St. Junípero Serra was a Franciscan priest, professor, and an intrepid missionary known as “The Apostle of California”. He was born to farmers Antonio and Margarita Serra, who named him Miguel in 1713. The family farm was on the island of Majorca off the coast of Spain. As a child,...

St. Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad was a convert, religious sister and a foundress. Mary Elizabeth was born in 1870 in the village of Faglavik, Sweden. She was the fifth of thirteen children born to Augusto Hesselblad and his wife Cajsa and she went by the name Elizabeth. She was baptized into...

St. Bernard of Montjoux was a priest, missionary, and a caretaker of pilgrims. He is sometimes known as Bernard of Menthon, as some believe him to be of the noble Menthon family, born at the family chateau, but that is not certain. He was born c.1020, most likely in northern...

Pope St. Pius V was a priest in religious life who became pope during one of the most tumultuous and critical periods in Church history. Antonio Ghislieri was born in 1504 at Bosco, near Alessandria, Italy. When he was fourteen, he joined the Dominican order and took the name Michele...

Blessed Marcel Callo was a pious French layman who was a martyr of Nazi Germany. Marcel was born in 1921 to a devout couple of modest means, Marcel Callo and his wife Felicita. Young Marcel was one of nine children and the family lived at Rennes in western France. He...

St. Anne Line was a convert, wife and widow, and a martyr of Elizabethan Protestant England. She was born Alice Heigham c.1563 at Dunmow, Essex, England. Her father, Willaim Heigham, was a Calvinist landowner and was the son of one of King Henry VIII’s Protestant “reformers”. In her late teens,...

St. David Galván Bermúdez was a teacher, a priest, and a martyr of the Mexican Cristero War. David was born in 1881 in Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco in western Mexico. His parents were José Galván and his wife Mariana Bermúdez and José operated a shoe store. Mariana died...

Blessed Niels Stensen was a brilliant scientist, Catholic convert, and devoted bishop and reformer. He was born to a Lutheran family in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1638. At the time of Niels’ birth, the long, complicated Thirty Years War was raging in much of Europe, including Denmark. Niels’ father, Sten Peterson,...

St. Agnes of Assisi was an abbess, and with her sister, a pioneer in establishing one of the great mendicant women’s religious orders. She was born Caterina Offreduccio c. 1197 to a noble family in Assisi, Italy. Her father was Count Favorino Scifi and her mother was [Bl.] Hortulana of...

St. Anthony Mary Claret was a missionary archbishop, chaplain to royalty, founder and publisher. Anthony was born in 1807 to Juan and Josefa Claret and the family lived in the town of Sallent in the Catalonia region of Spain. Juan owned a textile/weaving business, and Anthony was the fifth of...