| 27 December |
• yesterday • tomorrow |
| Feast of John, Apostle and Evangelist |
• Apostle of Charity
• Beloved Apostle
• Beloved Disciple
• Giovanni Evangelista
• John the Divine
• John the Evangelist
• John the Theologian
• 8 May (Greek Orthodox)
• 6 May (before the Latin gate)
Son of Zebedee and Salome. Fisherman. Brother of Saint James the Greater, and called one of the Sons of Thunder. Disciple of Saint John the Baptist. Friend of Saint Peter the Apostle. Called by Jesus during the first year of His ministry, and traveled everywhere with Him, becoming so close as to be known as the beloved disciple. Took part in the Last Supper. The only one of the Twelve not to forsake the Saviour in the hour of His Passion, standing at the foot of the cross. Made guardian of Our Lady by Jesus, and he took her into his home. Upon hearing of the Resurrection, he was the first to reach the tomb; when he met the risen Lord at the lake of Tiberias, he was the first to recognize Him.
During the era of the new Church, he worked in Jerusalem and at Ephesus. During Jesus' ministry, he tried to block a Samaritan from their group, but Jesus explained the open nature of the new Way, and he worked on that principle to found churches in Asia Minor and baptizing converts in Samaria. Imprisoned with Peter for preaching after Pentecost. Wrote the fourth Gospel, three Epistles, and possibly the Book of Revelation. Survived all his fellow apostles.
Traditional stories:
• Emperor Dometian had him brought to Rome, beaten, poisoned, and thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, but he stepped out unharmed and was banished to Patmos instead. This is commemorated by the feast of Saint John before the Latin Gate.
• When John was en route to preach in Asia, his ship was wrecked in a storm; all but John were cast ashore. John was assumed dead, but two weeks later the waves cast him ashore alive at the feet of his disciple Prochoros.
• When John denounced idol worship as demonic, followers of Artemis stoned him; the rocks turned and hit the throwers.
• He prayed in a temple of Artemis; fire from heaven killed 200 men who worshipped the idol. When the remaining group begged for mercy, he raised the 200 from the dead; they all converted and were baptized.
• Drove out a demon who had lived in a pagan temple for 249 years.
• Aboard ship, he purified vessels of sea water for drinking.
• Ceonops, a magician, pretended to bring three dead people come to life; the "people" were actually demons who mimicked people so the magician could turn people away from Christ. Through prayer, John caused the magician to drown and the demons to vanish.
• Once a year his grave gave off a fragrant dust that cured the sick.
• c.101 at Ephesus (in modern Turkey)
• a church was built over his tomb, which was later converted to a mosque
• against burns; burn victims
• against epilepsy
• against foot problems
• against hailstorms
• against poisoning
• art dealers
• authors, writers
• basket makers
• bookbinders
• booksellers
• butchers
• compositors
• editors
• engravers
• friendships
• glaziers
• government officials
• harvests
• lithographers
• notaries
• painters
• papermakers
• printers
• publishers
• saddle makers
• scholars
• sculptors
• tanners
• theologians
• typesetters
• vintners
• Asia Minor (proclaimed on 26 October 1914 by Pope Benedict XV)
• 6 dioceses
• 7 cities
• book
• cauldron
• chalice
• chalice with a serpent in allusion to the cup of sorrow foretold by Jesus
• eagle, representing his role as the evangelist who most concentrated on Jesus's divine nature
• serpent
O God, who by the mouth of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John hast revealed unto us the deep mystery of the incarnate word: grant that the doctrine, which through his most excellent teaching hath entered into our ears, our hearts may duly understand and believe. - Leonine Sacramentary
https://catholicsaints.info/saint-john-the-apostle/
Sára Schalkház
Second of three children born to Leopold and Klotild Salkahaz, hotel owners. Her father died when Sara was two. Her brother described her as "a tomboy with a strong will and a mind of her own; when it came to play she would always join the boys in their games or tug of war". She began writing plays as a teenager, and at the same time developed a deep prayer life. She received a degree and taught elementary school for a year, but gave it up to work as a bookbinder. She began writing again, and was active in the Hungarian literary world. Journalist. Member of the leadership of the National Christian Socialist Party of Czechoslovakia, and editor of the Party newspaper.
