In a time when wealth and prosperity are more welcomed than the cost of discipleship, Climbing the Dragon's Ladder is a timely historical novel. No greater identification can be made about the cost involved in persevering as a Christian than identifying with a martyr such as Perpetua. Andrea Lorenzo Molinari, president of Blessed Edmund Rice…

Eighteen hundred years ago, a cell group of Christians was arrested during the per­secution of a.d. 202–203 that accompanied a brief stopover at Rome of the pugnacious Roman emperor Lucius Septimius Severus. At Antioch on January 1, 202, Severus had declared his son Bassianus (nicknamed “Caracalla,” or “greatcoat” for the military outfit he…

It is no secret that the vast majority of the voices that speak to us from the days of the early church are male. Early church history is filled with stories of famous martyr-bishops such as Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. a.d. 107–8), Polycarp of Smyrna (d. ca. a.d. 156), and Cyprian of Carthage (d. a.d. 258). In addition to these un­forgettable…

In the time of Herod, king of Judea, a young Jewish girl gave birth to a child who would change the course of history. What is men­tioned of her in Scripture is significant, yet, throughout the cen­turies, the identity and person of Mary has been elaborated upon by Catholics and often overlooked by Protestants. The biblical Mary was a woman who…

Gregory the Great clearly expressed a belief in fundamental hu­man equality. This required him to offer some explanation, if only to himself, of his position at the top of the thoroughly hierarchical social and ecclesiastical authority structure of the sixth century. While his biographers have made his difficulty in accepting his episcopal…

One of my spiritual mentors is a woman who lived six hundred years ago: Julian of Norwich. I admire her for the clarity of her descriptions of spiritual experience, her balanced and orthodox presentation of God as mother, and the divine comfort of her vi­sion of our sin and redemption.

November 16 is the feast day of a remarkable woman: St. Marga­ret of Scotland. Margaret spent most of her early life in Hungary during her father’s exile. She returned to England with her family in 1056 or 1057, and, shortly after this her father died, leaving her brother as a possible heir to the childless Edward the Confessor. But, Edward…

Could Mary have refused, when it was offered her,  

As with Mary, it was the sound of angel wings that broke the silence.