Santoral today: what are the name days that are celebrated today, Monday February 27

Good deeds, deadly sacrifices, and even inexplicable occurrences arising from apparent divinity, are the reasons why different individuals have been beatified and canonized by the Vatican carry with him the name of saint.

Every daymarked on the calendar, commemorates the life and death of those beings, men and women, who have dedicated their lives to the same Catholic Church which has earned them the appointment.

He was born in Assisi (Italy) in 1838. His name in the world was Francisco Possenti. He was the tenth among 13 siblings. His father worked as a municipal judge.

At the age of 4, he lost his mother. His father, who was an excellent Catholic, took care to give him a careful education, thanks to which he succeeded in controlling his strong character, very prone to bursting into fits of anger and bad temper.

He had the good fortune to be educated by two communities of excellent educators: the Christian Brothers and the Jesuit Fathers; and the teachings received at school greatly helped him to resist the onslaught of his passions and his worldliness.

The young man was extremely careful to dress in the latest fashion. And her elegant features and refined treatment, as well as her overflowing joy and great agility in dancing, made her a favorite of girls at parties. His favorite reading was novels, but it happened like in another era to San Ignacio, who, reading novels, felt emotion and pleasure at the moment, but then there remained in his soul a deep sadness and mortal boredom and discouragement. His friends called him “the crush”. But the love of the world was like a dagger lined with honey.” Sweet on the outside and painful to the soul.

In one of the 40 letters that have come down to us, he wrote to an old friend, when he had already become a religious: “My good brother, if you want to keep your soul free from sin and free from the slavery of the passions and bad habits, you must always avoid reading novels and going to theaters where banal shows are given. Pay great attention to meetings where there is alcohol and parties where there is sensuality and always avoid any reading that could harm your soul I believe that if I had remained in the world, I would not have obtained the salvation of my soul. Will you say I had enough fun? Well, all I’m left with is bitterness, remorse, fear and boredom. Forgive me if I gave you a bad shot. example and ask God to forgive me too.

At the end of his secondary studies and as he was about to begin his university studies, God called him to conversion through a serious illness. Frightened, he promised that if he was cured of this illness, he would go as a religious. But as soon as he was healthy, he forgot his promise and continued to enjoy the world.

A year later, he fell much more seriously ill. A laryngitis that tries to drown him and leads him almost to the grave. Full of faith, he invokes the intercession of a martyred Jesuit saint in the missions and promises to leave as a religious and when a relic of this martyr is placed on his chest, he falls asleep and when he wakes up he is miraculously healed. . But as soon as he recovers from his illness, the attraction of parties and loves resumes and he forgets his promise. It is true that he asks to be admitted as a Jesuit and is accepted, but he believes that for his life as a man of the world what he needs is a rigorous community and he leaves to later enter a religious congregation.

The cholera plague breaks out in Italy. Thousands and thousands of people are dying day after day. And the day he least expected it, the sister he loved the most dies. He considers it a very serious call from God for him to go as a religious. He speaks to his father, but it seems to him that a young man so fond of worldly parties will be too bored in a convent and that his vocation will not last, perhaps even a few months.

But one day, he attends a procession with the image of the Blessed Virgin. Our young man has always had a great devotion to the Mother of God (and it was probably this devotion that succeeded in freeing him from the traps of the world) and in the middle of the procession he raises his eyes to the image of the Virgin and sees She staring at him with a look he had never felt in his life. He can no longer resist this. He goes to his father to beg him to let him go as a religious. The good man asks the opinion of his son’s confessor and, having received the approval of this holy priest, grants him permission to enter a very rigid and rigorous community, the Passionist Fathers.

Upon entering as a religious, the name is changed and henceforth he will be called Gabriel de la Dolorosa. Gabriel, which means: he who carries the messages of God. And of La Dolorosa, because her most beloved Marian devotion is to remember the seven pains or pains that the Virgin Mary suffered. From then on, he will be a totally transformed man.

