Skip to main content

PIERRE TOUSSAINT, HAIRDRESSER - 30 JUNE

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JUNE

Saints celebrated on the 30th of June

WELCOME!

VENERABLE PIERRE TOUSSAINT, HAIRDRESSER

A candidate for sainthood, he was declared Venerable by Pope John Paul II in 1996. One of the most fascinating characters of American Catholicism, Pierre Toussaint (June 27, 1766 - June 30, 1853) was born in Haiti; initially a slave, he became a free man in New York, and died as the city's most beloved man of his day because of his exemplary Catholic life. 

Venerable Pierre became a hairdresser at about the age of 20, while still enslaved by the Bérard family. After the death of Mr Bérard, Venerable Pierre supported Mrs Bérard, the plantation owner's widow, financially out of Christian charity until she remarried.

During his long life, Venerable Pierre was a strong witness to the love of God to all he met. While working in New York as a high society and celebrity hairdresser, Venerable Pierre spoke of God’s love and the beauty of the Catholic faith to his customers and others, most of whom were not Catholic and many of whom did dislike Catholics. He was completely dedicated to living the virtue of charity. Venerable Pierre brought sick people into his home and cared for them. He went into neighbourhoods devastated by fevers and plague to help. At his parish, Saint Peter’s Church in Lower Manhattan, he joined the Blessed Sacrament Society and the Benevolence Society.

Venerable Pierre, who later started his own hairdresser's salon in New York, also provided a great deal of the support for the orphanage of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton; he gave of his own money and constantly collected donations from his customers. Pierre and his wife Juliette also helped founding a Catholic school.

When Venerable Pierre Toussaint died in 1853, he was well-known in New York City. Considered the de facto founder of Catholic Charities in New York, newspapers even carried articles about all he had done for the poor people of the city and how deep his love for God and neighbour was. 

In 1991, Cardinal John O'Connor began the official process for his beatification and had Venerable Pierre's body exhumed and reburied at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Venerable Pierre is the first and only layman to be interred in the crypt below the main altar of the current Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York, where the bishops of the diocese are laid to rest.

Sources:

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/amp/news/248158/

https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/saints/saints-stories-for-all-ages/venerable-pierre-toussaint/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Toussaint







Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WELCOME

  Please pick your saints: January - Saints by date  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30    31   February - Saints by date  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17 18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29   March - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30    31   April - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30   May - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30   

ST JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS - 13 AUGUST

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST Saints celebrated on the 13th of August WELCOME! SAINT JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS   (Patron Saint of Altar Servers.) The eldest boy of a poor cordwainer, in a small Belgian town, John was ever a dutiful, prayerful, and studious child. Our Lord called him when but young to leave his father and his father’s house, to serve Him in the Society of Jesus.  And because he was so good a son, it cost his father much to give him up to God; but he was too good a Christian to refuse outright.  HE WAS SENT TO ROME John had hardly taken his religious vows when he was sent to the centre of Christendom, the holy city of Rome. His modesty, his purity, shone out as great virtue always does; and the young laymen who attended the lectures would come to gaze upon his beautiful and holy face, and go away the better for the sight. GREAT VIRTUE Three short years, and his last sickness found him sighing for heaven, and three days before the great feast of Mary’s Assumption in 1

ST LAURA OF CORDOBA, WIDOW AND MARTYR - 19 OCTOBER

  WELCOME! SAINT LAURA OF CORDOBA, WIDOW AND MARTYR   Laura, a widow and martyr of Cordoba in Spain, is mentioned in the Spanish martyrology of Tamajode Salazar, who refers to Luitprand, where it says the following: St Laura is said to have been of a noble family, and  according to the wishes of her parents she married an equally noble man and gave birth to two daughters.  After the death of her husband and her daughters, she went to the monastery of St Aurea, named St-Maria de Cuteclara, and after her martyrdom led the same for nine years as her successor.  After she had made wonderful progress in all virtues, she was finally summoned to renounce the faith before a Saracen judge. But since she remained steadfast, she was first beaten very cruelly and then thrown into a bath of boiling pitch, where she remained in praise of God for three hours and then flew to heaven on October 19, 864.   St Laura is of the 48 Martyrs of Cordoba. PRAYER: Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who