John Damascene, early Church Father, on the Dormition and bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the end of her earthly life. This homily is cited by Pope Pius XII in his definition of the Assumption as a Dogma of faith....
St. Lawrence (also rendered St. Laurence) was one of the seven deacons of the Church of Rome and was martyred under the Emperor Valerian on the 10th of August 258, four days after Pope Sixtus II and his companions. Little is known of the life...
St. Clare is remembered in the liturgy of the Church on August 11. Inspired by her neighbor, Francis of Assisi and under his direction, she founded an order of nuns commonly called the “Poor Clares.” Though she lived a cloistered, contemplative life in the...
Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan priest, offered his life in exchange for the life of a family man doomed to execution by the Nazis at Auschwitz. The following excerpt from his writings contrasts religious indifferentism with the path of obedience to God's will and...
St. Anastasius of Sinai on the experience of Peter, James and John atop Mt. Tabor. Read on August 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus. We too are called to behold his radiance and say "it is good for us...
Peter Chrysologus notes the meaning of the incarnation, God becoming man, for human dignity. The humanity of Christ is the original sacrament from which all the others flow....
St. John Damascene extolls Sts. Joachim & Ann, parents of Mary, grandparents of Jesus. They have been honored at least since the 2nd century and their feast is July 26. ...
John Chrysostom on James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, and their mother's famous request that her sons sit at Jesus' right and left in the kingdom. St. James was born at Bethsaida and was martyred by Herod around the year 42. He is...
Augustine had sought God through an exotic Eastern cult and then through the best that Greco-Roman philosophy had to offer before he finally found Him through the Catholic Christianity that he had rejected as a teen. So he could proclaim from personal experience that Jesus...
Here Augustine reflects on hishat famous incident, recorded in Luke 10, when the Lord comes to the home of Martha and Mary. Martha busies herself with the details of hospitality, anxious and troubled about many things. In the Catholic tradition, Mary, seated at the Lord's...