BLESSED ANSELM POLANCO FONTECHA

Bl. Anselm Polanco Fontecha


Feast day: February 7

Birth: 1881

Death: 1939

beautified by: 1 October 1995 by Pope John Paul II

son of modest farmers, was born in Buenavista de Valdavia, Palencia, Spain, on 16 April 1881. He joined the Augustinian Order in Valladolid at the age of 15. He was later made Prior, an office he retained until he was sent to the Philippines as provincial councilor. He became Provincial Superior in 1932 and went to China, the United States, Colombia and Peru. In 1935 he was named Bishop of Teruel and Apostolic Administrator of Albarracin. He appointed BL FELIPE RIPOLL MORATA, a priest of great faith and humility, as Vicar General. Born in Teruel, Spain, on 14 September 1878 into a poor but devout family, Fr Ripoll was professor and spiritual director at the seminary and later became rector. Bishop Polanco and Fr Ripoll shared the same deep faith and love of prayer. When Teruel was taken by the Republican Army in 1938, Bishop Polanco stood by his people, earning their esteem. He resisted when pressed to remove his signature from the Spanish Bishops' Collective Letter denouncing the Church's persecution, aware of what his fate would be. Fr. Ripoll joined him and they were imprisoned for 13 months. At the end of the war (1939) they were used as a shield by disbanded soldiers and shot in a gorge near Gerona. Their remains are preserved in Teruel cathedral.

SAINT MELDON OF PERONNE

St. Meldon
Meldon of Peronne
 also known as Medon

Feast day: February 7
 6th century.
 An Irishman who died at Peronne, France, where he was a hermit and where he is the titular saint of several churches and possibly a bishop in France.

SAINT LUKE THAUMATURGUS

St. Luke the Younger
 (also known as Luke Thaumaturgus or the Wonder-worker)

Feast day: February 7

Death: 946



Hermit and wonder-worker whose solitary hermitage in Thessaly, Greece, became known as the Soterion, “the place of healing.” Luke tried to become a religious but was arrested as an escaped slave and imprisoned for a time. He finally became a hermit on Mount Joannitsa. near Corinth. There he was revered for his holiness and miracles, which earned him the surname Thaumaturgus .

 Saint Luke is known to the Greek Church as Luke the Wonderworker. His parents were farmers or peasant proprietors on the island of Aegina, but were forced off their land by attacking Saracens. They settled in Thessaly, Greece. Luke was the third of the seven children of Stephen and Euphrosyne. Although Luke was a pious and obedient boy generally, he often made them angry because of his charity to those poorer than himself. In childhood he often gave his meal away to the hungry, or would strip off his clothes for a beggar. When sowing seed, for instance, Luke the Wonderworker spread at least half of it over the fields of the poor instead of over his parents' fields. Later it was said that one of wonders God worked on Luke's behalf was to make his parents' crops yield more than anyone else's, even though he had given away half the seeds. But at the time his mother and father were extremely angry.

 After Stephen's death, Luke left the fields and gave himself for a time to contemplation. When he told his family that he wanted to enter a monastery, they tried to stop him. But Luke ran away. Unfortunately, some soldiers caught him and for a time put him in prison, thinking he was a runaway slave. When he said that he was a servant of Christ and had undertaken the journey out of devotion, they refused to believe him. He was shut up in prison and cruelly treated until his identity was discovered. He was allowed to return home where he was scolded for running away.

 In the end, however, Luke got his way. Euphrosyne provided hospitality to two monks on their way between Rome and the Holy Land. They managed to persuade his mother to let him accompany them as far as Athens. There Luke was admitted as a novice in a monastery, but he didn't stay long. One day the superior sent for him and told the young saint that Luke's mother had appeared to him in a vision and that, as she needed him, he must return home to help her. Luke went home once again and was received with joy and surprise. After four months Euphrosyne herself became convinced of her son's calling and no longer opposed his entering religious life. So, age the age of 18, he built himself a hermitage on Mount Joannitsa near Corinth and lived there happily for the rest of his life. Luke is one of the earliest saints to be seen levitating in prayer. He worked so many miracles there that the site was turned into an oratory after his death and became known as Soterion or Sterion (place of healing) and he himself as the Thaumaturgus

SAINT JULIAN OF BOLOGNA

St. Julian of Bologna

Feast day: February 7

Death: 435
Widow

 The piety and charity of Saint Juliana were extolled by Saint Ambrose of Milan. Juliana and her husband agreed to separate so that he could become a priest. She devoted herself to bringing up their four children and to the service of the Church and the poor