A blessed Inauguration Day, especially to all our American readers. Say what you will about Donald Trump – he does have his limitations, and carries baggage, and has opinions with which I would disagree – but he’s a lot better than what might have been. As someone put it, we can say farewell to the most destructive, most incompetent American political leaders in modern history will be leaving the White House for the last time! Let’s hope for a much brighter, more prosperous future.
If only we could say the same here in Canada…
Yes, we should hope – not in the ‘arm of man’, as Scripture warns, but of what God can accomplish, even through imperfect men.
It’s a brand new day, and each day is a gift. Let us use these 365 gifts of 2025 – well, 345 now and counting. It’s a Jubilee Year, with an added emphasis on the great and clear thinker Saint Thomas Aquinas, with many graces, with which we may cooperate to fulfill God’s holy and perfect will as best we might in this rather unholy and imperfect world.
As Alexander Pope wrote at the end of his Essay on Man, in words that require some discernment in light of the fullness of Catholic teaching:
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Saint Joseph, Saint Fabian and Saint Sebastian, orate pro ei, et pro nobis!