Vocations and the Church

Any of these can be asked. There is no order of precedence and no wrong choice, so pick whoever the story fits.

• Bl. Miguel ProExecuted without trial, arms outstretched, saying Viva Cristo Rey.
• St. Alphonsus LiguoriA lawyer, a moral theologian, and a lifelong sufferer of scrupulosity and crippling arthritis.
• St. Anthony Mary ClaretA weaver’s son who built printing presses for the Gospel, and survived being slashed for it.
• St. AthanasiusExiled five times for one truth: Athanasius against the world, and the world came around.
• St. Augustine of HippoMonica’s answer: the restless genius who arrived late and wrote the book on it.
• St. Benedict the MoorBorn to enslaved parents, mocked in the street, and chosen to lead the friars who ranked him last.
• St. Bernard of ClairvauxThe honey tongued doctor who taught the world to look to Mary.
• St. BonifaceHe felled the thunder god’s oak and built a chapel from the wood, and died shielding himself with a book.
• St. Catherine of SienaA dyer's daughter who told the pope to his face to come home to Rome, and he did.
• St. Charles BorromeoThe reforming cardinal who stayed in plague-struck Milan when the officials fled.
• St. Charles Lwanga and CompanionsPages of the royal court who protected the younger boys, and paid for it at Namugongo.
• St. Claude de la ColombièreHe believed her when no one else did: the patron of steady listeners.
• St. CorneliusThe pope who opened the door to those who had broken under persecution.
• St. Cyril of AlexandriaThe theologian of Ephesus: because of him, the Church says Mother of God.
• St. Cyril of JerusalemHe walked catechumens through Lent to the font, sixteen centuries before anyone said RCIA.
• St. DominicFounder of the Order of Preachers, and the name tradition attaches to the rosary itself.
• St. EphremThe Harp of the Spirit: he taught theology by writing hymns, and founded women’s choirs to sing them.
• St. Francis XavierIgnatius's roommate, who carried the faith from India to Japan and died within sight of China.
• St. Gaspar del BufaloHe refused Napoleon’s oath, then took the mission nobody wanted: preaching in bandit country.
• St. Gregory NazianzenThe shy poet who was called the Theologian, and gave up a council rather than divide it.
• St. Hilary of PoitiersA pagan philosopher who read his way to God, then defended the Trinity from exile, courteously.
• St. Honoratus of Amiens (Honoré)The reluctant bishop whose name is on Paris’s most famous street, and on its most famous cake.
• St. Ignatius of AntiochWrote seven letters on the road to the lions, and coined the phrase the Catholic Church.
• St. Ignatius of LoyolaA vain soldier rebuilt by a cannonball, who wrote the manual for finding what God wants from you.
• St. IrenaeusHe heard Polycarp, who heard John. The chain from the apostles runs through him, and he wrote it down.
• St. James the LessThe quietest of the Twelve: called, stayed, and died for it.
• St. John BerchmansMy penance is community life: the saint of the perfectly kept ordinary.
• St. John EudesHe preached the Hearts of Jesus and Mary before anyone else, and built refuge for women the world had used.
• St. John FisherThe one bishop who refused: made a cardinal in the Tower, and the hat never reached him.
• St. John Gabriel PerboyreBetrayed for silver, he refused to trample the crucifix.
• St. John NepomuceneThrown from the Charles Bridge rather than break a confession’s seal.
• St. John of ÁvilaAndalusia’s apostle: Teresa’s advisor, John of God’s converter, and a Doctor the Inquisition once jailed.
• St. John of the CrossImprisoned by his own brothers, he wrote the poetry of the dark night in the cell.
• St. John the ApostleThe beloved disciple, at the cross when the others ran, and given the Lord’s mother.
• St. John the BaptistThe forerunner: he must increase, I must decrease.
• St. John VianneyThe failing seminary student who became the confessor all of France travelled to see.
• St. John XXIIIThe caretaker pope who opened the windows, and told parents to give their children a caress from him.
• St. Joseph CafassoThe priest of the gallows: he walked sixty condemned men to their deaths and called them his hanged saints.
• St. Junípero SerraFounder of the California missions: he fought the soldiers for Indigenous people, and built a system that did lasting harm.
• St. LawrenceShown the fire, he kept the Church’s books and its jokes: the treasures are the poor.
• St. Lawrence of BrindisiThe Capuchin who preached in eight languages, and rode before an army armed with a crucifix.
• St. Leopold MandićFour foot five, a stammer, and forty years in one confessional.
• St. Lorenzo RuizA Manila clerk who boarded the wrong ship, and became the Philippines’ first saint.
• St. Louis de MontfortWrote The Secret of the Rosary: the apostle of total devotion to Mary.
• St. Louis IXThe king who judged the poor under an oak tree, and wrote his son the letter every father means to write.
• St. MalachyHe reformed the Irish church and died in Bernard’s arms, and the famous prophecy under his name is a forgery.
• St. Manuel González GarcíaHe walked into an abandoned church, saw the neglected tabernacle, and gave his life to keeping company.
• St. Marie-Alphonsine GhattasA Jerusalem daughter who saw Our Lady of the Rosary, and founded the Rosary Sisters of Palestine.
• St. Nuno Álvares PereiraPortugal’s greatest general, who ended his days a Carmelite lay brother answering to Nuno of St. Mary.
• St. PaulThe persecutor knocked off his feet. Half the New Testament is his letters.
• St. Paul VIHe inherited an open Council and a divided Church, and carried both to the finish.
• St. PeterThe fisherman who denied him three times and was given the keys anyway.
• St. Peter CanisiusThe second apostle of Germany: he answered a hostile age with catechisms and courtesy.
• St. Peter ClaverSlave of the slaves forever. He signed it, and met every ship for forty years.
• St. Raymond of PenyafortHe organized the Church’s law, wrote the confessors’ manual of mercy, and then lived to be about a hundred.
• St. Robert BellarmineThe Church’s chief controversialist, who pawned his own furniture for the poor and wrote on dying well.
• St. ScholasticaBenedict's twin sister, who prayed up a thunderstorm to keep her brother one more night.
• St. Stanislaus KostkaHe walked four hundred and fifty miles to answer his call, and died a novice at seventeen.
• St. StephenThe first martyr. He died forgiving, with Saul holding the coats.
• St. TarcisiusThe boy who would not surrender what he was carrying: the altar servers’ martyr.
• St. Théophane VénardHe wrote letters from a cage that read like spring, and Thérèse kept his picture until she died.
• St. Thérèse of LisieuxWrote that small ordinary things done with love are the whole of it.
• St. Thomas AquinasThe Church's greatest mind, locked in a tower by his own family, asked for by students.
• St. Turibius of MogrovejoA law professor drafted to Lima, who walked his diocese for twenty five years and confirmed two future saints.
• St. Vincent PallottiA century early, he insisted that every layperson is an apostle.
• Sts. Cyril and MethodiusThey gave the Slavs an alphabet so the Gospel could speak their language.
• Sts. Elizabeth and ZechariahJohn the Baptist’s parents: her greeting became half the Hail Mary, and his silence ended in a canticle.
• Sts. Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brébeuf and CompanionsEight missionaries who died among the peoples they had chosen to belong to.