Today is the feast of Saint Benedict (ca. 480-547), the father of Western monasticism and one of the main forces in preserving Western culture through the tumultuous years of post-antiquity. His retreat from the world, paradoxically, is what saved the world, as he and his monks, guided by Benedict’s wise and prudent regula or rule […]
On a hot and sweltering July 6th in a small farming town in the fetid area outside of Rome, one hundred and four years ago today, a young maiden of not-yet twelve years old was viciously stabbed fourteen times with an awl by an eigtheen-year old Alessandro Serenelli, enraged by frustrated lust, because she refused […]
Today we commemorate Saint Thomas More, husband, father, lawyer, sometime chancellor of England, marytyred in 1535 with his compatriot Saint John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and cardinal of the Church. More was actually put to death on July 6, with Fisher being beheaded on this day, when they are both remembered. Both saints are […]
Today is the feast of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, the patroness of our college here in Barry’s Bay, as well as Our Lady of Combermere, the patroness of Madonna House, situated in the town of Combermere just south of us. Our Lady Seat of Wisdom is the title of Mary as the ‘seat […]
Today, or rather was as I am getting to this rather late, the memorial of Saint Justin Martyr, an early apologist for the faith. Not as in ‘saying sorry’, but as in apo-logia, offering a ‘reasoned defense’ for Catholicism. Saint Justin was a philosopher by profession, and tried many other systems before realizing that Christianity […]
Today is the feast of Saint Philip Neri (+1595), the second Apostle of Rome, and the founder of the Oratory, whose houses are now found throughout the world (Bd. John Henry Newman brought the Oratory to England). As you may know from my brief biography, I lived and studied at the Toronto Oratory, and owe […]
Most readers will have seen the bizarre behaviour of the Prime Minister yesterday evening. As witnesses and the video record attest, Mr. Trudeau, in an apparent fit of pique at what he perceived to be a deliberate delay on the part of some Conservative members returning to their seats, strode angrily towards MP Gord Brown […]
*Today would have been the 96th birthday of Pope Saint John Paul II, who died just shy of his 85 birthday. Very few Popes have reached this venerable age; Pope Leo XIII, the oldest reigning pontiff known to history, reached his 93rd year. I know not how old John Paul/Karol is in heaven. Not having […]
Today commemorates Saint Brendan, the sixth century Irish monk, the ‘Navigator’, whose main claim to fame is a supposed seven year trans-Atlantic voyage in a boat made of animal-hides upon which he and sixteen others embarked, with the discovery of North America many centuries before the time Cabot. Many considered his journey pious legend, a […]
Today, the feast of Saint Matthias, paradoxically marks the sombre anniversary of the legalization of abortion in Canada, under Trudeau Sr., in 1969. Omnibus Bill C-150, officially the Criminal Law Amendment Act , also brought into law gun control, contraception, homosexuality, drunk driving (with the 0.08 level), gambling and cruelty to animals. I find it […]