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Saints O'the Day

February 12



Antony Kauleas B (RM)

(also known as Antony Cauleas)

Born near Constantinople in 829; died 901. Antony's noble, Phrygian parents had retired to the countryside near Constantinople to escape the persecution of the Iconoclasts when he was born. He became a monk at a monastery in Constantinople when he was 12 years old, and eventually became its abbot. Upon the death of Patriarch Stephen the Wise, the brother of Emperor Leo VI, Antony succeeded as patriarch of Constantinople in 893. Thus, he was the second successor to Photius, the effects of whose schism he labored to remove (and whom Leo VI exiled). Antony completed the work began by Stephen to bring peace to the Church in the East. He presided over the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (869-70), which condemned or reformed all that had been done by Photius during his last usurpation of that see after the death of Saint Ignatius. The acts of this council are entirely lost, perhaps through the malice of those Greeks who renewed this unhappy schism. A perfect spirit of mortification, penance, and prayer, sanctified this great pastor, both in his private and public life. His name is found both in the Greek Menaea and in the Roman Martyrology (Benedictines, Husenbeth).

Blessed Antony of Saxony & Companions, OFM (PC)


Died 1369. A group of Franciscan martyrs consisting of Antony of Saxony, Gregory of Tragurio, Nicholas of Hungary, Thomas of Foligno, and Ladislaus of Hungary, who were put to death for the faith by King Bazarath at the village of Widdin (in some part of former Yugoslavia) in the presence of the heretic monk by whom they had been arrested (Benedictines). Of special note considering general impatience in the West regarding the delay in beatifications, after 600 years these martyrs have never been officially beatified. Theirs is simply a popular cultus.

Benedict Revelli, OSB B (AC)


Died c. 900; cultus confirmed by Pope Gregory XVI. Benedict is said to have been a Benedictine monk of Santa Maria dei Fonti, and then a hermit on the island of Gallinaria in the Gulf of Genoa. In 870, he was chosen bishop of Albenga towards the western end of the Ligurian Riviera (Benedictines).

Damian M (RM)


The Bollandists distinguish two saints named Damian on February 12. One was a soldier martyred in Africa, probably at Alexandria; the other was a Roman martyr whose relics were found in the catacombs of Saint Callistus and sent to Salamanca, Spain (Benedictines).

Ethelwald of Lindisfarne, OSB B (AC)

(also known as Æthelweald, Aedilauld, Ethilwald, Ethelwold)

Born in Northumbria; died c. 740; second feast of the translation of his relics by King Edgar to Westminster on April 21. Ethelwald was one of Saint Cuthbert's chief assistants. He was prior and then abbot of Old Melrose in Scotland. On the death of Saint Edfrith, Ethelwald succeeded to the see of Lindisfarne. His interest in Edfrith's work is demonstrated by his patronage of the hermit Saint Billfrith, who made at his request a binding for it of gold and precious stones (now lost). His relics were translated from Lindisfarne with those of Saint Cuthbert. A stone cross bearing his name went from Lindisfarne to Durham. A compilation by him called Ymnarius Edilwaldi may be the source of the Book of Cerne (Benedictines, Farmer).

Eulalia of Barcelona VM (RM)

(also known as Aulaire, Aulazia, Ollala)

Born in Barcelona, Spain; died there in 304. Saint Eulalia was tortured and then crucified under Diocletian. Probably the same as Eulalia of Mérida, though the Catalonians stoutly deny it (Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia).

Saint Eulalia is represented in art as a maiden with a cross, stake, and dove. She is venerated in France and Spain (Roeder). Eulalia is invoked against miscarriage, for or against rain and for calm waters (Roeder).

Gaudentius of Verona B (RM)


Died c. 465. Bishop of Verona, whose relics are enshrined in the ancient Saint Stephen's Basilica there (Benedictines).

Goscelinus of Turin, OSB Abbot (AC)

(also known as Goslin, Gozzelinus)


Died 1153. The relics of Saint Goscelinus, second abbot of San Solutore near Turin (1147-1153), were translated solemnly in 1472 (Benedictines).

