SAINT OF THE DAY FRIDAY, 7 AUGUST, 2026 SAINT CAJETAN CONFESSOR (1480 - 1547) In 1523, the Church was in sad shape. People could not get the spiritual nourishment they needed from the large numbers of uneducated and even immoral priests who took their money but returned nothing. When good priests and laypeople turned to the hierarchy for help, they found leaders at best apathetic and indifferent to their concerns. How should a good Catholic respond to this situation? We all known how Luther and others responded -- by splitting away from the Catholic Church when their pleas went unheard. Cajetan took a different route. Just as concerned as Luther was about what he observed in the Church, he went to Rome in 1523 -- not to talk to the pope or the hierarchy but to consult with members of a confraternity called the Oratory of the Divine Love. When he had first come to Rome many years before, he had felt called to some unknown great work there. A few years later he returned to his hometown of Vicenza -- his great work seemingly unrealized. He had however studied for the priesthood and been ordained and helped re-establish a faded confraternity whose aims were promoting God's glory and the welfare of souls. In the years he had been gone from Rome, he had founded another Oratory in his home town and Verona where he had promoted spiritual life and care for the poor and sick not only with words but with his heroic example. He told his brothers, "In this oratory we try to serve God by worship; in our hospital we may say that we actually find him." But none of the horrors he saw in the hospitals of the incurables depressed him as much as the wickedness he saw everywhere he looked. In his former confraternity, he found other clergy who felt the way he did. They didn't want to split off from the Church, they wanted to restore it. So they decided to form an order based on the lives of the apostles in the hopes that these lives would inspire them and others to live holy lives devoted to Jesus. In order to accomplish this they would focus on moral lives, sacred studies, preaching and pastoral care, helping the sick, and other solid foundations of pastoral life. This new order was known as Theatines Clerks Regular because it was an order of the regular clergy and because a bishop known as Theatensis was their first superior general (although Cajetan is considered the founder). Not surprisingly, they didn't find thousands of formerly greedy and licentious priests flocking to their door. But Cajetan and the others persevered even in the face of open opposition from laity and clergy who didn't want to reform. It was his holy example that converted many as well as his preaching. Worn out by the troubles he saw in his Church and his home, Cajetan fell ill. When doctors tried to get him to rest on a softer bed then the boards he slept on, Cajetan answered, "My savior died on a cross. Let me die on wood at least." He died on August 7, 1547. PATRON: workers; gamblers; job seekers; unemployed people; Albania; Italy; Malta; Argentina; Brazil; El Salvador; Guatemala. PRAYER: Saint Cajetan, when we see things that trouble us in our Church, help us to continue to love her. Guide us to the positive steps we need to take to work within the Church for renewal. Help us to be examples of holiness to all. Amen.
How beautiful !! I picked up from the Liturgy yesterday that the Transfiguration is a great Sign of Hope. That one day, too, we will be Transfigured.
This reminds me of the old Chinese Missionaries prayer, 'Lord convert the whole World, beginning with me!'.
