Byline: Thomas Craughwell

The sexual revolution of the 1960s dramatically altered the moral landscape of the Western world. But of course, sexual promiscuity was not invented in the 1960s; it has always been with us, although it may have been more rampant in some places and some periods of history than others.

St. Mary of Egypt was born into a family of Egyptian Christians. At age 12, she ran away from home and went to live in Alexandria, the most cosmopolitan, most sophisticated and in many ways one of the most corrupt cities in the Mediterranean world. She supported herself as a singer and dancer. At some point, we don’t know when, she lost her innocence.

Mary’s sexual appetite took over her personality. She cruised the streets of Alexandria, looking for partners. Her favorite diversion was to corrupt innocent young men. But many years later, as she told St. Zosimus — the monk who wrote down her autobiography — she never accepted money from the men she slept with, she never became a prostitute.

Once, while walking along the wharves at the harbor, she saw a group of men boarding a ship. She asked one of the sailors who the men were, and where were they going. He said they were all pilgrims, heading to Jerusalem to celebrate there the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. On impulse, Mary decided to go, too. By the time the ship reached the Holy Land, Mary had seduced every pilgrim and every member of the crew.

In Jerusalem she continued her usual routine of looking for new partners. On the holy day, a throng of pilgrims made their way through the narrow streets of Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Mary, out of curiosity, joined them. But when she reached the threshold of the church, some invisible force held her back. She could not enter. All at once the wickedness of her life overwhelmed her, and she began to cry.

Near the door was a carving of the Blessed Virgin. Turning to the sacred image, Mary prayed for the first time in years, “Help me,” she begged Our Lady, “for I have no other help.” With that, the power that had kept her from entering the church withdrew and Mary went in. She found a priest and made a full confession.

After the Mass and veneration of the Holy Cross, Mary left Jerusalem, crossed the Jordan River and headed out into the desert. There she became a hermit, living a life of prayer and penance for nearly 50 years.

Toward the end of her life she encountered the monk Zosimus, to whom she told her story. Then she begged him to return to her on Holy Thursday with the Blessed Sacrament — it had been decades since she had been able to receive holy Communion. Zosimus returned, as he had promised, but he found that Mary had died. He buried her, then went back to his monastery and began to make known the story of Mary of Egypt.

Craughwell is the author of more than 30 books, including “Saints Behaving Badly” and “This Saint Will Change Your Life.”

Like St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1271-1336), her great-aunt, Elizabeth of Portugal, married young. At age 12 she became the bride of Portugal’s 20-year-old king, Dinis. It’s to be expected that Dinis would have no interest in a 12-year-old girl, and probably several years passed before the marriage was consummated (Elizabeth was 19 when she gave birth to her first child). In the meantime, Dinis was not lonely. He had a string of mistresses by whom he fathered at least seven, perhaps as many as nine, children.

Dinis was very fond of his illegitimate children; he brought them all to live in the palace and insisted that Elizabeth raise them along with their legitimate children. It is the kind of demand that could wreck a marriage, yet whatever Elizabeth may have felt — jealousy, resentment, rage — she kept to herself and proved to be a loving foster mother.

As callous as Dinis was to his wife, he compounded the problem by favoring one of his illegitimate sons over his eldest son and heir, Alfonso. Unlike his saintly mother, Prince Alfonso did not suppress his feelings of jealousy and resentment. Four times Alfonso schemed to overthrow his father and seize the crown; once he even contrived to murder his half-brother, the son Dinis loved best; each time it was Elizabeth who made peace in the family, although with each of Alfonso’s plots, it become increasingly difficult. Once, when Alfonso’s army was arrayed at one end of the field and King Dinis’ on the other, Elizabeth had to ride between them and refuse to leave the battlefield until father and son reconciled.

We do not know if Dinis ever asked Elizabeth to forgive him for all the pain he had caused her. After Dinis died, however, in his will he made Elizabeth executor of all he possessed. If he couldn’t respect Elizabeth while he lived, at least he showed her some token of it after his death.

St. Elizabeth is the patron of the University of Coimbra in Portugal, which she and her husband, King Dinis, founded when she was just 19 years old. Ratified in 1290, the university is one of the oldest continuously operating universities in the world. Papal confirmation was granted to the university by Pope Nicholas IV on Aug. 9, 1290.

St. Elizabeth is also the patron saint of brides and is invoked against jealousy. Her feast day is July 4.

Craughwell is the author of more than 30 books, including “Saints Behaving Badly” and “This Saint Will Change Your Life.”

St. Eugene de Mazenod was born into a family that was doomed from the beginning. His father, Charles-Antoine de Mazenod, was a member of the French aristocracy, a man of genteel breeding who had received a superb classical education. Unfortunately, by the time he reached adulthood all he possessed was his distinguished title; Charles-Antoine’s father and grandfather had squandered the Mazenod fortune years earlier.

