Saints by feast day
August has 31 saints in Bless’s calendar, one for each of its 31 days. In 2026–2028 the US calendar keeps the day of 12 of them as a memorial, feast or solemnity at least once, among them Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Augustine of Hippo.
About these dates
A Neapolitan lawyer who lost one case, saw through the world, and became a priest. He founded the Redemptorists to preach missions to the rural poor and wrote Moral Theology, steering between rigorism and laxity with pastoral…
The life of St. Alphonsus Liguori, with 5 quotationsThe first Western bishop to live in community with his clergy — seedbed of the canons regular — exiled to Palestine and Egypt for refusing to condemn Athanasius, dragged through the streets by Arians, and returned under Julian to help heal the Church with Hilary of Poitiers.
The dealer in purple cloth from Thyatira whom Paul met at the riverside place of prayer in Philippi: ‘the Lord opened her heart.’ Baptized with her household — the first recorded convert of Europe — she made her house the apostles’ base, and would take no refusal.
Patron of parish priests
The seminary nearly failed him for weakness in Latin; the Church made him patron of parish priests.
The life of St. John Vianney, with 6 quotationsA king who raised a wooden cross with his own hands before the battle that won back his realm, then sent to Iona for a missionary — interpreting Aidan’s sermons himself from the throne. He broke up his own silver dish for beggars at an Easter feast, and fell in battle against the pagan Penda at thirty-eight, praying for his soldiers’ souls.
A widowed Roman deacon elected pope — his son would be pope after him — who healed the thirty-five-year Acacian schism between Rome and Constantinople. The formula the Eastern bishops signed, confessing the apostolic see’s unfailing faith, bears his name in the Church’s memory.
Patron of job seekers and the unemployed
A Venetian lawyer-priest who founded the Theatines to reform the clergy by living the apostolic life — owning nothing, not even begging: waiting on Providence alone.
The life of St. CajetanPatron of astronomers and preachers
A Castilian canon who sold his books in a famine, unwilling to study on dead skins while the poor died of hunger, and walked barefoot through Languedoc preaching against the Albigensian despair with fasting and joy.
The life of St. Dominic, with 2 quotationsPatron of Europe and converts
Edith Stein, daughter of a devout Jewish family of Breslau, brilliant philosopher and assistant to Edmund Husserl, and an atheist from her teens — until a night spent reading Teresa of Ávila’s autobiography ended with ‘this is…
The life of St. Teresa Benedicta of the CrossPatron of cooks, the poor, and deacons
Chief of the seven deacons of Rome under Pope Sixtus II, keeper of the Church’s purse and its poor.
The life of St. LawrenceThe first flower of Francis’s garden: a young noblewoman of Assisi who slipped out on Palm Sunday night, had her hair cut by Francis himself, and founded the Poor Ladies at San Damiano.
The life of St. Clare of Assisi, with 2 quotationsPatron of forgotten people and widows
A Burgundian baroness, happily married mother of four, widowed at twenty-eight when a hunting companion shot her husband by accident — a man she eventually forgave and stood godmother for his child.
The life of St. Jane Frances de ChantalA pope and the brilliant, bitter theologian who had set himself up as rival pope — deported together to the mines of Sardinia, where Pontian resigned his office for the Church’s sake and the two were reconciled before death. Rome buried them on the same day, schism healed in martyrdom.
Patron of prisoners, families, and journalists
A Polish Conventual Franciscan mad for the Immaculata: he founded a sodality, a magazine with a million subscribers, the largest friary in the world at Niepokalanów, and a mission in Nagasaki — placed on the sheltered side of a…
The life of St. Maximilian KolbePatron of the universal Church
The girl of Nazareth who answered the angel with ‘let it be done to me according to your word,’ and so became the Mother of God.
The life of Blessed Virgin MaryPatron of Hungary and kings
Grand prince of the Magyars, baptized as a boy, who received a crown from Pope Sylvester II in the year 1000 and made of raiding tribes a Christian kingdom: counties, courts, bishoprics, abbeys, and a law that every ten villages…
The life of St. Stephen of HungaryA shopkeeper of Saumur who kept her religious-goods store open even on Sundays for profit — until a strange pilgrim woman’s words pierced her. She closed the shop, filled her house with orphans, and founded the Sisters of St. Anne of Providence; the town that had mocked ‘the miser’ buried her as its mother.
Patron of archaeologists and converts
An innkeeper’s daughter who became mother of Constantine, embraced the faith in old age, and used the empire’s resources as almoner of Christ — freeing prisoners, endowing churches.
The life of St. HelenaA Norman missionary who preached over a hundred parish missions, nursed plague victims from a cask in a field so as not to endanger his brethren, founded seminaries and a refuge for women leaving prostitution — and, before Margaret Mary’s visions, established the first feasts of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
He entered Cîteaux at twenty-two with thirty kinsmen and friends in tow, and three years later was sent to found Clairvaux, which mothered hundreds of monasteries in his lifetime.
The life of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, with 4 quotationsA village boy of northern Italy who walked miles to school barefoot, shoes over his shoulder, and rose to the papacy without ever losing the manner of a country pastor. His motto: ‘to restore all things in Christ.’
The life of St. Pius X, with 1 quotationA young Christian of Autun who would not bow to the city’s great goddess and was condemned. As he passed, his mother called from the wall for him to remember the living God, since his life was not being taken from him but exchanged for a better one — words carved since on many a church.
Patron of the Americas and gardeners
Isabel Flores de Oliva of Lima, called Rose from infancy for her beauty — which she scrubbed with pepper and lye when it drew suitors.
The life of St. Rose of Lima, with 2 quotationsPatron of tanners and nervous disorders
The apostle whom John calls Nathanael, brought by Philip from under the fig tree. ‘Can anything good be from Nazareth?’ he scoffed — then met Nazareth’s rabbi and confessed him Son of God and King of Israel within a minute.
The life of St. BartholomewPatron of France and those in public office
King of France at twelve, formed by his mother Blanche, who would rather have seen him dead than in mortal sin.
The life of St. Louis IXPatron of the elderly
A Catalan schoolteacher who founded the Little Sisters of the Abandoned Aged, spending herself so entirely for the old and destitute that fifty-eight houses opened before her death — and who taught her sisters to see in every…
The life of St. Teresa of Jesus JornetPatron of mothers and difficult children
A Berber Christian of Thagaste married to a pagan with a temper, whom she converted at the last, as she converted, by seventeen years of tears and prayers, her brilliant runaway son Augustine.
The life of St. Monica, with 1 quotationPatron of theologians, brewers, and converts
Born at Thagaste in Roman North Africa, Augustine spent his youth chasing pleasure and philosophy, fathering a son and joining the Manichees while his mother Monica wept and prayed.
The life of St. Augustine of Hippo, with 14 quotationsA Roman widow of rank converted by her servant Serapia, martyred — ancient tradition holds — under Hadrian. On the Aventine hill her name is borne by the basilica of Santa Sabina, loveliest of Rome’s early churches, whose cypress doors still show one of the first carvings of the Crucifixion.
A gentlewoman of London who smuggled a rope into Bridewell prison to free a priest; the escape succeeded, the rope was traced. Racked and hung by the wrists, offered pardon if she would attend the new services, she answered she was glad of the deed and could not buy life at that price. She was hanged at Tyburn.
The two hidden disciples whom fear kept silent until the Cross made them bold: the rich councilman who begged the body of Jesus and gave his new tomb, and the night visitor who had asked about being born again and came at last with a hundred pounds of myrrh. The Church honors them together on one day.
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