Born to pious parents in 1457 in Soncino, Italy,  her father became a Dominican tertiary while Stephana was very young. She was taught the catechism by the stigmatic Blessed Matthew Carrieri who lived at the nearby Dominican convent. Even though she was too small to understand, he told her that she was to be his spiritual heiress.  She began receiving visions of Dominican saints from age seven, at which point she made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.  Carrieri died when Stephana was 14, and soon after he appeared to her in a vision and she received the stigmata.

She became a Dominican tertiary at Soncino at age 15, and was devoted to caring for the poor and sick. She founded a community of Third Order sisters in Soncino, and served as its first abbess. Her counsel was sought by many,  including Saint Angela Merici, Blessed Augustine of Biella, and Blessed Osanna of Mantua.

Although she had no formal theological training, she could discuss mystical theology at the most profound level. She could read the hearts and minds of the people around her, and had the gift of prophesy and healing. She lived in a nearly continuous fast, and inflicted severe penances on herself. Stephana accurately predicted the date of her own death.  She died of natural causes on 2 January 1530, and was beatified 14 December 1740 by Pope Benedict XIV.

Margaret of Savoy, daughter of Duke Amadeo II, is one of three royal princesses who wore the Dominican habit and were beatified. In the 15th century, she was the glory of a family that has given several beati to the Church.

Born into the royal house of Savoy, Margaret grew up in a household in which piety and wealth were ordinary. Her own parents died when she was small, and she was educated by an uncle, who arranged an early marriage for her to the Marquis of Montferrat, Theodore Paleologus.

As queen of her fairly large domain, Margaret was the model of Christian rulers. She felt that it was her duty to exceed in charity and humility in the proportion that she was wealthier than those around her, and she devoted all of her time to God and to her neighbors. Her husband was a widower with two children, to whom she gave the greatest care. The hundreds of dependents on the large estates came to her for charity and instruction.

Disaster stuck Savoy several times in the years when she was wife and mother. Famine and plague came, making great demands on her time and her courage. Unhesitatingly, she went out to nurse the plague-stricken with her own hands, and she sent out food and clothing from her husband’s stores until it was doubtful if anything would be left. After this crisis passed, war hovered over the kingdom, and she prayed earnestly that they would be delivered from the horrors of invasion.

In 1418, the marquis died. His young widow was one of the most eligible women in Europe. Margaret sorrowed for her husband, but she made it clear to her relatives that they need not plan another marriage for her, as she was going to enter a convent. In order to live a life of complete renunciation, she decided to found a convent of her own at Alba in Liguria that would follow the ancient rule of Saint Dominic. Accordingly, she took over a cloister which had fallen into ruin, having only a few poor inhabitants, and rebuilt it for Dominican use. She dedicated the house to St. Mary Magdalen.

There is one very delightful story told of her sojourn in the convent. When she had been there many years, she one day had a young visitor; he was the son of one of her step-children. Hunting nearby, he had killed a doe, and he brought her the motherless fawn to tend. It was a pretty little animal, and it soon grew to be a pet. One legend was that the fawn was able to go and find any sister she would name, and, for several years, the animal had free rein of the halls and cells of the sisters. Perhaps it was true, though, since the house confessor told her that the deer must go. She took it to the gate and told it to go. It fled into the forest, and returned only when Margaret was about to die.

Margaret attained a high degree of contemplative prayer. One time Our Lord appeared to her and asked her whether she would rather suffer calumny, sickness, or persecution. Margaret generously accepted all three. Her offer was taken, and for the remaining years of her life she suffered intensely from all three sorrows (Dorcy). It should be noted that Saint Vincent Ferrer influenced Margaret to join the Dominican tertiaries (Benedictines).

According to the traditional story, Catherine was the daughter of Costus, a pagan governor of Alexandria, where she was born.  She is said to have announced to her parents that she would only marry someone who surpassed her in beauty, intelligence, wealth, and social status. This has been interpreted as an early foreshadowing of her eventual discovery of Christ. “His beauty was more radiant than the shining of the sun, His wisdom governed all creation, His riches were spread throughout all the world.” Though raised a pagan, she converted to Christianity in her late teens. It is said that she visited her contemporary, the Roman Emperor Maximinus Daia, and attempted to convince him of the moral error in persecuting Christians. She succeeded in converting his wife, the Empress, and many pagan philosophers whom the Emperor sent to dispute with her, all of whom were subsequently martyred. Upon the failure of the Emperor to win Catherine over, he ordered her to be put in prison; and when the people who visited her converted, she was condemned to death on the breaking wheel, an instrument of torture. According to legend, the wheel itself broke when she touched it, so she was beheaded.

