Fr. Francis Xavier Weiser, S.J. (1901-1986), was born in Vienna, Austria, and entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1916. He studied at the University of Innsbruck in the Tyrol and at the Gregorian University and earned doctorates in philosophy and psychology and two doctorates in theology. After his ordination in 1930, he studied in the United States for a year and then returned to Austria, where he served as the editor of a youth magazine and as a national moderator of youth sodalities. After the Nazi invasion in 1938, he fled to the United States and became an American citizen. He served at parishes in Buffalo and Boston and taught at Boston's Emmanuel College and at Boston College. From 1943 to 1945, he also served as an auxiliary chaplain to German prisoners at Fort Devens in Massachusetts. Fr. Weiser wrote twenty-two books. In his books on Catholic feasts, he sought to make readers aware of the origins and meanings of the customs they observed, making family celebrations of Catholic