Christian Saints Podcast Darren C. Ong

Sadhu Sundhar Singh (born 1889) was an Indian evangelist, mystic, and convert to the Christian faith. He was raised a Sikh, and detested Christianity enough that he was burning the gospels at 16 years old. But Jesus appeared to him in a vision, and led him to repent and become a Christian. He was remarkably skilled at expressing the truths of the gospel in a way that made sense to Indians, and his missionary preaching in India, Tibet and Ceylon drew huge crowds. He disappeared while going on yet another missionary journey to Tibet, and his body was never found. Sadhu Sundhar Singh was confirmed as an Anglican, and is commemorated in the Anglican church's calendar of saints. 

Saint Marguerite d'Youville was the first Canadian-born saint of the Roman Catholic church. She was born in 18th century Quebec, and grew up poor, and her husband died at a young age. She formed an order called the "Sisters of Charity of Montreal", also known as the grey nuns, which performed various charitable works. These grey nuns still exist today, and still carry out her legacy of compassion and charity all over the world. 

Saint Boniface was an English monk who was a missionary to various Germanic tribes. He is thus known today as the "Apostle to Germany".  He converted many pagans, and strengthened the church in Germany. He died a martyr during the course of his missionary work, ambushed by one of these pagan tribes. Saint Boniface is said to have introduced the Christmas tree: tradition tells of how he felled a sacred oak dedicated to the pagan gods, and told his converts to honor the fir tree instead as a celebration of Christ's birth.

Saint Theodosia was a nun martyred in the year 729 during the reign of the Leo III the Isaurian of the Byzantine Roman Empire.  The emperor was an adherent of the iconoclast heresy, which prohibited the veneration of icons. When the emperor sent an official to remove an icon of Christ which stood above the Chalke Gate of the imperial palace, Saint Theodosia and some other women gathered to stop him. Saint Theodosia shook the ladder which the official was using, and he fell to his death. In retaliation, Saint Theodosia was killed by having a ram's horn hammered through her neck. She is today recognized as a saint in both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Saint Rita of Cascia (1381-1457) was an Italian widow and an Augustinian nun, so famed for the efficacy of her prayers that she is known as the patron saint of the impossible. After her husband and twin sons died young, Saint Rita joined an Augustinian convent, and became known for her piety and her prayers. She received a partial stigmata, a wound on her forehead similar to Christ's wounds from the crown of thorns. 

Saint Pachomius the Great is one of the most important of the desert fathers of 3rd-4th century Egypt. He is the founder of cenobitic monasticism, that is, the type of monasticism where monks live together in communities. He came from a pagan family in Egypt, and was a conscript in the Roman Empire's army. During his service, he encountered the kindness of Christians, and resolved to be a Christian himself. He would found many monasteries in Egypt, and write the first known monastic rule for how monks should live and train themselves to grow closer to God.