the Divine Child in hearts that had grown cold, indifferent, or spiritually asleep. The Vigil stretched late into the early morning, and those who participated returned home in joy when Greccio was transformed into a second Bethlehem.
From minimal elements of straw, a manger, ox and ass and Christ Child arranged under Francis’s direction, the tradition of the crèche gradually expanded. Centuries later it produced elaborate displays such as the eighteenth‑century Neapolitan crèche shown recently at the Art Institute of Chicago, featuring nearly two hundred carved and clothed figures. Author’s photograph. All rights reserved. 98% 7.84mb DSC_9937
The Chapel of the Nativity Today
The site of the first crèche is now a chapel known as the Chapel of the Nativity (Cappella del Presepio). The cave where Francis staged the living nativity has been a place of prayer for centuries. Its altar stands directly over the bare rock where Francis placed the manger and hay. The surrounding walls preserve luminous 14th‑century frescoes depicting both the Bethlehem Nativity and the reenactment at Greccio.
For Francis—the Poverello, the “little poor one”—the humility of the Incarnation, the Son of God born among animals in a feeding trough, was the perfect beginning to a life that would lead to the Cross. After that Midnight Mass, Francis composed a canticle for the Christmas Octave. While St. Francis is most famous for his major Canticle of the Creatures composed in autumn 1225, he did compose this specific, minor canticle—historically categorized as Psalm 15 of his Office of the Passion—which directly references his Christmas experience at Greccio. In his minor canticle/psalm, Francis combined biblical texts and his own poetry to capture the spirit of the Nativity. The text explicitly highlights the humble birth that he sought to recreate physically in Greccio in December 1223:
Rejoice to God our Helper; shout unto God living and true with the voice of triumph. For the Lord is high, terrible, a great King over all the earth. For the most holy Father of Heaven our everlasting King sent His beloved Son from on high And He was born of the Blessed Virgin, holy Mary. He shall cry to Me, Thou art my Father, and I will make Him My First-born High over the kings of the earth. In the day-time the Lord has commanded His mercy; and a canticle to Him in the night This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it For the beloved and most holy Child has been given us, born for us by the wayside And laid in a manger because He had no room in the inn. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad; let the sea be moved and the fullness of it The fields shall rejoice and all that is in them. Sing to the Lord a new canticle; sing to the Lord all the earth For the Lord is great and exceedingly to be praised; He is to be feared above all the gods Bring to the Lord O ye kindreds of the Gentiles, bring to the Lord glory and honor Bring to the Lord glory unto His name. Bring your own bodies and bear His holy cross And follow His most holy precepts unto the end.
Chapel in Greccio, Italy, at the site of the first live Nativity in 1223. A place of prayer for centuries, the frescos date from the 14th century. Francis’s bond with the natural world shaped the way he understood God and himself. He insisted on placing the apocryphal ox and ass in the crèche, not out of sentimentality, but because he loved these ordinary working animals and saw in them a quiet dignity. He refused to ride horses—once symbols of his youthful chivalric ambitions—and chose instead to travel by donkey, even when ill, accepting the slow, leveling pace of a beast of burden. He called himself “Brother Ass,” a wry acknowledgment of his stubborn, uncooperative body and a reminder that humility begins with admitting one’s limits. In the Chapel of the First Live Nativity at Greccio, witnesses later recalled that when deacon Francis preached he grew so animated that he seemed to dance and even imitate the sounds of animals, swept up in the joy of the moment. “Chapel of the First Live Nativity” by Fiat 500e is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Francis’s Christmas Vision for All Creation
For St. Francis of Assisi Christmas was always the “feast of feasts.”
Asked what he would request of Emperor Frederick II, then consolidating power in Italy, Francis replied that he wished for a law requiring people to put out food for animals at Christmas and to give domestic animals extra feed so that all creation could celebrate.
In 1225, when Christmas fell on a Friday, a traditional fast day, the brothers insisted on fasting, Francis ordered them to eat meat so freely that “even the walls would be greasy,” insisting that the feast of the Nativity overrode penitential custom.
Withdrawal, Final Journeys, and the Stigmata
After the Rule’s approval in November 1223 —its earlier 1221 version judged by the Curia as too severe—Francis withdrew from leadership and spent the winter of 1223–24 in the hermitage near Greccio. The Rule that finally passed had itself gone through a rejected draft, and even the version written at Fonte Colombo, later called the “Sinai” of the Franciscan Order, only partially reflected Francis’s original vision. One detail shows how the Rule was softened for practical governance: the Primitive Rule of 1209 allowed a friar one tunic; the 1221 Rule permitted two; the 1223 Rule allowed two, plus a cape and sandals. The Rule had been reshaped to meet others’ expectations, forcing Francis to relinquish some of his most cherished ideals and, in effect, surrender the brethren to new hands.
Observers later described his behavior in these final years as erratic, but he had simply turned inward, following a lifelong instinct toward self‑examination as he confronted his faults and the limits of his strength. There was poignancy in his departure from leadership. The new administration was not a man content with “a book and an ink‑horn and one pen and one signet,” but one who collected books and studied church law. Francis held no official role in the order he had founded, was ill, and was personally desolate as he questioned the direction the brothers were taking. In humility he asked what an “ideal” leader should be at all, and he surrendered the order’s future to God. “Lord,” Francis cried, “I commit to you the family you have given me. I cannot lead them any longer myself!” He determined to write up a Will or Testament with which to appeal to the brothers with his reminiscences of the early days and its ideals. It was his final message to his Franciscans. After this document, Francis said no more.
In summer 1224, he traveled to Mount La Verna for the feasts of the Assumption (August 15) and St. Michael (September 29), fasting for forty days. On September 14, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, he saw a seraphic figure with six wings. From this vision he received the stigmata, becoming the first known stigmatic since St. Paul. He died on October 3, 1226, at the Portiuncula in Assisi, at age forty‑four. Two years later, on July 16, 1228, Pope Gregory IX canonized him in Assisi as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
St. Francis receives the stigmata, 1300 / 1325, Giotto, 3.14 x 1.62 m, Louvre, Paris, originally Church of San Francesco, Pisa, Italy, choir or transept chapel, then a pillar near the high altar (cited by Vasari in 1568) – Saint François d’Assise recevant les stigmates – Louvre site des collections – retrieved July 18, 2026. In the main panel, Saint Francis kneels on the rocky cliffs while above him Christ appears in the form of a six-winged seraph. Thin golden rays stream from Christ’s wounds to Francis’s hands, feet, and side, physically marking him with the wounds of the crucifixion.
