Saint of the day
Saints John de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues and Companions
Six Jesuit priests and two lay helpers killed in mission lands, 1642–1649
In the 1630s and 1640s, French Jesuit missionaries travelled to New France to live among the Wendat (Huron) people near Georgian Bay, in what is now Ontario. John de Brébeuf spent years learning their language, wrote a grammar of it, and tried to explain the Gospel in words and images the Wendat could understand. Isaac Jogues worked among them too.
Saint Paul of the Cross
Founded the Passionists to preach the suffering and love of Christ crucified
Paolo Francesco Danei was born in 1694 in Ovada, in northern Italy, into a merchant family that had little money. As a young man he felt drawn to prayer and to a life centred on Jesus’ passion. In 1720 his bishop gave him a plain black tunic, and he spent forty days alone writing a rule for a new community.
Saint Joel
Prophet who urged God’s people to tear their hearts, not their clothes
Joel was a prophet in Judah, known to us only through the short biblical book that bears his name. It tells us he was the son of Pethuel. Scholars still disagree about when he lived; suggestions span several centuries, though many place him after the return from exile in Babylon.