Author name: Fr Terence Spiteri

Persecutions do not only create martyrs but many times create “soldiers of Christ”. Such was Thomas Jihyoe, a Japanese Augustinian, who was a Christian soldier during the persecution against Christians of the seventeenth century. For five years he evaded the Emperor’s soldiers who were seeking him because he was a catholic priest. He was born at Omura near Nagasaki around 1600. His parents, teachers of religion, both died martyrs for

Many are of the opinion that St. Rita could never have had such wrold-wide fame as is known today had there not existed B. Teresa Fasce, an Augustinian nun, for many years the superior of the monastery of contemplative nuns of Cascia. A magnanimous woman who, from the quietness of contemplation, managed to reach the world with the spirituality of her own prayers to God. She was born in 1881in

Mexico’s history is replete with light and shadows, and insofar as the life of the Church in Mexico is concerned, there are most beautiful pages – like the appearance of Our Lady at Guadalupe – and others stained with the redness of the blood of innocents. Amongst the latter we find the story of the Augustinian martyr Elias del Socorro Nieves, member of the Augustinian Province of St. Nicholas of

The Hermitage of Lecceto, near Siena, from its beginning in the XII century, was fertile ground for Augustinian holiness. By way of example of these so-called “beati leccetani” in the Augustinian liturgical calendar is found the memory of B. Antonio Patrizio. His background cannot be described with exactness; this because there is little sound documentation about his life. Writings about him were recorded in the XV and the XVI centuries,

We have only sparse information on B.Sante and, as often happens, history is mixed up with legends. The source of information concerning him are the funeral elogies made by Fr. Ambrogio Massari from Cori (elected Prior General in 1476) who came from the same city as Blessed Sante and who wrote about various episodes of the Order’s history. More information concerning him are found in the Historia Corana written in