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Augustine of Hippo

Augustine, reflecting on how the Lord Jesus Christ was tempted in the wilderness for forty days, points out that it is only by means of overcoming trials and temptations that we progress in the spiritual life and grow in holiness....

This excerpt from St. Augustine's Treatise on John's Gospel (Tract. 123, 5: CCL 36, 678-680) is read on the feast day of St. Nicholas, December 6. It focuses on the real meaning of the gift-giving for which St. Nicholas is famous--the self-giving love of a...

Augustine on the famous words of Jesus "anyone who does the will of my Father who sent me is my brother and sister and my mother." This indicates Mary's true greatness as a disciple, one who conceived not only in body, but in faith; Augustine...

This excerpt on the Easter Alleluia from St. Augustine is a wonderful explanation of the joy of the Easter Season. Just as Lent was a season of penance, so the fifty days of Easter is a season of praise, an anticipation for the age to...

It is fitting that the feast of St. John, apostle and evangelist, occurs during the Christmas season. For it is John, in his gospel and his first epistle, who so clearly teaching us the wonder of the incarnation, the word of God and word...

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...

Augustine contrasts the role of John the Baptist, the voice crying out in the wilderness, with that of his cousin, Jesus, the Word of God made flesh. The humility of John, who prepared the way of the Lord, is highlighted. His joy was complete to...

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...