According to Christian tradition, angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where, in the 6th century, the Eastern Emperor Justinian established Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, the church being built between 548 and 565 in Saint Catherine, Egypt, on the Sinai peninsula. Saint Catherine’s Monastery survives, a famous repository of early Christian art, architecture and illuminated manuscripts that is still open to visiting scholars. The historian Harold T. Davis says that Catherine’s story dates only from the 10th century AD, and that “assiduous research has failed to identify Catherine with any historical personage”; Davis suggests that the invention of Catherine may have been inspired by the story of the martyred pagan philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria. She did certainly form an exemplary counterpart to Hypatia in the medieval mindset; and it has been suggested that she was invented specifically for that purpose. Like Hypatia, she is said to have been highly learned (in philosophy and theology), very beautiful, sexually pure, and to have been brutally murdered for publicly stating her beliefs. The story of Catherine is placed a hundred years before Hypatia’s death, but there are no contemporary sources for her life.

Because of the fabulous character of the account of her martyrdom and the lack of reliable documentation, the Roman Catholic Church in 1969 removed her feast day from the Calendar. But she continued to be commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on November 25. In 2002, her feast was restored to the General Roman Calendar as an optional memorial.

The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia describes the historical importance of the belief in her as follows:

Ranked with St Margaret and St Barbara as one of the fourteen most helpful saints in heaven, she was unceasingly praised by preachers and sung by poets. It is believed that Jacques-Benigne Bossuet dedicated to her one of his most beautiful panegyrics and that Adam of St. Victor wrote a magnificent poem in her honour: Vox Sonora nostri chori, etc. In many places her feast was celebrated with the utmost solemnity, servile work being suppressed and the devotions being attended by great numbers of people. In several dioceses of France it was observed as a Holy Day of Obligation up to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the splendor of its ceremonial eclipsing that of the feasts of some of the Apostles. Numberless chapels were placed under her patronage and her statue was found in nearly all churches, representing her according to medieval iconography with a wheel, her instrument of torture. Meanwhile, owing to several circumstances in his life, Saint Nicholas of Myra was considered the patron of young bachelors and students, and Saint Catherine became the patroness of young maidens and female students. Looked upon as the holiest and most illustrious of the virgins of Christ after the Blessed Virgin Mary, it was natural that she, of all others, should be worthy to watch over the virgins of the cloister and the young women of the world. The spiked wheel having become emblematic of the saint, wheelwrights and mechanics placed themselves under her patronage. Finally, as according to tradition, she not only remained a virgin by governing her passions and conquered her executioners by wearying their patience, but triumphed in science by closing the mouths of sophists, her intercession was implored by theologians, apologists, pulpit orators, and philosophers. Before studying, writing, or preaching, they besought her to illumine their minds, guide their pens, and impart eloquence to their words.  At the  beginning of the fifteenth century, it was rumored that she had spoken to Joan of Arc and, together with St. Margaret, had been divinely appointed Joan’s adviser.

Blessed Lucy of Narni was the eldest of eleven children of Bartolomeo Broccadelli and Gentilina Cassio. When she was only five years old, she had a vision of the Virgin Mary. Two years later, she had another vision, this time of the Virgin Mary accompanied by Saint Dominic. Dominic is said to have given her the scapular at this time. When she was twelve years old, Lucy made a private vow of chastity, and determined to become a Dominican nun.

Circumstances, however, changed to make doing so difficult.  The next year her father died, leaving her in the care of an uncle. This uncle determined that the best course of action he could take would be to get Lucy married as quickly as possible.

He made several attempts to do so. One of these included holding a large family party. He had invited the man he had chosen as Lucia’s husband to the party, with the intention of having the couple publicly betrothed. He however had not informed Lucia of his intentions. The suitor made an attempt to put a ring on Lucia’s finger, only to be slapped repeatedly for his efforts by Lucia.

