St. Medard, bishop Feast date: Jun 08 St. Medard was born around 456 in Salency, France. His father Nectard was a noble Frenchman, and his mother, Protogia, descended from a Roman family that settled in Gaul.He was ordained at the age of 33, and did not wish to be made a bishop, but reluctantly became the Bishop of Vermand in 530. Medardus was one of the most honoured bishops of his time, his memory has always been venerated in northern France, and he soon became the hero of numerous legends.Each year on his memorial the Rosiere is awarded to the young girl who has been judged the most virtuous and exemplary in the region of Salency, France; she is escorted by 12 boys and 12 girls to the church, where she is crowned with roses and given a gift of money. This is a continuation of a yearly stipend or “scholarship” he apparently instituted when bishop. His younger sister was the first to be crowned the Rosiere.Legend says that when he was a child, Medard was once sheltered from the rain by a hovering eagle. This is his most common depiction in art, and it led to his patronage of good weather, against bad weather, for people who work the fields, etc. Legend has it that if it rains on his feast day, the next 40 days will be wet; if the weather is good, the next 40 will be fine as well. He was also often depicted as laughing aloud with his mouth wide open; this led to his patronage against toothache.

St. Anthony Mary Gianelli Feast date: Jun 07 Anthony grew up in a poor but pious family in a small farming village in Lombardy, Italy. The owner of his family farm paid for Anthony's seminary education because he was such a promising student. He was very young for ordination and required a special dispensation, however he was ordained in 1812 and served as a parish priest, and eventually founded several religious communities, some of them short-lived.In 1827, he founded the Missionaries of St. Alphonsus, which lasted until 1856. He also founded the Oblates of Saint Alphonsus in 1828, which lasted only 20 years. The Daughters of Our Lady of the Garden, which he founded in 1829, still continue their ministry in education and among the sick in Europe, Asia and the United States.He was named bishop of Bobbio, Italy in 1837 and actively restored devotions and instructed the faithful. He was a people’s bishop, visiting with his parishes and organizing two synods. He died after nine years as bishop on June 7, 1846 due to a serious fever and tuberculosis. He was canonized in 1951.

St. Norbert Feast date: Jun 06 On June 6 the Catholic Church honors Saint Norbert of Xanten – who started out as a frivolous and worldly cleric, but was changed by God’s grace into a powerful preacher and an important reformer of the Church during the early 12th century. He is the founder of the Norbertine order.Born around the year 1075 in the German town of Xanten, Norbert belonged to a high-ranking family with ties to the imperial court. As a young man he showed a high degree of intelligence and sophistication – which marked him out as a contender for offices within the Church, the state, or both. None of this, however, was any guarantee of a holy life. On the contrary, Norbert's gifts and advantages would prove to be a source of temptation even after he joined the ranks of the clergy.Norbert was ordained as a subdeacon, and enrolled with a group of clerics in his town, before moving on to an appointment with the powerful Archbishop of Cologne. He went on to serve the German Emperor Henry V, in a position which involved the distribution of aid to the poor. In all of this, however, Norbert displayed no particular piety or personal seriousness, living a rather pleasurable and luxurious life.Change would come from a brush with death, in approximately 1112: while riding on horseback near Xanten, he was caught in a storm and nearly killed by a lightning bolt. The frightened horse threw Norbert off, and he lay unconscious for some time. Sobered by the experience, he left his imperial post and began a period of prayer and discernment in a monastery. At age 35, he heard God calling him to the priesthood.Radically converted to the ideals of the Gospel, Norbert was now set against the worldly attitude he had once embodied. This made him unpopular with local clerics, who responded with insults and condemnation. But Norbert was not turning back. He gave all of his wealth to the poor, reducing himself to a barefoot and begging pilgrim who possessed nothing except the means to celebrate Mass.Pope Gelasius II gave Norbert permission to live as an itinerant preacher, and he was asked to found a religious order so that others might live after his example. He settled in the northern French region of Aisne, along with a small group of disciples who were to live according to the Rule of St. Augustine. On December 25, 1121, they were established as the Canons Regular of Premontre, also known as the Premonstratensians or Norbertines.Their founder also established a women’s branch of the order, before returning to Germany for a successful preaching tour. He founded a lay branch of the Premonstratensians (the Third Order of St. Norbert), and went on to Belgium, where he preached against a sect that denied the power of the sacraments. His order was invited into many Northern European dioceses, and there was talk of making Norbert a bishop.Though he avoided an earlier attempt to make

