Today is the feast day of Peter Canisius. Wouldnât you know theyâd give him the shortest day of the year.
He is not a saint who deserves short shrift â especially in Buffalo, where Canisius High School and Canisius College are named for him.
They opened 150 years ago. And, as it happens, 150 is a round number that fits well with Peter Canisius. He wrote his famed Triple Catechism in the mid-1550s, and over the next 150 years it would go through 400 editions.
You need not be a Canisius graduate â high school or college â to have an interest in this saint. You need only be from Buffalo, where his name is as familiar as snow in December. The name holds less fame away from Western New York: Bones McKinney, Wake Forest Universityâs basketball coach in the 1950s, once said of a potential pairing in the NCAA tournament that he didnât know how to spell Canisius.