Saints of the Day & More

Saint Benjamin was a deacon martyred circa 424 in Persia. St. Benjamin was executed during a period of persecution of Christians that lasted forty years and through the reign of two Persian kings: Isdegerd I, who died in 421, and his son and successor, Varanes V. King Varanes carried on the persecution with such great fury, that Christians were submitted to the most cruel tortures. Benjamin was imprisoned a year for his Christian Faith, and later released with the condition that he abandon preaching or speaking of his religion. His release was obtained by the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II through an ambassador. However, St. Benjamin declared that it was his duty to preach Christ and that he could not be silent. As a consequence, St. Benjamin was tortured mercilessly until his death in the year 424.

John's nickname comes from the famous treatise on asceticism written by John and entrusted to the abbot of Raithu, The Ladder of Paradise (Greek climax, which means stairs). His biographer, the monk Daniel Raithu Monastery, southwest Sinai, writes that John was born in Palestine and the age of six left the hometown to retire to a monastery in Sinai. There he received the monastic tonsure at four years of income and lived 19 years in community under the guidance of a holy old man, named Martyrdom. When the master died, John retired to a solitary cell on Mount Sinai, a few miles from the monastery, where he was down on Saturday and Sunday to participate in religious ceremonies with the other brothers. In the cell there was only a wooden cross, a table and a bench that served as chair and bed. Their only wealth were the books of Holy Scripture and the writings of the Fathers of the Church, including Pastoralis Regula of St. Gregory the Great, translated into Greek by a patriarch of An...

Bertold was born in Limoges in south west France. He went to the Holy Lands as a Crusader and was in Antioch during its siege by the Saracens. It was around this time had Bertold had a vision of Christ denouncing the evil ways of the soldiers. Some accounts hold that in 1155 he came to Mount Carmel and built a small chapel there, gathering a community of hermits about him living in imitation of the prophet Elijah. This community has sometimes been thought to have given rise to the Order of Carmelites, but this is not supported by any clear evidence and is generally discounted by historians of the Order. Bertold died circa 1195, and tradition holds that he was replaced as leader of the hermits by Saint Brocard.

In fulfillment of prophecy (Isaiah 62:11 & Zechariah 9:9), Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. The crowds lined the street shouting "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." (Psalm 118:25-26) They placed palm branches and robes in front of Jesus. This was particularly disturbing to the religious leaders who were jealous of Jesus. They demanded that Jesus silence the crowd, but he responded that even if the crowd were silent, the stones would cry out. The events of the next week would forever change the world. Jesus entered Jerusalem and the crowd welcomed him as a king. By the end of the week they were demanding his death. His followers abandoned him in fear. None of his close followers had really understood the events of Palm Sunday and Holy Week until after Jesus returned. They had all expected Jesus to be an earthly king, but God had given them something so much better - an open door into a Kingdom that would never end.

He was elected to the death of Pope St. Celestine I, in 432, and occupied the See of Peter for eight years were very full of demands. During his lifetime he was involved almost permanently in the fight against the Pelagian doctrine, one of those who first detected the evil and fought the heresy that had to condemn the Pope Zosimus. In fact, Sixtus wrote two letters on this matter by sending them to Aurelius, bishop condemned Caelestius at the Council of Carthage, and St. Augustine. It was about the Church's great controversy about the supernatural grace and therefore need to perform good works for salvation. Pelagius was a monk from the British Isles. He lived in Rome for several years gaining the respect and admiration of many for his ascetic life and his doctrine of stoic type, according to which man can attain perfection by his own effort, with God's help only extrinsic-kind examples, guidelines and disciplinary norms, and so on., - was a proactive! Furthermore, the doctrine...

'Til he was twenty-five, John worked as a carpenter with his father. Then feeling a call from God, he left the world and committed himself to a holy solitary in the desert. His master tried his spirit by many unreasonable commands, bidding him roll the hard rocks, tend dead trees, and the like. John obeyed in all things with the simplicity of a child. After a careful training of sixteen years he withdrew to the top of a steep cliff to think only of God and his soul. The more he knew of himself, the more he distrusted himself. For the last fifty years, therefore, he never saw women, and seldom men. The result of this vigilance and purity was threefold: a holy joy and cheerfulness which consoled all who conversed with him; perfect obedience to superiors; and, in return for this, authority over creatures, whom he had forsaken for the Creator. St. Augustine tells us of his appearing in a vision to a holy woman, whose sight he had restored, to avoid seeing her face to face. Devils assai...

The story of St. Ludger, first bishop of Münster, born about 745 in Suescnon, Friesland, is attached to a new fact in the Christian world at that time Christianity went far beyond the Roman Empire, with the evangelization of trans / Rhenine Germania . This missionary work, which achieved the highest development with St. Boniface, are committed to St. Ludger, a disciple of St. Gregory and St. Alcuin of York. After the ordination, which was in Cologne in 777, Ludger was dedicated to the evangelization of the pagan region of Friesland, where St. Boniface, had suffered martyrdom. The methods used by Charlemagne to subdue this region and Christianize were not quite agree with the evangelical spirit. In 776, during the first expedition, the king imposed the baptism of all defeated soldiers, but the revolt of Widukind there was a general apostasy. Ludger had to flee and, after passing through Rome, came to Monte Cassino, where he donned the monastic habit without having yet delivered the vote...