Blessed Thomas Tzugi Feast date: Sep 06 Born to nobility and educated by the Jesuits of the Arima province around 1571, Thomas entered the Jesuit order upon the completion of his schooling at around 17 years old. He quickly developed a reputation for his excellent preaching and evangelical zeal.  He was exiled to the island of Macao during a persecution of Christians, yet he managed to return to Japan in disguise and continue his priestly ministry. He was recaptured and sentenced to death, yet he refused to seek his freedom through his family’s political connections.  He was burned to death at the stake in 1627 in Nagasaki, Japan, and was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1867.

St. Teresa of Kolkata Feast date: Sep 05 The Church celebrates on Septermber 5 the feast of Mother Teresa, a universal symbol of God's merciful and preferential love for the poor and forgotten.Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia, the youngest of three children. She attended a youth group called Sodality, run by a Jesuit priest at her parish, and her involvement opened her to the call of service as a missionary nun.She joined the Sisters of Loretto at age 17 and was sent to Calcutta where she taught at a high school. She contracted Tuberculosis and was sent to rest in Darjeeling. It was on the train to Darjeeling that she received her calling - what she called "an order" from God to leave the convent and work and live among the poor.  At this point she did not know that she was to found an order of nuns, or even exactly where she was to serve. "I knew where I belonged, but I did not know how to get there," she said once, recalling the moment on the train.Confirmation of the calling came when the Vatican granted her permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and fulfill her calling under the Archbshop of Calcutta. She started working in the slums, teaching poor children, and treating the sick in their homes. She was joined a year later by some of her former students and together they took in men, women, and children who were dying in the gutters along the streets and cared for them.In 1950 the Missionaries of Charity were born as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta and in 1952 the government granted them a house from which to continue their service among Calcutta's forgotten.The congregation very quickly grew from a single house for the dying and unwanted to nearly 500 around the world.  Mother Teresa set up homes for AIDS sufferers, for prostitutes, for battered women, and orphanages for poor children.She often said that the poorest of the poor were those who had no one to care for them and no one who knew them. And she often remarked with sadness and desolation of milliions of souls in the developed world whose spiritual poverty and loneliness was such an immense cause of suffering.She was a fierce defender of the unborn saying: "If you hear of some woman who does not want to keep her child and wants to have an abortion, try to persuade her to bring him to me. I will love that child, seeing in him the sign of God's love."Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997 and was beatified only six years later, on October 19, 2003.Mother Teresa once said, "A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace." She also said, "give yourself

Saint Boniface I, Pope Feast date: Sep 04 Though few details are known of Boniface's early life, he was elected Pope on December 28, 418. He is believed to have been ordained a priest by Pope Damasus I (366-384) and to have served as representative of Innocent I at Constantinople (c. 405). Boniface was highly esteemed for his charitable and learned personality, which were clearly seen and lived through the service of his priestly duties.At the death of Pope Zosimus in 418, two Popes were elected, Boniface and Eulalius. They were sent away from Rome by the emperor until the difficulty would be cleared. Eulalius failed to respect the Emperor's decree and thus Boniface was recognized as the legitimate Pope.Boniface's reign was marked by great zeal and activity in disciplinary organization and control. He worked to reform certain corrupt practices and reduced the privileges granted to certain bishops.He ardently supported St. Augustine in his fight against Pelagianism, and Augustine devoted several works to him. Pope Saint Boniface died in Rome, September 4, 422.

