St. Sebastian is is often depicted as tied to a tree and pierced by many arrows. Ambrose says Sebastian was from Milan and was venerated there during Ambrose's episcopate in the latter part of the 4th century. It appears Sebastian died in the great persecution...
Saint Agnes was a young girl of only 12 years of age who was martyred in Rome during the latter half of the third century or at the beginning of the fourth century, during the fierce persecution of Diocletian. Pope Damasus (ca. 380) honored her...
St. Vincent was a deacon of the Church of Saragossa, Spain in the first years of the fourth century. In the course of the brutal persecution of the emperor Diocletian, Vincent was apprehended and ordered to surrender the sacred books. When he refused, he was...
This prayer is an excerpt from a sermon On the Trinity by Saint Hilary of Poitiers, a bishop and early Church Father of the fourth century who struggled valiantly against the Arian heresy, defending the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity....
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']T[/dropcaps]hat Jesus should come and be baptized by John is surely cause for amazement. To think of the infinite river that gladdens the city of God being bathed in a poor little stream of the eternal, the unfathomable fountainhead that...
"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...
St. Maximus of Turin for the Feast of the Epiphany on the mystery of the Lord's baptism in the Jordan....
Here Gregory Nazianzen points out that Christ was baptized not for his sake but for ours. Sanctifying the waters of baptism for all generations to come, he manifested the the Trinity through the Spirit who comes to rest on him in the form of...
January 1 is a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics not because it is New Years, but because it is the octave (8th day) of Christmas, the feast of Mary the Mother of God. This feast helps bring home the reality of the incarnation, that...
Leo the Great reminds us that Christmas, the nativity of the Lord Jesus, is the birthday of peace and our birthday as well, since we are members of Christ's body, the Church....