At St Saviour's our children are grouped into four houses named after four saints of the Catholic Church: St Oscar Romero, St Josephine Bakhita, St Francis of Assisi and St Thérèse of Lisieux.

St Oscar Romero 

“Each one of you has to be God’s microphone. Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet.”

• Patron saint of persecuted Christians and Christian communicators.
• When he was 14 years old, Oscar wanted to be a priest so he went to study at junior seminary. 
• Oscar Romero was ordained a priest when he was 25 and returned to El Salvador. 
• He became famous for his sermons. He also did a lot of parish work like visiting prisons, organising catechism classes and working with others in the Church to provide help and food for the poor.
• El Salvador was ruled by cruel and violent people. Oscar Romero stood up to the rulers in El Salvador, defending the poor and demanding political change. He used to share his sermons on the radio to allow everyone to hear him, so they would know they were not alone.
• He was killed while he celebrated Mass for speaking against the government.
• Today the people of El Salvador make Romero crosses to remember him. 

Artist: Br. Robert Lentz, OFM

St Josephine Bakhita 

"I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good."

• She is the first Black woman declared a saint in the modern era, and she is the first and currently only Sudanese saint.
• Patron saint of human trafficking, Sudan, victims of modern slavery
• She was kidnapped at age 7 and sold into slavery, so her life was incredibly difficult and was treated in a very cruel way by different “masters”.
• When she was sold to an Italian diplomat, he took her back to Italy, and it was there, while she worked as a nanny, that she learnt about Jesus for the first time.
• She met the Canossian Sisters and she felt very drawn to the Catholic Church through witnessing their lives. She was baptized in 1890 and took on the name “Josephine” which means "God will add" or "God will increase." 
• With the help of the Canossian Sisters, she was freed three years later and became a religious sister soon after.

  

St Francis of Assisi

“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

• Patron saint of animals and ecology.
• St Francis was born in Italy, in a place called Assisi. His family were very wealthy.
• One day as he prayed in a chapel, he heard a voice say, “Repair my church.” Thinking that God was telling him to repair the chapel, St Francis used his father’s money to repair it.
• His father was very angry and had his son arrested for stealing. St Francis returned all of the money. He even stripped off all of the clothes he was wearing and gave them back to his father! A Bishop quickly covered him with an old tunic. St Francis continued to wear the old tunic for the rest of his life. 
• From then on St Francis lived in poverty. He realised that when God asked him to repair His Church, he meant the Catholic Church around the world.
• Listening to God, St Francis worked to make the Church  better by speaking up for the poor and looking after them.
• Throughout his life, St Francis showed a great love for all Creation and all the creatures in it, and he believed that humans and animals should be treated equally.
   

 

St Thérèse of Lisieux

“Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do all that you do with love.”

• Patron saint of the missionaries, florists and the sick.
• Therese had wished to become a nun since the age of three, and now she begged to join the Carmelite monastery.  She asked the bishop and even the Pope for permission to join the order several times. However, both of them suggested she wait until she was older.
• She was finally allowed to become a nun at the age of 15.
• Therese is most known for her “Little Way.”  She spoke not of doing great things, but of small things with great love. 
• She saw herself as a tiny flower in the garden of God. She once said, “If all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would lose its beauty.”
• Therese had a string of beads with a medal on one end and a crucifix on the other, similar to a rosary.  She carried these in her pocket and every time she made a sacrifice or did a good deed, she pulled a bead towards the cross. It helped her remember to be selfless and that each act of selflessness is a gift to Jesus.
• When she was 23, Therese requested to become a missionary and was about to leave for Vietnam when she contracted tuberculosis. Unfortunately, she died the following year, when she was only 24. 

Artist: CreativeIconsByIrina