Of Flags and Railroads

Symbols mean something, and today is the 60th anniversary of our adoption, back in 1965 under Lester B. Pearson, of a the ‘maple leaf’ as our national flag, replacing the richer symbolism of the Canadian Red Ensign. Whatever one’s aesthetic tastes, the union jack, the lion rampant, signified a robustness and strength, now lost in the symbol of a leaf, a paper-thin entity blown hither and thither by capricious breezes, like the phantasmagoric lost souls described by Saint Jude: waterless clouds, carried along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead,

The railway is also – or, perhaps was – another symbol of Canada’s national strength, with the connecting of the east and west coast – from sea to shining sea – by the chemin de fer part of our mythic history. Hence, ‘tis symbolic and indicative that the same railway has now been shut down – we are on the ninth day of protests by various indigenous groups, aggrieved that they have not been heard, that we  (who is ‘we’ here?) have invaded ‘their’ lands, that pipelines have no place in Canada, and on it goes. The native protesters are joined by millennials, boomers, generation-zedders, who have all imbibed the toxic, mind-numbing historically and intellectually impoverished watery stew served up by our homogeneous universities – indigenous good, colonial bad – even though every one of them lives with the benefits of such ‘colonialisim’. Pre-British-and-French Canada, pre-rail-and-road-travel, pre-modern medicine, pre-Christian – in a word, pagan and pre-colonial Canada – for all its natural beauty and grandeur, was not a pleasant place, but violent, red in tooth and claw, unhygienic, mired in disease, superstition, starvation, prey to the vagaries of implacable nature.

Would that they could be transported back to Canada circa 1505 or so, even for a few days of survivor, and see how long before they beg to be transported back.

But the minds of modern Canadians know this not, or refuse to see it. In their ignorance, they are blown hither and thither by the fads of the day, by what seems to them a righteous cause, with that indignation borne of principles only partly seen and understood – the notions of private property, its purpose and origins, wealth creation – the half-blind following the more blind – sort of like the lifeless leaves of autumn. All the while the real evils of Canada fester and ferment. Sad to say, even though I live in hope, we likely won’t see many of these same protesters at the March for Life come May.

So maybe our new flag means something after all.

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→