Saint of Day

1. Blessed Phillip Rinaldi

   Feast date: Dec 05

   Bl. Phillip Rinaldi was born on May 28, 1856 in Piedmont, Italy. He met Don Bosco when he was just five years old, and intuitively recognized that he was a man with a great mission.
   
   At the age of 22, he entered the Salesian Order at the end of a tremendous vocational struggle, and even before making his vows he was made assistant novice master and was placed in charge of those with late vocations. He was ordained a priest in 1882.
   
   He soon became the Salesian provincial superior in Spain, where he opened many new houses and then served as vicar-general of the Salesians before becoming the Rector Major in 1922, Don Bosco’s third successor.
   
   His humble and quiet leadership of the order – he preferred to remain in the background of events, unnoticed in the crowd -- combined with his tremendous saintly virtue and apostolic zeal, and a healing miracle attributed to him at the end of the Second World War, prompted his cause for canonization.

   He died on December 5, 1931 in Turin, and was beatified on April 29, 1990 by Pope John Paul II.
   
   “What must you do to have life? Before all else, the first thing you have to do is pray for courage every day to carry the cross the Lord has assigned you. Then let each of you do your own work really well, the work proper to your state, as God wants it, and according to your condition.” - Blessed Philip Rinaldi

2. St. Gerald, Bishop of Mayo

   Feast date: Dec 05

   St. Gerald was an English monk, and the bishop of Mayo. The date of his birth is unknown, however we do know that after the Synod of Whitby in 664, he followed St. Colman to Ireland, and settled in Innisboffin, in 668. After some time, dissensions arose between the Irish and the English monks, and St. Colman decided to found a separate monastery for the thirty English brethren. Thus arose the Abbey of Mayo, known as "Mayo of the Saxons," with St. Gerald as the first abbot in 670. St. Bede writes: "This monastery is to this day, 731, occupied by English monks...and contains an exemplary body who gathered there from England, and live by the labour of their own hands (after the manner of the early Fathers), under a rule and canonical abbot, leading chaste and single lives."

   Although St. Gerald was a comparatively young man, he proved to be a wise ruler, and governed Mayo until 697, when, it is said, he resigned in favor of St. Adamnan. Some authors hold that St. Adamnan celebrated the Roman Easter at Mayo in 703, and then went to Skreen, in Hy Fiachrach, and that after his departure the monks prevailed on St. Gerald to resume the abbacy.  Mayo, though merged in Tuam for a time, remained a separate see until 1579. The Saxon saint continued to govern the Abbey and Diocese of Mayo till his death on died March 13, 731. His feast is celebrated on December 5.