St. Stephen

the-stoning-of-st-stephen-1604St. Stephen, by birth a Roman, was made Pope on May 3, 253, and governed the Church for three years. He decided the question of the validity of Baptism when administered by heretics, ordering that the tradition should be preserved according to which it was sufficient that they receive confirmation. He was murdered by the Emperor’s soldiers while seated in his Episcopal chair in the catacombs, during the celebration of Mass August 2, 257.

(Source: The New Roman Missal, Rev. F. X. Lasance

St. Alphonsus Mary de Liguori

StAlphonsusLiguori1St. Alphonsus was born of noble parents near Naples, Italy, in 1696, and died in 1787. In the midst of many evils he appeared with a three fold mission as a Doctor, Bishop, and founder of a new religious Order. As Doctor he became the great teacher of Moral Theology; he founded the middle way between the two extremes of the lax and the over rigorous, and by his ascetic writings he spread amongst the people Catholic piety, devotion to Our Lady, to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, to the Passion, and defended the supreme rights of the Church and the Pope.

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