Blessed be the Cheesemakers

St. Bartolo Longo: as someone that once dabbled in the occult, St. Bartolo is also one of my favorites. He was a priest two times: the first as a Satanist priest, and the second as a Catholic priest. One of my favorite things about him is that he was a very devout propagator of the Rosary, and if my memory is correct, I think he also helped with building a church? I think you'd like, at the very least, reading more about his life.

St. Maximilian Kolbe: I think everyone has a special love for St. Maximilian Kolbe, and for good reason. He was a Polish priest that was arrested several times by the Nazi’s, and finally, brought to Auschwitz, where he did his best to evangelize while imprisoned. When one of his fellow prisoners escaped, the guards decided to kill ten of the prisoner— St. Maximilian Kolbe volunteered himself in the place of the prisoner whose place he took was Franciszek Gajowniczek, a Polish Army sergeant. That conversation is reported to have gone this way:

“I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.” “Who are you?” “A priest.”

Later, the jailer who came to finish Kolbe off found him in a corner praying. St. Maximilian Kolbe lifted his arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle, which was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. Maximilian Mary Kolbe was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982.

St. Lucy: an early Christian martyr (died ~304 AD) who is often depicted as holding a dish of eyes. She was a young girl from a wealthy Sicilian family that took a vow of celibacy. St. Lucy spurned a suitor and, enraged and insulted, reported her to the Roman authorities, who sent her to a brothel to prostitute herself. The next day, however, she could not be lifted and brought anywhere, so they tried multiple things to kill her. What finally did it, though, was a sword to the neck, and legend has it that her attackers gouged her eyes out in the process. I think you'd like her because let's face it... there's not a lot of imagery that is as cool as holding a plate of eyes.

St. Damien Molokai: (his feast day is my birthday!) a Belgian priest that volunteered to be a missionary in the leper colony of Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai, Hawai’i. After serving sixteen years caring for the afflicted lepers, he himself contracted the disease and passed away, finally able to identify with them completely with the words, “We, Lepers.”

There is honestly a lot to say about St. Damien, and reading about his work with the lepers always makes me tear up. I think he's one of those people that genuinely chose, every day, to manifest his love for others through service. His dying wish was to remain with the people that he served, but the Belgian government eventually brought his body back to his birth country. However, as requested by the people of the island, his right hand was brought back to Molokai in 1995 and reburied in his original grave next to St. Philomena Chapel.

St. Mark Ji Tianxiang: he was a Chinese doctor who converted to Catholicism who, for the last thirty years of his life, was barred from receiving the sacraments because his opium addiction was so widely known and held to be a scandal; this all happened in the 19th century, when people understood addiction as a moral failing and not an illness. It is reported that in those thirty years, he prayed to be a martyr as he believed that to be his only way to Heaven. In 1900, when the Boxer Rebels began to turn against foreigners and Christians, Ji got his chance. He was rounded up with dozens of other Christians, including his son, six grandchildren, and two daughters-in-law. St. Mark asked to be executed last so that he could comfort his fellow prisoners and ready them for martyrdom.

St. Teresa of Avila: I feel that, by including St. Teresa of Avila, I must also include many other people… such as St. John of the Cross, and St. Therese of Lisieux, since they all feel related to each other somewhat (well, to start with, they were all religious members of the Carmelite Order, so… they are related). Probably one of my favorite saints, and for very good reason. 

St. Teresa was born to a wealthy Spanish family, and was a bit of wild child and a flirt. Even when she eventually became a nun, she would still go out into town and talk with other men her age; this was sadly a symptom of the lax implementation of rules in the Order and in religious institutions in general (to simplify things a great deal). 

As she grew older, St. Teresa slowly became convinced that she wanted to follow the rules of the Carmelite Order strictly, and with around ten of her other sisters, left their old convent to start their own. This would go on to be the very first event that would eventually lead St. Teresa to founding the Discalced Carmelites, with St. John of the Cross establishing the male counterpart. (Discalced, if I remember correctly, comes from the Latin word ‘bare foot,’ which is an indicator to the poverty and asceticism they strove for).

St. Teresa was a very important historical and religious leader in her time; she wrote letters to kings and popes, and was regarded as a Reformer. She wrote many books, letters, and poems and was the spiritual mother of St. John of the Cross, who wrote the poem The Dark Night of the Soul.

At present, she is most known for the little anecdotes attributed to her. There is a story about how she once thought there was a burglar in the convent. When she soon realized that it was the Devil, she said, “Oh, it’s only you. I thought it was someone who could actually harm me.”

Also I've read the Way of Perfection, and she is so. funny.

St. Pio of Pietrelcina: Another Italian, and like everyone else on this list, possesses an extraordinary life that would honestly need his own separate post. I have a cousin that studies in Italy and when our conversation drifted to him, she was like, “oh yeah, everyone in Italy loves him.’ I have no idea where to start.

Padre Pio is one of the few saints to receive that stigmata, which is the wounds of Christ during his passion; if I recall correctly, his back would get so bloody that his undershirt was dyed red; the wounds on his hands were always fresh and bled during the consecration of the Eucharist; many doctors, both Catholic and non-believers, came from all over the world to study his wounds. Each of them said that Padre Pio’s wounds were simply not possible, for they never showed signs of healing. 

