At her confirmation in 1597, she took the name of Rose, because, when an infant, her face had been seen transformed by a mystical rose. As a child she was remarkable for a great reverence, and pronounced love, for all things relating to God. This so took possession of her that thenceforth her life was given up to prayer and mortification. She had an intense devotion to the Infant Jesus and His Blessed Mother, before whose altar she spent hours. She was scrupulously obedient and of untiring industry, making rapid progress by earnest attention to her parents’ instruction, to her studies, and to her domestic work, especially with her needle.

After reading of St. Catherine she determined to take that saint as her model. She began by fasting three times a week, adding secret severe penances, and when her vanity was assailed, cutting off her beautiful hair, wearing coarse clothing, and roughening her hands with toil. All this time she had to struggle against the objections of her friends, the ridicule of her family, and the censure of her parents. Many hours were spent before the Blessed Sacrament, which she received daily.

Finally she determined to take a vow of virginity, and inspired by supernatural love, adopted extraordinary means to fulfill it. At the outset she had to combat the opposition of her parents, who wished her to marry. For ten years the struggle continued before she won, by patience and prayer, their consent to continue her mission.

At the same time great temptations assailed her purity, faith, and constance, causing her excruciating agony of mind and desolation of spirit, urging her to more frequent mortifications; but daily, also, Our Lord manifested Himself, fortifying her with the knowledge of His presence and consoling her mind with evidence of His Divine love. Fasting daily was soon followed by perpetual abstinence from meat, and that, in turn, by use of only the coarsest food and just sufficient to support life.

Her days were filled with acts of charity and industry, her exquisite lace and embroidery helping to support her home, while her nights were devoted to prayer and penance. When her work permitted, she retired to a little grotto which she had built, with her brother’s aid, in their small garden, and there passed her nights in solitude and prayer. Overcoming the opposition of her parents, and with the consent of her confessor, she was allowed later to become practically a recluse in this cell, save for her visits to the Blessed Sacrament.

In her twentieth year she received the habit of St. Dominic. Thereafter she redoubled the severity and variety of her penances to a heroic degree, wearing constantly a metal spiked crown, concealed by roses, and an iron chain about her waist. Days passed without food, save a draught of gall mixed with bitter herbs. When she could no longer stand, she sought repose on a bed constructed by herself, of broken glass, stone, potsherds, and thorns. She admitted that the thought of lying down on it made her tremble with dread. Fourteen years this martyrdom of her body continued without relaxation, but not without consolation. Our Lord revealed Himself to her frequently, flooding her soul with such inexpressible peace and joy as to leave her in ecstasy four hours. At these times she offered to Him all her mortifications and penances in expiation for offences against His Divine Majesty, for the idolatry of her country, for the conversion of sinners, and for the souls in Purgatory.

Many miracles followed her death. She was beatified by Clement IX, in 1667, and canonized in 1671 by Clement X, the first American to be so honored. Her feast is celebrated 30 August. She is represented wearing a crown of roses.

Born:1586 at Lima, Peru as Isabel

Died: August 24, 1617 at Lima, Peru

Beatified: April 15, 1668 by Pope Clement IX

Canonized: April 2, 1671 by Pope Clement X

Representation: anchor; crown of flowers; crown of roses; Holy Infant; roses; Dominican tertiary holding roses; Dominican tertiary accompanied by the Holy Infant

Patronage: against vanity; Americas; Central America; embroiderers; florists; gardeners; India; Latin America; Lima, Peru; needle workers; New World; people ridiculed for their piety; Peru; Philippines; diocese of Santa Rosa, California; South America; vanity; Villareal Samar, Phillipines; West Indies

Very early in life, prodigies surrounded Blessed James, for on the day of his birth three brilliant stars, each containing the image of a friar preacher, appeared in the sky over Bevagna. Children ran through the streets crying : “To the schools! To the schools! behold the new masters heaven is sending us !” The three preachers were later understood to be James, Blessed Ambrose of Siena, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

James was given a good education and was carefully trained in the ways of holiness. The power of his prayers was seen early. When still a small child, he brought about peace between two quarreling families. At the age of sixteen, he met the Dominicans. Two friars had come to preach in his native city during Lent. Deciding, after much prayer, that God was calling him to the Dominican apostolate, he went home with the two missioners and began his novitiate.

The early promises of his great learning were well fulfilled. In and age that shone with the brilliance of Albert, Thomas and Bonaventure, the preaching of James of Bevagna was still remarkable. He was particularly gifted at reconciling enemies and bringing peace to warring families and cities.

