Clothed in Virtue

  St. Paul, the First Hermit "The Father of the Eremitical Life"      St. Paul the Hermit was born c. 227 AD in Egypt.  While he was still a young man, he retired to a desert cave during a persecution.  Palm trees provided him with both food and clothing.  He lived a life of great holiness until the age of 113.      St. Jerome composed a biography of St. Paul titled, "The Life of Saint Paul the First Hermit."  According to St. Jerome, Paul fled to the Theban desert as a young man during a persecution, around AD 250.  He lived in the mountains of this desert in a cave near a spring and a palm tree, the leaves of which provided him with clothing and the fruit of which provided him with his only source of food until he was 43 years old, when a raven started bringing him half a loaf of bread daily.  He would remain in that cave for the rest of his life, almost a hundred more years.     In 342, Anthony the Great was t...

Saint Hilary, in Latin Sancta Hilarius.   His name comes from the Latin word for happy or cheerful.  His nickname is Malleus Arianorum,  which means Hammer of the Arians. St. Hilary was born in Poitiers of Aquitaine of a noble family.  He was celebrated for his learning and eloquence.  In 353, he was chosen as Bishop of his native town, Poitiers. St. Hilary was a staunch defender of the Catholic faith against Arianism, for which he was exiled to Phyrgia for four years.  He wrote twelve books on the Trinity and won back the whole of Gaul from the Arian heresy.  St. Jerome testified to the perfect orthodoxy of all of Hilary's scholarly works. Hilary spent many years as a missionary.  Wherever he went, he was discomfiting to heretics and procuring the triumph of orthodoxy.  Hilary returned to Poitiers, where died peacefully in 369. St. Hilary was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX.

St Edmund Campion SJ Jesuit Priest and Martyr, 1540 - 1581 This is the earliest known portrait of Campion. " we should live soberly and justly and godly in this world" - Titus 2      Too many people live in a lukewarm spirit.  Maybe you don't commit mortal sins, but still willfully commit venial sins.  Many live indifferent to God, praying half-heartedly and without conviction.  You obey church laws and go through the motions to check off the boxes: Mass. Communion, confession.  It becomes routine without any real devotion in it.  Some never  really put the advice from confession into practice.  Some never really listen to the message of the sermon.  Day to day, month to month, and year to year, they are not really undergoing any kind of real change.  Things stay the same.      Yet, at the same time, they give their time and attention to worldly things. They try to live a comfortable live, without ...