The Gift of a Consecrated Life

We need some good news stories, and I was witness to one yesterday, as Sister Margaret Mary MacGrath of the Sisters of Our Lady Immaculate made her final profession of vows in a beautiful and sublime Mass, celebrated by Bishop Douglas Crosby, with glorious music provided by the Sisters’ own Schola.

Sister MacGrath is an alumna of Seat of Wisdom College, taking her foundational year in liberal arts, and is now upgrading her nursing qualifications, which will stand her in good stead in one of the primary Sisters’ apostolates, caring for the elderly.

There is something very joyful in a young woman offering her life to God as a chaste bride of Christ, through the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, freeing them, as the Bishop said in his homily, from any undue attachment to exterior goods, to sexual pleasure, and to their own pride.

This event yesterday was one of the momentous in Canada of late (with religious vocations declining to a rare rarity in our fair land), but one unremarked by the world; not much different from that original consecrated vocation of the Our Lady, giving her fiat on that fateful day, unnoticed by all, but which would change the entire course of the world.

I will have more to write on the great good of the charism of celibacy, which the Church calls a ‘gift from God’, the foregoing of (the also great good of) marriage to ‘work for the Lord’. Many are discounting this gift, citing the ‘unnaturalness’ of foregoing marriage as one factor in the sexual abuse by priests. One conservative site actually called for ‘muscular, bearded priests with wife and family’, as though these qualities were somehow more conducive to the virtue of chastity. Jean de Brebeuf was muscular and bearded, but there was no way he could have accomplished all the great good he did with ‘wife and children’ in tow, hauling them through the rigours of life in early Huronia. Nor, for that matter, could modern priests accomplish the same good in the ‘wilds’ of our modern culture, with families to care for as well. One must choose to which primary good one will devote one’s life.

Here is the rub: To make oneself a eunuch for the kingdom, as Christ exhorts, allows one to do more good. We should recall that most of what we know as ‘civilization’, even up to the modern era, our schools, universities, hospitals, churches, monasteries, even many the original farms, tilling of the land across Europe, were built and staffed by legions of joyful, happy, hard working celibates, the nuns, sisters and monks who toiled solely for God and His glory.

We should not allow the abuse of sexuality and a few bad apples to cloud us of this fact, and the perennial teaching of the greater good, joy and glory of a life fully given to God.

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 Closed, Unsustainable, Descending Loop

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Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk

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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→

Presidential Pardon of Weronika Krawczyk

As a good news, follow-up to our story from Poland, of the persecution of Weronika Krawczyk for her pro-life views, we heard that she has been granted a presidential pardon. One might still wonder why one needs a presidential pardon for simply holding the long-held belief that the child within the womb is a child,[…]Continue reading→

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully

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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→

Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass

Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’…  ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]Continue reading→