Sara was engaged to be married, but broke it off when she realized a call to a different life. Joined the Sisters of Social Service in 1929, making her vows in 1930. Worked at the Catholic Charities Office in Kosice, Slovakia. Supervised charity efforts, taught religion, lectured, continued to write, and she organized groups of lay women to help with the Church's social work. Organized a national Catholic Women's Association. Sara worked herself to complete exhaustion; seeing this, her supervisors refused to allow her to take her final vows in the Sisters. However, Sara lived the rest of her life with self-imposed restrictions as though she had taken vows.
In 1941 she was assigned to be national director of the Hungarian Catholic Working Women's Movement which had about 10,000 members across the country, and edited its magazine. Wrote against Nazism. She continued her social work with the poor and the displaced, and started hostels to provide safe housing for working single women, and as a place to hide Jews and others being sought by the Nazis. Started vocational schools, leadership classes for working lay people, and retreat centers for them. On 27 December 1944 Nazis surround the Working Women's Hostel, 4 Bokréta-Street, Budapest, looking for Jews. When Sára arrived, she immediately introduced herself as being in charge of the house. She and five others were taken by the Nazis to the Danube, stripped naked, and murdered; the Sisters saved more than 1,000 people.
11 May 1899 in Kassa, Hungary (modern Košice, Slovakia)
• shot on 27 December 1944 by members of the Arrow Cross Party on the banks of the River Danube in Budapest, Hungary
• body thrown into the Danube
• 17 September 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI
• recognition celebrated at Budapest, Hungary by Cardinal Peter Erdo
• first non-aristocrat Hungarian to be beatified
Sara Salkahazi heroically exercised her love of humanity stemming from her Christian faith. This is for what she gave her life. - Cardinal Peter Erdo, celebrant of the beatification mass for Blessed Sara, 17 September 2006
I am grateful to you for the love you have given me. My dear Jesus, I place this love into your hands: keep it chaste and bless it so that it may always be rooted in You. And increase in me my love for You. I know that if I love You, I can never get lost. If I want to be yours with all my heart, you will never let me stray from You. - Blessed Sara in her spiritual diary
To love, even when it is difficult, even when my heart has complaints, when, I feel rejected! Yes, this is what God wants! I will try; I want to start - even if I would fail - until I will be able to love. The Lord God gives me grace, and I have to work with that grace. - Blessed Sara in her spiritual diary
I want to follow you wherever you take me, freely, willingly, joyfully. Break my will! Let your will reign in me! I do not want to make my own plans. Let your will be done in me and through me. No matter how hard it might be, I want to love Your will! I want to be one with You, my Beloved, my Spouse. - Blessed Sara in her spiritual diary
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-sara-salkahazi/
• Nicarete of Nicomedia
• Niceras, Nikarete, Nicaretes
Wealthy Byzantine noble woman who lived in Constantinople in private vows of chastity, and used her position to help the poor and sick. Close friend of Saint John Chrysostom, and was exiled with him. When the soldiers came to escort her from the city, and steal any money or jewels she was taking on the trip, they found she had nothing left - she had already given all her possessions to the poor.
4th century Nicomedia, Bithynia, Asia Minor (modern Izmit, Turkey)
c.405 of natural causes
Among the zealous men and excellent women who adopted this latter measure was Nicarete, a lady of Bithynia. She belonged to a noted family of the nobility, and was celebrated on account of her perpetual virginity and her virtuous life. She was the most modest of all the zealous women that we have ever known, and was well ordered in manner and speech and in behavior, and throughout her life she invariably preferred the service of God to all earthly considerations. She showed herself capable of enduring with courage and thought the sudden reversals of adverse affairs; she saw herself unjustly despoiled of the greater part of her ample patrimony without manifesting any indignation, and managed the little that remained to her with so much economy, that although she was advanced in age, she contrived to supply all the wants of her household, and to contribute largely to others.
