Daily Martyrology for October 16

In 650, St. Gall, who was born in Ireland and became a monk at Bangor under St. Comgall (May 11) and St. Columban (November 23). He went with St. Columban as a missionary to Gaul. When Columban moved to Bobbio, Gall stayed behind and became a hermit in Switzerland. Gradually disciples gathered around him and a renowned monastery bearing his name later grew up at the site of one of his hermitages.

In 786, St. Lull, who accompanied his cousin, St. Boniface (June 5), on the German mission. He succeeded Boniface as bishop of Mainz. He was a zealous bishop and a promoter of learning.

At Trebnitz, in 1243, St. Hedwig. She and her husband, the duke of Silesia, founded many religious houses, including a convent for Cistercian nuns at Trebnitz.

In 1690, in France, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. When she joined the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial in 1671 she was already advanced in the ways of prayer. A series of visions of Christ instructed her to spread the love of Jesus’ Sacred Heart. Her efforts to do so met with much opposition, but she received support from Blessed Claude de la Colombière (February 15). Just before she died she declared, “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of Jesus.”

In 1755, in Italy, St. Gerard Majella. As a young man he was apprenticed to a tailor, but joined the Redemptorists as a lay brother. He worked many miracles, and after his death was widely revered as the patron of women in childbirth.

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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.