Stewardship Saint For March:  Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo

Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo is the patron saint of Peru.  He was the archbishop of Lima from 1579 to 1606, and it is because of his missionary work and commitment to social justice as archbishop that he has been a popular saint in Latin America for over three centuries.  He had a favorite stewardship message which he used often in his teaching and preaching:  "Time is not our own, and we must give a strict account of it."

  St. Turbius was born in 1538 to an affluent family of the Spanish nobility.  He was highly educated; a professor of law at the renowned University of Salamanca in Spain.  He was ordained a priest in 1578 at age 40 and sent to Peru to become the archbishop of Lima in May 1579.

Reportedly, St. Turibius baptized a half million people; among them were St. Rose of Lima and St. Martin de Porres.  He is also responsible for building many roads, schools, churches and hospitals in Peru.  In 1591, he established the first seminary in the Western Hemisphere in Lima.  He was responsible for a new catechism in Spanish and two local native dialects.

Promoting social justice was a major concern of St. Turibius.  He devoted himself to serving the poor and championing the rights of indigenous peoples against the oppressive rule of civil authorities.  The governors of Peru mounted continued opposition to the archbishop because of his challenges to their injustices.

The Archdiocese of Lima was 180,000 square miles.  He traveled the length and breadth of the archdiocese three times, mostly on foot and often alone, exposed to the tropical elements and without protection against hostile tribes and animals of prey.  On one of his missionary journeys, he contracted a fever.  He died on March 23, 1606.  he was canonized in 1726.

Stewardship Saint For February: Saint Miguel Febres Cordero

Saint Miguel Febres Cordero is Ecuador's first canonized saint.  He was born in 1854 in the city of Cuenca, which is located 8,000 feet high in the Andes mountains.  He joined the Christian Brothers as a young teenager.

  During his first years as a brother developed a Spanish grammar textbook that was published when he was 19 years old.  Brother Miguel's grammar book eventually became the standard text for all schools in Ecuador.  He continued his work on similar educational publications and became recognized internationally as an educational writer. 

Brother Miguel also ministered extensively in the area of religious education and he made a lifelong commitment of preparing young people for the sacraments.  He was a humble, dedicated religious who devoted himself to the stewardship of education, both in the Spanish language arts and in religious formation for youth.  He died in 1910 at the age of 56 and was canonized by the late Pope John Paul II in 1984.  Although he is not on the General Roman Calendar, his feast day is February 9.

Stewardship Saint For January: Saint John Bosco

Saint John Bosco could be considered the patron aint of vocational education as he is noted for his tireless efforts to provide skills training for boys and young men.

Born in 1815 to a poor farming family in Turin, Italy, John Bosco began working at an early age, mainly tending sheep in the hills surrounding the family farm.  At age nine, he announced to the family that he wanted to become a priest.  He worked as a tailor, baker, shoemaker, and carpenter while attending college and the seminary.

While still a young priest, the plight of multitudes of homeless young boys living in the streets caught his attention.  He worked with theses youths, and learned their needs.  He found places where boys could gather and recreate.  He started boarding schools where they could live and learn a trade. 

don Bosco was a pioneer in vocational training.  He taught boys to lay brick, restore buildings, learn to garden and raise produce, and even run printing presses.  He not only taught boys good work habits, he taught them how to pray as well.  He wrote short treatises aimed at explaining the Catholic faith to children in ways they could understand. 

He believed education was a discipline best implemented with kindness, compassion and sensitivity.  He taught that the first principle of education is letting young people know that they are loved. 

In 1859, Saint John Bosco founded the Society of Saint Francis de Sales, later known as the Salesians.  This religious community today numbers approximately 17,500.  Their primary ministry is educating youth.  With the help of a friend, Saint Mary  Mazzarello, he also founded the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians when the demand for a girls' school arose.

Saint John Bosco died on January 31, 1888 at the age of 72.  On the date of his death, some 40,000 mourners filed past his body.  He was canonized in 1934 and is the first canonized saint in whose honor a national holiday was declared in Italy.  He is the patron saint of youth, apprentices, laborers and editors.  His feast day is January 31.

Stewardship Saint for October :  Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus, or Theresa of Lisieux  Because of her simple and practical way of life, Theresa of Lisieux, better known as the "Little Flower", was an extremely popular saint in the first half of the 20th century.  Born in France in 1873 to a very pious family, Marie Francoise Therese Martin became a Carmelite nun at Lisieux, France, at the age of fifteen.  She dedicated her life to growing in holiness in a very simple and straightforward way.  She meditated on the Sacred Scriptures as well as the writings of famous saints such as Theresa of Avila, Francis de Sales and John of the Cross.  She was faithful to the Carmelite Rule and the rhythm of daily worship in her religious community.  Theresa believed that authentic holiness could be grasped by anyone.  It was not just a pious ideal available only to clergy and religious.

In 1895, she suffered the initial stages of tuberculosis, the disease that eventually caused her death.  And in the last 2 years of her life she remained at Lisieux and wrote a spiritual autobiography, The Story of a Soul, which became immensely popular and was translated into several languages after her death.  She made a well known promise to spend her life in heaven continuing to do good works on earth, "as long as there were souls to be saved."  She said she would let fall a "shower of roses" from heaven.

St. Theresa died in 1897 at the age of 24.  She was canonized in 1925, an amazingly short length of time since her death.  She was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul !! in 1997.  Theresa of Lisieux is the patron saint of the missions, florists, aviators, and the countries France and Russia.  Her feast day is October 1.

Stewardship Saints for September :  The Saints of Korea

Catholicism came to Korea almost totally by lay evangelization.  Because of the secrecy involved, it is impossible to date its origin with any precision.  It may have started in the early 17th century.  for centuries, Korea was closed to outside influences, and all contact with foreigners was forbidden.  Evangelization was difficult.  No missionaries went there.  Korea refused all contact with the outside world except for an annual journey to Beijing, China, to pay taxes.  It was here that educated Koreans, hungry to learn about this outside world, obtained Catholic literature and began to study.  From these small beginnings, a home church grew.

A strong Catholic community flourished in Korea under lay leadership before and after missionary priests arrived in the early 19th century and introduced them to the sacraments.  However, Korean Catholics continued to practice their faith secretly, knowing they might be killed if they were discovered.  Catholicism was seen as a threat to the state ideology of Confucianism and during this century, over ten thousand Korean Catholics were executed with great cruelty and many others perished.  It wasn't until 1883 that religious freedom finally came to Korea.

In 1984, Pope John Paul II, canonized 103 of these Korean martyrs in Seoul, South Korea.  Most prominent among these saints are St. Andrew Kim Taegon, the first native Korean priest, St. Paul Chong Hasang, a Catholic lay leader.  The feast day for these magnificent stewards of the faith is September 20.