Since she loved a humane spirit, she also prepared a variety of remedies for the needs of the sick poor, and she frequently succeeded in curing patients who had derived no benefit from the skill of the customary physicians. With a devout strength which assisted her in reaching the best results, she closed her lips. To sum up all in a few words, we have never known a devoted woman endowed with such manners, gravity, and every other virtue. Although she was so extraordinary, she concealed the greater part of her nature and deeds; for by modesty of character and philosophy she was always studious of concealment. She would not accept of the office of deaconess, nor of instructress of the virgins consecrated to the service of the Church, because she accounted herself unworthy, although the honor was frequently pressed upon her by John. - from Ecclesiastical History, chapter 23, by Hermias Sozomen, translated by Chester D Hartranft
https://catholicsaints.info/saint-nicarete-of-constantinople/
• one of the Grapti, from the Greek graptoi = "written upon"
• Theodorus the Branded
• Theodorus the Lettered-Upon
• Theodore
Son of Venerable Jonah the Presbyter. Brother of Saint Theophanes of Nicaea. Grew up in Jerusalem as a pious youth, but little is known of his early life. Monk at Saint Sabas' laura in Jerusalem. Known for his intelligence and fidelity to their rule.
Strong defender of sacred images during the time of the inconoclasts. Persecuted for their beliefs by Byzantine iconoclast Emperor Leo V the Armenian beginning c.813. Priest. Sent as the Patriach's emissary to the court in Constantinople to persuade Leo not to interfere in ecclesiastical matters. Leo had Theodorus scourged, then exiled him and Theophanes to a barren island in the Black Sea.
After the emperor's death, the brothers returned to the monastery in 820. They were tortured and banished again in 829 when the iconoclast emperor Theophilus came to power. Recalled to Constantinople in 831 they were offered the chance to discuss matters with the iconoclasts and change their minds. They refused, and their tormenters took two days to cut a 12-line iambic verse into their foreheads. They were then tortured and banished to Apamea, Bithynia. Theodorus died in prison, and is considered a martyr.
c.775 at Kerak, Moab (Trans-Jordan)
c.841 at Apamea, Bithynia from the privations of prison life
These men have appeared at Jerusalem as vessels full of the iniquity of superstitious error, and were driven thence for their crimes. Having fled to Constantinople, they forsook not their impiety. Wherefore they have been banished from thence and thus stigmatized on their faces. - translation of the verse cut into the forehead of Saint Theodore
https://catholicsaints.info/saint-theodorus-of-apamea/
• one of the Grapti, from the Greek graptoi = "written upon"
• Theophanes the Hymnographer
• Theophan
Son of Venerable Jonah the Presbyter. Brother of Saint Theodorus. Grew up in Jerusalem as a pious youth, but little is known of his early life. Monk at Saint Sabas' laura in Jerusalem. Known for his intelligence and fidelity to their rule.
Priest. Strong defender of sacred images during the time of the inconoclasts. Persecuted for their beliefs by Byzantine iconoclast Emperor Leo V the Armenian beginning c.813, including exile with his brother Theodorus to a barren island in the Black Sea.
After the emperor's death, the brothers returned to the monastery in 820. They were tortured and banished again in 829 when the iconoclast emperor Theophilus came to power. Recalled to Constantinople in 831, they were offered the chance to discuss matters with the iconoclasts and change their minds. They refused, and their tormenters took two days to cut a 12-line iambic verse into their foreheads. They were then tortured and banished to Apamea, Bithynia.
Theophanes lived to see the resolution Iconoclast controversy in 842. Archbishop of Nicaea from 842 until his death. He wrote a many religious poems and hymns, including one on his brother.
c.775 at Kerak, Moab (Trans-Jordan)
11 October 845 at Nicaea of natural causes
These men have appeared at Jerusalem as vessels full of the iniquity of superstitious error, and were driven thence for their crimes. Having fled to Constantinople, they forsook not their impiety. Wherefore they have been banished from thence and thus stigmatized on their faces. - translation of the verse cut into the forehead of Saint Theophanes
https://catholicsaints.info/saint-theophanes-of-nicaea/
Born to the Roman patrician class. Divorced from her first marriage after being abused by her adulterous husband. Widowed in second marriage. Friend of Saint Jerome, Saint Paula of Rome, and Saint Pammachius. Founded the first hospital in the west. Built a hospice in Porto Romano for the area poor and for sick pilgrims. After doing penance for her divorce, she re-entered communion with the Church by dispensation of Pope Saint Siricius. Pilgrim to the Holy Lands in 394 where she worked in a hospice in Bethlehem. Wanted to live as a hermit in Jerusalem, but never managed it. Saint Jerome wrote of her life.
