St. Amalberge, mother of this saint, was niece to Pepin, mayor of the palace. Gudula was educated at Nivelle, under the care of St. Gertrude, her cousin and god-mother; after whose death in 664, she returned to the house of count Witger, her father, and having by vow consecrated her virginity to God, led there…
According to their acts, and the ancient Martyrologies, though engaged in a married state, they by mutual consent lived in perpetual chastity, sanctified themselves by the most perfect exercises of an ascetic life, and employed their revenues in relieving the poor and the sick; for this purpose they converted their house into a kind of…
Agatho, a Sicilian by birth was remarkable for his charity and benevolence, a profound humility and an engaging sweetness of temper. Having been several years treasurer of the church of Rome, he succeeded Domnus in the pontificate in 679. He presided in the sixth general council which ruled against the Monothelite heresy, “Acknowledged,” says he,…
During the four years of his pontificate (138-142), St. Hyginus, successor to St. Telesphorus as Pope, opposed the heresy of Valentinus who at this period came to propagate his errors in the heart of the Christian community in Rome. He also fought the heresy of Cerdo with excommunication, twice, the second after a false repentance.
During the reign of Valerian or Diocletian, St. Arcadius was condemned to death by cutting off his limbs joint by joint. Arcadius, with a joyful countenance, surveying his scattered limbs all around him, and offering them to God said, “Happy members, now dear to me, as you at last truly belong to God, being all…
Epiphany, the manifestation of the Lord: guided by this thought the East has made the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist the central theme of its feast on January 6, the voice of the Father, the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, the testimony of John, all constituting the…
Bishop of Poitiers in the fourth century, St. Hilary was one of the great champions of Catholic belief in the divinity of Christ. By his preaching, his treatise on the Trinity, his part in the Councils, his daring opposition to the Emperor Constantius, he showed himself a courageous apostle of the truth. He could not…
It was from St. Jerome (420) that the west learnt of the life of St. Paul; the book which he devoted to the life of the first Christian hermit charmed and instructed generations of the faithful and formed the inspiration of many artists. St. Paul is said to have died in 341, in a hermitage…
Just at the time when Diocletian had spent his first violence against the Church, St. Marcellus was elected Pope (308). He reorganized the Catholic hierarchy disrupted by the persecution. His epitaph, composed by St. Damasus tells us that by enforcing the canons of holy penance, he drew upon himself the contradictions and persecutions of many…
A few days after St. Paul, the first hermit, the Church today celebrates the feast of St. Antony, the father of monks. Antony retired to the desert at about the age of eighteen in order to live in perfect solitude. The devil, for the purpose of making him give up his solitary life, appeared to…
