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
SOLEMNITY OF THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD BENEDICT XVI ANGELUS St Peter’s Square Sunday, 13 January 2008 Dear Brothers and Sisters, With today’s Feast of Jesus’ Baptism the liturgical Season of Christmas concludes. The Child, who the Magi from the East came to adore at Bethlehem offering their symbolic gifts, we now find an adult, at[…]
On this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, her is a beautiful rendition of Palestrina’s Magnificat (1591), as sung by the British vocal ensemble Voces8, which will offer a window of light and grace to this glorious day:
The shepherds went with haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph and the Child lying in a manger (Lk. 2:16).⧾ On this the last day of the Christmas Octave and the first of the New Year, we are one with Our Lady, St. Joseph and the shepherds, the first to receive the good news[…]
After the great John Paul II, the cardinals elected me, a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord. I am consoled by the fact that the Lord can work and act even through insufficient instruments, and I especially entrust myself to your prayers. These were the undying words which Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI[…]
A clever writer[1] once observed that Jesus never made the mistake of qualifying any of his statements: “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”[2] What can that mean, for, as Jesus said, “no one is good except God alone”?[3] In John’s Gospel, Jesus is equally demanding and univocal: “Love one another as I[…]
Do you have a new year’s resolution such as losing weight? Getting more exercise? Spending more time with family? Doing more volunteer work? Learning a new language or some other skill? We know that people often make a resolution at the beginning of a new year and this can be worthwhile, especially if we stick[…]
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (1927 – 2022) died this morning, at 95 years old, at 9:34 Rome time, in his residence at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery at the Vatican, on the vigil of the Solemnity of the Mother of God. He helped guide the Church through some of the most tumultuous times of the Church’s[…]
(Another throwback to a different era, a brief Angelus address from Pope Saint John Paul II on this feast of the Holy Family, back in 1996. Usually this feast is on the second Sunday after Christmas, but with Advent being so long this year, the feast is moved to the previous Friday. Note at the[…]
(On this feast of the Holy Innocents, here is a reflection on true, and false, mercy by contributor Stephen Roney. We will have more on this topic, an a propos one for our age, for mercy is only mercy when founded on truth – but always guided by prudence and good will as to when,[…]
J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, composed and performed in 1734-35, along with the Easter and Ascension Oratorios, is the most complex of the three, in six parts, for major commemorations during the Christmas season, from the Birth of the Messiah to the Adoration of the Magi at Epiphany. The work is rich, full and celebratory, and[…]
