ST. DANIEL, PROPHET, STS. HANANIAH, MISHAEL AND AZARIAH, ST. JOHN OF MATHA, PRIEST, FOUNDER OF THE TRINITARIANS, B. HYACINTHE CORMIER, DOMINICAN Dec 17

ST. DANIEL, PROPHET, 

A Jew of a noble family, he was deported to Babylon (VII century BC). He became an official of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel prophesied the fall of the Babylonian Empire. Because of his fidelity to the tradition of his fathers, Daniel was given to lions, but God saved him.  

STS. HANANIAH, MISHAEL AND AZARIAH, 

Young Jews in exile in Babylon (VII century BC), the youths became officials at court. Refusing to worship the statue of the king, they were thrown into a furnace: accompanied by an angel of the Lord, they sang a hymn proclaiming the lordship of the true God over all creation, and emerged unscathed.  

ST. JOHN OF MATHA, PRIEST, FOUNDER OF THE TRINITARIANS

Born in 1154 in France, St. John was a professor of theology in Paris, before leaving everything to become a priest at the age of 40. He founded the Order of the Most Holy Trinity. He left for Africa, with a mission to free Christian slaves, whom he succours in his hospices. He died in Rome in 1213.  

B. HYACINTHE CORMIER, DOMINICAN

 a French Roman Catholic priest and the seventy-sixth Master General of the Dominican Order, serving in that capacity from 1904 until 1916. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 20, 1994. Bl.