Of course, the stigmata did not come from nowhere; as a young boy, Padre Pio had a vision of hell, where Jesus told him that this is what he would spend his life fighting against. When he was finally ordained, many of his fellow brothers would report to hear banging and thrashing coming from Padre Pio’s cell, as he was frequently attacked by demons. The priest described the suffering in a letter to a brother, who was his confidant, “These devils don’t stop striking me, even making me fall down from the bed. They even tear off my shirt to beat me! But now they do not frighten me anymore. Jesus loves me, He often lifts me and places me back on the bed.”

Padre Pio was also a martyr of the confessional, and he had the gift of seeing the souls of others and knowing their sins. People from all over the world came to see him. Most of all, though, he was devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who he credits as being his protector and often said, “I wish I had a voice strong enough to tell all sinners in the world to love Mary. It is the ocean that must be crossed to reach Jesus.”

Since he is a fairly recent figure, there are videos on YouTube of him presiding over holy mass. If you have a free afternoon and access to the Internet, stories of his life are super interesting to get into.

St. Ignatius of Loyola: I went to a Jesuit school in kindergarten, a Jesuit university in college, and both my parents went to the very same Jesuit school for high school… So I can’t really escape my Jesuit roots and the history of this saint, which I feel is imprinted on my brain.

St. Ignatius is the founder of the Society of Jesus, which one may call the “wild card” organization of the Catholic Church. St. Ignatius was born to an affluent Spanish family and wanted the fame and notoriety that being a knight could offer him (he was a bit vain, some reports say). However during one of his battles, a cannon ball hit his leg, and he was forced back home to recover.

Now, St. Ignatius had never been a man of great or heroic virtue in the earlier part of his life; he was a party boy, a bit of a flirt, and the despair of his family (to an extent). But being bed ridden in the family home forced him to sit and reflect on his life, and the only way to pass the time was through reading. And there were only two books available: the Bible and The Life of the Saints.

The lives of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic affected him greatly, and in them he saw an element of the heroism that he craved. So as soon as he recovered, he followed in their footsteps, evangelizing, praying in caves, tending to the poor and the sick, etc. 

He soon got in trouble with the Spanish Inquisition, who accused him of heresy. One of his priest friends advised St. Ignatius to hand over his notebook (journal? writings? I can’t recall), since this priest friend was convinced that St. Ignatius never wrote a heretical thing in his life. The priest would be proven right, and St. Ignatius was soon released. 

There are honestly so many stories about St. Ignatius, and so many books written about him. (There's even a movie about his life! And as a freshman in college, I had to write a report on that movie...)

Blessed Justus Ukon Takayama: (he’s getting canonized as a saint soon, I think!) known as the ‘samurai saint,’ Bl. Justo was a daimyo and later akashi who converted many others— vassals and fellow rulers alike– through the example of his life. He lived in an important time of Japan’s history: the reigns of Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. Bl. Justo was first persecuted by Nobunaga, ‘(w)hen the hegemon Nobunaga (r. 1574-1582) threatened to massacre all the Christians and destroy their churches unless Ukon handed over to him the castle of Takatsuki (in Osaka prefecture), the heroic champion of Christ, without hesitation, renounced his domain and betook himself to Nobunaga, ready to die with the missionaries and Christians.’

Nobunaga finally decided to spare his life, and for the rest of his reign, the hegemon held great respect for Bl. Justo. His successor, Hideyoshi, began his own reign in the same manner, but turned persecutor in 1587, ‘Ukon Takayama was called upon either to deny his Faith, or lose his fief, and he gladly gave up everything rather than turn traitor to his Divine Master. For several years, he was in fear of his life; even after Hideyoshi’s wrath had cooled, he never again became a ruling daimyo but lived in obscurity as a simple samurai of the Maeda rulers at Kanazawa. In 1614, Ieyasu resolved to exterminate Christianity, and Ukon Takayama was again among the first victims. Since the tyrant could not hope to make him apostatize, he exiled him to a foreign land, calculating that he would not long survive the rigors and hardships of the voyage. The fact that Ukon died a few weeks after his arrival at Manila shows most clearly that Ieyasu’s calculation has been only too correct. Thus Ukon Takayama has the satisfaction of giving up his life for the Divine Master.’ (ref.)

as for why I think you would like him? well, who doesn't like samurais...

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and that's it! i hope at least one of them caught your interest!

to get personal for a moment, one of the reasons why i love learning about the lives of the saints is because it was something i did with my friend when we were around seven to eight years old-- we would borrow children's books on the lives of the saints from our school library. the story that i remember the most is that of St. Cecilia, mostly because my friend was named after her.

but as i slowly came back to the faith, reading about the saints helped contextualize my life and what second chances can mean. i'd like to think of it this way: there are as many paths to Heaven as there are people. everyone is called to be a saint, but the circumstances that each of us will be given will be wildly different.

i may not become a saint the same way that st. teresa or st. bartolo did, but i am asked to live a good life in a way that only i can live it. that doesn't preclude me from being able to learn from their lives; in fact, i think it's quite the opposite. we learn from the lives our parents, the experiences of our cousins... in a similar way, reading about the saints can be a way of learning about our heavenly family, and its a good way of reminding ourselves that God's mercy is active, and that He works through us.

if there is anyone that would like to add to this post and go on a bit of tangent on a beloved saint, please go ahead! and if there are any details that i may have forgotten or misrepresented, i would also love the correction <3

i also have a few posts on the saints, which you can find down below: