St. Caesar de Bus

St. Caesar de Bus was born in 1544 at Cavaillon in Provence, France, and died on 15 April 1607 at Avignon. In his youth he was drawn to the pleasures and ambitions of the world, following for a time the life of a soldier and courtier, until a profound conversion in his early thirties turned him wholly to God; ordained a priest, he gave himself to preaching, to the care of the poor and the sick, and above all to the teaching of Christian doctrine.

Deeply concerned by the widespread ignorance of the faith among ordinary people, he devoted his life to catechesis and founded a congregation of priests, the Fathers of Christian Doctrine, to instruct the faithful, especially the young and the uneducated, in the truths of the Gospel. He labored at this work with great zeal even after he was struck by blindness and illness in his final years. Beatified long after his death, he was canonized in 2022, and his memory is kept on 15 April.