God’s Most Perfect Creation
A blessed and joyous solemnity of the Immaculate Conception to all Catholic Insight readers. Pope Blessed Pius IX, Pio Nono, proclaimed the doctrine of Our Lady’s perpetual sinlessness on this day in 1854, in the Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus. Four years later, the Virgin appeared a number of times to the young peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous at an out-of-the-way grotto in Lourdes in southern France; in the midst of one of the visions, after Bernadette at the priest’s urging asked the ‘beautiful lady’ who she was, the ‘lady’ declared herself, in the local dialect, to be the Immaculate Conception. Bernadette had no idea what this meant, and repeated it to herself, so she could report in accurately to the parish priest.
Our Lady’s sinlessness has always been believed by the Church, a gratuitous gift of God, in creating a creature so beautiful, holy and pure as a fitting home for His own Incarnation. Well, not just a home, for He took the very flesh and blood of the Virgin for His own human nature, which He joined hypostatically to his divine Person.
Our Lady was, in a sense, saved before salvation, and redeemed before redemption, by the ‘foreseen’ (praevisa, as the prayer says) merits of Christ, preserved from that privation of grace and holiness that is the ‘state’ of original sin, inherited from our first parents. She was also preserved, by the cooperation of her own will, from any personal sin, even slight, her whole being, every thought and action directed towards God and His will at each and every moment. A fitting antidote to our world awash in sin and the rejection of God.
As Pius IX put it, following the Church Fathers:
If the popular praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary be given the careful consideration they deserve, who will dare to doubt that she, who was purer than the angels and at all times pure, was at any moment, even for the briefest instant, not free from every stain of sin?
Mary is a sign and symbol of what God intends for all of us, far greater than the primordial happiness of Adam and Eve, to be re-created perfectly to His own likeness, glorified, brought body and soul with Him into heaven, where we will enjoy the beatific vision for all eternity.
There are no words to describe this, as the term ‘ineffable’ implies, nor are there song and poems enough in the world to encompass the beauty and glory of Our Lady. Regardless of how she was depicted, the young and innocent visionaries from Lourdes to Fatima and beyond all admit that the images were never beautiful enough, not even close.
After such a glimpse of heaven, like Saint Paul, their lives were changed forever, as ours should be when we ponder this mystery, that God truly wills the salvation of all men, as a gift, a grace…
All we have to do, with Our Lady, is offer our own fiat. Not a bad deal, that. Why would we say no?
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→
Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk
(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]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→
Canonizing Sister Faustina and Divine Mercy
HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER MASS IN ST PETER’S SQUARE FOR THE CANONIZATION OF SR MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA Sunday, 30 April 2000 1. “Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius”; “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever” (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of[…]Continue reading→
Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’… ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]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→