Santoral today: the list of saints to commemorate this Saturday, February 25

A few decades, even centuries ago, the ancestors used to name their children with the name of the saint of the day of their birth, not in vain in the famous “Mañanitas” there is a stanza that says: “Today, because it’s your birthday, we sing them to you here…”.

He onomastic alludes to the day when a saint is celebrated, although it is common for many people to use it as a synonym for birthday, which is wrong, because when they talk about it, they only allude to the list of holy names.

Like every day of the year, today also commemorates the women and men who stood out for having special connections with the deities, who did good deeds for their neighbors and who had high ethics and morals, reasons that led them to to be canonized or beatified and be among the saints.

Valerius, the confessor († c. 7)

Saint with heroic virtues and unconquered patience in adversity.

Born in Astorga and Christian since childhood. The Bierzo region is the theater of his virtues and his life. He wanted to enter the monastery founded by Saint Fructuoso in Compludo, but for reasons still unknown today he could not enter.

Failing the monastic attempt, he begins a life of prayer and penance living in the manner of the ancient hermits. His way of life, infrequent at the time, caused word of his existence to spread by word of mouth among the locals who began to visit him in the hermitage next to the castle called de la Piedra, in Astorga. They attend with the desire to listen to him and to be consoled in their sorrows. The cleric, the guardian of the hermitage, only begins to take an interest in it when he notices the clink of the coins and sniffs out the fat benefits of the offerings; As he takes possession of it in a bad way, the saint goes away so as not to facilitate his extreme greed; but even the few books he had had to be left in the hermitage because he considered the clergyman a hickey belonged to him.

He misses the locals and suggests a new place to live, pray and preach. In Ebronato, the faithful built him an oratory where he settled and started again. As people crowd around him, the bishop appoints a priest to tend to the small church being built; Justo is called the shepherd and his righteousness in the name remains. Once again, Valerio is homeless and destitute. People continue to love him and suffer from the bad envy of Justo, who sometimes even used physical violence against Valerio.

In Bierzo itself, where Fructuoso had founded the monastery of San Pedro, he found a quiet place and could resume his penitent and prayerful life as a hermit. The bishop of Astorga, Isidoro, calls him and asks for his company to attend the Council of Toledo, which they do not arrive due to the death of the prelate.

He also wrote leaving a written testimony of the time. This literature was kept in the monastery of Carracedo and kept as treasury by the church of Oviedo. His pen left to posterity the life of Saint Fructuoso, an abundant set of maxims and advice to the religious of Bierzo, the revelations of the monks Máximo and Bonelo and the story of Father Donadeo.

His life ended at the end of the 7th century and his relics were kept in the high altar of the church of the monastery of San Pedro de los Montes, of the Benedictine order, near Ponferrada.

Whoever enters his life gives the feeling that God has prepared him for failure. And what is very curious in this case is that his adversaries were always clergymen. Valerio seemed so ugly to you? Many good people affirm, with childlike benevolence, that it is very difficult to live on this earth with a true saint; but maybe they don’t realize that the one who has serious difficulty in living with others is the one who leads a righteous life.

With this character is other saints and martyrs which are also celebrated this Saturday, February 25 as follows:

Santa Aldetrudis

Saint Nestor of Magido

Blessed Avertano

Blessed Robert of Arbrisel

The Catholic and Orthodox Church uses canonization to declare a deceased person a saint who during his life made sacrifices or was linked to a divine event in favor of the church.

This involves including the person’s name in the canon (list of recognized saints) and permission is granted by the Catholic Church to venerate her, acknowledging her power before God.

During Christianity, people were recognized as saints without the need for a formal process; however, this changed in the Middle Ages. In the case of Catholicism, the Church must make an exhaustive inquiry into the life of the person to be sanctified.

For the Catholic Church, there are four ways to achieve this: the way of heroic virtues; the path of martyrdom; that of exceptional causes, confirmed by an ancient cult and written sources; and the offer of life.

Catholicism is one of the most practiced religions in the world. The most recent data from the Vatican – in particular from its Ecclesial Statistical Yearbook – indicate that there are more 1,360 million Catholics in the world.

The American continent is where the most Catholics predominate, with nearly half of those registered by the Vatican, being more than a quarter located in South America.

In recent years, the Vatican has realized that the presence of Catholics has grown considerably on two continents: Asia -especially the Middle East- and Africa.

In contrast, religious rates in Europe declined, while in Oceania they remained stable.