James was very severe with himself, particularly in the matter of poverty. On one occasion, his mother, shocked at the poor condition of the habit he was wearing, gave money to buy a new one. As he wanted very much more to get a crucifix for his cell, he did so. His mother reminded him that the money was given for clothing. James replied with the text, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ,” assuring her that this was the garment he had bought with her gift.

At another time, praying before the same crucifix, James was overcome with a sense of his own unworthiness and begged of God some sign that his soul was to be saved. Blood gushed from the hands and side of the figure on the cross, and a voice from heaven told him that his token of God’s favor would reassure him. Some of the miraculous blood was preserved for more than two centuries. Kept at the tomb of Blessed James, it worked many miracles, but it was stolen by heretics.

Forewarned of the hour of his death, James was assured that Our Lady would come to meet him, because he had often sacrificed to adorn her altars. She came at the time foretold, and James went happily with her into the presence of God.

Born: Bevagna in Umbria, Italy in 1220

Died: 1301 at Mevania, Italy of natural causes

Beatification: 1400 (Cultus confirmed) by pope Boniface IX; again on May 18, 1672 (cultus confirmed) by Pope Clement X

Direct ancestor of thousands of Dominican sisters, who today are engaged in all the active charities of the Order, was Blessed Emily Bicchieri. She built the first convent for conventual Third Order Sisters in 1256.

Emily was born in 1238, the fourth of seven daughters. Before her birth, her mother was privileged to see in a dream something of the future work of her daughter. She saw a magnificent church-one that she had never seen before-and a beautiful young girl wearing white robes and a veil with a wreath of white roses. Around the young woman gathered other girls, all dressed in the same fashion, and, as the good woman watched, enthralled by the beauty of the scene, they formed into a procession and marched singing around the church. An old Dominican to whom she related the dream explained to her it concerned the child she was bearing, and that this child, a daughter, would be a saint.

Emily grew up among her sisters and received, for that time, a good education. They were all taught to read and embroider, and Emily very early developed a talent for seeking out the poor and the troubled, using her talents to relieve miseries. She was her father’s favorite, in spite of the fact that she emptied her purse as fast as he could fill it. While her three older sisters were concerning themselves about making advantageous marriages, she was already planning her future, she would be a nun-just what kind, she did not know.

When Emily was seventeen, the first and the greatest grief of her life came to her- her father died. She had been his constant companion for several years, and she had dreaded breaking the news to him that she wanted to enter a convent. However, faced with death, he had quite easily given her the permission she desired, and, after his estate was settled and her mother provided for, Emily set about accomplishing her desire. Her portion of the sizeable estate she used to build a convent for sisters of the Third Order Conventual of Saint Dominic. It is not known that any such institution existed before her time, but it must have been both in mind of Saint Dominic and in the plans of his successors, because the Dominican fathers of Vercelli enthusiastically supported her in her project.

The papal brief authorizing the new foundation, the Convent of Saint Margaret, bears the date 1256. On the feast of Saint Michael, Emily and her companions- who now numbered more than thirty-were dressed for their bridal day in white gowns, with veils and wreaths of white roses. Emily’s mother, coming into the church for the first time to attend the ceremony, was amazed to see the details of her dream worked out in actuality. The young aspirants were questioned concerning their intentions, and then were taken out and dressed in the Dominican Habit. A Dominican nun from the Second Order has been appointed by the Cardinal to train in the tradition of the Order, and their novitiate began.

It was perhaps inevitable that the band of young novices would recognize Emily as their natural superior. She had all the qualities of leadership that one hopes for in a superior, as well as being the foundress of the convent. Consequently, when the borrowed novice mistress completed her work and saw them all professed, Sister Emily, in spite of her youth, was unanimously named superior. She was called “Mother Emily,” which was a great trial to her.

We wish that we knew more about this interesting household. We know that it was designed for good works as well as prayer, which indicates that the cloister was not strict as it was in the Second Order houses of the time, though even Second Order nuns traveled considerably in the late thirteenth century. One of the differences, and it may well be one of the principal differences, between the Convent of St. Margaret and the Second Order foundations, was that Blessed Emily’s house had no lay sisters; all the sisters were of the same category and shared in the work of the house. The Divine Office was said, though we do not know whether the sisters rose at midnight Matins. Blessed Emily herself discouraged the contact with seculars which was to bring so many religious houses to ruin, and set up her horarium so that the sisters would have time and privacy for the life they were expected to lead. The rich gifts that she and the other sisters received from friends and relatives were promptly given out to those who came seeking help at the alm’s gate.

