Saturday, June 6, 2026

Catholic Insight

Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World

Catholic Insight

Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World

The Ugly Beautiful

By Sarah GouldPosted on Posted in BlogsTagged , , , , ,

It’s Holy Thursday today, as you likely know, and this year I am confronted with humanity: humanity in all of its ugly beauty. That’s right. Humanity is beautiful. And humanity is ugly. Sort of like the Cross.

Today we commemorate Christ, eating the Last Supper with his dear ones, washing their feet, dipping his hand into a dish to touch a beloved traitor. Jesus must have looked at Judas and remembered the woven tapestry of his life—his birth, his childhood, him sitting on his mama’s knee and all the delight that went into making him who he had become. Jesus must have also watched with sadness as the evil grew and took him over completely.

The Ugly Beautiful.

We are about to relive Christ’s horrific passion and death. In a few short hours we will walk with him through slaps from Pharisees, spilled blood and deep wounds, taunts from Herod, and then dragging ourselves through the streets with the Cyrenean we will end up on Golgotha. Yet in his wake, Jesus leaves nothing but life and light, hope and healing and love, from miraculously healing the ear of the high priests’ servant, to comforting the Daughters of Jerusalem, to promising eternal life to a hardened criminal.

The Ugly Beautiful.

And then we will sing. We will light a fire in darkness and sing of the happy fault, the necessary sin of Adam that brought to us Eternal Salvation. Even though we despised and reject him, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not, yet he still came to save us, for God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ dies for us.

The Ugly Beautiful.

And I am reminded once again that the human heart is right full of evil, and that at any moment you or I could step into the Passion narrative as any of those shady characters, succumb to that lurking evil and commit the most heinous of crimes.

Yet at the same time I am confronted by the intrinsic and delicate beauty of each and every soul, and of the truth, honour, purity, and excellence that naturally pours forth from a heart touched by Grace and Love Incarnate. I’m confronted by the fact that nothing in this world is as black and white as we would wish it to be, especially not the human heart. I’m reminded that we are always loved, by a deeply compassionate God—the same God that hung on the cross for us and wipes away sins in the whispered words of absolution. We’re not loved just when we think we’re being “good.” We’re always loved, from before we were born to eternity, no matter what we do. And that, my friends, is truly beautiful.

A Closed, Unsustainable, Descending Loop

As a follow-up to my thoughts on Payette’s payout, here be a stark image of where are here in Canada. As the graph shows in, well, graphic terms, since 2025, the public sector has contributed to 95.5% of economic growth. The private sector – which funds the public sector, or is supposed to – has[…]Continue reading→

Pope Leo and a Rosary for Peace

Pope Leo XIV has asked Catholics across the world to join him in a Rosary for peace today, at 18:00 Rome time (6 pm), which would be noon from where I write (EST). If you are able, whether at that time or another, and in whatever way you pray, to join in intercession with the[…]Continue reading→

Payette’s Payout

I was glancing through some headlines, and noticed a mention of Julie Payette – engineer and astronaut and sometime the Queen’s representative in Canada – which brought back vague memories. She was appointed Governor-General by Justin Trudeau in 2017. Ms. Payette resigned in 2021, amidst claims that she created a ‘toxic work environment’, with allegations[…]Continue reading→

Your Easter Prayer

Happy Easter Lord Jesus Christ. It’s Easter day and we smile In the Lord’s in gentle light and His tomb is bare the stone is rolled A story new that must be told And Lord Jesus Christ We love you it’s so true and Lord Jesus Christ has risen From his sleep and the Promises[…]Continue reading→

Three Musical Offerings for the Annunciation

A very blessed Solemnity of the Annunciation to one and all! This March 25th marking the greatest event in history – the Incarnation of the Son of God – goes back to the very origins of the Church, and changed everything. What was lost, is now found, what was dead, is now very much alive.[…]Continue reading→

Eleganti Sums up the SSPX

Bishop Marian Eleganti, auxiliary emeritus of Chur, Switzerland, through which I happened to pilgrimage last summer, sums up the irregular situation of the SSPX. His thoughts bear pondering: Firstly, acting with full autonomy without papal mandate or confirmed mission; secondly, operating with bishops not in union with the Pope and the episcopal college; thirdly, maintaining[…]Continue reading→

The Perils of Sedevacantism

(With John-Henry Westen of LifeSite raising the question of sedevacantism, urging a petition for the cardinals to question the validity of Francis’ and Leo’s papacies, here is a re-post of something I wrote earlier, on why we must tread with great caution in declaring a papacy, or any given pope, null and void. Whatever good[…]Continue reading→

Entropic AI

Entropy may be described as the tendency of all things degrade, to move from order to disorder, from cosmos to chaos, from specificity to entropy. It is the inevitable consequence of any closed system, and encapsulated as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Any such system – whether that be a machine, a living organism, a[…]Continue reading→

How Do We Know Christ Really Lived?

Every now and then we hear in various and sundry places one of the greatest blasphemies of them all: that Jesus never really lived and that the reports of his life and teachings, his death and resurrection, were all made up by unscrupulous men apparently bent on exploiting others for greed and power. At this[…]Continue reading→

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