Timeline of Prominent 19th Century Saints
1801 - 1900
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774 – 1821), United States
St. Jean-Marie Vianney (1786 – 1859), France St. John Henry Newman (1801 - 1890), England
St. Catherine Laboure (1806 – 1876), France
St. Anthony Mary Claret (1807 - 1870), Spain
St. John Neumann (1811 – 1860), Bohemia
St. Peter Julian Eymard (1811 – 1868), France
St. John Bosco (1815 - 1888), Italy
St. Charbel (1828 – 1898), Lebanon
St. Pius X (1835 - 1914), Italy
St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows (1838 - 1862), Italy
St. Damien de Veuster (1840 - 1889), Belgium
St. Dominic Savio (1842 - 1857), Italy
St. Bernadette Soubirous (1844 – 1879), France
St. André Bessette (1845 – 1937), Canada
St. Josephine Bakhita (1869 – 1947), Sudan
St. Thérèse de Lisieux (1873 - 1897), France
1801 • John Henry Newman is born in London, the eldest of six. He is baptized in the Anglican Church at 2 months of age. 1803
• Elizabeth Ann Seton accompanies her sick husband, William, to Italy where a doctor has sent him to improve his poor health. William dies, leaving Elizabeth a widow. William's Italian business partners introduce Elizabeth to Catholicism.
1805
• Seton converts to Catholicism in New York. To support herself and her children, she had started an academy for young ladies, but when she became Catholic most parents pulled their children from the school.
1806
• Zoe Laboure is born.
• Jean-Marie Vianney, age 20, finally receives permission from his father to study for the priesthood in Ecully under Fr. Balley.
• Seton, age 32, receives Confirmation from the Bishop of Baltimore, John Carroll - the only Catholic bishop in the United States.
1807
• Anthony Mary Claret is born in Sallent, in northern Spain.
1809
• Vianney is drafted into Napoleon's army. Upon reporting for duty, he falls ill and is sent to the hospital.
• Seton accepts the Sulpicians' invitation to move to Emmitsburg, Maryland and help establish a school to meet the needs of Catholics in America. The Sulpicians had taken refuge in the U.S. from the religious persecution in France. 1808 • John Henry Newman, age 7, is sent to Great Ealing School.
1810
• Seton establishes a religious community in Maryland, the first congregation of religious sisters founded in the U.S., and its school is the first free Catholic school in America.
• Vianney recovers from his illness and is sent to join a detachment heading for the Spanish frontier. On his journey to catch up with his detachment, a mysterious strangers leads him into the forest and he becomes a deserter. He hides under the name Jerome Vincent.
1811
• Peter Julian Eymard is born at La Mure, Isère, in the French Alps.
• John Neumann is born in the Kingdom of Bohemia.
• Seton's Sisters adopt the rule of the Daughters of Charity.
• Vianney returns home to Dardilly and returns to his priestly studies in Ecully.
1815
• Vianney, age 29, is ordained a priest. His first assignment is to help Fr. Balley in Ecully.
• Labouré, age 9, loses her mother and she takes the B.V.M. to be her mother
• John Bosco is born in Becchi, Italy.
1816 • John Henry Newman, age 15, undergoes a conversion to Evangelical Christianity. His father's bank closes and he enters Trinity College in Oxford the same year.
1817
• Neumann, age 6, begins his education in the town school. He was a studious and hardworking child, whose mother called him "my little bibliomaniac" for his love of books and reading.
• Bosco, age 2, loses his father to pneumonia. Bosco's mother is left a widow with three young boys.
• Claret, age 10, receives his First Communion. • John Henry Newman, age 16, receives his First Communion in the Church of England.
1818
• Vianney is appointed priest of the parish of Ars. He would come to be known by his famous title, "Curé of Ars."
• Labouré, age 12, receives her First Communion.
1819
• Claret, age 12, learns the art of weaving and works in his parent's small cloth mill. They are not able to afford an education for him.
1821
• Seton, age 47, dies from tuberculosis.
• Neumann, age 10, is allowed to continue his studies, whereas most boys have to begin work.
