At the end of May, Jean Vanier was interviewed on the CBC by Carol Off for the evening program As it Happens. As most of you are aware, Vanier is a widely revered figure, a ‘living saint’ some may say, the founder ofL’Arche, which cares for severely handicapped and developmentally challenged people, heroic work that […]
Last week, I was walking through Ottawa, and what greeted me on the vast lawn in front of the Parliament buildings was a sight to behold: Hundreds of raised posteriors in various tight-fitting spandex doing yoga exercises, to the voice of an unseen young woman on a remote microphone. I was quite literally flabbergasted, and […]
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 is the commemoration of Our Lady of Fatima, a title given to the Virgin Mary after she appeared ‘brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light’ to three shepherd children in the summer of 1917 (no painting ever did Our Lady justice) just outside the village of Fatima, in central Portugal, about 76 miles […]
Quebec is back in the news, this time with a report of its death-spiral of a birth rate. It seems Quebec women by and large do not want to have children, or at least not more than 1.6, on average, per woman. This is well, well, below the requisite 2.1 just to maintain a stable […]
Saint Catherine of Siena (1334-1380) was a feisty, indomitable woman. One might, in a Catholic way, claim her as an early ‘feminist’, in the true JP II sense of that term, recognizing the genius, and the power, of woman, and her role in the Church. Catherine was born the 23rd child of an Italian […]
Another Canadian Senator, the Liberal Colin Kenney, has been caught using public money, and his servants’, sorry, his staff’s, time to do personal business for the esteemed member of the Upper House of ‘sober second thought’. These included renovations on his private residence and disinfecting the beds in his privately-owned tanning-salon business. Shades of Mike […]
It was reported amongst the Indo-Canadian community, and that is the far-away India, not the Native Canadians whose ranks were just increased by the Supreme Court decision to grant ‘status’ to 600,000 Metis (those of mixed-Native ancestry). More on this later, and what level of new financial boondoggle it might entail. No, amongst those of […]
(The following is an address I offered yesterday at Saint Hedwig’s Church for the Divine Mercy celebration. jpm) This being the Year of Mercy, decreed by Pope Francis, as well as Divine Mercy Sunday, as decreed by Pope Saint John Paul II, back in 2000, I thought that I had better not stray too far […]
In, 1984, Pope Saint John Paul II penned an Apostolic Letter on the mystery of human suffering, Salvifici Doloris (curiously, now looking back, the same year he made his first apostolic journey to Canada). One priest in a talk I heard recently mentioned that it may be remembered as one of his most prophetic works, […]