Patron saint of fishermen, anglers, newborn babies -Zeno of Verona

Zeno of Verona was a native of Mauretania. He taught many children of Africa about the Catholic religion and he also helped them with their school work. The children could rely on someone who could help them. Zeno was a follower of Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, who accompanied his master when the latter visited Verona in 340. Zeno’s 90 or so sermons are evidence of his African origins since Christian African writers of the time frequently used neologisms and wordplay. Many of the Sermones concern Old Testament exegesis.  Staying in the city, Zeno entered the monastic life, living as a monk until around 362, when he was elected successor asSee  Bishop of Verona after the death of Bishop Gricinus 

Zeno had a good classical education and as bishop baptized many people, won converts back from Arianism, lived a life of poverty, trained priests to work in the diocese, set up a convent for women, reformed how the Agape feast was celebrated and forbade funeral masses being accompanied by attendees’ loud groans and wailing. Zeno’s other reforms included instructions concerning adult baptism, by complete immersion, and issuing medals to people newly baptized to the Catholic faith.

One story about Saint Zeno, says one day when he was fishing on the banks of the Adige, which he did in order to feed himself.  He saw a peasant crossing the river in a horse and cart. The horses began to get strangely skittish. Zeno, believing this to be the work of the devil, made the sign of the cross, and the horses calmed down. Zeno was often said to combat the devil and is sometimes depicted treading on a demon. Another story says he exorcised a demon from the body of the daughter of the Emperor. The story says that the grateful Emperor allowed Zeno and other Christians freedom of worship in the empire.

Zeno may have suffered persecution (but not execution) during the reigns of Constantius II and Julian the Apostate.  Zeno was bishop for about ten years.  He died around April 12, 371.  

At the end of the 6th century, Saint Gregory the Great tells about miracles from the divine intercession of Zeno. In 588, the Adige flooded its banks, inundating Verona. The floodwater reached the church dedicated to Saint Zeno, but miraculously did not enter it, even though the door was wide open. The church was donated to Theodelinda, an alleged eyewitness to the miracle and wife of king Authari.

Barsanuphius

Barsanuphius was a Christian hermit and writer of the sixth century.

He was born in Egypt, and he lived in absolute seclusion for fifty years near the monastery of Saint Seridon of Gaza in Palestine. He wrote many letters, 800 of which have survived. He wrote mainly to John the Prophet, abbot of the monastery of Merosala and teacher of Dorotheus of Gaza. In his old age, he convinced the emperor to renew the relationship with the Church of Jerusalem.   He died around 545.
His relics arrived in Oria, in Italy, with a Palestinian monk in 850 AD and were placed in the present-day church of San Francesco da Paola by Bishop Theodosius. During a Moorish siege and taking of the city, the relics were lost but then later rediscovered and placed in the city’s basilica.

At Oria, he is considered to have saved the city from destruction by foreign invaders. A legend states that he repelled a Spanish invasion by appearing before the Spanish commander armed with a sword. During World War II, he is said to have spread his blue cape across the sky, thus causing a rainstorm, and preventing an air bombing by Allied Forces.

Magdalena di Canossa

Magdalena di Canossa was born on March 1, 1774 in Verona, Italy to the Marquis Ottavio di Canossa and Teresa Szluha; a Hungarian countess. Her parent’s first children died soon after birth.  She was born after Laura Maria. She was baptized on March 2, 1774.

Her mother later gave birth to another son who died right after the birth. In 1776 Boniface was born and then two additional girls, Rosa and Leonora.  In 1779,  her father died in an accident while on vacation in Grezzano. In 1781, her mother left their palace and married the widower Marquis Odoardo Zanetti from Mantua. The children were placed under the guardianship of their uncle Girolamo.

From May 2,  1791, she spent ten months in a Carmelite convent but discerned that this was not her vocation and returned home.  She undertook the running of her large estate. In 1797, Napoleon was a guest at their palace where she received him; he returned as a guest twice more in 1805 and 1807.

Canossa saw how the poor people in her town suffered and grew worse due to all the social upheavals because of the invasions of the French forces and the opposing forces of the Austrian Empire which would gain control of Verona. This encouraged her to desire to servethe unfortunate. Canossa studied under the Carmelites in Trent and then at Conegliano.

Using her inheritance she began charitable work for the poor and sick, in hospitals and in their homes, and also among abandoned girls. On April 1, 1808 she was given an abandoned convent where she took in two poor girls from the slum of the San Zeno neighborhood to care for them and provide them with an adequate education. One month later on May 8, she moved out of her palace and moved into what is now the Saint Joseph Convent where other women soon joined her and formed the Canossian Daughters. In May 1810, the Servants of God Father Antonio Angelo and Brother Marco Antonio Cavanis invited her to Venice for collaboration. In the meantime, her uncle Girolamo died in July 1814, entrusting his motherless son Carlino to her care.

