I Just Met the Coolest People

Bl. Valentin Paquay	Bl. Lodovico Pavoni	Bl. Eusebia Palomino Yenes
Belgium	Italy	Spain

I recently finished writing three articles for an encyclopedia, each about one of the blessed Christians pictured above. When I applied to contribute biographies of new saints and beati to the publication, I had hoped to receive the names of VIP saints. That was all my ego doing the hoping. In the course of doing my research, I got to speak with a kind librarian, dig around in CUA's library, and dust off my Latin. The final product was three brief articles and a lesson from each of them.

• The lesson I received from Bl. Valentin is this: the simple love of Jesus goes a long way.

• Bl. Lodovico taught me that big things begin small, and that noble people are not do not feel themselves to be stooping when they attend to them.

• Bl. Eusebia taught me that small is beautiful and that we will be happiest if we entrust our littleness to Jesus.

The lesson I learned from all three of them was really more of a reminder: Jesus has given me my britches and I shouldn't try to be too big for them.

I really enjoyed the learning about them, and hope you will too. Each one of them speaks to me from across the generations in a different way, but like all the saints, they say the same thing, only in their own way: "Do whatever He tells you," (Jn 2:5). Click their names beneath their portraits to read the Vatican's bio of each my new favorite pals.