Feast Day of Three Innovative Catholic Saints

Peter Nolasco (died 1256 )
 

 He was of a noble birth and from his youth was noted for his charity. Having given all his possessions to the poor, he took  vows traveled to Barcelona. He felt called to minister among those pressed into slavery by the moors. to further his vision he established the Mercedarian  order whose members were bound by a special vow to employ all their substance for the redemption  of Christian slaves, and if , to remain in captivity in their stead. At first most of these were laymen as was Peter himself. but pope clement 1 decreed that the master general of the order should always be a priest.

Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 74 )
 

Born  in Italy to nobility Thomas Aquinas felt called  at a very young age to join the priesthood. His family was so oppose to the idea that they had him kipnapped  and held prisoner for a year. They even hirded a protistue to try to seduce him, Yet so determined was he that at the age of 19 he became a dominican monk. 

He was a brilliant student became a perceptive teacher and was published by the age of twenty two. He was so astute at relating faith and reason that his work became the offical theology of the Catholic Church.

Near the end of His life Thomas had a mystical spiritual experience that touched him so deeply that he regarded his theological writing as "so much straw". He died at the young age of forty-nine.


Julian Maunoir (1606 - 83 )

 Julian  was a French-born Jesuit priest known as the "Apostle of Brittiany  He aspired to become a missionary to  Canada. But during his period of  formation with the Jesuits he was sent as a missionary to Brittony and was required to learn the Breton language of the Celtic people  who reside in the northwestern region of France.

 Father Maunoir worked as a missionary to the breton people for 43 years, when he died in 1683he had been involved in the   formation of almost  1,000 Breton missionaries to carry  on the pastoral workshis pastoral work.

Maunoir proved to be very innovative in  his use of  living panaramas, colorful charts, imaginative pictures and extemporus sing to teah the people.

compiled from multiple sources