The liturgical Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross—also called the Triumph of the Cross—is a major Christian feast celebrated on September 14 which honors the cross used in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is viewed not as an instrument of execution, but a symbol of divine love, salvation, and victory over death. The feast is observed by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Anglicans, and Lutherans worldwide.
As the Church, in 2026, eagerly anticipates the 800th anniversary of the Transitus—the passing of St. Francis of Assisi on October 3, 1226—we look to the physical wounds that marked his radical devotion. When the 44- or 45-year-old saint died, he lay as he requested on the bare ground outside the Portiuncula. He was blind, naked, and infirm, yet completely fulfilled by his joyful evangelical marriage to Lady Poverty. In the West, the most notable historical event associated with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross established in the early 4th century is that Saint Francis of Assisi received the stigmata on September 14, 1224. That event took place during a period of intense prayer and fasting on the remote mountaintop of Mount La Verna in Tuscany, Italy. According to early historical accounts, St. Francis had a vision of a crucified, six-winged seraph angel, after which the physical wounds of Christ’s crucifixion spontaneously appeared on his hands, feet, and side (the the official liturgical Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis is celebrated on September 17).
Giotto’s Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata in the Louvre is a monumental tempera and gold panel that represents a critical turning point in Western art, bridging the medieval Byzantine tradition with Proto-Renaissance realism. The work captures a profound, miraculous moment, divided between the main heavenly vision Francis experienced on Mount La Verna and a predella of supporting narrative scenes. The predella panels depict, from left to right: The Dream of Innocent III, in which the pope envisions Francis holding up a collapsing church; The Pope Approving the Statutes of the Order, confirming the formal Franciscan rule; and Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds, celebrating his legendary spiritual bond with nature.
In this painting, Giotto revolutionized art by introducing anatomical weight, psychological realism, and precise three-dimensional space to a medium long defined by flatness and the Maniera Greca. The panel effectively mapped out the visual language of the Early Italian Renaissance, demonstrating that divine themes could be powerfully conveyed through Western naturalism. Though the combined “Crucified Seraph” was not Giotto’s invention—it had already taken shape in late 13th-century Franciscan theology, especially in Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior—the artist radically advanced the figure and the history of art in several remarkable ways.
First, the transmission of the stigmata is rendered as precise, vector‑like golden rays linking Christ’s wounds to Francis’s body. Second, Christ’s torso is humanized through fleshy softness, chiaroscuro modeling, and real anatomical weight; the figure turns in space, oriented directly toward Francis. Third, Giotto introduces psychological exchange: Christ’s head tilts downward, his gaze meeting Francis’s. The result is no longer a generic emblem but an intimate, dramatic encounter between two individuals—an unprecedented fusion of theology, vision, and naturalism.
In Bonaventure’s Legenda Maior, which recounts Francis seeing a seraph bearing the likeness of a man crucified—a symbol of Francis becoming an Alter Christus, transformed not through physical martyrdom but through spiritual fire.
This detail from Giotto’s Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata presents a highly complex and deeply symbolic figure of Christ, remarkable for the way it synthesizes multiple biblical, theological, and visual sources. The image fuses two distinct scriptural beings. In Isaiah’s vision of the Seraphim (Isaiah 6:2), each seraph possesses six wings—two covering the face, two covering the feet, and two for flight. Giotto follows this iconography precisely, folding wings around the head and lower body. At the same time, he overlays the fiery seraph with the human body of the crucified Christ, visualizing exactly what Francis’s biographers describe at Mount La Verna in 1224: a heavenly messenger appearing as both blazing seraph and suffering savior.
Randall Thompson’s “Nativity According to St. Luke”
According to The Harvard Crimson’s 1961 review, Randall Thompson composed Nativity According to St. Luke for the 200th anniversary of Christ Church. The work functions as a musical pageant rather than a theatrical drama—seven devotional tableaux form a serene polyptych of the Nativity.
The music, written for chamber orchestra, organ, chorus, and pageant figures, is unadorned and calmly joyful. A rustic fugue propels the shepherds toward Bethlehem where they greet the Child with an awkward, affectionate dance. Mary sings a lullaby while Joseph sleeps beside her. Simeon prophesies. A boys’ choir offers a hushed Noel. The chorus answers with a broad, antiphonal Alleluia. The scenes are spare, serene, and reverent.
SOURCES:
Augustine Thompson, Francis of Assisi (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012), 39, 55–56, 108–111.
Johannes Jørgensen, St. Francis of Assisi (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1955), 216–17, 243.
Nesta De Robeck, The Life of St. Francis of Assisi: Herald of the Great King (Assisi, Italy: Casa Editrice Francescana Frati Minori Conventuali, 1975), 94–99.
John R. H. Moorman, Saint Francis of Assisi (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1987), 98–101.
John R. H. Moorman, Richest of Poor Men: The Spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.), 31–36.
Michael de la Bedoyere, Francis: A Biography of the Saint of Assisi (Garden City, NJ: Image Books, 1964), 219–22.
FEATURE Image: The many prayer intentions received at the National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago are placed at the patron of hopeless cases’ devotional altar in the main sanctuary. These petitions are remembered at the National Shrine’s Masses and devotional prayers throughout the years. June 2018 80% 7.76mb DSC_9191. Author’s photograph.
Chicago’s National Shrine of St. Jude is more than a local religious landmark. It is a place where faith, devotion, and personal transformation intersect, most famously in the life of Danny Thomas, whose prayers to St. Jude here helped inspire a career that ultimately led to the founding of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The shrine stands as a living testament to the powerful role that religious faith and pilgrimage can play in individual lives and broader humanitarian endeavors.
The National Shrine of St. Jude at 3208 E. 91st Street on Chicago’s far southeast side at Our Lady of Guadalupe parish church was canonically established in 1929. Its official decree was promulgated on November 15, 1929, by Chicago Cardinal Archbishop George Mundelein (1872-1939). June 2018 88% 7.72mb DSC_9173. Author’s photograph.
The pastor of the church at the time was Fr. James Tort, a Claretian missionary, who had a deep personal devotion to St. Jude, patron of hopeless cases and those that are almost despaired of. The saint, not to be confused with the traitor, Judas Iscariot, is honored by the church universally as the saint who brings visible and speedy help in most dire circumstances. A portrait of the founder of the Claretians, Spanish priest and bishop, St. Anthony Mary Claret (1807-1870), is one of the artworks that greet visitors into the main sanctuary. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is over the main altar. The devotional altar to St. Jude is right of the main altar. The altar to St. Jude contains a major relic of the saint: a piece of his bone. June 2018 84% 7.78 DSC_9177. Author’s photograph.
