Saints

We celebrate a veritable panoply of saints today: In Canada, we have the memorial of Saint Marguerite D’Youville (+1771), the first Canadian-born saint. She was a lovely Quebecoise, who married young to a dissolute man, Francois d’Youville, a dissipated bootlegger who sold liquor to the easily-addicted Natives, and would disappear for long periods. He did[…]

Today is the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), a discalced Carmelite nun who reformed the Order, which traced its origins way back to the 12th century in the Holy Land, to that very ‘Carmel’ spoken of in such exalted terms in Scripture where Elijah met with God.  The Order developed through the ages,[…]

This is the memorial of Saints Callixtus, (+222-223) (also spelled Callistus), whose life is historically shrouded, as are many of the early Christians. Some say he was a reformed slave who lived a rather dissolute and rebellious life in youth, with theft and street fighting as part of his resumé – or rap sheet. if[…]

This 13th day of October marks the anniversary final apparition of Our Lady at Fatima in the fateful year of 1917, to the three seers Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia. The Virgin appeared as the Sorrowful Mother and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, along with Saint Joseph and the Christ child, Who blessed the earth. Fatima[…]

Today marks the anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, now more than six decades back to those heady days of the early sixties, the future, to many eyes, full of promise and hope, throwing off the shackles of their own ancien regime, the bourgeois suburbia of the post-war era giving way to[…]

Besides the great John Henry Newman, we also commemorate two other saints on this day: Saint Denis, patron of Paris, was the first bishop of what would later be called the ‘city of lights’, and he himself was one of her greatest lights. Denis – in Latin, Dionysius – was likely martyred in the mid-third[…]

Although John Henry Cardinal Newman died on August 11th, in 1890, the Church commemorates him on this October 9th. For it was on this day in 1845 that the former Anglican minister, halfway through his earthly journey, finally convinced of the truth, converted to the fullness of the Faith and was received into the Church[…]