Augustinian Blessed

Blessed Helen is one of the several lay women whose memory is celebrated by the Order. She is, thus, a reminder that Augustinian spirituality is not the exclusive possession of religious only. Our Order has a long and rich tradition of lay men and women walking the same path of Augustinian inspired  values professed by friars, nuns and sisters. We are all called to holiness, and the Augustinian vocation is […]

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,

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

We celebrate the memory of another martyr today on the Augustinian calendar of saints, William Tirry, an Irish friar who died rather than deny his faith. He was taken prisoner as he was about to celebrate Mass, for it was against the law to be a priest in 17th Century Ireland. Though offered his freedom if he would renounce his faith, he refused to do so and was led to

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