The family is the source of all life, and the foundation of all society (Saint John Chrysostom, +407)
Month: July 2024
Louis and Zelie Martin’s Ecclesia Domestica
July 12th is the day chosen as the feast of the parents of the ‘Little Flower’, for which Louis and Zelie Martin are most renowned. They were, however, saints in their own right, and raised at least one other saint besides Thérèse, along with four possible saints. There is no strict formula to being the parents[…]
Reveling in Death
Ellen Wiebe loves her job. I would call her a ‘doctor’, for she is technically qualified as a physician. But since her job is primarily killing people, as Jonathon van Maren points out, especially the most vulnerable, the old, sick, dying and the unborn, and the first principle of medicine is primum non nocere –[…]
A Sixth Century Saint Still Speaks to Us
Even if, as Pope Benedict XVI tells us in his catechesis on St Benedict of Nursia on St Benedict of Norcia, Benedict’s earthly life ended on 21 March 547 this saint’s spiritual and monastic legacy is simply incredible. Within the same catechesis the great German Pope did not hesitate to call Saint Benedict the Founder of Western Monasticism and[…]
Day of Remembrance of the Wolyn Massacre
Contributor Dr. Andrzej Caruk reminds us that today we recall the 81-st Anniversary of the National Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide of the Citizens of the Polish Republic. As he put it: We commemorate this day not to seek vengence, but so history will not repeat itself – when on July[…]
Run while you have the light of life! (Saint Benedict, +543)
The Unbalanced Power Dynamics of Michel Foucault
We can learn much from those with whom we disagree, even on the most fundamental issues. Extrema se tangunt, goes the Latin proverb – extremes touch each other. Nietzsche is eminently quotable, and his nihilistic philosophy, when taken to its reductio ad absurdam, says much for the benefits of Christianity, as even the atheist Richard[…]
Three Books from a Canadian Author
Up-and-coming author Ben Galeski has written three novels thus far, two of them published by Justin Press, and the third about to be. They are works of historical fiction, a demanding genre, for one must take past events, not only make them real, but maintain consistency with the historical reality. Then, the author must add[…]
History from a Journalist’s Perspective
A recent article from The Wall Street Journal on human sacrifice in ancient civilizations, children and maidens being slaughtered en masse for what we would not deem esoteric, superstitious and simply unknown reasons, says the following: At the distance of millennia, these and other ritual killings appear barbaric. But to the cultures that carried them out,[…]
The Splendid Witness of the Martyrs of Gorkum
Today, July 9th, is the feast of the Martyrs of Gorkum in the Netherlands, and their story is truly fascinating. At the beginning of the 16th century, everyone was Catholic in the Netherlands, but that changed with the Reformation, whose beginning we may trace to Luther’s proclamation of 1517. The people who joined this movement[…]