Blessed James Fenn and Companions (AC)

Died 1584. A group of martyrs consisting of James Fenn, John Nutter, John Munden, and Thomas Hemerford, who were martyred at Tyburn, England, and beatified in 1929. While they died during the same persecution and were beatified at the same time, they are not included among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

James Fenn was born in Montacute near Yeovil, Somerset, and was educated at Corpus Christi College and Gloucester Hall at Oxford. He became a school master and married. Upon his wife's death, he studied in Rheims and was ordained to the priesthood in 1580.

John Nutter was born near Burnley, Lancastershire, and was a fellow of Saint John's College, Cambridge. He studied for the priesthood at Rheims and was ordained in 1581.

John Munden, a native of Coltley, South Maperton, Dorset, studied at New College, Oxford, became a school master, went to Rheims and to Rome for his ecclesiastical training and was ordained in 1582.

Thomas Hemerford, a native of Dorsetshire, was educated at Saint John's College and Hart Hall, Oxford. He studied for the priesthood at the English College in Rome, where he was ordained in 1583--just a year before his death (Benedictines).

Julian the Hospitaler (AC)

(also known as Julian the Poor Man)

Fictitious; feast day of January 29 in the Acta Sanctorum appears to be arbitrary. Of the many churches, hospitals, and other charitable institutions in western Europe which bore or bear the name of Saint Julian, most commemorate this hero of a romance, a pious fiction that was very popular in the Middle Ages. There is no evidence to suggest any historicity whatsoever.

According to the James Voragine's Golden Legend, Julian the Hospitaler accidentally committed one of the worst crimes possible: He killed his parents. This was predicted one day while the nobleman was hunting. A deer reproached Julian for hunting him and said that in the future he would commit the crime. Afraid of committing such a terrible crime, Julian migrated to a far land and served the king there so well that he was knighted and given a rich widow in marriage with a castle for her dowry.

One day he returned to his castle and went to the bedroom. Unknown to him, his parents had arrived unexpectedly, and being tired had got into Julian's own bed. Julian saw two figures there and not recognizing them under the bedclothes, he supposed them to be intruders and impetuously stabbed them both to death. He suspected that another man had been in bed with Julian's own wife. However, he met her as she was returning home from church. Distraught with grief and guilt, he told her he was about to leave her, no longer fit to live with decent people. She refused to abandon him. Together they set out to attempt to make amends for his crime. They forsook their fine castle and journeyed first to Rome to obtain absolution, then as far as a swiftly flowing, wide river where they built a hospital for the poor and an inn for travellers. In addition to this work, they did penance for Julian's crime by helping travellers across the swift river.

After many years Julian was awakened one freezing night by a voice from the other side of the river crying for help. He got up, crossed over, and discovered a man almost frozen to death. Julian carried the man across the river and warmed him back to life in his own bed. The poor sufferer appeared to be a leper, but this did not stop Julian. And when the man recovered, he revealed himself to be a special messenger from God, sent to test the saint's kindness. "Julian," the leper said, "Our Lord sends you word that He has accepted your penance"

There are many saints named Julian. Some of their stories have mixed with the tale of the Hospitaler and vice versa. The one with which he is most confused is Julian the Martyr, whose wife was also named Basilissa. Nevertheless, Julian the Hospitaller's story is recorded in the sermons of Antoninus of Florence, the 13th-century work of Vincent of Beauvais, and in one of Gustave Flaubert's Trois Contes (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Farmer).

Saint Julian is depicted in his identifying scene: killing his parents in bed. Sometimes he is shown (1) as young, richly dressed with a hawk on his finger (making him difficult to distinguish from Saint Bavo); (2) holding an oar; (3) wearing a fur-lined cloak, sword, and gloves; (4) with a stag; or (5) carrying a leper over the river to his waiting wife Saint Basilissa (Roeder). Julian's legend is portrayed in several important cycles of 13th-century stained glass at both Chartres and Rouen, as well as medieval paintings elsewhere (Farmer).

He is the patron of boatmen, ferrymen, innkeepers, musicians, travellers, and wandering minstrels (Roeder).

Ludan of Alsace (AC)

(also known as Luden, Loudain)


Died c. 1202. Honored at Scherkirchen in Alsace, Ludan is said to have been a Scottish or Irish pilgrim who died in that country on his way back from Jerusalem (Benedictines).

Marina V (RM)

(also known as Pelagia)

Date unknown. Marina is said to be the daughter of Eugenius, a Bithynian who became a monk. She was brought into the monastery as a boy by her father so that he could keep her with him. She dressed as a boy and lived the life of a monk until her father died when she was 17. Marina was accused of impregnating the daughter of the local innkeeper but concealed her identity and was dismissed from the monastery.

She became a beggar at the gates of the monastery and still maintained her silence about her sex when the innkeeper's daughter made her take custody of the child. Marina was readmitted to the monastery with her 'son' five years later. She was assigned the lowliest tasks and made to perform the most severe penances.

Her sex was finally revealed at her death, when of course all concerned in the affair were filled with remorse. The whole story is typical of the pious fictions telling of women saints masquerading as men (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney).

In art, Saint Marina is generally pictured with a child in a cradle by her as she kneels in prayer. Sometimes she may be shown (1) in a monk's habit carrying the child, (2) nursing the child in a hermitage, (3) drawing a woodcart to the monastery, or (4) kneeling by an open tomb with a dove descending (Roeder). Click here to view a 8th/9th-century icon from Cyprus. Venerated in Galicia (Roeder).

Meletius of Antioch B (RM)

Born at Melitene, Lower Armenia; died in Constantinople in 381.

Meletius was born into a distinguished family and was appointed bishop of Sebastea about 358 but fled to the desert and then to Beroea, Syria, when the appointment caused great dissension. In 361, a group of Arians and Catholics elected him archbishop of Antioch, a church that had been oppressed by the Arians since the banishment of Saint Eustathius in 331. He was a compromise candidate between the two groups, and though confirmed by Emperor Constantius II, he was opposed by some Catholics because Arians had participated in his election.

The Arian hope that he would join them was dashed when he expounded the Catholic position before the pro-Arian emperor. He and several other bishops were ordered to expound upon the text of the Book of Proverbs: "The Lord has created me in the beginning of His ways." First, George of Alexandria explained it in an Arian sense. Then Acacius of Caesarea gave it a meaning bordering on the heretical, but Meletius expounded it in the Catholic sense and connected it with the Incarnation. This public testimony so angered the Arians that the Arian Bishop Eudoxus of Constantinople was able to convince the emperor to exile Meletius to Lower Armenia (only a month after he took possession of his see) and to appoint Arian Euzoius, who had previously been excommunicated by Patriarch Saint Alexander of Alexandria, to his episcopal chair. Thus began the famous Meletian schism of Antioch, although it really started with the banishment of Saint Eustathius.

On the death of the emperor in 361, his successor, Julian, recalled Meletius, who found that in his absence, a faction of the Catholic bishops, led by Lucifer Cagliari, had elected Paulinus archbishop.

The Council of Alexandria in 362 was unsuccessful in healing the breach, and an unfortunate rift between Saint Athanasius and Meletius in 363 exacerbated the matter. During the next 15 years, Meletius was exiled (356-66 and 371-78) by Emperor Valens while the conflict between the Arian and Catholic factions raged.

Gradually, Meletius's influence in the East grew as more bishops supported him. By 379, the bishops backing him numbered 150, in contrast to his 26 supporters in 363. The rift between the contending Catholic factions, however, continued despite the untiring efforts of Saint Basil, who was unswerving in his support of Meletius, to resolve the matter.

