Lenten fasting works best when accompanied by almsgiving and works of mercy, says Leo the Great, writing around AD 450. This powerful combination brings healing, spiritual renewal, and progress in virtue....
Cyril, speaking to new Christians in Jerusalem around AD 360, explains why the Church is called catholic. The word "catholic" comes from the Greek word meaning "whole," "entire," or "all." After explaining the meaning of catholic, Cyril goes on to explain the meaning...
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...
Gregory the Great here discusses the Lord's exhortation to pray for preachers of the gospel who are true laborers since the harvest is great but the serious laborers are few. It is fittingly read on the St. Luke the Evangelist on October 18....
St. Teresa of Avila on friendship with Jesus as the key to contemplation and the spiritual life and how all blessings, particularly contemplative prayer, come through the humanity of Christ. This selection is read on the Feast or liturgical memorial of Saint Teresa of Avila...
St. Bernard of Clairvaux here helps us meditate on the mysteries that are the heartbeat of the rosary. The celebration of the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7 invites all to meditate upon the mysteries of Christ, following the example of...
The key penitential practices of Lent-prayer, fasting, and almsgiving or mercy are here explained by one of the greatest preachers of the early Church. Saint Peter Chrysologus shows how Lenten prayer, mercy and fasting are one, and they give life to each other....
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...
Here Peter Chrysologus brings together the three events traditionally remembered on the Solemnity of the Epiphany: the visit of the Magi or Wise men, Christ's baptism in the Jordan River, and Jesus' first miracle performed at the Wedding Feast of Cana....
Saint John of the Cross makes clear that the only path to profound knowledge of God and the joy that this brings is through tribulation and suffering. But this difficult path is worth traveling. For Christ, the destination, is like a mine with many pockets...