Peace is the tranquility of order (Saint Augustine)
Month: November 2020
A Saint Visits Malta
In his apostolic exhortation on the call of holiness in today’s world, Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope Francis wrote: “The saints are distinguished by a spirit of prayer and a need for communion with God. They find an exclusive concern with this world to be narrow and stifling, and, amid their own concerns and commitments, they long[…]
As Steals the Morn
One of Handel’s most delightful Arias, ‘As Steals the Morn’, with the libretto lightly adapted from Act 5, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Tempest: The charm dissolves apace, And as the morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness, so their rising senses Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason… First premiered[…]
Mr. McCarrick’s Malfeasance
The much-anticipated – in one sense – “McCarrick” report was released today, and the flurries of commentaries are making their rounds, even though the thing weighs in at a whopping 461 pages. There is a summary, for those who want the reader’s digest version, if you want even to read it at all. The whole[…]
Whenever we come to church, we must prepare our hearts to be as beautiful as we expect this church to be. Do you wish to find this basilica immaculately clean? Then do not soil your soul with the filth of sins. Do you wish this basilica to be full of light? God too wishes that[…]
An Unholy Triumvirate
The Communist Party cannot be neutral toward religion. It stands for science, and all religion is opposed to science. ~ Joseph Stalin The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future. ~ Adolf Hitler Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people. ~ Mao Zedong[…]
Alicja Lenczewska’s Encounters with Jesus, and Their Remedy for Sin
When a confessor hears the same sins repeated over and over again, a thousand million times over, he may begin to wonder if there’s any hope left for the human race. I guess that’s where faith kicks in. A couple of years ago I was deeply touched reading mystical conversations of Alicja Lenczewska (†2012) with[…]
A Spike To Unite a Dominion
Father Callam’s reflection on Dr. Leslie Hamilton Neatby evokes a Canada that was, and may never be again: A dominion united by common, fundamental principles, a shared Christian faith, a pursuit of the common good – to use a phrase from our neighbours to the south, one nation under God. Even our educational formation helped[…]
A Protestant Gentleman, Predestined?
He was a good man, in the old Scottish Presbyterian phrase, God-ward and man-ward. – Sir Walter Scott, The Antiquary Leslie Hamilton Neatby who died in 1997 had been born in 1902. It is thus not much of a chronological exaggeration to place him in the reign of Queen Victoria, who died in 1901. Moreover,[…]
The Cardinal Sarah’s Tweet, and All the Irish Saints
As various parts of the world enter yet-another totalitarian lockdown, precipitating further social and spiritual malaise, if not outright despair – there will come a day of reckoning for the political and medical apparatchiks – I was very glad to receive a ray of hope when someone sent along Cardinal Sarah’s tweet – tweeting cardinals[…]