St. Boniface Feast date: Jun 05 St. Boniface was very bold in his faith and was well known for being very good at using the local customs and culture of the day to bring people to Christ. He was born in Devonshire, England, in the seventh century. He was educated at a Benedictine monastery and became a monk, and was sent as a missionary to Germany in 719 instead of becoming abbot for his monastery. There, he destroyed idols and pagan temples, and built churches on the sites. He was eventually made archbishop of Mainz, where he reformed churches and built religious houses on those sites. He was martyred on June 5, 754 while on mission in Holland, where a troop of pagans attacked and killed him and his 52 companions. One story about St. Boniface tells about when he met a tribe in Saxony that was worshipping a Norse deity in the form of a huge oak tree. Boniface walked up to the tree, removed his shirt, took an ax, and without a word, chopped it down. Then he stood on the trunk, and asked: "How stands your mighty god? My God is stronger than he.”

St. Optatus Feast date: Jun 04 The church remembers St. Optatus on June 4. As a convert from paganism, he is best known for his opposition to the heresy of Donatism, and his six treatises composed against them. One of them, against Parmenian, is still extant, and was mentioned by St. Jerome in his De Viris Illustribus as having been composed in six books. The treatise stresses the need for unity and is conciliatory in tone, but it criticizes Donatist teachings on Baptism, and stresses that the Church cannot be limited to Africa but is “catholic.” Optatus was highly praised by such contemporaries as Augustine and Fulgentius of Ruspe. He died in 387 A.D. as Bishop of Milevis, Numidia, in Africa.

St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs of Uganda Feast date: Jun 03 St. Charles and many other martyrs for the faith died between November 15, 1885 – January 27, 1887 in Namugongo, Uganda. St. Charles and his companions were beatified in 1920 and canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1964. In 1879 Catholicism began spreading in Uganda when the White Fathers, a congregation of priests founded by Cardinal Lavigerie were peacefully received by King Mutesa of Uganda. The priests soon began preparing catechumens for baptism and before long a number of the young pages in the king’s court had become Catholics. However, on the death of Mutesa, his son Mwanga, a corrupt man who ritually engaged in pedophilic practices with the younger pages, took the throne. When King Mwanga had a visiting Anglican Bishop murdered, his chief page, Joseph Mukasa, a Catholic who went to great length to protect the younger boys from the king’s lust, denounced the king’s actions and was beheaded on November 15, 1885. The 25 year old Charles Lwanga, a man wholly dedicated to the Christian instruction of the younger boys, became the chief page, and just as forcibly protected them from the kings advances. On the night of the martyrdom of Joseph Mukasa, realizing that their own lives were in danger, Lwanga and some of the other pages went to the White Fathers to receive baptism. Another 100 catechumens were baptized in the week following Joseph Mukasa’s death. The following May, King Mwanga learned that one of the boys was learning catechism. He was furious and ordered all the pages to be questioned to separate the Christians from the others.  The Christians, 15 in all, between the ages of 13 and 25, stepped forward. The King asked them if they were willing to keep their faith. They answered in unison, “Until death!” They were bound together and taken on a two day walk to Namugongo where they were to be burned at the stake. On the way, Matthias Kalemba, one of the eldest boys, exclaimed, “God will rescue me. But you will not see how he does it, because he will take my soul and leave you only my body.”  They executioners cut him to pieces and left him to die alone on the road, which took at least three days. When they reached the site where they were to be burned, they were kept tied together for seven days while the executioners prepared the wood for the fire. On June 3, 1886, the Feast of the Ascension, Charles Lwanga was separated from the others and burned at the stake. The executioners slowly burnt his feet until only the charred remained. Still alive, they promised him that they would let him go if he renounced his faith. He refused saying, “You are burning me, but it is as if you are pouring water over my body.”  He then continued to pray silently as they set him on fire. Just before the flames reached his heart, he looked

