Blessed Maria Adeodata Pisani Feast date: Feb 25 Blessed Maria Adeodata Pisani was born into a noble family in Naples, Italy in 1806. Her father was an alcoholic and was exiled after being involved in a revolt. Maria's grandmother raised her. When her grandmother died, the 10 year-old was sent to a boarding school until she was 17. During these years, Maria declined several marriage proposals because she preferred to lead a quiet life of prayer. When she turned 21, she entered the Benedictine Community in St. Peter's Monastery and took the name Maria Adeodata. She made her solemn profession two years later. In the cloister, Maria was a seamstress, sacristan, porter, teacher and novice mistress. Her fellow nuns and many people outside the cloister benefited from her charity. Maria Adeodata wrote various works, the most well-known of these is a collection of her personal reflections between the years 1835 and 1843 titled “The mystical garden of the soul that loves Jesus and Mary”. She was an abbess from 1851 to 1853 but had to retire from her duties because she suffered from heart problems. On Feb. 25, 1855, at the age of 48 and in poor health, she dragged herself to the chapel for Mass, against her nurse’s advice. After receiving Communion, she had to be carried back to bed where she died soon afterward. She had a simple funeral and was buried in the monastery’s crypt the following day.Maria was remembered for her sanctity, love of the poor, self-imposed sacrifices, and ecstasies so complete that she was seen levitating. She was beatified by Blessed John Paul II in 2001.

Feast date: Feb 24 On February 24, the Church remembers St. Victorinus. Not much is known about the life and history St. Victorinus, but we do know that he died in 284 A.D. as a martyr with companions. He was a citizen of Corinth, Greece, and was exiled with a group of fellow Christians to Egypt during the persecutions under Emperor Numerian. Victorinus and the others had been exiled in 249 and had been living in Egypt. They were arrested again under Governor Sabinus, and were brutally tortured, and finally executed at Diospolis.  Printed with permission from Catholic-Defense.

St. Polycarp of Smyrna Feast date: Feb 23 On Feb. 23, the Catholic Church remembers the life and martyrdom of St. Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle and evangelist St. John. Polycarp is celebrated on the same date by Eastern Orthodox Christians, who also honor him as a Saint. Polycarp is known to later generations primarily through the account of his martyrdom, rather than by a formal biography. However, it can be determined from that account that he was born around the year 69 AD. From the testimony he gave to his persecutors – stating he had served Christ for 86 years – it is clear that he was either raised as a Christian, or became one in his youth. Growing up among the Greek-speaking Christians of the Roman Empire, Polycarp received the teachings and recollections of individuals who had seen and known Jesus during his earthly life. This important connection – between Jesus' first disciples and apostles and their respective students – served to protect the Catholic Church against the influence of heresy during its earliest days, particularly against early attempts to deny Jesus' bodily incarnation and full humanity. Polycarp's most significant teacher, with whom he studied personally, was St. John – whose contributions to the Bible included not only the clearest indication of Jesus' eternal divinity, but also the strongest assertions of the human nature he assumed on behalf of mankind. By contrast, certain tendencies had already emerged among the first Christians – to deny the reality of Jesus' literal suffering, death, and resurrection, regarding them as mere "symbols" of highly abstract ideas. With John's help, Polycarp may have been the one who compiled, edited, and published the New Testament Another Catholic teacher of the second century, St. Irenaeus, wrote that Polycarp "was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ; but he was also, by apostles, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna." In a surviving letter that he wrote to the Philippians, he reminded that Church – which had also received the teaching of St. Paul – not to surrender their faith to the "gnostic" teachers claiming to teach a more intellectually refined gospel. "For every one who shall not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is antichrist," he wrote –  citing St. John himself – "and whosoever shall not confess the testimony of the Cross, is of the devil; and whosoever shall pervert the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts and say that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, that man is the firstborn of Satan." "Let us therefore, without ceasing, hold fast by our hope and by the pledge of our righteousness," Polycarp taught – as he went on to explain that both hope and righteousness depended upon "Jesus Christ, who took up our sins in His own body upon the cross." With eloquence and clarity, he reminded the Philippian Church that Christ, "for our sakes, endured all things – so that we might

Chair of Saint Peter Feast date: Feb 22 The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter celebrates the papacy and St. Peter as the first bishop of Rome. St. Peter's original name was Simon. He was married with children and was living and working in Capernaum as a fisherman when Jesus called him to be one of the Twelve Apostles. Jesus bestowed to Peter a special place among the Apostles. He was one of the three who were with Christ on special occasions, such as the Transfiguration of Christ and the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was the only Apostle to whom Christ appeared on the first day after the Resurrection. Peter, in turn, often spoke on behalf of the Apostles. When Jesus asked the Apostles: "Whom do men say that the Son of Man is?" Simon replied: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus said: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood have not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to you: That you are Peter [Cephas, a rock], and upon this rock [Cephas] I will build my Church [ekklesian], and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven". (Mt 16:13-20) In saying this Jesus made St. Peter the head of the entire community of believers and placed the spiritual guidance of the faithful in St. Peter’s hands. However, St. Peter was not without faults. He was rash and reproached often by Christ. He had fallen asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane instead of praying, as Jesus had asked him to do. He also denied knowing Jesus three times after Christ’s arrest. Peter delivered the first public sermon after the Pentecost and won a large number of converts. He also performed many miracles and defended the freedom of the Apostles to preach the Gospels. He preached in Jerusalem, Judaea, and as far north as Syria. He was arrested in Jerusalem under Herod Agrippa I, but miraculously escaped execution. He left Jerusalem and eventually went to Rome, where he preached during the last portion of his life. He was crucified there, head downwards, as he had desired to suffer, saying that he did not deserve to die as Christ had died. The date of St. Peter's death is not clear. Historians estimate he was executed between the years 64 and 68. His remains now rest beneath the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

