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Catholic Saints & Feasts

Catholic Saints & Feasts

Von: Fr. Michael Black
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 "Catholic Saints & Feasts" offers a dramatic reflection on each saint and feast day of the General Calendar of the Catholic Church. The reflections are taken from the four volume book series: "Saints & Feasts of the Catholic Calendar," written by Fr. Michael Black.

These reflections profile the theological bone breakers, the verbal flame throwers, the ocean crossers, the heart-melters, and the sweet-chanting virgin-martyrs who populate the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church.Copyright Fr. Michael Black Christentum Spiritualität
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  • February 23: Saint Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr

    February 23: Saint Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr
    Feb 23 2025
    February 23: Saint Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr c. 69–c. 155 Memorial; Liturgical Color: Red (When Lenten Weekday, Optional Memorial; Violet) Patron Saint of earache sufferers A venerable bishop’s martyrdom ends the sub-apostolic age A Catholic bishop is brutally executed in Turkey. His assassin yells “Allahu Akbar,” stabs his victim repeatedly in the heart, and then cuts his head off. There are witnesses to the act. The few local priests and faithful fear for their lives. The Pope in Rome is shocked and prays for the deceased. Five thousand people attend the solemn funeral Mass. An event from long ago? No. The murdered bishop was an Italian Franciscan named Luigi Padovese, the mourning Pope was Benedict XVI, and the year was 2010. Turkey is dangerous territory for a Catholic bishop, whether he is Bishop Padovese or today’s saint, Bishop Polycarp. For over a millennium, the Anatolian Peninsula was the cradle of Eastern Christianity. That era has long since come to a close. A few hundred miles and one thousand eight hundred years separate, or perhaps unite, Bishop Padovese with Bishop Polycarp. Whether shed by the sharp knife of a modern Muslim fanatic or spilled by a sword swung by a pagan Roman soldier, the blood still ran red from the neck of a Christian leader, puddling in the dirt of a hostile land. The news of the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, spread far and wide in his own time, making him as famous in the early Church as he is now. He was martyred around 155 A.D., one of the few early martyrs whose death is verified by documentation so precise that it even proves that he was executed on the exact day of his present feast—February 23. Polycarp was eighty-six years old when a rash of persecution broke out against the local Church. He waited patiently at a farm outside of town for his executioners to come and knock on his door. He was then brought before a Roman magistrate and ordered to reject his atheism. Imagine that. What an interesting twist! The Christian is accused of atheism by the pagan “believer.” Such was the Roman perspective. Christians were atheists because they rejected the ancient civic religion which had been believed by everyone, everywhere, and always. The Roman gods were more patriotic symbols than objects of belief. No one was martyred for believing in them. No one fought over their creeds, because there were no creeds. These gods did for Rome what flags, national hymns, and civic holidays do for a modern nation. They united it. They were universal symbols of national pride. Just as everyone stands for the national anthem, faces the flag, puts their hand over their heart, and sings the familiar words, so too did Roman citizens walk up the wide marble steps of their many-columned temples, make a petition, and then burn incense on the altar of their favorite god. It required heroic courage for Polycarp, and thousands of other early Christians, to not drop some grains of incense into a flame burning before a pagan god. For the Romans, to not burn such incense was akin to spitting on a flag. But Polycarp simply refused to renounce the truth of what he had heard as a young man from the mouth of Saint John: that a carpenter named Jesus, who had lived a few weeks to the south of Smyrna, had risen from the dead after His cold, linen-wrapped body had been placed in a guarded tomb. And this had happened recently, in the time of Polycarp’s own grandparents! Polycarp was proud to die for a faith he had adopted through hard-earned thought. His pedigree as a Christian leader was impeccable. He had learned the faith from one of the Lord’s very own Apostles. He had met the famous Bishop of Antioch, Saint Ignatius, when Ignatius passed through Smyrna on the way to his execution in Rome. One of Saint Ignatius’ famous seven letters is even addressed to Polycarp. Polycarp, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon tells us, even travelled to Rome to meet with the Pope over the question of the dating of Easter. Irenaeus had known and had learned from Polycarp when Irenaeus was a child in Asia Minor. Polycarp’s own letter to the Philippians was read in churches in Asia as if it were part of Scripture, at least until the fourth century. It was this venerable, grey-haired man, the last living witness to the apostolic age, whose hands were bound behind him to a stake, and who stood “like a mighty ram” as thousands screamed for his blood. Bishop Polycarp nobly accepted what he had not actively sought. He was stabbed to death after the flames licking his aged skin failed to consume him. His body was burned after his death, and the faithful preserved his bones, the first instance of relics being so honored. A few years after Polycarp’s death, a man from Smyrna named Pionius was martyred for observing the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp. In just this fashion links are added, one after another, to the chain of faith which stretches down the centuries to the present, where we honor ...
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    7 Min.
  • February 22: Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle

    February 22: Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle
    Feb 22 2025
    February 22: Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle
    Feast; Liturgical Color: White

    The gift of authority serves order and truth in the Church

    It’s unusual to have a feast day for a chair. When we think of a chair, perhaps we think of a soft recliner into which our body sinks as if into a warm bath. Or our mind turns to a classroom chair, a chair in a waiting room, or one at a restaurant. But the chair the Church commemorates today is more like the heroic-sized marble chair which holds the giant body of President Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. We commemorate today a chair like the judge’s in a courtroom or that unique high-backed chair called a throne. These are not ordinary chairs. They are seats of authority and judgment. They hold power more than people. We stand before them while their occupants sit. Judges and kings retire or die, but chairs and thrones remain to hold their successors. The Nicene Creed even describes Jesus as “seated” at God’s right hand. The fuller, symbolic meaning of the word “chair” is what today’s feast commemorates.

    Against the farthest wall of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome is not a statue of Saint Peter, as one might imagine, but a heroic-sized sculpture framing a chair. To celebrate the Chair of St. Peter is to celebrate the unity of the Church. The chair is a symbol of Saint Peter’s authority, and that authority is not meant for conquest like military power. Ecclesiastical authority is directed toward unity.

    Jesus Christ could have gathered an unorganized group of disciples united only by their common love of Him. He didn’t. He could have written the Bible Himself, handed it to His followers, and said, “Obey this text.” He didn’t. Jesus called to Himself, by name, twelve men. He endowed them with the same powers He possessed and left this organized band of brothers as an identifiable, priestly fraternity specifically commissioned to baptize and to preach. In North Africa at the time of Saint Augustine, twelve co-consecrating bishops were canonically required at the ordination of a bishop, mirroring “The Twelve” called by Christ. What a profound liturgical custom! Today the Church requires only three co-consecrators.

    What is even more striking about Christ’s establishment of an orderly Church structure is its double organizing principle. The Twelve’s headship over the many is itself subjected to the headship of Saint Peter. He is the keeper of the keys, the rock upon which the Lord built His Church. This all makes sense. What good would a constitution be without a Supreme Court to adjudicate disputes over its interpretation? Any authoritative text needs a living body to stand over it to arbitrate, interpret, and define, with authority equal to the text itself, any and all misinterpretations, confusions, or honest disputes. Just as a constitution needs a court, the Bible needs a Magisterium. And that Magisterium, in turn, needs a head as well.

    The authority of the papal office, doctrinally, is a negative charism preserving the Church from teaching error. It is not a guarantee that the pope will teach, explain, or live the faith perfectly. Christ guaranteed that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church. That’s a negative promise. But this promise also prophesies that the Office of Peter will be a lightning rod absorbing strikes from the forces of evil, that this Church, and no other, will be the target of the darkest of powers. A real Church has real enemies.

    The Church has never had an Office of Saint Paul. When the person of Paul disappeared, so did his specific role. But the Office of Peter continues, as does the Office of all the Apostles. In other words, the Church has both a foundation and a structure built on that foundation. And authority in that structure is not transmitted personally, from father to son or from one family to the next. Authority attaches to the Office of St. Peter and endows its occupant with the charisms promised by Christ to Saint Peter. And this charism will endure until the sun sets for the last time. As long as there is a Church, it will teach objective truth guaranteed by objective leadership. And that leadership, symbolized in the Chair of St. Peter, is directed toward unity. One Lord. One faith. One Shepherd. One flock. The united fabric of the Church, so fought for, so torn, so necessary, is what we honor today.

