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 Ignatius of Laconi (1701- 1781) – not to be confused with the more famous Ignatius of Loyala – was a Franciscan friar, whom we celebrate on this May 11th, the day of his death. Born Ignazio Peis in Sardinia, he was one of seven children of poor peasants. He was drawn to the religious[…]
Today’s optional memorial as we continue the Easter season (alleluia!) commemorates Saint John of Avila (1499 – 1569), a contemporary of his fellow Spaniards, saints and correspondents, Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola and John of God. Like them, he was one of the primary instruments in what is (somewhat inaccurately) termed the Catholic ‘counter-reformation’.[…]
Saint Damien de Veuster (+1889) is celebrated on this tenth of May, a missionary priest who gave everything, even laying down his life, for the leper outcasts suffering from the disease on the remote island of Molokai, Hawaii. Born and raised in Holland, the youngest of seven children, Damien followed his brother into the missionary[…]
The great desert Father, and founder of cenobitic monasticism, Saint Pachomius, died on this 9th day of May in 348 A.D., eight years before his fellow monk, Saint Anthony of Egypt, generally considered the founder of eremitic monasticism (even if his feast in many calendars is on May 15th). That is, Anthony was a hermit[…]
I heard of the white smoke while walking with some students and alumni in Ottawa towards Canada’s annual March for Life. We had just attended a morning TLM together, and the election must have taken place at the 11:30 am vote (EST), just as the priest intoned the Regina Coeli at the end of Mass.[…]
Another March for Life here in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, overshadowed this by the election of the new pope, Leo XIV. A bit more on that in an accompanying post. I’ve been attending the March for Life here in Ottawa, Canada since its inception in 1998, so this would make it the 28th. I’ve missed[…]
The conclave to elect the next Pope begins today, Wednesday May 7th. We pray, trusting in God and the Holy Spirit to work through the fallibility and imperfections of those men gathered. Of course, as Pope Benedict XVI made clear, it is not as though God’s perfect choice will automatically be made, just as His[…]
Besides being ‘Star Wars Day’ May the Fourth is also, more realistically, the traditional commemoration of the Shroud of Turin, claimed to be the burial cloth of Christ – and there is much evidence that it is. But this is no ordinary cloth, for on it is imprinted – without any explicable scientific means, then[…]
There is a trio of Canadian Saints in this week: Saint Marie of the Incarnation, on the last day of April; Saint Francois de Laval, on the 6th of May; and today, the little-known Blessed Marie-Leonie Paradis. Born on May 12th in 1840, baptized as Alodie-Virginie, in Quebec, she would also die in Mary’s month,[…]
Philip and James, Apostles, have been celebrated together on this third day in May since the revision of the calendar in 1969. They were originally commemorated on May 1st, the anniversary of the church dedicated to them in Rome, but that day was adopted as Saint Joseph the Worker by Pius XII in 1955, as[…]
