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
On the first day of October we celebrate the Saint of the Little Way, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (1873 – 1897), also known after the place of her birth and upbringing, Lisieux. She was a cloistered nun who entered the Carmel at the age of sixteen, and died at[…]
All saints change history, often in ways that are mysterious and opaque, but at times more obviously. Such is Saint Jerome (347 – 420), to whom we may attribute the first truly ‘critical’ version of the Bible, the edito typica, the official, Catholic version of the Holy Word of God. He was a contemporary of[…]
The life of Saint Vincent de Paul (1581 – 1660) – he always signed his name ‘Depaul’, perhaps so people would not think of him as noble – spans a fractious time in France, with the wars of religion nearing their apex, mixed up with bitter claims over land and money. The instability of the kingship[…]
The title says much of what is in this grim article: Canada, old, poorer, smaller. That is, old and smaller demographically, not in the geological or geographic sense. I strive to see things as they really are, that Canada is in a death spiral, after so many years – nay, decades – of moral, social[…]
The Church in Canada venerates a number of Canadian saints and blesseds, almost all of them from Quebec, since the rest of Canada was officially and mostly Protestant, and the Church is not permitted to beatify members of other religions, for obvious reasons, even if they die with a reputation for holiness. Such today is[…]
This Saint Thomas (1488 – 1555), of noble Spanish lineage, and had it all, as the saying goes, taking as his ‘last name’ the place from which he came, Villanueva. Like Christ, although rich, he became poor, even as a child giving his clothes to those less fortunate, and would be found walking around (nearly?)[…]
Saint Januarius was bishop of Benevuento, in the south-west of Italy, about whom a number of legends are told – that he survived unscathed being burnt in a furnace, that wild bears refused to touch him in the amphitheatre – but all we know for relative certainty is that he was put to death in[…]
According to the laws of physics, a man should not be able to fly, at least without technological help. But are not the ‘laws of physics’, as Chesterton posits, themselves miracles? Why should trees produce scrumptious apples, or water and the sky different shades of Marian blue? Why should we, hairless apes according to some,[…]
Hildegarde von Bingen (+1179) is one of the newest saints in the liturgical calendar, canonized ‘equipollently’ by Pope Benedict XVI on May 12, 2012 (since she had always been regarded as a saint, but never officially canonized). Her feast was extended to the universal Church, now on the same day as Saint Robert Bellarmine (so[…]
In the midst of the theological and cultural confusion in which our Church is mired, we could use a few more men with the clear, disciplined, Thomistic mind of Robert Bellarmine (+1621), bishop, cardinal, doctor of the Church, and, yes, a Jesuit. But this was back in the days when the Order was young and,[…]
