From the desk of the Tar Heel disciple:
October 9, 2026 (#138)
October 9 – A Day of Many Saints
Saint Denis, who died in 258 AD, is remembered on his feast day, October 9, as the first bishop of Paris. He was martyred along with a priest, St. Rusticus, and a deacon St. Eleutherius, on Montmartre (“mount of martyrs”). He is often portrayed in Christian iconography as a bishop holding his head in his hands, as it is famously told that he carried his severed head in his own hands for several miles while preaching a sermon immediately after he had been decapitated by his persecutors. He is venerated as a patron saint of Paris and of France.
On the same day, Saint John Leonardi, who died in 1609 at Rome, is commemorated on the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. He founded what is today a very small congregation, the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God (currently numbering about 100 priests). He was also instrumental in establishing the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD), and, with Saint Philip Neri, the Collegio Urbano in Rome, which still trains priests for the foreign missions.
Both saints are presented on the General Roman Calendar as “optional memorials.” In the current liturgical structure, one or the other of these saints, or neither, can be chosen to be commemorated with the appropriate orations in the liturgy of the day. In the rubrics of the Traditional Latin Mass, more than one saint (up to three) can be commemorated liturgically on a given day. In the most recent edition (2004) of the Roman Martyrology, the church's official listing of saints and blesseds, more than 7,000 are listed. Obviously, each day of the year has many more than those saints and blesseds whose names appear either as solemnities, feasts, memorials, or optional memorials on the General Roman Calendar.
More recently, on November 9, 2025, Pope Leo XIV ordered the inclusion of Saint John Henry Newman, priest and doctor of the church, into the General Roman Calendar, to be celebrated each year on October 9, as an optional memorial. He was born in 1801, in London, England, and died on August 11, 1890, at the age of 89. October 9th, the anniversary of his reception into the Catholic Church in 1845, was chosen as his feast day.
The Venerable Pope Pius XII (1876 -1958) died on October 9. Thus, if this candidate for canonization is ever declared among the saints (or blesseds) it is possible that his feast day could also possibly be set for the same day as Saints Denis (and his companions), Saint John Leonardi, and Saint John Henry Newman.
All saints of October 9, pray for us!
