SAINTS DECEMBER 03

 SAINTS DECEMBER 03

Bl. Edward Coleman, 1678 A.D. English martyr, a victim of the Titus Oates Plot. Educated at Cambridge, he convened to the faith and served as secretary to the duchess of Thirsk. Condemned falsely of conspiring to restore Catholicism to England, he was executed at Tyburn. He was beatified in 1929.

St. Birinus, 650 A.D. The "Apostle of Wessex." Birinus a German became a priest in Rome and a bishop in Genoa, Italy, before undertaking a missionary apostolate, sent by Pope Honorius I. He went to Britain in 634, where he preached to the West Saxons. King Cynegils was converted by Birinus and gave him the area of Dorchester as his see. He died on December 3, and was buried in Dorchester, Oxfordshire.

St. Ethernan. A Scot who studied in Ireland and was consecrated a bishop there. He returned to Scotland as a missionary.

St. Lucius, 200 A.D. The Ruler of Britain who wrote to Pope St. Eleutherius for missionaries. A convert, he established the dioceses of London, England, and Llandalf, Wales. St. Bede wrote of him.

St. Francis Xavier, (7 April 1506 – 3 December 1552), was a Roman Catholic missionary born in Xavier, Kingdom of Navarre (now part of Spain), and co-founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a student of Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits, dedicated at Montmartre in 1534. He led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in the Portuguese Empire of the time. He was influential in the spreading and upkeep of Catholicism most notably in India, but also ventured into Japan, Borneo, the Maluku Islands, and other areas which had thus far not been visited by Christian missionaries.Dec.3

St. Cassian of Tangier, Roman Catholic Martyr. He was a court recorder at the trial of St. Marcellus the Centurion. When the death penalty was imposed on St. Marcellus, Cassian threw down his pen and declared that he was a Christian. He was arrested immediately and put to death. Cassian is patron of modern stenographers. Feastday Dec 3

Bl. Johann Nepomuk von Tschiderer, Roman Catholic Priest and Bishop of Trent. Dec 3