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

    A hand-colored 15th-century woodcut showing a young woman fallen on the ice while other women help her up, with a walled Dutch town and other skaters in the background.
    Saint Lydwine of Schiedam
    A single skating accident at 15 left a Dutch teenager disabled for 37 years. The Church later named her patron saint of the very sport that broke her.
    A black-and-white photograph of Titus Brandsma wearing round glasses and the academic robe and chain of office of rector magnificus of the Catholic University of Nijmegen.
    Saint Titus Brandsma
    At 60, a Carmelite priest hand-delivered a letter ordering Catholic newspapers to defy Nazi propaganda orders. He was dead within five months.
    A gilded statue of a bishop wearing a mitre and holding a crozier in one hand and a small model of a church in the other.
    Saint Virgil of Salzburg
    Popular legend says he was tried for heresy over a round Earth. The real dispute was far stranger — whether people on its far side could ever be saved.
    A gold-ground icon showing a large group of nude, haloed martyrs standing together on a frozen lake beneath a blessing figure of Christ and rows of descending crowns.
    Forty Martyrs of Sebaste
    Forty Roman soldiers were left naked on a frozen lake overnight, with a heated bath in sight to tempt them into recanting their faith. All forty held firm.
    A dramatic Baroque oil painting of Roman soldiers seizing infants from screaming mothers beneath a stormy sky, with two angels holding martyrs' palms watching from the clouds above.
    The Holy Innocents
    Herod ordered every baby boy under two in Bethlehem killed to eliminate a rival he'd never seen. Matthew's Gospel records it — Christ had already escaped.
    A late-19th-century engraved portrait of Kabaka Mwanga II of Buganda, the king whose court order led to the execution of Charles Lwanga and his companions.
    Saint Charles Lwanga
    A royal page in a Ugandan king's court shielded younger boys from the king's demands and led them in refusing to renounce their new faith. He was burned alive.
    A 19th-century stained-glass window at the Abbey of Bobbio depicting Saint Columban haloed, in a white monk's habit, holding a book inscribed "Christi simus non nostri" with a dove resting near his shoulder.
    Saint Columban
    An Irish monk told a Frankish king his mistresses disqualified him from ruling, got expelled for it, and went on founding monasteries across Europe anyway.
    A relief carving on a wall in St. Gallen, Switzerland, inscribed "ST. GALLUS A.D. 612," showing the saint in a monk's habit pointing toward a bear that is standing on its hind legs beside a fire.
    Saint Gall
    Too sick to keep traveling with Columbanus, an Irish monk stayed behind by a Swiss lake and founded a hermitage that grew into one of Europe's great libraries.
    A 17th-century engraving of Saint John de Britto dressed as a Tamil ascetic, holding a pilgrim's staff and water pot, with a scene of his arrest and martyrdom depicted in the background.
    Saint John de Britto
    A Portuguese Jesuit missionary lived as a Tamil holy man rather than a European priest — until a convert's discarded wife's angry family had him beheaded.
    A tinted early-20th-century postcard portrait of a Franciscan friar in a brown hooded habit, based on a historical portrait of Junípero Serra.
    Saint Junípero Serra
    A Franciscan friar founded nine of California's 21 missions and became a canonized saint in 2015 — one of the most contested figures in US religious history.
    A c. 1520 painted altarpiece panel showing a bishop saint in gold pontifical vestments and a mitre, holding a sword in one hand and a crozier in the other, from the Mainfränkisches Museum in Würzburg.
    Saint Kilian
    An Irish missionary bishop told a Franconian duke his marriage broke canon law. The duke's furious wife had him murdered while her husband was away at war.
    A portrait painted from life around 1581 showing Saint Louis Bertrand as an older Dominican friar in black and white habit, holding a crucifix, with the inscription "Vera Efigies" (true likeness).
    Saint Louis Bertrand
    A Spanish Dominican preached to South Americans across a language barrier and spent seven years openly opposing colonial abuse of the people he converted.
    An 1890 photograph of Sister Mary MacKillop seated in her brown Josephite habit, holding a rosary and cross, with two companions standing beside her.
    Saint Mary MacKillop
    Australia's first canonized saint was briefly excommunicated by her bishop in 1871 — and later cleared, after her order reported a priest's abuse of a child.
    A 19th-century engraved portrait of a Jesuit priest in a habit, holding up a small crucifix, with a halo rendered as a glow behind his head.
    Saint Peter Claver
    A Spanish Jesuit boarded incoming slave ships in Cartagena for 40 years, climbing into the hold to bring water and medicine before the enslaved were sold.
    A painted portrait of a nun in a dark habit and white bonnet, hands folded in prayer over a map of North America, with a luminous vision of Christ appearing above her.
    Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne
    At nearly 49, a French nun who survived the Revolution sailed to the Missouri frontier and opened the first free school west of the Mississippi River.
    A 19th-century oil portrait of a bearded Capuchin friar in a brown hooded habit, representative of the religious order Blessed Solanus Casey belonged to.
    Blessed Solanus Casey
    Ordained a priest barred from hearing confessions or preaching, he spent decades answering a friary door in Detroit. Thousands came looking for him anyway.
    A white marble sculpture of the young martyr Saint Tarcisius lying fatally wounded, eyes closed, clutching the hidden Eucharist to his chest.
    Saint Tarcisius
    A young Roman carrying the Eucharist to imprisoned Christians died protecting it from a mob — a beloved story resting on a few lines of ancient poetry.
    A medieval illuminated manuscript depiction of the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, showing four armed knights attacking him with swords before the altar of Canterbury Cathedral.
    Saint Thomas Becket
    Four knights heard an English king's furious outburst as a command and killed Archbishop Thomas Becket inside Canterbury Cathedral — a well-documented murder.
    A 17th-century oil painting of a kneeling archbishop in a red cape and white vestments, praying before an altar, with a group of indigenous Andean figures standing behind him.
    Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo
    A Spanish judge who had never been ordained was named Archbishop of Lima by royal decree — and had to become a priest and a bishop within weeks of each other.
    An ancient Roman catacomb fresco of early Christians gathered together at a shared table, evoking the Sunday Eucharistic assembly the Martyrs of Abitina died defending.
    Saint Victoria of Albitina
    A young North African noblewoman jumped from a window to escape an arranged marriage, then joined 48 others arrested for celebrating the Sunday Eucharist.