The shrine contains a major relic of St. Jude and serves as an active center of prayer and pilgrimage.
The shrine altar to St. Jude (right). In the darkest days of the Great Depression, Father Tort petitioned St. Jude with a request to help complete the parish church building for the people. In gratitude for the granting of this great favor. Fr. Tort promised to never cease to honor the saint, a true blood relative of Jesus and Mary, by dedicating a shrine altar to him in the church and to do all in his power to spread devotion to him. June 2018 2.29mb DSC_9186 (1). Author’s photograph.
This is one of the stained-glass windows in Chicago’s St. Jude Shrine. It depicts Jude preaching in Persia. Tradition holds that Saint Jude preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia and Libya. He is also said to have visited Beirut. In addition to being patron of hopeless cases, Jude is patron of vegetarians. That Jude is portrayed holding an image of Jesus Christ has an interesting origin. During Jesus’s public ministry, a king had an incurable condition and was dying in Edessa. He sent a letter asking for Jesus to come. Instead of going himself, Jesus sent Jude. As Jude set out on this journey, Jesus pressed a cloth against His face, and when he gave it back to Jude, it had the Lord’s image on it. When St. Jude then went to the dying king in Edessa, and the king looked at the cloth with Christ’s miraculous impression, he was immediately healed. June 2018 6.47mbDSC_9184 (4). Author’s photograph.
Danny Thomas, struggling to establish himself in show business, learned of the shrine while in Chicago and prayed to St. Jude there for assistance. Soon afterward, Thomas received the career opportunity that launched him to national fame as a comedian, television star, and entertainer.
In 1940 when entertainer Danny Thomas (1912-1991) came to Chicago to do radio commercials, he found early success doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs. When work was finished, often around dawn, Thomas went to 6 a.m. Mass at St. Clement Church. There Thomas learned about Chicago’s National Shrine of St. Jude on the far southeast side. A couple of years earlier, Thomas, starting out in show business in Detroit— and with his first child, Marlo Thomas, on the way— had dedicated himself to St. Jude as the patron of hopeless cases. Soon after visiting and praying at the Chicago shrine, Thomas was offered a stand-up comedy job in New York City at La Martinique at 57 West 57th Street. This job launched his entertainment career into the big time. Following World War II, Thomas was performing for $3,750 a week at New York’s Roxy Theater just off Times Square and was performing in nightclubs across the country as well as offered film roles. In 1953 he starred in his own television show, Make Room for Daddy (later, The Danny Thomas Show). The sitcom ran for 11 consecutive seasons and became more popular with each year. By 1957 it was the no.2 show on television and, when the sitcom ended in 1964, it was in the top ten. PHOTO: “Danny thomas kayrouz” by Hany raymond rahme is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Remembering his promise to give back if he succeeded, Thomas founded St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis in 1962, creating one of the world’s most respected pediatric medical institutions.
The National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago was canonically established in 1929 and became one of the most important centers of devotion to St. Jude in the United States.
Altar of St. Jude, The National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago. St. Jude Thaddeus was one of Jesus’ 12 apostles and. legend has it, that it was Jude who was the groom at the wedding feast of Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine (John, chapter 2). Matthew states that Jude was one of the “brothers” of Jesus usually interpreted as a blood cousin. St. Jude, pray for us! June 2018 73% 7.89mb DSC_9182. Author’s photograph.
FEATURE image: The shrine of Saint Swithun (or Swithin) in Winchester Cathedral in England, The official name of the old minster or mynster ( from monasterium) is the Cathedral Church of Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint Swithun. Since July 15, 971 the shrine at the grave of St. Swithun has been inside Winchester Cathedral. “St Swithun’s Shrine” by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
The legend of St. Swithun’s Day demonstrates how history, faith, folklore, and literature can intertwine across centuries, transforming a little-known ninth-century bishop of Winchester into one of England’s most enduring cultural figures whose influence reached from Anglo-Saxon England to the final poem of Jane Austen.
St. Swithun (c. 800–c. 863), whose Old English name means “Strong Bear Cub,” served as a leading churchman in the royal city of Winchester during the late ninth century. History preserves only a handful of firm details about him: he was appointed Winchester’s eighteenth bishop in 852, and before that he appears to have been a secular clerk known for his learning and upright character. Yet the sparse record is balanced by what survives—relics, early medieval artifacts, and a rich body of lore that grew around his memory. Swithun stands at the crossroads of early English history, a figure shaped by the world of Saxons, Angles, Vikings, and Jutes who contested southern England in his lifetime.
Winchester Cathedral in the rain. The complete name of Winchester Cathedral is the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Swithun. “Winchester Cathedral in the Rain” by Spencer Means is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Swithun, long associated with the West Saxon court, played a formative role in educating Æthelwulf (“Noble Wolf”), the king’s son who would become the father of Alfred the Great (c. 848–899). Alfred’s later reputation for learning, steadiness, and good judgment in a turbulent age reflects the intellectual climate Swithun helped cultivate.
Within the royal household, Swithun is credited with fostering a more civilized court culture—one that valued education, strengthened the legal system, reformed military organization, and improved the daily life of ordinary people. These advances, modest in scale but lasting in influence, helped make Swithun a beloved figure in his own lifetime.
Imagined 1790 profile of Alfred the Great by British painter Samuel Woodforde (1763–1817), portraying the ninth‑century king with neoclassical dignity rather than historical accuracy. St. Alfred the Great (died 899) was King of England in the second half of the 9th century (871–899). Known for his justice and Christian leadership, every single monarch of England and subsequently Great Britain from the year 1154 to the present day is a direct descendant of Alfred the Great. While he is not on the global General Roman Calendar handled by the Pope, many Catholic regional directories, devotional websites, and traditional English Catholic parishes still celebrate him as a “Saint of the Day” on October 26. Alfred is officially recognized on the Anglican liturgical calendar and by the Eastern Orthodox Church. Public Domain.
Wessex under Alfred’s leadership emerged as the sole Anglo‑Saxon kingdom to withstand the ninth‑century Danish onslaught, preserving a political and cultural core while neighboring realms fell to Viking and Jutish pressure. In the century that followed, this survival proved decisive: by the 900s, England was unified under the line of Æthelwulf and Alfred, the dynasty whose resilience and statecraft shaped the first truly consolidated English kingdom.