1823
• Eymard, age 12, receives his First Communion and becomes a member of the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart.
• Labouré, age 19, has a dream in which an old priest beckons her to follow him and tells her, "Today you run away; tomorrow you will come to me. God has plans for; never forget it."
1824 • John Henry Newman is ordained as a deacon in the Church of England.
1825
• Bosco, age 9, has his first of a series of prophetic dreams.
• Claret, age 18, moves to Barcelona to improve his knowledge of manufacturing techniques. • John Henry Newman, age 24, is ordained a priest in the Church of England.
1827
• Bosco, age 11, receives his First Communion.
• Vianney has developed a reputation as a very holy priest of exceptional virtue and people outside his parish are coming to seek his counsel. Henceforth, numerous pilgrims will flock to Ars to make contact with a man they consider "a living saint."
1828
• Labouré, age 22, asks her father's permission to become a nun now that her younger sister is old enough to take her place. Her father refuses and instead sends her to Paris to work as a waitress in her brother Charles' restaurant.
• Claret notices his spiritual life is becoming tepid as his only thought and ambition was for manufacturing. He recognizes his unhealthy obsession with worldly pursuits and decides to detach from the world and give himself entirely to God. He leaves Barcelona to pursue a religious vocation. • Youssef Makhlouf (Charbel) is born in Lebanon. • John Henry Newman becomes the Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin (the University Church), a position which he held until 1843 (15 years).
1829
• Eymard, age 18, enters the novitiate of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, taking the name Aloysius Gonzaga, but this first attempt as a seminarian fails due to his poor health.
• Neumann, age 18, completes the arduous gymnasium course and begins a 2-years study in philosophy.
• Labouré is invited to attend her sister-in-law's boarding school at Chatillon-sur-Seine. This afforded her the opportunity to be near the house of the Sisters of Charity. She went to visit one day and discovered a portrait of a priest hanging in the parlor; it was the same priest she had once dreamed of, and she learned it was St. Vincent de Paul. She had no doubts about her vocation anymore.
• Claret, age 22, enters the diocesan seminary at Vic.
1830
• Labouré forsakes the world to enter the convent. For four months she spends her postulancy in the Sisters' House of Chatillon-sur-Seine, then she begins her novitiate in the Mother House in Paris, taking the name Sister Catherine. This same year, she has visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is entrusted with the mission of the Miraculous Medal.
• Bosco, age 14, places himself under the spiritual direction of Fr. Calosso, an old priest who introduces him to a deeper spiritual life and guides him very well.
1831
• Eymard, age 20, has recovered from his illness and succeeds in gaining admission to the major seminary of the Diocese of Grenoble.
• Neumann, age 20, graduates from the philosophical course. He applies to the seminary, is accepted, and enters that same year.
• Labouré's novitiate ends and she is clothed in the habit of the Daughters of Charity. She has four more years before she will be allowed to make her Vows. • Makhlouf, age 3, loses his father. His mother remarries a man who would later be ordained a priest.
1832
• Neumann becomes aware of the need for priests in the U.S., especially to serve the German-speaking communities. He convinces his Bishop to send him to the University of Prague where he hopes to learn English. 1833 • John Henry Newman, age 32, writes "Lead, Kindly Light" while traveling from Palermo to Marseille on a ship.
1834
• Eymard, age 23, is ordained a priest for the Diocese of Grenoble.
• Neumann is successfully able to use German, Czech, French, English, Spanish, Italian, as well as Latin and Greek.
1835
• Bosco, age 19, enters the seminary at Chieri.
• Claret, age 28, is ordained to the priesthood. Due to the revolutions in Spain during this time, the government is beginning to encroach on the rights of the Church and Claret has to finish his Moral Theology and Canon Law studies privately. • Giuseppe Sarto (Pius X) was born in Riese, Italy; the oldest surviving child of a very poor family.
1836
• Neumann, age 25, travels by ship and arrives in New York on May 28th. He is ordained to the priesthood on June 25 and is assigned to assist in serving recent German immigrants in the Buffalo area.
