Daily Martyrology for August 9

In Florence, about 1242, Blessed John of Salerno. He was an early follower of St. Dominic (August 8) and preached against the Cathars in Italy.

In 1918, at Molokai, Hawaii, Blessed Marianne (Barbara Cope) of Molokai. She was brought to the United States from Germany by her parents when she was two. She joined the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in New York when she was twenty-four and later became superior of the province. She resigned and went to Hawaii to devote the rest of her life to serving lepers.

In 1904, Blessed Francesca Rubatto. She joined the Capuchin Sisters in Loano, Italy, when she was thirty-nine. She became their leader and sent sisters on missions in Italy, Uruguay, and Argentina. She herself helped make a foundation in the Brazilian rainforest and then returned to Italy. Eighteen months later, in 1901, the sisters she had taken to Brazil were massacred.

In 1942. St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). She was born in Breslau into a large Jewish family. She became an atheist when she was fourteen. She studied psychology, literature and philosophy. Edmund Husserl was one of her professors. She converted to Catholicism after reading the Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. For ten years she taught philosophy and studied St. Thomas Aquinas and mysticism. She joined the Carmelites in 1933, just after Hitler became chancellor of Germany. She was transferred to a convent in the Netherlands, but was arrested in 1942 and executed at Auschwitz.

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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.