At Eisenach Elizabeth built a large hospital. During a famine she daily fed nine hundred needy people. The story is told that once when she was on her way with her cloak full of good things for her dear poor and sick, she met her husband, who teasingly blocked her path until she would show […]
In the quiet little Franciscan convent at Coimbra he received a friendly reception, and in the very same year his earnest wish to be sent to the missions in Africa was fulfilled. But God had decreed otherwise. St. Anthony scarcely set foot on African soil when he was seized with a grievous illness. Even after […]
However, Cardinal Borromeo, who was then only twenty-two years old, was an exceptional young man, endowed with extraordinary gifts of mind and heart, deeply spiritual, and devoted wholeheartedly to the welfare of the Church. It was due to the young cardinal’s vigorous efforts and leadership that the Council of Trent was re-opened and carried to […]
As patriarch of Venice he wore the purple of the cardinalate for another period of nine years, always remaining a faithful son of the poor St. Francis. The death of Pope Leo XIII in 1903 brought him to Rome for the papal election. Who would be the new pope? Cardinal Sarto answered: “Leo XIII, who […]
At the beginning of the thirteenth century, when luxury and sensuality held sway, St. Francis of Assisi made his appearance, giving to men the example of a poor and penitential life. But God wished also to give the vain and pleasure-loving women of that period an example of contempt of the world’s vanities. For this […]
