St. Joseph rightfully holds pride of place as the most significant fatherly saint in the Church’s canon for his essential role as Jesus’ foster father. While he is the supreme model for Christian fathers, there are many saints who were also fathers from whom men leading families can learn and seek prayerful intercession. Here are seven to get to know better.
1. St. Basil the Elder (d. 350). St. Basil the Elder and his wife, St. Emmelia, lived in modern-day Turkey and raised a family of 10 with several saints: the younger St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Macrina and St. Peter of Sebaste. When St. Basil returned from Athens University puffed up with self-importance, St. Macrina persuaded him to become a monk and to subordinate his gifts to God’s purposes.
2. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Before he was a bishop, priest or even a Catholic, St. Augustine was a father. Before his conversion at age 32, St. Augustine had a son, Adeodatus, out of wedlock with a longtime concubine. St. Augustine ultimately parted from this woman with great difficulty, and while she retired to Carthage, Adeodatus remained with Augustine. Father and son were baptized together by St. Ambrose in Milan when the boy was 15. Augustine was deeply devoted to his intellectually gifted son, who shared in his theological discourses. However, Adeodatus died around age 16, causing Augustine immense heartache, but ultimately his grief lifted his mind towards the eternal and detachment from earthly things.
3. St. Isidore the Farmer (c. 1070-1130). A humble peasant born near Madrid, Spain, St. Isidore married and worked the same fields all his life. He and his wife had one son, who is said to have been miraculously saved from drowning in a well. However, that son later died as a child, and the couple was said to have lived celibately afterward. Always devout, St. Isidore visited church on his way to work, prayed while ploughing and made local pilgrimages. Legends associate him with miraculous feedings of birds and a crowd of poor men. He was canonized in the august company of Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Avila and Philip Neri in 1622.
4. St. Louis of France (1214-1270). Crowned King Louis IX of France in 1226, St. Louis married Marguerite of Provence in 1234 and they had 11 children. He was an ideal medieval king, promoting justice and peace at home and abroad. His subjects greatly admired his piety and goodness, and he was known to be a devoted father who was involved in his children’s lives. Following a serious illness, he went on a Crusade to the Holy Land. St. Louis was taken prisoner in Egypt in 1250, and to free himself and his soldiers had to give back a city he had captured and pay a large ransom. He embarked on another Crusade in 1270, but died of dysentery in Tunisia. He was canonized in 1297.
5. St. Thomas More (1478-1535). Born in London, St. Thomas studied at Oxford, married and had four children with his first wife, Jane. After she died, he remarried a widow and adopted her daughter, and then took in two other girls who needed a home. He was a devoted father who gave his daughters the same education as his sons. King Henry VIII took this brilliant lawyer into his service in 1518, knighted him and named him lord chancellor. But St. Thomas broke with the king when he divorced Catherine of Aragon and set himself up as supreme head of the church in England. In 1532 St. Thomas resigned his post, and in 1534 he was arrested when he refused to take the oath to the new Act of Succession. Imprisoned for more than a year in the Tower of London, he was convicted of treason and beheaded. He was canonized in 1935.
6. St. Lawrence Ruiz (1594-1637). The first Filipino saint, St. Lawrence Ruiz was a Dominican tertiary living in Binondo, Philippines, with his wife and three children, when he fled an unjust murder charge by joining a missionary expedition to Japan. He was arrested there for being a Christian, which was then illegal. He and 15 others — including nine Dominican priests — were ultimately martyred. After various tortures, 14 of them died by being suspended by their feet in a pit of manure, one was burned at the stake and one died in prison. He died in the pit in 1637 and was canonized in 1987.
7. St. Louis Martin (1823-1894). St. Louis Martin, a French watchmaker who later ran his wife’s lacemaking business, married St. Marie Zelie Guerin Martin in 1858. They had nine children; four died in infancy and five — including St. Thérèse of Lisieux — entered religious life. During their 19-year marriage, the couple was known to attend Mass daily, pray and fast, respect the Sabbath, visit the elderly and the sick, and welcome the poor into their home. St. Louis was a generous husband and father, and rose to the challenge when St. Zelie’s death made him a single father with young daughters. He took joy in being tender and kind with his children while giving them structure and requiring personal discipline. In 2015, Sts. Louis and Zelie became the first married couple with children to be canonized in the same ceremony.
