Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Feast date: Nov 21

The Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, celebrated annually on November 21st, commemorates the presentation of the Blessed Virgin as a child by her parents in the Temple in Jerusalem. Before Mary’s birth, her parents received a heavenly message that they would bear a child. In thanksgiving for the God’s gift of Mary’s birth, they brought her to the Temple to consecrate their only daughter to The Lord.The celebration of the Feast is first documented in the 11th century within the Byzantine Catholic Church. It was introduced into the Roman Catholic Church in the 15th century by Pope Gregory XI, then removed from the calendar by Pope Pius V in the mid 16th century. Pope Sixtus V later reestablished the feast in 1585, and it is still celebrated today, commemorating the faith of her parents, Joachim and Anne, and the purity of Mary.

St. Bernward

Feast date: Nov 20

Saint Bernward served as the thirteenth Bishop of Hildesheim, Germany during the middle of the tenth century. His grandfather was Athelbero, Count Palatine of Saxony. After having lost his parents, Bernward was sent to live with his uncle Volkmar, who was the Bishop of Utrecht. His uncle enlisted the assistance of Thangmar, the pious and well-educated director of the cathedral school at Heidelberg, the help with Bernward’s education.

Under the instruction of Thangmar, Bernward made rapid progress in Christian piety as well as in the sciences. He became very proficient in mathematics, painting, architecture, and particularly in the manufacture of ecclesiastical vessels and ornaments made of silver and gold.

Saint Bernward completed his studies at Mainz, where he was then ordained a priest. In lieu of being placed in the diocese of his uncle, Bishop Volkmar, he chose to remain near his grandfather, Athelbero, to comfort him in his old age. Upon his grandfather’s death in 987, he became chaplain in the imperial court, and the Empress-Regent Theophano quickly appointed him to be tutor of her son Otto III, who was only six years old at the time. Bernward remained at the imperial court until 993, when he was elected Bishop of Hildesheim.

A man of extraordinary piety, he was deeply devoted to prayer as well as the practice of mortification, and his knowledge and practice of the arts were employed generously in the service of the Church.

Shortly before his death in 1022, he was vested in the Benedictine habit. He was canonized by Pope Celestine III in 1193.

St. Raphael Kalinowski

Feast date: Nov 19

Saint Raphael was born  in 1835 as Joseph, son of Andrew and Josepha Kalinowski in present day Lithuania. Saint Raphael felt a call to the priesthood early in his life, but decided to complete his education. He studied zoology, chemistry, agriculture, and apiculture at the Institute of Agronomy in Hory Horki, Russia, and at the Academy of Military Engineering in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Saint Raphael became a Lieutenant in the Russian Military Engineering Corps in 1857. During his post he was responsible for the planning and supervised construction of the railway between Kursk and Odessa. He was promoted to captain in 1862 and stationed in Brest-Litovsk. In Bret-Litovsk he started, taught, and covered all the costs of a Sunday school, accepting anyone interested.

In 1863 he supported the Polish insurrection. He resigned from the Russian army and became the rebellion’s minister of war for the Vilna region. He only took the commission with the understanding that he would never hand out a death sentence nor execute a prisoner. He was soon arrested by Russian authorities, and in June of 1864 he was condemned to death for his part in the revolt. Fearing they would be creating a political martyr, they commuted his sentence to ten years of forced labour in the Siberian salt mines. Part of his sentence was spent in Irkutsk, where his relics have been moved to sanctify the new cathedral.

Upon his release in 1873, he was exiled from his home region in Lithuania. He moved to Paris, France, and worked there as a tutor for three years. In 1877 he finally answered the long-heard call to the religious life, and joined the Carmelite Order at Graz, Austria, taking the name Raphael. He studied theology in Hungary and then joined the Carmelite house in Czama, Poland. He was ordained on January 15, 1882.

Saint Raphael worked to restore the Discalced Carmelites to Poland, and for church unity. He founded a convent at Wadowice, Poland in 1889, and worked alongside Blessed Alphonsus Mary Marurek. He was a noted spiritual director for both Catholics and Orthodox. He was considered  an enthusiastic parish priest and spent countless hours with his parishioners in the confessional. Saint Raphael died in 1907 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1991.

Source: Catholic-forum.com

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

Feast date: Nov 18

St. Rose was born into a family with wealth and political connections August 29, 1769 in Grenoble, France. Her father, Pierre Francois Duchesne, was a lawyer, businessman, and prominent civic leader in Grenoble, while her mother, Rose Perier, was a member of a leading family from the Dauphine region. From the young age of eight, St. Rose had a desire to evangelize in the Americas, sparked by hearing a Jesuit missionary speak of his work there. She received a basic education at home from tutors, and religious education from her mother.

Educated from age 12 at the convent of the Visitation nuns in Grenoble, Rose joined them in 1788 at age 19 without the permission or knowledge of her family. Initially they were violently opposed to her choice, but finally gave in.  

In 1804 she joined the Society of the Sacred Heart, which sent her to the United States in 1818. From the convent and school she founded at St. Charles, Mo. — later moved to Florissant, Mo. — she traveled over a wide area, founding schools for girls, doing charitable work, and finally ministering to Native Americans.

St. Rose Duchesne was a valiant missionary and a well-known benefactress. She spent her last ten years in retirement in a tiny shack at the convent in Saint Charles, Missouri where she lived austerely and in constant prayer. She died on November 18, 1852 at Saint Charles, Missouri.

She was beatified on May 12, 1940 by Pope Pius XII, and canonized July 3, 1988 by Pope John Paul II. She is often referred to as “The Lady of Mercy,” or ” Woman Who Prays Always.”

