#passionist saint

[stjohncapistrano67]

A very nice image of St. Gemma Galgani. I don't know who the creator is.

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows

St. Gabriel Possenti

1838 - 1862

Feast Day: February 27

Patronage:  Abruzzi, Italy, Catholic Action, clerics, students, young people

One of thirteen children, St Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows was led by Our Lady to give up ambitions of a secular career to enter the Passionist Congregation. His life was given to prayer, sacrifice, and a devotion to Our Lady and the contemplation of her sorrows over the suffering of Jesus. Many miracles are attributed to him after his death. Pope Benedict XV named him as a patron for young people.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

[theraccolta]

Dómine Jesu Christe, qui, ad mystérium crucis prædicándum, sanctum Paulum singulári caritáte donásti, et per eum novam in Ecclésia famíliam floréscere voluísti: ipsíus nobis intercessióne concéde; ut, passiónem tuam júgiter recoléntes in terris, ejúsdem fructum cónsequi mereámur in cælis: Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst gift Thy holy servant Paul with great love that he might preach the mystery of Thy cross, and hast been pleased that through him a new family should grow up in Thy Church, grant unto us at his prayers that upon earth we may so call thy sufferings to mind as worthily to gain the fruit thereof in heaven. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (February 27)

(1 March 1838 – 27 February 1862)

Francesco Possenti was born on 1 March 1838, in Assisi, Italy, the eleventh of thirteen children born to his mother, Agnes, and his father, Sante.

He lost his mother when he was only four years old.

He was educated by the Jesuits and, having been cured twice of serious illnesses, came to believe that God was calling him to the religious life.

Young Francesco wished to join the Jesuits but was turned down, probably because of his age. He was not yet 17 then.

Following the death of a sister to cholera, his resolve to enter religious life became even stronger.

He was accepted by the Passionists. Upon entering the novitiate, he was given the name Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Ever popular and cheerful, Gabriel quickly was successful in his effort to be faithful in little things.

His spirit of prayer, love for the poor, consideration of the feelings of others, exact observance of the Passionist Rule, as well as his bodily penances—always subject to the will of his wise superiors— made a deep impression on everyone.

His superiors had great expectations of him as he prepared for the priesthood, but after only four years of religious life, symptoms of tuberculosis appeared.

Ever obedient, he patiently bore the painful effects of the disease and the restrictions it required, seeking no special notice.

He had prayed for a slow death so as to be able to prepare himself spiritually.

He died on 27 February 1862, holding close an image of Our Lady of Sorrows and smiling peacefully.

Those who were with Possenti when he died reported that at the moment of death, he sat up in bed and his face became radiant as he reached out to an otherwise unseen figure that was entering the room.

It was said that Possenti had seen the Virgin Mary at the very moment of his death.

Possenti was beatified by Pope Pius X on 31 May 1908.

The outbreak of the First World War delayed Possenti's canonisation for a while, but on 13 May 1920, he was raised to the altars by Pope Benedict XV.

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT GEMMA GALGANI Feast Day: April 11

Gemma Galgani, a young Italian laywoman, is one of a select group of saints known as stigmatists.

From 1899 until her death in 1903, Gemma physically experienced the wounds of Christ – the stigmata. Every Thursday evening, Gemma’s hands, feet and side began to bleed. The bleeding stopped on Friday afternoon, leaving only white marks as a reminder. Gemma experienced visions, raptures, ecstasies and other mystical graces, but she also had to deal with great temptations from the devil.

Even though Gemma had miraculous visions, she lived a quiet, simple life of prayer and service. When her father died, 19-year-old Gemma took care of her seven brothers and sisters. When she was not spending time in silence and prayer, she went about the typical daily chores of taking care of a household. As her brothers and sisters became old enough to take care of themselves, she moved in with a family who enabled her to spend more time in spiritual activities.

Gemma suffered many setbacks in her life. She loved school but had to drop out because of her poor health. When she fell ill and had to move in with relatives, she was distressed at the trouble she caused them because of her illness. Worst of all, her sickness kept her from entering a religious order and becoming a nun, even after she had received a miraculous healing. But she offered up her disappointments to God and accepted the life he had planned for her.

St. Gemma believed she saw and talked with her guardian angel every day, and she often sent him on errands for her, usually to deliver a message to her confessor in Rome.

