Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World
Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World
Saint Paul of the Cross (+1775), the second of sixteen children, grew up in poverty in rural Italy, knowing the value of things, and with only six of his siblings surviving infancy, the brevity of life, that we must make good use of the time we are given. Hence, his vocation to a contemplative path,[…]
Five years ago Mr. Janusz Szepietowski, a former solidarity activist unjustly imprisoned under the 1981 Martial Law in Communist Poland, proposed to me to start a pro-life petition to end the persecution and unjust arrest of Canadian pro-life activist Mary Wagner (who was in jail at the time) and to Amend Canada’s Criminal Code –[…]
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write[…]
And thick darkness shall cover the land…The widespread blackouts in Manitoba and California – regions which otherwise share almost nothing else in common – signify our tenuous hold on what we call ‘civilization’. Contrary to Rousseau’s idealized version of the ‘noble savage’, life in its primitive state without creature comforts is more as his contemporary[…]
Saint Ignatius of Antioch (+107) joyfully ‘went to the lions’, as the saying goes, meeting his martyrdom in the Coliseum, perhaps less than a decade after the death of the last Apostle, John the Evangelist. Ignatius was the epi-scopos – literally the ‘overseer’ – of the ancient diocese of Antioch, where the ‘disciples were first[…]
I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s[…]
All the wealth in the world cannot be compared with the happiness of living together, happily united (Saint Marguerite D’Youville, +1771)
We celebrate a veritable panoply of saints today: In Canada, we have the memorial of Saint Marguerite D’Youville (+1771), a lovely French Canadian mademoiselle, who married young to a dissolute man, Francois D’Youville, a dissipated bootlegger who sold liquor to the easily-addicted Natives, and would disappear for long periods. He did not live long, but[…]
To have courage for whatever comes in life — everything lies in that (Saint Theresa of Avila, +1582)
A blessed Sunday to all our readers, on which we always commemorate Christ’s resurrection and triumph over decay and destruction, trampling death for all eternity. The readings speak of the cleansing of the lepers, Naaman, by the prophet Elisha, and the ten, by Christ Himself. All for doing something simple – like asking – and[…]