SAINT OF THE DAY SATURDAY, 8 AUGUST, 2026 SAINT DOMINIC GUZMAN PRIEST AND CONFESSOR (1170 - 1221) In Calaruega, Spain, in the year AD 1170, Jane of Aza, a noblewoman, felt her unborn child leap in her womb. She had ardently prayed at the Benedictine Abbey of Silos, asking St. Dominic if he would intercede on her behalf for the blessing of another son even though she did not yet know if it was a boy or a girl. The following night, Jane had a dream in which a large dog jumped out of her belly while holding a lit candle. He lit the world on fire with this torch. She went to the Santo Domingo de Silos monastery and enquired of a monk as to what it signified. He said that the unborn child will grow up to be a renowned preacher, who would set the world ablaze with the fire of his words," Soon after, she and her husband had a boy, whom they named Dominic after the 11th-century saint, St. Dominic of Silos, in honor of whom the abbey she had visited was named. After seven years, Jane sent Dominic to study with her brother, the archpriest of Gumiel d'Izan, with immense parental satisfaction. The youngster seemed to be a voracious student who responded favorably to his instruction. Sacred Scripture, particularly the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistles of Paul, was his favorite subject to study. He was enthralled by the call to make disciples of all countries found in Matthew 28:19 as well as by Paul's unwavering fervor for sharing the Gospel with everyone. He studied the passage from Matthew 25 about the sheep and the goats with great interest since it explained how those who served others were truly serving Christ secretly. As a result, Dominic was motivated to sell even his most priceless books at the University of Palencia in order to help the less fortunate. Dominic even made an attempt to sell himself into slavery to the Moors as a teenager in an effort to free others. After completing his theological studies at Palencia, he was named a canon of the cathedral chapter in Osma and, in 1201, was selected as the community's prior.Dominic eventually received the blessing to be ordained as a priest and started his career as a regular canon in Osma. Dominic was not first exposed to the Albigensian heresy until 1203, when he traveled with Bishop Diego of Osma on a king's mission in southern France. A ostensibly Christian sect known as the Albigenses (also known as Cathars) held the view that the physical world was evil. Manicheanism, an ancient heresy, was being revived, and it gained favor in part because locals saw the priests' material prosperity and rejected it as anti-Christian. Like the Apostles, the Cathar perfecti (the equivalent of priests) would walk the countryside preaching to the people while taking nothing with them. Those who preached and lived in poverty in accordance with the Gospels were driving poor people away from the True Faith; perhaps it was more their way of life than their preaching that drew the people. Dominic and Diego stayed at an inn run by an Albigensian heretical family while they were traveling. Dominic learned this and started to probe the innkeeper. According to reports, the two of them debated doctrine and scripture the entire night. By dawn the following morning, Dominic had so tenderly trained this guy that he fell on his knees, confessed his heresy, and begged the good father's pardon. Dominic revealed to Diego his plans to start a preaching order following this encounter. This order would travel around like the Cathars did, begging for their living and engaging in direct dialogue with the populace, as well as restore church discipline in southern France. Dominic, however, would preach the Truth of Christ and His Church—he would fight this tremendous heresy one person at a time—in contrast to the Cathars. Following the completion of their royal mission, Diego and Dominic traveled to Rome to get permission from the pope to form this new preaching order. Diego was highly interested by Dominic's concept. However, Innocent III rejected their plan and requested that they work with the Cistercians in Languedoc, whom he had already assigned the job of putting an end to the Albigensian heresy. Dominic and Bishop Diego went back to France eager to comply, only to discover that the Cistercians had made conditions worse. The Cistercians' opulent lifestyle had successfully persuaded the populace that the Cathars were correct: their lack of destitution was interpreted as proof that they lacked faith and an understanding of Christ. As a result of Dominic and Diego's prompt correction of their brother priests, the Cistercians gradually realized their error.While in a coma, Dominic saw an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which eternally established a connection between Saint Dominic and the rosary. "Dear Dominic, do you know which weapon the Blessed Trinity wants to use to reform the world?" the Immaculate Mary asked St. Dominic when she arrived with three angels. Dominic replied that because the Blessed Mary is a vital element of our salvation, she knew better than he did. The Angelic Psalter*, which is the cornerstone of the