St. Francis of Assisi - The Reformer Rebuild my Church! That’s the mission Christ gave to St. Francis and it’s the perennial task of the Church in every age of its life. But how is the reform and renewal of the Church to be accomplished? The life of St. Francis demonstrates that Christ intends the foundations of true and lasting reform to be built on the solid rock that is the radical witness of the saints.
St. Thomas Aquinas - The Theologian The relationship of faith and reason is under intense scrutiny in an age beholden to the competing claims of fundamentalism and secularism. So called “new atheists” insist that the claims of religion amount to mere superstition, a retrograde holdover from a time long ago. Others insist that the life of faith is a retreat into emotions and subjectivism. St. Thomas Aquinas anticipated these objections and trends and demonstrated that to believe is to think and that the life of the mind is integral to life in Christ.
St. Catherine of Siena - The Mystic Is the physical world all there is? Is science the only path to ascertaining truth? St. Catherine of Siena witnesses to a higher world beyond the material. Though the fourteenth century mystic never studied theology, and never learned how to read or write, her life constitutes a powerful challenge to the flattened-out secularism of our time.
Blessed John Henry Newman - The Convert Is there any truth in matters of religion? Should the Church simply retreat in the face of the challenges of culture? John Henry Newman came into the Church as a convert and used his prodigious intellectual gifts to help the Church better understand its identity and mission and engage the challenges of a secular age.
G.K. Chesterton - The Evangelist How does one engage a culture that is befuddled by Christ and suspicious of the Church? The life and witness of this nineteenth century literary convert shows that the fundamental disposition of effective evangelization is joy, and life in Christ is a day-to-day encounter with an abundant and surprising offer of grace.
Michelangelo - The Artist The master of sculpture and painting is not a saint but serves as the privileged representative of the creative potential engendered by the Catholic Faith. The Church professes that beauty is a route of access to God, and through humanity’s creative artistry we glimpse the power and glory of the Lord.
Perhaps the premier example of how faith in Christ changed a person is the fourth century bishop, Saint Augustine. Augustine’s narrative of personal transformation provides a template for life in Christ that still captivates today. In an age when people insist upon sharp demarcations between spirituality and religion, or between Christ and the Church, St. Augustine provides a unifying way forward. We do not have to choose one or the other, but are chosen by Christ for his Church.
In a world darkened by the fading light of classical culture, St. Benedict cast a greater light—Jesus Christ. His insistence that the Gospel should be embodied in communities of friendship and peace, guided by the sacrifices of poverty, chastity, and obedience, became a new cultural matrix and unleashed a vigorous spiritual dynamism from which a new civilization would emerge.
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam (To the greater glory of God) is the motto associated with St. Ignatius of Loyola and the order that he founded, the Society of Jesus. His passion to become a courtier, soldier, and advisor to royalty became, under the influence of grace, a passion to serve Christ—all the way, holding nothing back. And through his establishment of the Jesuit order and his masterpiece, The Spiritual Exercises, this soldier fighting for the glory of God changed the world.
Bartolomé de las Casas is one of the most powerfully prophetic figures in the history of the Catholic Church. A witness to the terrible destruction of the indigenous peoples of the newly discovered Americas, he became a thorn in the side of the complacent, passionately advocating for human dignity and courageously speaking out against injustice. Las Casas anticipated modern social and political movements by hundreds of years, and vividly reminds us today that a commitment to justice is an essential dimension of Christian discipleship.