His mother, Marie-Rose Joannis, on the other hand, came from a family that was solidly bourgeois and very rich. When Charles-Antoine and Marie-Rose announced their engagement, the bride’s family insisted that the traditional dowry remain in Marie-Rose’s name, out of the reach of Charles-Antoine. This was the just the first instance of the Joannis clan’s interference in the life of the Mazenod family.

Although they held Charles-Antoine in contempt, in the interest of seeing Marie-Rose comfortable, the Joannis family did keep a steady stream of money flowing into the couple’s bank account, but such generosity came at a price. Marie-Rose’s mother meddled in every decision the couple tried to make. Her emotionally unbalanced aunt demanded constant attention, and the Joannis women took every opportunity to humiliate Charles-Antoine by reminding him that he had come into their family penniless.

On Aug. 1, 1782, in Provence, Eugene de Mazenod was born into this wretched family. While he was still a little boy, his family’s dysfunction was further complicated by the French Revolution that claimed the lives of thousands of aristocratic families. In 1791, to escape the guillotine, the Mazenods fled to Venice. Four years later Marie-Rose walked out on her husband and her son, returned to France and filed for divorce. Once the divorce had been finalized, she wrote to her ex-husband, “Now you have nothing.”

Eugene found refuge from his miserable home life in the Church. In 1808 he entered the seminary in Paris; in 1811 he was ordained a priest. He asked to be assigned to work among the poor country people in the south of France. His superiors granted his request, in part because this was his home region and he spoke the local dialect.

The French Revolution had caused tremendous disruption to religious life throughout the country. Those bishops, priests, monks and nuns who had not been killed were in exile or had disgraced their vocation. Churches and schools stood abandoned; convents and monasteries lay in ruins. An entire generation had grown up with virtually no religious instruction.

By 1815, Eugene had assembled a band of dedicated priests who worked with him as missionaries in the rural areas of Provence, bringing people who were nominally Christian back to the Faith. In recognition of the group’s success, the pope organized them into a new religious order and gave them their name — the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. An oblate is someone who offers his life and all his efforts to God, or in this case the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the good of others. As for Eugene, his reward was being named bishop of Marseilles, an assignment he held from 1837 until his death in 1861.

St Eugene was never able to reconcile his parents or bring peace to his family, but he and his fellow priests did bring countless thousands back to the Church.

St. Eugene de Mazenod is the patron saint of dysfunctional families. His feast day is May 21.

Craughwell is the author of more than 30 books, including “Saints Behaving Badly” and “This Saint Will Change Your Life.”

St. Macrina was the grandmother of St. Basil the Great, his brothers St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Peter of Sebaste, and their sister, St. Macrina the Younger. Macrina raised all of her grandchildren (she had 10), and she took special care to give them a sound religious education. Her care paid off: Basil became a monk and wrote a monastic rule that is still followed by monks in the East. Gregory became bishop of Nyssa and then archbishop of Sebaste. Peter preceded his brother as archbishop of Sebaste. All three brothers were champions of the Catholic faith against Arianism, a heresy that was raging across the Christian world at the time. And Macrina the Younger became abbess of a small community of nuns near the Black Sea.

St. Macrina had been converted by St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (the name means “wonder-worker”), a renowned preacher. It was said that when he was made bishop of Caesarea, there were only 17 Christians in his diocese, but when he died there were only 17 pagans in his diocese he had not managed to convert.

In 303, Emperor Diocletian began his empire-wide persecution of Christians. It would be the last Roman persecution of the Church, and it would prove to be the most ferocious. Thousands of Christians were killed, among them some of the most revered martyrs of the early Church, including St. Agnes, St. Sebastian, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, and St. Januarius, known to Italians as San Gennaro. As was true of so many Christians, Macrina and her husband went into hiding. They fled to a remote spot in a vast forest along the shores of the Black Sea, where they remained for seven years. It was a terrible time for the couple. In addition to the constant fear that they would be discovered and dragged off to a horrible death, they often had difficulty foraging for food. Several times Macrina and her husband nearly starved to death.

Only in 311 did they feel safe enough to leave their refuge and return to civilization. Soon thereafter, Macrina’s husband died, and she filled her days raising and educating her grandchildren.

Her feast day is January 14.

St. Macrina the Elder is the matriarch of one of the Church’s most blessed families. Along with her son, St. Basil the Elder, and her daughter-in-law, St. Emmelia, four of her 10 grandchildren have been canonized as saints, including:

St. Basil the Great: Bishop of Caesarea and Doctor of the Church, St. Basil is known as a great defender of Christianity against Arianism. He was revered for his spiritual achievements and his many contributions to Christian culture in the fourth century. His feast day is Jan. 2.

The Crosiers

St. Gregory of Nyssa: Bishop of Sebaste and a prolific writer, St. Gregory is credited with being one of the most ardent orthodox leaders of his time due to his outspokenness against Arianism. His feast is March 9