If we really want to follow Christ we must live as He lived and died.

Before implementing their plan to exterminate the Jewish people, the Nazis advertised their intentions through a number of public spectacles. The most dramatic of these occurred on the night of November 9, 1938, when Nazi storm troopers throughout Germany mounted a coordinated assault on the Jewish community.

Mary gathered a group of coworkers who supported themselves doing laundry while visiting the sick poor in their homes.

Sadako Sasaki was two years old on August 6, 1945, when an American atomic bomb named Little Boy was dropped on her city of Hiroshima.

The work of the Passionists was to preach to the poor, principally on the theme of Christ’s passion. It is said that, while listening to his sermons, even battle-hardened soldiers would “tremble from head to foot.”

Fry was motivated by the conviction that prisoners, regardless of their crimes, were human beings who bore within them the spark of the divine image.

For many Christians over the past thousand years, the example of St. Francis has offered a distinctive key to the Gospel.

Mosaic of the Archangel Michael on the northern entrance of the Church of Saint Spyridon, Trieste, Italy. Image attained via Getty Images

Statue of Blessed Emily Tavernier. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Dante Alighieri, one of the great literary geniuses of all time, was also a man of action, committed to social justice and the affairs of his native Florence.