"Now Etheldreda shines upon our days, Shedding the light of grace on all our ways. Born of a noble and a royal line, She brings to Christ her King a life more fine." --The Venerable Bede

Etheldreda was a woman of noble birth, the daughter of King Anna of East Anglia, and sister to Saints Sexburga, Ethelburga, Erconwald, and Withburga. She was born in a time when the religious were uncompromising in their desire for complete conversion of their lives to God. To Etheldreda prayer, the Blessed Sacrament, and works of mercy were essential features of her faith in Jesus Christ. From her youth she devoted herself to piety, purity, and humility. Though she seemed destined for the cloistered life, twice Saint Etheldreda was married and released from these unwelcome ties

At the age of 14, Etheldreda was married to Tonbert. Now some saints have run away from marriage when they felt called to the vowed religious life, but Etheldreda trusted in God. She accepted the wedding calmly and found that Tonbert was equally devout and was happy that they should live in continence. After three (or five) years together, Tonbert died.

For a time she enjoyed the solitude of the island of Ely, which had been part of her dowry, but for reasons of state she married again. Her second husband, Egfrid, son of King Oswy of Northumbria, was just a boy at the time. Etheldreda, though still young herself, treated him as her son or brother, rather than as a husband. She taught him the catechism and directed his spiritual growth, clearly trying to prepare him to accept a marriage of continence.

But after 12 years of this relationship, Egfrid, grown to manhood, tried to make her his wife in fact as well as in name. This alarmed Etheldreda, who then sought the counsel of Archbishop Saint Wilfrid of York. He released her from her marriage and advised her to withdraw to the Benedictine abbey of Coldingham. At last she was able to fulfill her heart's desire. She took the veil at Coldingham under Saint Ebba.

At first Egfrid tried to persuade Wilfrid to order his wife to return to him, but without success. In 672, she founded a double monastery, where the present Ely Cathedral now stands, and ruled it as abbess. Egfrid dispatched armed men to Ely in an attempt to force her to return, but the expedition was unsuccessful.

From the time founded Ely, Etheldreda ceased to wear clothing of fine linen and dressed only in woolen garments. Except at Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany, she washed only in cold water. Only when she was ill or on great church festivals did she eat more than one meal a day. She prayed for those who did not pray and often kept vigil in the church from midnight until dawn. Seven years after the foundation of Ely Abbey, she died of the plague.

Saint Bede wrote a long hymn in praise of Etheldreda who, judging from the number of churches dedicated to her and calendars containing her name, must have been the most revered of all Anglo- Saxon women saints. This is partly due to the number of miracles that resulted from her intercession, which made Ely an important pilgrimage site (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Encyclopedia).

In art, St. Etheldreda is crowned, holding a crozier, book, and a budding staff. Sometimes she may be pictured (1) asleep under a blossoming tree; (2) with a book and lily; (3) as a fountain springs at her feet; and (4) as the devil flees from her (Roeder). There is a 20th- century English banner with her image on the University of Pennsylvania homepage. Etheldreda is the patroness of Cambridge University (Roeder), and those suffering from throat and neck ailments (Bentley).

"We are born to love, we live to love, and we will die to love still more." --Joseph Cafasso

From 1827, he directed John Bosco into an apostolate for boys, helped him to settle in Turin, introduced him to wealthy patrons, and came to be regarded as the second founder of the Salesians. In 1860, when he was ill with pneumonia, he made a will bequeathing his goods to Saint Joseph Cottolengo and John Bosco. His funeral, at which Bosco preached, was attended by huge crowds (Attwater, Benedictines, Farmer).

Marie's relics were placed in a silver shrine behind the altar at Oignies, a monastery of canons regular in the diocese of Namur. He vita was written by Cardinal James of Vitry, once a canon regular in that monastery, afterwards bishop of Acon in Palestine, and later of Tusculum. Her name is inserted in the calendars of several churches in Flanders, in some of which she has been honored with an office (Benedictines, Harrison, Martindale).

In art, Blessed Marie is pictured as a recluse visited by an angel. She may sometimes be shown (1) with an angel by her side; (2) spinning or praying in her cell; (3) interceding for the souls in purgatory; or (4) as the Virgin spreads her mantle over her to protect her from rain (Roeder).

She is invoked by women in childbirth and against fever (Roeder).

In 1606, the year he uncle was executed, Father Thomas Garnet was arrested near Warwick shortly after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. First he was imprisoned in the Gatehouse and then moved to Newgate. Because he had been staying in the house of Mr. Ambrose Rookwood, who was implicated in the conspiracy, and because he was so closely connected to Father Henry Garnet, it was hoped that important information could be extracted from him, but neither threats nor the strictest cross-examination could elicit any incriminating admission. After eight or nine months spent in a damp cell with no better bed than the bare ground, he was deported to Flanders with 46 other priests. While still in England Saint Thomas had been admitted to the Society of Jesus by his uncle, who was superior of the Jesuits in England, and he now proceeded to Louvain for his novitiate. The following year, in September, he returned to England. Six weeks later he was betrayed by an apostate priest and arrested again.

At the Old Bailey he was charged with high treason on the grounds that he had been made a priest by authority derived from Rome and that he had returned to England in defiance of the law. His priesthood he neither admitted nor denied, but he firmly refused to take the Oath of Supremacy. On the evidence of three witnesses who declared that when he was in the Tower he had signed himself Thomas Garnet, Priest, he was declared guilty and was condemned to death.

On the scaffold he proclaimed himself a priest and a Jesuit, explaining that he had not acknowledged this at his trial lest he should be his own accuser or oblige the judges to condemn him against their consciences. The Earl of Essex and others tried up to the last moment to persuade him to save his life by taking the oath, and when the end came and the cart was drawn away they would not allow him to be cut down until it was certain he was quite dead (Benedictines, Delaney, Walsh).