by Abby | Mar 13, 2025 | Saints Who Faced Trauma
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....
by Abby | Mar 13, 2025 | Saints Who Faced Trauma
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....
by Abby | Mar 13, 2025 | Saints Who Faced Trauma
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,...
by Abby | Mar 13, 2025 | Saints Who Faced Trauma
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,...
by Abby | Mar 13, 2025 | Saints Who Faced Trauma
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was born in New York in 1774 to an Episcopal family. At the age of three, she lost her mother. Her father soon remarried, but, while he loved his daughter, he was a workaholic and most likely was unfaithful to Elizabeth’s stepmother. The...
by Abby | Mar 13, 2025 | Saints Who Faced Trauma
St. Dymphna is patron saint of those suffering from mental illness and those who are victims of incest. Dymphna was born in seventh century Ireland. Her mother was a Christian and her father was a pagan. At the age of 14, Dymphna took a vow of virginity and...
