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
Anne Boleyn lost her head on this fine spring day in May, 1536, put to death by the decree of her own quasi-husband, Henry VIII – I say, ‘quasi’, since Henry’s legitimate wife, Catherine of Aragon, was still very much alive when Henry married Anne in a secret ceremony of November 1532. Henry was at[…]
On this May 18th, as we celebrate the first Pontiff with the name of the beloved disciple – and more on him in a moment – for we also celebrate what would have been Pope Saint John Paul II’s 100th birthday, which would be old even for the oldest of Popes. Benedict, the XVI, who[…]
As predicted in a number of prophecies – La Salette, Akita – there is conflict amongst the Cardinals and Bishops of Christ’s Holy Church. We may hope they are all striving in some way for the truth, a hard commodity to find these days. For us laymen, it seems simple acquiescence is not enough –[…]
In one of those many paradoxical ironies of history, it was on this day that Woodrow Wilson – for whom I have not much admiration otherwise, and his ‘Fourteen Points’ at Versailles in 1919 paved the way for an even worse war two decades later – anyway, the president did proclaim this day in 1914[…]
Absence makes the heart grow fonder… The proverb holds true in the main, but not, we must admit, always. There are many things, and we may admit, even people, we look back upon not with much affection. For the heart to grow fonder, it must begin with some fondness, in that holy absence, in the[…]
We have celebrated a number of ‘Catherines’ of late in our liturgical calendar: Kateri Tekakwitha on April 17th; Catherine of Siena on April 29th; and, today, Blessed Catherine of Saint Augustine (+1688), venerated as one of the ‘six founders’ of the Church in Canada. Saint Franҫois de Laval, whose feast we celebrated a couple of[…]
On November 22nd, 1997 – the memorial of the patroness of music, Saint Cecelia – the lead singer of the 80’s rock band INXS, Michael Hutchence, was found dead in his luxury hotel room in his native land of Sydney, Australia, where he and his mates had been staging comeback tour. He was hanging –[…]
Today is the feast of Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, (+1622) whose original name was Mark Rey: His names comes from his birthplace, with the Fidelis his name in religion, after he joined the Capuchins in the first decade of the 1600’s, as Shakespeare – whose death day was yesterday, eight years before Fidelis’ – was[…]
This is the fiftieth anniversary of the first Earth Day, first officially celebrated on this day in 1970, with its roots in the nascent environmentalist movement, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the exaggerated effects of DDT and everything else, back-to-the-landers, hippies reacting against the bourgeois mentality of their (to their jades eyes) stultified, suburban post-War upbringing,[…]
In an ironic twist on this ‘Earth Day’, this also marks the 105th anniversary of the first use of chemical weapons in warfare – as the Germans unleashed tons of chlorine gas on the Allied troops, wafted into their trenches during the Battle of Ypres in 1915. Even the Bosch were shocked by the horrific[…]