Map of England showing Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms and Danish (Viking/Jutes) Districts, From Cassell’s History of England, Vol. I (Anonymous author, artist), 1909. Public Domain.
An illuminated manuscript of St. Swithun. It is in the Anglo-Saxon Benedictional of St. Æthelwold (10th century) which is the most famous early medieval book of blessings in the world. It is kept in London. Public Domain. https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=add_ms_49598. Public Domain.
Miracle of Broken Egg Shells.
Bishop Swithun was not only a builder but also one of the early contributors to the Anglo‑Saxon Chronicle, the great collection of Old English annals. Throughout his life—and long after—humble miracles were attributed to him. One of the most charming, still recalled in the modern shrine marker, is the “miracle of the broken eggshells.”
According to the tale, on St. Swithun’s Bridge in Winchester—a crossing over the River Itchen that has existed since around A.D. 500—a woman hurrying to market met the saint and accidentally dropped her basket of eggs, smashing them on the stones. Swithun stooped to help, gathered the fragments, and returned the eggs to her perfectly restored, a small act of compassion that became one of the most beloved stories in his legend.
St. Swithun’s bridge in Winchester. The present bridge is from the 19th century although a bridge has been at this same crossing for over 1500 years. “St. Swithun’s Bridge Winchester” by neilalderney123 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
A map showing the places where the various chronicles were written (Winchester, Abingdon, Worcester, Canterbury and Peterborough) and kept today (Oxford, Cambridge, and London). “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – Locations with Old Way” by Adam37 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
When Swithun died in 862 or 863, the charismatic personality was buried per his request in the cathedral churchyard. Swithun wanted passers-by to be able to walk over his grave and for the rain to fall upon it. Over 100 years later, on July 15, 971, the remains of St, Swithun, who was regarded as the patron saint of the city of Winchester, were moved to inside the old minster to a magnificent shrine on the high altar.
When Saint Swithun’s remains were moved from their simple outdoor grave to a splendid new shrine inside Winchester Cathedral, legend says the saint was so displeased that torrential rain fell on July 15, 971—and continued for forty days. How Swithun became directly linked to stormy weather is not precisely known, though similar meteorological tales were told of a few earlier French saints. In England, the lore settled firmly on Swithun, inspiring rhymes such as the old ditty:
“If on St. Swithun’s day it really pours,You’re better off to stay indoors.”
and the more famous verse:
“St Swithun’s day if thou dost rainFor forty days it will remain;St Swithun’s day if thou be fairFor forty days ’twill rain na mair.”
One cheerful outcome of this soggy tradition is Swithun’s later role as patron saint of apples, since the fruit begins to appear in abundance during the late summer and early autumn.
The modern shrine marker over the grave of St Swithun in the east end of the cathedral was built in 1962—literally 1000 years after St. Swithun’s death. “St Swithun’s Shrine” by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Jane Austen’s final days in Winchester: a dying novelist writes her last poem on St. Swithun before being laid to rest in the cathedral
Three days before her death on July 18, 1817, the forty‑one‑year‑old novelist Jane Austen (1775–1817) wrote what would be her final poem—a brief, witty meditation on Winchester, rainy weather, and St. Swithun’s Day. Composed at 8 College Street, only steps from the cathedral, the verse shows that Austen, who had come to Winchester in May 1817 seeking medical care, understood she was nearing the end of her life even as she maintained her playful tone.
She died just sixteen miles from her home in Chawton, still within her beloved Hampshire. Less than a week after writing the poem, Austen was laid to rest in Winchester Cathedral, the great church whose bells and legends framed her final days.
“When Winchester races first took their beginning It is said the good people forgot their old Saint Not applying at all for the leave of Saint Swithin And that William of Wykeham’s approval was faint.
The races however were fixed and determined The company came and the Weather was charming The Lords and the Ladies were satine’d and ermined And nobody saw any future alarming.–
But when the old Saint was informed of these doings He made but one Spring from his Shrine to the Roof Of the Palace which now lies so sadly in ruins And then he addressed them all standing aloof.
‘Oh! subjects rebellious! Oh Venta depraved When once we are buried you think we are dead But behold me immortal! By vice you’re enslaved You have sinned and must suffer, ten farther he said
These races and revels and dissolute measures With which you’re debasing a neighboring Plain Let them stand–You shall meet with your curse in your pleasures Set off for your course, I’ll pursue with my rain.
Ye cannot but know my command o’er July Henceforward I’ll triumph in shewing my powers Shift your race as you will it shall never be dry The curse upon Venta is July in showers–“
Swithun at St-Swithun-upon-Kingsgate, Winchester. Public Domain.
Swithun’s quiet presence still lingers at Winchester, a reminder of a bishop whose influence far outlasted his ninth‑century lifetime. By every surviving account, Swithun was a deeply charismatic figure, admired by those he served and respected by those who served under him. His humility, learning, and pastoral care left such a vivid impression that, after his death, his simple grave became a place of pilgrimage, drawing the faithful who sought his intercession.
In the years that followed, miracles were attributed to Swithun with striking regularity, reinforcing his reputation as a saint whose holiness expressed itself not in grand gestures but in small acts of compassion and restoration. This enduring devotion—rooted in memory, legend, and lived experience—ensured that Swithun’s legacy would remain woven into the spiritual life of Winchester for more than a millennium.
FEATURE Image: St. Francis de Sales, 18th c, Besançon, 96 x 131 cm. Public Domain.
St. Francis de Sales stands as one of Christianity’s most practical and accessible spiritual teachers because he showed that holiness is attainable in ordinary daily life through love, gentleness, humility, perseverance, and faithful acceptance of God’s will. His enduring importance lies not only in his role as Bishop of Geneva and founder of the Visitation Order, but in his ability to translate Catholic doctrine into practical spiritual guidance for everyday people.
Saint Francis de Sales sitting in front of a copy of his work, “Introduction to the Devout Life,” oil on canvas, c.1790s, 77 cm x 99.5 cm, unknown artist. Hovering above the 17th century French Catholic bishop, saint, and Doctor of the Church are two cherubs who regard him with kindness. Public Domain. Francis de Sales became one of the most respected theologians in Christianity. A great preacher and writer, Francis de Sales ascended the seat of Bishop of Geneva, Switzerland, and, with widowed Baroness Jeanne de Chantal (1571-1641), founded the religious order of the Visitation. As a diplomat and man of prayer, Francis de Sales exerted a significant influence within the Catholic Church and among the temporal powers of the day. https://www.antiques-delaval.com/en/paintings/7068-hst-large-portrait-saint-francois-dirty-life-devote-cherubs-xviiieme.html -retrieved January 24, 2023. Public Domain.
