Keeping Up With Humour

An apparently disgruntled reader took some umbrage at my take on Grumblin’ Greta, describing, au contraire, yours truly as the ‘humourless’ one, and ‘knowing nothing about large families’. Hmm. If readers do find me lacking in a certain joie de vivre and jocularity, please do sound off, whether in a humorous and humourless way.

Then again, it ain’t easy doing shtick when the world is always one step ahead of you, morphing into what would have been a dark, dystopic comedy a scant decade or so back: Greta the Grim-Face is a case in point; her speech, replete with snarl – of which she may not even be conscious, and, given her condition and background, may not be her fault – would have been a Saturday Night Live skit in the mid-nineties, but, now, her threats don’t seem so funny…

And we have the O.P.P – that is, our own Ontario Provincial Police for our American readers – who have now decided in the interests of sensitivity and non-discrimination never to refer to perpetrators or victims by their ‘gender’, or, more properly, their sex. After all, what if they ‘misidentify’ and get sued, or the perp gets off on such a technicality? Instead of the robust and definitive copula ‘is’, they will use the more vague and non-committal  appears to be a ‘male’ or ‘female’. That seems more like something out of Monty Python. But even that bizarre comedy troupe likely could not have imagined that there would now be over a hundred genders, according to some, so who’s what, when, and to whom?

No, Officer, I only appear to be drunk.

When the executive branch of our government can no longer refer to the obvious, it is, to paraphrase Thomas More, a short road to chaos.

And when our own minds unhinge from reality, we can’t really have humour, for humour is based on truth, and true humour on charity. Which is why the Devil never laughs; only cackles.

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→