A
Saint Agnes of Rome
Feast day: 21 January
A Roman girl of about twelve who refused marriage and sacrifice to the gods, choosing death rather than betray her consecration to Christ; the most celebrated virgin martyr of the Latin Church.
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A
Saint Andrew the Apostle
Feast day: 30 November
Brother of Simon Peter and a disciple of John the Baptist, Andrew was the first to follow Jesus and immediately brought his brother to him; tradition places his preaching in Greece and his martyrdom on a cross at Patras.
C
Saint Cecilia
Feast day: 22 November
One of the most venerated martyrs of the Roman Church, whose legend of singing to God in her heart on her wedding day made her the patroness of sacred music.
G
Saint George
Feast day: 23 April
A Roman officer martyred under Diocletian for refusing to sacrifice to idols, venerated East and West as the model of the Christian soldier.
J
Saint James the Greater
Feast day: 25 July
One of the three apostles closest to Jesus, first of the Twelve to be martyred, and, through the shrine of Compostela, the patron of Christian pilgrimage in the West.
J
Saint Joan of Arc
Feast day: 30 May
A peasant girl who, guided by voices she attributed to Saints Michael, Catherine and Margaret, lifted the siege of Orléans and was burned as a heretic at nineteen, later declared innocent and canonized.
J
Saint John Fisher
Feast day: 22 June
Bishop of Rochester, Chancellor of Cambridge and the only English bishop to refuse Henry VIII's supremacy, beheaded weeks after being made cardinal.
J
Saint José Sánchez del Río
Feast day: 10 February
A fourteen-year-old Mexican boy tortured and shot in 1928 for refusing to deny Christ, who died crying out 'Viva Cristo Rey!'
L
Saint Lawrence
Feast day: 10 August
One of the seven deacons of Rome, martyred in 258 for presenting the poor to the prefect as 'the treasures of the Church'.
M
Saint Mark
Feast day: 25 April
Companion of Peter and Paul who wrote the shortest and earliest Gospel and, by tradition, brought the faith to Alexandria where he died a martyr.
M
Saint Matthew
Feast day: 21 September
A tax collector at Capernaum who rose from his customs post at a single word of Christ and wrote the Gospel that presents Jesus as the promised Messiah of Israel.
M
Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe
Feast day: 14 August
Polish Franciscan publisher and missionary who offered his life in place of a father condemned to die of starvation at Auschwitz.
P
Saint Paul the Apostle
Feast day: 29 June
A persecutor of Christians struck down on the road to Damascus, who became the greatest missionary of the apostolic age and author of thirteen New Testament letters.
P
Saint Peter the Apostle
Feast day: 29 June
The fisherman Jesus renamed Peter — the rock — who denied his Lord, was forgiven, led the apostles, and was martyred in Rome.
S
Saint Sebastian
Feast day: 20 January
An officer of the imperial guard who secretly strengthened Christians awaiting martyrdom; shot with arrows, nursed back to health, he confronted the emperor again and was clubbed to death.
S
Saint Stephen the First Martyr
Feast day: 26 December
The first of the seven deacons and the first Christian martyr, stoned in Jerusalem while praying for his killers, with Saul of Tarsus consenting.
T
Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
Feast day: 9 August
Jewish philosopher, assistant to Husserl and pioneer of Catholic feminism, who became a Carmelite nun and was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz as a Jew and a Christian.
T
Saint Thomas More
Feast day: 22 June
Humanist, lawyer, author of Utopia, husband and father, Lord Chancellor of England, beheaded for refusing to accept Henry VIII's claim to headship of the Church — 'the king's good servant, but God's first'.
T
Saint Thomas the Apostle
Feast day: 3 July
The apostle who refused to believe without seeing and then made the greatest confession of faith in the Gospels, 'My Lord and my God'; ancient tradition sends him to evangelise India, where a Christian community bears his name to this day.