Quiz: Can you identify these sinners who became saints?

Sr. Theresa Noble reminded us of 5 reasons you should love (not hate) St. Paul, the apostle who persecuted early Christians until his famous conversion on the road to Damascus. This got the Daily Catch staff wondering, ‘Which other saints have dark beginnings?’

We have assembled several questions on this subject. First we will give a description of a saint and then there will be a multiple choice of saints for you to choose from. No cheating now!

“The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past while every sinner has a future.” – Oscar Wilde

Description 1:
This saint was once a servant to a government official who released him for theft and suspected murder. He became the leader of a gang of bandits who spread terror in their area. He needed to hide from authorities and took refuge among a colony of monks, whose religious devotion affected him so deeply that he converted to Christianity and lived as one of their order.

His mentor once brought him to the roof in the early morning to watch the sunrise, where the monk told him, “Only slowly do the rays of the sun drive away the night and usher in a new day, and thus, only slowly does one become a perfect contemplative.”

Description 2:
This saint ran away from home at the age of 12. She begged and spun flax and sold her body to make a living, although it claims in her Vita that she would often not accept money for sexual favors as she was driven “by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion.” At a whim she boarded a ship of pilgrims sailing to the Holy Land, paying for passage with her body.

She continued her lifestyle in Jerusalem until one day, when trying to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, her body could not pass the threshold. She went to a statue of the Blessed Mother outside of the church and prayed to her, vowing to renounce her lifestyle if she could only enter the church. When she went back to the entrance she was allowed through, venerated the cross, and went into the desert to live the rest of her life as a hermit.

ANSWERS for today’s quiz can be found here.

All links and attributions can be found on the Answers page.