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
Saint Francis Xavier – the relic of whose forearm, instrumental in the baptizing of tens of thousands made a tour around Canada a number of years ago – was one of those remarkable men of history, whose intensity, focus and singleness of purpose echo through the ages. His desire to give everything to save souls,[…]
This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which first promulgated the creed that goes by its name. As the recent Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo, In Unitate Fidei, the council was called to respond to the heresy of Arius, who denied the full divinity of Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh.[…]
November 27th is the anniversary of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1830 to Saint Catherine Labouré (1806 – 1876), a Visitation Sister, during her evening meditation. Our Lady was so real, reported Sister Catherine, that she could feel the folds on her dress, and whose beauty she could not describe. The Mother[…]
In one of those ironies of God’s history – choosing what seems weak to confound the apparently strong – the patron saint of philosophers is a teenage virgin martyr from the fourth century. Catherine of Alexandria (+305) dedicated herself to study ‘from a young age’, as her disputed biography (written centuries after her death) relates.[…]
On this memorial of the Martyrs of Vietnam, we commemorate a whole panoply of white-robed witnesses, Christians, bishops, priests, Franciscans, Dominicans, lay men, women and children, who were put to death in the most horrific of ways in the series of persecutions in that troubled country in the 17th to 19th centuries. There were thousands[…]
We have to wait to hear what heavenly music sounds like, but Saint Francis de Sales once recounted that he was blessed to hear an angel played one note on a violin – of what material it was made we may only surmise – and said it was the most beautiful sound he could remember.[…]
We’ve written before of the story that Pope Pius XII wanted to use the theory of the ‘Big Bang’ – first proposed by the priest Father Georges Lemaitre in 1929 – in an encyclical to ‘prove’ the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Father Lemaitre demurred, advising the Pontiff that his theory – which he had[…]
Today’s memorial marks the dedication of the basilicas of Saints Peter and Paul – following upon that of the Lateran Basilica last week. More specifically, this is the anniversary of the consecration of the two versions of Saint Peter’s basilica, and more on that shortly. The feast reminds us of the importance of the one,[…]
The saint today is one of the patrons of Hungary, Elizabeth (+1320), the niece of Saint Hedwig of Silesia, (+1243) whom we celebrated in October. Elizabeth belongs to the ’24’ club – saints who died at that youthful age, or thereabouts – Saint Therese, Pier Giorgio, Gemma Galgani – all having fulfilled much in a[…]
We live in an unreal world, which is to say, one unhinged from the truth. One way to know what is right, is to know what’s wrong, the via negativa, if you will. First, a man – which is to say, an adult biological male, for one must clarify such things nowadays – has entered[…]