A later attempt involved Count Pietro de Alessio of Milan, an acquaintance of the family. Lucia was actually quite fond of him, but felt her earlier vow to become a nun made the possibility of marriage impossible. The strain Lucia felt as a result of the conflicting feelings made her seriously ill. During this time, the Virgin Mary and Saint Dominic again appeared to her, this time accompanied by Catherine of Siena. They reportedly advised Lucia to contract a legal marriage to Pietro, but to explain that her vow of virginity would have to be respected and not violated. Pietro agreed to the terms, and the marriage was formalized.

In 1491 Lucia became Pietro’s legal wife and the mistress of his household, which included a number of servants and a busy social calendar. Despite her busy schedule, Lucia made great efforts to instruct the servants in Christianity and soon became well known locally for her charity to the poor.

Pietro observed Lucia’s behavior, and occasional quirks, quite indulgently. He never objected when she gave away clothing and food nor when she performed austere penances, which included regularly wearing a hair shirt under her garments and spending most of the night in prayer and acting to help the poor. He also seemed to have taken in stride the story he was told by the servants that Lucia was often visited in the evenings by Saint Catherine, Saint Agnes, and Saint Agnes of Montepulciano who helped her make bread for the poor.

However, when one of the servants came up to him one day and told him that Lucia was privately entertaining a handsome young man she appeared to be quite familiar with, he did react. He took up his sword and went to see who this person was. When he arrived, he found Lucia contemplating a large crucifix. The servant told him that the man he had seen Lucia with looked like the figure on the crucifix.

Lucia left one night for a local Franciscan monastic community, only to find it closed. She returned home the following day, stating that she had been led back by two saints. That was enough for Pietro. He had her locked away for the bulk of one Lenten season. She was only visited by servants who brought her food. When Easter arrived, however, she managed to escape from Pietro back to her mother’s house and on 1494 May 8 became a Dominican tertiary. Pietro expressed his disapproval of this in a rather dramatic form, by burning down the monastery of the prior who had given her the habit.

In 1495 Lucia went to Rome and joined a group of Third order Dominican tertiaries. The next year she was sent to Viterbo and here she found she was frequently the object of unwanted attention. It was here, on February 25, 1496 that she is reported to have received the stigmata. Lucia did her best to hide these marks, and was frequently in spiritual ecstasy. The house had a steady stream of visitors who came to speak to Lucia, and, often, just look at her. Even the other nuns were concerned about her, and at one point called in the local bishop who watched Lucia go through the drama of the Passion for twelve hours straight.

The bishop would not make a decision on Lucia, and called in the local inquisition. Reports here vary, some indicating that he referred the case directly to the Pope, who is said to have spoken with her and, with the assistance of Columba of Rieti, ultimately decided in her favor, telling her to go home and pray for him. Other sources question the accuracy of these reports.

At that time Pietro also came to her, making a final plea to persuade Lucia to return with him as his wife. She declined, and Pietro left alone. He would himself later become a Franciscan monk and a famous preacher.

When Lucy returned to the convent in Viterbo, she found that the Duke of Ferrara, Ercole d’Este I, had determined to build a convent in Ferrara and that, having heard of her, he determined that she would be its prioress. In summer of 1497, he invited her to be the founder of this new monastery. Lucia herself, the Dominican order, and the Pope all agreed quickly to the new proposal. The municipal council of Viterbo, however, objected, not wanting to lose Lucy. Lucia had been praying for some time for a way to create a new convent of strict observance, and agreed to go to the new convent.

Lucia’s departure precipitated a conflict between Ferrara and Viterbo which would continue for two years. Viterbo wanted to keep the famous mystic for themselves, and the duke wanted her in Ferrara. After extensive correspondence between the parties, on April 15, 1499 Lucia escaped secretly from Viterbo and was officially received in Ferrara on May 7, 1499. Thirteen young girls immediately applied for admission to her new community; the construction of the monastery began in June and was completed two years later, in August 1501. It contained 140 cells for sisters and the novices, but to fill it with suitable vocations proved to be very difficult. Lucia expressed the wish to have there some of her former friends from Viterbo and Narni. Duke Ercole, in September 1501 sent his messenger to Rome asking for the help of the pope’s daughter Lucrezia Borgia, who was preparing to marry Duke’s son Alfonso. She collected all eleven candidates Lucia had indicated and sent them, as a special wedding present to Lucia and to the Duke, a few days ahead of her bridal party. She herself solemnly entered Ferrara on February 2, 1502.