1837
• Eymard is assigned as pastor at Monteyard, a small parish that was in spiritual destitution due to the French Revolution. Eymard sets to work to awaken the dormant faith of the people.
1838
• Francesco Possenti (Gabriel of Sorrows) is born in Assisi, Italy.
1839
• Claret is not satisfied with parish work in his native town of Sallent and has aspirations to be a missionary. He takes a pilgrimage to Rome and attends a retreat where a Jesuit priest directs him to join the Society of Jesus. He was admitted, but fell sick and had to return to Spain.
• When Eymard becomes aware of the recently founded Marist Fathers, he immediately desires to join them. As soon as he obtains permission from his bishop, he enters the Society of Mary seminary at Lyon. • John Henry Newman, age 38, has his first doubts about the position of the Anglican Church.
1840
• Joseph de Veuster (St. Damien of Molokai) is born in rural Belgium.
• Eymard makes his profession in the Society of Mary.
• Neumann's health suffers from fatigue and over-work; His confessor advises him to become a religious. Neumann asks for admission to join the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer and is accepted.
• Claret is made pastor of Viladrau. He is gaining a reputation for sanctity and miracles and people are beginning to flock to hear his sermons.
1841
• Bosco, age 26, is ordained a priest. Bosco accompanies his beloved spiritual director, Fr. Caffasso, to visit the prisons. Bosco is shocked to see so many "strong and healthy adolescents idle, vermin-ridden, and starving mentally, physically and spiritually." With the permission of his Fr. Caffasso, he decides to help the abandoned boys.
1842
• Neumann takes his vows as a member of the Redemptorists in Baltimore.
• Dominic Savio is born at Riva San Giovanni, near Chieri. • Possenti, age 4, loses his mother. • John Henry Newman, age 41, withdraws to a monastic style of life at Littlemore.
1843
• Somewhere around this time, Claret is sent out as an Apostolic Missionary throughout Catalonia, which had suffered from French invasions. For seven years he travelled from one mission to the next on foot as a missionary, giving sermons and hearing confessions.
• Vianney, age 57, is in poor health after 25 years of a hard, demanding, and penitential life. He falls seriously ill, but recovers. He attributed his cure to St. Philomena. • John Henry Newman resigns as Vicar of St. Mary's and preaches his last Anglican sermon “The Parting of Friends” at Littlemore.
1844
• St. Bernadette Soubirous is born, she is the first child of a miller and his wife. Five months later, Bernadette's mother is expecting her second child and Bernadette is sent to live with a wet-nurse.
• Eymard is named Provincial of the Society at Lyon (an office second only to Superior General). His new responsibilities included being in charge of the Third Order of Mary, a lay group dedicated to Marist spirituality. John Vianney is a member.
1845
• Soubirous returns home to her family.
• Vianney's pilgrims swell to 300-400 a day. It is estimated that he hears confessions for 15 -18 hours a day.
• Alfred Bessette is born in Quebec. • John Henry Newman, age 44, is received into the Catholic Church at Littlemore by Bl. Domenico Bàrberi. Shortly after, he is Confirmed and takes the Confirmation name "Mary." 1846
• Sarto, age 12, receives his First Holy Communion in the parish church in Riese.
1847
• Bosco and his mother begin taking in orphans in the house they are renting in the slums of Valdocco. • John Henry Newman is ordained a Catholic priest in Rome and celebrates his first Mass. 1848 • John Henry Newman founds the Oratory of St Philip Neri in England.
1849
• Savio, age 7, makes his First Communion.
• Claret establishes the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (The Claretians).
• Bessette's father moves his large family to Farnham to find work as a lumberman.
1850
• Claret's name is proposed as Archbishop of Cuba. Two months after his Consecration, he sails to Cuba. The state of Catholicism in Cuba is very bleak; Freemasons are not happy with Claret's zealous attempts to improve morality and revive the faith. • Sarto, age 15, enters the seminary at Padua on a scholarship from the Cardinal of Venice. • John Henry Newman receives honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) conferred by Pope Pius IX.
