Sometimes, the voice of a saint echoes clearly to us down through the centuries. As a young adult, I found myself struggling, in the ordinary way of young people, with feeling alienated from God. In a fit of teenage rebellion, I had told God to get out of my life and leave me alone. Now, entangled in patterns of sin that I was powerless to unravel, I needed God’s help but didn’t know how to get it. I didn’t even know if it was possible. More »

St. Anthony of Padua was a great Franciscan preacher from the Middle Ages, but he is most remembered as the finder of lost or stolen objects. Even today stories are told by people who recover lost articles following prayer for the intercession of St. Anthony. More »

Nothing ever happened to Matt Talbot, an ordinary Irish laborer of no great learning, no riches, no remarkable accomplishments. More »

In his living room wall, Matthew Segaali has a painting of twenty-two young men and boys in Ugandan tribal dress. More »

“Ecco Filippone! Here comes the great Philip!” This was not an unfamiliar cry in the streets of sixteenth-century Rome as the local youth spotted Philip Neri strolling down the street with his friends in the late afternoon. Philip was hard to miss, with his large white shoes, rough coat and comical hat. More »

The most famous photograph we have of him was taken just a few weeks before his death. It depicts a priest in a faded black cassock, wearing a battered hat whose sides are held up by string. More »

The modern tendency to enshrine the human intellect—to the exclusion of the spiritual—was well underway in mid-nineteenth century Europe. More »

Ever since the third century, when efforts were made to meld the four Gospels into one, the church has insisted on maintaining the separate integrity of each account of the good news. More »