The First Friday Devotion and the Sacred Heart of Jesus
The devotion was started by Margaret Mary Alacoque. She was a Catholic nun and mystic who received private visions of Jesus for two years, in which he revealed to her the practice of devotion to the sacred heart of Jesus. One m...
Apollos in the Bible: Convert, Missionary, Bishop
Everyone knows about Jesus’ Twelve Disciples, but there were also a group called “the Seventy” who were also followers of Jesus. They came from a number of different backgrounds, and ended up playing pivotal roles in the format...
Malchus: The Roman Soldier in the Garden of Gethsemane
The short answer: In the Bible, Malchus is the servant of the high priest whom St. Peter struck with a sword when the Jews came to arrest Jesus. He is mentioned in only one Gospel account and is not considered a saint in any tr...
Anna in the Bible: The Prophetess and the Mother of Mary
There are two women named “Anna” who were very important in the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. One is the prophetess Anna who lived in the temple and constantly fasted and prayed. She was old by the time she encountered...
St. Dismas, the good thief at Golgotha
All four Gospel accounts related the fact that Jesus was crucified along with two other men. According to Luke’s account, one of the thieves mocked Jesus, while the other thief recognized that Jesus was the Christ, humbled hims...
St. José Sánchez del Río, modern child martyr
At the beginning of the 20th century there was a conflict in Mexico that lasted from 1926 to 1929. As a part of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, the government attempted to make Mexico more secular—in the face of its deeply Ca...
Who was St. Gemma Galgani, patron of students?
St. Gemma seems to have had a variety of health problems throughout her life. As a child, she was generally of ill health. At age 16, she developed spinal meningitis. She prayed to the sacred heart of Jesus for recovery from he...
Who was Saint Longinus and what is his story?
There are many famous characters whose names aren’t recorded in the New Testament but who we know about through tradition and other extra-Biblical sources. For example, the “woman at the well” whom Jesus talks to, as recorded i...