Columba, Abbot of Iona; Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionaries to Britain – Columba, born probably in Donegal Ireland of royal descent he studied at Moville under St. Finnian then in Leinster at the monastery of Clonard under another St. Finnian. He was ordained before he was twenty-five and spent the next fifteen years preaching...
May 11 – SS. Odo, Maiolus, Odilo, Hugh, and Blessed Peter, Abbots of Cluny The Abbots of Cluny are a group comprised of four saints – the great founding and establishing abbots – who successively ruled it from 910 until 1109, the centuries of growth and its zenith – and Bl. Peter who restored...
January 17 – St. Anthony of Egypt, Abbot – A story of the Desert Fathers: There were two old men who dwelt together for many years and who never quarreled. Then one said to the other: “Let us pick a quarrel with each other like other men do.” “I do not know how quarrels...
August 20 – St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux – He was born of noble parentage in Burgundy, France. In 1113, Bernard, with thirty young noblemen, presented himself to the Abbot at Citeaux. His superior, seeing the great progress he made in the spiritual life, sent him with twelve monks to found a new monastery,...
August 13 – Wigbert, Abbot and Missionary – c.670-747 – Born in Wessex, he was an Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monk from the monastery of Glastonbury and a missionary and disciple of Saint Boniface who traveled with the latter in Frisia and northern and central Germany to convert the local tribes to Christianity. Today we also...
May 11 – SS. Odo, Maiolus, Odilo, Hugh, and Blessed Peter, Abbots of Cluny The Abbots of Cluny are a group comprised of four saints – the great founding and establishing abbots – who successively ruled it from 910 until 1109, the centuries of growth and its zenith – and Bl. Peter who restored...