Blessed Ann was born in Arequipa, Peru, in the year 1602 and in 1619 professed solemn vows in the monastery of St. Catherine of Siena. There she fulfilled the offices of sacristan, mistress of novices and prioress. She was completely taken up in prayer with God, yet did not neglect the needs of her neighbors. She died in Arequipa on January 10, 1686.

  Born around 1187 in the diocese of Braga, Portugal, Blessed Gonsalvo became a parish priest. After spending fourteen years traveling about the Holy Land and the sanctuaries of Rome, he took up the eremitical life. Eventually he was inspired to enter the Dominican Order. After his introduction to religious life he obtained permission to return with a companion to Amarante, the scene of his earlier solitude, and there took up the life of a hermit once again. He spent his time in contemplation, ascetical practices and in catechizing the people of the area. He died at Amarante in 1259.

  A large number of homilies, sermons and treatises by Maximus survive, covering the seasons of the Church’s year and also the feasts of particular saints. Their ornate late-Imperial style is not always to modern taste, but they are often short and to the point and they provide valuable evidence of Christian practice and belief at that time.

  In the earliest centuries all vestments were white – the white of baptismal purity and of the robes worn by the armies of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. As the Church grew secure enough to be able to plan her liturgy, she began to use colour so that our sense of sight could deepen our experience of the mysteries of salvation, just as incense recruits our sense of smell and music that of hearing. Over the centuries various schemes of colour for feasts and seasons were worked out, and it is only as late as the 19th century that they were harmonized into their present form.