On her husband’s death in 1325 she retired from public affairs and devoted herself to prayer and the service of the poor. Throughout her life she was faithful and regular in prayer, and daily recited the Liturgy of the Hours.

  In 1336 her son, by now King Alfonso IV of Portugal, went to war against King Alfonso XI of Castile. Elizabeth followed the Portuguese army on the field in an effort to bring about peace. She succeeded, but the effort killed her.

  The canonization of royal personages may seem offensive to our modern egalitarian principles; but though it may be hard to attain sanctity in a mediaeval kingdom or its equivalent, a modern corporation, with God nothing is impossible.

  See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

  As a young woman she joined other Third Order Carmelites, to live together as a community in a small apartment. Following this experience, she was transferred to Modica and entrusted with the management of Carmela Polara, an institution that supported and educated orphaned and disadvantaged girls. Later still, inspired by her attendance at the canonisation of St Therésè of the Child Jesus in Rome, 1925, Rosa resolved to found a community of missionary Carmelite sisters. In 1930 her Congregation of the Carmelite Missionary Sisters of St Therésè of the Child Jesus was given official recognition. The mission of the congregation was to ‘bring souls to God’ by feeding the poor, educating children and supporting families in Christian living. Following the end of World War II, in 1947 Rosa (now Madre Maria Crocifissa) sent missionary sisters to Brazil to carry out their work. Her passion for mission was lived out in her congregation, as her own health limited her ability to travel throughout her life. Madre Maria Crocifissa died on July 4, 1957 in Porto Santa Rufina, after a life spent in living the Carmelite life of contemplative prayer, community and prophetic action.

  He loved the mountains, and went on many mountaineering expeditions with his friends. God made the world for us to delight in, and they undoubtedly did. As a group, they had their ambitions to change the world: not just fit in with it or get on in it. They wanted not just to help the poor but to bring about social reform. This was in the tradition of Pope Leo XIII’s pioneering encyclical Rerum novarum, on the social doctrine of the Church. Frassati and his friends took it very seriously and he even helped to establish a newspaper whose principles were based on the social teaching of the Church.

  Being young, Frassati had little money of his own to give away: very rightly, his parents did not want their children growing up as gilded, entitled youth. But he helped where he could – a tuberculosis sufferer here, a homeless woman there. He spent a great deal of time in the smells and squalor of the slums. His friends would often see him walking home after school because he had given his tram fare to someone in need.

  On 30 June 1925, while boating with friends on the River Po, he complained of back pain. Four days later he was dead, of polio. Possibly he had caught it in the time he spent in the slums.

  He was two exams short of getting his degree, and in 2001 his university awarded him an honorary degree for his centenary.

  To his funeral came all his university friends, and all the grand friends of his family. And then, lining the streets, were thousands and thousands of the poor. His father, who was conscious of his social position, and an atheist to boot, was appalled. ‘I don’t recognise my son!’, he said – but step by step, in the process of discovering who his son really was, he took a journey which ended in his conversion.

  Those same poor of Turin nagged the Archbishop into starting the cause for his canonisation. Pier Giorgio Frassati was eventually beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990 and canonised by Pope Leo XIV on 7 September 2025.

  Augustine had a brilliant legal and academic career, but after his conversion he returned home to Africa and led an ascetic life. He was elected Bishop of Hippo and spent 34 years looking after his flock, teaching them, strengthening them in the faith and protecting them strenuously against the errors of the time. He wrote an enormous amount and left a permanent mark on both philosophy and theology. His Confessions, as dazzling in style as they are deep in content, are a landmark of world literature. The Second Readings in the Office of Readings contain extracts from many of his sermons and commentaries and also from the Confessions.