CANONIZED ON APRIL 8, 1665, IN ROME BY POPE ALEXANDER VII, ST. FRANCIS DE SALES IS THE PATRON OF WRITERS, JOURNALISTS, THE CATHOLIC PRESS, CONFESSORS, THE DEAF AND EDUCATORS. ST. FRANCIS WAS DECLARED A DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH IN 1877 BY PIUS IX.
INTRODUCTION.
By all accounts, St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), whose feast day is January 24, was a gracious and holy man. His writings were, similar to the Jesuits of whom Francis was a student, admirer and close friend, directed to society’s well-to-do and concerned with how, as society’s current elites, they can practice, most basically, Christian “noblesse oblige” within their privileged social station. St. Francis de Sales’ writing defended and explained Catholic doctrine to a Europe which, in an age of Renaissance and Reformation, was very much in revolt against it. To preserve and endorse (1) a social order and (2) perfect belief in doctrine, St. Francis de Sales communicated in everything that both were attainable simultaneously, and did so famously in his book, Introduction to the Devout Life (1608).
Like the sons of St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis de Sales was active in the direction of souls. For Introduction to the Devout Life, Jesuit father Jean Fourier, S.J. strongly encouraged a noble lady around 1607 to prevail upon her local bishop (de Sales) to have his personal writings of spiritual direction to her and others printed to reach a wider audience at court and elsewhere among the ruling class. St. Francis de Sales was also eager to have his personal instructions in print for the advancement and perfection of individual souls. Introduction to the Devout Life became an instant international bestseller and, over 400 years later, remains a spiritual classic. As John K. Ryan, S.J. observed, “Its greatness lies in many things: in its originality, its completeness, its sincerity, its balance, its penetration and its style…(and) as such it is beyond adverse criticism in any important way.”1
His spiritual classic, Introduction to the Devout Life (1608), taught that holiness is not reserved for priests or religious but can be pursued by people living ordinary lives in the world. His writings emphasized gentleness over harshness, love over fear, and steady spiritual growth rather than dramatic religious experiences.
Francis Bonaventure was born into nobility in August 1567 in Sales castle in Savoy, France, where there were tremendous social pressures to marry and settle into a life of wealth and prestige. Sent to Paris by his family, they wanted him to attend the prestigious College of Navarre in the fine hôtel de Navarre with its renowned library in rue Saint André des Arts, but Francis chose to attend the new Jesuit College of Clermont, which at that time was known for its religious and moral vision as much as its academic achievement.2 At the Jesuit school St. Francis de Sales came into contact with the post-Tridentine humanism taught by faculty such as Father Possevin, S.J. and Francis took to it like a duck to water so that he could express its intellectual tenets afterwards quite well.3 St. Francis de Sales worked out his spiritual life in prayer in Saint-Étienne-des-Grès in the Latin Quarter. The church (now demolished) on Rue Saint-Jacques was the center for Christianity among students. Another saintly Frenchman who later frequented Saint-Étienne-des-Grès was St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660). Francis de Sales as a college-age layman was finding he had serious religious scruples and temptations to lust.4 it was in Saint-Étienne-des-Grès that St. Francis de Sales ultimately took a personal vow of chastity before a statue of the Virgin Mary which allowed him to pursue his spiritual desires.
After studying for five more years at the University of Padua, St. Francis de Sales emerged in 1591 with the equivalent of a J.D.- Ph.D. and was ordained a priest in 1593. In those years the young nobleman was surrounded by the Renaissance writings of philosophers and poets such as Marsiglio Ficino (1433-1499), Giovanni della Casa (1503-1556) and contemporary French theologian Pierre Charron (1541-1603).5 Now in his mid-20’s Francis was given by his bishop the nearly impossible task to reconvert John Calvin’s citizens of Geneva to Catholicism. Needless to say, Francis’s efforts failed. In fact, the Wars of Religion (1562-1598) were in full swing and made for impassioned attitudes on all sides and complicated factors in politics. An individual, Protestant or Catholic, had to practice their faith in a fragmented society.6
In 1602 St. Francis de Sales was sent to Paris to negotiate the condition of Catholics in reconverted territories in France. As a diplomat St. Francis de Sales was smooth – peaceful, positive, charitable and temperate in his words and persona. At meetings taking place at the court of French King Henry IV ( (1553-1610), St. Francis de Sales met some of the great figures of the religious and mystical revival occurring in France including Henri, Duc de Joyeuse (1563–1608), a General commander in the Wars of Religion and member of the Catholic League who became a Capuchin Franciscan after the death of his wife, Catherine de La Valette; Pierre de Bérulle (1575-1629), one of the most important mystics of 17th century France and, later, a Catholic cardinal; and Madame Acarie (1566-1618), mother of seven children, and foundress and lay sister of the Discalced Carmelites in France. She was perhaps the most widely respected religious person in Paris and certainly the go-to contact for the wealthy whenever they desired to help the poor because she made sure their alms got to the poor and not the professional charitable class. St. Francis de Sales, a respected theologian, also influenced the temporal powers – the dukes of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I (1562-1630) and Victor Amadeus I (1587-1637), the regent of Savoy Christine de France and kings Henry IV and Louis XIII of France.
Charles Emmanuel I. Duke of Savoy (1562-1630) by Jan Kraeck. Public Domain.
Victor Amadeus I (1587-1637), artist unknown. Public Domain.
St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) became one of the most respected Catholic theologians, writers, preachers, and spiritual directors of the Counter-Reformation era.
