Leo the Great on Mary, the Royal Virgin of the house of David, mother of the Messiah and Our Lady of Mount Carmel. [dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']A[/dropcaps] royal virgin of the house of David is chosen. She is to bear holy child, one who is...
Lenten fasting works best when accompanied by almsgiving and works of mercy, says Leo the Great, writing around AD 450. This powerful combination brings healing, spiritual renewal, and progress in virtue....
Saint Leo says the genealogy of Jesus given us in Luke and Matthew's gospels shows that Jesus was truly one of us, possessing a complete human nature. He did not merely appear in human form, as in the biblical types and scriptural symbols of the...
The Solemnity or Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord is celebrated on March 25. Here, in his typically lyrical language and powerful imagery, Leo the Great ponders the unfathomable mystery of God becoming man in the womb of a Virgin who had the...
Leo the Great here emphasizes that the Incarnation, the mystery of God becoming man, changes everything. Human dignity is now vastly elevated, requiring us to live in a new way, with a new relationship to the visible things of this beautiful but passing world....
"Epiphany" means revelation or appearance of a King. On this feast, the church celebrates the revelation of Christ as King, messiah, Lord, and God to the Gentiles, to all nations, represented by the Magi from the east. [dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']T[/dropcaps]he loving providence of...
The letter of Pope Leo to Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, about Eutyches Commonly known as the "Tome of Leo" In the first half of the 5th century, the great doctrinal controversies in the Christian world all revolved around the divinity and humanity of Christ and how these...
Leo the Great teaches that he sign of the cross with the oil called chrism, conferred on all Christians in baptism and confirmation, makes all sharers in the priesthood and kingship of Christ, the anointed one....
Commenting on the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mt. Tabor, Leo contrasts the law, symbolized by Moses, with the grace of the gospel brought by Jesus Christ. He notes how this glimpse of the glory of his divinity and risen humanity was given to...
Leo the Great on the famous passage from Matthew 16 in which Jesus gives Cephas the new name of Peter, meaning rock, along with the keys to the kingdom of heaven. It is read each year on the Feast of the Chair of...