St. Gemma suffered from many illnesses during her short life. Although she was healed of some of them, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis in January 1903. She died in April of that year, at the age of 25. She was beatified in 1933 and canonized in 1940.

Source: Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland

[anastpaul]

Wednesday of the Second Week in Lent, St Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin and the Saints for 28 February

Wednesday of the Second Week in Lent St Gabriel of the Sorrowful Virgin/Gabriel Possenti CP (1838-1862) Confessor, Passionist Religious and student preparing for the Priesthood. Gabriel was known for his great devotion to the Sorrows of the Virgin Mary. St Gabriel was Canonised on 13 May 1920 by Pope Benedict…

[silvestromedia]

SAINTS OCTOBER 19

St. Laura, Roman Catholic and Martyr. She was martyred by Muslims who took her captive and scalded her to death by placing her in a vat of boiling lead. She is one of the Martyrs of Córdoba. Feast Day Oct. 19.

St. Theofrid, Roman Catholic Priest and Martyr. He was killed by Muslim raiders who had crossed into southern France. Feastday October 19

St. Philip Howard, 1595 A.D. One of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Philip was the earl of Arundel and Surrey and, although a Catholic, led a religiously apathetic life until his personal conversion, after which he was a zealous Catholic in the midst of Elizabethan England. Arrested by authorities, he was placed in the Tower of London in 1585 and condemned to death in 1589. The sentence was never carried out, and Philip languished in the Tower until his death at the age of thirty eight. Beatified in 1929, he was included among the English martyrs canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.

STS. JOHN DE BRÉBEUF AND ISAAC JOGUES, PRIESTS AND COMPANIONS, JESUITS, https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/10/19/sts--john-de-brebeuf-and-isaac-jogues--priests-and-companions--j.html

St. Eadnot, 1016 A.D. Bishop of Dorchester, England, who was a champion of St. Oswald of York. He is listed as a martyr in some records, having been slain in an invasion by the Danes.

St. Frideswide, 735 A.D. Benedictine hermitess and nun, the daughter of Prince Didan of the Upper Thames region of England. She is sometimes called Fredeswinda. When Prince Algar of a neighboring kingdom asked for her hand in marriage, Frideswide fled to Thomwry Wood in Birnsey, where she became a hermitess. She founded the St. Mary’s Convent in Oxford and is patroness of the University of that City. Her relics are extant. In liturgical art she is depicted as Benedictine, sometimes with an ox for companion.

Bl. Agnes de Jesus Galand, Roman Catholic Dominican Nun.

ST. PAUL OF THE CROSS, PRIEST, FOUNDER OF THE PASSIONISTS

CANADIAN MARTYRS -

[catholic-saint-tournament]

Propaganda for St Gemma Galgani--she was a saint who never got a job and had intense visions of Jesus and her guardian angel, wrote letters and was generally very kind and cool. She wanted to be a Passionist nun but couldn't for health reasons, so pls support her for all of us who have had dreams that couldn't happen!

PROPAGANDA FOR ST GEMMA!!!

another vote has been added for her!

but seriously St Gemma Galgani was such a badass. Consider voting for her!!

[brother-joseph]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: St Gemma Galgani Pamphlet/Minibook, by Bob and Penny Lord.

[leohttbriar]

"Where Volpi’s doctor had seen blood that could be wiped away, and that suspicious sewing needle on the floor, the Passionists saw eloquent wounds. In Julius Caesar, Antony promises to ‘put a tongue in every wound of Caesar’. Father Germano undertook a similar duty for Gemma. [...] Gemma continued fainting, convulsing, vomiting blood and showing the stigmata; Germano advised her to pray for the cessation of these physical manifestations and to ask for spiritual graces instead.

Spiritual graces were safer; even Germano didn’t want the girl making a holy show of herself. Bell and Mazzoni demonstrate how potentially subversive Gemma’s physical eloquence was. The saint first affected by the stigmata was Francis of Assisi, but it has afflicted many more women than men. It insists on the likeness of the believer’s body to that of Christ. It argues that the gender of the redemptive body does not matter. It undermines the notion of a masculine God. It shows that Christ can represent women and women can represent Christ – no wonder it makes the church nervous. There is a trap the church has created for itself – it wants Jesus to have a gender but not sexuality. Under the loincloth of the crucified Christ, what would you find? Only a smooth groin of wood or plaster. His ability to love has to centre on some other organ.

Throughout her life Gemma suffered from palpitations and pains in her chest. [...] For Gemma, the heart is the place her pain is centred, the place where metaphors converge. She calls Jesus ‘the powerful King of Hearts’. Hélène Cixous has pointed out that the heart is the place where male and female metaphors become one. Both sexes agree it is there that love is bred and contained. The heart beats faster when you see your lover, or in the sexual act. It is the place where Gemma’s identity collapses into that of Jesus. She insists that her heart wants to enlarge; she uses an expression that also means, ‘to take comfort’. In Saint Hysteria, Mazzoni shows how the woman mystic pushes language to do what it can, and abandons it when it reaches its limit. When telling is insufficient, she shows.

This was the church’s great problem: men’s language, frozen in liturgy and protocol, and women’s language, plastic, elastic, expressed in the heaving bosom and the arched spine – the flicky tongue of hysteria, juicy with unspoken words. The church had got itself embroiled in competing systems of metaphor, parallel discourses which it was too intellectually cowardly or inept to try to reconcile; it could only shuffle into shady alliances with the kind of science that suited it. [...]

If you want to look at Gemma’s life as Freud and Josef Breuer might have looked at it (Studies in Hysteria was published in 1895) you can collude with the church in describing Gemma as a hysteric. But where does that get us? Holiness and psychopathology can coexist, and perhaps by the time Gemma was making her career you couldn’t have the first without what looked like the second. [...] Gemma thought she could be both a hysteric and a saint. She clearly understood that the diagnosis was pejorative, and regarded it as just another of the humiliations that God had lined up for her.

At the heart of Bell and Mazzoni’s endeavour is an understanding that a phenomenon may retain spiritual value, even after its biological and psychological roots have been uncovered. To describe the physical basis of an experience is not to negate the experience, as William James pointed out long ago. But now that neuroscience has such excellent tools for envisaging and describing the brain, we are tempted to accept descriptions of physiological processes as a complete account of experience. We then go further, and make value judgments about certain experiences, and deny their value if they don’t fit a consensus; we medicate the mysterious, and in relieving suffering, take its meaning away. This won’t do; there is always more suffering, and a pain is never generic, but particular and personal. We denigrate the female saints as masochists; noting that anorexic girls have contempt for their own flesh, we hospitalise them and force-feed them, taking away their liberties as if they were criminals or infants, treating them as if they have lost the right to self-determination. But we don’t extend the same contempt to pub brawlers or career soldiers. Men own their bodies, but women’s bodies are owned by the wider society; this observation is far from original, but perhaps bears restatement."

hilary mantel, "some girls want out"

[stjohncapistrano67]

A modern Traditional Catholic image of St. Gemma Galgani, a Passionist Order Saint.

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows St. Gabriel Possenti 1838 - 1862 Feast Day: February 27 Patronage:  Abruzzi, Italy, Catholic Action, clerics, students, young people

One of thirteen children, St Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows was led by Our Lady to give up ambitions of a secular career to enter the Passionist Congregation. His life was given to prayer, sacrifice, and a devotion to Our Lady and the contemplation of her sorrows over the suffering of Jesus. Many miracles are attributed to him after his death. Pope Benedict XV named him as a patron for young people. {website}

[brookston]

Holidays 5.16

Holidays

Biographer's Day

Coquilles St. Jacques Day

Drawing Day

European Maritime Day

HAE (Hereditary Angioedema) Day

Honor Our LGBT Elders Day

International Celiac Awareness Day

International Day of Light

International Day of Living Together in Peace

International Day of Protest Against Shock Treatment

International Day of the Boy Child

Love A Tree Day

Martyrs of Sudan Day (Episcopal Church)

Mass Graves Day (Iraq)

Middlesex Day (UK)

Moonwalk Day

National Biographer’s Day

National Check Your Wipers Day

National Coquilles St. Jacques Day

National Day (South Sudan)

National Dengue Day (India)

National Denim Day for the CURE Foundation (Canada)

National Do Something Good For Your Neighbor Day

National Horse Rescue Day (Australia)

National Piercing Day

National Take Your Parents to the Playground Day

Nickel Day (US)

Ohio Players Day (Dayton, Ohio)

Pencil Day

Red Hill Holiday (Russia)

Romani Resistance Day

Sea Monkey Day

Sikkim Day (India)

Sing "Row Row Row Your Boat" in Rounds Day

Sneeze Without Embarrassment Day

South Sudan Day

SPLA Day (South Sudan)

Sun Bear Day

Teachers’ Day (Malaysia)

Try Not To Be As Stupid Today As You Normally Are Day

Ubald (Jesus, Pennsylvania)

Wear Purple For Peace Day

World Agri-Tourism Day

World Barrett’s Day

World Bloodless Surgery Day

World Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG) Awareness Day

World Day of Heavy Metal

World Education Support Personnel Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Gluten-Free Beer Day (Portland, Oregon)

Hires Root Beer Day

International Pickle Day

Mimosa Day

National BBQ Day

Root Beer Day

Spaghetti-O's Day

3rd Tuesday in May

International Dinosaur Day [3rd Tuesday; also 6.1]

National Stop Nausea Day [3rd Tuesday]

Sex Differences in Health Awareness Day [3rd Tuesday]

Independence Days

Boshka (Declared; 2007) [unrecognized]

Intercontinental Republic of the Americas (Declared; 2022) [unrecognized]

New Somerset (Declared; 2022) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Aaron (Coptic Church)

Abda and Abdjesus, and companions (Christian; Saint)

Abdas of Susa (Christian; Saint)

Advanced Tree Hugging and Arborial Sex Day (Pastafarian)

Andrew Bobola (Christian; Saint)

Beige Fraggle (Muppetism)

Bismarck Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Brendan the Navigator (Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion, Eastern Orthodox Church)

Caroline Chisholm (Church of England)

Gemma Galgani (Passionists Calendar)

Germerius (Christian; Saint)

Hadrian (Positivist; Saint)

Honoratus of Amiens (Christian; Saint)

John of Nepomuk (Christian; Saint) [Bohemia, Czech Republic]

Margaret of Cortona (Christian; Saint)

Martyrs of Sudan (Episcopal Church (USA))

Peregrine of Auxerre (Christian; Saint)

Simon Stock (Christian; Saint)

Skinny Dipping Day (Pastafarian)

Tamara de Lempicka (Artology)

Ubald (Christian; Saint)

Woody Herman (Humanist; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Uncyclopedia Bad to Be Born Today (because Wikipedia launched.)

Premieres

Agent in Place, by Helen MacInnes (Novel; 1976)

Annie Get Your Gun (Broadway Musical; 1946)

Beer The Movie (Film; 2006)

Breaker Morant (Film; 1980)

But Seriously, Folks…, by Joe Walsh (Album; 1978)

Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West (Novel; 1939) 

The Eighth Day, buy Thornton Wilder (Novel; 1967)

Fame (Film; 1980)

Godzilla (Film; 2014)

Great Lion of God, by Taylor Caldwell (Novel; 1970)

The Iceman Ducketh (WB LT Cartoon; 1964)

I’d Love to Take Orders from You (WB MM Cartoon; 1936)

(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again, by Elton John and Taron Egerton (Song; 2019)

Live at Leeds, by The Who (Live Album; 1970)

Moonlight Becomes You, by Mary Higgins Clark (Novel; 1996)

Oops!… I Did It Again, by Britney Spears (Album; 2000)

Pet Sounds, by The Beach Boys (Album; 1966)

Que Sera, Sera *Whatever Will Be, Will Be), by Doris Day (Song; 1956)

Shrek (Animated Film; 2001)

Star Trek: Into Darkness (Film; 2013)

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (Film; 2002)

Summer Wind, recorded by Frank Sinatra (Song; 1966)

Sweet Liberty (Film; 1986)

Tennessee River, by Alabama (Song; 1980)

Top Gun (Film; 1986)

Two Gun Goofy (Disney Cartoon; 1952)

Today’s Name Days

Adolf, Johann (Austria)

Adam, Cvjetko, Ivan (Croatia)

Přemysl (Czech Republic)

Sara (Denmark)

Esta, Este, Ester, Esti (Estonia)

Essi, Ester, Esteri (Finland)

Brendan, Honoré (France)

Adolf, Johann Nepomuk (Germany)

Botond, Mózes (Hungary)

Adamo, Margherita, Oderzo, Tiziano, Ubaldo (Italy)

Edijs, Edvīns, Inese, Inesis (Latvia)

Andrius, Ubaldas, Vaidmantas (Lithuania)

Sara, Siren (Norway)