    God in Heaven, we thank You for the ordered community of faith we enjoy in the Church. Saint Peter guided the early Church and guides Her still, ensuring that we remain one, holy, catholic, and apostolic until the end of time. Continue to grace Your Church with the unity so necessary to accomplish Her mission on earth.
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    6 Min.
  • February 21: Saint Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor

    February 21: Saint Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor
    Feb 20 2026
    February 21: Saint Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor
    1007–1072
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White (Violet on Lenten Weekday)
    Patron Saint of Faenza and Font-Avellana, Italy

    A wise monk becomes a Cardinal and thunders for reform

    Every Catholic knows that the Pope is elected by, and from, the Cardinals of the Church gathered in the Sistine Chapel. Every Catholic knows that the Pope then goes to a large balcony perched high in the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica to greet the faithful and receive their acceptance. This is simply the way things are done in the Church. But it’s not the way things were always done. A Catholic in the early Middle Ages would have described a papal election as something like a bar room brawl, a knife fight, or a political horse race replete with bribes, connivings, and promises made just to be broken. Everyone—far-off emperors, the nobility of Rome, military generals, influential laity—tried to steer the rudder of the Church in one direction or another. Papal elections were deeply divisive and caused lasting damage to the Body of Christ. Then along came Saint Peter Damian to save the day.

    Saint Peter headed a group of reform-minded Cardinals and others who decided in 1059 that only Cardinal Bishops could elect the Pope. No nobles. No crowds. No emperors. Saint Peter wrote that the Cardinal Bishops do the electing, the other clergy give their assent, and the people give their applause. This is exactly the program the Church has followed for almost a thousand years.

    Today’s saint sought to reform himself first, and then to pull every weed that choked life from the healthy plants in the garden of the Church. After a difficult upbringing of poverty and neglect, Peter was saved from destitution by an older brother named Damian. Out of gratitude, he added his older brother’s name to his own. He was given an excellent education, in which his natural gifts became apparent, and then entered a strict monastery to live as a monk. Peter’s extreme mortifications, learning, wisdom, uninterrupted life of prayer, and desire to right the ship of the Church put him into contact with many other Church leaders who desired the same. Peter eventually was called to Rome and became a counselor to a succession of popes. Against his will, he was ordained a Bishop, made a Cardinal, and headed a diocese. He fought against simony (the purchasing of church offices), against clerical marriage, and for the reform of papal elections. He also thundered, in the strongest language, against the scourge of homosexuality in the priesthood.

    After being personally involved in various ecclesiastical battles for reform, he requested leave to return to his monastery. His request was repeatedly denied until finally the Holy Father let him return to a life of prayer and penance, where his primary distraction was
    carving wooden spoons. After fulfilling a few more sensitive missions to France and Italy, Peter Damian died of fever in 1072. Pope Benedict XVI has described him as "one of the most significant figures of the eleventh century...a lover of solitude and at the same time a fearless man of the Church, committed personally to the task of reform." He died about one hundred years before Saint Francis of Assisi was born, yet some have referred to him as the Saint Francis of his age.

    More than two hundred years after our saint’s death, Dante wrote his Divine Comedy. The author is guided through paradise and sees a golden ladder, lit by a sunbeam, stretching into the clouds above. Dante begins to climb and meets a soul radiating the pure love of God. Dante is in awe that the heavenly choirs have fallen silent to listen to this soul speak: "The mind is light here, on earth it is smoke. Consider, then, how it can do down there what it cannot do up here with heaven’s help." God is unknowable even in heaven itself, so how much more unfathomable must He be on earth. Dante drinks in this wisdom and, transfixed, asks this soul its name. The soul then describes its prior earthly life: “In that cloister I became so steadfast in the service of our God that with food seasoned just with olive-juice lightheartedly I bore both heat and cold, content with thoughtful prayers of contemplation. I was, in that place, Peter Damian.” Dante is among refined company in the loftiest ranks of heaven with today’s saint.

    Saint Peter Damian, you never asked of others what you did not demand of yourself. You even endured the detraction and calumny of your peers. Help us to reform others by our example, learning, perseverance, mortifications, and prayers.
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    6 Min.
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