Blessed Joan was born to a noble family in France. As a child, it was said that her prayers had saved a neighbor boy, Robert de Sille, after he fell into a pond and nearly drowned. When Joan turned sixteen, she and Robert were married. Although they elected to maintain a celibate relationship, they were apparently a devoted couple and together they adopted and raised three orphans. During an invasion by the English, Robert was taken captive and held for ransom. He managed to escape, and afterward he and Joan devoted themselves to the ransom of other prisoners.
This charity infuriated Robert’s family. Upon Robert’s death in 1362, they expelled Joan from their house. For several years she supported herself as best she could, eventually learning to prepare medicines and becoming a Franciscan tertiary. But for a while she was reduced to living in pigsties and dog kennels. When her in-laws eventually restored her property, she gave it all to the Carthusians, and at the age of fifty-seven retired to a small room in Tours, where she devoted herself to prayer and works of mercy. Though some considered her mad, many others recognized her evident holiness. She was known for her gift of prophecy and her special dedication to prisoners – whether criminals or captives of war. At one time, she even persuaded the king to release all the prisoners of Tours. She died on March 28, 1414, and was beatified in 1871.
Blessed Mark, who was born in Montegallo, Italy, studied medicine, married and worked as a doctor for some years. At a certain point, he and his wife both agreed that their true vocations were to religious life. So they parted, she to become a Poor Clare, while he entered the Franciscan community in Fabriano. After his talents as a preacher were discovered, he embarked on a preaching tour that essentially lasted forty years. In prayer one day he heard a voice that said, “Brother Mark, preach love!” This became his central theme – the love of God and one’s neighbor.
In his dedication to the poor, Mark sought to find a remedy for the terrible suffering cause by predatory loan sharks. He established what were called monti di pieta – essentially pawn shops that offered small loans in exchange for some modest collateral. Later these became banks that lent money at little or no interest. He easily raised the necessary funds through his preaching.
Eventually, age and the strenuousness of his itinerant ministry caught up with him. In Vincenza, where he lay dying on March 19, 1496, he asked to hear the Passion read aloud. Upon hearing the words, “It is consummated,” he breathed his last.
Maria Rita de Souza Pontes was born in Salvador, Brazil, to a well-to-do family. As a child, the sight of homeless beggars in her neighborhood inspired her to devote her life to the poor. At eighteen, she joined the Congregation of Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, a Franciscan community founded in Brazil in 1910. She took the religious name Dulce after her mother, who had died when Maria was just three years old.
Within a year of entering religious life, she had formed the Workers Union of St. Francis, the first Christian workers’ movement in Brazil. Meanwhile she took to sheltering homeless sick people in abandoned houses, begging for food and medicine. As their numbers steadily increased, Dulce asked permission from her superior to house them in chicken sheds on the convent grounds. Eventually this gave rise to St. Anthony’s Hospital, a complex of medical, educational, and social services. She could never pass a person in need without seeing the face of Christ:
“We may be the last door, and for this reason we cannot close.”
Twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, Sister Dulce became one of the most beloved figures in Brazil. She died on March 13, 1992, and was beatified in 2011.
Angela Salawa was born to a poor family in Krakow, Poland. At the age of sixteen, she found work as a maid and lived a carefree and worldly life. A turning point came as she was dancing during a wedding reception and suddenly perceived that Christ was standing in the room, seeming to hold her in a gaze of loving reproach. Immediately she went to a nearby church, where she prayed for the courage to amend her life. Rather than enter a religious order, she decided to pursue a life of prayer and service in the world. In 1912, she became a Third Order Franciscan.
With the outbreak of World War I, Krakow was evacuated, but Angela chose to remain, nursing soldiers and prisoners of war while offering comfort to all who suffered. In her diary, she wrote to Christ:
“I want you to be adored as much as you were destroyed.”
Her own health suffered, but no one noticed. In 1916, she was fired by her employer, who accused her of stealing. Penniless and without other resources, she lived out her last years in a basement room, where she died alone on March 12, 1922, at the age of forty.
Despite her obscurity, her reputation of holiness endured beyond her death. She was beatified in 1991 by Pope John Paul II.
St. Catherine was raised in luxury in a noble family in Bologna. Yet, at fourteen, she persuaded her family to let her join a community of Franciscan tertiary. From an early age she had experienced visions of Jesus, “who would enter into her soul like a radiant sunshine to establish there the profoundest peace.” But there were also demonic thoughts that sometimes plunged her into despair. Through constant prayer she vanquished such doubts, and one night during the Christmas Vigil she was rewarded by a vision of the Blessed Mother, who offered her the great privilege of holding her infant Son. “I leave you to picture the joy of this poor creature,” she wrote, “when she found herself holding the Son of the eternal Father in her arms. Trembling with respect, but still more overcome with joy, she took the liberty of caressing Him, of pressing Him against her heart and of bringing His face to her lips…”
After some years Catherine was directed to take charge of a convent of Poor Clares in Bologna. Her reputed gifts of healing and prophecy – as well as her deep kindness – attracted many novices. Whenever she had to correct a young sister, she would insist on sharing in her punishment. When on of the novices was tempted to leave, Catherine pledged to take her place in purgatory until the end of time if only she would remain. (The novice stayed.)
Among her last instructions: “If you would have all, you must give all.” She died on March 9, 1463, and was canonized in 1712. Apart from several devotional books, Catherine left behind a number of hymns and paintings. She is honored as a patron of artists.
Benedict Sinigardi was born to a wealthy and noble family in Arezzo. In 1211, he heard St. Francis preach in his town, and his heart was immediately won. Abandoning his life of luxury, he was welcomed into the Order of Friars Minor, receiving his habit from St. Francis himself. At twenty-seven, he was appointed provincial of the Marche region. Afterward, he was sent on a missionary journey that took him to Greece, Romania, and Turkey. He built the first Franciscan monastery in Constantinople and then went on to the Holy Land, where he served as provincial for sixteen years. In his old age, he returned to Arezzo, where he died in 1282.
There are no surviving writings by Blessed Benedict, but he is credited with estab- lishing the Angelus Prayer, a commemoration of the Incarnation, which became one of the most popular devotions in Christendom. Deriving its name from the first words, “The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary,” the prayer consists of the recital of three verses from Scripture with an accompanying response, interspersed by a Hail Mary. It was traditionally recited three times a day, and in many towns in Europe it is still signaled by the ringing of church bells at noon.
It is very suggestive that we stop in the middle of the day for a moment of Marian prayer. It is now unique, because we are in the place where, according to tradition, it was the custom to recite the Angelus Domini.
