St. Ann

Saint of The Day for


July 26

Saint Anne (3 B.C.)

"Good Saint Anne" is the loving way many Catholics address the mother of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. Mary, the child of Saint Anne, was born fifteen years, three months and seventeen days before the birth of Jesus. Fifty years after Saint Anne's death, Saint Anne's body
was brought to France by Saint Mary Magdalen and her companions in the year 47. Countless churches have been dedicated to Saint Anne all over the world. Canada is particularly devoted to her, and has a beautiful shrine named for her there, called "Saint Anne de Beaupre," to which people come from everywhere.

Simplicity is the secret by which we gain Saint Anne's love, her intercession and her protection. Saint Anne taught her little daughter to read the Holy Scriptures. Mary was the fulfillment of all its prophecies. Sensing her daughter's immaculate and incomparable holiness, beauty and brilliance, Saint Anne and Saint Joachim presented Mary in the Temple when she was three years old, and gave her to God and to us forever. The feast of this Presentation is November 21.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 10:25-37.
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" 
He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." 
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live." 
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" 
Jesus replied, "A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. 
A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. 
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. 
He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. 
The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, 'Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.' 
Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers' victim?" 
He answered, "The one who treated him with mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." 


Commentary of the day 
Saint Severus of Antioch (around 465-538), bishop Homily 89

 He came down from heaven » (Creed)

       “A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho." Christ did not say, "somebody went down" but " a man went down", because this passage concerns all humanity. For humanity, as a result of Adam's sin, left Paradise, our tranquil home on high, where there was no suffering and which was filled with wonders; this place was rightly called Jerusalem, a name which means "God's Peace ". And all mankind fell towards Jericho, a hollow and low country, where the heat is stifling. Jericho is the feverish life of this world, a life that separates us from God... And once humanity had thus turned away from the right road towards this life, a troop of wild demons came to attack us like a band of robbers. They stripped us of the clothing of perfection, and left us no trace of the strength of mind, purity, justice, or prudence, or anything else which characterizes the divine image (Gn 1:26); but striking us repeatedly by the blows of various sins, they knocked us down and finally left us  half dead...

      The Law given by Moses passed by, but it lacked strength; it did not lead humanity to a complete cure; it did not raise us up from where we lay… For the Law offered sacrifices and offerings "which could not make perfect those who practised this worship" for it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats take away sins" (He 10:1.4)...

      Finally a Samaritan came to pass. Christ deliberately gives himself the name Samaritan… For he himself came to us, carrying out the intention of the Law and showing by his acts "who is our neighbor" and what it is "to love others as oneself".

St. Benedict

July 11, 2010  St. Benedict  (480?-543)

It is unfortunate that no contemporary biography was written of a man who has exercised measureless influence on monasticism in the West. Benedict is well recognized in the later Dialogues of St. Gregory, but these are sketches to illustrate miraculous elements of his career. Benedict was born of a distinguished family in central Italy, studied at Rome and early in life was drawn to the monastic life. At first he became a hermit, leaving a depressing world—pagan armies on the march, the Church torn by schism, people suffering from war, morality at a low ebb. He soon realized that he could not live a hidden life in a small town any better than in a large city, so he withdrew to a cave high in the mountains for three years. Some monks chose him as their leader for a while, but found his strictness not to their taste. Still, the shift from hermit to community life had begun for him. He had an idea of gathering various families of monks into one “Grand Monastery” to give them the benefit of unity, fraternity, permanent worship in one house. Finally he began to build what was to become one of the most famous monasteries in the world—Monte Cassino, commanding three narrow valleys running toward the mountain. The Rule that gradually developed prescribed a life of liturgical prayer, study, manual labor and living together in community under a common father (abbot). Benedictine asceticism is known for its moderation, and Benedictine charity has always shown concern for the people in the surrounding countryside. In the course of the Middle Ages, all monasticism in the West was gradually brought under the Rule of St. Benedict. Today the Benedictine family is represented by two branches: the Benedictine Federation and the Cistercians.  Comment: The Church has been blessed through Benedictine devotion to the liturgy, not only in its actual celebration with rich and proper ceremony in the great abbeys, but also through the scholarly studies of many of its members. Liturgy is sometimes confused with guitars or choirs, Latin or Bach. We should be grateful to those who both preserve and adapt the genuine tradition of worship in the Church. Quote: “Rightly, then, the liturgy is considered as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. In the liturgy the sanctification of man is manifested by signs perceptible to the senses...; in the liturgy full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and his members. “From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the priest and of his Body the Church, is a sacred action, surpassing all others”

Visitation of Our Lady

 Visitation of Our Lady (1 B.C.)

