Born: 1st Century BC Died: 1st Century BC Feast Day: November 5th What she said “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” — Luke 1:41–45 What the world was like People at this time ate a fairly straightforward diet. Most days people would have eaten lots of bread from wheat or barley, cereals or gruels. Olives, dates and figs were also eaten. Meat was eaten every now and again, usually after a big festival and the slaughtering of a lamb or goat. A lot of wine was drunk too. Politically would have been quite a difficult time. She would have seen the end of the reign of Herod the Great and all the revolts that accompanied the end of his reign. She would have seen the Roman Legions coming in to Galilee to put down these revolts and all the atrocities associated with the legions. We know from Jewish writings of the time that the Romans burnt cities and took people away into slavery. Galilee was politically fairly stable throughout most of Jesus' lifetime but there would have been isolated pockets of resistance and certainly no one would have liked the idea that Judea to the south was a Roman province, or that the Romans were present in the Holy City of Jerusalem and in the temple itself. Galilee in the 20s was occupied by Romans and would have been an oppressing place for the Jews. If a Roman soldier said "you've got to carry my backpack one mile", they'd have to do it; they had no option. The Romans forced the Jews to pay taxes to Caesar. At night they might have heard the soldiers march by with their swords clanging, and they would have been afraid. One can imagine there was talk about trusting in God and that maybe in their lifetime he would send a Messiah. The Jews, as they became more and more oppressed, may have became more and more obsessed with God. They may have thought that this could be the time for the Saviour to come. Link Who she was Not much information is known about Elizabeth, but she has the distinction of being one of the first to know about Mary's great blessing as the Mother of God. Elizabeth, Mary's cousin, was beyond child-bearing age. Her husband, Zachariah, was told by an angel in a vision that they would have a son and should name him John. When he doubted this, he was struck dumb. Elizabeth was visited by Mary, at which time Mary spoke the hymn of praise now known at the Magnificat, and after John's birth, Zachariah's speech was restored. This is all that is known of Elizabeth and Zachariah, and is found in the New Testament in Luke. What this saint means to us today We should never underestimate God's tremendous love for us. Even though Elizabeth had been barren and her time for having a baby was over, God caused her to conceive. Our God is a God of surprises. Sometimes, when we least expect it, he touches us with a miracle and our life is changed forever
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Born: August 27th, 1910 Died: September 5th, 1997 Feast Day: September 5th What she said: "Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin." What the world was like: Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born in a city called Skopje, located in Macedonia, in the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. At the time of Mother Teresa's birth, Macedonia was part of the Ottoman Empire. When she was a child, this area was torn by the Balkan Wars. In 1918, after the First World War, Macedonia became part of a new nation called the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1929 that nation changed its name to Yugoslavia. In 1991, after World War II and the rise and fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, the Republic of Macedonia declared its independence from Yugoslavia, and Skopje became its capital. Mother Teresa arrived in India in 1929. India was part of the British Empire and was ruled by England. In 1947, India gained its independence thanks to the work of Mohandas Gandhi and others. India was then divided into two nations, India and Pakistan. In 1971 East Pakistan became the independent nation of Bangladesh. Today the nation of India is the world's largest liberal democracy. Who she was: Teresa was the daughter of Nikola and Dronda Bojaxhiu. Her parents named her Gonxha, or Agnes. Teresa was the youngest child in a loving Catholic family. She had an older sister named Aga and a brother named Lazar. Agnes's father died suddenly when Agnes was just seven years old. Her mother had to raise her children alone. When Agnes was twelve she realized God was calling her to become a missionary. She read all the stories she could find about the work of Catholic missionaries around the world. And she studied geography to learn about the lands where missionaries worked. When Agnes was eighteen years old, she joined the Sisters of Loreto. The Sisters of Loreto are a community of Irish sisters who did missionary work in India. She traveled first to Ireland, where she began her studies. Then she was sent to India in 1929. There she took her first vows as a sister. She chose Teresa as her religious name in honor of Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. From the time she