4th century in Rome, Italy
399 in Rome, Italy of natural causes
• difficult marriages
• divorced people
• victims of abuse
• victims of adultery
• victims of unfaithfulness
• widows
https://catholicsaints.info/saint-fabiola-of-rome/
Edward Focherini
Layman in the diocese of Carpi, Italy. Married, a father of seven, who worked as a journalist. Focherini provided Jews with false documents so they could escape Nazi death camps by emigrating to Switzerland. Arrested by the Nazi authorities, he was sentenced to a concentration camp where he later died. Martyr. In 1969 he was proclaimed a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem, the official Israeli Holocaust memorial.
6 June 1907 in Carpi, Modena, Italy
27 December 1944 in Hersbruck concentration camp, Nürnberger Land, Germany from an untreated leg infection
• 15 June 2013 by Pope Francis
• beatification recognition celebrated at the Piazza Martiri, Carpi, Modena, Italy, presided by Cardinal Angelo Amato
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-odoardo-focherini/
Alfredo of the Virgin
Member of the Piarists, making his vows on 13 August 1916. Began working in the Pious Schools in Villacarriedo, Spain in 1922. Ordained in Palencia, Spain on 3 March 1928. Arrested on 17 November 1936 for the crime of being a Catholic priest during the Spanish Civil War; he was imprisoned on a ship in the port of Santander. He was "tried" on 27 December 1936 and offered clemency if he would deny being a priest and a Piarst; he declined. Martyr.
2 June 1899 in Cilleruelo de Bricia, Burgos, Spain
shot in the head on 27 December 1936 in on a prison ship in the harbor of Santander, Cantabria, Spain
1 October 1995 by Pope John Paul II
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-alfredo-parte-saiz/
Priest. Member of the Congregation of Missionary Servants of the Poor. Chosen superior general of the Congregation in 1959. He re-vitalized the group, encouraging vocations, and leading missionaries to Biringi, Congo. Beaten by Simba rebels in the middle of the Congo civil war, he suffered for 11 days before dying from the injuries; he forgave his killers. Martyr.
8 July 1924 in Raffadali, Agrigento, Italy
27 December 1964 at Erira, Orientale (modern Democratic Republic of Congo) after having been attacked by Simba rebels on 11 December 1964
• 21 April 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI
• recognition celebrated at Palermo, Sicily, officiated by Cardinal Salvatore de Giorgi
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-francesco-spoto/
Born to the nobility. Courtier to Emperor Lothair III of Süpplingenburg. Having heard Saint Norbert of Xanten preach, Roger gave up the worldly life to become a wandering Premonstratensian preacher. Monk at the Prémontré monastery in Laon, France. In 1135 he was assigned by Blessed Hugh of Fosse to lead a group of monks at the monastery of Saint-Paul in Verdun, France; he served as their abbot until his death, and under his leadership the house grew to 300 brothers.
late 11th century Germany
1138 of natural causes
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-roger-of-verdun/
Kristina Ebner
Daughter of Seyfried Ebner and Elizabeth Kuhdorf. Entered the Dominican monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Engeltal in the Burgraviate of Nuremberg (in modern Germany) at age twelve. Nun. Visionary. Wrote an account of her visions and spiritual journey. Prioress of her house.
Good Friday, 26 March 1277 in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany
27 December 1356 in Engeltal, Nuremberg, Germany of natural causes
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-christina-ebner/
Ambrosio of Santibáñez
Franciscan Capuchin priest. Martyred in the Spanish Civil War.
24 October 1888 in Santibáñez de la Isla, Léon, Spain
27 December 1936 in Santander, Cantabria, Spain
13 October 2013 by Pope Francis
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-alejo-pan-lopez/
Balto of Wessobrünn
Benedictine monk. Abbot of Wessobrünn in Bavaria in 1129. Brought many benefactors to the abbey due to his goodness and miracles.
1090
1156 of natural causes
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-walto-of-wessobrunn/
Esso, Esson, Hesson
Benedictine monk. Procurator at the abbey of Hirschau under Blessed William. Formed the abbey in Beinwil, Switzerland in 1085, and served as its first abbot.
1133 of natural causes
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-hesso-of-beinwil/
Born to an aristocratic family. Benedictine Cistercian nun and recluse at Tennenbach Abbey.
at Thöningen, Germany
1273 at Tennenbach Abbey in Germany of natural causes
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-adelheidis-of-tennenbach/
Mercedarian monk at the convent of Saint Eulalia in Lerida, Spain.
https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-raymond-de-barellis/
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