Andre Zunino

Feast date: Mar 02

Charles was a son of Canute IV of Denmark and Adela of Flanders. When he was only five years old, his father was assassinated in St. Alban´s Church, Odence. He was taken by his mother to the court of Robert, his maternal grandfather and Count of Flanders as a suitable place for him to grow up.

Blessed Charles became quite the warrior, and accompanied his grandfather in a crusade to the Holy Land and also fought against the English. After Roberts death in 1111, the new Count Baldwin, Roberts son, relied heavily on Charles for advice.

The people came to have a high regard for Charles´ wise and beneficent ways as well as his personal holiness. Baldwin arranged for Charles’ marriage to the daughter of the Count of Clermont and when Baldwin was wounded in battle, he assigned Charles as successor before he died in 1119. Charles ruled his people with wisdom, diligence, and compassion.

He made sure that times of truce were respected, and fought against unethical marketing practices. One such example is his action against greedy and influential families who had plotted to hoard grain so that it would be sold at excessively high prices. His just nature encouraged the wrath of his opposition.

One day in 1127, as Charles was praying in the Church St. Donatian, his enemies set upon him and killed him. The feast day of Blessed Charles the Good is March 2nd.

St. Angela of the Cross

Feast date: Mar 02

St. Angela of the Cross is the Foundress of the Institute of the Sisters of the Company of the Cross.

Born on January 30, 1846 in Seville, Spain, and given the baptismal name “Maria of the Angels” Guerrero Gonzalez, the future Saint was affectionately known as “Angelita”. Her father worked as a cook in the convent of the Trinitarian Fathers, where her mother also worked doing the laundry. They had 14 children, with only six reaching adulthood.

Angelita was greatly influenced by the teaching and example of her pious parents, and was taught from an early age how to pray the Rosary. She could often be found in the parish church praying before the image of “Our Lady of Good Health”, while her mother prepared a nearby altar. In their own home, a simple altar was erected in honour of the Virgin Mary during the month of May, where the family would recite the Rosary and give special honour to Our Lady.

Angelita made her First Communion when she was eight, and her Confirmation when she was nine. She had little formal education, and began work as a young girl in a shoeshop. Her employer and teacher of shoe repair, Antonia Maldonado, was a holy woman; every day the employees prayed the Rosary together and read the lives of the Saints. Canon José Torres Padilla of Seville was Antonia’s spiritual director, and had a reputation of “forming saints”. Angelita was 16 years old when she met Fr. Torres and was put under his direction.

Angelita’s desire to enter religious life was growing, and when she was 19, she asked to enter the Discalced Carmelites in Santa Cruz but was refused admission because of her poor health. Instead, following the advice of Fr Torres, she began caring for destitute cholera patients, because a cholera epidemic was quickly spreading among the poor.

In 1868 Angelita tried once again to enter the convent, this time the Daughters of Charity of Seville. Although her health was still frail, she was admitted. The sisters tried to improve her health and sent her to Cuenca and Valencia, but to no avail. She left the Daughters of Charity during the novitiate and returned home to continue working in the shoeshop.

Fr Torres believed that God had a plan for Angelita, but this plan was still a mystery. On 1 November 1871, at the foot of the Cross, she made a private vow to live the evangelical counsels, and in 1873 she received the call from God that would mark the beginning of her “new mission”. During prayer, Angelita saw an empty cross standing directly in front of the one upon which Jesus was hanging. She understood immediately that God was asking her to hang from the empty cross, to be “poor with the poor in order to bring them to Christ”.

Angelita continued to work in the shoeshop, but under obedience to Fr Torres she dedicated her free time to writing a detailed spiritual diary that revealed the style and ideal of life she was being called to live. On 2 August 1875 three other women joined Angelita, beginning community life together in a room they rented in Seville. From that day on, they began their visits and gave assistance to the poor, day and night.

These Sisters of the Company of the Cross, under the guidance of Angelita, named “Mother Angela of the Cross”, lived an authentically recluse contemplative life when they were not among the poor. Once they returned to their home, they dedicated themselves to prayer and silence, but were always ready when needed to go out and serve the poor and dying. Mother Angela saw the sisters as “angels”, called to help and love the poor and sick in their homes who otherwise would have been abandoned.

In 1877 a second community was founded in Utrera, in the province of Seville, and a year later one in Ayamonte. Fr Torres died that same year, and Fr José María Alvarez was appointed as the second director of the Institute.

