St. Romuald was born at Ravenna about the year 956. In spite of an infinite desire for virtue and sanctity, his early life was wasted in the service of the world and its pleasures. Then one day, obliged by his father, Sergius, to be present at a duel fought by him, he beheld him slay his adversary. The crime made such an impression upon him that he determined to expiate it for forty days, as...

Elizabeth was a Benedictine abbess who was a gifted mystic. She had her first vision in 1152 and was known for ecstasies, prophecies, and diabolical visitations. She became abbess in 1157. Her cult was never formalized, but she is listed as a saint in the Roman Martyrology. Her brother, Ethbert, a Benedictine abbot, wrote her biography and recorded her visions in three books. Her feast is June...

Saint Avitus was the child of a poor family of Orleans, France. From his youth he desired to consecrate himself to God, and he received the monastic habit at the abbey of Micy or Saint-Maximin in the diocese of Orleans, at that time still very small. Its first Superior, Saint Maximin, remarked the young monk's virtue when he observed that he deprived himself of a great portion of his food...

Luigi was the youngest of eight boys born to Octavius and Theresa Antoine Palazzolo; his father died when Luigi was about 10 years old. He was ordained a priest in the diocese of Bergamo, Italy on 23 June 1850. As a parish priest, he would occasionally encounter children who were abandoned or orphaned and living on their own; he would take them in and care for them until he could get them...