Sts. Perpetua and Felicity and their Companions Feast date: Mar 07 Saints Perpetua and Felicity were martyrs who died for the faith around the year 203. St. Perpetua was a young, well-educated, noblewoman and mother living in the city of Carthage in North Africa. Her mother was a Christian and her father was a pagan. In terms of her faith, Perpetua followed the example of her mother. Despite the pleas of her father to deny her faith, Perpetua did the very opposite, and fearlessly proclaimed it. At the age of 22, she was imprisoned for her faith. While in prison she continued to care for her infant child and put up with the tortures designed to make her renounce her faith. Perpetua remained steadfast until the end. St. Perpetua was sacrificed at the games as a public spectacle for not renouncing her faith. St. Felicity was a pregnant slave girl who was imprisoned with St. Perpetua. Little is known about the life of St. Felicity because, unlike Perpetua, she did not keep a diary of her life. After imprisonment and torture, Felicity was also condemned to die at the games. Only a few days before her execution, Felicity gave birth to a daughter, who was secretly taken away to be cared for by some of the Faithful. The feast of these Saints is March 7.

St. Colette Feast date: Mar 06 St. Colette was the founder of the Colettine Poor Clares (Clarisses)Colette was born January 13, 1381 as the daughter of a carpenter named DeBoilet at Corby Abbey in Picardy, France. Orphaned at seventeen, she distributed her inheritance to the poor. She became a Franciscan tertiary, and lived at Corby as a solitary. She soon became well known for her holiness and spiritual wisdom, but left her cell in 1406 in response to a dream directing her to reform the Poor Clares. She received the Poor Clares habit from Peter de Luna, whom the French recognized as Pope under the name of Benedict XIII, with orders to reform the Order, and appointed her as Superior of all convents she reformed. Despite great opposition, she persisted in her efforts. She founded seventeen convents with the reformed rule, and reformed several older convents as well. She was reknowned for her sanctity, ecstacies, and visions of the Passion, and prophesied her own death in her convent at Ghent, Belgium. A branch of the Poor Clares is still known as the Collettines. Collete was canonized in 1807. Her feast day is March 6th. 

St. John Joseph of the Cross Feast date: Mar 05 Self-denial is never an end in itself but is only a help toward greater charity—as the life of Saint John Joseph shows. John Joseph was very ascetic even as a young man. He devoted himself even at his youngest years to a life of poverty and fasting. At 16 he joined the Franciscans in Naples; he was the first Italian to follow the reform movement of Saint Peter Alcantara. John’s reputation for holiness prompted his superiors to put him in charge of establishing a new friary even before he was ordained. Obedience moved John to accept appointments as novice master, guardian and, finally, provincial. His years of mortification enabled him to offer these services to the friars with great charity. As guardian, he saw himself with no higher privilege and insisted on working in the kitchen or carrying the wood and water needed by the friars. When his term as provincial expired, John Joseph dedicated himself to hearing confessions and practicing mortification, two concerns contrary to the spirit of the dawning Age of Enlightenment. John Joseph was canonized in 1839 and he is the patron saint of Ischilia, Italy, the place where he was born.

St. Casimir of Poland Feast date: Mar 04 On March 4, the Catholic Church honors Saint Casimir Jagiellon, a prince whose life of service to God has made him a patron saint of Poland, Lithuania, and young people. In 1984, Pope John Paul II addressed Lithuanian pilgrims commemorating the 500th anniversary of the prince's death. He said the Church “proclaimed Casimir a saint and placed him before us not only to be venerated but also that we might imitate his heroic virtues and follow his example of holiness.” “His witness of great faith and fervent piety continues to have special meaning for us today,” the Pope said, noting especially the “challenging call” he offers to young people. “His life of purity and prayer beckons you to practice your faith with courage and zeal, to reject the deceptive attractions of modern permissive society, and to live your convictions with fearless confidence and joy.” Casimir Jagiellon was born in 1458, the third of thirteen children born to Poland's King Casimir IV and his wife Elizabeth of Austria. He and several of his brothers studied with the priest and historian John Dlugosz, whose deep piety and political expertise influenced Casimir in his upbringing. The young prince had a distaste for the luxury of courtly life, and instead chose the way of asceticism and devotion. He wore plain clothes with a hair shirt beneath them, slept frequently on the ground, and would spend much of the night in prayer and meditation on the suffering and death of Christ. Casimir showed his love for God through these exercises of devotion, and also through his material charity to the poor. He was known as a deeply compassionate young man who felt others' pains acutely. The young prince was only 13 years old when his father was asked by the Hungarians to offer his son as their new king. Casimir was eager to aid the Hungarians in their defense against the Turks, and went to be crowned. This plan was unsuccessful, however, and he was forced to return to Poland. After his return Casimir resumed his studies with Dlugosz, while developing a canny grasp of politics by observing his father's rule. In 1479 the king left Poland to attend to state business in Lithuania, leaving Prince Casimir in charge of the realm between 1481 and 1483. Advisers to the prince joined his father in trying to convince Casimir to marry. But he preferred to remain single, focusing his life on the service of God and the good of his people. After experiencing symptoms of tuberculosis, Casimir foresaw his death and prepared for it by deepening his devotion to God. He died en route to Lithuania on March 4, 1484, and was buried with a copy of a Marian hymn he frequently recited. Pope Adrian VI canonized him in 1522. Five centuries after his death, Pope John Paul II recalled how St. Casimir “embraced a life of celibacy, submitted himself humbly to God’s will in all things, devoted

