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
The term ‘charismatic’ has an ambiguous meaning in the Church, invoking images of liturgical guitars, drums, emotional crescendos, and disconcerting glossolalia. In the Church’s theology, however, it has a rather specific meaning, derived from Saint Paul’s letters: A ‘charism’, from the Greek word for ‘grace’, Χάρις is a gratia gratis data, a gift, talent, ministry,[…]
The Legionaries of Christ are currently gathered for their General Chapter, held every six years. This is in accord with the principle of semper reformanda. Every society, especially those in the Church, and even the Church herself, stand always in need of reform, for there is no standing still in the spiritual life. Such a[…]
Entropy may be described as the tendency of all things degrade, to move from order to disorder, from cosmos to chaos, from specificity to entropy. It is the inevitable consequence of any closed system, and encapsulated as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Any such system – whether that be a machine, a living organism, a[…]
(Last year marked the 800th anniversary of the birth of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who came into this world on this January 28th, 1225. The great saint and doctor died in 1274, and was canonized July 18th, 1323, by the Avignon Pope, John XXII. Good thing, too, for Pope John was one of the pontiffs accused[…]
Saint Angela Merici (+1540) lived and died in Italy, growing up to adulthood during the tumultuous events of the early Reformation (she went to eternity five years after the erstwhile chancellor and martyr Thomas More, and six years before Martin Luther faced his God). Yet Angela’s own life was not involved in these external events.[…]
The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth (Saint Thomas Aquinas, +1274) If there is a patron saint of ecumenism, Saint Francis de Sales fits the bill, with his gentle yet firm – suaviter et fortiter – evangelization of the hardened Calvinists of Geneva. As the[…]
A few words on this feast of the patron saint of writers, as well as this week dedicated to Christian unity; Francis de Sales (+1622) expressed, at the height of the divisions and schisms caused by the Protestant ‘reformation’, the right way to do ecumenism: With a gentle and charitable soul, firmly grounded in truth[…]
We live as we pray, for we pray as we live. (CCC, 2725) So it seems the Liturgy was taken off the agenda at the recent consistory of cardinals. Still, the current head of the Dicastery of Divine Worship, British cardinal Arthur Roche, sent around a two-page letter, explaining why a return to the usus[…]
This day, January 23rd, is the wedding anniversary of the Holy Family, the traditional feast of the espousals of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Yes, you read that right – espousals in the plural, both to the same good man, Saint Joseph. It the Jewish tradition, a bride was betrothed twice – first, in a formal[…]
Saint Vincent the Deacon (+304), who suffered grievous tortures witnessing to his Catholic faith under the Diocletian persecution (as did yesterday’s Saint Agnes) is a providential saint for this sombre anniversary of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision of the United States of America which legalized abortion across the nation. But we may also rejoice,[…]
