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 this July 18th, 1870, the First Vatican Council, at the impetus of Pope Pius IX, proclaimed the dogma of papal infallibility. Some were against defining the doctrine – including Cardinal Newman. Not that they were against this truth itself, but that defining it was inopportune, and perhaps even impossible. It seems the Holy Spirit[…]
It was on this day in a Parisian summer in 1794 – one day after the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel – that sixteen female members of the Carmelite Order, located at Compiègne – one day after their patronal feast – lined up one by one in the Place de la Révolution (now more ironically[…]
July 13th was the 107th anniversary of the one of the visions to the children at Fatima, this one concerning hell, the consecration of Russia and the devotion to the Immaculate Heart. It was also the day that Donald J. Trump almost had his head blown off on live television, the bullet from the assassin’s[…]
Giovanni Gaulberto (985 – 1073) – or John Gualbert – was born into a noble Italian family, and like many such, had a dissolute youth, in vanities and ‘romantic intrigues’. Hmm. But he was a prodigal son, and what prompted his conversion was one death and one potential death. Not his own, but his brother’s,[…]
July 12th is the day chosen as the feast of the parents of the ‘Little Flower’, for which Louis and Zelie Martin are most renowned. They were, however, saints in their own right, and raised at least one other saint besides Thérèse, along with four possible saints. There is no strict formula to being the parents[…]
Ellen Wiebe loves her job. I would call her a ‘doctor’, for she is technically qualified as a physician. But since her job is primarily killing people, as Jonathon van Maren points out, especially the most vulnerable, the old, sick, dying and the unborn, and the first principle of medicine is primum non nocere –[…]
We can learn much from those with whom we disagree, even on the most fundamental issues. Extrema se tangunt, goes the Latin proverb – extremes touch each other. Nietzsche is eminently quotable, and his nihilistic philosophy, when taken to its reductio ad absurdam, says much for the benefits of Christianity, as even the atheist Richard[…]
In one of those many mysteries of providence, this day marking the martyrs of China is also the anniversary of the Martyrs of Gorkum, nineteen Catholic priests, diocesan and religious, hanged on this day in July of 1572 by militant Calvinist troops in the midst of the wars of religion, which broke out soon after[…]
July 9th is the traditional feast of Saint Cilian, also Kilian (640 – 689), an Irish missionary monk who took the Catholic Faith from Ireland – already well established after the work of Saint Patrick two centuries before – to still-pagan Germany. In the summer of 686, he and eleven companions – a biblical twelve[…]
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree, `Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. (Luke 17:5-6) I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless,[…]
