Melanie Rigney's Blog, page 110

St. Gwladys: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Gwladyslived in the sixth century in what is now Wales. She and her chieftain husband Gwynllywwere sort of the Bonnie and Clyde of their day. Madly in love, they eloped with the help of King Arthur when Gwladys’s father disapproved the match. They were violent. They were bandits.

It was a riotous life… a life rejected by their oldest son, Cadoc, who became an abbot (as well as a saint himself) and was deeply distressed by his parents’ lifestyle. At one point, Cadoc sent messengers home to...

Questions, Questions, Questions

Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.

It happens often in the Gospels. Jesus says something or does something, and people want to ask questions or press him in some other way, but they don’t. Perhaps it’s because they remember what’s happened in other cases, where he answers a question with another question. Or perhaps there was something about his demeanor that made it less than comfortable to contin...

St. Teresa of Avila: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Teresa of Avila was born in Spain 499 years ago today and died on October 4, 1582. Her feast day isn’t until October 15, but I thought I’d talk about her today since it’s her birthday… and because I bought this cool statue of her last week at Milwaukee’s Marian Center.

What to say about Teresa? She’s a doctor of the Catholic Church for her writings on prayer, yet her true prayer life didn’t begin until after she was forty. She was beautiful and flirtatious when she was young, yet she was r...

St. Agostina Livia Pietrantoni: 2041 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Agostina Livia Pietrantoni was born in Italy on this date in 1864, and died on November 13, 1894. She held a variety of jobs, including hauling materials for road construction, until she was accepted by the Sisters of Charity of St. Jeanne-Antide Thouret shortly before her twenty-second birthday.

After her final vows, Agostina was assigned to work at a hospital that had already removed any signs of religiosity and driven out the Capuchin fathers. It was in that environment that she encount...

St. Margaret Clitherow: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Margaret Clitherow was born about 1556 in York, England, and died on March 25, 1586. Margaret is among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales who were executed between 1535 and 1679 on treason and related charges for defending the Catholic faith.

Margaret converted to Catholicism when she was eighteen, and was an ardent defender of her newfound faith. It was discovered she was hiding priests in her home, and she refused to enter a plea in court because her children and servants would have...

St. Lucy Filippini: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Lucy Filippini was born in southern Italy on January 16, 1672, and died in 1732on this date, which is also her feast day. She found her charism in teaching… including teaching others to teach.

Lucy and a cardinal worked together to develop schools to educate girls about reading, homemaking, and religion, and the effort was so successful that the pope called her to Rome to start schools there. The Religious Teachers Filippini carries on her work today in ten countries, including the United...

Blessed Maria Karlowska: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

Blessed Maria Karlowska was born in Poland on September 4, 1865, and died on this date in 1935.

When Maria was working as a dressmaker, she began meeting prostitutes and other poverty-stricken young women. Rather than condemning these women, Maria went on to found the Polish Good Shepherd Sisters, an order that helps women find their way out of such situations and assists those with sexually transmitted diseases. This combination of care and compassion has led to numerous conversions and rest...

St. Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayes: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayes was born on June 29, 1832, in a small town in Lebanon and died one hundred years ago today. This is her feast day.

She was seventeen or so when she entered a convent. Many years later, when she was fifty-three, Rafqa prayed to Jesus to be allowed to experience some of his Passion pain. She immediately had an excruciating headache, and had no real relief from pain until her death nearly thirty years later. She lost one eye, and lost sight in the other. She becam...

St. Catherine of Sweden: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

St. Catherine of Sweden was born in 1331 and died in on March 24, 1381. Her feast day is today.

Catherine was a devoted daughter to St. Bridget of Sweden. The pair were visiting Rome together when nineteen-year-old Catherine’s husband died back in Sweden, and the mother and daughter grew still closer as a result of that loss.

Bridget had founded a religious order known as the Brigittines, and it was Catherine who gained Vatican approval for the order’s rule after Bridget died. Catherine also ac...

St. Candida Maria de Jesus: 2014 Daily Lenten Reflections

Today’s saint, Candida Maria de Jesus, and yesterday’s woman, Maria Josefa of the Heart of Jesus, were Spanish contemporaries. Candida Maria was born on May 31, 1845, and died on August 9, 1912. Her feast day is today.

But while Maria Josefa’s ministry was with the sick, Candida Maria’s focus was on education. She was called in a Good Friday vision to found an order and save souls “through the education and instruction of children and youth.”

Within three years of this vision, the congregation...