While Lent is a time of repentance and fasting and remembering our death, it can also be a time of great spiritual growth and consolation.
Who better to walk with us through these days than the saints? Get to know this incredible crowd of saints who have feast days in March during Lent this year.
March 6 : Saint Colette Boylet
Colette reformed the Poor Clares. Today, one of their branches is still known as the Colettines. She also had many visions and ecstasies, especially of the Passion, and prophesied her own death.
March 7: Saints Perpetua and Felicity
Two young mothers who were put to death during the persecution of Christians in the 3rd century. They are the patrons of expectant mothers, since Felicity was pregnant and gave birth while in prison awaiting their execution. They’re also the patron saints of mothers. Perpetua had a baby she was still nursing when she was thrown in prison.
March 8: Saint John of God
His impulsive love embraced absolutely anyone in need. John tended to the poor and sick of Granada by begging for money for the necessary supplies for these people. He died after catching pneumonia while trying to save a boy from drowning in a river.
March 9: Saint Frances of Rome
Even though Frances was a noblewoman, she served the poor of Rome. During a famine, she and her sister-in-law often gave away food and supplies to beggars, angering their father-in-law. He took away the keys to the granary from her and sold off all their corn, leaving just enough for their family.
Frances was undeterred. After sifting through the straw for any remaining kernels to give to the poor, her father-in-law returned to find the granary again filled to the brim with yellow corn.
March 11: Saint Teresa Margaret of the Sacred Heart
A Carmelite nun whose great revelation in life, like a sword piercing her through, was that God is Love. She displayed a tremendous prayer life and a deeply penitential demeanor.
March 12: Saint Fina
Born healthy and attractive, many diseases befell her, leaving her paralyzed and disfigured. She always sought to unite her sufferings to Christ’s and even said, “It is not my wounds but thine, O Christ, that hurt me.” After she died, white violets appeared on the palate she had laid on for years.
March 13: Saint Agnellus of Pisa
He was welcomed into the Franciscans by Saint Francis himself who then sent him to start a Franciscan mission in Paris. He also began a Franciscan English Province in Oxford and became good friends with King Henry III.
March 14: Saint Matilda
She married Henry, who became king of Germany. Together they had two sons, Otto and Henry. Her sons were often at odds with each other and she intervened many times. She also gave many of her possessions and money to the poor, much to her sons’ dismay.
March 15: Saint Louise de Marillac
After becoming a widow, Louise co-founded the Daughters of Charity after meeting Saint Vincent de Paul.
March 16: Saint Hilary
Hilary was the bishop of Aquileia, Italy, and was also known as Dionysius. He was beheaded alongside Tatian, a deacon, and Felix, Denis, and Largus, who were laymen.
March 18: Saint Joseph of Arimathea
This is Joseph from the Bible who requested that the body of Jesus be taken down from the cross and given to him for burial. He gave his own tomb to the body of Our Lord and was called righteous and virtuous. For this reason, he is the patron saint of funeral directors.
March 19: Saint Joseph
Joseph is the foster father of Jesus, and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He’s man who taught the Christ Child the skills of carpentry and guided him in the Jewish faith.
Joseph is the ultimate model of manhood, fatherhood, and discipleship. It’s fitting that we celebrate this great man during the time of Lent, when he had to give so much of himself and his desires to ensure the safety of Jesus and Mary.
March 20: Saint Photina
Many believe that Photina is the Samaritan woman at the well. Moved by Jesus’s words to her, she then preached the Gospel all over, ending up in either Carthage or Rome. One tradition holds that she was put to death in Rome after converting the daughter of Emperor Nero and one hundred of her servants.
March 21: Saint Nicholas of Flüe
Nicholas was married with ten children and was influential politically. When he turned fifty, he gained permission from his wife and family to lead the life of a hermit and survived for nineteen years on no food except for the Holy Eucharist.
March 22: Saint Lea
The only information we have about Lea is from a letter Saint Jerome wrote about her to Saint Marcella. After her husband died, Lea retired to a Roman monastery where she became its Superior and she lived a life of penance, often adorning herself in sackcloth and ashes.
March 23: Saint Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo
Toribio was a missionary in Latin America and was greatly concerned with the rights and right treatment of the natives of Peru who were being cruelly mistreated by Spanish occupation. He mastered several of their dialects and founded schools and hospitals and the first monastery in the New World.
March 25: Saint Lucy Filippini
Lucy trained to be a schoolmistress and then co-founded the Italian Institute of the Maestre Pie.
March 26: Saint Margaret Clitherow
A convert to the faith, Margaret harbored fugitive priests for which she was imprisoned. She was martyred by being stretched out on the ground with a sharp rock on her back and crushed under a door over laden with unbearable weights.
March 27: Saint John of Egypt
John was one of the most famous early desert hermits. He was a noted prophet. He correctly predicted two military victories for Emperor Theodosius I. His cell was discovered in 1925.
March 28: Saint Conon of Naso
Conon was a Basilian monk in Sicily. When he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he had a vision of a snake choking a priest to death. When he recounted this vision to the priest in question, the priest confessed that he had been hoarding money for himself. Conon persuaded the priest to give the money away to the poor, which he did.
March 29: Saint Ludolf of Ratzeburg
When this Norbertine priest became the bishop of Ratzeburg, he continued his Norbertine practices. For his defense of the Church, Ludolf was imprisoned and treated harshly. In prison, he fell ill and died.
March 30: Saint Zosimus
Zosimus was placed in a monastery at the age of seven. He then served as a monk for thirty years before being elected abbot. He was also made bishop and was renowned for his care of the poor and educational programs.