Sts. Marcellinus and Peter Feast date: Jun 02 On June 2, the Catholic Church remembers two fourth-century martyrs, Saints Marcellinus and Peter, who were highly venerated after the discovery of their tomb and the conversion of their executioner. Although the biographical details of the two martyrs are largely unknown, it is known that they lived and died during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. In 302, the ruler changed his tolerant stance and pursued a policy intended to eliminate the Church from the empire. Diocletian and his subordinate ordered the burning of Catholic churches and their sacred texts, as well as the imprisonment and torture of clergy and laypersons. The goal was to force Christians to submit to the Roman pagan religion, including the worship of the emperor himself as divine. It was at the mid-point of this persecution, around 303, that a Roman exorcist by the name of Peter was imprisoned for his faith. While in prison, tradition holds that Peter freed Paulina, the daughter of the prison-keeper Artemius, from demonic influence by his prayers. This demonstration of Christ's power over demons is said to have brought about the conversion of Paulina, Artemius, his wife, and the entire household, all of whom were baptized by the Roman priest Marcellinus. After this, both Marcellinus and Peter were called before a judge who was determined to enforce the emperor's decree against the Church. When Marcellinus testified courageously to his faith in Christ, he was beaten, stripped of his clothes, and deprived of food in a dark cell filled with broken glass shards. Peter, too, was returned to his confinement. But neither man would deny Christ, and both preferred death over submission to the cult of pagan worship. It was arranged for the two men to be executed secretly, in order to prevent the faithful from gathering in prayer and veneration at the place of their burial. Their executioner forced them to clear away a tangle of thorns and briars, which the two men did cheerfully, accepting their death with joy. Both men were beheaded in the forest and buried in the clearing they had made. The location of the saints' bodies remained unknown for some time, until a devout woman named Lucilla received a revelation informing her where the priest and exorcist lay. With the assistance of another woman, Firmina, Lucilla recovered the two saints' bodies and had them re-interred in the Roman Catacombs. Sts. Marcellinus and Peter are among the saints named in the Western Church's most traditional Eucharistic prayer, the Roman Canon. Pope St. Damasus I, who was himself a great devotee of the Church's saints during his life, composed an epitaph to mark the tombs of the two martyrs. The source of his knowledge, he said, was the executioner himself, who had subsequently repented and joined the Catholic Church.

St. Justin Martyr Feast date: Jun 01 "We are slain with the sword, but we increase and multiply; the more we are persecuted and destroyed, the more are deaf to our numbers. As a vine, by being pruned and cut close, shoots forth new suckers, and bears a greater abundance of fruit; so is it with us." – St. Justin MartyrJustin was born around the year 100 in the Palestinian province of Samaria, the son of Greek-speaking parents whose ancestors were sent as colonists to that area of the Roman Empire. Justin's father followed the Greek pagan religion and raised his son to do the same, but he also provided Justin with an excellent education in literature and history. Justin was an avid lover of truth, and as a young man, became interested in philosophy and searched for truth in the various schools of thought that had spread throughout the empire. But he became frustrated with the professional philosophers' intellectual conceits and limitations, as well as their apparent indifference to God. After several years of study, Justin had a life-changing encounter with an old man who questioned him about his beliefs and especially about the sufficiency of philosophy as a means of attaining truth. He urged him to study the Jewish prophets and told Justin that these authors had not only spoken by God's inspiration, but also predicted the coming of Christ and the foundation of his Church. “Above all things, pray that the gates of life may be opened to you,” the old man told Justin, “for these are not things to be discerned, unless God and Christ grant to a man the knowledge of them.” Justin had always admired Christians from a distance because of the beauty of their moral lives. As he writes in his Apologies: "When I was a disciple of Plato, hearing the accusations made against the Christians and seeing them intrepid in the face of death and of all that men fear, I said to myself that it was impossible that they should be living in evil and in the love of pleasure.” The aspiring philosopher eventually decided to be baptized around the age of 30.After his conversion, Justin continued to wear the type of cloak that Greek culture associated with the philosophers. Inspired by the dedicated example of other Catholics whom he had seen put to death for their faith, he embraced a simple and austere lifestyle even after moving to Rome. Justin was most likely ordained a deacon, since he preached, did not marry, and gave religious instruction in his home. He is best known as the author of early apologetic works which argued for the Catholic faith against the claims of Jews, pagans, and non-Christian philosophers. Several of these works were written to Roman officials, for the purpose of refuting lies that had been told about the Church. Justin sought to convince the rulers of the Roman Empire that they had nothing to gain, and much to lose, by persecuting the Christians. His two most famous apologetical treatises were

Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary Feast date: May 31 Assuming that the Annunciation and the Incarnation took place around the time of the vernal equinox, Mary left Nazareth at the end of March and went over the mountains to Hebron, south of Jerusalem, to wait upon her cousin Elizabeth. Because Mary's presence, and even more the presence of the Divine Child in her womb, according to the will of God, was to be the source of very great graces to the Blessed John, Christ's Forerunner. (Lk1:39-57). Feeling the presence of his Divine Saviour, John, upon the arrival of Mary, leaped for joy in the womb of his mother; at that moment he was cleansed from original sin and filled with the grace of God. Our Lady now, for the first time, exercised the office which belonged to the Mother of God made man: that He might, by her mediation, sanctify and glorify us. St. Joseph probably accompanied Mary, returned to Nazareth, and when, after three months, he came again to Hebron to take his wife home, the apparition of the angel, mentioned in Mt 1:19-25, may have taken place to end the tormenting doubts of Joseph regarding Mary's maternity.The earliest evidence of the existence of the feast is its adoption by the Franciscan Chapter in 1263, upon the advice of St. Bonaventure. The list of feasts in the "Statuta Synodalia eccl. Cenomanensis", according to which this feast was kept July 2 at Le Mans in 1247, may not be genuine. With the Franciscan Breviary this feast spread to many churches, but was celebrated at various dates-at Prague and Ratisbon, April 28, in Paris June 27, and at Reims and Geneva, on July 8. It was extended to the entire Church by Urban VI on April 6, 1389 (Decree published by Boniface IX, 9 Nov., 1389), with the hope that Christ and His Mother would visit the Church and put an end to the Great Schism which rent the seamless garment of Christ. The feast, with a vigil and an octave, was assigned to July 2, the day after the octave of St. John, about the time when Mary returned to Nazareth. The Office was drawn up by an Englishman, Adam Cardinal Easton, Benedictine monk and Bishop of Lincoln. Dreves has published this rhythmical office with nine other offices for the same feast, found in the Breviaries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Since, during the Schism, many bishops of the opposing obedience would not adopt the new feast, it was confirmed by the Council of Basle, in 1441. Pius V abolished the rhythmical office, the vigil, and the octave. The present office was compiled by order of Clement VIII by the Minorite Ruiz. Pius IX, on May 13, 1850, raised the feast to the rank of a double of the second class. Many religious orders -- the Carmelites, Dominicans, Cistercians, Mercedarians, Servites, and others -- as well as Siena, Pisa, Loreto, Vercelli, Cologne, and other dioceses have retained the octave.

St. Joan of Arc Feast date: May 30 Today is the feast of St. Joan of Arc, the patroness of France. Joan was born to a peasant family in Champagne, France in the early 15th century. From a young age she heard the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret speaking to her. Then, in 1428, when she was 13 years old, she received a vision telling her to go to the King of France and help him reconquer his kingdom from the invading forces of England and Burgundy. Overcoming opposition and convincing members of the court and of the Church, she was given a small army. She charged into battle bearing a banner which bore the names “Jesus” and “Mary” as well as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Due to her leadership and trust in God, she was able to raise the siege of Orleans in 1429. Joan and her army went on to win a series of battles. Because of her efforts, the king was able to enter Rheims. He was crowned with Joan at his side. Eventually, Joan was captured by the forces of Burgundy in May of 1430. When her own king and army did nothing to save her, she was sold to the English. She was imprisoned for a time and then put on trial. Bishop Peter Cauchon of Beauvais presided over her trial. His hope was that in being harsh with Joan, the English would help him become archbishop. Joan was condemned to death on counts of heresy, witchcraft, and adultery. On May 30, 1431, she was burned at the stake in Rouen, France. She was 19 years old. Thirty years after her death, her case was retried and she was exonerated. In 1920, she was canonized by Pope Benedict XV. She is the patroness of France, captives, soldiers, and those ridiculed for their piety.