Monday, August 12th: St Jane Frances de Chantal, religious sister (1572-1641)
Jane was married to Christophe, a French baron of an estate in bad shape and financial trouble. She managed the household, such that those in her employ loved her, and conditions improved. Her husband was killed in a hunting accident, leaving Jane alone. She was very generous to the poor.
Her spiritual director was St Francis de Sales, and they were also best friends. With his help they started the order of the Visitation. Women who were widow, or those with health condition that couldn’t withstand the austerity of other orders were welcome here
“Throw ourselves into God as a little drop of water into the sea, and lose ourselves indeed in the Ocean of the divine goodness.”
Patron: widows, forgotten people; in-law problems; loss of parents; parents separated from children
Tuesday, August 13th: St Hippolytus, Martyr (170-235)
Hippolytus of Rome was a controversial person in the church. He censured Pope Dt, Callistus I. He then, was first to be elected an antipope in the church. He was reconciled to the church, before his martyrdom. He had many writings.
“Fly to the Catholic Church! Adhere to the only faiths that continues to exist from the beginning, that faith that was preached by Paul, and is upheld by the chair of Peter.”
Patron: horses; prison guards; prison officers; prison workers
Wednesday, August 14th: St. Maximillian Kolbe, Martyr (1894-1941)
Maximillian was frail as a result of a bout of tuberculosis. He became a Franciscan and priest in Poland. He founded the Immaculata Movement, a devotion to the Blessed Mother.
Maximilian was born in 1894 in Poland and became a Franciscan. He contracted tuberculosis and, though he recovered, he remained frail all his life. Before his ordination as a priest, Maximilian founded the Immaculata Movement He took his devotion to India and Japan. After the Nazi invasion, he was imprisoned, and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. Fr Kolbe took the place of a married man, who was chosen to die.
“I pray you to tell the Brothers not to be afraid at all to love the Immaculate too much since . . . they will never love her like Jesus loved her.”
Patron: drug addicts, prisoners, families, and the pro-life movement
Thursday, August 15th: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Pope Pius XII proclaimed ““We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that the immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory.” What the pope declared was already a common belief in the Catholic Church. There are homilies on the Assumption going back to the sixth century.
Friday, August 16th: St Uguzo, Martyr (unknown)
St Uguzo is sometimes listed as Lucius. He was a shepherd in the Italian Alps, and was noted for giving to the poor and the Church. He was murdered by a former master. While there is no date connected with the saint, he was especially venerated at Milan from about 1280.
Saturday, August 17th: St Myron, Bishop (c 150-250)
St Myron is known as “the wonder worker”. He was a family man, and known for his generosity to the poor. He even helped the thieves that broke into his home to a bag of wheat, converting the lives of the thieves. The Cretan people urged him to accept ordination to the priesthood. He was then made a bishop of Raucia. He is credited with stopping the flow of a flooding river. He lived to be 100.
Sunday, August 18th: St Flores and St Lauras, maryrrs (2nd century)
They were martyrs with Maximus and Proculus. Venerated particularly by the Greeks, Florus and Laurus were twin brothers, who were stone masons. They Christianized a pagan temple and were drowned in a well as a result.
Veronicas Veil 