Didacus was a native of the little town of San Nicolas of del Puerto in the diocese of Seville, and his parents were poor folk. Near that town a holy priest led an eremitical life. Didacus obtained his consent to live with him and, though very young, he imitated the austerities and devotions of his master. They cultivated together a little garden, and also employed themselves in making wooden...

Saint Paul was the Bishop of Constantinople, during the period of bitter controversy in the Church over the Arian heresy. Elected in 336 to succeed Alexander of Constantinople, the following year he was exiled to Pontus by Emperor Constantius II. Because of his staunch position against Arianism, Paul was replaced by the heretical bishop Macedonius. Allowed to return in 338, Paul was again...

Guido Maria Conforti was born in Casalora di Ravadese (diocese and province of Parma, Italy), in 1865, the eighth of ten children of Rinaldo Conforti and Antonia Adorni. He attended elementary school from 1872 and each day on his way to the school he would stop by the church of Santa Maria della Pace, his parish church, where he used to have conversations with the crucified Jesus Christ. This...

Maria Luisa Manganiello was born to a farming family. She was strongly drawn to religious life and became a Secular Franciscan Tertiary. Having received the blessing of Pope Bl. Pius IX for her project, Teresa was in the process of forming a new congregation when she died of a sudden illness. However, her work led to the creation of the Franciscan Immaculatine Sisters by Fr. Lodocivo Acernese,...

St. Martin de Porres (1569-1639) was born in Lima, Peru. He was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a freed slave woman from Panama, of either African or Native American descent. His parents never married. For the first eight years of his life his father did not acknowledge him, and abandoned the family after Martin's sister was born. St. Martin de Porres was raised in poverty...