St. Maurice Parish

July 11: St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) — Founder of the Benedictine Order, Patron of students, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, co-Patron of Europe.

"Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ; discipline your body; do not pamper yourself, but love fasting. You must relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing. Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way; the love of Christ must come before all else."
- the Rule of St. Benedict

Born to a noble family in Nursia (Norcia in modern Italian), about 200 kilometers from Rome, Benedict was the twin brother of Scholastica (eventually a nun and Saint in her own right). Disillusioned with life at Rome, Benedict retreated into the mountains to live as a hermit.
In his time as a monk, Benedict founded numerous monasteries, most famously the Abbey of Monte Cassino. His Rule, written to organise both spiritual life and day-to-day affairs in a monastic community, has served as the basis for most later monastic rules.
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The image used in this post is a painting of St. Benedict by Italia painter Pietro Perugino (1448–1523). The image was taken from Wikimedia Commons, where it is identified as being in the Public Domain.

July 9: Augustine Zhao Rong & Companions, Martyrs of China.

The liturgical memorial observed today commemorates the missionaries to China and the local faithful who were martyred for their faith between the 17th century and 1930 during periods of persecution in China, specifically the 120 saints canonised together on October 1, 2000 by John Paul II.

The largest number of the saints commemorated today were martyred during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899-1901, an intense and violent anti-foreign uprising with a particularly hostility towards Christianity as emblematic of the foreign influences entering China at the time.
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The image used is a stained glass depiction of Augustine Zhao Rong in the Santo Cristo and Saint Andrew Kim Taegon Parish Church in the town of Bocaue in the Philippines