The Duke petitioned the local bishop for some help for Lucia in governing her new community, and he sent ten nuns from another community to join Lucia’s convent. Unfortunately, these ten nuns were members of the Dominican second order, who were canonically permitted to wear black veils, something Lucia and the members of the Dominican third order community were not allowed to do.

Tensions were heightened when one of these veiled outsiders, Sister Maria da Parma, was made the prioress of the convent on September 2, 1503. When Duke Ercole died on January 24, 1505 the new prioress quickly found Lucia to be guilty of some unrecorded transgression, most probably of the support for the Savonarolan church reform, and placed her on a strict penance. Lucia was not allowed to speak to any person but her confessor, who was chosen by the prioress. The local provincial of the Dominican order would also not permit any member of the order to see Lucia. There are records that at least one Dominican, Catherine of Racconigi, did visit her, evidently by bilocation, and that Lucia’s earlier visitation by departed saints continued. In response to Lucia’s insistent prayer her stigmata eventually disappeared, which caused some of the other nuns to question whether they had ever been there at all. When Lucia finally died, in 1544, many people were surprised to find that she had not died years earlier.

Then suddenly everything changed. When her body was laid out for burial so many people wanted to pay their last respects that her funeral had to be delayed by three days. Her tomb in the monastery church was opened four years later and her perfectly preserved body was transferred to a glass case. When Napoleon in 1797 suppressed her monastery the body was transferred to the Cathedral of Ferrara; and on 1935 May 26 – to the Cathedral of Narni.

Lucia was beatified by Pope Clement XI on March 1, 1710

Saint Albert the Great was born sometime between 1193 and 1206, to the Count of Bollstädt in Lauingen in Bavaria.  Contemporaries such as Roger Bacon applied the term “Magnus” to Albertus during his own lifetime, referring to his immense reputation as a scholar and philosopher.  Albertus was educated principally at Padua, where he received instruction in Aristotle’s writings. A late account by Rudolph de Novamagia refers to Albertus’ encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary, who convinced him to enter Holy Orders. In 1223 (or 1221) he became a member of the Dominican Order, against the wishes of his family, and studied theology at Bologna and elsewhere. Selected to fill the position of lecturer at Cologne, Germany, where the Dominicans had a house, he taught for several years there, at Regensburg, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Hildesheim. In 1245 he went to Paris, received his doctorate, and taught for some time as a master of theology with great success. During this time Thomas Aquinas began to study under Albertus.

In 1254, Albertus was made provincial of the Dominican Order, and fulfilled the arduous duties of the office with great care and efficiency. During his tenure he publicly defended the Dominicans against attacks by the secular and regular faculty of the University of Paris, commented on St. John, and answered what he perceived as errors of the Arabian philosopher Averroes.

In 1260, Pope Alexander IV made him Bishop of Regensburg, an office from which he resigned after three years. During the exercise of his duties he enhanced his reputation for humility by refusing to ride a horse—in accord with the dictates of the Dominican order—instead walking back and forth across his huge diocese. This earned him the affectionate sobriquet, “boots the bishop,” from his parishioners. After his stint as bishop, he spent the remainder of his life partly in retirement in the various houses of his order, yet often preaching throughout southern Germany. In 1270, he preached the eighth Crusade in Austria. Among the last of his labors was the defense of the orthodoxy of his former pupil, Thomas Aquinas, whose death in 1274 grieved Albertus. After suffering a collapse of health in 1278, he died on November 15, 1280, in Cologne, Germany. His tomb is in the crypt of the Dominican church of St. Andreas in Cologne, and his relics at the Cologne Cathedral.

Albertus was beatified in 1622. He was canonized and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1931 by Pope Pius XI. St Albert’s feast day is celebrated on November 15.