Saint of the Day

01 · Read · A life to discover

St. Romuald

Romuald was an Italian monk who sought to renew religious life through silence, prayer, and disciplined community. After entering a monastery near Ravenna, he learned from hermits and traveled widely, founding or reforming monasteries and hermitages. His work eventually became associated with the Camaldolese tradition.

The early life links his entry into religion with horror at a killing involving his father. His subsequent search for stricter observance brought him to the hermit Marinus and to Cuxa in Catalonia. The account presents a vocation formed through repeated attempts to find a workable religious discipline.

Camaldoli united individual cells with the support of a nearby monastery. This practical arrangement helps explain the community's distinctive inheritance. Legendary explanations of its foundation and miraculous episodes can be appreciated as part of its memory without resolving every chronological uncertainty.

That tradition joins the solitude of the hermit with the support of monastic community. Early accounts include striking stories and disputed chronology, including an implausibly long lifespan, so precise details require caution. Romuald died at Val di Castro in 1027. His memorial in the current Roman calendar is June 19, replacing an older February observance.

This saint is included on this recurring date in the U.S. Roman Rite calendar published by the USCCB. This reading guide gives U.S. calendar saints priority; the Mass celebrated on a particular year’s date can differ because of Sundays, seasons or higher-ranking celebrations.