Thursday of week 32 in Ordinary TimeOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | Mass(Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850 - 1917))

She was born in Lombardy, the youngest of thirteen children. Because of her frail health she was refused admission to two convents. She devoted herself to teaching, and founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose aim is to spread devotion to the Heart of Jesus by spiritual and corporal works of mercy, running homes for the old and the sick, orphanages, and schools. In 1889 the Pope sent her to New York, where she founded an orphanage. In all she founded 67 institutions across the United States, South America and Europe. She died of malaria at Chicago in 1917.See also the web site of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.(Saints Benedykt, Jan, Mateusz, Isaak and Krystyn, the first martyrs of Poland)

Saint Josaphat, Bishop, MartyrOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | MassSaint Josaphat (c.1580 - 1623)

He was born in the Polish province of Volhynia, of Orthodox parents. In 1595 the Union of Brest brought the Ruthenian Church into communion with Catholic Rome while still preserving its own liturgy. The result was a schism within the Ruthenian church itself, with one party wanting to remain Orthodox and in the orbit of Moscow and Constantinople, while the other accepted the Union. Matters were complicated by the presence of the Greek Uniates, a remnant of a century-old attempt at church union (who remain a living church to this day).Josaphat joined the first monastery of the order of St Basil to be united to the Catholic Church: he was the first person to do so. He was ordained priest and, eventually and reluctantly, appointed bishop of Polotsk in 1617. Although Sigismund III Vasa, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, supported the union, the local aristocracy were against it because it threatened their control of ecclesiastical benefices. Plotting with the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, who visited the region in 1621, they stirred up trouble and as a result Josaphat was murdered by a mob in 1623 while on a pastoral visit to Vitebsk.

Saint Martin of Tours, BishopOffice of Readings | Morning Prayer | Evening Prayer | Night Prayer | MassSt Martin of Tours (c.316 - 397)

He was born in the Roman province of Pannonia (approximating to the western half of modern Hungary) in about 316 and was educated at Pavia in Italy. He was baptized, left the army and after spending some time as a hermit on an island off the Ligurian coast, founded a monastery at Ligugé in western France, where he lived a monastic life guided by St Hilary. Later he was ordained priest and became bishop of Tours. In his actions he gave an example of what a good shepherd should be. He founded other monasteries, educated the clergy, and preached the Gospel to the poor. He died in 397.The famous story about St Martin is that while a soldier in Amiens he gave half of his military cloak to a beggar and later had a dream in which the beggar revealed himself as Christ.See the articles in Wikipedia and the Catholic Encyclopaedia.