Saint Gregory the Great Feast date: Sep 03 St. Gregory the Great, a central figure of the medieval western Church and one of the most admired Popes in history, is commemorated in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Catholic liturgy today, September 3. Born near the middle of the sixth century into a noble Roman family, Gregory received a classical education in liberal arts and the law. He also had strong religious formation from his devout family, particularly from his mother, Silvia, also a canonized saint. By around age 30, Gregory hadadvanced to high political office in Rome, during what was nevertheless a period of marked decline for the city. Some time after becoming the prefect of the former imperial capital, Gregory chose to leave the civil administration to become a monk during the rise of the Benedictine order. In reality, however, the new monk's great career in public life was yet to come. After three years of strict monastic life, he was called personally by the Pope to assume the office of a deacon in Rome. From Rome, he was dispatched to Constantinople, to seek aid from the emperor for Rome's civic troubles, and to aid in resolving the Eastern church's theological controversies. He returned to Rome in 586, after six years of service as the Papal representative to the eastern Church and empire. Rome faced a series of disasters caused by flooding in 589, followed by the death of Pope Pelagius II the next year. Gregory, then serving as abbot in a monastery, reluctantly accepted his election to replace him as the Bishop of Rome.Despite this initial reluctance, however, Pope Gregory began working tirelessly to reform and solidify the Roman liturgy, the disciplines of the Church, the military and economic security of Rome, and the Church's spreading influence in western Europe. As Pope, Gregory brought his political experience at Rome and Constantinople to bear, in the task of preventing the Catholic Church from becoming subservient to any of the various groups struggling for control of the former imperial capital. As the former abbot of a monastery, he strongly supported the Benedictine movement as a bedrock of the western Church. He sent missionaries to England, and is given much of the credit for the nation's conversion.In undertaking these works, Pope Gregory saw himself as the “servant of the servants of God.” He was the first of the Bishops of Rome to popularize the now-traditional Papal title, which referred to Christ's command that those in the highest position of leadership should be “the last of all and the servant of all.” Even as he undertook to consolidate Papal power and shore up the crumbling Roman west, St. Gregory the Great maintained a humble sense of his mission as a servant and pastor of souls, from the time of his election until his death in 604.

Martyrs of September Feast date: Sep 02 The September Martyrs are a group of 191 faithful Christians who were martyred at the hands of the French Revolution on September 2 and 3, 1792. After refusing to take an oath in support of the civil consititution of the clergy, an act condemned by the Vatican which placed Catholic priests under the authority and control of the state, these priests and religious brothers and sisters were imprisoned in a Carmelite convent and then massacred in the space of two days by bloodthirsty revolutionary mobs.They were beatified on October 17, 1926 by Pope Pius XI. Among the martyrs were Louis and Francis de la Rochefoucauld, the bishops of Saintes and Beauvais respectively, Apollinaris of Posat, John Francis Burte, Charles de la Calmette, Augustine Ambrose Chevreux, Andre Grasset de Saint Sauveur, John Mary de Lau, Severin Girault, Julian Massey, and Louis Barreau de la Touche.

Saint Beatrice da Silva Meneses Feast date: Sep 01 St. Beatrice was born to Portuguese nobility in Cuerta, Portugal, in 1424.  She was the daughter of the Count of Viana, and the sister of Saint Amadeus of Portugal. She was raised in the household of the future Queen Isabel of Portugal and spent some time in her royal court in Castile following the Queen's marriage to John II. She soon got tired of the empty life at court and joined a Cistercian convent in Toledo.  She lived at the convent until 1484, when she answered a summons from God to found a religious order. The Congregation of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was begun, and with the help of the Queen, she founded a house outside of Toledo where she lived and served as superior until her death  on September 1, 1490.Saint Beatrice was canonized in 1976 by Pope Paul VI.

Saint Aristides Feast date: Aug 31 Not much is known about the life of St. Aristides, excpet that he lived during the second century and was an avid confessor of the faith and Athenian philosopher. He wrote an Apologia for Christianity, which he presented to Emperor Hadrian in 125. His text was included in a work by Sts. Barlaam and Josaphat. His feast day is August 31.Printed with permission from Catholic-Defense.

