“Make my language clear, my Savior, open my mouth and, after filling it, penetrate my heart so that my acts may correspond to my words.” Romanos was born in Syria around 490 to a family of Jewish origin that had probably converted by the time of his birth.
“For straightway, while I meditated, my thought was turned into melody of song…and by reason of the interior sweetness which was outpoured upon me, I was impelled to sing what before I had only said.” Richard Rolle was born in Yorkshire around the year 1300.
“We cannot fear a mortal torment, we,/ This martyr’s blood hath moistened all our hearts,/ Whose parted quarters when we chance to see/ We learn to play the constant Christian’s parts.” Henry Walpole was a 23-year-old law student when he witnessed the martyrdom of Saint Edmund Campion.
Born in Breslau (at the time in Germany, now in Poland) in 1891, Edith Stein abandoned her Jewish faith when she was thirteen.
Nicholas Postgate (sometimes Posket or Poskitt) was the child of staunch English Catholics during the English Reformation.
“I love to penetrate beyond the veil of the soul to this inner sanctuary where we live alone with God….
Rabanus lived during the time of Charlemagne, under whose rule the Christian faith was firmly established in much of Europe.
Mariam Baouardy, the “Little Arab,” was a miracle child for her parents, who had lost twelve children before her birth.
Gregory Nazianzen grew up in a pious household; his father became a priest and then a bishop in an age when married men were often ordained.
