Dec. 2 Bl. Maria Angela Astorch	Maria Angela, was born in Barcelona, Spain on September 1st 1592. She joined the Capuchin Poor Clares, at age 11 but had to wait five years to be admitted to the cloister because of her age. A year later she made her solemn profession on the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady of 1609. She was director for those in the beginning of their formation and in charge of the newly professed nuns. In 1614 with five other nuns, she was sent to Saragossa to start a new monastery. There she was Novice Master. In 1627, Pope Urban VIII approved the Constitutions of the Spanish Capuchin Poor Clares and she was named Abbess for a period of three years. In 1645, she took part in the foundation of the Murcia monastery, and for sixteen years she was in charge of those in their initial formation and abbess of this monastery. In this monastery she succeeded to introduce daily daily Mass. They experienced a very difficult time during the plague, and they were very poor. They had to leave the Monastery for one year, and they moved in temporarily in a summer residence of the Jesuit Fathers. She remained Abbess until the end of her seventieth year. Maria Angela had extraordinary contemplative experience. She had special devotion to the Passion of Our Lord. Maria Angela died at the age of 73 years on December 2nd, 1665. She died while singing "Pange Lingua. Her body is conserved in the Monastery of Murcia in incorrupt state. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II on May 23rd 1982.
also... Dec 2 Bl. Rafal Chylinski	Blessed Rafal Chylinski was pious youth, his family nicknamed him "the little monk." After graduating the Jesuit college in Poznan, Melchior joined the cavalry, and was made an officer within three years. In 1715, against the advice of his brothers in arms, Melchior joined the Conventual Franciscans in Kraków, took the name Rafal, and was ordained in 1717. He was known for simple and candid sermons, generosity, and as a great confessor. He was born in 1694 at Buk, Poznan, Poland as Melchior Chylinski, and died in 1741 at Lagiewniki, Poland; the Conventual church there became a place of pilgrimage.
Dec 10 Bl. Peter Tecelano	Blessed Peter, a Franciscan mystic and tertiary who lived around 1287 is a native of Campi, in Tuscany and he worked as a comb maker in Siena. After his wife passed away, he entered the Franciscan as a tertiary and served in a Franciscan hospital as a nurse. In his lifetime, he was reputed to be a deeply mystical and holy individual and was credited with miracles. He was beatified in 1802, in part because of miracles reported as occurring at his tomb. (from Catholic Online)
Dec 13	Finding the Body of Our Holy Father St. Francis The church which was built at Assisi in honor of St. Francis soon after his death (1228-1230) was a double church, and the body of the saint was buried deep under the lower church. In the course of time the exact location of the tomb was forgotten, and with the permission of the Holy See, excavations were made in 1818 for the purpose of finding the relics. After 52 nights of hard work, the stone coffin containing the bones and ashes of St. Francis was found. A third underground church was then hewn out of solid rock upon which the church had been built; and there the relics of St. Francis are venerated today. Pope Leo XII instituted a special feast to commemorate the finding of the body of St. Francis. It is observed by the Franciscan Order on Dec 12, except in the Americas where it is kept on the following day.
Oct. 13 Bl. Honoratus Kozminski	Blessed Honorat was born on October 16, 1829 in Biala Podlaska (Poland). He was the son of Stefan Kozminski and Aleksandra Kahlowa and at baptism, was given the name of Wenceslaus. At the age of 11, Wenceslaus began his secondary school education and it was during this time that he lost his faith. He graduated in 1844 and enrolled in the Department of Architecture at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts. In 1845, he lost his father and in April 1846, he was arrested and sent to prison with his friends for conspiring against the Russians, who at the time occupied Poland. In a prison cell, Wenceslaus experienced a spiritual upheaval. His faith was renewed and in a mysterious way, as he will say, a divine order was introduced into his soul. "The Mother of God," he wrote in his spiritual journal, "having been moved by the prayers of my mother… interceded for me with the Lord; thus it was that He came to me in my prison cell and gently led me to the faith." After eleven months of imprisonment, Wenceslaus was freed and to the great surprise of those who knew him, in 1848 he entered the Capuchin Order, taking the name Honoratus. After professing vows and finishing his philosophical and theological studies, he was ordained a priest. As a priest, he began an enthusiastic and zealous apostolic activity in Warsaw. He was an indefatigable confessor and preacher. In his pastoral work he strongly promoted Third Order of St. Francis and the circles of the "Living Rosary." A real test came to him and those with him on the night of November 27, 1864, when the Capuchin friary in Warsaw was shut down by the persecutors. The friars were given a choice: either freely depart from the Polish territory occupied by Russians or remain there without any prospects of public activity or development. Father Honorat's decision was clear: "It is here that God wishes to have us…therefore it is here that we shall work." In 1867, Father Honorat offered himself to Christ through the hands of Mary as her "slave," giving himself over to her completely as an instrument for her hands. From that moment forward, the motto of his life was contained in a sentence expressing limitless trust: "Mary, I am completely Yours---Tuus totus." Between the years 1874-1895, Father Honorat was a "prisoner of the Confessional." In this short time, he founded a mysterious network of apostolic communities covering the lands of the Kingdom of Poland. This great evangelical tree continued to branch out and at the end of the 19th century, twenty-five different religious Congregations started by Father Honorat counted thousands of brothers and sisters. He died on December 16, 1916. He was one of the most inspired figures in the most difficult times of Poland's history. It is not any surprise therefore that on September 1, 1988, the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, presided over the ceremony of his beatification. (Source: The Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows)