Saints of the Day & More

St. Dominic Savio was born in Italy in 1842. One day when he was just four, he disappeared and his good mother went looking for him. She found the little fellow in a corner praying with his hands joined and his head bowed. He already knew all his prayers by heart! At five, he was an altar boy. When he was seven, he received his First Holy Communion. On that solemn day, he chose a motto: "Death, but not sin!" and he kept it always. "A teenager such as Dominic, who bravely struggled to keep his innocence from Baptism to the end of his life, is really a saint," said Pope St. Pius X. Yes, Dominic was an ordinary boy with an extraordinary love for God. At the age of twelve, Dominic entered the school run by John Bosco. Everyone in the school saw from the way he prayed that this boy was different. He greatly loved all the boys, and even though he was younger, he used to worry about them. He was afraid that they would lose the grace of God by sinning. One day, a fellow bro...

Luigi Orione was born in Pontecurone, Diocese of Tortona, 23 June 1872. At 13 he was received into the Franciscan convent in Voghera (Pavia) who left after a year for health reasons. From 1886 to 1889 he was a student of St. John Bosco in Turin Oratory Valdocco. On October 16, 1889 he entered the seminary of Tortona. While still a young priest, he devoted himself to live in solidarity with the fellow in the Society of Mutual Help in San Marciano and St. Vincent. On July 3, 1892, opened the first Oratory in Tortona to care for the Christian education of youth. The following year, on 15 October 1893 Luigi Orione, a clergyman of 21 years, opened a school for poor boys in the neighborhood of San Bernardino. On 13 April 1895 Luigi Orione was ordained a priest and at the same time, Bishop won the clerical habit to six students at his school. Soon, Don Orione Mornico opened new homes in Lausanne (Pavia), in Noto (Sicily) in Sanremo, in Rome. About Founder grew young clerics and priests who fo...