New Testament, has always served as the battering ram in this type of conflict, Mary retorted. Therefore, preach my Psalter if you want to reach these hardened souls and convert them to God. He taught the Holy Rosary to the unconverted Albigenisan heretics not long after this apparition. The Saint Dominic Rosary's design was created to alter the Paternoster (150 Our Fathers) and in accordance with the revelation in the apparition. He separated the fifteen rosary mysteries into three groups of five decades each. Joyous Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries, and Glorious Mysteries were the names given to the divisions. The Albigensian heretics used this design to better comprehend and emulate the moral behavior of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Immaculate and Blessed Mary. The 150 Psalms make up the Psalter, and the "Angelic Salutation" is the "Hail Mary" prayer. She therefore requested 150 Hail Marys, or the Holy Rosary's 15 decades of Hail Marys and its 15 accompanying Mysteries. With six companions, Dominic moved into a home provided by wealthy Toulousen Peter Seila in 1215. In order to meet the spiritual demands of the era's expanding cities, Dominic recognized the need for a new kind of organization—one that would combine commitment and systematic instruction with greater organizational flexibility than either monastic orders or the secular clergy. Bishop Foulques granted him and his companions written permission to preach across Toulouse's realm once they submitted to the monastic precepts of prayer and penance. Dominic and Foulques traveled to Rome in 1215, the year of the Fourth Lateran Council, to win Pope Innocent III's support. After Dominic returned to Rome a year later, Honorius III, the new pope, eventually gave him official permission in December 1216 to found the Ordo Praedicatorum (the "Order of Preachers"). William of Montferrat, who joined Dominic as a monk in the Order of Preachers and became a close companion, and Dominic first met in the winter of 1216–1217 at the home of Ugolino de' Conti. Dominic passed away at the age of 51, "exhausted with the austerities and labors of his career." He arrived "weary and sick with a fever" in the convent of St. Nicholas in Bologna, Italy.Dominic "made the monks lay him on some sacking stretched upon the ground," and "the little time that remained to him was spent in admonishing his disciples to have charity, to guard their humility, and to make their treasure out of poverty." On August 6 at noon, he passed away.[10] In 1233, his corpse was placed to a straightforward tomb. Dominic was declared a saint in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX. The shrine was built by Nicola Pisano and his workshop for the Church of St. Dominic in Bologna, and Dominic's relics were transferred there in 1267. PATRON: Astronomers; astronomy; scientists; falsely accused people. PRAYER: O glorious St. Dominic, filled with a burning zeal for the salvation of souls, and armed with a powerful preaching, you bore witness to the truth and spread abroad the light of the Gospel. Obtain for us a share in your love for God and man, so that, following your example, we may work with tireless energy to bring all people to the knowledge and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
St Dominic reminds us that it is not just important to live our Faith but to know it too. Naturally if we love something or someone we will want to know more about it or them. There are so many wonderful disciples of St Dominic's on the internet at the moment. Lord lead me to love me more, but teach me to know you better too
From Totus Tuus page: August 8 marks the feast of St. Dominic de Guzmán, the great Spanish priest and founder of the Order of Preachers — better known as the Dominicans. Born around 1170 in Caleruega, Spain, Dominic was a man of deep prayer, rigorous study, and burning zeal for the salvation of souls. In an age marked by the Albigensian heresy, he traveled on foot across Europe, preaching the truth of the Gospel with clarity, charity, and courage. He founded a religious order dedicated to preaching, teaching, and living in evangelical poverty so that the light of Christ could reach those in darkness. Tradition holds that Our Lady appeared to St. Dominic and gave him the Rosary as a powerful weapon against error and a pathway to contemplative prayer. Whether or not every detail of that account is historical, the Dominicans have remained among the greatest promoters of the Rosary for centuries — a devotion that continues to transform lives across the world. St. Dominic’s life reminds us that authentic preaching flows from prayer and study. He once said, “Arm yourself with prayer rather than a sword; wear humility rather than fine clothes.” His motto, still lived by Dominicans today, is simply: “To praise, to bless, to preach.” On this memorial, let us ask St. Dominic’s intercession for preachers, teachers, and all who seek to share the Gospel with clarity and love. May we, like him, combine contemplation with action and never grow weary of speaking the truth in charity. St. Dominic, pray for us!