In July 1602 following the death of Bishop Grenier, St. Francis de Sales became Bishop of Geneva. Francis de Sales traveled ceaselessly around the diocese and beyond, preaching and hearing confessions, and the people quickly realized they had a holy bishop. It was by way of one of his penitents, St. Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal (1572-1641), that St. Francis de Sales worked his vision of the foundation of a new order, the Visitation, whose charism was to serve the sick and the poor with “the charity and gentleness of Jesus Christ.”7
St. Francis de Sales with Sisters of the Visitation, Francisco Bayeu y Subias (1734-1795), c. 1760, oil on canvas, 56 x 34 cm, Prado, Madrid, Spain. The 18th century painting, once in the Royal Collection, is today housed in a regional art museum in Salamanca. Public Domain.It was by way of one of his penitents, St. Jeanne-Françoise de Chantal (1572-1641), that St. Francis de Sales worked his vision of the foundation of a new order, the Visitation, whose charism was to serve the sick and the poor with “the charity and gentleness of Jesus Christ.” https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/san-francisco-de-sales/540cb0b9-ca15-4c43-b011-d2d71f7c5820?searchMeta=san%20francis – retrieved January 24, 2023. Francisco Bayeu y Subías (1734-1795) is one of the leading of Spanish late Baroque painters using quick and fluid touches and vivid and exquisite colors though later assuming neoclassicism with formal, sometimes cold, pictures based rigorous observation of nature. Bayeu, born in Zaragoza, trained there in the workshop of Danish painter Juan Andrés Merklein (1716-1797) and in the drawing classes of José Luzán Martínez (1710-1785). In 1758 at 24 years old he obtained a two-year scholarship to the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, but left two months later because of disputes with the professor Antonio González Velázquez (1723–1793). Bayeu returned to Zaragoza and painted several commissions for churches and convents. In 1762 he was helping German painter Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779) in the decoration of the Palacio Nuevo. Thanks to Mengs’ influence, Bayeu started his decorative collaborative undertakings that earned him the appointment of court painter in 1767. He worked mainly as a fresco painter. In addition to his courtly commissions, he did church commissions such as of the vaults of the Holy Chapel of the Basilica of Nuestra Señora del Pilar completed in 1776. He painted 11 scenes for the the cloister of the Cathedral of Toledo between 1776 and 1787. He was then entrusted with the decoration of the royal chapel in the Palace of Aranjuez. After Mengs’s departure in 1777 for Rome, Francesco Bayeu assumed all Mengs’ duties as first painter, though not obtaining the appointment. Like other Spanish artists he worked developing cartoons for Real Fábrica de Tapices de Santa Bárbara (Royal tapestry Factory). Bayeu supervised the work of a talented newcomer, Francisco Goya (1746- 1828) who was Bayeu’s brother-in-law since 1773. In 1785 Charles III entrusted Bayeu and Mariano Salvador Maella Pérez (1739 –1819) with the restoration of the paintings in the royal collections. When he fell ill in 1786, Goya replaced Bayeu at the Academy of San Fernando, which Bayeu had been director of painting. Despite declining health from overwork, the commissions kept coming in. The Prince and Princess of Asturias hired Bayeu for the decoration of the dining room vault in the Palace of El Pardo. Bayeu returned to Zaragoza in 1788 until he was called again in 1791 to Aranjuez where he painted for the oratory of the Royal Palace and the vault of the King’s bedroom. This would be his last work when he died, in Madrid, in 1795. see – https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/artista/bayeu-y-subias-francisco/b218fee4-053b-4656-8577-9aa001ad1989 – retrieved January 24, 2025.
It was in this first decade of the 17th century amidst this flurry of evangelizing and other activity that the 40-something bishop wrote the Introduction to the Devout Life (1608). The book, written in short chapters with titles on topical challenges, problems, and opportunities in the Christian life in the world, provides its responses based on practical counsels. The Introduction to the Devout Life much as his later work, On Love of God, are very reliant on the Bible for its teaching and sprang directly from the bishops’ care of souls that he was doing actively and sacramentally from his diocese in southeastern France. Francis’s generous range of literary sources reflected his education in Renaissance humanism and included classical authors, Montaigne, contemporary poets as well as medieval saints and spiritual writers such as Sts. Anselm, Bonaventure and Bernard. Francis was also familiar with the writings and religious vision of the 16th century Spanish mystics and saints such as Teresa of Avila and Ignatius of Loyola.8
The exceedingly practical St. Vincent de Paul observed about St. Francis de Sales’ On the Love of God: “A truly admirable book, which has as many admirers of the sweetness of its author as it has readers. I have carefully arranged that it shall be read throughout our Society [the Vincentians], as the universal remedy for all feeble ones, the good of slothful ones, the stimulus of love, and the ladder of those who are tending to perfection. Oh! that all would study it as it deserves! There should be no one to escape its heat.”9
A recurring theme in his counsel is that Christians should focus on today’s duties, trust in divine providence, and avoid anxiety about the future. He taught that charity and love are the measure of all Christian action, giving value even to the smallest tasks when performed for God.
St. Francis de Sales by J. J. Owens. c. 1905, based on the Turin portrait. Public Domain.
St. Francis de Sales, now in his early 50s, visited Paris in 1618 where he preached sometimes twice each day. His great work was to show how ordinary daily life, particularly a busy and successful life, could be a path of holiness. No issue was too large or small for the saint to address – from parties, clothes, flirtations, daily life among marrieds – but all directed to the purpose of imitation of Christ and the love of God. St. Francis takes for granted one’s daily life in French society and proposes no maxim which involves any violent upheavals from it. Part of the saint’s genius is to see that there can be no dispute between the social order and the Christian life. At the same time, St. Francis is no easy teacher or grader – he asks that the Christian virtues be upheld and practiced. That insistence on Christian virtue informing one’s daily life is also the genius of his doctrine. While highly educated and imbued with the grace of mind of the Renaissance, St. Francis carried naturally within himself and conveyed the wisdom of the French soil of Savoy, its terroir. As Francis took one’s daily life in French society for granted, he took Catholic doctrine as if for granted. He then explained it with a highly cultivated mind and gracious spirit that expressed itself with a sweetness and gentleness of style that expounded it as “the universal remedy…the stimulus of love…the ladder …to perfection” as St. Vincent de Paul recognized to those with faith or not, or in trouble in day-to-day life.
St. Francis de Sales perhaps speaks to the 21st century most clearly by way of his theology that is presented without sentimentality or melodrama and is clearly explained and lived to be particularly possible and desirable. Francis said: “He who lives for God, frequently thinks of Him during all the occupations of life.”12
January 24 is the memorial feast day of St. Francis de Sales on the General Roman Calendar of 1969. St. Francis de Sales is the patron of writers, journalists, the Catholic press, confessors, the deaf and educators. He was proclaimed a saint and doctor of the Catholic Church. The following quotes are taken from his many published works of spiritual edification, counsel, exhortation, and solace.
Canonized in 1665 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1877, St. Frances De Sales remains the patron saint of writers, journalists, educators, confessors, and the Catholic press.
NOTES:
Introduction to the Devout Life, St. Francis de Sales, trans. and edited by John K. Ryan, Image books (Doubleday) Garden City New York, 1955, p.11.
Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal: Letters of Spiritual Direction, trans. by Péronne Marie Thibert, V.H.M. and selected and introduced by Wendy M. Wright and Joseph F. Power, O.S.F.S. Paulist Press New York, 1988 p.19.
CF. Elisabeth Stopp, “St. Francis de Sales at Clermont College,” in Salesian Studies, 6 (Winter 1969). pp. 42-43.
Wright & Power, p. 20.
Wright & Power, p. 22.
The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary, edited by John Coulson, Guild Press, New York, 1957, p. 305.
Maxims and counsels of St. Francis de Sales for every day in the year, Ella McMahon, M.H. Gill & Son, Dublin, 1884, p. 12.
QUOTATIONS.
There are certain birds..(that) have such short and weak legs as to be of no use to them; it is as if they did not even have them. Should they fall to the ground, they remain there, unable to take flight because, without the use of legs or feet, they cannot rise and take wing. Consequently, they remain on the ground and die there, unless a gust of wind, compensating for their inability, lifts them up, as it often does with other things. If, in that case, they flap their wings in response to the thrust of the wind, the wind itself will continue to help them by thrusting them ever higher, in order to help them to fly higher and higher.Keep yourself faithfully in the presence of God. Avoid hurry and anxiety, for there are no greater obstacles to our progress in perfection.Cast your heart gently, not violently, into the wounds of our Savior and have an unlimited confidence in his mercy and goodness.To make good progress we must devote ourselves to getting over that portion of the path which lies close before us, and not amuse ourselves with the desire to attain the last step before we have accomplished the first.We must make our imperfections die with us from day to day. Dear imperfections, which cause us to recognize our misery, which exercise us in contempt of self, and the practice of virtue, and notwithstanding which God accepts the preparation of our hearts which is perfect.I recommend simplicity to you; look before you, and not at the dangers which you behold in the distance. Keep your will firmly bent upon serving God with your whole heart. While you are thus occupied in forecasting the future you expose yourself to some false step.Have no care for tomorrow. Think only of doing well today. And when tomorrow shall have become today, then we shall think about it.We must make a provision of manna for each day only. Let us not be afraid that God will fail to send down more upon us tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and every day of our pilgrimage.Since the Heart of our Lord has no more loving law than meekness, humility, and charity, we must firmly maintain these dear virtues in us.True sanctity lies in love of God, and not in foolish imaginings, raptures, &c. Let us devote ourselves to the practice of true meekness and submission, to renouncement of self, to docility of heart, to love of abjection, to consideration for the wishes of others : this is true sanctity and the most amiable ecstasy of the children of God.May you belong to God forever in this mortal life, serving Him faithfully through its trials, bearing the cross after Him, and may you be His forever in life eternal with the whole celestial court!
Saint Francis gives the rule to Saint Jeanne de Chantal (Study for the Chapel of the Visitation at Nantes), 19th century, Elie Delaunay (1828-1891), Louvre. Public Domain.
The reason persons are in the world is to receive and carry the gentle Jesus: on our tongue by proclaiming him and in our arms by doing good works.I am as human as anyone could possibly be.See the divine lover at the gate. He does not simply knock once. He continues to knock. He calls the soul: come, arise my beloved, hurry!…In short, this divine Savior forgets nothing to show that his mercies are above all his works, are greater than his judgment.Solitude has its assaults, the world its busyness – in either place we must be courageous since in either place divine help is available to those who trust God and humbly and gently ask for his fatherly assistance.Since this congregation does not have as many austerities or indissoluble bonds as formal orders, the fervor of charity and force of a deep personal resolution must supply for all that…so that might be realized the saying of the Apostle which affirms that charity is the perfect bond.
Saint François de Sales blesses Saint Jeanne de Chantal, Chapelle de la Visitation at Nantes n° 61 XIXe siècle. Elie Delaunay (1828-1891), Musée d’Arts de Nantes. Public Domain.
It is the height of holy disinterestedness to be content with naked, dry, and insensible acts carried out by the superior will alone….In the end, the savior wants us to be His so perfectly that nothing else remains for us, and to abandon ourselves to His providence without reservation.Since the heart is the source of all our actions, as the heart is, so are they.For myself, I cannot approve the methods of those who try to reform a person by beginning with external things, such as bearings, dress or hair. On the contrary, it seems to me that we should begin inside.I beg you, my dear Sister, govern your community with a great expansiveness of heart…The more solicitous, open, and supportive you are with them, the more you will win their hearts.I had the courage to my give [my own dying mother] the last blessing, to close her eyes and mouth and to give her the last kiss of peace at the moment she passed away; after which my heart swelled and I wept….
Saint Francis de Sales healing a lame man, Chapelle de la Visitation at Nantes n° 61 XIXe siècle. Elie Delaunay (1828-1891), Musée d’Arts de Nantes. Public Domain.
Then let us belong wholly to Him, and live but for Him, desiring only to please Him, and for his creatures in Him, through Him, and for Him. Make your little efforts sweetly, peacefully, and amiably to please this Sovereign Goodness, and do not be astonished at difficulties.We must be constant in aspiring to the perfection of holy love, in order that love may be perfect. For the love which seeks anything less than perfection cannot fail to be imperfect.Never permit your soul to be sad and live in bitterness of spirit or scrupulous fear, since He who loved it and died to give it life is so good, so sweet, so amiable.God, who calls us to Him, sees how we are approaching, and will never permit anything to happen but what is for our greater good. God knows what we are, and will hold out his paternal hand to us in a difficult step, in order that nothing may stop us.God has preserved you so far. Only keep yourself faithful to the law of his providence and He will assist you at all times. And where you cannot walk, He will carry you.
Saint Francis de Sales healing a lame man, Chapelle de la Visitation at Nantes n° 61 XIXe siècle. Elie Delaunay (1828-1891), Musée d’Arts de Nantes. Public Domain.
An over-sensitive mind can neither receive nor endure anything without telling of it, and it is always a little astonished at the lowly places which humility and simplicity choose.I see you with your vigorous heart which loves and wills powerfully. I like it, for what are those half -dead hearts good for? We must make a particular exercise once every week of willing to love the will of God more tenderly, more affectionately than anything in the world, and that, too, not only in bearable but in the most unbearable events.Plant in your heart Jesus Christ Crucified, and all the crosses of this world will seem to you like roses.Lord Jesus, without reserve, without an if, or a but, without exception or limitation, may you holy will be done in all things and at all times.Regard not the appearance of the things you are to do, but Him who commands them, and who, when He pleases, can accomplish his glory and our perfection through the most imperfect and trifling things.
