Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian (St Damian is shown above right, with St Peter). Nothing is really known about the saintly duo except that they died in Syria for their faith in the 3rd century. But that didn’t stop the medieval Church from creating a vast and satisfying chronicle of their lives, their miracles, and of course their tortures.
The poet TS Eliot was born into an upper class family in St Louis, Missouri, today in 1888.
Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s gory classic, The Passion of the Christ, was born today in 1968.
It is the feast of St John, the Galilee fisherman, disciple and then apostle of Jesus, and possible Gospel writer. He is traditionally the only one of the 12 apostles who died of natural causes, and his last recorded words were, ‘Little children, love one another.’
Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro died today in 1764. A scholarly Spanish monk, he was an educational reformer, writing against superstition and promoting an intelligent version of Christianity.
Wilson Carlile, the founder of the Church Army, who died in 1942, is remembered in the Church of England today.
Image: Lawrence OP