St. Robert Southwell Feast date: Feb 21 Saint Robert Southwell, SJ (c. 1561 – February 21 1595,) an English Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, is one of the 40 martyrs of England & Wales murdered during the English anti-Catholic Reformation. Robert was born in Norfolk, the youngest of eight children in a well-to-do family with Catholic sympathies in the midts of the anti-Catholic sentiment started by the Anglican reformation. In 1576, he was sent to France to study with the Jesuits at the English college at Douai. After completing his education, he requested to join the Society of Jesus, but was rejected because he was too young and the Jesuit seminary was temporarily closed because of the growing confrontations between French and Spanish forces. But in a show of his conviction, in 1578, set off on foot to Rome to make his case for becoming a Jesuit. After being admitted to the probation house of Sant' Andrea on 17 October 1578, and after the completion of the novitiate, Southwell began studies in philosophy and theology at the Jesuit College in Rome, and was ordained in 1584.That same year, Queen Elizabeth had passed an edict establishing the death penalty for any British Catholic priest or religious who joined a religious order abroad to remain in England longer than forty days. Two years later, Southwell requested to be sent back to England as a clandestine Jesuit missionary with Henry Garnet. Southwell preached and ministered successfully for six years, publishing Catholic catechism and writing spiritual poetry that would make him one of the most important Barroque English poets. But the Queen's cheif priest-hunter, Richard Topcliffe, pressured a young Catholic woman he had raped to betray Southwell. Once captured, he was initially jailed in Topcliffe's personal prison and tortured 13 different times, trying to get him to name Catholic families involved in the clandestine Catholic mission. Fr. Robert did not betray a single name. Transferred to the infamous Tower of London, Southwell endured cold and solitude for two and a half years, reading the Bible, the works of St. Bernard and praying the Breviary. During that time he also wrote the most important portion of his poetry. In 1595, Southwell was finally put on trial accused of treason. During the trial, he admitted being a Jesuit to minister to Catholics, but strongly denied ever being involved in “designs or plots against the queen or kingdom." After the predictable guilty verdict, he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. On 21 February 1595, in Tyburn, the Jesuit was allowed to address the crowd about his mission as a Catholic priest, then pronounced the words of Psalm 30 prayed in Complines: in manus tuas commendabo spiritum meum (Into your hands i commend my spirit) and made the sign of the cross. After he was hanged and his severed head presented to the crowd, the traditional shout of “traitor” was replaced by utter silence. Soon after his martyrdom, his body of poetry started to circulate in manuscripts

Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto Feast date: Feb 20 Francisco, 11, and Jacinta, 10, are the youngest non-martyrs to be canonized in the history of the Church. The brother and sister, who tended to their families’ sheep with their cousin Lucia Santo in the fields of Fatima, Portugal, witnessed the apparitions of Mary, now commonly known as Our Lady of Fatima.During the first apparition, which took place May 13, 1917, Our Lady asked the three children to say the Rosary and to make sacrifices, offering them for the conversion of sinners. The children did, praying often, giving their lunch to beggars and going without food themselves. They offered up their daily crosses and even refrained from drinking water on hot days.In October 1918, Francisco and Jacinta became seriously ill with the Spanish flu. Our Lady appeared to them and said she would to take them to heaven soon.Bed-ridden, Francisco requested his first Communion. The following day, Francisco died, April 14, 1919. Jacinta suffered a long illness as well. She was eventually transferred to a Lisbon hospital and operated for an abscess in her chest, but her health did not improve. She died Feb. 20, 1920.Pope John Paul II beatified Francisco and Jacinta May 13, 2000, on the 83rd anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady at Fatima.Pope Francis on May 13, 2017 officially declared Francisco and Jacinta Marto saints of the Catholic Church in front of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at Fatima, Portugal – teaching us that even young children can become saints.

