Catholic Insight
The Quiet Man
Call me a sentimentalist, but it's one of my favourite short stories, evoking an Ireland that no longer is, but may be again:
https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/walshm-quietman/walshm-quietman-00-h.html
The 1952...
Vivaldi’s Magnificat
Monsignor Antonio Vivaldi was not only one of the greatest of Baroque composers, but also a Catholic priest, who directed a girls' orphanage, for...
Signs in the Sky
Signs can be ambiguous, or they can be very certain. There are the 'signs' of the sacraments fall into the latter category, given to...
Napoleon and ABBA’s Waterloo
In one of those odd confluences of history, today marks the day in 1793 when the Committee of Public Safety - a modern ring,...
Miss Rowling’s Stand
I was never a big fan of the Harry Potter books, for various reasons. I tried to read one - I was not their...
Saint Richard of Sussex
Saint Richard of Chichester (+1253) was a mediaeval bishop in Sussex - now the patron saint of that bucolic region in the south of...
It’s Official: John Paul II Day in Canada
Our parish priest reminded us this morning that by statutory law in Canada, today is officially 'John Paul II Day'. I must confess that...
The Last Easter Homily of Pope Benedict XVI
(Last words are always - or almost always - indicative, and one could reach much into these words of Pope Benedict XVI on his...
Three Easter Musical Gems
As we begin this Easter Octave with the great Solemnity of Easter itself, music to lift the soul would be one of Bach's Easter...
Good Friday and Suffering
Evil and pain is always a mystery, that whole mysterium iniquitatis, of which Saint Paul writes (2 Thess 2:7). In 1984, Pope Saint John...
