January Saints Trivia Quiz

Answer: Abel

Chapter 4 of Genesis tells how Cain, jealous of God's pleasure in his brother Abel's offering, led Abel to a field and killed him there. Cain's crime, and his lack of remorse, doomed him to wander the earth until his own death. Abel, meanwhile, was remembered as the first innocent victim of evil - a fact that some interpreted as making him the first martyr.

In Matthew 23:35, Christ Himself referred to Abel's "righteous blood" when lamenting the fates of prophets through the ages - and when Christ thinks someone is righteous, it's hard to argue! Like other Old Testament figures believed by Catholics to be in Heaven, Abel is not typically called by the title "Saint" except on his feast day.

Answer: Monastic life

St. Basil, born in AD 330 in what is now Turkey and also known as St. Basil the Great, came from a holy family. His grandmother, St. Macrina the Elder, is another January saint, celebrated on the 14th as the patron of widows; both of St. Basil's parents and four of his brothers and sisters were canonized as well. St. Basil himself was a theologian and philosopher, and (eventually) an important supporter of the Nicene Creed, which holds that the three members of the Holy Trinity - the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost - are equally divine.

But his monastic rules are one of his most lasting contributions. He insisted on balancing prayer and work, and on moderation in the strict and self-mortifying practices of monks and hermits. His rules form the basis of Eastern monasticism, and inspired St. Benedict in the rules he devised for the West.

He is celebrated on January 1 and January 30 in Eastern Orthodoxy; on January 2 by Roman Catholics; and on January 15 by Copts; a busy man, he also has a feast day in June.

Answer: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

St. Elizabeth Seton's conversion to Catholicism did not please her Episcopalian family, and her resulting financial troubles were what led her to establish her first girls' school. As time went by, however, she found that she had a calling to education, and she founded the Sisters of Charity - America's first homegrown women's religious community - in part to help run her schools, although they were also involved with hospitals and orphanages. Mother Seton's 1975 canonization is a source of great pride in New York City (where she was born) and in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she spent most of her later life.

Answer: Balthasar, Caspar, and Melchior

As recounted in the Gospel of Matthew, wise men appeared in Jerusalem after Jesus's birth, inquiring where they might find the "King of the Jews" - they had "seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him" (Matthew 2:2). Unfortunately for everyone, they asked this question of King Herod, who thought of himself as King of the Jews, and their innocent inquiry eventually resulted in a massacre of children Jesus's age.

The Bible does not give their names - in fact, it never even says that there are three of them, but it does say that they gave three gifts ("gold, and frankincense, and myrrh," as listed in Matthew 2:11), and so the number has become enshrined in tradition. The first text giving their names as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar dates from the sixth century, and their names have been fixed in Western legend since that time; the traditions of the various Eastern Orthodox churches disagree on the subject. There is also debate as to precisely where they came from - with Persia, Babylon and China being popular choices - and what their occupations were. Were they kings, astrologers, or even, perhaps, Zoroastrian priests? Regardless, they are counted as the first men of power (either religious or worldly) to worship Jesus Christ, and are therefore held in high esteem.

Answer: He had fatally wounded a popular opponent in a duel.

Born a shoemaker's son in 1605, the young St. Bernard loved fencing and dueling. Though these activities were not exactly encouraged by the church, he was reported to have been pious in his own way. He often took the side of elderly and poor people in quarrels, sparing them from the more violent methods of settling disputes, and he donated money to local churches for their upkeep.

However, his religious life really began after he killed a man in a duel, and the man's friends and family came looking for payback.

At first he joined the Capuchin Franciscans purely for asylum; then, as the magnitude of his sins sank in, he asked to join their ranks. He imposed severe penances on himself, including lack of sleep, scourging, and a particularly cruel form of fasting: he would smell delicious morsels and then deny himself even a taste.

His healing miracles, especially of animals, led to his canonization as a saint in 2001.

Answer: He was clubbed to death.

