Blog

    Stories of saints, biblical events, angels, and sacred places.

    Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac as an angel stays his hand, Baroque painting
    The Binding of Isaac: Abraham's Hardest Test
    The story of God testing Abraham by commanding the sacrifice of his son Isaac, and the angel's last-second intervention that stopped it.
    The Samaritan lifting the wounded traveler onto his horse, etching by Rembrandt
    The Good Samaritan
    Why Jesus made the hero of his most famous parable a man his audience had been raised to despise, and what that choice was really asking of them.
    Shepherds kneeling in adoration before the newborn Christ, painting by El Greco
    The Nativity of Jesus
    Why the birth of Jesus was announced first to shepherds working a night shift, not to anyone with status, and what the Gospel actually says happened in Bethlehem.
    The father embracing his kneeling son in Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son
    The Prodigal Son
    The parable Jesus told about a father who ran to embrace a son who had already spent everything — and the other son who never left, and never forgave.
    Jesus calling Lazarus from the tomb before the astonished crowd, Baroque painting
    The Raising of Lazarus: Jesus Wept, Then Called Him Out
    How Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead after four days in the tomb, the shortest verse in the Bible, and what the sign meant for his path to Calvary.
    The disciples recognizing the risen Christ at the supper table in Emmaus, painting by Velazquez
    The Road to Emmaus
    Two disciples walk seven miles with the risen Christ and don't recognize him until the exact moment he breaks bread at their table.
    Jesus speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well, painting by Rembrandt
    The Woman at the Well: A Conversation That Changed a Town
    How Jesus's conversation with a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well broke two social taboos at once and led an entire town to believe in him.
    Zacchaeus perched in a fig tree looking down at Jesus, 18th-century painting
    Zacchaeus in the Tree: A Short Man's Big Change of Heart
    How a wealthy, despised tax collector climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus and ended up giving away half his fortune the same day.
    A 19th-century engraving of the western towers of Canterbury Cathedral.
    Canterbury Cathedral and the Murder That Made It Sacred
    How the 1170 murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket inside Canterbury Cathedral turned it into medieval Christendom's greatest pilgrimage site.
    The Baroque marble facade of the Basilica of the Holy House in Loreto, Italy.
    The Holy House of Loreto: A Cottage Said to Have Flown
    The legend behind the Holy House of Loreto, said to be Mary's own home from Nazareth, and the tradition claiming angels carried it across the Mediterranean.
    A 19th-century print of the Monastery of Montserrat seen from the east, set against its jagged mountain backdrop.
    Montserrat Abbey
    A Benedictine monastery built into the jagged cliffs above Barcelona, home to a centuries-old dark-wood statue of Mary that Catalonia has never stopped venerating.
    The ruined stone arch of the medieval Walsingham Priory, remnant of the original shrine.
    Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham
    A Saxon noblewoman's vision of Mary's house in Nazareth led to a replica in rural Norfolk — a shrine that survived the Reformation's fury only in fragments.
    Our Lady of Mount Carmel with Saints, oil painting by Guercino
    Our Lady of Mount Carmel
    A title rooted in a mountain where the prophet Elijah once challenged false gods, later attached to a devotion and a scapular still worn by Catholics today.
    Our Mother of Perpetual Help, Byzantine-style icon, 15th century
    Our Lady of Perpetual Help
    A centuries-old icon disappeared from public view for decades after being stolen from a Roman church, until a dying child's dream helped bring it back to light.
    A 15th-century woodcut of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ child across a river, with Saint John the Baptist alongside.
    Patron Saints for Travelers and Pilgrims
    From a giant who carried Christ across a river to a monk who may have sailed the Atlantic in a leather boat, the saints Catholics turned to before a journey.
    Saint Roch, patron against plague and illness, painting by Cima da Conegliano, c. 1502
    Patron Saints of Healing and Illness
    A guide to the saints Catholics have turned to for centuries in sickness — from plague survivors to physician-martyrs to Our Lady's healing shrine at Lourdes.
    A black-and-white photograph of Brother André Bessette in his simple black religious habit.
    Saint André Bessette
    A frail orphan rejected for poor health became a Montreal doorkeeper who built one of the world's largest shrines out of small donations and sheer persistence.
    An engraved half-length portrait of Elizabeth Ann Seton in a plain bonnet and dark dress, facing left.
    Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
    A wealthy New York widow converted to Catholicism, lost her social standing overnight, and went on to found the American parochial school system.
    A black-and-white portrait photograph of Frances Xavier Cabrini seated, wearing her religious habit and a cross necklace.
    Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
    Rejected as too sickly for missionary work in Asia, Frances Cabrini crossed the Atlantic anyway and built a network of hospitals and schools across the Americas.
    Statue of Saint Gerard Majella, church of Santa Brigida, Naples, pre-1905
    Saint Gerard Majella, Patron of Expectant Mothers
    The story of Saint Gerard Majella, a Redemptorist lay brother falsely accused of a serious crime, who stayed silent rather than break a confidence.