Andrzej, Honorat, Jan Nepomucen, Jędrzej, Szymon, Trzebomysł, Ubald, Wieńczysław, Wiktorian (Poland)

Natan, Paisie, Sila, Teodor (România)

Svetozár (Slovakia)

Honorato, Simón, Ubaldo (Spain)

Ronald, Ronny (Sweden)

Brand, Branden, Brandi, Brandon, Brandy, Brannon, Brant, Brenda, Brendan, Brenden, Brendon, Brenna, Brennan, Brent, Brenton (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 136 of 2024; 229 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 20 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Huath (Hawthorn) [Day 3 of 28]

Chinese: Month 3 (Bing-Chen), Day 27 (Jia-Xu)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 25 Iyar 5783

Islamic: 25 Shawwal 1444

J Cal: 15 Bīja; Oneday [15 of 30]

Julian: 3 May 2023

Moon: 10%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 24 Caesar (5th Month) [Hadrian]

Runic Half Month: Ing (Expansive Energy) [Day 7 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 58 of 90)

Zodiac: Taurus (Day 27 of 30)

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (October 19)

Paul Francis Daneii was born at Ovada, Piedmont, in northern Italy on 3 January 1694.

After receiving a vision, and while still a layman, he founded the Barefoot Clerks of the Cross and the Passion (Passionists) in 1721 to preach about Jesus Crucified.

He became a preacher of such power that even hardened soldiers and bandits were seen to weep.

At one point, all the brothers in the order deserted him, but in 1741, his rule was approved by Pope Benedict XIV, and the community began to grow again.

His parents, Luke Danei and Anna Maria Massari, were exemplary Catholics. From his earliest years, the crucifix was his book and the Crucified his model.

Paul received his early education from a priest who kept a school for boys in Cremolino, Lombardy. He made great progress in study and virtue, then spent much time in prayer and daily Mass.

He frequently received the Sacraments, faithfully attended to his school duties, and gave his spare time to reading good books and visiting the churches, where he spent much time before the Blessed Sacrament, to which he had an ardent devotion.

At the age of fifteen, he left school and returned to his home at Castellazzo. From this point on, his life was full of trials.

In early manhood, he renounced the offer of an honorable marriage and a good inheritance left him by an uncle who was a priest. He only kept for himself the priest's Breviary.

Inflamed with a desire for God's glory, he formed the idea of instituting a religious order with an emphasis on the Passion.

Vested in a black tunic by the Bishop of Alessandria, his director, bearing the emblem of our Lord's Passion, barefooted, and bareheaded, he retired to a narrow cell where he drew up the Rules of the new congregation according to the plan made known to him in a vision, which he relates in the introduction to the original copy of the Rules.

After the approbation of the Rules and the institute, the first general chapter was held at the Retreat of the Presentation on Mount Argentaro on 10 April 1747.

At this chapter, St. Paul, against his wishes, was unanimously elected first superior general, an office which he held until the day of his death.

In all virtues and in the observance of regular discipline, he became a model to his companions.

"Although continually occupied with the cares of governing his religious society, and of founding everywhere new houses for it, he never ceased preaching the word of God, burning as he did with a wondrous desire for the salvation of souls" (Brief of Pius IX for St. Paul's Beatification, Oct. 1, 1852).

Sacred missions were instituted and numerous conversions were made.

He was untiring in his Apostolic labours and never, even to his last hour, remitted anything of his austere manner of life, finally succumbing to a severe illness, worn out as much by his austerities as by old age.

Among the distinguished associates of St. Paul in the formation and extension of the congregation were: John Baptist, his younger brother and constant companion from childhood, who shared all his labours and sufferings and equaled him in the practice of virtue, Father Mark Aurelius (Pastorelli), Father Thomas Struzzieri (subsequently Bishop of Amelia and afterwards of Todi), and Father Fulgentius of Jesus, all remarkable for learning, piety and missionary zeal.

Venerable Strambi, Bishop of Macerata and Tolentino, was his biographer.

Constant personal union with the Passion and Cross of our Lord was the prominent feature of St. Paul's sanctity, but devotion to the Passion did not stand alone, for he carried to a heroic degree all the other virtues of a Christian life.

Numerous miracles, in addition those special ones brought forward at his beatification and canonization, attested the favour he enjoyed with God.

Miracles of grace abounded, as witnessed in the conversion of sinners seemingly hardened and hopeless.

