St. John of Egypt (4th c.), also known as John the Hermit or John the Anchorite, worked alongside his father, a carpenter, until he was twenty-five years old. He then discerned a call from God to go out into the desert and become a hermit. He spent sixteen years in spiritual training under the care of a religious superior who commanded him to perform difficult and unreasonable tasks, which...

Saint Basil the Younger (died 26 March 944/952) was a Byzantine Greek holy man and visionary. He is the subject of a Greek hagiographical biography, the Vita sancti Basilii iunioris, written by his pupil Gregory. Of the 301 printed pages of the Moscow version of the Vita, 38 cover the vision of the death of Basil's servant Theodora and 162 cover the visions of the Resurrection and the Last...

St. Dismas (1st c.) is the name Church tradition has given to the "Good Thief," one of the two criminals who were crucified alongside Jesus Christ on Good Friday. All we know about St. Dismas is what is mentioned of him in the Gospels: "Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, 'Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.' The other [St. Dismas]...

The night before he was murdered while celebrating Mass, Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador said on the radio: “I would like to appeal in a special way to the men of the army, and in particular to the troops of the National Guard, the police, and the garrisons. Brothers, you belong to our own people. You kill your own brother peasants; and in the face of an order to kill that is...

Saint Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo (16 November 1538 – 23 March 1606) was a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the Archbishop of Lima from 1579 until his death. He first studied in the humanities and law before serving as a professor. The king nominated him for the vacant Lima archdiocese. The pope confirmed this despite his protests.  Mogrovejo was ordained to the...