November 23
The saints and feasts remembered on November 23, each with a short life, a Bible passage and a prayer.
Saint Clement I
Wrote to a divided church in Corinth, urging humility and peace
Clement led the Christian community in Rome near the end of the first century. Early lists name him as the third successor of Peter as bishop there, though many scholars think Rome’s church was then guided by a group of elders, with Clement as a leading voice. Little else about his life is certain.
He is linked to a letter the Roman church sent, probably around the year 96, to Christians in Corinth, where some members had pushed out their elders. The letter, known as 1 Clement, pleads for humility, order and peace. At one point it tells the Corinthians to take up again the letter Paul had once written them about their quarrels. A much later legend says Clement was exiled to the Crimea and drowned tied to an anchor.
Christians still read his letter as one of the oldest Christian writings outside the New Testament: a window into a young church learning to heal its divisions.
I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree together, so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be united in mind and conviction.
1 Corinthians 1:10 · BSB
A prayer
Faithful God, in the early days of your Church you moved Clement to write to quarrelling believers and call them back to humility and peace. Heal the divisions among us today, teach us to listen and to forgive, and keep us together as one family in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint Columban
Irish monk who left his homeland to found monasteries across Europe
Columban was an Irish monk, born in Leinster around the middle of the 6th century. He trained for many years at the monastery of Bangor under its abbot, Comgall. Around 590 he left Ireland with twelve companions to live as a “pilgrim for Christ” in a foreign land.
In Burgundy, in what is now eastern France, they founded monasteries at Annegray, Luxeuil and Fontaine. Columban was blunt: he kept the Irish date for Easter against the local bishops and rebuked King Theuderic II for his way of life. Around 610 he was expelled. According to his early biographer, the ship meant to take him back to Ireland was driven ashore by bad weather, so he travelled on to the Alps and then to northern Italy, where he founded Bobbio and died in 615.
His monks and their houses spread prayer and learning across Europe, and his Rule and letters still survive.
Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you.
Genesis 12:1 · BSB
A prayer
God of the pilgrim, you called Columban to leave his home and carry the Gospel to strangers, and you kept him steadfast when he was driven out. Give us courage to go where you send us, to speak the truth with love, and to build communities of prayer wherever we are. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The lives are written with AI help from public-domain histories and checked before publishing; the prayers are ours. Bible quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), in the public domain. How we write.