How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world (William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice)
Month: April 2024
For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand. (Saint Anselm, +1109)
Saint Agnes of Montepulciano
Saint Agnes of Montepulciano (+1317) is one of the ‘incorruptibles’. She was born in the picturesque cliff-top Italian city on January 28th, 1268, the same day as her fellow Dominican, Thomas Aquinas (whose birth year was likely 1225). The future Jesuit and Cardinal, Saint Robert Bellarmine was also born in Montepulciano, and the region, in[…]
Ælfheah of Canterbury and Leo IX of Rome
Two saints are commemorated on this 19th of April, both of the Middle Ages: Saint Ælfheah of Canterbury, more commonly known as ‘Alphege’, was born in 953 outside of Bath in southern England. In youth, he chose the higher path, becoming an anchorite, enclosing himself in as a hermit and dedicating his life solely to[…]
Trudeau’s New ‘Housing’ Plan
G.K. Chesterton quipped once, if memory serves, that each man, with some diligent and faithful hard work, should be able to afford ‘three acres and a cow’, to provide for his family in a fitting manner. Enough room to grow a large garden, the cow for milk (and perhaps, eventually, meat), space for the children[…]
I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. (Hilaire Belloc, +1953)
The Case Against Pornography
But the snake said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.” The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree[…]
Pilgrimaging at Three Miles an Hour
It seems slow – walking, that is – and, to our modern modes of transport, it is. Bikes can move at about 20 miles per hour; cars, 60; airplanes, 400 or more. Yet, as Nick Hunt argues – and as partial as I am to bicycles, and my write up another post on the glory[…]
Blessed Marie-Anne Blondin: Martyr of Silence
Bd. Marie-Anne Blondin (+1890), whose optional memorial falls today in our fair Dominion, the day of her birth in 1809, five decades before Canada was Canada. Most Canadians, alas, have likely never heard of her, but she was one of the founders of our once-glorious and envied educational system, before it fell apart due to[…]
Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie
One more note on this April 16th, which also marks the anniversary of the Battle of Culloden in 1746, when the Scottish regiments, in support of Charles Stuart, were decisively defeated by the English. Bonnie Prince Charlie, as he was known, was the grandson of James VII of Scotland, also James II of England, who[…]