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Conrad was born into a noble family in northern Italy. He married the daughter of a nobleman, Euphrosyne.
A relative of Jesus', possibly a first cousin. He is in the Gospel of Matthew, and is one of the brethren of Christ mentioned in Acts who was present at the birth of the Church on the first Pentecost.
These seven men were born in Florence, Italy and led lives as hermits on Monte Senario. They had a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
St. Onesimus was a slave to Philemon, an influential man who had been converted by St. Paul. Onesimus offended Philemon and fled in order to escape any sort of retribution. He then met St. Paul while Paul was in a Roman prison. Shortly after, Onesimus was baptized.
On Feb. 15 the Catholic Church honors Saint Claude la Colombiere, the 17th century French Jesuit who authenticated and wrote about Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque's visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
On Feb. 14, the universal Church honors two brothers, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who are called the “Apostles of the Slavs” for their tireless work in spreading the Gospel throughout Eastern Europe in the ninth century.
The Ricci are an ancient family in Tuscany. Catherine was born at Florence in 1522, and called at her baptism Alexandrina, but she took the name of Catherine at her religious profession.
On Feb. 11, the Catholic Church celebrates the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes, recalling a series of 18 appearances that the Blessed Virgin Mary made to a 14-year-old French peasant girl, Saint Bernadette Soubirous.
On Feb. 10, the Catholic Church remembers St. Scholastica, a nun who was the twin sister of St. Benedict, the "father of monasticism" in Western Europe.
St. Apollonia was a holy virgin who suffered martyrdom in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians in the early 3rd century.
Josefina Bakhita was born in Sudan (Africa) and lived through slavery for much of her life. The name Bakhita, which means "fortunate," she obtained through her captors at age 9, and Josefina's, twelve years after her when she received her baptism.
St. Richard was orphaned at a young age. His brother inherited his parents' estate after he was of age, but the death tax was so great that they were sent into poverty, and Richard had to work on his brother's farm.
On Feb. 6, the Catholic Church honors the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki, a group of native Japanese Catholics and foreign missionaries who suffered death for their faith in the year 1597.
Blaise was a hard-working bishop dedicated to encouraging the spiritual and physical health of his people in Sebastea, Armenia.
At the end of the fourth century, a woman named Etheria made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her journal, discovered in 1887, gives an unprecedented glimpse of liturgical life there.
Angela Merici was born in the small Italian town of Desenzano on the shore of Lake Garda in 1474.
On Jan. 24, the Church celebrates the patron saint of journalists, writers, and the Catholic press: St. Francis de Sales, doctor of the Church.
St. Vincent was Deacon of Saragossa, and a martyr under Diocletian in 304. This most renowned martyr of Spain is represented in the dalmatic of a deacon, and has as emblems a cross, a raven, a grate, or a fire-pile.
Although not much is known about the life of St. Agnes, there are many stories passed down since her martyrdom in the fourth century.
On Jan. 21, the Roman Catholic Church honors the virgin and martyr St. Agnes, who suffered death for her consecration to Christ.