As with Mary’s birth, we read of Mary’s presentation in the temple only in the apocryphal literature, Protoevangelium of James, which dates from the second century.
Martin de Porres was a mulatto, the illegitimate son of a Spanish conquistador and a freed slave woman from Panama. Martin was trained as a physician, but he also possessed gifts of healing.
John Paul II was so unrestrainedly loved, not just among Catholics but also beyond the Church. This was attributable not only to his immense charisma but also to his instinctive gifts as a communicator.
Feast Day: October 11
Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was the fourth of fourteen children born to a family of sharecroppers that lived in a village in Lombardy....
Feast Day: October 4
Francis was born to a wealthy Umbrian cloth merchant’s family. He spent his early years in song, drink, and extravagance, going through...
Feast Day: September 26
Nothing is known of their lives except that they suffered martyrdom in Syria during the persecution of Diocletian. A church erected on...
Feast Day: September 19
Januarius was the bishop of Benevento, Italy, and was beheaded during the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Diocletian (245-313). Those...
