Tuesday of the First Week of Advent

Saint Ansanus was born in Rome in the third century, into a noble family of the Anician line. While still a child, he was secretly baptized by his nurse, Maxima, and quietly raised in the Christian faith. When the persecution under Emperor Diocletian intensified, Ansanus—only nineteen—openly confessed Christ, choosing fidelity to the Gospel over the safety of his rank. Tradition remembers him preaching in Bagnoregio and enduring imprisonment for the name of Jesus; a church outside Rome’s Alban Gate was later associated with the place of his confinement. Ansanus and Maxima were scourged, and Maxima died from the torture. Ansanus, however, was preserved through further trials, even being cast into boiling oil. Sent as a prisoner to Siena, he continued to proclaim Christ with courage and tenderness, winning many converts and earning the title “Apostle of Siena” and “the Baptizer.” At last he was beheaded by imperial order in 304, sealing his witness with martyrdom. He is honored as patron of Siena and Allerona. His feast day is December 1.

Charles de Foucauld was born on September 15, 1858, in Strasbourg, France, into a noble family. Orphaned at six, he was raised with tenderness by his maternal grandfather, yet as a teenager he drifted from the faith and lived for a time in restlessness and excess. Trained at the Saint-Cyr Military Academy, he served as a cavalry officer and traveled widely in North Africa and the Middle East, becoming an accomplished explorer and student of desert peoples. God gradually led him back to belief, and his conversion ripened into a radical desire to belong wholly to Jesus. He entered the Trappists, later became a priest, and in 1901 was ordained in Viviers. Taking the name Charles of Jesus, he chose a hidden life in the Algerian Sahara—first at Béni Abbès, then among the Tuareg near Tamanrasset—seeking to evangelize not by many words but by humble presence, friendship, and prayer. He was killed at his hermitage on December 1, 1916, and is venerated as a martyr whose writings inspired new spiritual families. He is patron of Duhovni kutak. His feast day is December 1.

Saint Eligius was born on June 11, 588, at the villa of Chaptelat in Aquitaine, near Limoges in modern-day France, into a Gallo-Roman family. Recognized early for his skill, he was trained as a goldsmith and rose to prominence at the Merovingian court, serving King Clotaire II and later becoming chief counselor to King Dagobert I. Even amid royal splendor, Eligius grew increasingly ascetic, using his influence to give alms, ransom captives from slavery, and ensure the poor and forgotten were treated with dignity. After Dagobert’s death, Eligius was ordained a priest and worked to reform the Church by opposing simony. In 642 he was appointed Bishop of Noyon–Tournai, where he founded monasteries and churches and undertook missionary journeys to bring the Gospel to the largely pagan peoples of Flanders and the North Sea coast. Remembered for holiness, compassion, and zeal, he is honored as patron of metalworkers—including tinsmiths—and, by long tradition, those who care for horses. He died at Noyon on December 1, 660. His feast day is December 1.