In 374, the situation was further complicated when Pope Damasus recognized Paulinus as archbishop, appointed him papal legate in the East, and Saint Jerome allowed himself to be ordained a priest by Paulinus. In 378, the death of the avidly pro-Arian Valens led to the restoration of the banished bishops by Emperor Gratian, and Meletius was reinstated. He was unable to reach an agreement with Paulinus before his death in Constantinople in May while presiding at the third General Council of Constantinople. His funeral was attended by all the fathers of the council and the faithful of the city. Saint Gregory of Nyssa delivered his funeral panegyric (Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Walsh).

Modestus, Deacon M (RM)


Died c. 304. Saint Modestus is said to have been a native of Sardinia. He was martyred during the Diocletian persecutions. His relics were translated to Benevento, Italy, about 785 (Benedictines).

Modestus and Ammonius MM (RM)


Date unknown. This pair was martyred at Alexandria, Egypt. They are said to have been the children of Saint Damien, martyr. Nothing is really known about them (Benedictines).

Modestus and Julian MM (Rm)


Date unknown. The association of these two in the Roman Martyrology is arbitrary. Modestus was martyred at Carthage; Julian at Alexandria about 160. The former is venerated as the patron saint of Cartagena, Spain (Benedictines).

Nicholas Herman

Born in Lorraine, France, 1610; died in 1691. Note: I'm not absolutely sure that Brother Lawrence is considered a saint by the Church, but I certainly do.

Better known as Brother Lawrence, Nicholas was a contemporary of Pascal, though, unlike him, a simple and ignorant man, reared in a peasant's cottage. He enlisted as a soldier and narrowly escaped being shot as a spy. He was wounded and remained lame for life. He then found employment as a footman, but was so clumsy that he was always breaking things. Later he became a lay brother in a Carmelite monastery in Paris, where he worked in the kitchen.

He had been converted at he age of 18. Like Jeremiah he had see a tree in winter stripped bare yet with signs of the promise of spring, and from that moment he loved and served God with a simple and unquestioning faith. His book Practice of the Presence of God is the story of his heart, and is a lively devotional classic, in which he sets down the intimate details of his daily drudgery and is never afraid to laugh at himself. When sent to Burgundy to buy wine for the monastery with but little idea how to set about it, having no head for business, and being so lame that he had to roll himself over the casks, he had no worry, he tells us, but left himself in God's hands. It was God's business and God would see it done. And the business, he adds, went through well.

In the kitchen also, where he was set to work, 'having accustomed himself to do everything there for the love of God and with prayer upon all occasions for His grace to do His work well, he had found everything easy, during 15 years he had been employed there.' The times of prayer, he declared, should be no different from other times, and he found himself more united to God in his outward employments than when he retired to pray.

Of all the stories of the saints, few are more remarkable than that of this simple man, this big, clumsy ex-serviceman with his lame foot and awkward movements, hobbling round the kitchen, disliking his work but full of gentleness and good humor, laughing at mishaps, content to serve God in a humble way. And when after many years he was too old for the kitchen, he continued, until his death at 82, to potter around and make himself useful.

"Lift up your heart to God," he said, "sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company. . . . It is not necessary for being with God to be always at church: we may make an oratory of our hearts."

To a soldier on active service he wrote: "A little lifting up of the heart suffices: a little remembrance of God, one act of inward worship, though upon a march and sword in hand, are prayers which, however short, are nevertheless very acceptable to God." "The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament" (Gill).

Blessed Nicholas Saggio, O. Minim. (AC)


Born in Longobardi, Calabria, Italy; died 1709; beatified by Pius VI. Born of poor parents, Nicholas became a lay brother in the Order of Minims of Saint Francis of Paola (Benedictines).

Sedulius (PC)

(also known as Seadhal, Siadal)


5th century. Sedulius is known as the Christian Virgil on the strength of his epic poem Carmen Paschale. He left Ireland to found a school of poetry in Athens, proving that outstanding scholarship existed on the Emerald Isle prior Saint Patrick. While he was still in Ireland, he may have been a disciple of Saint Ailbhe. In 494, a decree of the First Roman Council contained a phrase "honoring by signal praise the Paschal Work of the Venerable man, Sedulius" (Montague).


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Copyright © 1999 | Katherine I. Rabenstein | Created March 1999