Gabriel had always enjoyed many comforts in life and given pleasure to his senses and now he enters a community where they fast and the diet is harsh and not varied at all. For the first few months, he suffered a real martyrdom with this sudden change, but no one ever heard him complain, nor saw him sad or upset.

What Gabriel did, he did with all his soul. In the world, he had devoted himself with all his strength to worldly celebrations, but now, having become a religious, he has devoted himself with all the strength of his personality to conforming exactly to the Regulations of his Community. The monks were astonished by his great kindness, the total precision with which he accomplished all that was commanded of him and the impressive fervor with which he carried out his practices of piety.

Her religious life was brief. About six years. But what the Book of Wisdom says is fulfilled in him: “He ended his life in a short time, but he won as many prizes as if he had lived for many years.”

Her nature protested because religious life was austere and rigid, but no one outside realized the almost invincible repugnance her body felt for austerities and penances. His spiritual director knew this very well.

When he began his studies at the major seminary to prepare for the priesthood, he read words which served as the motto for all his studies and which were written by a sage of his community, Saint Vincent Maria Strambi. They are as follows: “Those who are preparing to be preachers or catechists, think while they are studying, that an immense number of poor sinners beg them saying: please: prepare yourselves well, so that they can lead us to eternal salvation”. This useful advice prompted him to devote himself to religious studies with all the enthusiasm of his mind.

When Gabriel was already on the verge of attaining the priesthood, the terrible disease of tuberculosis struck him. He had to confine himself to the infirmary and there he accepted with joy and great patience what God had allowed to happen to him. From vomiting blood to vomiting blood, from drowning to drowning, he lived a whole year repeating from time to time what Jesus said in the Garden of Olives: “Father, if it is not possible that this chalice of bitterness depart from me, thy holy will be done in me”.

The Community of Passionists has as its main devotion the meditation of the Most Holy Passion of Jesus. And thinking and rethinking what Christ suffered in the Agony in the Garden and in the Flagellation and the crowning with thorns and in the Ascent to Calvary carrying the cross and in the hours of mortal agony that the Lord endured on the Cross, I felt that Gabriel had such a great appreciation for suffering that makes us very much like the suffering Jesus, who endured it all with awesome courage and tranquility.

But there was another great help that filled him with courage and hope and that was his fervent devotion to the Mother of God. Her favorite Marian book was “The Glories of Mary”, written by San Alfonso, a book that greatly comforts sinners and the weak and that even though we read it ten times, each time it seems new and impressive. Devotion to the Sma. Our Lady carried Gabriel to very high degrees of holiness.

He advised a monk: “You shouldn’t fix your gaze on beautiful faces, because that arouses a lot of passions. To another he said: “What helps me the most to live my soul in peace is to think of the presence of God, to remember that the eyes of God are always watching me and that his ears listen at all times and that the Lord He will pay for everything that is done for him, even if it means giving someone else a glass of water”.

And on February 27, 1862, after receiving the holy sacraments and asking everyone’s forgiveness for any bad example he might have given them, he crossed his hands on his chest and fell asleep peacefully. His soul had flown away for eternity to receive from God the reward for his good works and his sacrifices. He was barely 25 years old.

Shortly after, miracles began to happen thanks to his intercession and in 1926 the Sovereign Pontiff declared him a saint and named him Patron of young lay people who devote themselves to the apostolate.

With this character is other saints and martyrs which are also celebrated this Monday, February 27 as follows:

Santos Ana line and companions

San Baldomero

Saint Basil, monk

holy kiss

Saint Eunos of Alexandria

Saint Hippolytus of the Jura

Saint Honorina

Saint Julian of Alexandria

San Lucas of Messina

Saint Procopius Decapitated

Blessed Francisca Ana Cirer Carbonell

Beato Guillermo Richardson

Blessed Maria Brader

The Catholic and Orthodox Church uses canonization to declare a deceased person a saint who during his life made sacrifices or was connected with 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.