SAINTS OF THE DAY FOR APRIL 16

SAINTS OF THE DAY FOR APRIL 16 

Bl. Francoise Suhard Menard, Roman Catholic laywoman martyred during the French Revolution. Feastday April 16

Bl. Francoise Micheneau Gillot, Roman Catholic laywoman martyred during the French Revolution. Feastday April 16

Bl. Anne Maugrain, Roman Catholic laywoman martyred during the French Revolution. Feastday April 16

Bl. Pierre Delepine, Roman Catholic layman and a martyr during the French Revolution. Feastday April 16

St. Paternus. The first 5th century saint. He followed his father's path by becoming a hermit in Wales. He founded the monastery at the great church of Paternus, and became a bishop of that region. He was known for his preaching, charity and mortifications. Scholars believe his story is an amalgam. Feastday April 16.

St. Benedict Joseph Labré, Roman Catholic Patron of Unmarried men (bachelors), rejects, mental illness, mentally ill people, insanity, beggars, hobos, the homeless.Benedict, a French man, was given the nickname “the vagabond of God,” having chosen the streets as his monastery. With a crucifix and a breviary he made pilgrimages throughout France and Italy, living on charity that he shared with others. He died in Rome in 1783, and was canonized by Pope Leo XIII.   Feastday April 16

ST. MARY-BERNARDETTE SOUBIROUS, VIRGIN

St. Donan.  A remarkable fact about the widespread work of the Celtic missionary saints from the fifth century onwards is that scarcely any cases of violent opposition or martyrdom are recorded until the Viking and Danish raids began at the end of the ninth century. The pagan Celts accepted the missionaries even when they did not accept their religion and pagan and Christian symbols are found side by side on the great Pictish stones.  Donan (or Donnan) deserves a note in these pages not only because of the extent of his journeying but because he and his fellow monks on the island of Eigg provide the most dreadful case of martyrdom in the history of the Celtic Church. He and fifty-two of his followers were butchered within the refectory of the monastery. The only other martyrdoms recorded seem to be those of Constantine of Kintyre and of Kessog, and the latter is doubtful.  

Unfortunately the mediaeval Life of Donan is lost, and what little we know of him is limited to the brief comments in such ancient martyrologies as Tallaght, Donegal and Oengus. The date of his birth is not known but he was contemporary with, or a little younger, than Columba. We presume that he was Irish and early in adult life crossed to Galloway. Thereafter we only know him through a chain of Kildonans up the west coast of Scotland, beginning with a Kildonan at Kirkmaiden and a Chapel Donan at Kirkcolm, and terminating at Kildonan on the island of Little Bernera in the Outer Hebrides.