Blog

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

    A 19th-century engraving of a blacksmith gripping the Devil's face with a pair of tongs inside a forge, framed within a giant horseshoe.
    Saint Dunstan of Canterbury
    Legend remembers him gripping the Devil's nose with a blacksmith's tongs. History remembers him rebuilding English monastic life almost from scratch.
    A dark 17th-century oil painting of a bearded bishop saint in black monastic robes and a white pallium marked with crosses, holding an open book inscribed with a Latin motto on charity.
    Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe
    Exiled to Sardinia by an Arian king along with sixty fellow bishops, this North African bishop became their spokesman and Augustine's closest theological heir.
    A medieval fresco roundel of a bearded bishop saint with a gold halo, wearing white clergy vestments marked with dark crosses, identified by a Cyrillic inscription as Germanus.
    Saint Germanus of Constantinople
    An aging patriarch refused to sign an emperor's order banning icons, gave up his throne rather than comply, and was vindicated decades after his death.
    A Baroque oil painting of a bearded, balding bishop saint in ornate robes, looking upward with one hand raised, painted in warm golden and red tones.
    Saint Gregory of Nazianzus
    The only theologian besides the Apostle John given the title "the Theologian" preached Trinitarian doctrine from a small chapel in a city run by his rivals.
    A Byzantine manuscript miniature of a bearded bishop saint with a gold halo, wearing dark-green and orange vestments, blessing with one hand and holding a jeweled Gospel book, standing before a domed building.
    Saint Gregory of Nyssa
    Basil the Great's younger brother mapped the soul's ascent to God through a final stage he called "luminous darkness," earning him the title Father of Mysticism.
    A medieval illuminated manuscript miniature of a bearded bishop saint in a mitre and orange cope, holding a crozier and reaching out to a man seated in a chest-like tomb.
    Saint Hilary of Poitiers
    Exiled to Asia Minor for defying an Arian emperor, this Gallic bishop wrote the first great Latin treatise on the Trinity and earned the name "Hammer of the Arians."
    A Baroque oil painting of an elderly bearded man in a red judge's robe and cap, raising one hand while a poor woman with children kneels before him seeking justice.
    Saint Ivo of Kermartin
    A trained lawyer who represented the poor for free instead of charging fees became the only judge or attorney the Catholic Church has ever canonized.
    A dark oil portrait of a bald, bearded monk-bishop in white Cistercian habit, clutching a double-barred archiepiscopal cross to his chest, with a mitre resting beside him.
    Saint Malachy of Armagh
    Ireland's first saint formally canonized by Rome died in the arms of his friend Bernard of Clairvaux, long before a false "papal prophecy" bore his name.
    A 10th-century manuscript illumination of a haloed bishop in purple vestments, hands raised, flanked by gold lettering reading "SCS NIZETIUS" against a red patterned background.
    Saint Nicetius of Trier
    A monastery abbot turned bishop who rebuked a Frankish king to his face for wrongdoing — and somehow kept the king's favor rather than losing his head.
    An engraving of a canopied Gothic tomb niche containing a carved recumbent effigy of a bishop, captioned "Next to it is the tomb of B. Oswald."
    Saint Oswald of Worcester
    He died as he had lived every Lent, kneeling to wash the feet of the poor — collapsing among them mid-service after decades rebuilding English monastic life.
    A medieval illuminated manuscript miniature showing a monk in blue presenting a book-shaped reliquary casket to a haloed bishop in red vestments holding a staff.
    Saint Pirmin of Reichenau
    A wandering missionary-bishop founded an island monastery on Lake Constance that became a great center of medieval learning — though much of his life is legend.
    An 11th-century Byzantine manuscript miniature showing a haloed monk in a boat being rowed toward a walled monastery, with another haloed figure standing on a rocky shore nearby.
    Saint Theodore the Studite
    An abbot exiled and mistreated again and again by a Byzantine emperor for refusing to let imperial power dictate how the Church honored sacred images.
    An engraving of a haloed bishop in ornate vestments and a jeweled mitre, holding a crosier in one hand and a small model of a church tower in the other.
    Saint Willibrord
    A pope renamed him "Clement" at his consecration, then sent him to convert a people so resistant to Christianity that his own protégé Boniface later died among them.
    Giotto's fresco of Christ riding a donkey into Jerusalem as a crowd waves palm branches and lays cloaks on the ground before him, with a walled city gate to the right.
    Theodulf of Orléans
    Charlemagne's chief theological adviser wrote a hymn still sung 1,200 years later, then fell from power on a conspiracy charge and died in exile.
    A black-and-white photograph of Miguel Pro standing before a firing squad with his arms spread wide in the shape of a cross, a soldier looking on in the foreground.
    Blessed Miguel Pro
    Mexico photographed his execution to frighten Catholics into submission — instead, images of his final moments turned him into a symbol of resistance.
    A black-and-white engraved portrait of an elderly pope wearing a tall tiara and cross-embroidered vestments, framed by a halo, with the papal coat of arms in the corner.
    Pope Saint Damasus I
    How a pope who survived a violent, disputed election went on to commission the Vulgate Bible and mark Rome's catacombs with poetry honoring its martyrs.
    A bearded pope wearing a jeweled triple crown and golden halo, holding an open book and a processional cross, in a weathered Renaissance-era panel painting.
    Pope Saint Fabian
    A layman visiting Rome on business had a dove land on his head during a papal election in 236 AD — and the startled assembly made him pope on the spot.
    An elderly pope in white papal vestments and a jeweled skullcap sits in an ornate carved throne, one hand resting on the armrest.
    Pope Saint Pius X
    An emperor vetoed his rival's election to keep him off the papal throne — so his first act as pope was abolishing the power that put him there.
    A watercolor painting of a haloed bishop standing in a boat, one hand raised in blessing and the other holding a crozier, with rough-looking oarsmen rowing him toward shore.
    Saint Adalbert of Prague
    A Bohemian bishop fled his own diocese twice before dying on a Baltic beach, then was declared a saint two years later, remarkably fast for medieval times.
    A stained-glass window showing a bishop saint in profile, wearing a mitre and holding an open book, with the name Aidan inscribed on a banner below.
    Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne
    An Irish monk arrived in Northumbria unable to speak the local language, so the king himself stood beside him and translated his sermons word for word.