Catholic Saint of the Day for October 11 2026

This is the Saint of the Day list of Saints and Blesseds whose feast day is October 11 2026.

October 11 is not a quiet day on the Catholic calendar. It is a day of courage, service, reform, healing, and missionary fire. At the center stands Saint John XXIII, the warm-hearted pope who opened the Second Vatican Council and helped the Church speak boldly to the modern world.

Alongside him are holy men and women like Saint Maria Soledad Torres Acosta, servant of the sick, Saint Canice, missionary monk of Ireland, and courageous martyrs who chose Christ over comfort.

These saints remind us of one thing: holiness is not theory. Holiness moves, serves, suffers, builds, and changes the world.

Saint John XXIII, Pope

Brief life history: Saint John XXIII was born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli into a poor sharecropping family. He entered seminary young, was ordained a priest in 1904, served as a military medic and chaplain during World War I, and later worked as a papal diplomat in Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, and France.

During World War II, he helped many Jews escape Nazi persecution through transit visas and rescue efforts. He became Patriarch of Venice in 1953 and was elected pope on October 28, 1958.

His great historical act was convening the Second Vatican Council, which opened on October 11, 1962. He is best known for convening Vatican II, which was a major milestone in Church history.

• Date of Birth: November 25, 1881.
• Place of Birth: Sotto il Monte, Italy.
• Profession: Priest, bishop, cardinal, papal diplomat, Patriarch of Venice, Pope.
• Place of Work: Italy, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, France, Venice, and Vatican City.
• Date of Death: June 3, 1963.
• Place of Death: Vatican City.
• Feast Day: October 11. His feast is celebrated on the date Vatican II opened, not on the date of his death.
• Beatification: Beatified on September 3, 2000, by Pope John Paul II.
• Canonization: Canonized on April 27, 2014, by Pope Francis.
• Patronage: Papal delegates, the Patriarchate of Venice, and the Second Vatican Council.
• Representation in art: Usually shown in white papal vestments, often smiling warmly, holding a cross, book, or pastoral staff.

What Saint John XXIII teaches us: You do not need a harsh spirit to be strong. John XXIII changed history with courage, humility, warmth, and trust in the Holy Spirit.

Saint Maria Soledad Torres Acosta

Brief life history: Saint Maria Soledad Torres Acosta was born Manuela Torres Acosta. She joined a new congregation founded to nurse the poor and abandoned sick in their own homes.

Taking the name Maria Soledad, she became one of the original members of what became the Servants of Mary, Ministers to the Sick. She endured poverty, misunderstanding, leadership struggles, and illness, but she remained steady in charity.

Under her guidance, the congregation grew and received papal approval in 1876. She died in 1887, and her feast day is October 11.

• Date of Birth: December 2, 1826.
• Place of Birth: Madrid, Spain.
• Profession: Religious sister, nurse, foundress, superior general.
• Place of Work: Madrid, Spain, and the houses of the Servants of Mary.
• Date of Death: October 11, 1887.
• Place of Death: Madrid, Spain.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Beatification: Beatified in 1950 by Pope Pius XII.
• Canonization: Canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI.
• Patronage: The sick, caregivers, nurses, and the Servants of Mary.
• Representation in art: Often shown in religious habit, sometimes with the sick or in a posture of prayerful service.

What Saint Maria Soledad teaches us: Real love does not wait for perfect conditions. It walks into sickrooms, poor homes, and hard assignments with a steady heart.

Saint Canice

Brief life history: Saint Canice, also known as Saint Kenneth, was an Irish monk, missionary, and abbot. He helped spread monastic life and Christian teaching in Ireland and Scotland.

He is closely associated with Aghaboe and with Kilkenny, whose name comes from the Irish meaning “Church of Canice.”

• Date of Birth: Around 515 AD.
• Place of Birth: Glengiven, County Derry, Ireland, according to traditional accounts.
• Profession: Monk, priest, missionary, abbot.
• Place of Work: Ireland and Scotland.
• Date of Death: Around 600.
• Place of Death: Traditionally associated with Aghaboe, Ireland.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Patronage: Associated with Kilkenny and Aghaboe.
• Representation in art: Often shown as a monk or abbot, sometimes with a church or book.

What Saint Canice teaches us: Faith grows when someone is willing to carry it from place to place, person to person, generation to generation.

Saint Alexander Sauli

Brief life history: Saint Alexander Sauli was a Barnabite priest, teacher, reformer, and bishop. He became known for preaching, discipline, pastoral zeal, and reform of clergy and people.

• Date of Birth: February 15, 1534.
• Place of Birth: Milan, Italy.
• Profession: Priest, Barnabite religious, bishop.
• Place of Work: Italy, especially Corsica, Aleria, and Pavia.
• Date of Death: October 11, 1592.
• Place of Death: Calosso, Italy.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Beatification: Beatified by Pope Benedict XIV.
• Canonization: Canonized by Pope Pius X.
• Patronage: Barnabite students and clergy reform efforts.
• Representation in art: Often shown as a bishop with crozier and mitre.

What Saint Alexander Sauli teaches us: Reform begins when leaders stop protecting comfort and start protecting souls.

Saint Gummarus

Brief life history: Saint Gummarus was a nobleman and soldier remembered for patience, charity, and fidelity under domestic and personal suffering. He later lived a more prayerful and penitential life and became strongly associated with Lier.

• Date of Birth: Around the 8th century.
• Place of Birth: Near Lier, present-day Belgium.
• Profession: Soldier, nobleman, penitent.
• Place of Work: Lier, Belgium.
• Date of Death: Around 774.
• Place of Death: Lier, Belgium.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Patronage: Lier; invoked in some traditions for difficult marriages and family struggles.
• Representation in art: Often shown as a nobleman or soldier.

What Saint Gummarus teaches us: Holiness is not only found in public victories. Sometimes it is found in private patience.

Saint Philip the Deacon

Brief life history: Saint Philip the Deacon was one of the seven deacons chosen in the Acts of the Apostles. He preached in Samaria, baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, and helped carry the Gospel beyond Jerusalem. His feast is associated with October 11 in some calendars.

• Profession: Deacon, evangelist.
• Place of Work: Jerusalem, Samaria, Gaza road, and Caesarea.
• Date of Death: Not certainly recorded.
• Place of Death: Traditionally Caesarea.
• Feast Day: October 11 in some traditions.
• Canonization: Biblical saint.
• Patronage: Deacons and evangelists.
• Representation in art if applicable: Often shown baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch or preaching.

What Saint Philip teaches us: When the Holy Spirit says move, move. Someone’s conversion may be waiting on your obedience.

Saint Phêrô Lê Tùy

Brief life history: Saint Phêrô Lê Tùy was a Vietnamese priest and martyr. He served the faithful during a time of persecution and was killed for the Catholic faith.

• Date of Birth: Around 1773.
• Place of Birth: Vietnam.
• Profession: Priest, martyr.
• Place of Work: Vietnam.
• Date of Death: October 11, 1833.
• Place of Death: Vietnam.
• Feast Day: October 11; also honored among the Vietnamese Martyrs.
• Beatification: Beatified among the Vietnamese Martyrs.
• Canonization: Canonized by Pope John Paul II with the Vietnamese Martyrs in 1988.
• Patronage: Vietnam and persecuted Christians.
• Representation in art: Often shown in priestly vestments or with martyr’s palm.

What Saint Phêrô Lê Tùy teaches us: The Gospel is worth more than safety, status, or life itself.

Blessed James Grissinger

Brief life history: Blessed James Grissinger, also known as James of Ulm, was a Dominican lay brother and skilled glass painter. His art and religious life became one offering of beauty to God.

• Date of Birth: 1407.
• Place of Birth: Ulm, Germany.
• Profession: Dominican lay brother, artist, glass painter.
• Place of Work: Bologna, Italy.
• Date of Death: October 11, 1491.
• Place of Death: Bologna, Italy.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Beatification: Beatified by Pope Leo XII.
• Patronage: Artists and glass workers in some local devotion.
• Representation in art: Shown as a Dominican brother, often with tools of glass painting.

What Blessed James teaches us: Work done beautifully, humbly, and for God becomes prayer.

Saint Agilbert of Paris

Brief life history: Saint Agilbert was a missionary bishop who worked in Anglo-Saxon England and later became Bishop of Paris.

• Place of Birth: Frankish territory.
• Profession: Bishop, missionary.
• Place of Work: Wessex, Northumbria, and Paris.
• Date of Death: Around 680.
• Place of Death: France.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Patronage: Not widely established.
• Representation in art: Bishop with mitre and crozier.

What Saint Agilbert teaches us: Faithful service sometimes means crossing cultures and learning to serve where God sends you.

Saint Bruno the Great

Brief life history: Saint Bruno the Great was Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia. He helped shape Church and civic life in the 10th century and supported reform, learning, and ecclesial stability.

• Date of Birth: Around 925 AD.
• Place of Birth: Germany.
• Profession: Archbishop, statesman.
• Place of Work: Cologne and Lotharingia.
• Date of Death: October 11, 965.
• Place of Death: Reims, France.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Patronage: Not widely established.
• Representation in art: Archbishop with episcopal vestments.

What Saint Bruno teaches us: Authority becomes holy only when it is disciplined by service.

