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

    The ruined stone arch of the medieval Walsingham Priory, remnant of the original shrine.
    Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham
    A Saxon noblewoman's vision of Mary's house in Nazareth led to a replica in rural Norfolk — a shrine that survived the Reformation's fury only in fragments.
    Our Lady of Mount Carmel with Saints, oil painting by Guercino
    Our Lady of Mount Carmel
    A title rooted in a mountain where the prophet Elijah once challenged false gods, later attached to a devotion and a scapular still worn by Catholics today.
    Our Mother of Perpetual Help, Byzantine-style icon, 15th century
    Our Lady of Perpetual Help
    A centuries-old icon disappeared from public view for decades after being stolen from a Roman church, until a dying child's dream helped bring it back to light.
    A 15th-century woodcut of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ child across a river, with Saint John the Baptist alongside.
    Patron Saints for Travelers and Pilgrims
    From a giant who carried Christ across a river to a monk who may have sailed the Atlantic in a leather boat, the saints Catholics turned to before a journey.
    Saint Roch, patron against plague and illness, painting by Cima da Conegliano, c. 1502
    Patron Saints of Healing and Illness
    A guide to the saints Catholics have turned to for centuries in sickness — from plague survivors to physician-martyrs to Our Lady's healing shrine at Lourdes.
    A black-and-white photograph of Brother André Bessette in his simple black religious habit.
    Saint André Bessette
    A frail orphan rejected for poor health became a Montreal doorkeeper who built one of the world's largest shrines out of small donations and sheer persistence.
    An engraved half-length portrait of Elizabeth Ann Seton in a plain bonnet and dark dress, facing left.
    Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton
    A wealthy New York widow converted to Catholicism, lost her social standing overnight, and went on to found the American parochial school system.
    A black-and-white portrait photograph of Frances Xavier Cabrini seated, wearing her religious habit and a cross necklace.
    Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini
    Rejected as too sickly for missionary work in Asia, Frances Cabrini crossed the Atlantic anyway and built a network of hospitals and schools across the Americas.
    Statue of Saint Gerard Majella, church of Santa Brigida, Naples, pre-1905
    Saint Gerard Majella, Patron of Expectant Mothers
    The story of Saint Gerard Majella, a Redemptorist lay brother falsely accused of a serious crime, who stayed silent rather than break a confidence.
    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.
    A medieval devotional panel painting of Saint Hedwig of Silesia, haloed and wearing a white wimple and dark red cloak, holding a small model of a church.
    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.