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
(This is a longer read from long-time contributor Carl Sundell, which may well be his swan song, even if we hope for more from his delightful pen. Perhaps peruse this in sections, for there is much to be gained in this window of how men used to debate, even those who differed deeply, as gentlemen[…]
Western culture is marked by a strange double-bind. It is interminably fast-moving yet restless, hyper-connected and yet crushingly lonely, materially comfortable and at the same time spiritually exhausted. The endless abundance of our technological age has given us everything imaginable under the sun, except peace of mind. Into this post-modern landscape, the ancient specter of[…]
After Jesus was baptized, the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan (Mk. 1:12). On Ash Wednesday we began the observance of the holy season of Lent with the imposition of blessed ashes, an external sign of our interior resolve to undertake Lenten penance; so[…]
EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION WITH THE NEW CARDINALS HOMILY OF JOHN PAUL II Thursday, 22 February 2001 Feast of Saint Peter’s Chair 1. “‘Who do you say that I am?’. Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (Mt 16: 15-16). This conversation between Christ and his disciples, which we have just heard again, is always[…]
Not many in the hierarchy write like Saint Peter Damian (+1072) anymore, whose direct and blunt condemnation of the unnatural sexual sins of the clergy he condemns in his vivid Book of Gomorrah, as told in summary form by Carl Sundell. Then again, not many today in the hierarchy write like Pope Benedict XVI, who,[…]
On this day in 1920, February 20th, nine-year old Jacinta Marto died after great suffering, as she lay alone in a hospital bed. She had endured for weeks, including a vain attempt to alleviate her symptoms by removing two of her ribs, without proper anesthetic. The same illness had claimed her ten-year old brother, Francisco,[…]
Nothing is more doomed to failure than a layperson trying to tell the clergy what they ought to do. Well, perhaps if such a person held several academic degrees in Theology or Mariology, or bore visible stigmata, they might garner a moment’s interest. Otherwise, in the best-case scenario, they are destined to hear those all-too-familiar[…]
BENEDICT XVI GENERAL AUDIENCE Paul VI Audience Hall Wednesday, 9 March 2011 Ash Wednesday Dear Brothers and Sisters, On this day, marked by the austere symbol of ashes, we enter the Season of Lent, beginning a spiritual journey that prepares us for celebrating worthily the Easter Mysteries. The blessed ashes imposed upon our forehead are a[…]
(Contributor Tadgh Quil-Manley offers a reflection here on distributism, an economic philosophy derived by Chesterton, Belloc and others from Leo XIII’s landmark encyclical, Rerum Novarum. Readers, myself included, may take some pause over the notion herein of a ‘universal basic income’, but much depends on how one understands and implements such terms and concepts, in[…]
On this fourteenth of February, in the universal calendar we celebrate the ninth-century monks and missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius, patrons of Europe, who translated the Liturgy into Slavonic, with Cyril constructing the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets for this purpose. This vernacular allowed for the conversion of untold thousands into the Church. (See Father Attard’s[…]
