Saints

A blessed and joyful birthday to the Blessed Virgin Mary! This feast that has been celebrated since at least the sixth century in Syria, in the wake of the proclamation of Mary as the Mother of God, and, by corollary, co-Redemptrix of the human race, at the Council of Ephesus in 431.  Mary is Theotokos, the[…]

(On this Sunday, September 7th, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati is being canonized, along with fellow Italian, Blessed Carlo Acutis. Both died young – Carlo at 15, Pier Giorgio at 24 – and hence are two of the patrons of youth, but they are otherwise quite different. I haven’t written on Carlo, yet, but did venerate[…]

As universities gear up to receive students, we should leave the travails of this world for a moment and ponder the other-worldliness of Mother Saint Teresa of Calcutta (+1997) who did not go to university, but who was nevertheless far better educated and formed than most modern graduates: Solidly grounded in what we would now know as[…]

Blessed Dina Belanger (+1929) is a home-grown Canadian saint whom we commemorate today. (The martyr Andre Grasset, whom we celebrated two days ago, is still a beatus). Born April 30th, 1897 in St. Roch, Quebec, now a suburb of the capital city, Dina was baptized a few hours later. (After all, why wait?) From an[…]

One of the great joys of history is reminiscing about the past, giving hope for the present; for history is ‘eschatological’, moving towards a final purpose. Hence, we Catholics should never lose hope, and this virtue is easier to cultivate and foster in our souls if, as Christ said, we could but read the signs.[…]

Blessed André Grassett was the first Canadian to be beatified – not quite the first ‘saint’, which requires canonization, and that honour belongs to the heroic Jesuit martyrs (if we consider them Canadian, for they were all missionaries, born in France). The first canonized saint who was both born and died in Canada is Marguerite[…]

The life of Saint Giles, as many mediaeval saints, is steeped in legend. What we do know is that he had quite a following, his popularity attested by the countless places, villages, cities, churches are named after him, including the Italian variant of his name, Egidio. He was a hermit, likely in the 6th century,[…]

Saint Philip Neri, the founder of the Oratorians and the ‘second Apostle’ of Rome, recommended reading books beginning with ‘S’, that is, lives of the saints, so that we may imitate at least some degree of their virtues. He himself wanted all of his own spiritual sons to achieve sanctity, but in as hidden a[…]

The celebration of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist – an expeditious entrance into heaven – is sort of a bookend to the summer; you may recall that June 24th, just after the end of spring, was the solemnity of his birth. Now, as summer draws to its close, we celebrate his death.  A[…]