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

    An 18th-century grisaille study of Saint Joseph of Cupertino, a Franciscan friar, levitating in ecstasy while being held by another friar before witnesses.
    Saint Joseph of Cupertino
    Friars once dragged Joseph of Cupertino from choir to kitchen mid-service, terrified his ecstatic flights would disrupt Mass again — patron of pilots.
    A black-and-white period photograph portrait of an Italian nun in a dark habit and white collar, with a plain veil, looking directly at the camera.
    Saint Josephine Vannini
    Orphaned by ten and rejected once by the convent she wanted most, Giuseppina Vannini went on to co-found an order that nurses the dying in over 20 countries.
    A carved and painted relief of a mitred bishop-saint holding a book and crozier, surrounded by a fish, a bell, a bird, and a tree — the traditional emblems of Saint Kentigern.
    Saint Kentigern of Glasgow
    A bishop nicknamed "dear friend" spent years exiled in Wales, then returned to found the city whose four founding legends still ring its own coat of arms.
    A late-medieval diptych panel depicting armed men attacking a bishop-saint in his house, painted in rich reds and blues.
    Saint Lambert of Maastricht
    A bishop exiled for years after a palace coup he had no part in was restored to his see, then killed at prayer in a feud sparked by his own relatives.
    A medieval devotional portrait of a bishop-saint in vestments, holding a crozier and a small model of a church.
    Saint Ludger of Münster
    A Frisian monk who studied under the scholar Alcuin in York returned home to evangelize the region where his teacher's mentor, Boniface, had been martyred.
    A black-and-white 19th-century photograph of a young woman in a Franciscan nun's habit and veil, seated formally for a portrait.
    Saint Marianne Cope
    A German-American nun answered a plea no one else would touch: nursing Hawaii's leprosy patients, exiled to Molokai — she worked there 30 years, never infected.
    A traditional devotional print of a hooded hermit-monk kneeling in prayer before a small forest shrine, with a raven nearby.
    Saint Meinrad of Einsiedeln
    A Benedictine monk chose to live completely alone in an Alpine forest known for wolves and bandits, and was murdered there by two men he had just fed and sheltered.
    A gold and enamel portable altar from around 1100 depicting a bishop-saint in relief, made for Bishop Meinwerk of Paderborn.
    Saint Meinwerk of Paderborn
    A former Ottonian courtier became bishop of Paderborn and poured his own inherited noble fortune into rebuilding the entire cathedral city almost from scratch.
    A sepia-toned photograph of Archbishop Óscar Romero standing full-length outdoors in a black cassock and sash, wearing glasses.
    Saint Oscar Romero
    An archbishop who spent years publicly demanding an end to killings by his own government was shot dead mid-Mass, one day after a radio sermon calling for it.
    A weathered Romanesque fresco fragment showing a bishop saint in vestments, painted in earthy medieval pigments.
    Saint Otto of Bamberg
    A wealthy German prince-bishop succeeded where an earlier missionary failed, converting tens of thousands along the Pomeranian coast within a single decade.
    A black-and-white period photograph of an elderly Maronite nun in a dark habit and headscarf, seated with hands folded.
    Saint Rafqa of Lebanon
    A Lebanese nun asked God for a share in Christ's suffering, and within a year woke up blind — she lived three more decades never once regretting the prayer.
    A 17th-century oil painting of a young woman in a brown Franciscan tertiary habit, holding a crucifix and flowers, with a halo.
    Saint Rose of Viterbo
    At twelve, an Italian girl preached in the streets against an excommunicated emperor and was banished from her own city for it — she was dead by eighteen.
    A baroque painting of a bishop in vestments baptizing a kneeling duke before an assembled court.
    Saint Rupert of Salzburg
    A Frankish bishop left his diocese around 696, journeyed deep into Bavaria, baptized a pagan duke, refounded a ruined Roman town, and gave rise to modern Salzburg.
    A tenth-century illuminated manuscript miniature of a bishop-saint in gold and blue vestments, holding a book.
    Saint Swithun of Winchester
    An English bishop asked to be buried outside in the rain rather than inside his cathedral, and when monks moved his grave a century later, it stormed for weeks.
    A black-and-white portrait photograph of a young Mexican Catholic priest in a cassock, looking calmly toward the camera.
    Saint Toribio Romo
    On February 25, 1928, soldiers hunting a Cristero rebel priest shot Toribio Romo in his bed instead — he now appears in dreams to migrants crossing the desert.
    A Renaissance panel painting of an elderly bishop-saint in ornate vestments, holding a crozier and a fish.
    Saint Ulrich of Augsburg
    A bishop in his sixties walked the walls of his besieged city to bless the defenders under Magyar arrows, days before a battle that reshaped Central Europe.
    A stained-glass window depicting a haloed abbess-saint in dark robes holding a crozier, with a small walled city at her feet.
    Saint Werburgh of Chester
    A Mercian princess turned down marriage to rule convents instead, and centuries later monks fleeing Viking raids carried her body across England to safety.
    An icon of a bearded bishop-saint with a halo, holding vestments in gold, red, and ochre tones.
    Saint Wilfrid of York
    A bishop exiled twice by kings he'd once served spent his forced retirement converting the last pagan kingdom in Anglo-Saxon England almost single-handedly.
    A black-and-white 19th-century photograph collage of a middle-aged French man with a beard and a woman in period dress, both formally dressed for a portrait.
    Saints Zelie and Louis Martin
    Nine children, four dead in infancy, a lace business run from the kitchen table — Therese of Lisieux's parents became the first married couple canonized together.
    Thomas Cole's 1828 painting of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, showing them fleeing a dark, thorny wilderness beneath a distant paradise bathed in light.
    Adam and Eve: The Fall of Man in Genesis 3
    The Fall of Man in Genesis 3 — the serpent's temptation, the forbidden fruit, and the expulsion from Eden — explained verse by verse with the exact text.