Saints Archives

St. Augustine of Hippo, “Late have I loved you” – Discerning Hearts

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The importance of his life and contribution to the Church cannot be overstated. St. Augustine, one of the greatest of the Church Fathers, has not only influenced the Church, but the thought of the world as we know it. The story of his conversion as chronicled in his “Confessions”, would be enough, but then add the body of his theological work and you have nothing less than a glimpse of what is truly the power of “grace and mercy”.

Mike Aquilina is one of the best at bringing this great saint’s life into perspective.

For a more detail accounting of St. Augustine’s life, you can visit Lives of the Saints

Spiritual Writings:

– Confessions
– Letters
– City of God
– Christian Doctrine
– On the Holy Trinity
– The Enchiridion
– On the Catechising of the Uninstructed
– On Faith and the Creed
– Concerning Faith of Things Not Seen
– On the Profit of Believing
– On the Creed: A Sermon to Catechumens
– On Continence
– On the Good of Marriage
– On Holy Virginity
– On the Good of Widowhood
– On Lying
– To Consentius: Against Lying
– On the Work of Monks
– On Patience
– On Care to be Had For the Dead
– On the Morals of the Catholic Church
– On the Morals of the Manichaeans
– On Two Souls, Against the Manichaeans
– Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus the Manichaean
– Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental
– Reply to Faustus the Manichaean
– Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichaeans
– On Baptism, Against the Donatists
– Answer to Letters of Petilian, Bishop of Cirta
– Merits and Remission of Sin, and Infant Baptism
– On the Spirit and the Letter
– On Nature and Grace
– On Man’s Perfection in Righteousness
– On the Proceedings of Pelagius
– On the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin
– On Marriage and Concupiscence
– On the Soul and its Origin
– Against Two Letters of the Pelagians
– On Grace and Free Will
– On Rebuke and Grace
– The Predestination of the Saints/Gift of Perseverance
– Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount
– The Harmony of the Gospels
– Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament
– Tractates on the Gospel of John
– Homilies on the First Epistle of John
– Soliloquies
– The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

For me, out of all the St. Augustine’s work, this is the piece that deeply touches my heart and is one of my all-time favorite prayers:

Late Have I Loved You
A Prayer of Saint Augustine

Late have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
And behold, you were within me and I was outside, and there I sought for you, and in my deformity I rushed headlong into the well-formed things that you have made.

You were with me, and I was not with you. Those outer beauties held me far from you, yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all.

You called, and cried out to me and broke open my deafness; you shone forth upon me and you scattered my blindness.

You breathed fragrance, and I drew in my breath and I now pant for you.

I tasted, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.

This prayer is from his book, “Confessions.”

St. Augustine of Hippo, “Late have I loved you”

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Mike Aquilina is one of the best at bringing this great saint’s life into perspective.

For a more detail accounting of St. Augustine’s life, you can visit Lives of the Saints

Spiritual Writings:

For me, out of all the St. Augustine’s work, this is the piece that deeply touches my heart and is one of my all-time favorite prayers:

Late Have I Loved You
A Prayer of Saint Augustine

You were with me, and I was not with you. Those outer beauties held me far from you, yet if they had not been in you, they would not have existed at all.

You called, and cried out to me and broke open my deafness; you shone forth upon me and you scattered my blindness.

You breathed fragrance, and I drew in my breath and I now pant for you.

I tasted, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.

This prayer is from his book, “Confessions.”

St. Monica, who never gave up hope, pray for us who do – Discerning Hearts

St. Monica (331-387) a “shining light of Christ” example of perserverance in prayer! We have her as an outstanding model of never giving up…what a gift to us! Today we can turn to her and see what sticking to it can do, but did you ever think, “Who was her example?” She didn’t know how the story of her son, St. Augustine would turn out. She didn’t know that he would be transformed by grace into one of the greatest Doctors of the Church who ever lived. Monica must have become frustrated, and at times filled with anxiety and maybe even a degree of despair, but she persevered through it all! She surely suffered emotionally for her lost son, but she never gave up her hope in God and faith in His promises…the energy of her love for her son fueled her prayer and grace transformed his seeking heart. It took 30 years, but it happened.

