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Thursday, August 20, 2026 |
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Bernard of Clairvaux was an abbot, mystic, and Doctor of the Church whose preaching and writing made him one of the most influential figures of medieval Christianity. |
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Thursday, August 13, 2026 |
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Zenaida, Philonella, and Hermione were three early Christian women who are commemorated in the Orthodox Church as the first “unmercenary physicians”—Christian medical doctors who offered their skill to everyone and refused to accept payment. |
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Thursday, August 6, 2026 |
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Dominic de Guzmán founded the Order of Preachers in the early 13th century. Dominicans, as they are known, carry the designation OP (Ordo Praedicatorum, Latin for Order of Preachers). The new monastic order was to be a community focused on learning, preaching, and teaching to combat hurtful and misguided heresies within the Church and beyond. |
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Thursday, July 30, 2026 |
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The life of William Wilberforce refutes the popular notion that a politician cannot be a saintly Christian, dedicated to the service of humanity. Wilberforce's fame rests upon his persistent, uncompromising, and single-minded crusade for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade. That sordid traffic was abolished in 1807. He died just one month before Parliament put an end to slavery in the British dominions. |
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Thursday, July 23, 2026 |
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John Cassian was a fourth-century monk and theologian. His insistence that individual perfection can only be sought in community shaped monastic communities for generations. His theology of asceticism and God's grace expressed a fully human and fully divine view of salvation. |
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Thursday, July 16, 2026 |
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An Anglican patriot in the American Revolution and chaplain to the Continental Congress, William White was chosen unanimously as first Bishop of Pennsylvania and would become the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. |
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Thursday, July 9, 2026 |
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Benedict is generally considered the father of Western monasticism. It has been said that no personality or text in the history of monasticism has occasioned more studies than Benedict and his Rule. |
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Thursday, July 2, 2026 |
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Moses of Ethiopia, commonly called Moses the Black in early Christian literature, was a fourth-century monk. He was a fearsome raider and thief until a dramatic change of heart. While fleeing prosecution, he took shelter at a monastery. Converted by their kindness, he joined them, becoming a legendary ascetic. One fateful day, much later in life, he was warned that an armed band was approaching. "I have been waiting for this day to come for a long time," Moses said, refusing to flee. He and six of his brothers were martyred. |
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Thursday, June 25, 2026 |
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On June 24, we celebrate The Nativity of John the Baptist, the prophet and forerunner of Jesus. John the Baptizer is the only saint whose birth and martyrdom are both marked in the church calendar. When I was first considering becoming a priest, I went on a discernment retreat at Richmond Hill. Before becoming an ecumenical community and retreat center, Richmond Hill was a convent of the Catholic Sisters of the Visitation of Mary. All the rooms bear the names of saints and a Latin motto beneath them. I stayed in a room marked St. John the Baptist. "Contemptus mundi" read the motto, "contempt of the world." John preached the coming of the Messiah, rejecting the world's greed, cruelty, violence, and injustice. I thought, "I'm in the right place." [KL] |
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Thursday, June 18, 2026 |
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Basil of Caesarea was a fourth-century bishop and theologian like his brother Gregory of Nyssa and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus. A champion of the Nicene Creed, Basil also established influential rules for monastic communities and founded one of the earliest Christian hospitals for the poor. |
