Ambrose here treats of the Holy Spirit as the abundant river of grace that flows from Jesus, the Font of life, in the form of seven channels which are the seven gifts that overflow the banks of our minds leading us to supernatural knowledge of...
Excerpts from two ancient Holy Week homilies followed by a special Holy Week thanksgiving prayer appropriate for either personal or corporate use. Super devotions for the sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday....
This excerpt from a catechetical instruction by St. Cyril of Jerusalem dates from the mid 4th Century, just a generation after the Council of Nicaea. At that time, the bishop of Jerusalem himself instructed the catechumens before baptism (today's RCIA), and this is a record...
John Chrysostom here comments on the famous lines in the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus calls his disciples the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World (Matt. 5: 15-16). [dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']Y[/dropcaps]ou are the salt of the earth....
Augustine, commenting on the psalms command to sing to God songs of joy, notes that the jubilation in our hearts sometimes overflows the capacity of all words, yet we cannot remain silent. The Church recalls such songs of joy on the feast of St....
St. John Chrysostom proclaimed the Gospel fearlessly despite the jealousy and hatred directed at him by the supposedly Christian Empress and Imperial Court of Constantinople around AD 400. In the face of government threats he proclaims "If Christ is with me, whom shall I...
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....
Augustine shows how, inasmuch as Jesus Christ, the son of God, became man, he himself was the subject of predestination. By divine grace, not by human merits, Jesus was predestined to be of the line of David according to his sacred humanity....
Jerome shows that the living waters & springs for which the deer longs in Psalm 42, is in fact the Trinity. In so doing, he also provides an explanation of what Jesus meant by calling the apostles "fishers of men." ...
St. Peter Chrysologus contrasts the first, earthly Adam with our Lord Jesus Christ, viewed as the second, last Adam, the man from heaven....