Saint Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas was born to noble Italian lineage in the first part of the thirteenth century. Early in life he was shy and was named the “Dumb Ox” by his teachers and peers because of his size and reserved nature.

Thomas joined the religious order of St. Dominic, devoting himself to study and prayer. He was committed to Christ and the Church, especially the Eucharist, and was granted by God many special revelations and mystical visions.

Throughout his life, Thomas also wrote prayers, musical hymns and numerous theological treatises on nearly every area of Christian belief including the Christian virtues. Perhaps most well known for his work Summa Theologiae, Thomas was revolutionary for his time by using the ancient writings of Aristotle as a philosophical structure through which to express and understand Christian truth.

Thomas died at age forty-nine, leaving behind him a great legacy of scholarly writing and personal holiness. Canonized in 1323, Thomas, the “Dumb Ox,” is today thought to be one of the greatest theologians of all time. Moreover, he has had bestowed on him the rare title Doctor of the Church and is honored as the patron saint of all schools, colleges and universities.

Venerable Louis of Granada

Theologian, writer, and preacher; b. of very humble parentage at Granada, Spain, 1505; d. at Lisbon, 31 December, 1588. At the age of nineteen he was received into the Dominican Order in the convent of Santa Cruz, Granada. With a mentality of the highest quality and the gift of unremitting application he united a profoundly spiritual character which promised a brilliant and fruitful career in the sevice of the Church. His philosophical studies finished, he was chosen by his superiors to represent his convent at the College of St. Gregory at Valladolid, an institution of the Dominican Order reserved for students possessed of more than ordinary ability. Here he acquitted himself with rare distinction, not only in the regular ecclesiastical courses, but in the humanities, to which he gave special attention at the request of his superiors. His studies completed, he at once entered upon the career of a preacher, in which he continued with extraordinary success during forty years. The fame of his preaching spread beyond the boundaries of his native land, and at the request of the Cardinal Infante, Dom Henrique of Portugal, son of King Manuel, he was transferred to the latter country, where he became provincial of the Portuguese Dominicans in 1557. His extraordinary sanctity, learning, and wisdom soon attracted the attention of the queen regent, who appointed him her confessor and counsellor. The Bishopric of Viseu and the Archbishopric of Braga were successively offered to him only to be courteously, but firmly, refused. The honours of the cardinalate, offered to him by Pope Sixtus V, were also declined. 

Among the hundreds of eminent ascetical writers of Spain, Louis of Granada remains unsurpassed in the beauty and purity of his style, the solidity of his doctrine, and the popularity and influence of his writings. Besides ascetical theology, his published works treat of Scripture, dogma, ethics, biography, and history. He is best known, however, for his ascetical writings. The appreciation of their worth extended throughout Europe, and later to America, and their popularity still remains but little impaired after the passage of four hundred years. Nearly all of these works were translated into the various European languages and several into Turkish and Japanese. The best known of his ascetical writings, and the one that achieved the greatest measure of success, is "The Sinner's Guide" (La Guia de Pecadores). This work was published at Badajoz in 1555. It is marked by a smooth, harmonious style of purest Spanish idiom which has merited for it the reputation of a classic, and by an unctuous eloquence that has made it a perennial source of religious inspiration. It has been most favourable compared with A Kempis's "Imitation of Christ". Within a comparatively short time after its first appearance it was translated into Italian, Latin, French, German, Polish, and Greek. A new and revised English translation was published at New York in 1889. His "Memorial of the Christian Life" (Memorial de la vida christiana) is almost equally well known. In 1576 he published at Lisbon a Latin work on the principles of pulpit oratory (Rhetoricae Ecclesiasticae, sive de ratione concionandi). It enjoyed an extensive vogue, not only in Spain, but in most of the countries of Europe; new editions appeared successively at Venice (1578), Cologne (1578, 1582, 1611), Milan (1585), and Paris (1635). A Spanish translation was published at Madrid in 1585. To illustrate the principles embodied in this work, a volume of the author's sermons, marked by great purity of style and deep religious feeling, was published seven years after his death. In all, some twenty-seven works are attributed to his pen. A Latin edition of all his writings was published by Andrew Schott and Michael of Isselt at Cologne in 1628-29. A complete edition of his ascetical works was brought out at Madrid, in 1679, by Dionysius Sanchez Moreno, O.P., and a complete edition of his sermons, in French, at Paris, in 1868. 

