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
God: The Science, the Evidence, by Michel-Yves Bolloré and Olivier Bonnassies, is an intriguing book, not quite what I expected when asked to review the new bestseller. I suppose it would fall into the genre of natural theology, and the burgeoning field of intelligent design. When one first picks it up, it seems like a[…]
On December 17th we begin the seven days of proximate preparation for Christmas, analogous to the more familiar twelve days of Christmas, which follow after the great feast. In the Western tradition of the Catholic Church, one of the liturgical means to elevate and focus our minds and hearts for the great feast are the[…]
I have fond memories of strolling along beautiful Bondi beach years ago, while at World Youth Day in 2008, and it never crossed my mind that I might get shot. Perhaps dim thoughts of whether a great white shark roamed the shoreline, and certainly dreams of surfing. I did dive into the frigid Pacific briefly[…]
It may be difficult to believe in these dark December days, but a scant week from now, once we pass the winter solstice, the days will begin getting slowly, but perceptibly, longer. The light, and the Light, of the world is not far off. Today we celebrate Santa Lucia, Saint Lucy, the saint of ‘light’,[…]
December the 12 is the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe, elevated on the eve of the Third Millennium by Pope John Paul II from a commemoration to a feast. He also declared her patroness of all of ‘America’, south, central, and north, as well as the primary intercessor for the unborn, who are much[…]
We owe quite a lot to Pope Saint Damasus (305 – 384), who oversaw the universal Church during the tumultuous era of the lingering Arian crisis from 366 to his death in good old age in 384. It was he who approved the decrees of the Council of Constantinople in 381 which condemned the pernicious[…]
The memorial of Lady of Loreto was put back into the universal calendar, on this day by Pope Francis in December, 2019, in those halcyonic months just before the tsunami of Covid-insanity hit the world. Today we celebrate the home where the Holy Family lived. But why Loreto, on the shores of the Adriatic in[…]
Amare nesciri – ‘love to be unknown’ – exhorted Saint Philip Neri (+1595), founder of the Oratorians, who himself was an unknown young tutor in Florence, living in a loft, in the early 16th century. At the same time, thousands of miles across the ocean in the mountainous region outside of what is now Mexico[…]
Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou – I am the Immaculate Conception These are the words Our Lady said to Saint Bernadette Sobirous, which she spoke in the local French patois, when the young saint asked the ‘beautiful lady’ who she was. Bernadette had no idea what they meant, and had to memorize them as she[…]
As Hilaire Belloc notes, a legend does not imply something isn’t true; rather, it signifies some primordial truth so important that is has been preserved, even embellished. In this light, we should see the life of Saint Barbara, whose feast is on December 4th, but who was removed from the calendar in the revisions of[…]