A few months after his conversion, Augustine, Monica and Adeodatus (her other son), set out to return to Africa, but Monica died at Ostia, the ancient port city of Rome, and she was buried there. Some pictures show her so old, but when you think of it, she was only 56 when she died. Augustine was so deeply moved by his mother’s death that he was inspired to write his Confessions, “So be fulfilled what my mother desired of me–more richly in the prayers of so many gained for her through these confessions of mine than by my prayers alone” (Book IX.13.37)

An account of Monica’s early life, her childhood, marriage, her final days and her death, is given in Confessions Book IX, 8-12. He expresses his gratitude for her life:

“I will not speak of her gifts, but of thy gift in her; for she neither made herself nor trained herself. Thou didst create her, and neither her father nor her mother knew what kind of being was to come forth from them. And it was the rod of thy Christ, the discipline of thy only Son, that trained her in thy fear, in the house of one of thy faithful ones who was a sound member of thy Church” (IX.8.7).

Centuries later, Monica’s body was brought to Rome, and eventually her relics were interred in a chapel left of the high altar of the Church of St. Augustine in Rome (see below).

St. Monica, who never gave up hope, pray for us who do

An account of Monica’s early life, her childhood, marriage, her final days and her death, is given in Confessions Book IX, 8-12. He expresses his gratitude for her life:

Centuries later, Monica’s body was brought to Rome, and eventually her relics were interred in a chapel left of the high altar of the Church of St. Augustine in Rome (see below).

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, mystical doctor of the Church…grace is all we need

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a great mystical doctor of the Church. What a heart for Jesus and the Blessed Virgin (I’m sure he still has).

“There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge
That is curiosity.

–

There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others
That is vanity.
–

There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve
That is love.”

–

St. Bernard

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, was a Cisterian monk, who lived in France in the 12th century. Living at a time when the great gothic cathedrals where born, St. Bernard, advocated for simplicity and austerity in life. He was concerned about the temptations of worldly things and desires. He wished to focus solely on the love of Christ and the Blessed Mother; everything else was folly.
To read more about the details of his life you can visit here.

What captures my heart is his legacy of prayer and spiritual writings. He truly deserves the title Doctor of the Church. What a feast he has left us! Pope John Paul II has said that if we wish to learn to pray, look to the Mystical Doctors…he truly is one of those special souls. There is so much, where can one begin? Begin with Mary. Ask the Blessed Mother, she will lead you through his teachings.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux composed the famous prayer to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary known as The Memorare

REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

St. Bernard on the Blessed Mother

St. Bernard on Holy Repentance

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Highly recommended reading introduction to St. Bernard would be – “The Fulfillment of All Desire” by Ralph Martin

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St. Maximus the Confessor, last Father and first Doctor of the Church with Mike Aquilina – Discerning Hearts

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St. Maximus the Confessor

lived approx. 500 years after Hippolytus. He is one of the 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

St. Alphonsus Ligouri, patron of Confessors and Theologians, pray for them…and us

I always say a quick prayer to St. Alphonsus Ligouri before I go into the confessional. He is the great founder of the Redemptorists, and a man who loved the Blessed Mother very much. His “Glories of Mary” is one of my favorite devotional books on the Blessed Virgin. He also wrote “Moral Theology”. He wrote it primarily based on his pastoral experience, as well as his education, which explains it’s ability to speak to us today. That pastoral experience, combined with his great prayer life, as well as his tremendous knowledge, made him such a wonderful confessor. What a heart this man had. He is a living example of how the journey can be made “from the head to the heart”. He is patron of Confessors and Theologians.

Petition to Mary by Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Most holy Virgin Immaculate, my Mother Mary,
to thee who art the Mother of my Lord,
the queen of the universe,
the advocate, the hope, the refuge of sinners,
I who am the most miserable of all sinners, have recourse this day.

