St Hyacinth (EF), Aug 17

St Hyacinth (1185-1257) was a Dominican from Poland.

Educated in Paris and Bologna, he started out as a secular priest, but while in Rome he witnessed a miracle performed by Saint Dominic, and thereafter received the habit from him.

"One of his miracles is connected with a Mongol attack on a monastery in Kiev. Hyacinth was about to save a monstrance (or possibly a ciborium, it is unknown exactly which one) containing the Blessed Sacrament when he heard the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary asking him to take her too. So he decided to take also the statue of the Holy Virgin. Despite the fact that it weighed far more than he could normally lift, it became miraculously weightless. Thus he saved both the Blessed Sacrament and the statue of Our Lady."

Assumption of the BVM (Aug 15)

St Maximilian Kolbe (OF)/Vigil of the Assumption (EF/Benedictine), Aug 14

Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, O.F.M. Conv. was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz, in 1939.  You can read more about his inspiring life here.

Today is also the Vigil of the Assumption in the traditional calendar.

SS Pontianus, Pope and Hippolytus, Martyrs, Memorial (August 13)

Pope Pontian

Today we celebrate the feasts of both a Pope and his rival anti-Pope, happily reconciled in the end.

Both were deported to the Sardinian salt mines, and died after harsh treatment there.  Pope St Pontian resigned in 235 in order to allow a successor to be elected in his stead.

The legend for St Hipppolytus however is more colourful, as the martyrology relates:

"At Rome, blessed Hippolytus, martyr, who gloriously confessed the faith, under the emperor Valerian. After enduring other torments, he was tied by the feet to the necks of wild horses, and being cruelly dragged through briars and brambles, and having all his body lacerated, he yielded up his spirit. On the same day, suffered also blessed Concordia, his nurse, who being scourged in his presence with leaded whips, went to our Lord; and nineteen others of his house, who were beheaded beyond the Tiburtine gate, and buried with him in the Veran field."

St Clare (August 11, OF); St Tibertius, memorial; St Susanna

From the martyrology:

"At Assisi in Umbria, the birthday of St. Clare, virgin, the first of the Poor Ladies of the Order of Friars Minor. Being celebrated for holiness of life and miracles, she was placed among the holy virgins by Pope Alexander IV...

At Rome, between the two laurels situation about three miles from the city, the birthday of St. Tiburtius, martyr, under the judge Fabian, in the persecution of Diocletian. After he had walked barefooted on burning coals and confessed Christ with increased constancy, he was put to the sword."

In the Extraordinary Form:

"Also at Rome, the holy virgin Susanna, a woman of noble race, and niece of the blessed Pontiff Caius. She merited the palm of martyrdom by being beheaded in the time of Diocletian."

Feast of St Lawrence (August 10)



Fra Angelico 1447-50

From the martyrology:

"At Rome, on the Tiburtine Way, the birthday of the blessed archdeacon Lawrence, martyred during the persecution of Valerian. After much suffering from imprisonment, from scourging with whips set with iron or lead, from hot metal plates, he at last completed his martyrdom by being slowly consumed on an iron instrument made in the form of a gridiron. His body was buried by blessed Hippolytus and the priest Justin in the cemetery of Cyriaca, in the Agro Verano."

SS Sixtus II, Felicissimus and Agapitus, memorial (August 7)

From the martyrology (for August 6):


"At Rome, on the Appian Way, in the cemetery of Callistus, the birthday of blessed Sixtus II, pope and martyr, who received the crown of martyrdom in the persecution of Valerian by being put to the sword. Also, the holy martyrs Felicissimus and Agapitus, deacons of blessed Sixtus; Januarius, Magnus, Vincent, and Stephen, subdeacons, all of whom were beheaded with him and buried in the cemetery of Praetextatus. With them suffered also blessed Quartus, as is related by St. Cyprian."