Borden’s Burdensome Tax

On this day, in 1917,  Prime Minister Robert Borden - whose mustachioed visage is on the $100 bill - imposed an income tax on...

Saint Charbel’s Holy Hidden Life

God often works through hidden ways, and those who live a hidden life. Amare nesciri, as Saint Philip Neri was wont to say, 'love...

Mary Magdalene’s Marvelous Metanoia

A blessed feast of Mary Magdalene, which - or who - was raised from memorial status in the liturgical revisions of 1969 to a...

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, the Bible and Cappucino

Born Guilio Cesare Russo to a family of Venetian merchants, but far to the south, in the village of Brindisi, right down on the...

Saint Apollinaris of Ravenna

The See of Ravenna – on the north-east coast of Italy – was once, way back in the Middle Ages, nearly on par with...

Le Temoinage des Carmelites de Compiègne – The Witness of the Carmelites

It was on this day in a Parisian summer in 1794 - one day after the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel - that sixteen...

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Around this time of year in the Office of Readings, or Lauds, we follow the travails of the prophet Elijah from the Book of...

The Scottish Brogue Wins Many Merry Souls

Someone - ironically, a good friend with a pronounced British accent - sent me this tongue-in-cheek article from the Babylon Bee: Study Finds Preaching...

The Seraphic Doctor: Saint Bonaventure

Some of the 'Doctors of the Church' have epithets, and Saint Bonaventure, whom we celebrate today, is the 'seraphic', perhaps for his transcendent teaching;...

The Storm of a True Revolution

Today marks the anniversary of the official beginning of the French Revolution, back in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille prison.  Much ado...