1851
• Eymard tries to establish a Marist community dedicated to Eucharistic adoration, but his superiors disapprove. Eventually, Eymard will resolve to leave the Society of Mary to begin a new religious congregation. • Possenti, who has up to now lived an extremely worldly and vain life, falls seriously ill and promises to join the religious life if he recovers. Yet when he recovers, his promise is forgotten.
• Makhlouf, age 23, leaves his pious home and family to begin training as a monk of the Lebanese Maronite Order at the Monastery of Our Lady in Mayfouq. He takes the name Charbel, after the 2nd-century Christian martyr of Antioch.
1852
• Neumann is appointed Bishop of Philadelphia by the Holy See. • Sarto, age 17, gets news this his father is very ill. He travels home and sees his father briefly before he dies. Sarto's mother is left a widow with eight children, but she will not keep Sarto home to help; she wants him to complete his studies for the priesthood.
1853
• Savio, age 11, is Confirmed in Castelnuovo.
• Vianney, age 67, desires a life of solitude - a monastic cell where he can live in silent contemplation. He tries to escape Ars, but the Bishop wants him to stay. • Charbel, age 25, makes his final religious profession in the Lebanese Maronite Order. For the next six years he will prepare himself for ordination by studying philosophy and theology at the Monastery of Saints Cyprian and Justina in Kfifan.
1854
• Neumann travels to Rome and is present at St. Peter's Basilica on 12/8, when Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
• Savio and Bosco meet at Becchi and Savio enters the Oratory at Turin. He consecrates himself to Our Lady on December 8th, the very same day that the Immaculate Conception is defined as dogma in Rome.
• Bessette, age 9, loses his father when a tree falls on him. His mother is a widow with 10 children. • Somewhere around this time, Possenti attends a procession of an ancient icon of the Virgin Mary. As the image passed by him, he felt an interior voice asking why he remained in the world. He sought the advice of a priest and resolved to enter the Passionist Congregation. • John Henry Newman, age 53, becomes the rector of Catholic University of Ireland in Dublin, a position he held for 4 years. He founded the Literary and Historical Society and began Catholic University Gazette.
1855
• Savio, inspired through a decisive sermon given by Bosco, resolves to be a saint.
• Soubirous' family, unable to pay their rent, is evicted from the mill and eventually becomes destitute. A relation agrees to harbor the family in a house in the Rue des Petits-Fosses - a building that was the old gaol of Lourdes and was popularly known as the “cachot” (prison).
1856
• Eymard founds The Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament in Paris.
• Savio establishes the Company of the Mary Immaculate.
• Claret's life is endangered by a freemason assassination. The attempt does not kill him, but wounds him. His wounds are miraculously healed when he invokes the prayers of the Blessed Virgin. • Possenti travels to Morrovalle and receives the habit of the Passionists, taking the name "Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows."
1857
• Savio, age 15, leaves the Oratory because of an illness. Eight days later, on March 9th, he dies at Mondonio in his father's arms.
• Soubirous, age 13, goes to live with the Aravant family to help look after the children; however, they end up putting her in charge of the sheep instead. She becomes a shepherdess, looking after the lambs.
• After 6 years of labor in Cuba, Claret returns to Spain on royal mandate to become confessor to Queen Isabella II in Madrid.
• Bessette, age 12, becomes an orphan when his mother dies from tuberculosis. He is placed under the care of his mother's sister and her husband. • Gabriel takes his vows and his spiritual director is now Norbert of Holy Mary.
1858
• Soubirous, age 14, receives the apparitions at Lourdes. She has a total of eighteen apparitions of the B.V.M between February and July.
• Bosco publishes a biography of Dominic Savio. He also goes to Rome to discuss the Salesian Congregation with the Holy Father.
• Joseph, age 18, attends a Redemptorist Mission that inspires him to pursue a religious vocation. He joins the Society of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, taking the name Damien. Since he has no classical education, he enters as lay-brother. His lack of education prevents him from aspiring to the priesthood.
• Bessette receives the Sacrament of Confirmation. • Gabriel moves to Pietvetorina to continue his studies.
• Sarto, age 23, is ordained to the priesthood at Castelfranco. According to the rules of the Church, he was too young for ordination, but Bishop Farina asked Rome for a dispensation to ordain him a year early. His first appointment was curate in Tombolo, a parish where he would be among the poor and would spend the first nine years of his priestly activity.