St. Katharine Drexel Feast date: Mar 03 On March 3, the universal Church celebrates the feast of St. Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia heiress who abandoned her family’s fortune to found an order of sisters dedicated to serving the impoverished African American and American Indian populations of the United States. Katharine was born November 26, 1858 into a wealthy and well-connected banking family. The family's wealth, however, did not prevent them from living out a serious commitment to their faith.  Her mother opened up the family house three times a week to feed and care for the poor, and her father had a deep personal prayer life. Both parents encouraged their daughters to think of the family's wealth not as their own, but as a gift from God which was to be used to help others. During the summer months, Katharine and her sisters would teach catechism classes to the children of the workers on her family’s summer estate. The practice would prepare her for a life of service, with a strong focus on education and attention to the poor and vulnerable. While traveling with her family through the Western U.S., Katharine witnessed the poor living conditions of the Native Americans. Eventually, while still a laywoman, she would give much of her own money to fund the missions and schools in these seriously deprived areas. Eventually, however, the young heiress would give more than just funding to these much-needed missions and schools. She would decide to devote her whole life to the social and spiritual development of black and American Indian communities. The inspiration for this work came to her during a visit to Rome, where she was granted an audience with Pope Leo XIII. During that time, Katharine had been considering a vocation to cloistered contemplative life as a nun. But when she asked Pope Leo XIII to send missionaries to Wyoming, he told Katharine she should undertake the work herself. In February of 1891, she made her first vows in religious life – formally renouncing her fortune and her personal freedom for the sake of growing closer to God in solidarity with the victims of injustice.  Although African-Americans had been freed from slavery, they continued to suffer serious abuse and were often prevented from obtaining even a basic education. Much the same situation held in the case of the native American Indians, who had been forcibly moved into reservations over the course of the 19th century. Katharine founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for the purpose of living with these communities while helping them acquire education and grow in faith. Between 1891 and 1935 she led her order in the founding and maintenance of almost 60 schools and missions, located primarily in the American West and Southwest. Among the prominent achievements of Drexel and her order is New Orleans' Xavier University, the only historically black Catholic college in the U.S. Katharine was forced into retirement for the last 20 years of her life after she suffered a severe

Feast date: Mar 02 Charles was a son of Canute IV of Denmark and Adela of Flanders. When he was only five years old, his father was assassinated in St. Alban´s Church, Odence. He was taken by his mother to the court of Robert, his maternal grandfather and Count of Flanders as a suitable place for him to grow up. Blessed Charles became quite the warrior, and accompanied his grandfather in a crusade to the Holy Land and also fought against the English. After Roberts death in 1111, the new Count Baldwin, Roberts son, relied heavily on Charles for advice. The people came to have a high regard for Charles´ wise and beneficent ways as well as his personal holiness. Baldwin arranged for Charles' marriage to the daughter of the Count of Clermont and when Baldwin was wounded in battle, he assigned Charles as successor before he died in 1119. Charles ruled his people with wisdom, diligence, and compassion. He made sure that times of truce were respected, and fought against unethical marketing practices. One such example is his action against greedy and influential families who had plotted to hoard grain so that it would be sold at excessively high prices. His just nature encouraged the wrath of his opposition. One day in 1127, as Charles was praying in the Church St. Donatian, his enemies set upon him and killed him. The feast day of Blessed Charles the Good is March 2nd.

