Biographies, Memoirs, Clergy, Religious 

Redemptorist Father Francis Xavier Seelos (1819-1867) was beatified by Pope John Paul II in the Solemn Jubilee Year 2000. Father Seelos possessed great mystical gifts due to his intense prayer life. His dedication to ministry with cheerful holiness makes him still an outstanding model for clergy, religious and laity alike. As an itinerant preacher and lifelong friend of the poor and destitute, Francis Seelos was a spiritual father to tens of thousands. Despite his early death at age forty-eight, so profound was his missionary zeal that sickness, persecution, and even the upheaval caused by a civil war could not stop him.
"To meet Father Seelos is to meet someone you will never forget. It isn't because he was handsome, which he was; it isn't because he had an attractive personality, which he did; it isn't because he could tell a joke, which he could. It isn't for any of these reasons. He leaves an impression because you feel close to God by being with him. And you feel that somehow through him you yourself become nearer to God - now knowing a little bit more about Him and His ways." Father Carl Hoegerl, C. SS. R.