Canossa wanted the pope to legitimize her work by granting formal recognition to the order. She decided to meet with Pope Pius VII in Genoa in 1815 and arrived in Milan on May 14 to learn that the pope had left for Rome. She reached the pope on May 23 at Piacenza.  She tried to meet with the Pope, but she lost her courage. The pope noticed and didn’t wish to continue the meeting and told Canossa to follow the usual protocol and send the Rule and other documents to Roman authorities. She tried again some hours later and was again brought before Pius VII who gave her the same vague answer.  This hurt her feelings because she thought the meeting was too formal with a lack of concrete results.

The new congregation started to care for poor children and to serve in the hospitals. Once word of their work spread, the order was requested to start new communities in other cities of the region. Soon there were convents of the religious established in Venice, Milan, Bergamo, and Trent.   In 1824, she travelled to Rovato where she worked with Annunciata Astoria Cocchetti. Magdalene drew up a Rule for the congregation, and it received pontifical approval from Pope Leo XII on December 23, 1828.

Magdalene wanted to provide boys with the same care her religious sisters were providing to girls. She invited the priest Francesco Luzzi to open a small chapel adjacent to the sisters’ convent of Santa Lucia in Venice. He opened this house on May 23, 1831. In 1833, the priest saw two laymen join him, Giuseppe Carsana and Benedetto Belloni,  and who later took over the work of the place when Luzzi left to become a Carmelite friar. The men’s order were given a religious habit in 1860 from the Patriarch of Venice, Angelo Francesco Ramazzotti, and were given a Rule in 1897 from Domenico Agostini.

Canossa maintained a partnership with Leopoldina Naudet.  Though they got along, they had disagreements about their method.  They dissolved their partnership around 1816. Canossa also tried to establish a male religious order with Antonio Provolo in the 1820s but was unsuccessful. It was in February 1820 that she first met Antonio Rosmini and Rosmini’s sister Margherita became a close friend of Canossa and joined her order on 2 October 1824.

The death of Pius VII in 1823 halted work in the recognition of her order and she was upset that approval had not been granted since her meeting with the pope less than a decade before. Canossa believed she would have better luck with his successor Pope Leo XII and in September 1828 left to go to Rome to request of him the formal approval needed. She stopped over at Coriano to visit Maria Elisabetta Renzi and stopped at Loreto before reaching Rome in November. In the audience with the pope he asked her to present a shorter version of the Rule so that his approval could come quicker; he also appointed a commission that the Cardinal Carlo Odescalchi led to assess the rule and the request. This led to Leo XII granting approval for the order just before Christmas. In 1833 she was profoundly affected by the death of Margherita Rosmini who was a close friend.
In 1834, she organized the Spiritual Exercises for her order in Verona before setting off for Venice and returning to Verona in May. That autumn she went to Bergamo and then to Milan. Canossa died on April 10, 1835, after a period of ill.
The cause for her canonization opened under Pope Pius IX on February 15, 1877.  She became titled a Servant of God. Pope Pius XI named her Venerable on January 6, 1927. Pope Pius XII beatified her on 7 December 7, 1941.

Her beatification depended upon a miracle attributed to her intercession with one being investigated in 1955.   On July 1, 1987, when a medical panel approved it, as did the theologians on 16 October 1987 and the members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 17 November 1987. Pope John Paul II approved this miracle on 11 December 11, 1987, and presided over Canossa’s canonization in Saint Peter’s Square on 2 October 1988.

Hugh of Rouen

Saint Hugh of Rouen was the son of Duke Drogo of Champagne and his wife Anstrudis. He entered the church and became archbishop of Rouen in 722.
Hugh was the grandson of Pepin of Heristal and Plectrude on his father’s side, and of Waratton and Ansfledis on his mother’s. Both Waratton and Drogo were mayors of the palaces. He was brought up by his grandmother Ansfled, while his father Drogo was a duke in distant Champagne. Hugh’s education is an example of the important role of women in Frankish family fortunes and in politics generally.

While still a layman, Hugh was given Jumièges Abbey, which he entered as a monk in 718 under Abbot Cochin. He later became vicar-general of the diocese of Metz. In 722, Hugh was elected to the archdiocese of Rouen. In 723, he accepted the leadership of Fontenelle Abbey. In 724, he took on the administration, together with his own, of the dioceses of Paris and Bayeux.

At the end of his life, Hugh retired to Jumièges, where he died on April 9, 730.

 Amantius of Comois

Saint Amantius of Comois was the third bishop of Como. He was preceded by Felix of Como and Saint Provinus. He was succeeded by Saint Abundius. A legend, based Cantium, says he was born in Canterbury,and served as an imperial dignitary before becoming a bishop. He was a relative of Theodosius II through his mother. He is credited with building the original Basilica of Sant’Abbondio outside of the city walls of Como. The basilica was built to house several relics associated with Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which Amantius had brought from Rome.

He died April 8, 448.