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St. Bede the Venerable is famous for being an author, a teacher, and a scholar in the area that is now England. He was particularly interested in calendar calculations and trying to calculate the date of Easter, and is one of the main reasons that the B.C./A.D. calendar system became popular. He's also the only native of Great Britain to be declared a Doctor of the Church .  Lifetime:  ~672 to 735 Region:  England Patronages: English writers; English historians Iconograpy:  Writing a book; Feather pen; Biretta Feast Day:  May 25 (Western); May 27 (Eastern) Little is known about Bede's early life, and most of what is known is from an autobiographical chapter in one of his books. Nothing is known about his parents except that, when Bede was seven, they sent him to live and study at a monastery, a practice which was common among Irish nobility at the time, and possibly among his own people as well. When that monastery opened a sister monastery nearby, he transferred to the new one

Father Damien famously lived out his life willingly among a Hawaiian leper colony, despite it being untreatable and considered highly contagious in that time. The model he used with the people of Molokai inspired others in the US during the height of the HIV/AIDS outbreaks. Lifetime:  1840 to 1889 Region:  Belgium; Hawaii Patronages: People with leprosy; Hawaii Iconograpy:  Missionary's hat; Lei; Leprosy wounds Feast Day:  May 10 Father Damien (as he came to be known) was born Jozef, the youngest of seven children born to corn merchant parents in Belgium. He went to school when he was young, but dropped out at 13 to help his family on the farm. However, his education did resume later when his father sent him to college, but while Damien was there, he encountered a religious mission and decided to instead pursue a religious life himself. Because of his lack of education, Damien was almost prevented from becoming a priest, but he was allowed due to his fluency in Latin, which his