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St. Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad
Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad, who was born to a poor Lutheran family in Sweden, immigrated to the United States in 1888 and enrolled in nursing school in New York City. There,…
Illustration by Frank Kacmarcik, OblSB, Saint John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota. Used with permission.
Sts. Mary and Elizabeth
Today’s feast does not commemorate one saint but a meeting between two pregnant saints: Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her kinswoman Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. According to…
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Servant of God Emil Kapaun
Army chaplain Emil Kapaun, a priest from Pilsen, Kansas, shipped out to Korea in July 1950, soon after the outbreak of war, along with the Eighth Cavalry Division, Third Battalion.…
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Julian of Norwich
Little is known of this extraordinary Englishwoman apart from what she recorded in the account of her mystical revelations. There she recorded how she had prayed in her youth that…
Painted by Plautilla Nelli from Wikimedia Commons
St. Catherine of Siena
St. Catherine of Siena was one of the greatest saints of a tumultuous era. Like other great mystics, she enjoyed an intimate relationship with Christ. This was certified by a…
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Cesar Chavez
In the early 1960s, Cesar Chavez wrote a new chapter in the history of the American labor movement by organizing the first successful union of farmworkers. Through his commitment to…
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Blessed Lucien Botovasoa
Lucien Botovasoa was born to a family of poor farmers in a small village in Madagascar. At thirteen he was baptized in the Christian faith; his parents followed later. After…
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Blessed Ursulina of Parma
Ursulina, a young girl of Parma, began receiving heavenly visions and other mystical experiences from an early age. By the time she was fifteen, she felt called to a daunting…
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Pandita Ramabai
Pandita Ramabai, the daughter of a wealthy Brahmin scholar and his much younger wife, was born in Karnataka, India. Having been instructed by her father to read Sanskrit, she set…
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Maria von Trapp
Maria Kutschera, who was orphaned at seven, grew up with no interest in religion; for the “holy water girls” in her class, she felt only scorn. Yet, while studying to…
