Blog

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

    A portrait of a young medieval noblewoman in simple robes, holding a basket of bread and roses.
    Saint Elizabeth of Hungary
    How a Hungarian princess widowed at twenty gave up her wealth and title to build a hospice and spend the rest of her short life serving the sick and poor.
    A portrait of an early medieval Catholic bishop in simple vestments, holding a crosier, with a solemn expression.
    Saint Germanus of Paris
    How a monk from Gaul became the "Father of the Poor," spending forty years as Bishop of Paris trying, mostly in vain, to restrain warring Frankish kings.
    A portrait of a mid-20th-century Italian woman with a warm smile, dressed in modest period clothing.
    Saint Gianna Molla
    How a 20th-century Italian pediatrician's decision during her own final pregnancy turned an ordinary working mother into a modern icon of maternal sacrifice.
    A portrait of a Roman Catholic priest in dark clerical vestments with a white collar, hands folded, gazing gently forward.
    Saint John Baptist de Rossi
    How a Roman priest who feared his own health would disqualify him from ministry became one of the city's most devoted confessors to the poor and forgotten.
    A portrait of a 19th-century Catholic priest with a warm, attentive expression, dressed in a black cassock.
    Saint John Bosco
    How a poor farm boy who once entertained children with magic tricks built an entire movement dedicated to rescuing the abandoned working boys of industrial Turin.
    A portrait of a young Native American woman with a gentle expression, wrapped in a simple cloak, with a small cross visible at her chest.
    Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
    How a young Mohawk woman scarred by smallpox and threatened for her faith fled two hundred miles to practice it freely, becoming the first Indigenous American saint.
    A portrait of a young virgin martyr holding a palm branch and a small plate, with a serene, luminous expression.
    Saint Lucy of Syracuse
    A young Sicilian martyr, whose name comes from the Latin word for light, became patroness of the blind and one of only eight women in the Canon of the Mass.
    A portrait of an evangelist seated with a book and a painter's palette, an ox symbol visible nearby.
    Saint Luke the Evangelist — Painter
    How a Gentile physician who never met Jesus in person wrote one of the four Gospels, and became, through a much later tradition, the patron saint of painters.
    A portrait of a woman with long flowing hair in simple robes, holding a small jar of ointment, with a reverent expression.
    Saint Mary Magdalene
    How a woman healed of seven demons stayed at the cross when nearly everyone else had fled, and became the first person entrusted with news of the resurrection.
    A portrait of a Renaissance-era Catholic priest with a warm, animated expression, dressed in dark clerical robes.
    Saint Philip Neri
    How a Florentine priest known for playful practical jokes became the "Apostle of Rome," insisting that a joyful heart was more Christian than a downcast one.
    A portrait of an Augustinian nun in a dark habit, with a visible wound on her forehead, hands folded in prayer.
    Saint Rita of Cascia
    A widow who lost her husband to murder and both sons to illness within a year found her way into an Augustinian convent and patroness of impossible causes.
    A portrait of a young woman in a simple religious habit crowned with roses, holding the infant Christ.
    Saint Rose of Lima
    How a young noblewoman who disfigured her own beauty to avoid marriage became the first person born in the Americas ever canonized a saint.
    A portrait of a Roman-era priest in simple robes, holding a small cross, with a solemn, dignified expression.
    Saint Valentine of Rome
    How a little-known 3rd-century Roman martyr, executed under Claudius II, grew into the figure behind the world's most romanticized feast day.
    An icon showing the Virgin Mary lying on a funeral bier surrounded by mourning apostles, with Christ standing behind her holding her soul, shown as a small child wrapped in white.
    The Dormition of the Virgin Mary
    Two names for how Mary's earthly life ended, why one avoids the word "died," and the old story of an apostle who arrived too late to find an empty tomb.
    A devotional depiction of a heavenly throne surrounded by winged seraphim, with smoke and light filling a temple.
    Isaiah's Vision of the Heavenly Throne
    How a prophet's vision of God enthroned amid fiery seraphim, in the year an earthly king died, became one of Scripture's most vivid images of divine holiness.
    A weathered Byzantine icon of Christ crowned and wearing ornate bishop's vestments marked with large crosses, set within an elaborate gold frame.
    Jesus Christ the High Priest
    How the Epistle to the Hebrews reimagines Jesus as a priest unlike any before him, and why that priesthood is described as understanding human weakness firsthand.
    A grand painting of a robed king kneeling before an ornate altar, surrounded by priests and a crowd, with a walled city visible in the background.
    The Dedication of Solomon's Temple
    What happened when the Ark of the Covenant was finally carried into the newly built Temple, and why the priests had to stop their own ceremony halfway through.
    A classical landscape painting of figures offering a sacrifice at an altar beside a lake, with a rainbow arching across the sky above mountains and animals.
    The Rainbow Covenant with Noah
    What God actually promised after the flood, why the rainbow was chosen as its sign, and what it means that Scripture calls it a "war bow."
    A Baroque painting of an elderly pope in ornate gold and red vestments, with a dove hovering nearby and a cherub holding his papal tiara.
    Pope Gregory the Great
    How a reluctant Roman prefect became pope, sent missionaries to convert England, and gave his name to a form of chant still sung today.
    A photograph of an elderly man in white papal vestments, smiling broadly at the camera.
    Pope John Paul II
    How a Polish pope survived an assassin's bullets, forgave the man who shot him in person, and helped hasten the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.