Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World
Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World
Today in Canada we celebrate Blessed Louis-Zepherin Moreau, (1824 – 1901) an exemplary bishop of Saint-Hyacinthe in Quebec. Born rather sickly and undersized to a large Quebecois farming family, he dedicated himself to studies and eventually to the priesthood, enduring many vicissitudes. Due to his continuing ill-health, it was recommended to Louis that he was[…]
Fittingly, in this month of Mary, we celebrate on this May 21st Saint Eugène de Mazenod (+1861), the 19th century founder of the Missionaries Oblate of Mary Immaculate. Born in 1782, Eugène had an idyllic childhood in France, at least for the first seven or so years, for his world, everyone else’s, was turned upside[…]
The twentieth century saw the rise of various vicious anti-Catholic regimes, totalitarian and ruthless in their demonic fury to stamp out the Church. Ecrasez l’infame! Voltaire would sign off his letters, but they – the Nazis, the Communists, the Spanish ‘Republicans’, and, for our purposes today, the atheistic Mexican government which, for reasons that are[…]
On May 16th, the Franciscan family within the Universal Church celebrates the feast of St Margaret of Cortona. Her life was not at all rosy, but she kept her heart open to Christ and the unimaginable happened. Margaret was born in 1247 in Laviano, Italy, in a small farming village. At the age of seven she[…]
The life of Paschal Baylon (1540 – 1592) has much in common with that of his fellow Franciscan, Joseph of Cupertino (+1633). They were both Franciscan friars who adopted lives of great humility and austerity – Paschal would wear a spiked metal coat, or a habit with rough pig hair on the inside. They were[…]
Saint Brendan (+577) the sixth century Irish monk, called the ‘Navigator’, is reputed to have discovered Canada a full millennium before the Italian John Cabot – Giovanni Caboto – arrived on the shore of the Gaspé in 1497. In his semi-mythical recounting, the immram (‘narration’) known as Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (the Voyage of Saint[…]
The story of Saint Dymphna (7th century), steeped in legend, is not one, perhaps, that parents would feel comfortable telling their children. Dymphna was a lovely young Irish lass, the daughter of Damon, a minor king, of Oriel, experiencing an idyllic upbringing in medieval Ireland, her mother a devout Catholic, as so many Irish used[…]
Saint Isidore, or, in his native Spanish, Isidro de Merlo y Quintana, was named after the other Saint Isidore, the bishop of Seville (whom we celebrated back on April 4th). This saint, known to us as Isidore the Laborer (Labrador) – or the Farmer – was born about the year 1070 in Madrid, and spent[…]
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them So wrote the Bard in his 1602 play the Twelfth Night, and ’tis fitting as a theme for the one who was chosen as the new twelfth Apostle, who was definitely not born into greatness, but had greatness thrust upon him and,[…]
The revelations, prophecies and secrets of Our Lady of Fatima have loomed large in the minds and heart of Catholics in the twentieth century, and indeed many others across the world. They have taken on greater significance in events of late, with who-knows-what on the horizon. It was on this May the 13th, a beautiful[…]
