News - January 2023 RSS Feed

In April 2015, Pope Francis celebrated a Mass commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the horrific massacre in which many innocent Armenians died as confessors and martyrs for the name of Christ. On that occasion Pope Francis named Saint Gregory of Narek (ca. 951-1003) a Doctor of the Church.

I am continuing this series on the Doctors of the Church. This week we are looking at Saint Anselm (1033-1109), known as Anselm of Aosta, Anselm of Bec, and Anselm of Canterbury because of the three cities with which he was associated. He was the first son of a noble family.

We are continuing our series on the Doctors of the Church. We are now well into the Medieval Era with Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072). I first encountered this saint when I was in the seventh grade at St. Paul School, Butler. We had a new principal that year: Sr. M. Damian Geisler, RSM. Many years before she had taught my father in the fifth grade. My father received quite a shock on the first day of school in 1961. Dad always brought us to school on the opening day to see where our classrooms were and to meet our teachers. Sr. Damian greeted him, “Why if it isn’t John Dillon! And these must be your children.” That was our introduction to Sr. M. Damian. Not long afterward our pastor, Msgr. Spiegel came to school and addressed the student body. Pointing to Sr. M. Damian, he said, “Now boys and girls some of you may think that Sr. Damian is named for Fr. Damien who worked in Hawaii with those who had contracted leprosy.” He went on to tell us that the saint for whom she was named was not Fr. Damien of Molokai but instead it was St. Peter Damian. That began my interest in trying to find out who St. Peter Damian was. For whom was Sr. M. Damian named? Here is what I found out over time.

The Canticle of Creation - St. Francis of Assisi