Blog

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

    Saint Gertrude the Great, oil painting by Miguel Cabrera, 1763
    Saint Gertrude the Great, Mystic of the Sacred Heart
    How a German Benedictine nun's private visions of Christ's heart, recorded in her Herald of Divine Love, shaped centuries of Sacred Heart devotion.
    Saint Hedwig of Silesia, medieval devotional painting, 1242
    Saint Hedwig of Silesia, the Duchess Who Chose Bare Feet
    How a Bavarian duchess who bore seven children became known for walking barefoot in the snow, funding hospitals, and outliving all but one of her sons.
    An engraved half-length portrait of Bishop John Nepomucene Neumann in clerical vestments, facing left.
    Saint John Neumann
    A Bohemian seminarian arrived in New York with no money and no diocese willing to ordain him — and became the bishop who built America's first diocesan schools.
    A black-and-white portrait photograph of Katharine Drexel in her religious habit.
    Saint Katharine Drexel
    An heiress to one of America's great banking fortunes gave away nearly $20 million to found schools for Black and Native American children the country ignored.
    Saint Notburga, historical engraving, Rijksmuseum, 1627
    Saint Notburga, the Servant Who Left Work at Sunset
    The Tyrolean peasant servant venerated as patron of farmhands and servants, remembered for refusing to work past the hour her sickle-shaped bread told her to stop.
    The Vision of Saint Peter Nolasco, oil painting by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1629
    Saint Peter Nolasco and the Order Founded to Buy Back Captives
    How Saint Peter Nolasco founded the Mercedarians to ransom Christian slaves from North African captivity, a mission built on a fourth vow.
    Saint Vincent Ferrer, oil painting by Joan de Joanes, c. 1540-1545
    Saint Vincent Ferrer, the Preacher Kings Feared
    How a Dominican friar became one of medieval Europe's most feared preachers, credited with mass conversions and helping end the Western Schism.
    Saint Wolfgang, panel painting by Albrecht Dürer, c. 1500
    Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg, the Bishop Who Kept Resigning
    How a reluctant tenth-century bishop of Regensburg became a hermit, a missionary, and a reformer who tried more than once to walk away from church leadership.
    Entry into Jerusalem by Giotto, fresco of Christ's arrival on Palm Sunday, Scrovegni Chapel
    Holy Week Explained: From Palm Sunday to Easter
    A day-by-day guide to Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, and how each day prepares the Church for Easter.
    Gethsemane, painting by Carl Heinrich Bloch showing Jesus praying in agony before an angel
    The Agony in the Garden
    The night before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed alone in Gethsemane while his closest friends fell asleep — what happened there shaped Christian prayer since.
    James Tissot's painting of Christ preaching the Sermon of the Beatitudes on the mount
    The Eight Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount
    The eight Beatitudes from Matthew 5:3-12 — what Jesus meant by calling the poor, the meek, and the persecuted "blessed," and why they open the Sermon on the Mount.
    The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, painting by William Holman Hunt showing the young Jesus among the teachers
    The Finding of Jesus in the Temple
    For three frantic days, Mary and Joseph searched Jerusalem for their missing twelve-year-old son — and found him teaching in the Temple.
    Simeon holding the infant Jesus in the Temple as Mary and Anna look on
    The Presentation of Jesus: An Old Man's Final Wish
    Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus to the Temple, where a dying man's decades-long wait ends and a prophetess named Anna begins to speak.
    Rembrandt's painting of Moses holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments
    The Ten Commandments Given to Moses at Sinai
    The story of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:1-17), their meaning, and the traditional Catholic numbering.
    The Virgin Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth, both women pregnant and embracing
    The Visitation: When Two Unborn Prophecies Met
    Mary travels in haste to her cousin Elizabeth, whose unborn child leaps for joy — the encounter that gave the Church the Magnificat.
    A historic photograph of the entrance to the Abbey of Cluny, France
    The Abbey of Cluny
    For two centuries it was the largest church in Christendom and the head of a 10,000-monk empire — then the French Revolution left almost nothing standing.
    A 1953 archival photograph of the Villa de Guadalupe grounds in Mexico City, site of the basilica
    The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe
    A sinking colonial church, a circular modern replacement, and a 500-year-old cloth still on display — inside the world's most visited Marian shrine.
    The ancient Good Shepherd fresco from the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome
    The Catacombs of Rome
    Forty miles of tunnels, tens of thousands of burials, and a persistent myth about hiding from persecution that historians have largely put to rest.
    View of the twin spires of Cologne Cathedral rising above the city of Cologne, Germany
    Cologne Cathedral
    A Gothic giant that took 632 years to finish, built to house the bones of the Three Kings, and left standing in a city bombed almost flat.
    Historic coloured etching of the Courtyard of the Kings and basilica at the Monastery of El Escorial, Spain
    El Escorial
    Philip II built a palace with his bedroom positioned directly above the high altar and royal tombs — a king sandwiched between heaven and his ancestors.