Les Poètes Maudits and Their Bitter Fruits

One of the fastest growing ‘religious’ groups in the West are the ‘nones’, and I put that in scare quotes, since these are those who espouse no religion, with an indifference to any form of organized worship, who may confess to a vague spirituality, but one of this world, a seeking after self-fulfillment, one that is also vague and ill-defined. For if we know not – or will not accept – who or what we are, how can we possibly know what we must become?

And, as Augustine confessed, we are by nature restless. Man can never become a simple animal, content with chewing his own cud, but always strives for something – and all depends on what that ‘something’ is.

I just came across this article on Les poètes maudits, Verlaine, Baudelaire and Rimbaud, the bad boys of French literature, who railed against their Catholic faith with an intensity that our modern disaffected poets and literati can no longer muster. And to our youth, especially those who have rejected and scorned the Faith that was given to them: Read not just their verse, but their lives. If ideas have consequences, so does poetry, and living out evil principles and our passions gives away the lies embedded therein. Rejection of the moral law inevitably leads to that self-exclusion from the company of the blessed that our tradition calls ‘hell’. This is not so much from what God does, but what we do to ourselves. For sin always corrupts our nature, while virtue fulfils it. If ye love me – said the Lord – keep my commandments. Only so may we hope to enter eternal life. It’s really quite that simple. God will take care of the rest.

Some may have found redemption – Baudelaire, after a tragic life railing against God, Christ, the Church and any and all moral boundaries, died after a protracted illness, with the Last Rites, in his mother’s arms.

Perhaps, in those final moments, he saw that the Truth that sets us free.

Best to live that, to the full, from the first, to the last.

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→