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…
St. Prisca was a noble Roman lady, and after many torments finished her triumph by the sword, about the year 275. She is venerated at Rome in a church of the same name on Mount Aventine. The tradition at Rome is that St. Peter consecrated an altar, and baptized there in an urn of stone…
Marius a nobleman of Persia with his wife Martha and two sons Audifax and Abachum being converted to the faith, distributed his fortune among the poor as the primitive Christians did at Jerusalem and came to Rome to visit the tombs of the apostles in the year 270. The emperor Aurelian then persecuted the church,…
Marius a nobleman of Persia with his wife Martha and two sons Audifax and Abachum being converted to the faith, distributed his fortune among the poor as the primitive Christians did at Jerusalem and came to Rome to visit the tombs of the apostles in the year 270. The emperor Aurelian then persecuted the church,…
Together with St. Cecilia, St. Agnes is one of the most famous Roman martyrs. At the height of persecution when many of the faithful, and even the clergy, were giving up the faith, she remained faithful to Christ and made the sacrifice of her youthful life. St. Ambrose and St. Damasus praised the example that…
The Church celebrates together the anniversaries of two martyrs: the great Spanish deacon, St. Vincent, burned to death at Saragossa in 304, and a Persian monk, St. Anastasius, beheaded in 628. Two famous churches at Rome are dedicated to them, some of their relics being kept in Tre Fontane, the traditional site of St. Paul’s…
Born at Penafort, near Barcelona, St. Raymund is one of the glories of the Dominicans. As a moral theologian and an outstanding minister of the sacrament of penance he placed his knowledge, which was extensive, at the service of the cause of the conversion of the Moors. He was renowned for his miracles and for…
On the eve of the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Church has fixed the feast of St. Timothy, his faithful companion on his missionary journeys. Timothy also suffered imprisonment for Christ, and gloriously confessed his name, in the presence of many witnesses; but was set at liberty. He was ordained bishop by…
