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 Albert of Cologne (1200-1280), whose life spans what William Walsh called the ‘greatest of centuries’ was given the title ‘the Great’, even before his death. Scholar, Dominican, bishop, scientist, and Doctor of the Church, he was considered the most learned man of his age, with an encyclopedic knowledge of just about everything under the[…]
November 14th marks the memorial of Saint Lawrence O’Toole (Lorcán Ua Tuathail, in the original Gaelic, 1125 – 1180). Lawrence was an Irish monk, abbot and, eventually, Archbishop of Dublin, helping to further establish the Church at the dawn of the high Middle Ages in Ireland, as united with the Pope – the era of[…]
Our Lord seems to have been speaking of our modern crisis when he warns in yesterday’s Gospel that scandals are sure to come, and woe to him by whom they come, with the finishing touch about millstones and the depths of sea. It is also a propos that the Apostles then ask that their faith[…]
It’s Remembrance Day here in Canada as well as Britain and the rest of her dominions and territories; in America, it’s Veterans’ Day. Both commemorate the signing of the armistice ending the war to end all wars on the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. In the Church, it’s also the[…]
Pope Saint Leo, the first pontiff to earn the title ‘the Great’, reigned from 440 until his death on this day in 461, was known for many things. With his wise mind, his magnanimous soul and zeal, he helped solidify the papacy, and the role of the ‘Holy Father’, which would be further clarified by[…]
Remember, remember! the fifth of November. The Gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot! Guy Fawkes and his companions Did the scheme contrive, To blow the King and Parliament […]
The memorial of Saint Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) commemorates one of the great pillars – along with Saint Robert Bellarmine, Philip Neri and countless others – of what is unfortunately known as the ‘ Catholic Counter Reformation’, as though the Church were resisting the ‘true reform’ of the revolutionaries Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Knox and all the[…]
Some of the saints signify sanctity in a way that goes beyond the norm, if ‘norm’ can be applied to a thing like sanctity, which itself is characterized by going beyond the normal requirement of virtue, into the realm of the heroic. One of those was today’s humble Peruvian lay-brother Dominican, Martin de Porres (+1639)[…]
The Dies Irae – ‘Day of Wrath’ – is a 13th century sequence preparing us for the final judgement, composed perhaps by the Franciscan Friar Thomas of Celano, or the Dominican Friar Latino Malabranca Orsini, or even by Saint Bonaventure, Bernard of Clairvaux, or Pope Gregory I. Whoever its author be, its haunting chant melody[…]
A blessed solemnity of All Saints to all our readers, a feast that goes back to its official institution by Pope Gregory III (731 – 741) as a commemoration of all the countless martyrs who could not have their own particular day. This was during what we know ironically as the ‘dark ages’, when there[…]