Legend tells us that St. Sebastian was a Roman soldier, a member of the Praetorian Guard under the Emperor Diocletian. Around the year 287, the Emperor discovered that his soldier was not only a Christian, but an active evangelist, converting local officials (including a jailer who proceeded to release all his prisoners). The furious Diocletian ordered him shot to death, and this is how we typically see St. Sebastian depicted in art - a shirtless man, head thrown back in pain, pierced with many arrows. Yet this was not the end of Sebastian's story: he was found by St. Irene of Rome, widow of the martyr St. Castulus, and cured. (His sudden immunity to arrows is thought to be the basis of his patronage of plague sufferers.)

After such a close brush with martyrdom, some would have pursued a more quiet life in Christ, but this was not for St. Sebastian. At his first opportunity, he accosted the Emperor and shouted at him to stop his persecution of Christians. Diocletian was impressed, but only enough to order the saint's immediate execution. This time he was clubbed to death, and this time the execution took.

Answer: The poor

Luke 6:20 quotes Jesus as saying, "Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." St. John the Merciful took these words to heart. If the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to the poor, then they would be his lords and masters there, and he owed them a duty of service on Earth.

His fight against corruption was primarily motivated by its unfairness to the poor, and he imposed a strict system of weights and measures in order to prevent merchants from taking advantage of their poorest customers. His alms, too, were impressive: on taking control of his church, he took all the gold coins in the treasury and gave them to local hospitals and monasteries.

There is a famous story where a friend of his gave him a valuable and beautiful blanket for his bed; he used it for one night in order to please his friend, and then sold it to give the proceeds to the poor.

His friend bought it, and gave it to him again. After the cycle was repeated a few times, St. John remarked, "We will see who tires first!" (According to legend, it was not St. John.) He died around 619 in his homeland of Cyprus, after the Persian occupation of Alexandria.

Answer: Introduction to the Devout Life

Madame de Charmoisy was married to one of the Duke of Savoy's ambassadors, and she was dissatisfied with life at court. It distracted her too much, she felt, from the love of God, and she turned to St. Francis de Sales for help. The resulting book is written in five parts and opens up a theological world that had previously been accessible only to priests, monks and nuns.

St. Francis de Sales's entire career was distinguished by his drive to make Catholic teachings more widely accessible. He is credited with devising one of the first sign languages when a deaf man came to him wanting to learn more about the faith, and he and St. Jane de Chantal founded an order of nuns (the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary) for women who desired a contemplative and holy life, but did not have the strength or constitution for the strict and austere practices that were then in fashion. He was canonized in 1665, only 33 years after his death.

Answer: St. Timothy

St. Paul met St. Timothy - who was already a Christian - in Lystra. St. Timothy's mother was Jewish and his father was Greek; St. Paul, who opposed circumcision for Gentiles, circumcised the partly Jewish St. Timothy so that he would be better accepted by the people he preached to. Chapter 16 of the Acts of the Apostles tells of their meeting and their travels together through Phrygia, Galatia, Mysia, Troas and other sites. Tradition holds that St. Paul made St. Timothy the Bishop of Ephesus in AD 65, and that he was martyred 15 years later after objecting to a pagan ceremony.

St. Paul's letters to St. Timothy, which appear in the New Testament after his letters to the Thessalonians, are rich with details about the organization of the early church. St. Paul laid out the job requirements of bishops and deacons and gave advice on dealing with various problems; in 2 Timothy 3 he noted that St. Timothy could always turn to the scriptures that he had known so well since childhood.

Answer: St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas, born an Italian nobleman in 1225, had a difficult time following his calling. His family wanted him to become a respectable abbot, but the teenage St. Thomas wanted desperately to be a Dominican monk, begging on the streets to keep body and soul together. His family was so anxious for him to turn aside from the Dominicans that they kidnapped him and held him prisoner in the family castle for two years! They were unable to change his mind and he did join the Dominicans, but he spent his adulthood in respectable academia. He died of exhaustion at 49, before completing his greatest work, and is revered as the "universal teacher."

Thank you for joining me in this look at the saints of January! I hope you've enjoyed the tour.