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The saint for March 04
Saint Casimir
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| Optional Memorial USA, Memorial or Feast, Poland |
| Roman Calendar |
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Born October 1458
Died March 1484
Canonized 1602
Casimir was the third child of King Casimir IV of Poland. He received pious tutelage from an early age and showed a very strong christian character. He combined the virtues of asceticism with cheerfulness, compassion and humility.
Casimir was bullied by his father into undertaking military action against the Hungarian King, Matthias. He defied his father and retreated when the tide turned against him, and thereafter steadfastly refused to engage in any warfare, earning him the name of "The Peacemaker".
He exemplified the christian virtues, as this passage from a contemporary life reveals:
"It is difficult to imagine or to express his passion for justice, his exercise of moderation, his gift of prudence, his fundamental spiritual courage and stability, especially in a most permissive age."
His practices of bodily mortification, such as sleeping on the ground, may have shortened his life, as he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. Casimir remained a bachelor and a consecrated virgin his entire life.
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| Patron of: Poland and Lithuania, Consecrated life, the poor |
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 Index of Catholic Saints
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