An anti-pope (and a great liturgist…it figures doesn’t it) who is considered a father of the Church and a saint. God’s great mercy knows no bounds! How does someone who was a self proclaimed pope (and considered the first anti-pope in Church history) become a saint? The story of St. Hippolytus is a fascinating one. A greek-speaking priest who who lived in the late 100’s – early 200’s; his writings on the Eucharistic liturgy are some of the most beautiful of all time. Check him out Mike Aquilina’s great blog The Ways of the Fathers
And take a listen as we talk about St. Hippolytus with Mike
St. Maximus the Confessor lived approx. 500 years after Hippolytus. He is one of last fathers of the Church and is consider one of the first of her doctors. A beautiful writer and homelist he said this once:
The sun of justice, rising into the clean mind, reveals Himself and the reasons of all that He created and will create.
Love defeats those three: self-deception, because she is not proud; Interior envy, because she is not jealous; Exterior envy, because she is generous and serene.
All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are inside our hearts hidden.
Faith without love does not act in the soul the illumination of the divine knowledge.
When the mind receives the ideas of things, by its nature is transformed according to each and every idea. If it sees the things spiritually, it is transfigured in many ways according to each vision. But if the mind becomes in God, then it becomes totally shapeless and formless, because seeing Him who has one face it comes to have one face and then the whole mind becomes a face of light.- taken from Speech on Love
He too, like St. Hippolytus, suffered a martyrs death. St. Maximus the Confessor, a remarkable man who Mike Aquilina tells us about.
Mike Aquilina’s excellent book “the Fathers of the Church” is a great 
introduction to the First Christian teachers.
It’s important I think to hear the stories of these great thinkers of the Church, who when the time came in a crazy world, had the courage to speak truth and surrender to God’s great love…if they can do it, why can’t we?
s deep love for the vocation he has lived all these many years. Though crisis may be rocking the Church with the current priest abuse scandals in other parts of the world, Fr. McBride helps us to see the rays of the Father’s grace and mercy which are bringing about renewal and hope in the face of the storm.
