Saturday of the First Week of Advent Optional Memorial of St. Nicholas, 270-343; bishop of Myra, a city in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor; legend tells the best-known story about Nicholas concerning his charity toward a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters of marriageable age; rather than see […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Friday of the First Week of Advent Saint of the Day: St. John the Wonder-Worker; Eighth Century bishop of Polybatum, in Phrygia; he was a defender of sacred images in the face of the ascendancy of the Iconoclasts, which placed him in considerable danger with the Ionoclast Emperor Leo V the Armenian, but he performed […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Thursday of the First Week of Advent Optional Memorial of St. John Damascene, 676-749; spent most of his life in the Monastery ofSaint Sabas near Jerusalem, and all of his life under Muslim rule, indeed protected by it; famous for his writings against the iconoclasts, for his treatise, “Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,” and for […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Wednesday of the First Week of Advent Memorial of St. Francis Xavier, 1506-1552; an early member of the Society of Jesus; after his ordination he was appointed apostolic nuncio in the East; he traveled to Goa, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, China, and Japan establishing missionary outposts and converting hundreds of thousands; Pius X named him […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Tuesday of the First Week of Advent Saint of the Day: St. Chromatius; a native of Aquileia, Italy, and participated in theSynodofAquileiathat condemnedArianism in 381; seven years later, he became bishop of the see; Chromatius was known and revered as a scholar and was described bySt. Jerome as “a most learned and most holy man”; […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Monday of the First Week of Advent Saint of the Day: St. Edmund Campion, 1540-1581; English convert who became a Jesuit, and preached up to three times per day, riding from town to town on horseback, winning many converts; in 1581 he was captured by Elizabethan authorities, and tortured on a rack before being sentenced […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

First Sunday of Advent Office of Readings and Morning Prayer for 11/30/25 Gospel: Matthew 24:37-44 Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSSPodcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Saturday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time Saint of the Day: St. Radbod of Utrecht, 850-917; he was educated by his Uncle Gunther, the bishop of Cologne, Germany, and became bishop of Utrecht, Holland in 900; he distinguished himself for his aid to the poor and for his poetry; he was forced to move […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Friday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time Saint of the Day: St. James of the Marches, 1391-1476; born in Ancona, studied law, and joined the Franciscans in 1416; he became an effective and forceful preacher; he worked as a missionary inItaly and in Germany, Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary, and in 1426 was named inquisitor […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Thursday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time – Thanksgiving Day in the United States Saint of the Day St. James Interecisus; in the Fifth Century, he was a favorite of King Yezdigerd I of Persia, and James was a Christian; but James renounced his faith when the king began a persecution of Christians; when […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Wednesday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time Saint of the Day: St. Leonard of Port Maurice; born in Port Maurice, Italy, and joined the Franciscans of the Strict Observance in 1697; after ordination in 1703, he began preaching through Tuscany in Italy, and attracted huge crowds; he erected almost 600 Stations of the Cross […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more

Tuesday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time Optional Memorial of St. Catherine of Alexandria; became Christian after receiving a vision; debated 50 pagan philosophers, who became Christian, along with 200 soldiers and members of the emperor’s family, and all were martyred; Catherine touched the spiked wheel on which she was to be executed, and […]Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: ... Read more