Saints

Parents of the Virgin Mary. Little is known about the mother and father of Our Lady. Their story is told in the apocryphal Gospel of James, but neither are mentioned in Holy Scripture. The early cult of Joachim was recorded in the East with images on the columns of St Marks in Venice. Later, Giotto painted Joachim and Ann in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. They were also depicted together in st... Read More

James was the brother of John the Evangelist. He is sometimes called James the Greater, to distinguish him from James the Lesser, who may have been shorter in stature. James and his brother John were called by Jesus as they worked with their father in a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had already called another pair of brothers from a similar occupation: Peter and Andrew. "He walked alo... Read More

Martyrs. These were two members of a group of five Christians martyred at Cordoba in Spain, by the Muslim Emir Abd ar-Rahman II, in about 852. Aurelius was the son of a Muslim man and a Spanish woman who was a secret Christian. Natalia also came from a Muslim and Christian family. Aurelius had a relative, Felix who became Muslim for a time but then returned to his Christian faith and married a Chr... Read More