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
As students return to school after Christmas holidays, and in light of yesterday’s memorial of founding Catholic educator Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys, I offer these reflections on the (Catholic) public school system here in Ontario. Readers may also peruse Miles Smit’s own thoughts in these pages a while back, to which this is something of a[…]
I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God,[…]
(There is no end to the books on Darwin and evolution. Even if the initial controversy has settled down amongst mainstream scientists, questions abound, as the notion of complexity continues to confound the relatively simplistic, original version of Darwin’s hypothesis. Human evolution is particularly fraught, especially amongst those who believe that Man is a spiritual[…]
Saint Anthony (+356) is commonly called ‘the Abbot’, or Anthony ‘of Egypt’, where he retreated to the wilderness as a young man to live completely devoted to God and His Christ. His eponym as the ‘Abbot’ was given to him as the founder of that perfect and narrow living out of the imitation of Christ[…]
Saint Paul of Thebes (+ 341) – whom we celebrate either on January 10th or, today, on the 15th – is traditionally considered the first hermit in the Catholic Church, if we don’t include John the Baptist, who is a liminal figure between the two Testaments. But there is a similarity, for as a young[…]
On this 13th day of January, in bleak midwinter, we celebrate two saints. The first, in the public calendar, is the great Saint Hilary (+367), Bishop of Poitiers, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1851 for his clear and incisive writings against the pernicious heresy of Arianism, which denied the[…]
On this January 12th here in Canada we celebrate Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys (1620-1700), founder of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, alongside the first official ‘school’ in what were the the untamed wilds of Canada. A missionary from France in the mid-seventeenth century, she faced innumerable difficulties in her first years in the nascent Quebec City –[…]
A blessed feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which in the novus ordo normally falls on a Sunday (today is the Feast of the Holy Family in the usus antiquior). A grace-filled one may it be, which feast you celebrate. This Sunday stands for the first Sunday in Ordinary Time. It would be good,[…]
Today, January 8th, is the feast of Saint Raymond of Penyafort (1175-1275), one of the first Dominicans (officially known as the Order of Preachers) eventually becoming the third Master General of the Order (after Saint Dominic himself, and Jordan of Saxony), and a fellow Dominican with his even-more famous confrere, Thomas Aquinas, with whom he[…]
On January 7th here in Canada we honour one of our most beloved homegrown saints, André Bessette (1845-1937), a humble lay-brother who went on to found Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal. A sickly boy, brought up in a difficult childhood mired in poverty in rural Quebec, his lumberjack father was killed by a falling tree,[…]
