January 17
Saints of the Day...and Events

St. Anthony of Egypt, of the Desert, the Abbot (251-356)

    The Egyptian who retired to the desert and became the Patriarch of Monastic Life
    Anthony immured himself in a ruin, building up the door so that none could enter.
    Saint Anthony’s only food was bread and water, which he never tasted before sunset, and sometimes only once in two, three, or four days. He wore sackcloth and sheepskin, and he often knelt in prayer from sunset to sunrise.
    His admirers became so many and so insistent that he was eventually persuaded to found two monasteries for them and to give them a rule of life. These were the first monasteries ever to be founded, and Saint Anthony is, therefore, the father of cenobites of monks.
    He died at age of a hundred and five

    http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1263
    St. Anthony of Egypt
    Saint Anthony of the Desert 

Events of January 17 - Saints of January 17:

http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0117.htm