ENGLISH SPEAKING SAINTS DECEMBER 29, St. Aileran, 664 A.D. Monk, biographer, and scholar, Bl. William Howard, 1680 A.D.

ENGLISH SPEAKING SAINTS DECEMBER 29 St. Aileran, 664 A.D. Monk, biographer, and scholar. Also called Sapiens the Wise. Aileran was one of the most distinguished professors at the school of Clonard in Ireland. St. Finian welcomed Aileran to Clonard. In 650, Aileran became rector of Clonard, and was recognized as a classical scholar and a master of Latin and Greek. He wrote The Fourth Life of St. Patrick, a Latin-Irish Litany and The Lives of St. Brigid and St. Fechin of Fore. His last work was a treatise on the genealogy of Christ according to St. Matthew. A fragment of another of Aileran's works has survived: A Short Moral Explanation of the Sacred Names. Scholarly institutions across Europe read this work aloud annually. Aileran died from the Yellow Plague. His death on December 29, 664 is chronicled in the Annals of Ulster. Bl. William Howard, 1680 A.D. Martyr of England. He was born the son of Thomas, earl of Arundel, in 1616 and raised a Catholic. The grandson of Blessed Philip Howard and a member of the noble family of the Howards, William held the title of Viscount Stafford. He was made a Knight of the Bath by King Charles I (r.1624-1649), and married Mary Stafford in 1637. In 1640, William was named Baron Stafford. A county in Virginia in the United States bears his name. He was arrested on the false accusation of complicity in the so-called Popish Plot and imprisoned for two years before finally being beheaded on Tower Hill on December 29. He was beatified in 1929.