Saint Tarachus of Cladiopolis, Saint Probus, and Saint Andronicus

Brief life history: Tarachus, Probus, and Andronicus were Christian martyrs during the persecutions under Diocletian and Maximian. They were tortured, publicly humiliated, and killed because they refused to deny Christ.

• Date of Birth: Tarachus was born around 239 AD; exact dates for Probus and Andronicus are uncertain.
• Place of Birth: Tarachus is associated with Claudiopolis in Isauria; the others are linked with Asia Minor.
• Profession: Martyrs; Tarachus is traditionally described as a former soldier.
• Place of Work: Cilicia and Asia Minor.
• Date of Death: Around 304 AD.
• Place of Death: Tarsus.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation martyrs.
• Patronage: Persecuted Christians.
• Representation in art: Shown with martyr’s palms, sometimes as tortured witnesses before Roman officials.

What these martyrs teach us: A Christian’s deepest identity is not negotiable.

Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Brief life history: This feast honors Mary as the Mother of God and celebrates her divine maternity. While the solemn dogmatic title “Mother of God” is especially associated with the Council of Ephesus, this particular feast has appeared in historical calendars and devotional observance.

• Profession: Mother of Jesus Christ, Mother of God.
• Place of Work: Nazareth, Bethlehem, Egypt, Jerusalem, and the whole Church through her maternal intercession.
• Feast Day: October 11 in older or particular calendars.
• Patronage: The whole Church, mothers, families, and all who seek Mary’s intercession.
• Representation in art: Mary holding the Child Jesus.

What this feast teaches us: Jesus did not come to us as an idea. He came through a mother, into a family, into real human life.

Saint Nectarius of Constantinople

Brief life history: Saint Nectarius served as Archbishop of Constantinople after Saint Gregory Nazianzen. He helped lead the Church during the post-Nicene period, when the Church was still clarifying and defending orthodox teaching.

• Date of Birth: 4th century.
• Place of Birth: Tarsus, according to tradition.
• Profession: Bishop, patriarch.
• Place of Work: Constantinople.
• Date of Death: Around 397 AD.
• Place of Death: Constantinople.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Representation in art: Bishop with omophorion or episcopal vestments.

What Saint Nectarius teaches us: The Church needs shepherds who can guard truth with steadiness.

Saint Ethelburga of Barking

Brief life history: Saint Ethelburga, also known as Ethelburgh or Aethelburh, was the sister of Saint Erconwald of London and the first abbess of Barking Abbey. She was the first abbess of Barking and is said to have died in 675 AD.

• Date of Birth: 7th century.
• Place of Birth: England.
• Profession: Abbess, nun.
• Place of Work: Barking Abbey, Essex, England.
• Date of Death: Around 675 AD.
• Place of Death: Barking, England.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Patronage: Religious women and abbesses.
• Representation in art: Abbess with staff, veil, and book.

What Saint Ethelburga teaches us: Spiritual leadership is built on prayer, discipline, and motherly strength.

Saint Firminus of Uzès

Brief life history: Saint Firminus became Bishop of Uzès at a young age and was known as a writer and participant in several Church councils, including councils at Orléans and Paris. The existing page states that he died in 553 AD.

• Date of Birth: Around the 6th century.
• Place of Birth: Narbonne, France, according to the existing page.
• Profession: Bishop, writer.
• Place of Work: Uzès, France.
• Date of Death: 553 AD.
• Place of Death: Uzès, France.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Representation in art: Bishop with book and crozier.

What Saint Firminus teaches us: A young leader can still be a wise leader when grace forms the heart.

Saint Juliana of Pavilly

Brief life history: Saint Juliana of Pavilly was a servant girl who became a Benedictine nun and later abbess at Pavilly in Normandy. The existing page identifies her as a spiritual student of Saint Benedicta and says she died around 750 AD.

• Place of Birth: France.
• Profession: Benedictine nun, abbess.
• Place of Work: Pavilly, Normandy, France.
• Date of Death: Around 750 AD.
• Place of Death: Pavilly, France.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Representation in art: Benedictine abbess with staff and veil.

What Saint Juliana teaches us: God can raise hidden servants into holy leaders.

Saint Placidia

Brief life history: Saint Placidia was a nun venerated in Verona, Italy. She has sometimes been mistakenly identified as the daughter of Emperor Valentinian III and states that she died around 460 AD.

• Profession: Nun.
• Place of Work: Verona, Italy.
• Date of Death: Around 460 AD.
• Place of Death: Verona, Italy.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Representation in art: Nun in prayer.

What Saint Placidia teaches us: Hidden holiness still matters, even when history remembers only fragments.

Saint Sarmata

Brief life history: Saint Sarmata, also called Sarmatas, was a desert monk and disciple of Saint Anthony the Abbot. He was martyred by Bedouins in the Egyptian desert in 357 AD.

