3 January
Blessed Kuriacos Elias Chavara
priest
| | |  Blessed Cyriac (Kuriakos) Elias Chavara, co-founder and first Prior General of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, was born at Kainakary in Kerala, India, on February 10, 1805. He entered the seminary in 1818 and was ordained priest in 1829. He laid the foundation for the first monastery at Mannanam in 1831 and made his religious profession in 1855, in the congregation he founded. In 1861 he was named vicar general for the Syro-Malabar Church; in this capacity he defended ecclesial unity against the schism of Rochos who was sent to consecrate Nestorian bishops. All his life he worked for the renewal of the Church in Malabar. He was also co-founder of the Sisters of the Sisters of the Mother of Carmel in 1866. He died at Koonammavu in 1871. His mortal remains were transferred to Mannanam in 1889. Above all he was a man of prayer, zealous for the Eucharist, and especially devoted to the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
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8 January
Saint Peter Thomas
bishop
| | |  Born about 1305 in southern Perigord, France, Peter Thomas entered the Carmelite Order at the age of twenty one. He was elected procurator general of the Order to the papal court at Avignon in 1345. In 1354 he was made Bishop of Patti and Lipari, and thereafter entrusted with many papal missions to promote peace and union with the Eastern Churches. He was translated to the See of Corone in the Peleponnesus, and made Papal Legate for the East, in 1359. In 1363 he was appointed Archbishop of Crete and in 1364 Latin Patriarch of Constantinople. He distinguished himself as an apostle of Christian unity before he died at Famagosta in Cyprus in 1366.
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9 January
Saint Andrew Corsini
bishop
| | |  Andrew Corsini was born at the beginning of the fourteenth century in Florence, Italy, where he later became a Carmelite. He was elected Provincial of Tuscany at the general chapter of Metz in 1348. He became Bishop of Fiesole in 1349, and gave the Church a wonderful example in charity, apostolic zeal, prudence and love for the poor. He died on January 6, 1374.
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27 January
Saint Henry de Osso y Cervello
priest
| | |  Henry was born at Vinebre, Catalonia, Spain, on October 16, 1840 and was ordained priest on September 21, 1867. He was an apostle to young people in teaching them about their faith and inspired various movements for the teaching of the Gospel. As a spiritual director he was fascinated by St Teresa of Jesus, the great teacher in the ways of prayer and Daughter of the Church. In the light of her teaching, Henry founded the Company of St Teresa (1876) dedicated to educating women in the school of the Gospel and following the example of St Teresa. He gave himself to preaching and the apostolate through the printed word. He underwent many severe trials and sufferings. He died at Gilet, Valencia, Spain, on January 27, 1896. He was canonized on July 16, 1993, in Madrid, by Pope John Paul II.
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