1859
• Vianney, age 73, dies.
• Bosco's orphans have swelled to 600; he forms the Society of St. Francis de Sales. • Gabriel, due to local disturbances, moves again, this time to a monastery in Teramo. He excels in academics and virtue.
• Charbel is ordained a priest in Bkerke and is sent back to the Monastery of Saint Maron, where he will live a life of severe asceticism. • John Henry Newman opens the Oratory School.
1860
• Damien, age 20, succeeds in learning Latin from his older brother and is subsequently given permission to study for the priesthood. He enters the novitiate of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (the Picpus Fathers).
• Neumann, age 48, collapses and dies on a Philadelphia street while out running errands.
• Bessette, age 14, is in school long enough to barely learn how to read and write his name, but he discontinues school due to frail health. When his uncle leaves for California in search of gold, Bassette goes into the care of the Ouimet family and works a series of short-lived occupations, all of which he is too physically weak to sustain.
1862
• Gabriel, age 23, dies from tuberculosis at Isola del Gran Sasso, without being ordained a priest.
1863
• Bessette takes a train to New England to join relatives; he works jobs between Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
1864
• Damien arrives in Honolulu Harbor on Oahu and is ordained a priest.
• Soubirous decides to become a nun and expresses definitely to Mother Alexandrine Roques, Superior at Lourdes, her desire to be received into her Congregation, the Sisters of Charity.
1865
• Damien is assigned to North Kohala on the island of Hawaii.
• Out of fear of the contagious disease, Hawaii passes the "Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy," a law that quarantined lepers to a settlement colony on the island of Molokai.
• After hearing God's voice tells him to "retire" and "go to Rome," Claret travels to Rome to consult the Holy Father, but he is sent back to Queen Isabella II.
1866
• Soubirous begins her postulancy with the Sisters of Charity at their motherhouse in Nevers.
• Eymard’s health is in rapid decline: he is suffering from shingles, bronchitis, influenza, and recurring migraines.
1867
• Soubirous makes her religious profession and is given the name Sister Marie-Bernard.
• Bessette returns to Canada and works as a farmhand. • Sarto, age 32, is appointed archpriest of Salzano. In time he will be made chancellor of the diocese and vicar general.
1868
• After a stroke left him partially paralyzed and losing his speech, Eymard, age 57, dies in La Mure on August 1st.
• Claret accompanies Queen Isabella II to France where she has been exiled due to the Spanish Revolution dethroning her.
• Bessette's deep religious piety is recognized by all. His curé, André Provençal, thought he would be well-suited for the religious life and sends him to the Congregation of Holy Cross in Montreal.
1869
• Claret returns to Rome to take an active part in the Vatican Council. He defends Papal Infallibility. • Josephine Bakhita is born in Darfur; one of the Daju people, she was the niece of the village chief. • John Henry Newman declines the invitation of Bishop Dupanloup to attend the Vatican Council as his theologian.
1870
• Claret, age 62 and with failing health, retires to a Cistercian abbey in southern France where he dies.
1872
• Bessette, age 26, is accepted into the novitiate of the Congregation of Holy Cross, taking the religious name of Brother André in honor of Fr. André Provençal. He was given the task of porter at College Notre-Dame in Côte-des-Neiges, Quebec, with additional duties as sacristan, laundry worker and messenger.
1873
• St. Thérèse de Lisieux is born in Alençon, France.
• Damien volunteers to serve as a priest at the isolated leper settlement on Molokai, well-aware that it meant his inevitable death by leprosy.
1874
• Brother André, age 28, makes his final vows.
1875
• Charbel, age 47, is granted permission by the abbot of the monastery to live as a hermit at the Hermitage of Saints Peter and Paul, a chapel under the care of the monastery. He will spend the next 23 years living alone.
1876
• Labouré, age 70, dies peacefully after quietly living out her religious vocation, hidden and unknown.
