Saints of the Day & More

A native of Pisa, she is reported as having experienced visions from an early age. On one occasion, the figure on the crucifix at the Holy Sepulchre church held out his hand to her. At another church, she saw a vision of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and three saints, including James the Greater. She was frightened by the light around these figures, and ran away. James pursued her, and led her back to the image of Jesus. Bona observed a very pronounced devotion to James for the rest of her life. By the age of ten, she had dedicated herself as an Augustinian tertiary. She regularly fasted from an early age, taking only bread and water three days a week. Four years later, she made the first of her many journeys, going to see her father who was fighting in the Crusades near Jerusalem. On her trip home, she was captured by Muslim pirates on the Mediterranean Sea, wounded, and subsequently imprisoned. Remains of Santa Bona, in Church of San Martino, PisaShe was later rescued by some of her countr...

St. Philip was from Bethsaida in Galilee. St. John speaks of him several times in the Gospel. Recounts that the Lord Jesus called Philip the day after the vocations of St. Peter and St. Andrew. In the Gospels it is clear that the Holy answered the call of the Lord. Writers of the early Church and Eusebius, historian of the Church, affirm that St. Philip preached the Gospel in Phrygia and died in Hierapolis. Papias, bishop of this place, known by the daughters of the apostle, which was attributed to Philip the miracle of the resurrection of the dead. A James is called "the Younger" to distinguish it from other apostle James the Major (who was martyred shortly after the death of Christ). The gospel says that he was from Cana in Galilee, that his father's name was Alpheus and family of our Lord. It is called "the brother of Jesus", not because he was the son of the Virgin Mary, who had but one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, but because the Bible is called "brothe...