The Saints around the Archdiocese
October 25, 2011
ST. ALBERT OF TRAPANI (HOUSTON): Carmelite hermit and missionary. He was born in Trapani, Sicily, and joined the Carmelite Order. After ordination, he was sent to nearby Messina, where he gathered thousands with his preaching and miracles.
ST. ALPHONSUS (HOUSTON): Italian Catholic bishop, spiritual writer, scholastic philosopher and theologian, and founder of the Redemptorists, an influential religious congregation. He was canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI.
ST. AMBROSE (HOUSTON): Bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.
ST. ANDREW (CHANNELVIEW): Andrew was the first disciple of Christ. He brought his brother Simon (St. Peter) to Jesus and Jesus received him, too, as His disciple. He is the patron saint of fisherman.
ST. ANDREW KIM (HOUSTON): The Korean-born Catholic priest was ordained in Shanghai in 1845 by the French Bishop Jean Joseph Ferréol. During the persecutions that occurred in the 19th century, 103 members of the Christian community gave their lives as martyrs. Among these witnesses to the faith were the first Korean priest and pastor, Andrew Kim Taegon, and the lay apostle, Paul Chong Hasang.
ST. ANGELA MERICI (MISSOURI CITY): Italian religious leader and saint. She founded the Order of Ursulines in 1535 in Brescia.
ST. ANNE (TOMBALL); (HOUSTON): Mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ according to Christian traditiosn. English Anne is derived from Greek rendering of her Hebrew name Hannah.
ST. ANNE DE BEAUPRE (HOUSTON): In Canada, the devotion to St. Anne goes back to the beginning of New France, and was brought there by the first settlers and early missionaries. The pioneers soon began to till the fertile soil of the Beaupré hillside; in the region which now forms the parish of Sainte Anne de Beaupré the first houses date from the year 1650.
ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA (THE WOODLANDS): Portuguese Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order. Though he died in Padua, Italy, he was born to a wealthy family in Lisbon, Portugal, which is where he was raised. He was declared a saint almost immediately after his death and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in Jan. 16, 1946.
ST. AUGUSTINE (HOUSTON): A Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity.
ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE APOSTLE (KATY): Born in Galilee, he is mentioned in the synoptic Gospels and Acts as one of the 12 apostles. His name, a patronymic, means “son of Tolomai” and is usually identified as Nathaniel.
ST. BENEDICT THE ABBOT (HOUSTON): Benedict of Nursia (480 – 550) was the founder of Western monasticism, the author of the famous Rule that bears his name, and a patron saint of Europe. He influenced the growth of both Western monasticism and Western civilization. Benedict died on March 21, 550.
ST. BERNADETTE (HOUSTON): St. Bernadette was born at Lourdes, France and on April 16, 1879, she died in the Sainte Croix (Holy Cross) Infirmary of the Convent of Saint-Gildard. She was 35. On Feb. 11, 1858, around the time of her first Communion, she received a vision of the Virgin and received seventeen more in the next five months, and was led to a spring of healing waters.
ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA (HOUSTON): Born March 25, 1347 at Siena, Tuscany, Italy and at the age of six she had a vision in which Jesus appeared and blessed her. She died on April 29, 1380 of a mysterious and painful illness that came on without notice, and was canonized on July 1461 by Pope Pius II.
ST. CECILIA (HOUSTON): Saint Cecilia (martyred c.117) is the patron saint of musicians and Church music because as she was dying she sang to God. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.
ST. CHARLES BORROMEO (HOUSTON): He was born at his family’s castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, Italy on October 2. He died November 3, 1584 of a fever at Milan, Italy and was canonized in 1610. He was one of the towering figures of the Catholic Reformation, a patron of learning and the arts.
ST. CHRISTOPHER (HOUSTON): St. Christopher (martyred c.251) is the patronage of things related to travel and travellers, people who carry things, etc. His name Christopher, means Christ-bearer.
ST. CLARE OF ASSISI (HOUSTON): St. Clare of Assisi was born on July 16, 1194 in Assisi, Italy and is the patron of sore eyes. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies (Poor Clares) at San Damiano, and led it for 40 years and died on Aug. 11, 1253 of natural causes.
ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA (HOUSTON): St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor of the Church was born in 376 in Alexandria, Egypt and died in 444 of natural causes.
ST. DOMINIC (HOUSTON): The founder of the Friars Preachers, popularly called the Dominicans or Order of Preachers (OP), a Catholic religious order. Dominic is the patron saint of astronomers.
ST. EDITH STEIN (KATY): A convert from Judaism, St. Edith Stein of Germany earned a doctorate in philosophy before becoming Catholic and entering the Carmelite order. During WWII, she was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp where she was killed for her Jewish background and her faith.
ST. EDWARD (SPRING): A medieval English king known for his piety, holiness, care for the welfare of his subjects and courageously adhering to the faith in the face of great worldly temptation. He is entombed in Westminster Abbey in London, which he helped build.
ST. ELIZABETH ANN SETON (HOUSTON): Came from a wealthy New York family. She was a wife, mother of five and convert to Catholicism. She founded schools and the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. She is also among the first U.S. citizen to become a saint.
ST. FRANCES CABRINI (HOUSTON): Born in Italy in 1850 and later naturalized in America, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants and was the first U.S. citizen to be canonized. Mother Cabrini founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart and dozens of orphanages, hospitals, convents, and schools.
ST. FRANCIS DE SALES (HOUSTON): A lawyer and Bishop of Geneva, a center for Calvinist belief, during the counter-reformation. A writer who penned to spiritual classics, he is the patron saint of writers, journalists and the deaf.
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI (HOUSTON): Born in 1181 in Italy, founded the Franciscan order, the Poor Clares, the Third Order of St. Francis and is of the most venerated saints in Christianity. He is the patron saint of animals, the environment and one of two patrons of Italy.
ST. FRANCIS XAVIER (HOUSTON): One of the founding members of the Jesuits and a missionary to the far east, where he converted tens of thousands to Christianity. He is the patron of all foreign missions.
ST. GREGORY THE GREAT (HOUSTON): Pope Gregory I, is a Doctor of the Church and one of the Latin Fathers. He is known for developing Gregorian Chant and his great written works on the Mass and the Roman Missal.
ST. HELEN (PEARLAND): She became a Christian around the year 312 and was the mother of the first Christian emperor Constantine. A woman of great faith, she supposedly discovered the True Cross on a religious tour in the last years of her life.