While Mother Angela was alive, another 23 convents were established, with the sisters edifying everyone they served by their example of charity, poverty and humility. In fact, Mother Angela herself was known by all as “Mother of the Poor”.

Mother Angela of the Cross died on 2 March 1932 in Seville. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 5 November 1982.

With her characteristic humility, she once wrote these words:  “The nothing keeps silent, the nothing does not want to be, the nothing suffers all…. The nothing does not impose itself, the nothing does not command with authority, and finally, the nothing in the creature is practical humility”.

St. Agnes of Prague

Feast date: Mar 02

St. Agnes was born in Prague in the year 1200, and probably died in the year 1281. She was the daughter of Ottocar, King of Bohemia and Constance of Hungary, who was a relative of St. Elizabeth. At an early age she was sent to the monastery of Treinitz, where she was educated in the hands of the Cistercian religious, who would eventually become her rank.

She was betrothed to Henry, son of the Emperor Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, but when the time arrived for the solemnization of the marriage, they backed out of the agreement. Ottokar then planned for Agnes to marry Henry III of England, but this was vetoed by the Emperor, who wanted to marry Agnes himself.

She then dedicated herself to the resolution of consecrating herself to the service of God in the sanctuary of the cloister. Emperor Frederick is said to have remarked: “If she had left me for a mortal man, I would have taken vengeance with the sword, but I cannot take offence because in preference to me she has chosen the King of Heaven.”

The servant of God entered the Order of St. Clare in the monastery of St. Saviour at Prague, which she herself had erected. She was elected abbess of the monastery, and through this office became a model of Christian virtue and religious observance for all. God favored her with the gift of miracles, and she predicted the victory of her brother Wenceslaus over the Duke of Austria.

The exact year of Agnes’ death is not certain, but 1281 is the most probable date. She was beatified in 1874 by Pope Pius IX and canonized by Pope John Paul II on November 12, 1989.

St. David of Wales

Feast date: Mar 01

Among Welsh Catholics, as well as those in England, March 1 is the liturgical celebration of Saint David of Wales.

St. David is the patron of the Welsh people, remembered as a missionary bishop and the founder of many monasteries during the sixth century.

David was a popular namesake for churches in Wales prior to the Anglican schism, and his feast day is still an important religious and civic observance.

Although Pope Benedict XVI did not visit Wales during his 2010 trip to the U.K., he blessed a mosaic icon of its patron, and delivered remarks praising St. David as “one of the great saints of the sixth century, that golden age of saints and missionaries in these isles, and…thus a founder of the Christian culture which lies at the root of modern Europe.”

In his comments, Pope Benedict recalled the saint’s dying words to his monastic brethren: “Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things.” He urged that St. David’s message, “in all its simplicity and richness, continue to resound in Wales today, drawing the hearts of its people to renewed love for Christ and his Church.”

From a purely historical standpoint, little is known of David’s life, with the earliest biography dating from centuries after his time. As with some other saints of sixth-century Wales, even the chronology of his life is not easy to ascertain.

David’s conception is said to have occurred as a result of rape – a detail that seems unlikely to have been invented by later biographers, though it cannot (like almost all of the traditions surrounding his life) be established with certainty. His mother Saint Nonna, or Nonnita, has her traditional feast day on March 3.

David appears to have been the cousin of his contemporary Saint Teilo, another Welsh bishop and monk. He is described as a pupil of the monastic educator Saint Paulinus, who was one of St. Teilo’s teachers as well. There are doubts, however, about the story which holds that David and Teilo traveled to Jerusalem and were ordained together as bishops.

It is clear that David served as the Bishop of Menevia, an important port city linking Wales and Ireland in his time. His leading role in two local councils of the Church is also a matter of record.

Twelve monasteries have their founding ascribed to David, who developed a reputation for strict asceticism. His monks modeled their lives on the earliest desert hermits – combining hard manual labor, silence, long hours of prayer, and a diet that completely excluded meat and alcohol.

The monks did not use animals to take care of their fields, and lived off of only bread, vegetables, and water.

One tradition places his death in the year 601, but other writers believe he died in the 540s. David may well have survived to an advanced age, but evidence is lacking for the claim (made by his 11th-century biographer) that he lived to the age of 147. Pope Callistus II canonized St. David of Wales in 1120.