Saint Catherine of Sienna

St. Catherine of Siena, mystic and political activist, was born in Siena, Italy. It is said that at the tender age of seven, following a vision of Christ, she vowed her virginity to Him. She was spiritually guided by the Dominicans and at the age of sixteen Catherine took the habit of the Dominican Tertiaries.

The three years to follow were spent in solitude and prayer. Those years ended with a vision convincing Catherine that Christ had accepted her as His bride. Her love for Christ brought her fully into the world and she attracted a family of devoted followers. Within this family she dictated letters of spiritual instruction and encouragement. She tended the sick and dying, often cleansing and dressing bodies for burial. Catherine had great compassion for condemned criminals, choosing to stay with them through their executions.

Catherine worked tirelessly to return the Papacy to Rome from Avignon. In 1375, she received the Stigmata. She died in agony at the age of 33 leaving behind her Dialogue and nearly 400 letters to people in all walks of life. In 1970, Catherine was named a Doctor of the Church.

St. Catherine of Siena understood how much God loves us, that He is, “crazy in love,” with us; as she said, “pazzo d’amore.”

Saint Martin de Porres

Martin de Porres was the unwanted child of a Spanish grandee and a freed African slave. He was born in Lima, Peru, scarcely forty years after the bloody destruction of the Inca Empire. He raised himself, for the most part, and became an apprentice to a barber-surgeon so that he would have a trade. At fifteen, he began his long relationship with the Dominican Order, first as a tertiary and then as a brother with vows.

His painful childhood taught him compassion and generosity. As a Dominican he doctored Lima’s sick. While surgery was primitive in his day, he had a vast knowledge of herbal medicines. With herbs he treated illnesses ranging from infections and fevers to intestinal ailments and sprains. In addition to his free services as a doctor, he distributed thousands of dollars worth of food and clothing to the poor each week--all of which he had first begged from wealthy families. He founded an orphanage for abandoned children and staffed it with the best teachers, nurses and guardians he could hire. On the hills near Lima, he planted fruit orchards for the poor. He is also remembered for his love of animals. 

He wore the oldest, most patched garments he could find, and spent long hours in prayer. Other Dominicans sometimes found him suspended in the air many feet above the church floor, in ecstatic prayer before the large crucifix. During his lifetime he was called the “flying brother,” because of the many times he bilocated in distant places like the Philippines, Japan, or North Africa, and was seen there by Peruvian merchants who knew him. He was also gifted with prophecy and clairvoyance.

He died at the age of sixty, during a severe fever. His beloved poor never allowed his memory to fade, and today he is one of the most popular saints of the Americans.

Saint Rose of Lima

The life of this saint is like that of a rose among thorns. She was born into a poor but upper-class family in Peru, soon after the conquest.

Coming from a bewildering and abusive childhood, she identified deeply with the suffering Christ. She longed to become a nun, but was prevented by her family from doing so. She practiced austere penances at home and eventually became a Dominican tertiary. She was a close friend of another Dominican saint with an unhappy childhood, Martin de Porres. While the pain inflicted on her as a child helped to foster a piety we find puzzling today, she also developed a compassion for the Indian peoples of her day who suffered abuse not unlike her own.

To help support her family, she did fine embroidery and raised flowers for sale. Along with flowers, she raised medical herbs which she used to cure the sick poor of Lima who began flocking to her small infirmary in her family’s home. She had a special love and concern for the Indians who had been savagely conquered by men like Pizarro. She herself had Inca blood. 

Her love for God was passionate and deep, She wrote mystical poetry, which she occasionally sang with a guitar. Like many a Spanish mystic, she had to defend herself before the dreaded Inquisition. Near the end of her short life, a small bird came each day at sunset and sang a love song with her that she had composed. She died after a painful illness, just as a clock was striking midnight - reminiscent of the Gospel parable of the Bridegroom and the ten virgins bearing lamps.