1877
• Thérèse, age 4, loses her beloved mother, St. Zelie Martin, to breast cancer. • Bakhita, age 8, is kidnapped by Arab slave traders, the same who had kidnapped her elder sister two years earlier. She is forced to walk 600 miles barefoot and forced to convert to Islam. She will be sold and bought five times between 1877–1889.
1878
• Gemma Galgini is born in Camigliano, Italy, but very soon her family moves to Lucca where her father works as a pharmacist.
1879
• Soubirous, age 35, dies from tuberculosis. • At the death of Bishop Zinello, Sarto is elected vicar-capitular to care for the diocese until the accession of a new bishop. • John Henry Newman is made a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in Rome. He goes to the Vatican in order to receive the cardinal’s biretta from Pope Leo XIII. 1880
• Sarto teaches dogmatic and moral theology at the seminary in Treviso
1883
• Thérèse, age 10, suffers from a mysterious illness. The B.V.M. appears to her, smiles at her, and she is instantly healed. • Bakhita is bought in Khartoum by the Italian Vice Consul, Callisto Legnani.
1884
• Damien, age 44, realizes he has leprosy when he accidentally puts his foot in scalding water and feels nothing.
• Bosco, age 69, exhausted by fatigue, nearly blind, and very frail, is forced to slow down his activity. • Sarto, age 50, is appointed bishop of Mantua by Pope Leo XIII and is consecrated by Cardinal Parocchi in Rome.
• Bakhita escapes beseiged Khartoum with Legnani and his friend, Augusto Michieli. They travel by camelback to Suakin, the largest port in Sudan. 1885
• Bakhita, Legnani, and Michieli leave Suakin for Italy and arrive at the port of Genoa. Upon arrival, Legnani gives ownership of Bakhita to Michieli's wife, Maria. • John Henry Newman publishes his last article.
1886
• Bakhita becomes nanny to the Michieli's newborn daughter, Alice. Augusto Michieli decides to sell his property in Italy and to move his family to Sudan permanently, but selling of his home and land takes time. • John Henry Newman's health begins to fail at age 85. 1887
• Thérèse travels to Rome with her father and sister. During a general audience with Pope Leo XIII, Thérèse asks him to let her enter the Carmelite order.
• Francesco Forgione (Padre Pio) is born in Pietrelcina.
1888
• Thérèse, age 15, becomes a postulant in the cloistered Carmelite community of Lisieux, joining two of her older sisters.
• Bosco, age 73, dies. • John Henry Newman, age 87, preaches his last sermon on January 1st.
• Bakhita and Alice are left in the care of the Canossian Sisters in Venice while Michieli is in Sudan. As she is cared for by the Sisters, Bakhita is instructed in Catholicism for the first time.
1889
• Damien, age 49, dies from leprosy.
• Thérèse becomes a novice. • John Henry Newman, age 88, celebrates his last Mass on Christmas Day. • Bakhita, a catechumen preparing to be baptized, refuses to return to Sudan with Michieli. Michieli appeals to the the attorney general of the King of Italy. The Italian court rules that, because the British had outlawed slavery in Sudan before Bakhita's birth and because Italian law had never recognized slavery as legal, Bakhita had never legally been a slave. With her new freedom, Bakhita chooses to remain with the Canossians.
1890
• Thérèse makes her full profession into the Carmelite Order. • John Henry Newman, age 89, dies of pneumonia in Birmingham. • Bakhita is baptized, Confirmed, and receives her first Holy Communion from Bishop Giuseppe Sarto. She is baptized with the names Josephine Margaret and Fortunata (the Latin translation of the Arabic Bakhita).
1893
• Bakhita enters the novitiate of the Canossian Sisters.
1894
• Raymund Kolbe (Maximillian Kolbe) is born in Poland.
• Thérèse's father, St. Louis Martin, dies.
1896
• Bakhita takes her vows.
1897
• Thérèse, age 24, dies from tuberculosis. • Forgione, age 10, is drawn to the life of a friar after listening to a young Capuchin who was in the countryside seeking donations.
1889
• Charbel, age 70, dies from a stroke on December 24.
1899
• Forgione, age 12, receives the sacrament of Confirmation.
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