May Saints

By Kilian de Lacy

Feast: 7 April

Blessed Ursulina of Parma
(1375-1410)

Born in Parma, Italy,Ursulina received visions and experienced ecstasies. When she was fifteen, she was told by the visions to go to Avignon, France, to convince the anti-pope there, Clement VII, to step down, and so end the Great Western Schism that had troubled the Church since 1378.

Failing in this, she journeyed to Rome and pleaded with Pope Boniface IX to resign. He refused, so she made one more unsuccessful attempt to beg Clement to give up his claim.
Ursulina then went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, then returned home to Parma. She was expelled from the city during civil conflict, going to Bologna and then Verona, where she died in 1410.

Blessed Ursulina, keep us faithful to the Church in all its difficulties.

^{Source: Encyclopedia of Saints, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Indiana 1998}

Feast: 13 May

St Mary Dominic Mazarello
(1837-1881)

Born in Mornese, Italy, Mary Mazzarello joined the Association of the Daughters of Mary Immaculate at age fifteen. The Daughters were known for their charitable works and Mary soon set herself apart for her sound judgment, dedication, joy, and love of the young. Wherever she went, the village children were drawn to her like a magnet, eager to hear her stories, or to ask her a multitude of questions about the Christian faith.

When she was 23, a typhoid epidemic hit Mornese and Mary volunteered to care for those afflicted. When she returned home she became ill with typhoid herself. She received the last rites of the Church and recovered, but the illness left her weak. The strength which had formerly sustained her was no more, so she took an apprenticeship with the town seamstress.
After she recovered from her illness, Mary was walking in her village and was suddenly astounded to see before her a large building with a courtyard and many girls playing and laughing. A voice said to her, “I entrust them to you”. At the same time. St John Bosco had a similar experience and the same voice said to him, “These are my daughters; take care of them”.
Fifteen young women, now comprising the Daughters of Mary Immaculate, under the direction of their founder, Fr Pestarino, took in a few young girls and housed them, schooling them in the faith and handing down to them their knowledge of dressmaking.

Don Bosco was told of the Daughters by Fr Pestarino and went to Mornese to investigate the possibility of founding, from the Daughters, a female counterpart of the Salesian Fathers. The women responded enthusiastically, and in 1867 had their first rule of life drawn up, with Mary as their first superior. They professed their vows as religious women five years later.
The Daughters of Mary Help of Christians sought to do for girls what the priests and brothers were doing in Turin for boys -- nurturing, teaching, and encouraging the young along the way of salvation and personal growth.

She died in Mornese in 1881.

Saint Mary, obtain for us true dedication to our vocation.

^{Source: https://saintnook.com/life-of-st-mary-mazzarello}

Feast: 21 May

Sts Cristóbal Magallanes and Companions
(1869-1927)

Cristóbal and his 24 companion martyrs lived under a very anti-Catholic government in Mexico, one determined to weaken the Catholic faith of its people. Churches, schools, and seminaries were closed; foreign clergy were expelled. Cristóbal established a clandestine seminary at Totatiche, Jalisco. He and the other priests were forced to minister secretly to Catholics during the presidency of Plutarco Calles (1924-28).

All of these martyrs, except three, were diocesan priests. David, Manuel and Salvador were laymen who died with their parish priest, Luis Batis. They all belonged to the Cristero movement, pledging their allegiance to Christ and to the Church that he established, to spread the Good News in society - even if Mexico’s leaders had made it a crime to receive baptism or celebrate the Mass.
These martyrs were killed over 22 years in eight Mexican states. They were beatified in 1992 and canonised eight years later.

Saint Cristóbal, inspire us to give our all for Christ.

^{Source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-crisaint-oacute-bal-magallanes-and-companions/}