Painting of St. Francis de Sales in Don Bosco’s rooms at the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales in Turin. Public Domain.
Behold this great Artisan of mercy. He converts our miseries into graces and our iniquities into salutary remedies for our souls. Tell me, I pray, what will He not do with the afflictions, the labors, the persecutions which assail us?Never think you have attained the purity of heart which you owe to God until your will is freely and joyfully resigned to his holy will in all things, even in the most repugnant.Daily strengthen yourself more and more in the resolution, which you formed with so much affection, of serving God according to his good pleasure. Regard Him who commands them and, when He pleases, can accomplish his glory and our perfection through the most imperfect and trifling things.A true servant of God has no care for tomorrow, but performs faithfully what is required today, and tomorrow will do what is required without a word.The meek Savior would have us meek, so that, though surrounded by the world and the flesh, we may live by the Spirit that, amidst the vanities of earth, we may live in heaven; that, living among men, we may praise Him with the angels.
St. Francis de Sales, 18th c, Besançon, 96 x 131 cm. Public Domain.
Here is the great lesson – we must discover God’s will, and, recognizing it, endeavor to do it joyfully, or at least courageously.The sight alone of our dear Jesus crucified can speedily soften all sorrows, which are but flowers compared with his thorns.Our great rendezvous is an eternal heaven and compared with the price of eternity, what are the things which end with time?Continue to unite yourself more and more with our Lord. Plunge your heart into the charity of His, and say always with your whole soul: May I die and may Jesus live !” Our death will be a happy one if we have died daily.Lord Jesus, what true happiness for a soul consecrated to God to be strongly exercised in tribulation before leaving this life!
Saint Francis Sales, antique pendant, Lyon, France. Public Domain.
Nothing can give us deeper peace in this world than to frequently contemplate our Lord in all the afflictions He endured from his birth to his death. Contempt, calumnies, poverty, abjection, weariness, suffering, nakedness, wrongs, and grief of every kind.Let us faithfully cultivate that resignation and pure love of God which is never wholly practiced but amid sufferings. For to love God, when He feeds us with sweetness is nothing more than children do. But to love God when He feeds us with gall is to offer Him the cup of our loving fidelity.It is not in my power to propose to Him anything for you, save that He may, according to his holy will, fashion your heart for his dwelling, and reign there eternally. And whether He fashion it with the brush, hammer, or chisel, must be according to his good pleasure.I desire that your cross and mine should be wholly the cross of Jesus. This or that burden, or making any choice, God knows what He is doing and why He does it. It is certainly for our good.God wishes that, like Job, I should serve Him in the midst of dryness, suffering, and temptation. Like St Paul, that I serve Him according to His desire. You will see that one day He will do all and even more than you can desire.
St. Francis de Sales. medallion. Public Domain.
At the very thought of God, one immediately feels a certain delightful emotion of the heart, which testifies that God is God of the human heart.I said everything in just two words, when I told you to refuse nothing and to desire nothing; I have nothing more to say to you.Do you see the baby Jesus in the crib? He accepts all the discomforts of that season, the bitter cold and everything that the Father lets happen to him. He does not refuse the small consolations that his Mother gives him; we are not told that he ever reached out for his Mother’s breast, but left everything to her care and concern. So too, we ourselves should neither desire nor refuse anything, but accept all that God sends us, the bitter cold and the discomforts of the season.It is love that grants perfection to our works. I will tell you much more. Take a person who suffers martyrdom for God with an ounce of love; that person merits much, since he could give nothing greater than his own life. Yet another person who has only suffered a scratch with two ounces of love will have much more merit, because it is charity and love that give value to our works.You know, or you should know, that contemplation is in itself better than activity and the active life; nonetheless, if one finds greater union [with God] in the active life, then that is better. If a Sister in the kitchen holding a pan over the fire has greater love and charity than another Sister, that material fire will not hold her back but instead help her to become more pleasing to God. It frequently happens that people are united to God as much in activity as in solitude; in the end, it always comes back to the question of where the greatest love is to be found.In Holy Church, everything pertains to love, lives in love, is done for love and comes from love.Whatever may happen, Lord, you who hold everything in your hands and whose ways are all justice and truth, … I will love you, Lord, … I will love you here, O my God; I will hope always in your mercy and ever repeat your praise… O Lord Jesus, you will always be my hope and my salvation in the land of the living.I wonder whether another difficulty can also be raised concerning your reform: perhaps those who imposed it on you have treated the wound too harshly… I appreciate their method, although it is not what I am in the habit of using, especially with regard to noble and cultivated spirits like yours. I believe it is better simply to indicate the disease and put the scalpel in their hands, so that they themselves can make the necessary incision. Yet do not for this reason neglect the reform that you need.
Saint Jeanne de Chantal. antique pendant, Lyon, France. Public Domain.
The world is becoming so delicate that, in a little while, no one will dare any longer to touch it except with velvet gloves, or tend its wounds except with perfumed bandages; yet what does it matter, if only men and women are healed and finally saved? Charity, our queen, does everything for her children.My intention is but to represent, with simplicity and straightforwardly, without artifice and certainly without false colors, the history of the birth, progress, decline, operations, properties, advantages and sublime qualities of divine love.The power of grace does not constrain the heart, but attracts it. Grace possesses a holy violence, not to violate our liberty but to guide it to love. Grace acts strongly, yet in such a pleasing way that our will is not overwhelmed by so powerful a force; while pressing us, it does not oppress our liberty. Consequently, we are able, before all its might, to consent to or resist its promptings at our pleasure.God’s inspirations, Theotimos, anticipate us and make themselves felt before we are even aware of them, but once we become aware of them, it is up to us either to consent and follow their lead, or to refuse and reject them. They make themselves felt by us without us; yet without us they do not bring about our consent.All these fine people, commonly considered devout, most surely are not.In the end, charity and devotion can be said to differ from one another as fire from a flame. Charity is a spiritual fire that, when fanned into flame, is called devotion. Devotion thus adds nothing to the fire of charity but the flame that makes charity prompt, active and diligent, not only in the observance of God’s commandments but also in the exercise of his divine counsels and inspirations.Almost all those who have treated of devotion have sought to instruct persons living apart from the world, or at least they have taught a kind of devotion that leads to such isolation. I intend to offer my teachings to those who live in cities, in families, at court and who, by virtue of their state in life, are obliged to live in the midst of others.
