Crucifixion
Our March artist, Michael D. O’Brien, was born in Ottawa in 1948 and is internationally renowned as the author of twenty books, notably the novel Father Elijah and eight other novels, which have been translated into twelve languages and widely reviewed in both secular and religious media in North America and Europe.
Several of his non-fiction books have been published by Justin Press. His most recent is: Arriving Where We Started: faith and culture in the Post-modernist Age. O’Brien’s essays on faith and culture have appeared in international journals such as Communio, Catholic World Report, Catholic Dossier, Inside the Vatican, The Chesterton Review and others. For seven years he was the editor of the Catholic family magazine, Nazareth Journal.
Since 1970 he has also worked as a professional artist and has had numerous exhibits across North America. Since 1976 he has painted religious imagery exclusively, a field that ranges from liturgical commissions to visual reflections on the meaning of the human person. His paintings hang in churches, monasteries, universities, community collections, and private collections in Canada, the US, England, Germany, Italy, Australia, and Africa.
Michael O’Brien lives near Combermere, Ontario. He and his wife Sheila have six children and a growing clan of grandchildren.
In Michael’s words:
“In an image-saturated era of history, the human mind is at risk of addiction to high-power visual stimuli, consumed in vast quantity and with incessant shifting of focus. Th e brain attempts to prevent mental overload by creating a barrier of detachment and insensitivity, with the resulting loss of ability to invest time, silence, and stillness before the phenomenon of a work of art. Even so, authentic art—the true, the beautiful, and the good—is a spiritual language that may yet come to our rescue. Such art ‘speaks’ in a form that touches the imagination through the visual sense, evoking wonder at a profound level. It may thus bring about clear reflection on the meaning and purpose of things. It may even lead, in its highest forms, to reverence and worship. The vital function of the arts in man’s life consists not only in contemplation of the created world; above all, through the arts the contemplation of the metaphysical and eternal is evoked. It is neither decoration nor didacticism. It embodies living truth in beautiful forms.”
A Closed, Unsustainable, Descending Loop
As a follow-up to my thoughts on Payette’s payout, here be a stark image of where are here in Canada. As the graph shows in, well, graphic terms, since 2025, the public sector has contributed to 95.5% of economic growth. The private sector – which funds the public sector, or is supposed to – has[…]Continue reading→
Pope Leo and a Rosary for Peace
Pope Leo XIV has asked Catholics across the world to join him in a Rosary for peace today, at 18:00 Rome time (6 pm), which would be noon from where I write (EST). If you are able, whether at that time or another, and in whatever way you pray, to join in intercession with the[…]Continue reading→
Payette’s Payout
I was glancing through some headlines, and noticed a mention of Julie Payette – engineer and astronaut and sometime the Queen’s representative in Canada – which brought back vague memories. She was appointed Governor-General by Justin Trudeau in 2017. Ms. Payette resigned in 2021, amidst claims that she created a ‘toxic work environment’, with allegations[…]Continue reading→
Your Easter Prayer
Happy Easter Lord Jesus Christ. It’s Easter day and we smile In the Lord’s in gentle light and His tomb is bare the stone is rolled A story new that must be told And Lord Jesus Christ We love you it’s so true and Lord Jesus Christ has risen From his sleep and the Promises[…]Continue reading→
Three Musical Offerings for the Annunciation
A very blessed Solemnity of the Annunciation to one and all! This March 25th marking the greatest event in history – the Incarnation of the Son of God – goes back to the very origins of the Church, and changed everything. What was lost, is now found, what was dead, is now very much alive.[…]Continue reading→
Eleganti Sums up the SSPX
Bishop Marian Eleganti, auxiliary emeritus of Chur, Switzerland, through which I happened to pilgrimage last summer, sums up the irregular situation of the SSPX. His thoughts bear pondering: Firstly, acting with full autonomy without papal mandate or confirmed mission; secondly, operating with bishops not in union with the Pope and the episcopal college; thirdly, maintaining[…]Continue reading→
The Perils of Sedevacantism
(With John-Henry Westen of LifeSite raising the question of sedevacantism, urging a petition for the cardinals to question the validity of Francis’ and Leo’s papacies, here is a re-post of something I wrote earlier, on why we must tread with great caution in declaring a papacy, or any given pope, null and void. Whatever good[…]Continue reading→
Entropic AI
Entropy may be described as the tendency of all things degrade, to move from order to disorder, from cosmos to chaos, from specificity to entropy. It is the inevitable consequence of any closed system, and encapsulated as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Any such system – whether that be a machine, a living organism, a[…]Continue reading→
Psychedelics, Meditation, and Attention to the Mind: Sam Harris’s Recipe for a Post-Biblical Consciousness
Sam Harris, on his latest tour, recently claimed that with a few psychedelics, his genuine instruction on how to attend to the nature of one’s mind, and proper meditative practice, we would no longer need the Bible—nor regard it with such reverence. For Harris, understanding scripture as the word of God is incompatible with true[…]Continue reading→
How Do We Know Christ Really Lived?
Every now and then we hear in various and sundry places one of the greatest blasphemies of them all: that Jesus never really lived and that the reports of his life and teachings, his death and resurrection, were all made up by unscrupulous men apparently bent on exploiting others for greed and power. At this[…]Continue reading→