Catholic Calendar 14 November 2024

He was born in what is now Herefordshire, the illegitimate son of the daughter of a local king. He founded monasteries in south-east Wales, was the teacher of Saints Teilo and Samson among others, and exercised the functions of a bishop. He attended a synod in 545 and is thought to have died a few years later. As with so many Welsh saints of this period, firm dates are hard to come by: some sources put his death in the year 612.

Also known as Lorcán Ua Tuathail, he was born at Castledermot, Kildare, Ireland. He was elected archbishop of Dublin in 1161 – he was the first elected archbishop, since his predecessor, Gregory, had already been bishop of Dublin when the city was raised to an archbishopric. He was the first Irish bishop of Dublin, and also the last one before the Reformation: Ireland was invaded by the Normans in 1170 and his successors were all Normans or Englishmen. He took part in the negotiations consequent on the invasion, and negotiated with Henry II of England. Forbidden for a while to return to Ireland after being made a papal legate by the Pope in Rome, he eventually persuaded Henry II to let him return, but he died on the journey, at Eu in Normandy.

Thomas Alfield, seminary priest, Douai. Born Gloucester 1552. Ministered in Gloucestershire. Executed, Tyburn 6 July 1585.

Hugh Cook adopted the surname Faringdon when he became a Benedictine monk, at some time before 1500. Although Faringdon is the name of a town in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire) to the north-west of Reading, he later adopted the arms of the Cook family of Kent and so presumably had some connection with them. He is believed to have been educated within Reading Abbey, and later served as sub-chamberlain of the community. He was elected (the last) Abbot of Reading Abbey in 1520, and served as a Justice for the Peace and on various governmental commissions in the country of Berkshire between 1526 and 1538. In 1539 he was indicted for high treason, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for two months. He was taken back to the abbey and hung, drawn and quartered in front of the gatehouse on 14 November 1539 along with John Eynon (Oynon), vicar of St Giles’ in Reading and the abbot’s chief councillor, and John Rugge (Rugg, Rugke, Rogke) a prebendary of Chichester Cathedral who had retired to the abbey in Reading.

Joseph Pignatelli (1737-1811) was the link between the Society of Jesus suppressed in 1773 and restored in 1814. For almost four decades during the Suppression, he led some 600 former Jesuits from Spain living in exile in Italy. Through his various interventions, Jesuits were permitted to rejoin the surviving Society in White Russia, and the Society was restored in parts of Italy in 1793. In 1803, he was appointed provincial superior, and settled in Rome in 1807. He died in 1811, three years before the full restoration of the Society in 1814.

On this day the Carmelite Order celebrates the memory of all its saints, those known and those unknown.