Catholic Fire

Today is the feast of St. Teresa of Avila , the first woman doctor of the Church. Here are her top twenty quotes: 1. “Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, all things are passing: God never changes.     Patience obtains all things. He who possesses God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”  2. “It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.”  3. “It is love alone that gives worth to all things” 4. “Thank God for the things that I do not own.”  5. “You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him.”  6. “From sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us!”  7. “Love turns work into rest.”  8. “Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.”  9. “God calls to us in countless little ways all the time. Through illnesses and suffering and through sorrow he calls to us. Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer he calls to us. ...

Today, July 27th, the Church celebrates St. Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, the first woman saint of India. Annakkutty (little Anna) was born on August 19, 1910, in Kudamaloor, a village in Kerala, India, to Joseph and Mary Muttathupadathu, the youngest of five children. She was baptized eight days later at Saint Mary's Church in Kudamaloor.  Her mother died while Annakutty was still an infant. She was raised by her maternal aunt, and educated by her great-uncle Father Joseph Muttathupadathu. Annakutty made her first Communion on November 27, 1917. In a letter to her Spiritual Father in November, 1943, she wrote: "Already from the age of seven I was no longer mine. I was totally dedicated to my Divine Spouse.” At the age of 13, Anna was badly burned on her feet when she fell into a pit of burning chaff. This accident left her permanently disabled. At the age of 20, Anna joined the Franciscan Clarist Congregation.  During this time, she worked as a temporary t...

The saint of the day for July 8 is St. Jeanne-Marie Kerguin, Franciscan Missionary and Martyr. Jeanne-Marie was born on May 5, 1864, at Belle-Isle en Terre, France to a poor peasant family. Her mother died when she was quite young, and she was forced to take over the household chores for the family. With her home obligations fulfilled, she joined the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary in 1887, taking the name Marie Santa Natalia. There she happily threw herself into a life of prayer and devotion to the simplest and most menial tasks of her house. She was assigned first to Paris, then to Carthage in north Africa. She encountered health problems and was sent to Rome to recover. There she answered the call of her Order to work as a missionary. She arrived in China in March 1899, and was almost immediately hospitalized for several months with typhus. Her short lived career ended during a crackdown on foreign missionaries during the Boxer Rebellion. St. Jeanne - Marie Kerguin was behead...

Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Catherine of Alexandria (292 - 310), virgin and martyr. Catherine was beautiful, brilliant, and extremely wealthy at the age of eighteen when she debated the Emperor Maximin (311-313) and harshly criticized him for his persecution of Christians who refused to worship pagan gods. Astounded by her wisdom, Maximin ordered her to be kept confined, and summoned fifty of his most learned philosophers, promising them great rewards if they could get Catherine to abandon her Christian faith. However, her arguments were so convincing that all fifty of the philosophers were converted to Christianity. Outraged by this, Maximin ordered all of them to be burned alive. Then the Emperor attempted to win Catherine by flattery and by promises, but his efforts proved equally fruitless. Next, he had her thrown into a dungeon, without food and water. He ordered her whipped with rods, scourged with leaden nodules, and then left to languish eleven days without fo...