For fifty years, he prayed for the conversion of England and left the devotion as a legacy to his sons.

The body of St. Paul lies in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul in Rome.

He died on 18 October 1775. He was beatified on 1 October 1852 and canonized on 29 June 1867.

Two years later, his feast day was inserted in the Roman calendar for celebration on April 28 as a Double.

In 1962, it was reclassified as a Third-Class feast. In 1969, it became an optional Memorial and was placed on October 19, the day after his death anniversary on October 18, which is the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist.

His feast is celebrated in the United States on October 20, as the country celebrates the feast of the North American Martyrs on October 19.

The fame of his sanctity, which had spread far and wide in Italy during his life, increased after his death and spread into all countries.

Great devotion to him is practiced by the faithful wherever Passionists are established.

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT GABRIEL OF THE SEVEN SORROWS (Francesco Possenti) Feast Day: February 27

"Our perfection does not consist of doing extraordinary things but to do the ordinary well."

St. Gabriel's life reveals that a profound love for the Mother of Sorrows is of the very essence of the Passionist charism, for it was Mary who appeared to young Paul Francis Daneo, the Passionist founder, and called him to found the Congregation.

Francisco Possenti was born in Assisi on March 1, 1838, the eleventh child of Sante Possenti and Agnes Frisciotti.

The first year of his life was spent away from his family with a nursing woman who cared for him because his mother was unable. In 1841 Sante moved the family to Spoleto where he was appointed magistrate. In that same year, the youngest Possenti child died at just six months old; Francis' nine-year old sister, Adele, soon followed. Just days later, his heartbroken mother was too called to eternal life. Francis had lost his mother at just 4 years old.

Tragedy continued to plague the family during his youth. In 1846 Francis' brother, Paul, was killed in the Italian war with Austria. Another brother, Lawrence, later took his own life. Such events, however, did not rob Francis of his spirit and cheerfulness. During his formative years, Francis attended the school of the Christian brothers and then the Jesuit college in Spoleto. He was lively, intelligent and popular at school. At sixteen, he suffered a life-threatening illness. Praying for a cure, Francis promised to become a religious. With recovery, however, Francis quickly forgot his promise. But God's call would not be denied, and Francis soon turned his heart to the Congregation of the Passionists.

Francisco was less than pleased with his teenage son's decision. Determined to show Francis the joys of a secular life of theater and society parties, Sante continued to hope Francis would find pleasure in a social life. But the young man was not to be dissuaded. Immediately after completion of his schooling, he left for the Passionist novitiate in Morrovalle. In the novitiate, he cultivated a great love for Christ Crucified. Francis received the Passionist habit on September 21, 1856, which that year was the Feast of the Sorrowful Mother.

He was given the name: Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother. A year later he took his vows.

His monastic life preparing for the priesthood made Gabriel a secluded, non-public figure. His writings reflect his close relationship with God and His mother.

These were difficult and tumultuous times in Italy. The new Italian government issued decrees closing religious Orders in certain provinces of the Papal States. The new Passionist province of Pieta, to which Gabriel belonged, was in the center of this chaos. By 1860, the Passionists had ceased apostolic work due to the growing threats surrounding the community. During this period various Italian provinces were overrun by soldiers who robbed and terrorized the towns with little mercy.

The people of Isola would always remember him as 'their Gabriel.'

Struck with tuberculosis at the age of 24, Gabriel died on February 27, 1862, before his ordination to the priesthood. His fidelity to prayer, joyfulness of spirit and habitual mortifications stand out in his otherwise ordinary life.

Pope Benedict XV canonized Gabriel in 1920 and declared him a patron of Catholic youth. His patronage is also invoked by the Church for students, seminarians, novices and clerics. Thousands of divine favors are attributed to his intercession with Christ Crucified and the Sorrowful Mother Mary.

[anastpaul]

Saints of the Day – 26 June – Saint John and Saint Paul (Died c362) Laymen brothers, Martyrs.

Saints of the Day – 26June – Saint John and Saint Paul of Rome (Died c362) Laymen siblings, Martyrs. John and Paul lived during the 4th Century in the Roman Empire. They were Martyred at Rome on 26 June. The year of their Martyrdom is uncertain according to their Acts; it occurred under the Emperor, Julian the Apostate This image is in the Passionist Monastery The Roman Martyrology reads today:…