The Visitation of Our Lady (1 B.C.) to the house of Elizabeth and Zachary, the mother and father of Saint John the Baptist. As soon 
as Mary, the spouse of Saint Joseph, had learned from an angel that, as she had conceived a Child virginally, so Elizabeth, her cousin, had conceived one miraculously, she made haste to 
go and visit Elizabeth. Mary arrived at the house of Elizabeth at Ain Karim, a little town southwest of Jerusalem, on April 2. She stayed there for three months. Elizabeth greeted Mary 
with the phrase, "Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." It was standing in the door of Elizabeth's house that Our Lady sang her great canticle, the Magnificat. 
Mary waited for the birth of John the Baptist on June 24, and left for Nazareth on July 2, the day after Saint John the Baptist was circumcised and given his name. This day, the day of Mary's 
leaving Elizabeth, is celebrated as the feast of the Visitation.

Mary's visit to Elizabeth was the greatest visit paid by anyone to anyone in the history of the world. All Catholics call it, in simple reference, the Visitation. The moment Mary, with Jesus in 
her womb, entered the house of Elizabeth, on April 2, John the Baptist was sanctified in his mother's womb. He received at that moment the use of reason, and for three months antecedent 
to his birth, he knew, in humility and love, Who was dwelling in his house. He also knew his own purpose as the Precursor of Christ.

John the Baptist was born six month before Jesus. John the Baptist was martyred one year before Jesus. The day Jesus was born, the days begin to increase. The day John the Baptist was born, they begin to decrease. "He must increase and I must decrease," is the beautiful way this seasonal fact is referred to in liturgical love in Holy Scripture by Saint John the Baptist.

Mary’s first action after God had come to dwell in her was one of self-denying charity. She undertook a troublesome journey in order to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Thus she proclaimed charity to be the virtue which above all Christ brought with Him from heaven. God made Mary’s visit the occasion of a wonderful miracle. On her entrance into St. Elizabeth’s dwelling, St. John Baptist was cleansed from sin in his mother’s womb. Mary was the channel of this exceptional privilege of the cleansing away fo sin in the case of the unborn child. As then, so now: Mary is the channel of all graces, and above all, of the restoration of the sinner to friendship with God. Mary’s charity is not less present now than at the time of the Visitation. Nay, she is far more eager now than then to promote the happiness and console the sorrows of those who fly to her for succor.

Saint Processus and Saint Martinian (67)
These were the guards of Saints Peter and Paul when they were kept in the Mamertime Prison in Rome. Along with forty-seven prisoners they were converted by Saint Peter. Since there was no 
water with which to baptize them, Saint Peter by his prayer caused to gush forth a miraculous spring which continues to flow to the present day. This lets us know that God will never fail to 
provide the water necessary for the sacrament of Baptism without which no one can enter Heaven. Saints Processus and Martinian were cruelly tortured and finally beheaded.

The Precious Blood of Jesus

July 1

The Most Precious Blood of Jesus

Both halves of the year, in January and July, begin with the commemoration of the Precious Blood of Jesus. January 1 is the feast of the Circumcision, when the Precious Blood of Jesus was first shed. July 1 is the commemoration of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus as it is preserved in all Catholic churches at the hour of Mass. The Precious Blood of Jesus was given to Him to divinize by Mary, the Mother of God. Between Jesus and Mary there was a perpetual interflow of blood for nine months when He was a Child in her womb. Anyone can see how divinized Mary became by this interchange of blood for nearly a year. Everyone who wishes to become a son of God the Father, as he becomes by Sanctifying Grace, must also become a child of Mary the Virgin, by receiving in his mouth the Blessed Eucharist which is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. All the saints of the Old Testament, when their bodies rise from the grave on the Last Day, will receive the Precious Blood of Jesus.
Our Lord said of the chalice which contained His Precious Blood at the Last Supper, "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the Kingdom of My Father." The Kingdom of God the Father, Whose sons we divinely by adoption, is also the Queendom of Mary the Virgin, whose children we must incarnately become in order to enjoy the happiness of Heaven forever.

Saint Aaron (Fifteenth Century B.C.)

Aaron was chosen by God to be the first High Priest of the Old Law. Aaron was the brother of Moses and Miriam. He belonged to the tribe of Levi, the clerical(Levitical) tribe of the Jews. Aaron lived fourteen hundred years before the coming of Christ. Aaron was the ancestor in blood and in priestly lineage of Saint Zachary, the father of Saint John the Baptist. Saint Elizabeth, the mother of Saint John the Baptist — who gave us the second invocation in the Hail Mary, "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb" — was, as we are
told in the Gospel of Saint Luke, "one of the daughters of Aaron." Aaron died, and was buried on a mountain (Mount Hor) just outside the Promised Land. Aaron as a priest was a type of
what Jesus was to be. That is why he is honored among the saints. Jesus is the sole High Priest of the New Law. He gave us His Precious Blood in sacrifice at the Last Supper. And in the
Sacrament of Holy Orders, administered by Catholic bishops — the successors of the Apostles — Jesus has given us the true priesthood of our day. Aaron's priesthood perished on the first
Good Friday with the rending of the veil of the Temple of

Jerusalem. In the year 70 A.D., with the total destruction of the Temple, Aaron's credentials were no more.