St. David of Wales Feast date: Mar 01 Among Welsh Catholics, as well as those in England, March 1 is the liturgical celebration of Saint David of Wales. St. David is the patron of the Welsh people, remembered as a missionary bishop and the founder of many monasteries during the sixth century. David was a popular namesake for churches in Wales prior to the Anglican schism, and his feast day is still an important religious and civic observance. Although Pope Benedict XVI did not visit Wales during his 2010 trip to the U.K., he blessed a mosaic icon of its patron, and delivered remarks praising St. David as “one of the great saints of the sixth century, that golden age of saints and missionaries in these isles, and...thus a founder of the Christian culture which lies at the root of modern Europe.” In his comments, Pope Benedict recalled the saint's dying words to his monastic brethren: “Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things.” He urged that St. David's message, “in all its simplicity and richness, continue to resound in Wales today, drawing the hearts of its people to renewed love for Christ and his Church.” From a purely historical standpoint, little is known of David’s life, with the earliest biography dating from centuries after his time. As with some other saints of sixth-century Wales, even the chronology of his life is not easy to ascertain. David’s conception is said to have occurred as a result of rape – a detail that seems unlikely to have been invented by later biographers, though it cannot (like almost all of the traditions surrounding his life) be established with certainty. His mother Saint Nonna, or Nonnita, has her traditional feast day on March 3. David appears to have been the cousin of his contemporary Saint Teilo, another Welsh bishop and monk. He is described as a pupil of the monastic educator Saint Paulinus, who was one of St. Teilo’s teachers as well. There are doubts, however, about the story which holds that David and Teilo traveled to Jerusalem and were ordained together as bishops. It is clear that David served as the Bishop of Menevia, an important port city linking Wales and Ireland in his time. His leading role in two local councils of the Church is also a matter of record. Twelve monasteries have their founding ascribed to David, who developed a reputation for strict asceticism. His monks modeled their lives on the earliest desert hermits – combining hard manual labor, silence, long hours of prayer, and a diet that completely excluded meat and alcohol. The monks did not use animals to take care of their fields, and lived off of only bread, vegetables, and water. One tradition places his death in the year 601, but other writers believe he died in the 540s. David may well have survived to an advanced age, but evidence is lacking for the claim (made by his 11th-century biographer) that he lived to the

Blessed Villana de'Botti Feast date: Feb 28 Villana de’Botti was a wife and a Third Order Dominican. She was born in Florence in 1332. She was a very pious child, and at age 13 she ran away from home to join a convent. She was refused and returned home. Soon after, her family married her to Rosso di Piero. The rejection at the convent and the marriage seemed to change Villana. She became lazy and worldly, concerned only with pleasure. One day, as she was getting dressed, her reflection in her mirrors suddenly changed to a demon. Villana understood this to be a reflection of her sinful soul. She tore off her clothes, put on something poor and simple, and ran to the Dominican Fathers for help. She became a Dominican tertiary, concentrated on her vocation of married life, and spent her free time praying and reading Scripture and the lives of the saints. She was given to religious ecstasies at Mass, visions of Our Lady and the saints, and had the gift of prophecy. She became the object of much ridicule and slander, but even her fiercest opponents eventually came to see her as a living saint. She died in 1361 of natural causes at the age of 30. Her body was taken to the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, which was under the care of the Dominican Fathers. The priests were unable to bury her for a month due to the constant crowd of mourners. She was beatified by Pope Leo XII in 1824.

Blessed Maria Caridad Brader Feast date: Feb 27 Mother Maria Caridad Brader was born into a pious family in Kaltburn, Switzerland, in 1860. Maria was unusually intelligent and her mother, a widow, went through great pains to give her a good education. Despite her mother's opinion, Maria entered a Franciscan convent in 1880. She made her final vows two years later and began teaching at the convent school. At the end of the 19th century, it became permissible for cloistered nuns to work as missionaries. Maria volunteered to be one of the first of six sisters to work in Ecuador. Maria served as a teacher and catechist in Ecuador. In 1893, she was transferred to Colombia to attend to the sick and rejected. In response to an urgent need for missionaries, Maria founded the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Mary Immaculate in 1893 in Colombia. Maria served as the congregation's superior general until 1919 and again from 1928 to 1940. Maria urged her sisters to combine contemplation and action with great care. Her congregation also emphasized good education for both the sisters and their students. “Do not forget that the better educated, the greater the skills the educator possesses, the more she will be able to do for our holy religion and the glory of God,” Maria told her sisters. “The more intense and visible her external activity, the deeper and more fervent her interior life must be.” Maria died in 1943 in Colombia and her grave immediately became a popular pilgrimage site. She was beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 2003.  

St. Alexander Feast date: Feb 26 St. Alexander succeeded St. Achillas as bishop of Alexandria in 313. Alexander was a champion of orthodox Catholic teaching. The majority of his ministry was dedicated to fighting against the Arian heresy. Arius, a priest of Alexandria, claimed Jesus was not truly God and that there was a time when the Son, the second person of the Trinity, did not exist. The bishop was gentle with Arius but when Arianism started accumulating a larger following, Alexander finally excommunicated Arius. The sentence of excommunication was confirmed in the year 320. Alexander's epistle on the Arian heresy has survived and remains an important part of ecclesiastical literature. It is assumed that St. Alexander drew up the acts of the first General Council of Nicaea in 325, where Arianism was formally condemned. He died in Alexandria two years after his return from the council. St. Alexander was also famous for his charity to the poor and his doctrine on life.