| St. Joseph |
 The below passage is quoted
from the website above:"Everything we know about the husband of Mary and the foster father of Jesus comes from Scripture. We know he was a carpenter, a working man, for the skeptical Nazarenes ask about Jesus, "Is this not the carpenter's son?" (Matthew 13:55). He wasn't rich for when he took Jesus to the Temple to be circumcised and Mary to be purified he offered the sacrifice of two turtledoves or a pair of pigeons, allowed only for those who could not afford a lamb (Luke 2:24). Despite his humble work and means, Joseph came from a royal lineage. Luke and Matthew disagree some about the details of Joseph's genealogy but they both mark his descent from David, the greatest king of Israel (Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38). Indeed the angel who first tells Joseph about Jesus greets him as "son of David," a royal title used also for Jesus." |
| John Baptist Scalabrini |
Bishop John Baptist Scalabrini was born in Fino Mornasco (Como- Italy)
July 8, 1839. He entered the diocesan seminary and was ordained to the
priesthood in 1863. He longed for the missions, but his bishop kept him
as a teacher and as rector of the major seminary in his diocese.He was appointed Bishop of Piacenza (Italy) in 1876. His frequent and thorough visitations of his diocese exposed him to the problem of migration. Once at a railroad station in Milan he met up with a few hundred people going to the port of Genova to set sail for the Americas. Touched by what he saw, he decided to act and, in 1887, founded the missionaries for the migrants. he traveled to the USA and to Brazil to visit the migrants and his missionaries. Known and admired for his pastoral zeal, Bishop Scalabrini died June 1st, 1905.** In 1895, with one of his missionaries, Fr. Joseph Marchetti, and his sister, Mother Assunta Marchetti, Scalabrini founded a congregation of sisters, the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo. Because he admired St. Charles Borromeo, he chose him as patron of his missionaries. he named both his congregations "The Missionaries of St. Charles", but soon after his death they were referred to as Scalabrini's missionaries, hence "The Scalabrinians." **Bishop Scalabrini's Beatification ceremony was held on Sun. Nov. 9, 1997 in St Peter's Basilica in Rome. "For the destitute the place that provides him bread and opportunity becomes his country." (Bishop J. B. Scalabrini) "Where the people suffer, there the Church must be." (Bishop J. B. Scalabrini) |
| Mother Clelia Merloni |
 The below passage is quoted
from the website above:"Clelia Merloni was born March 10 1861, into a modest working class family of Forli, Italy. Two sisters died in infancy before Clelia was born and her mother died when she was only three years old. Clelia's formation was entrusted to her grandmother and stepmother who instilled a great sense of piety and goodness in the young child. Her father became an anticlerical freemason, who became increasingly absorbed in his work. He loved his daughter and gave her the best education possible, in preparation for her future role in the family business. Because of Clelia's suffering for her father's withdrawal from the Church, she decided to give a more noble and authentic meaning to her existence, offering her life to redeem him. Thus she renounced her father's plans for her in order to consecrate her entire being to Christ and to others." |