Saints of the Day & More

Norbert was born in Xanten (Germany) of the noble family of Gennep, towards 1080. As was the custom for every second child of the nobility, Norbert will follow the race was for military or ecclesiastical. He chose the latter path, not by vocation, but by simple chance. In fact, being a deacon could enjoy the many privileges to the side of the Great Elector of Cologne and the emperor Henry V, which nominated for an important episcopal see. But God had other plans. During a ride through the forest, a violent hurricane that struck him down from his horse and, like Saul on the road to Damascus, said: "Lord, what can I do?". The response that radically changed his life unedifying was: "Abandon the path of evil and do good." That episode was the beginning of his conversion. Mundane places left and went to school in the Benedictine abbot of Siegburg and the canons of Klosterrath, then followed the example of the hermit Liudolfo spending three years in penance and prayer. I...

St. Boniface was born at Crediton, or Kirton, in Devonshire, about the year 680, and at his baptism named Winfrid. When he was but five years old, his chief delight was to hear holy men converse about God and heavenly things. The edifying deportment and holy instructions of certain pious monks, who, being employed in preaching in that country, happened to come to his father's house, gave him a strong desire to devote himself to God in a religious state; and though he was then only a child, the deep impressions which their words left upon his heart were never after effaced. His father exerted his whole authority to divert him from his inclination to a monastic life; till being visited by a dangerous sickness, he acknowledged in it the hand of God, chastising him for opposing his son's vocation, which he from that time gave him free leave to pursue. Winfrid was educated from thirteen years of age in the monastery of Escancester, or Exeter, under the holy abbot Wolphard. With the ...