first arrived in India until 1948, Mother Teresa was a teacher. She taught at Saint Mary's High School in Calcutta. Many of the students at the school were girls from wealthy families. But the city of Calcutta was very large, and many people who lived there were very poor. Day after day, Mother Teresa saw the difficult lives of Calcutta's poor people. She wanted to help these poor people to live better lives. In 1948 Pope Pius XII and Teresa's order allowed her to leave Saint Mary's and devote her life to caring for the homeless people on the streets of Calcutta. Teresa studied nursing so that she would be able to help the sick. She opened a school for Calcutta's poorest children. She stopped wearing the religious habit of the Sisters of Loreto. Instead she wore the clothes of a poor Indian woman: a plain cotton sari and sandals. As word of Mother Teresa's new mission spread, volunteers -- young women from India and around the world -- arrived to help her in her work. Then, in 1950, the Church gave Mother Teresa permission to start a new order of religious sisters, the Missionaries of Charity. Their mission is to love and serve the poor, especially those who have no one else to care for them. During her long life among the poor, Mother Teresa received many honors. One of these was the Nobel Peace Prize, which she received in 1979. When she died, her adopted country of India gave her a state funeral. The ceremonies were broadcast on television around the world. In 2003, only six years after her death, Mother Teresa was declared Blessed by Pope John Paul II. What this saint means to us: Today the Missionaries of Charity serve the poorest of the poor in countries around the world, from the streets of India to the streets of New York. And, as Mother Teresa reminded us, with yesterday gone and tomorrow not yet here, we have only today to reach out and help those who need it most. So let us begin. Born: 1656 Died: April 17th, 1680 Feast Day: July 14th What she said "Who can tell me what is most pleasing to God that I may do it?" What the world was like In 1664 control of the North American colony called New Netherlands and its capital, New Amsterdam, passed from the Dutch to the British. The British gave the colony and its capital the same new name: New York. In France King Louis XIV reigned as an absolute monarch. In England King Charles II became king in the restoration of the monarchy that followed the English Civil War. In the Caribbean a ruthless British buccaneer named Henry Morgan raided Spanish towns, captured Spanish ships, and burned Panama City to the ground. In the Netherlands and in Spain artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Diego Velázquez produced masterpieces of painting, and in England poet John Milton published his epic poem Paradise Lost. In Ireland Archbishop Oliver Plunkett was arrested for high treason "for promoting the Catholic faith"; he would be martyred in 1681, the year after Kateri Tekakwitha's death. Who she was Kateri Tekakwitha was born near the present-day town of Auriesville, New York. Her mother, an Algonquin, was a Christian. Her father, a leader among his people, the Mohawk, was not. When Kateri was four years old, a disease called smallpox struck her village. Kateri's mother, father, and baby brother all died from the disease. Little Kateri survived, but the disease scarred her face and left her partially blind. She was adopted by her aunts and an uncle, a Mohawk chief. When Kateri was a teenager, she asked permission from her uncle to receive religious instruction from a Jesuit missionary. Her uncle did not approve, but he allowed her to study the faith. On Easter Sunday, 1676, at the age of twenty, Kateri was baptized. After her Baptism, members of her family and others in the village began to shun Kateri and treat her harshly. Because of this, Kateri decided to leave her village and travel to a Catholic mission near Montreal, in Canada. In August 1677, with the help of some Christian friends, Kateri set out on the two-hundred-mile journey. She arrived at the mission in October. There, on Christmas Day in 1677, she received her First Holy Communion. At the mission Kateri taught prayers to children and told them stories about the life of Jesus. She nursed the sick, gathered offerings for those in need, and helped the elderly with their daily chores. She and another young woman asked permission to start an order of religious sisters, but their request was denied. Kateri's health was beginning to fail. Kateri died during Holy Week in 1680, at the age of twenty-four. Her last words, spoken in Mohawk, were Jesos Konoronkwa: "Jesus, I love you." In 1943 the Church declared her Venerable. Pope John Paul II declared her Blessed in 1980. On October 21, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI canonized Kateri. She is the first Native American to be named a saint. What this holy person means to us today When her life became hard, Kateri turned to God in prayer. She focused on helping others, sharing stories about Jesus, and doing everyday chores as acts of love.
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