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 Irenaeus (+202 A.D.), bishop of Lugdunum – now Lyons – in the second century of the Church’s existence, a disciple of the martyr Saint Polycarp, who was in turn a disciple of Saint John the Apostle, is himself not only one of the clearest links to apostolic Tradition, but his writings and thoughts form[…]
The subversive doctrines of atheistic communism and socialism have infected nations, institutions, media, education, and souls, throughout the world. Make no mistake, as Pius XI declared in Divini Redemptoris (1937) that communism and socialism are by their very nature not only atheistic, but anti-God, and anti-Church, indeed, the very religions of anti-Christ. It is in[…]
I finally read Dignitas Infinita, the recent document on human dignity from the DDF (Dicastery – formerly Congregation – for the Doctrine of the Faith). Hopefully, these few thoughts complement those of Dr. Alexander Lozano. Much ink has already been spilled, and I will say that, on first glance, it is good the Church reaffirms[…]
William of Vercelli (1085 -1142) was a tenth-century hermit, and almost-accidental founder of an Order, the Congregation of Monte Vergine, also called the ‘Williamites’. He sometimes takes his name from the mountain on which he set up his monastery. Two things we may draw from his hidden life, which ended up shining like the proverbial[…]
Two glorious martyrs of the ‘Reformation’ are celebrated today. First, Saint Thomas More, husband, father, lawyer, sometime chancellor of England, martyred in 1535 along with his compatriot Saint John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and cardinal of the Church. Thomas More at first tried his vocation with the London Carthusians – who would end up being[…]
(We missed Saint Ephraim on his post-1969 feast of June 9th, so here are a few words on the great Syrian mystic on his pre-1969 traditional date of June 18th). In the Church universal, we celebrate the life of Saint Ephraim, often called the ‘Syrian’, who is also venerated amongst the Orthodox (on January 28th).[…]
In this era of information deluge, with facts, factoids, opinions, posts, podcasts, articles, books, and the ever-expanding Wikipedia, raining down upon us, the question we must ask, is what should we know? What should we read, watch, absorb, ponder, contemplate? With what should our brains, our minds, our very spirits, be filled? Is there, first,[…]
Not many Catholics know of Germaine Cousin (+1601) today, which is likely how the saint would have liked it, for she lived an obscure, solitary life, tending sheep in the fields, ‘hidden with God’ – but like all such holy and hidden lives, she did more to change history than the great and the powerful.[…]
On this day in 1525, Martin Luther married Katherine von Bora. Luther was – ontologically speaking – still a priest, a member of the Augustinians, and Katherine was a Cistercian nun, so whatever ceremony they went through was, sadly, objectively invalid. Both had abandoned their original vocations, in different ways: Eight years after he had[…]
What we know of the saints is the least part of them. So quipped Saint Philp Neri (+1595), and it is a saying that has always given me some comfort. For the saints are like the rest of us, waging relentless war against their lower natures, right up to the very end. When someone praised[…]