Saint Jeanne Jugan Feast date: Aug 30 On Aug. 30, the Catholic Church celebrates Saint Jeanne Jugan, also known as Sister Mary of the Cross. During the 19th century, she founded the Little Sisters of the Poor with the goal of imitating Christ's humility through service to elderly people in need. In his homily for her canonization in October 2009, Pope Benedict XVI praised St. Jeanne as “a beacon to guide our societies” toward a renewed love for those in old age. The Pope recalled how she “lived the mystery of love” in a way that remains “ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.” Born on Oct. 25, 1792 in a port city of the French region of Brittany, Jeanne Jugan grew up during the political and religious upheavals of the French Revolution. Four years after she was born, her father was lost at sea. Her mother struggled to provide for Jeanne and her three siblings, while also providing them secretly with religious instruction amid the anti-Catholic persecutions of the day. Jeanne worked as a shepherdess, and later as a domestic servant. At age 18, and again six years later, she declined two marriage proposals from the same man. She told her mother that God had other plans, and was calling her to “a work which is not yet founded.” At age 25, the young woman joined the Third Order of St. John Eudes, a religious association for laypersons founded during the 17th century. Jeanne worked as a nurse in the town of Saint-Servan for six years, but had to leave her position due to health troubles. Afterward she worked for 12 years as the servant of a fellow member of the third order, until the woman's death in 1835. During 1839, a year of economic hardship in Saint-Servan, Jeanne was sharing an apartment with an older woman and an orphaned young lady. It was during the winter of this year that Jeanne encountered Anne Chauvin, an elderly woman who was blind, partially paralyzed, and had no one to care for her. Jeanne carried Anne home to her apartment and took her in from that day forward, letting the woman have her bed while Jeanne slept in the attic. She soon took in two more old women in need of help, and by 1841 she had rented a room to provide housing for a dozen elderly people. The following year, she acquired an unused convent building that could house 40 of them. During the 1840s, many other young women joined Jeanne in her mission of service to the elderly poor. By begging in the streets, the foundress was able to establish four more homes for their beneficiaries by the end of the decade. By 1850, over 100 women had joined the congregation that had become known as the Little Sisters of the Poor. However, Jeanne Jugan – known in religious life as Sister

The Beheading of John the Baptist Feast date: Aug 29 On this day, the universal Church marks the beheading of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus. As an adult, he lived as a hermit in the wilderness. After the Spirit inspired him, he went about preaching that the people should repent of their sins and be baptized in order to prepare for the Messiah. Herod imprisoned John because he had condemned Herod for committing adultery by living with his brother's wife, Herodias.  At he celebration for Herod on his birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced for him, and Herod was so impressed that he said he would offer her anything she liked. She consulted with Herodias who told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod did not want to kill John for fear or what his follwers might do, but because of his promise to the girl he could not refuse, and so John was beheaded.

St. Augustine Feast date: Aug 28 Today, August 28, the Church honors St. Augustine. St. Augustine was born at the town of Thagaste (now Souk-Ahras in modern day Algeria) on November 13, 354 and grew to become one the most significant and influential thinkers in the history of the Catholic Church. His teachings were the foundation of Christian doctrine for a millennium.The story of his life, up until his conversion, is written in the autobiographical Confessions, the most intimate and well-known glimpse into an individual's soul ever written, as well as a fascinating philosophical, theological, mystical, poetic and literary work.Augustine, though being brought up in early childhood as a Christian, lived a dissolute life of revelry and sin, and soon drifted away from the Church - thinking that he wasn't necessarily leaving Christ, of whose name he acknowledges "I kept it in the recesses of my heart; and all that presented itself to me without that Divine name, though it might be elegant, well written, and even replete with truth, did not altogether carry me away" (Confessions, I, iv).He went to study in Carthage and became well-known in the city for his brilliant mind and rhetorical skills and sought a career as an orator or lawyer. But he also discovered and fell in love with philosophy at the age of 19, a love he pursued with great vehemence.He was attracted to Manichaeanism at this time, after its devotees had promised him that they had scientific answers to the mystery of nature, could disprove the Scriptures, and could explain the problem of evil. Augustine became a follower for nine years, learning all there was to learn in it before rejecting it as incoherent and fraudulent.He went to Rome and then Milan in 386 where he met Saint Ambrose, the bishop and Doctor of the Church, whose sermons inspired him to look for the truth he had always sought in the faith he had rejected. He received baptism and soon after, his mother, Saint Monica, died with the knowledge that all she had hoped for in this world had been fulfilled.He returned to Africa, to his hometown of Tagaste, "having now cast off from himself the cares of the world, he lived for God with those who accompanied him, in fasting, prayers, and good works, meditating on the law of the Lord by day and by night."On a visit to Hippo he was proclaimed priest and then bishop against his will. He later accepted it as the will of God and spent the rest of his life as the pastor of the North African town, where he spent much time refuting the writings of heretics.  Augustine also wrote, The City of God, against the pagans who charged that the fall of the Roman empire, which was taking place at the hands of the Vandals, was due to the spread of Christianity.  On August 28, 430, as Hippo was under siege by the Vandals, Augustine died, at the age of 76. His legacy continues