• St. Peter Damiano was born of a poor family at Ravenna, about 988; and, being left an orphan in his childhood, went to live with an elder brother, who set him to tending swine. Another brother, who was a priest at Ravenna, took compassion on him, and educated him. He in turn became a teacher; and, being of an ascetic turn of mind, he called himself Peter the Sinner, wore a hair shirt, and was assiduous in fasting and prayer. Two Benedictine monks of the monastery of Fonte Avellana, passing through Ravenna, stopped at the house where he lodged; and he resolved to join their brotherhood, which he did soon afterward. In 1041 he became Abbot of the monastery, and in 1057, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia. In 1062 he returned to Fonte Avellana; and in 1072, being “fourscore and three years old,” died on his way to Rome, in the convent of Our Lady near Faenza. Of his life at Fonte Avellana, Butler, Lives of the Saints , ( Feb. 23,) II 217, says:⁠— “Whatever austerities he prescribed to others he was the first to practise himself, remitting nothing of them even in his old age. He lived shut up in his cell as in a prison, fasted every day, except festivals, and allowed himself no other subsistence than coarse bread, bran, herbs, and water, and this he never drank fresh, but what he had kept from the day before.