St. Conrad of Piacenza Feast date: Feb 19 Conrad was born into a noble family in northern Italy. He married the daughter of a nobleman, Euphrosyne. One day, while he was hunting, Conrad ordered his attendants to make a fire. The wind carried the flames, which set fire to nearby fields, forests, towns and villages. Upon seeing this, Conrad ran away in fear. Because he ran, an innocent man was convicted for spreading the fire and was condemned to death as punishment.Upon hearing of this, Conrad stepped forth to accept the blame, saving the innocent man's life. He paid for the damaged property and he and his wife gave everything they owned to the poor in recompense. Conrad then left to join a group of Franciscan hermits, and his wife joined the Poor Clares.Word eventually spread of Conrad's holiness, piety and gift of healing. When many visitors began to destroy his life of silence and solitude, he moved to Sicily where he lived and prayed as a hermit for 36 years.Legends say that when the Bishop of Syracuse visited him, the bishop asked Conrad if he had any food to offer guests. Conrad went to his cell and returned with newly made cakes, which the bishop accepted as a miracle. Conrad visited the bishop later to make a general confession to him. As he arrived, Conrad was surrounded by fluttering birds.Conrad died kneeling before a crucifix.

Seven Founders of the Order of Servites Feast date: Feb 17 These seven men were born in Florence, Italy and led lives as hermits on Monte Senario. They had a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.On Friday, April 13, 1240, the hermits received a vision of Our Lady. She held in her hand a black habit, and a nearby angel bore a scroll reading "Servants of Mary."Mary told them:"You will found a new order, and you will be my witnesses throughout the world. This is your name: Servants of Mary. This is your rule: that of Saint Augustine. And here is your distinctive sign: the black scapular, in memory of my sufferings.They accepted the wisdom of Our Lady, wrote a Rule based on Saint Augustine and the Dominican Constitutions, adopted the black habit of an Augustinian monk, and lived as mendicant friars. The men founded the Order of Servites which in 1304 received the approval of the Holy See. They are venerated on Feb. 17 because it is said to be the day on which Saint Alexis Falconieri, one of the seven, died in 1310.All seven were beatified December 1, 1717 by Pope Clement XI  and canonized in 1887 by Pope Leo XIII.

St. Onesimus Feast date: Feb 16 St. Onesimus was a slave to Philemon, an influential man who had been converted by St. Paul. Onesimus offended Philemon and fled in order to escape any sort of retribution. He then met St. Paul while Paul was in a Roman prison. Shortly after, Onesimus was baptized. Paul then sent a letter to Philemon asking for Onesimus' freedom, so Onesimus could become one of his own assistants. This letter is the Epistle to Philemon and entreats Philemon to accept Onesimus “no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me.” Philemon pardoned Onesimus and he returned to faithfully serve St. Paul. We know that St. Paul made him, with Tychicus, the bearer of his Epistle to the Colossians. (Col. 4:7-9) Later, as St. Jerome and other fathers testify, he became an ardent preacher of the Gospel and succeeded St. Timothy as bishop of Ephesus. He was cruelly tortured in Rome, for 18 days, by a governor who was infuriated by his preaching on the merit of celibacy. Onesimus' legs and thighs were broken with bludgeons before he was stoned to death.His martyrdom occurred under Domitian in the year 90. 

St. Claude de la Colombière Feast date: Feb 15 On Feb. 15 the Catholic Church honors Saint Claude de la Colombiere, the 17th century French Jesuit who authenticated and wrote about Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque's visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.When he canonized St. Claude in 1992, Blessed John Paul II upheld him as a model Jesuit, recalling how the saint “gave himself completely to the Sacred Heart, 'ever burning with love.' Even in trials he practiced forgetfulness of self in order to attain purity of love and to raise the world to God.”Born in the south of France during 1641, Claude de la Colombiere belonged to a family of seven children, four of whom entered the priesthood or religious life. He attended a Jesuit school in his youth, and entered the order himself at age 17.As a young Jesuit recruit, Claude admitted to having a “horrible aversion” to the rigorous training required by the order in his day. But the novitiate of the Society of Jesus focused and sharpened his natural talents, and he would later take a private vow to obey the order's rules as perfectly as possible.After completing his order's traditional periods of study and teaching, Claude became a priest in 1669. Known as a gifted preacher, he also taught at the college level and served as a tutor to the children of King Louis XIV's minister of finance.In 1674, the priest became the superior of a Jesuit house in the town of Paray-le-Monial. It was during this time, in his role as confessor to a convent of Visitationist nuns, that Claude de la Colombiere became involved in events that would change his own life and the history of the Western Church.One of the nuns, later canonized as St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, claimed to have experienced private revelations from Christ urging devotion to his heart as the symbol and seat of God's love for mankind. Within the convent, however, these reports met with dismissal and contempt.During his time in Paray-le-Monial, Father la Colombiere became the nun's spiritual director, giving careful consideration to her testimony about the purported revelations. He concluded that Sister Margaret Mary had indeed encountered Jesus in an extraordinary way.Claude la Colombiere's writings and his testimony to the reality of St. Margaret Mary's experiences helped to establish the Sacred Heart as a feature of Western Catholic devotion. This, in turn, helped to combat the heresy of Jansenism, which claimed that God did not desire the salvation of some people.In the fall of 1676, Father la Colombiere, was called away from Paray-le-Monial to England. During a time of tension in the religiously torn country, he ministered as chaplain and preacher to Mary of Modena, a Catholic who had become the Duchess of York.In 1678, a false rumor spread about an alleged Catholic “plot” against the English monarchy. The lie led to the execution of 35 innocent people, including eight Jesuits. La Colombiere was not put to death, but was accused, arrested, and locked in a