Saints

Priest, reformer and founder. The son of a lawyer, Philip Neri was born in Florence in 1515. He was educated by the Dominicans before being apprenticed to an uncle's mercantile business. At 17 he went to Rome where he became a tutor in the house of a nobleman, wrote poetry, and studied theology and philosophy. From 1538 he formed a brotherhood of laymen who met together to pray and work with pilgr... Read More

Monk. Born in Northumbria in 673, Bede studied at the newly-founded monastery of Wearmouth, and then Jarrow. Here he became a monk, and spent the rest of his life - probably travelling no further afield than York and Lindisfarne. The Venerable Bede said: "I have devoted my energies to the study of the Scriptures. Observing monastic discipline, singing the daily services in church, study, teachin... Read More

Bishop and missionary. Known as the Apostle of the English, Augustine was a Benedictine monk and Prior of St Andrew's in Rome, when Pope Gregory the Great sent him with a band of 40 missionaries to evangelise England. They landed at Ebbsfleet near Ramsgate in 597. Augustine soon converted the local King Ethelbert whose wife Bertha, daughter of the King of Paris, was already Christian. Rather than ... Read More