Blessed are They

Born: November 1, 1890 Died: July 26, 1967 Wherever he went, John Markoe was always a fighter. Schooled at West Point to fight for his country, he battled on its football field against the likes of Knute Rockne and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. When he heard a Black cadet viciously maligned by his classmat , ...

Born: December 9, 1579 Died: November 3, 1639 Feast day: November 3 Patron saint of: public education, public health, social justice, Black people Although not many English-speaking Catholics are familiar with St. Martín, he is one of the most popular saints in Latin America. St. Martín was the son of the whit , ...

Born: November 6, 1912 Died: December 2, 1990 Father Albert Foley, born in New Orleans in 1912, grew up in a world that became more segregated with each passing year. Like most white Southerners, he didn’t give it much thought. Indeed, as a boy he found the racist film The Birth of a Nation to be inspiring. The , ...

Born: November 8, 1897 Died: November 29, 1980 Dorothy Day taught me that justice begins on our knees. I have never known anyone, not even in monasteries, who was more of a praying person than Dorothy Day. When I think of her, I think of her first of all on her knees praying before the Blessed Sacrament. I think o , ...

Born: November 9, 1934 Died: December 20, 1996  Sagan insisted that “there is nothing about science that cannot be explained to the layman.” In his books and in his television series, this Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist, author, and teacher proved his point. No one made science come alive so clearly as did this , ...

Born: 316 AD Died: November 8, 397 AD Feast Day: November 11 Patron of: France Up until the fifth century, Christians weren’t interested in calling you a saint unless you ended your life in the lion’s mouth, on the gridiron, or shot full of arrows. Martyrdom was where it was at.  Saint Martin of Tours w , ...

Born: July 15, 1850 Died: December 22, 1917 Feast day: November 13 Patron saint of: immigrants, hospital administrators The grown-up St. Frances Cabrini was considered too frail for convent life, so she started the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. When the pope turned her dreams away from China and towa , ...

Born: November 14, 1907 Died: February 5, 1991 Don Pedro, as he was affectionately known, was a faithful Christian, a prayerful Jesuit, and a holy priest. And he was funny. When two young American Jesuits passed through Rome en route to India, Arrupe laughed, “It certainly costs us a lot of money to teach our men , ...

Born: c. 1200 Died: November 15, 1280  Feast day: November 15 Patron saint of: scientists, philosophers, medical technicians At a time when we have so many questions about science, education, and society, reflecting on the life of Albert the Great is like looking into the past to see the future. The intellectu , ...

Born: July 7, 1207 Died: November 17, 1231 Feast Day: November 17 Patron of: Bakers, death of children, falsely accused, homeless people If your mother-in-law has ever compared you to a jackass, then you know how Saint Elizabeth of Hungary felt. As if feeding the hungry and caring for the sick wasn’ , ...

Born: November 20, 1918 Died: September 18, 1986 Known as the “joyous revolutionary,” Kent “care[d] about it all.” She was born in 1918, and at age 18 joined the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She taught at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles and became head of the art department in 1964. “Poets an , ...

Born: c. 1797 Died: November 26, 1883 One day when she was nearly 70 years old, the elderly woman announced to her friends in Battle Creek, Michigan that she was setting off for Washington, D.C. “What for?” they asked. “I’m going down there to advise the president,” she said. And that’s how Abraham Lincoln met S , ...

Born: November 29, 1898 Died: November 22, 1963 Born in Belfast in 1898 (he always saw himself as Irish), Clive Staples Lewis taught at Oxford and Cambridge in medieval and renaissance English. He belonged to the informal literary society known as the Inklings, which included The Lord of the Rings author J. R. R. , ...

Born: 1585 Died: November 30, 1622 Squanto remains trapped by the image we have invented for him. In the romanticized Thanksgiving narrative that began developing a century and a half after the actual feast, Squanto has been reduced to a two-dimensional supporting character that appears only to the degree he selfl , ...