SAINT OF THE DAY SUNDAY, 9 AUGUST, 2026 SAINT TERESA BENEDICTA OF THE CROSS (EDITH STEIN) VIRGIN AND MARTYR (1891 - 1942) On August 9 the Catholic Church remembers St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as St. Edith Stein. St. Teresa converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher, and later entered the Carmelite Order. She died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942. Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891 – a date that coincided with her family's celebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement.” Edith's father died when she was just two years old, and she gave up the practice of her Jewish faith as an adolescent. As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Edith gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913. Through her studies, the non-religious Edith met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired. After earning her degree with the highest honors from Gottingen University in 1915, she served as a nurse in an Austrian field hospital during World War I. She returned to academic work in 1916, earning her doctorate after writing a highly-regarded thesis on the phenomenon of empathy. She remained interested in the idea of religious commitment, but had not yet made such a commitment herself. In 1921, while visiting friends, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila. “When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the first day of January, 1922. Edith intended to join the Carmelites immediately after her conversion, but would ultimately have to wait another 11 years before taking this step. Instead, she taught at a Dominican school, and gave numerous public lectures on women's issues. She spent 1931 writing a study of St. Thomas Aquinas, and took a university teaching position in 1932. In 1933, the rise of Nazism, combined with Edith's Jewish ethnicity, put an end to her teaching career. After a painful parting with her mother, who did not understand her Christian conversion, she entered a Carmelite convent in 1934, taking the name “Teresa Benedicta of the Cross” as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering. “I felt,” she wrote, “that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take upon themselves on everybody's behalf.” She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear. “I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,” she wrote in 1939, “so that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.” After completing her final work, a study of St. John of the Cross entitled “The Science of the Cross,” Teresa Benedicta was arrested along with her sister Rosa (who had also become a Catholic), and the members of her religious community, on August 7, 1942. The arrests came in retaliation against a protest letter by the Dutch Bishops, decrying the Nazi treatment of Jews. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942. Blessed John Paul II canonized her in 1998, and proclaimed her a co-patroness of Europe the next year. PATRON: Europe; loss of parents; martyrs. PRAYER: God of our Fathers, who brought the Martyr Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross to know your crucified Son and to imitate him even until death, grant, through her intercession, that the whole human race may acknowledge Christ as its Savior and through him come to behold you for eternity. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
St Teresa reminds me so much of Saint Thomas Aquinas. At one point ,not long before his death, he had a profound mystical experience due to which he stopped writing. He said everything he had written before was simply so much straw in the face of the reality. Edith had been a brilliant philosopher, one of the brightest of her generation yet some people would see her because of this as burying herself in a Carmel. But, like Thomas Aquinas before her she saw the direct experience of God as superior to the intellectual understanding. That when Jesus said I am the way the truth and the light by being transformed into the image of Jesus we became the living truth. This reminds of what St John of the Cross said that at the end of the day we will be judged by love. Edith understood that that is all that matters. Everything else is so much dross. We remember Teresa today not for being a brilliant philosopher but as a saint. This is where her light shines. I think her greatest sadness was about her mother. That she was never converted and was appalled by her becoming a Catholic. So sad. https://www.gtu.edu/library/resourc...ections/edith-stein-st-teresa-benedicta-cross
