Gregory of Nyssa urges us here to follow Paul's command to keep your eyes fixed on Christ rather than be preoccupied with earthly trivialities. The wise man heeds this advice. The fool preoccupies himself with things destined to pass away....
The Letter to Diognetus, dating from approximately 125AD, is the earliest example we have of an "apology," a defense the Christian faith addressed to a non-Christian. This brief but wonderful document is so close to the time of the Apostles that it is reckoned as...
Here St. Ambrose comments on the biblical theme of God as Our Refuge (Pslam 45) and emphasizes God's incomparable goodness for which we must thirst as if deer longing for fountains of water....
On Baptism Tertullian Early Church Father [dropcaps type='normal' font_size='65' color='' background_color='' border_color='']C[/dropcaps]HAPTER 1 Introduction. Origin of the treatise. Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life! A treatise on this matter will...
The infinite mercy and goodness of God are revealed in the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, & the Good Samaritan. St. Maximus the Confessor says these prove that Jesus Christ goes to any lengths to seek us out when we have...
LETTERS 60-173 ST. LEO THE GREAT Early Church Father & Doctor of the Church [Translated by the Rev. Charles Lett Feltoe, M.A., late Fellow of ClareCollege, Cambridge.] (NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.) [dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100'...
Christ Lives in His Church St. Leo the Great Early Church Father & Doctor of the Church This excerpt from a sermon by Saint Leo the Great (Sermo 12 de Passione, 3, 6-7: PL 54, 355-357) is used in the Roman Catholic Office of Readings for Wednesday of...
This reflection on baptism as illumination or enlightenment was written by St. Justin Martyr around 155AD in Rome and reflects the liturgical practices of not only the Church in that city, but most probably the practice of the Church in Ephesus and Palestine as well,...
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']I[/dropcaps]gnatius, who is also called Theophorus, to Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Smyrnæans, or rather, who has, as his own bishop, God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ: [wishes] abundance of happiness. CHAPTER I.-- COMMENDATION AND EXHORTATION. Having obtained good proof that...
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']I[/dropcaps]gnatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, which is at Philadelphia, in Asia, which has obtained mercy, and is established in the harmony of God, and rejoiceth unceasingly in...