Saints Who Faced Trauma: Stories of Hope
Knowing about saints who faced trauma is helpful because it is essential to know you are not alone along the healing journey. Community here on Earth is crucial to healing, but knowing you have intercessors in Heaven is also very important.
It can be tempting to think that saints did not face any difficulties and that everything on their journey was all sunshine and roses. However, the fact is that all saints faced challenges on their journey to Heaven, and many faced traumatic experiences and found healing and resilience following their experience.
Below are articles about saints, the various types of trauma that they faced, and lessons we can learn from them. I hope that, as you or someone else you know goes on a healing journey, you can find one heavenly friend that you can learn from, find hope from, and find intercession from.
Articles About Saints Who Faced Trauma
Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora
Blessed Elizabeth Canori Mora was born into a noble, wealthy Roman family. At 21, she married Christoforo, a well-known lawyer in Rome. The couple had four children in their first five years of marriage, but only two survived infancy. On top of all of that,...
The Apostles
We do not know a ton about the lives of the Apostles before they encountered Jesus. Some were fishermen (Matthew 4:18), some were tax collectors (Matthew 9:9), and some were members of revolutionary groups (Matthew 10:4). We know that Peter was married because Jesus...
Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin
Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin are the first married couple to be canonized together, and they are a great example for all married couples of a holy marriage. Zelie had a difficult childhood. Her relationship with her mother was marked by emotional neglect, which led to...
St. Therese of Lisieux
St. Therese of Lisieux is one of the most popular saints of modern times, known for her Little Way where one transforms everyday things into ways to love God. St. Therese was born to Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin, the youngest of their nine children. She had a...
St. Rita of Cascia
St. Rita of Cascia is patron saint of those with marital problems and who face abuse. Rita was especially devoted to the Passion of Christ, meditating often on Jesus’ surrender in those moments, especially during his agony in the garden, when he prayed, “Not thy...
St. Martin de Porres
St. Martin de Porres was born in Peru to an unmarried Spanish gentlemen and a freed slave from Panama, who was of African or Native American descent. When Martin was young, his father abandoned him, his mother, and his younger sister, leaving them in deep poverty. He...
St. Maria Goretti
St. Maria Goretti was born into a poor family in Italy. When she was six years old, she and her family moved from the eastern to the western side of Italy hoping to escape poverty. However, when Maria was nine, her father died, putting the family further into poverty....
St. Kateri Tekakwitha
St. Kateri Tekakwitha was born to a Christian Algonquin Indian, who had been taken captive by the Iroquois and given as wife to Kateri’s father, the chief of the Mohawk clan. When Kateri was four, smallpox stuck the village, killing her parents and a little brother....
St. Josephine Bakhita
St. Josephine Bakhita was born in Sudan. At the age of 7, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Her kidnappers forced her to walk barefoot over 600 miles to the slave market, and along the way, she was bought and sold at least twice. Over the next twelve years,...
St. Ignatius of Loyola
St. Ignatius of Loyola, as a young man, had one goal: to be a famous knight. To achieve that goal, he entered the military, but a cannon ball shattering his leg derailed his dreams. Fortunately for the Catholic Church, this traumatic leg injury led to his conversion,...