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Portrait of St. Francis of Assisi

St. Francis of Assisi

The rich merchant's son who traded a life of silk and swords for poverty, peace, and a love of all creation — and founded an order that reshaped the Church.

Feast: October 4 1181–1226 (45 years) Founder Patron of Ecology
Patron Of
Animals Ecology Italy Merchants

Quotes & Sayings of St. Francis of Assisi

  • “Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.”

    — The Admonitions

  • “While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.”
  • “Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
  • “Above all the graces and gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming oneself.”
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Portrait of St. Anthony of Padua

St. Anthony of Padua

Doctor of the ChurchJune 13

A gifted Portuguese scholar who hid his learning by washing dishes in a Franciscan hermitage — until one surprise sermon gave him away, and he spent the last nine years of his short life as the most powerful preacher in Europe.

Portrait of St. Germaine Cousin

St. Germaine Cousin

Shepherdess of PibracJune 15

A sickly shepherd girl despised by her own household, who slept under the stairs, prayed in the fields, and shared her scraps with beggars — and whom heaven, and eventually all of France, refused to overlook.

Portrait of St. Boniface

St. Boniface

Apostle of GermanyJune 5

An English monk who walked away from a quiet life of books to spend forty years preaching in the German forests — felling a god's oak with an axe, building a church across half a continent, and dying with a book raised over his head.