Blessed Emily was not spared the agonies of spiritual doubt. Anxious as she was to receive Holy Communion frequently, the practice at the time was to go only rarely to the altar rail. Overly conscientious about her small faults, and battered about by the opinions of people less fervent that she was, she entered upon a long period of worry. Finally, our Lord Himself came to relieve her of it, and assured her that it was much more pleasing to Him for her to receive Him through love than for her to abstain from receiving through fear of unworthiness.

One of the convent tasks that Blessed Emily particularly enjoyed was that of infirmarian. This gave her the double joy of helping the sick and of mortifying herself. Once, in the exercise of this office, she had to make a difficult choice. It was Christmas Day, the time when she wanted with all her heart to receive Communion. There were three very sick sisters in the infirmary, and one of them could not be left alone. Emily had to remain with her during Mass, only hurrying out to receive her Lord and rushing back again, without time for the long thanksgiving that she felt the occasion demanded. However, as she came back to the infirmary and glanced at the three sick sisters, she acted on divine inspiration and said to them, ” I am not alone, my sisters; see. I bring Jesus to bless you.” Whereupon, our Lord chose that moment to cure the three sick sisters. They promptly rose up and joined in the celebration of the feast. On another day, Emily arrived in the chapel too late for Communion. Sad and regretful, she knelt in prayer. An angel came and gave her Holy Communion, miraculously.

Emily had always been a devotee of mortification. She made use of the usual medieval methods of conquering self-fastings, disciplines, hairshirts- and added others as she thought of them. Her special devotion was to the Holy Crown of Thorns. This famous relic had been brought from the Holy Land in the year that Emily was born, and, although she could hardly have seen it, she must have heard a great deal about it. She meditated often on it and on the terrible pain that it caused our Lord. One day she bravely asked our Lord to let her share this pain, and He granted this request. The stigmata of the crown of thorns was impressed on her head for three days of intolerable suffering, and during that time she was visited by several of the saints associated with our Lord’s Passion. At the end of three days, the pain disappeared, but she retained her great devotion to the Crown of Thorns all her life.

Blessed Emily was a strict superior, but a beloved one. Many times she saved her sisters from grief of one kind or another by her parents in their behalf, and her corrections were so gentle that they had great power over the culprit.

At least twice Our Lady is said to have come to see Blessed Emily, both times to teach her prayer. Miracles were worked by the prayers of the Blessed on the occasion of a disastrous flood, and also when a fire broke out inside the convent. She cured many sick people by her prayers, but she was always embarrassed at this sort of thing, as though she had somehow committed a fault.

Born: in Vercelli, Italy, c. 1238

Died: She died in1314 after a half century of prayer and good works in the convent which she had founded.

Beatified: She was beatified in 1769 by Pope Clement XIV

Let us Pray: O God who, who didst give unto Blessed Emily, Thy Virgin, grace to despise all earthly things, grant through her merits and intercession that, despising all perishable allurements, we may love Thee with our whole heart. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Aimo was one of the few inquisitors in the Piedmont who lived to die in peace at about 100 years of age. One of his first tasks on assuming the office was to give honorable burial to two of his predecessors, who had been martyred. Why is it that we only seem to think of the cruelties of the Inquisition, but rarely of the wrongs of the opposing forces? Could it be that we assume that representatives of the holy Catholic Church will always act like angels?

In any case, Aimo, scion of the counts of Lagnasco, became a Dominican in his hometown at an early age. He was a good student and made such rapid strides in his studies that he was asked to teach at the University of Turin. Much of his life was spent preaching and teaching.

He served for a time as confessor at the court of Blessed Amadeus of Savoy, but did not like that life. So, he was offered the even less attractive position of inquisitor-general of Lombardy and Liguria when he was 71 years old. He replaced Blessed Bartholomew Cerverio, who had just been martyred.

It had taken all the strength of the young and vigorous, 46-year- old Bartholomew to hold such a position; therefore, Aimo went to the Piedmont with considerable misgivings. Nevertheless, he seems to have been a great success in the difficult office. He converted many of his listeners by the sincerity and sweetness of his preaching. His example was a beacon of hope to the Catholics of the area, who had sometimes been embarrassed by the affluence of Church authorities and the obvious poverty of the heretics.

One of Aimo’s first acts was to arrange for the relics of Blessed Anthony of Pavoni to be brought home to Savigliano and interred in the Dominican church there.

Born: in Savigliano, Piedmont, Italy, c. 1395

Died: 1495

Beatified: cultus confirmed in 1856 by Pope Pius IX

earth, we may merit to enjoy a reign eternal with him in heaven. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.