The world mounts a double attack on the soldiers of Christ. It wheedles in order to lead them astray; but it also terrifies, in order to break them. Let us not be held fast by our own pleasures, let us not be terrified by someone else’s cruelty, and the world has been vanquished (Saint Augustine,[…]
Year: 2020
A Day of Life and A Day of Reckoning
President Trump has declared today, January 22nd, the memorial of Saint Vincent the Martyr, as ‘National Sanctity of Human Life Day’ – something called for in Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae that, as far as I know, no bishop has implemented in this country (but please do correct me if I’m misinformed).[…]
What menaces there were from the executioner, to frighten her; what promises made, to win her over; what influential people desired her in marriage! She answered: “To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse. I will be his who first chose me for himself… (Saint Ambrose, on the martyrdom of[…]
Killing with Kindness
At the centre of Leftism is emptiness, a utopia at the heart of European civilization today and its only value is the complete repudiation of western culture. Totally destructive, totally negative. (Sir Roger Scruton 1944-2020) With recent developments on the euthanasia front, the picture in Canada has become ever more ominous. The latest out of[…]
Saint Agnes and True Feminity
Today, the universal Church celebrates the memorial of Saint Agnes, a young Virgin Martyr, who perished by the sword under the reign of Diocletian in 304. Her name, which sounds like the Latin noun for ‘lamb’ (agnus) is derived from the Greek, agnes, ‘chaste, pure, sacred’. She was highly venerated, attested to by the fact[…]
To enter the kingdom of God we must endure many tribulations. If there are many persecutions, there are many testings; where there are many crowns of victory, there are many trials of strength. It is then to your advantage if there are many persecutors; among many persecutions you may more easily find a path to[…]
Sacred Art on the Second Sunday
Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! (Jn. 1:29). ⧾ This declaration made by John the Baptist and which we hear before the reception of Holy Communion at every Mass, is a succinct summary of the mission of the Messiah and the mission of the Church. As we[…]
Prayer for Christian Unity by Pope John Paul II
(What follows is a prayer penned by Pope Saint John Paul II, which goes along with his longer meditation on unity between Catholics and what we might call the ‘Christian diaspora’, those corporate bodies that have drifted from the one, true Faith, see his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint) To Our Lady for Christian Unity[…]
Catholic and Christian Unity
Today, the 19th of January and the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, marks the beginning of the Church unity octave, a week of prayer for the reunion of Christians—Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic. One doesn’t hear much about Church unity these days. I believe the reason for a decrease in interest is the fact that the[…]