Sam Against the Liberal Leviathan
Well, I have expanded my thoughts on young Sam Oosterhoff standing against the Liberal Leviathan, stumbling over our landscape and crushing just about everything in its wake. You can find the article for now on Crisis, and will be posted here soon. The editor there gave me pause for thought: Sam could not vote on the idiotic bill, for he was being sworn in the day after. A clever ploy, perhaps from Patrick Brown, the Conservative ‘leader’, who demanded that all either vote aye, or stay home. Did he know Sam would disobey, so delayed his swearing in by that one convenient day? One wonders…
An ominous note I came across a couple of days ago from down south in America: The government has decided to ‘forgive’ over $100 billion in student debt. This, dear reader, is only the tip of the iceberg. There are over one trillion dollars in unpaid student debt floating around the financial house like some toxic sludge, just waiting to wreak havoc. The same is true here in Canada, proportionately so, only, unlike the States, we already pay most of the cost of students’ education, with all the ballooning costs of professors and administrators, and they still whine and complain. Of course, the government cannot really ‘forgive’ anyone’s debt, for someone has to cough up, as many discovered in the 2008 financial crisis, with their retirement savings going up like poof to pay off Wall Street’s reckless and avaricious financing. And the ‘government’ stands just for you and me, who are now on the hook for all those young minds wasted, deformed and all-too-often wallowing in ignorance in their four-five-ten year stint at what now passes for the modern university, replete with crying rooms and crayons, coerced speech and political correctness run amok, just like their debts.
But on a note of hope, I wish all readers a very joyous and blessed Advent, a season of hope and expectation, wherein we prepare our minds and hearts to welcome Christ not only as a child at Christmas, but also His final Advent, at the end of time and history, which, as He prophesied, will happen at an hour we, or perhaps many, may not expect. So keep your loins girded and the lamps of your minds lit with the light of Truth, Who has indeed come into this world.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→
Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers
Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→