Daily Martyrology for February 1

At her monastery in Kildare, in 524, St. Brigid, abbess. After St. Patrick, St. Brigid is the most venerated saint in Ireland. She was abbess of a monastery of men and women located about 40 miles southwest of Dublin. Even as a child, she was extremely generous to those in need. Once while she was tending a dying pagan chieftan, she wove a cross of reeds. He asked her the meaning of the cross, and her explanation led him to ask for baptism. A perpetual fire was kept burning in her honor after her death. Hence, fire and a cross are her emblems.

In 1163, Blessed Raymond of Fitero, Cistercian abbot and founder of the military order of Calatrava, which was dedicated to the reconquest of Spain from the Moors.

At Cúcuta, Colombia, in 1923, Blessed Louis Variara, a Salesian missionary who devoted his life to serving the lepers of Agua de Dios in Colombia. He founded a religious congregation, the Daughters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which accepted lepers so that they might minister to their fellow lepers.

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Our daily martyrology was written by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB. Copyright © 2008 by the Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, ID 83338.