St. Patrick's Parish

St. Cecilia (right).  A second century Christian of Rome.  Her name has been mentioned in the Canon of the Church from the earliest centuries.  She is acclaimed as the Patroness of Music and is shown near an organ. 

St. Claire (right).  A devoted follower of St. Francis of Assisi.  She founded the Second Order of St. Francis (Poor Clares).  The rules of her order were based on absolute poverty.  She is shown holding a pen and the book of her Rules.  She is a reminder of the contribution of the Franciscan Sisters the Parish.

St. Teresa of Avila (right).  Teresa lived in Spain and was a Carmelite nun.  She was noted as a reformer of her Order and a Mystic.  She was an intellectual and spiritual influence throughout the Church in her lifetime.

St. Scholastica (right).  Scholastica was the sister of St. Benedict, who was the founder of Western monasticism.  Scholastica too, founded a monastic order of Sisters according the Rule of Benedict.  She died in 543.  She is shown as an Abbess with the shepherd's crook.

St. Agnes (left).  She was only thirteen when she died as a martyr during the Roman Persecutions of 303 AD.  She is shown holding a lamb, the sympol of sacrifice, and palms, a symbol of triumph over sin and death.

St. Rose of Lima (left).  One of the early saints of the newly discovered Americas.  She lived near the end of the sixteenth century in Lima, Peru.  She entered the Domincan Order and chose a lifestyle of severe penance and self-denial in imitation of the Way of the Cross.  She is shown wearing a crown of roses and contemplating a crucifix.

St. Catherine of Alexandria (left).   Catherine liven in Alexandria, Egypt in the third century.  She was a Christian, well educated and noted for her learning.  She rebuked the emperor for his persecution.  Whe he assembled his philosophers to dispute her, her arguments converted a number of them.  She was subsequently tortured on a wheel and martyred.  She is honored as the patron of Philosophers.

St. Barbara (left).  A saint of the early church who was martyred in 235 A.D.  Little is known of her life.  Popular legend was that she was kept in a tower by her father who was angry at her for becoming a Christian.  She was later persecuted and condemned to death.  She is shown holing a chalice and palms.  She is the patron of miners, which is appropriate to O'Neill, whose earliest Irish settlers were coal miners from Pennsylvania and copper miners from Michigan.

The month of June is the month of the Sacred Heart. During it the Church urges the faithful to special zeal in the worship of the Heart of our Saviour, considered as a part of His sacred Humanity and as the emblem of His infinite love.

Homage paid to the Heart of Jesus is mentioned by spiritual writers as early as the twelfth century; but it was practised to a very limited extent until a little more than two hundred years ago. A humble and holy French nun, the saintly Margaret Mary Alacoque, within the space of a religious life of only nineteen years, instituted a devotion which bids fair to last forever. She became the apostle of the beautiful and now universal worship of the loving Heart of our Blessed Saviour.