• Profession: Monk, hermit, martyr.
• Place of Work: Egyptian desert.
• Date of Death: 357 AD.
• Place of Death: Egypt.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation martyr.
• Patronage: Desert monks and hermits.
• Representation in art: Hermit monk with martyr’s palm.

What Saint Sarmata teaches us: A life of silence can still preach loudly.

Saint Eufridus

Brief life history: Saint Eufridus, also known as Eufredo or Teofredo, was a Benedictine monk and abbot near Asti, Italy. The existing page says he was martyred by invading Saracens in 732 AD and that his relics were enshrined in Alba Cathedral.

• Place of Birth: Italy.
• Profession: Benedictine monk, abbot, martyr.
• Place of Work: Piedmont region, Italy.
• Date of Death: 732 AD.
• Place of Death: Piedmont, Italy.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Pre-congregation.
• Representation in art: Benedictine abbot with martyr’s palm.

What Saint Eufridus teaches us: Fidelity is proven when faith costs something.

Martyrs of Sicily

Brief life history: The Martyrs of Sicily were a group of Christians remembered as having died together for the faith in Sicily. Their names are Ampodus, Anastasius, Faustus, Januarius, Jovinian, Marcellus, Martialis, and Placidus.

• Profession: Martyrs.
• Place of Work: Sicily, Italy.
• Place of Death: Sicily.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Ancient martyrs.
• Patronage: Persecuted Christians.
• Representation in art: Martyrs with palms.

What the Martyrs of Sicily teach us: The Church was built by people who loved Christ more than life.

Martyrs of Vexin / Vilcassin

Brief life history: They are called the Martyrs of Vilcassin and are identified as Nicasius, Pienza, Quirinus, and Scubicolus, martyred in the territory of Vexin in Gaul.

• Profession: Martyrs.
• Place of Work: Vexin region, Gaul, now France.
• Place of Death: Vexin, France.
• Feast Day: October 11.
• Canonization: Ancient martyrs.
• Representation in art: Martyrs with palms.

What these martyrs teach us: Faithfulness is not erased by time. God remembers names the world forgets.

Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War

Brief life history: The current page names Blessed Angel Ramos Velázquez among the martyrs connected with the anti-Catholic persecution during the Spanish Civil War.

• Date of Birth: Various.
• Place of Birth: Spain.
• Profession: Martyr.
• Place of Work: Spain.
• Date of Death: During the Spanish Civil War persecutions.
• Place of Death: Spain.
• Feast Day: October 11 for this listed commemoration.
• Beatification: Many Spanish Civil War martyrs have been beatified in groups; verify the exact decree for each listed name.
• Canonization: Not applicable unless individually canonized.
• Patronage: Persecuted Christians.
• Representation in art: Martyr’s palm, cross, or religious clothing depending on the individual.

What these martyrs teach us: Modern martyrdom is not ancient history. The call to witness is still alive.

Prayer for October 11 Saints

Saint John XXIII, pray for us, that we may have courage without pride, humility without fear, and a heart open to the Holy Spirit.

Saint Maria Soledad, pray for all who are sick, lonely, poor, or forgotten.

Saint Canice, Saint Alexander Sauli, Saint Phêrô Lê Tùy, and all holy martyrs and servants of October 11, pray that we may live the Gospel with boldness, joy, and love.

Lord Jesus, make us faithful in ordinary duties and brave in difficult moments. Amen.

Reflection for Today

October 11 asks a serious question: where is God calling you to open a door?

Saint John XXIII opened the doors of the Council. Saint Maria Soledad opened the doors of homes where the sick were suffering. Saint Canice carried the Gospel into new places. The martyrs opened their lives completely to Christ.

So today, do not only admire the saints. Move like them. Forgive someone. Serve someone. Pray with more honesty. Take the next faithful step.

Quick Facts

Conclusion

The saints of October 11 are not background names on a calendar. They are a living challenge. Saint John XXIII tells us to trust the Holy Spirit. Saint Maria Soledad tells us to serve the suffering. Saint Canice tells us to carry the Gospel farther. The martyrs tell us not to trade Christ for comfort.

This is the message of October 11: open the door, step forward, and let faith become action.

Catholic Saint of the Day

Catholic Saint Feast Days in October

Related Links

• Saint Gratus of Oloron – Saint of the Day – October 19
• Saint Ethelburgh of Barking – Saint of the Day – October 11
• Saint Juliana of Pavilly – Saint of the Day – October 11
• Saint Andronicus of Antioch – Saint of the Day – October 9
• Saint Andronicus of Ephesus – Saint of the Day – October 11

Powered By SEO Experts