Patronage: Opposition of Church authorities, diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau Missouri.

Dedication of the Churches of Peter and Paul

Feast date: Nov 18

This feast celebrates the dedications of two of the four major basilicas of Rome.

Saint Peter’s Basilica was originally built in 323 by the emperor Constantine.  The basilica was constructed over the tomb of Peter the Apostle, the Church’s first Pope.  After standing for more than a thousand years, Pope Julius II ordered the building to be torn down due to structural concerns.  The construction of the new church spanned over 200 years before its completion. It was dedicated on Nov. 18, 1626.  It is considered the most famous church in Christendom.

Saint Paul´s Basilica is located outside the original walls of Rome. It was also originally built by the emperor Constantine though it was destroyed by fire in 1823. Donations from around the world made the reconstruction possible. Before the completion of Saint Peter´s Basilica, St Paul’s was the largest church in Rome.  The Basilica was built over St. Paul´s grave.  Pope Pius IX consecrated the Basilica in 1854.

These two churches continue to draw millions of faithful pilgrims each year as well as many visitors from other faiths .

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Feast date: Nov 17

On Nov. 17, the Catholic Church celebrates the life and example of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a medieval noblewoman who responded to personal tragedy by embracing St. Francis’ ideals of poverty and service. A patron of secular Franciscans, she is especially beloved to Germans, as well as the faithful of her native Hungary.

As the daughter of the Hungarian King Andrew II, Elizabeth had the responsibilities of royalty thrust upon her almost as soon as her short life began in 1207. While she was still very young, Elizabeth’s father arranged for her to be married to a German nobleman, Ludwig of Thuringia.

The plan forced Elizabeth to separate from her parents while still a child. Adding to this sorrow was the murder of Elizabeth’s mother Gertrude in 1213, which history ascribes to a conflict between her own German people and the Hungarian nobles. Elizabeth took a solemn view of life and death from that point on, and found consolation in prayer. Both tendencies drew some ire from her royal peers.

For a time, beginning in 1221, she was happily married. Ludwig, who had advanced to become one of the rulers of Thuringia, supported Elizabeth’s efforts to live out the principles of the Gospel even within the royal court. She met with friars of the nascent Franciscan order during its founder’s own lifetime, resolving to use her position as queen to advance their mission of charity.

Remarkably, Ludwig agreed with his wife’s resolution, and the politically powerful couple embraced a life of remarkable generosity toward the poor. They had three children, two of whom went on to live as as members of the nobility, although one of them –her only son– died relatively young. The third eventually entered religious life and became abbess of a German convent.

In 1226, while Ludwig was attending to political affairs in Italy, Elizabeth took charge of distributing aid to victims of disease and flooding that struck Thuringia. She took charge of caring for the afflicted, even when this required giving up the royal family’s own clothes and goods. Elizabeth arranged for a hospital to be built, and is said to have provided for the needs of nearly a thousand desperately poor people on a daily basis.

The next year, however, would put Elizabeth’s faith to the test. Her husband had promised to assist the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sixth Crusade, but he died of illness en route to Jerusalem. Devastated by Ludwig’s death, Elizabeth vowed never to remarry. Her children were sent away, and relatives heavily pressured her to break the vow.

Undeterred, Elizabeth used her remaining money to build another hospital, where she personally attended to the sick almost constantly. Sending away her servants, she joined the Third Order of St. Francis, seeking to emulate the example of its founder as closely as her responsibilities would allow. Near the end of her life, she lived in a small hut and spun her own clothes.

Working continually with the severely ill, Elizabeth became sick herself, dying of illness in November of 1231. After she died, miraculous healings soon began to occur at her grave near the hospital, and she was declared a saint only four years later.

Pope Benedict XVI has praised her as a “model for those in authority,” noting the continuity between her personal love for God, and her public work on behalf of the poor and sick.

Patronage: Bakers; beggars; brides; charitable societies; charitable workers; charities; countesses; death of children; exiles; falsely accused people; hoboes; homeless people; hospitals; in-law problems; lacemakers; lace workers; nursing homes; nursing services; people in exile; people ridiculed for their piety; Sisters of Mercy; tertiaries; Teutonic Knights; toothache; tramps; widows.

Representation: A queen distributing alms; woman wearing a crown and tending to beggars; woman wearing a crown, carrying a load of roses in her apron or mantle.

St. Joseph Moscati

Feast date: Nov 16

On November 16, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Joseph Moscati, the first modern medical doctor to be canonized. Born on July 25, 1880 in Benevento, Italy, he lived out the Gospel through his position as a teacher and physician. There are a number of stories of Dr. Moscati paying close attention to the state of his patient’s soul as well as the body, sometimes even bringing the patient back to the sacraments. The Catholic understanding of body and soul clearly informed his understanding of illness and medicine. He saw Confession and Communion as the “first medicine.”

He is quoted as once having said, “Remember that you have to deal not only with the bodies but also with the moaning souls coming to you.”

Dr. Moscati’s holiness and devotion wasn’t just limited to his practice. To help the poor, he often donated his medical services or paid for his patients’ prescriptions.

St. Joseph Moscati also felt it was important to support priests and those in religious life with his prayers because, as he said: “They are easily forgotten by the living, since Christians often think that they do not need prayers.”

He carried a Rosary in his pocket as a reminder throughout his day and as a way to draw him to Our Lady — and through her, to Jesus — when he needed to make important decisions.

St. Joseph Moscati died on April 12, 1927 of natural causes in his office between patient appointments. He was beatified on November 16, 1975 by Pope Paul VI and canonized on October 25, 1987 by Pope John Paul II. His body rests in Naples, Italy, in the Church of Gesu Nuovo.