BIG C CATHOLICS

O Holy Saint Anne, you were especially favored by God to be the mother of the most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Savior. By your powerful intercession in union with your most pure daughter and with her divine Son, kindly obtain for us the grace and the favor we now seek. Please secure for us also forgiveness of our past sins, the strength to perform faithfully our daily duties and the help we need to persevere in the love of God and the imitation of Jesus our Lord. Amen. __________________________________________ St. Anne: A Powerful Intercessor and Protectress Great saints and Doctors of the Church including Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint John Damascene, and Saint Teresa of Ávila, had devotions to St. Anne. In the words of St. Teresa of Ávila, “We know and are convinced that our good mother St. Anne helps in all needs, dangers and tribulations.” Among other things, she is the patroness of the childless, the help of the pregnant, and the protectres

Earliest known image of Saint Augustine Prior to the thirteenth century, the dominant school of thought in Catholic theology was that of St. Augustine. Early in the fifth century, Augustine refuted the heresy of Pelagianism. Pelagius taught that Adam’s original sin did not taint human nature. For that reason, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was neither necessary nor redemptive. A neo-Platonist, Augustine uses the philosophy of Plato, together with the deposit of faith, to oppose Pelagianism and create a new way of looking at everything. The resulting synthesis, Augustinianism, is objective. It acknowledges truth, including moral truth, as outside of us, not a matter of personal opinion, therefore, universal, not particular to individuals, cultures, or circumstances. According to Augustine, we can know truth through Revelation, right reason, and the Church. Augustine’s theology is also deductive. Deductive reasoning begins with a general idea and ends with a specific one. Father Richard