Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn Quote

This is my last hour of life, listen to me attentively: if I have held communication with foreigners, it has been for my religion and for my God. It is for Him that I die. My immortal life is on the point of beginning. Become Christians if you wish to be happy after death, because God has eternal chastisements in store for those who have refused to know Him.

– Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn

Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn's patronage: Korea; Korean Clergy

Trivia note: Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn was the first native Korean priest.

Saint Jerome Quote

Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.

– Saint Jerome

Saint Jerome's patronage: archeologists; archivists; Bible scholars; librarians; libraries; school children; students; translators

Saint Joseph of Cupertino Quote

Clearly, what God wants above all is our will which we received as a free gift from God in creation and possess as though our own. When a man trains himself to acts of virtue, it is with the help of grace from God from whom all good things come that he does this. The will is what man has as his unique possession.

– Saint Joseph of Cupertino

Saint Joseph of Cupertino's patronage: air travellers; astronauts; aviators; paratroopers; pilots; students; test takers.

Saint Robert Bellarmine Quote

It is not difficult for one seal to make many impressions exactly alike, but to vary shapes almost infinitely, which is what God has done in creation, this is in truth a divine work.

– Saint Robert Bellarmine

Saint Robert Bellarmine's patronage: canon lawyers; canonists; catechists; catechumens; archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Saint Cyprian of Carthage Quote

After this we must subjoin, that being redeemed and quickened by the blood of Christ, we ought to prefer nothing to Christ, because He preferred nothing to us, and on our account preferred evil things to good, poverty to riches, servitude to rule, death to immortality; that we, on the contrary, in our sufferings are preferring the riches and delights of paradise to the poverty of the world, eternal dominion and kingdom to the slavery of time, immortality to death, God and Christ to the devil and Antichrist.

– Saint Cyprian of Carthage from his Exhortation to Martyrdom

Saint Cyprian of Carthage's patronage: Algeria; North Africa

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux Quote On the Blessed Virgin Mary

Do not be surprised, brothers, that Mary is said to be a martyr in spirit. Let him be surprised who does not remember the words of Paul, that one of the greatest crimes of the Gentiles was that they were without love. That was far from the heart of Mary; let it be far from her servants.

Perhaps someone will say: “Had she not known before that he would not die?” Undoubtedly. “Did she not expect him to rise again at once?” Surely. “And still she grieved over her crucified Son?” Intensely.

Who are you and what is the source of your wisdom that you are more surprised at the compassion of Mary than at the passion of Mary’s Son? For if he could die in body, could she not die with him in spirit? He died in body through a love greater than anyone had known. She died in spirit through a love unlike any other since his.

– Saint Bernard of Clairvaux from a sermon on the Martyrdom of Mary at the foot of the Cross

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux's patronage: Cistercians; Cistercian Order; Burgundy, France; beekeepers; bees; candlemakers; chandlers; Gibraltar, Spain; Algeciras; Queens' College, Cambridge; Speyer Cathedral; Knights Templar; wax-melters; and wax refiners

Saint Andrew of Crete Quote on the Holy Cross

Therefore, the cross is something wonderfully great and honorable. It is great because through the cross the many noble acts of Christ found their consummation – very many indeed, for both his miracles and his sufferings were fully rewarded with victory. The cross is honorable because it is both the sign of God’s suffering and the trophy of his victory. It stands for his suffering because on it he freely suffered unto death. But it is also his trophy because it was the means by which the devil was wounded and death conquered; the barred gates of hell were smashed, and the cross became the one common salvation of the whole world.

-- Saint Andrew of Crete from a discourse on the Glory and Victory of the Cross