SAINT OF THE DAY MONDAY, 10 AUGUST, 2026 SAINT LAWRENCE OF ROME DEACON AND MARTYR (c. 225 - August 10, 258) This young deacon and heroic martyr is numbered among those saints who were most highly venerated by the ancient Roman Church. Next to the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, that of St. Lawrence ranked highest in the Roman sanctoral cycle. "From the rising of the sun unto its setting," says St. Leo, "whenever the glory of Levites beams forth in splendor, Rome is deemed no less illustrious because of Lawrence than Jerusalem because of Stephen." Legendary Acts tell how Lawrence was a disciple of Pope Sixtus II (257-258), who dearly loved him because of his special talents, but principally because of his innocence; in spite of his youth, the Pope numbered him among the seven deacons of Rome and raised him to the position of archdeacon. As such, Lawrence had the immediate care of the altar and was at the side of the saintly Pope whenever he offered the holy Sacrifice; to him also was confided the administration of the goods of the Church and the responsibility of caring for the poor. During the persecution of Emperor Valerian (253-260), Sixtus II and his four deacons were martyred. Very ardently Lawrence desired to die with his spiritual father and therefore said to him: "Father, where are you going without your son? Where are you hastening, O priest, without your deacon? Never before did you offer the holy Sacrifice without assistants. In what way have I displeased you? In what way have you found me unfaithful in my office? Oh, try me again and prove to yourself whether you have chosen an unworthy minister for the service of the Church. So far you have been trusting me with distributing the Blood of the Lord." This loving complaint of joyous self-oblation Sixtus answered with words of prophecy: "I am not forsaking you, my son; a severer trial is awaiting you for your faith in Christ. The Lord is considerate toward me because I am a weak old man. But for you a most glorious triumph is in store. Cease to weep, for already after three days you will follow me". After these comforting words he admonished him to distribute all the remaining Church goods allocated to the poor. While Lawrence was dispersing these items in the house of a certain Narcissus, a blind man named Crescentius asked for healing help by the imposition of hands. The holy deacon made the Sign of the Cross over him and the man began to see. From his relations with Pope Sixtus, it was known that he acted as the steward over the Church's property. He was arrested therefore and placed under the watch of a certain Hippolytus. There in prison Lawrence cured the blind Lucillus and several other blind persons; impressed thereby, Hippolytus embraced the faith and died a martyr. Ordered by the authorities to surrender the treasures of the Church, Lawrence asked for two days time during which to gather them. The request was granted and he brought together in the house of Hippolytus the poor and the sick whom he had supported. These he led to the judge. "Here are the treasures of the Church!" Lawrence was tortured, scourged, and scorched with glowing plates. In the midst of excruciating pain he prayed: "Lord Jesus Christ, God from God, have mercy on Your servant!" And he besought the grace of faith for the bystanders. At a certain point the soldier Romanus exclaimed: "I see before you an incomparably beautiful youth. Hasten and baptize me." He had observed how an angel dried the wounds of Lawrence with a linen cloth during his passion. Again during the night he was dragged before the judge and threatened with immediate death. But he replied: "My God I honor and Him alone I serve. Therefore I do not fear your torments; this night shall become as brightest day and as light without any darkness." When placed upon the glowing gridiron, he jested with his executioners and the cruel tyrant. "Now you may turn me over, my body is roasted enough on this side." Shortly after this had been done, he cried again: "At last I am finished; you may now take from me and eat." Then turning to God in prayer: "I thank You, O Lord, that I am permitted to enter Your portals." To comfort him during his torments God said to him: "My servant, do not be afraid. I am with you." He was put to death upon the Viminal Hill and buried on the Tiburtinian Way. Such the passion and death of this Christian hero, a story that in the Roman Breviary is told by the antiphons and responsories. Already in Constantine's time there was erected over his grave a church that belonged to the seven major basilicas of Rome, St. Lawrence Outside the Walls. PATRON: Archives; archivists; armories; armourers; brewers; butchers; Ceylon; comedians; comediennes; comics; confectioners; cooks; cutlers; deacons; fire; glaziers; laundry workers; librarians; libraries; lumbago; paupers; poor people; restauranteurs; Rome; schoolchildren; seminarians; Sri Lanka; stained glass workers; students; tanners; vine growers; vintners; wine makers. PRAYER: O God, giver of that ardor of love for you by which Saint Lawrence was outstandingly faithful in service and glorious in martyrdom, grant that we may love what he loved and put into practice what he taught. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Shortly after St Lawrence died the Roman Persecutions ceased with the coming of Constantine. Legend has it that Catholics of the period wrote this down to the death of St Lawrence . Why? Because his death was so terrible and wonderful that they reckoned that his death was what tipped the balance. ..and maybe, indeed, it was.
