Saint John Chrysostom here speaks of the gift of prayer as continual conversation with God that proceeds from longing for God that lifts the soul into the heavens where it embraces God and brings great joy and light to the soul....
Here St. Cyril of Alexandria comments on the promise of God the Father to pour out his Holy Spirit on all mankind in order to renew and restore our wounded human nature. In his baptism, the Lord Jesus Christ, "the first-fruits of our restored nature," receives...
Hanukkah, which always occurs during the Christian season of Advent, has a significance not only for Jews but for Christians and all lovers of religious freedom....
This excerpt from St. Irenaeus shows that the Blessed Virgin Mary is truly a new Eve, just as her son Jesus Christ is a new Adam. He contrasts Eve's disobedience with Mary's obedience....
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']H[/dropcaps]appy Holidays! Seasons Greetings. Holiday Tree. For years our increasingly secular culture has worked hard to expunge “Christ” from “Christmas.” So it is understandable that serious Christians would be suspicious of using “Xmas” to refer to the feast of Christ’s birth. But...
Augustine explains that constant prayer does not mean non-stop church services or recitation of prayers, but a ceaseless desire of the heart for union with God in heaven. This constant desire for God, actually, is one of the three theological virtues, namely the virtue...
By his wounds we are healed- this reading on the Savior's passion is taken from a treatise On the Incarnation of the Lord by Saint Theodoret of Cyr. It reflects on several key scripture passages, including the Song of the Suffering Servant found in...
Origen, commenting on the book of Joshua, shows that the early Church saw the sacrament of baptism not only as the crossing of the Red Sea, but also as the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land....
Leo the Great explains how the Ascenion increases our faith in what is unseen, namely the divinity of Christ, and how our Redeemer's visible presence after the Ascension passes into the sacraments....
This excerpt on the sacrament of baptism from St. Basil the Great’s book On the Holy Spirit (ca. AD 360) describes how baptism fulfills what Jesus says to Nicodemus in John 3 about being born again in water and the Spirit. He also here outlines...