I venerate thee, great queen,
and I thank thee for the many graces
thou has bestowed upon me even unto this day;
in particular for having delivered me from the hell
which I have so often deserved by my sins.

I love thee, most dear Lady;
and for the love I bear thee,
I promise to serve thee willingly forever
and to do what I can to make thee loved by others also.

I place in thee all my hopes for salvation;
accept me as thy servant
and shelter me under thy mantle,
thou who art the Mother of mercy.

And since thou art so powerful with God,
deliver me from all temptations,
or at least obtain for me the strength to overcome them until death.
From thee I implore a true love for Jesus Christ.

Through thee I hope to die a holy death.

My dear Mother,
by the love thou bearest to Almighty God,
I pray thee to assist me always,
but most of all at the last moment of my life.

Forsake me not then,
until thou shalt see me safe in heaven,
there to bless thee and sing of thy mercies through all eternity.

Such is my hope.
Amen.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein…the genius of woman, the glory of God

From the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary:
Main Entry: ¹mar·tyr
Pronunciation: ˈmär-tər
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin, from Greek martyr-, martys witness
Date: before 12th century

1 : a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion
2 : a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle

On this day, August 9, 1942,
Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) became a martyr for the faith in the Auschwitz death camp. She continues to witness today.

St. Alphonsus, “outstanding moral theologian and master of spiritual life”

VATICAN CITY, 30 MAR 2011 (VIS) – In this Wednesday’s general audience, celebrated in St Peter’s Square, the Pope spoke about St. Alphonsus Maria of Liguori, bishop, Doctor of the Church and “outstanding moral theologian and master of spiritual life”.

“St. Alphonsus was born in 1696 to a rich and noble Neapolitan family”, and undertook a brilliant career as a lawyer, which he abandoned in order to become a priest in 1726.

The Holy Father explained that the saint “began his work of evangelisation and catechesis at the most humble levels of Neapolitan society, to whom he enjoyed preaching and whom he instructed in the basic truths of the faith”.

In 1732 he founded the religious congregation of the Holy Redeemer. Its members, “under the guidance of Alphonsus, were genuine itinerant missionaries, who travelled to the remotest villages exhorting conversion to the faith and perseverance in Christian life, above all by means of prayer”.

Benedict XVI recalled that St. Alphonsus died in 1787, was canonised in 1839 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1871. This title was granted for a number of reasons. Firstly, for his valuable teachings in the field of moral theology, which accurately expressed Catholic doctrine and on account of which Pius XII proclaimed him as “patron of all confessors and moralists”.

“St. Alphonsus”, continued the Pope, “never tired of repeating that priests were a visible sign of the infinite mercy of God, Who pardons and illuminates the minds and hearts of sinners that they might convert and change their lives. In our age, in which there are clear signs of a loss of moral conscience and – it is necessary to note with some concern – a certain lack of respect for the Sacrament of Confession, the teaching of St. Alphonsus remains valid”.

Read more

The feast of St. Bridget of Sweden and the Pieta Prayer book – Discerning Hearts

St. Bridget of Sweden…I never knew the power of the revelations to St. Bridget of Sweden until someone “reintroduced” them to me. I say “reintroduced”, because I had bought the Pieta Prayer booklet (where they can be found) back in 1987. I offered them, really, only for a short while before packing the book away. But years later, after seeing how the revelations touched the heart of others, I dug the booklet out and started praying them again (as faithfully as I could). They are very powerful and beautiful. Meditating on the Passion of our Lord with the intensity called for in this particular devotion will change your life…are you ready? How many of you out there have the Pieta prayer book and know the stories of St. Bridget of Sweden?
(oh, be sure not to confuse her with St. Brigid of Kildare…it happens all the time)

Here is the audio mp3 download of the 15 Prayers of St. Bridget

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You can find the text for the prayers here

Here is the chapel in St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome where St. Bridget received the private revelation of the 15 prayers…….

Of course, St. Bridget is more than just her prayers…ordinary woman, extraordinary life!. To learn more about St. Bridget of Sweden, take a look at this: