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

    6th-century Byzantine mosaic showing the haloed martyr Saint Pancras among fellow saints, each holding a jeweled martyr's crown
    Saint Pancras, Martyr
    Saint Pancras was executed in Rome at around fourteen years old for refusing to renounce Christ, and his name became attached to one of England's oldest churches.
    17th-century Japanese painting showing the twenty-six martyrs of Nagasaki bound to crosses amid flames
    Saint Paul Miki and Companions — The Martyrs of Nagasaki
    The story of the twenty-six Christians crucified in Nagasaki in 1597, and how Paul Miki's final sermon from the cross became a striking martyr account.
    An 18th-century devotional engraving of Saint Paul of the Cross.
    Saint Paul of the Cross, Priest
    An Italian layman spent forty days alone in a cave until a vision convinced him to found an order built entirely around meditating on Christ's suffering.
    Baroque painting of Bishop Saint Paulinus of Nola holding his crosier, surrounded by clothed onlookers
    Saint Paulinus of Nola
    Saint Paulinus of Nola gave up a senator's fortune for a bishop's simplicity. His feast, June 22, honors a poet who chose poverty over prestige.
    A mid-20th-century photograph of Padre Pio (Saint Pio of Pietrelcina) in his Capuchin habit.
    Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
    A friar in a small Italian mountain town bore the wounds of the crucifixion on his body for fifty years, while doctors and skeptics tried to explain it away.
    Renaissance portrait of Pope Pius V in red papal vestments and cap, hand raised in blessing, with the papal tiara and keys beside him
    Saint Pius V, Pope
    Saint Pius V was the Dominican friar-pope who reformed the Roman Missal, codified the Catechism of Trent, and rallied Christendom against invasion at Lepanto.
    A 17th-century painting of Pope Sixtus II in papal vestments.
    Saint Sixtus II, Pope, and Companions, Martyrs
    Seized mid-sermon in a Roman catacomb and beheaded on his papal chair, Sixtus II died at the opening of one of Rome's fiercest anti-Christian purges.
    A medieval panel painting of Pope Sylvester I, wearing the papal tiara, baptizing the kneeling Roman Emperor Constantine.
    Saint Sylvester I, Pope
    The pope who reigned through Christianity's turn from persecuted sect to imperial religion, and why New Year's Eve still carries his name across much of Europe.
    A 19th-century engraving portrait of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage.
    Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs
    A pope and a North African bishop who nearly split the Church over how to treat lapsed Christians became close allies, and died within a year of each other.
    A Renaissance portrait of Saint Thomas More, wearing a black cap and a fur-trimmed robe with a gold chain of office, gazing to the side.
    Saints John Fisher and Thomas More
    Bishop John Fisher and Thomas More both refused to accept Henry VIII as head of the Church. They died within weeks of each other in 1535.
    A Baroque altarpiece painting of Saint Nereus and Saint Achilleus standing beside Saint Flavia Domitilla, all in rich robes and holding martyrs' palms.
    Saints Nereus and Achilleus, Martyrs
    Nereus and Achilleus were Roman soldiers who abandoned military service after baptism and were martyred for it, their memory kept in an ancient catacomb.
    A dramatic portrait painting of the apostles Saint Peter, with a short white beard, and Saint Paul, bald with a long dark beard and a red cloak, standing side by side.
    Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles
    Why does the Church honor Peter and Paul on one feast day? Their shared June 29 solemnity marks two very different apostles bound by Rome.
    A 19th-century engraving of the ancient Roman catacombs, evoking the setting of the two martyrs' exile and death.
    Saints Pontian, Pope, and Hippolytus, Priest, Martyrs
    A pope and the rival priest who had broken from him were shipped to the same brutal mines in exile, and reconciled there before they both died as martyrs.
    A 15th-century painting of the martyrdom of Saints Simon and Jude.
    Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles
    One was a zealot who once dreamed of armed revolt against Rome. The other became patron of hopeless causes because his name sounded too much like a traitor's.
    A Byzantine illuminated manuscript miniature depicting the martyrdom and burial of Saint Timothy, companion of the Apostle Paul, before a domed church.
    Saints Timothy and Titus — Why the Church Remembers Them Together
    Why the Catholic Church pairs Timothy and Titus on a single feast day, and what their shared role as Paul's trusted delegates reveals about the early Church.
    A fresco detail of the seven founders of the Servite Order, dressed in gray monastic habits, gathered together as the Virgin Mary extends her mantle over them.
    The Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order
    How seven wealthy Florentine merchants gave up their fortunes together on a hillside outside the city and founded the Servite Order in devotion to Mary's sorrows.
    A Renaissance painting detail of two winged infant cherubs resting their chins on their arms, gazing upward.
    The Cherub
    What cherubim actually are in Scripture, why they guard rather than deliver messages, and how they became the chubby infant angels of popular art.
    Cain raising a stone against his brother Abel, painting by Pier Francesco Mola
    Cain and Abel
    The first murder in Scripture happens between brothers over an offering, and God's question afterward — "Where is your brother?" — still echoes through Genesis.
    Daniel kneeling calmly among lions in the den, painted by Briton Riviere
    Daniel in the Lions' Den
    Why Daniel kept praying with his windows open even after it became a capital crime, and what King Darius did the moment he realized his mistake.
    Thomas placing his finger in Christ's wound, painting by Caravaggio
    Doubting Thomas
    Thomas missed the first appearance of the risen Christ and refused to believe secondhand — then got the exact proof he'd demanded, and something more than that.