Weekly Insight
The Canadian Adorer on the Path to Canonization
Servant of God, Jeanne Le Ber (1688 - 1711) could easily be, some day, the patron saint of adorers. Her love for the Eucharist was such that she gave her life for it, literally,...
Dedication of Santa Maria Maggiore and Our Lady of the Snows
On August 5th, we celebrate the dedication of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the highest church in the hierarchy of churches dedicated to Our Lady in all of Christendom. The glorious edifice sits...
Blessed Frederick Jansoone: The Guardian of Notre Dame du Cap
Blessed Frédéric Janssoone, O.F.M. (1838 - 1916) hailed from France, from the town of Ghyvelde, in the northwest most corner, where the language was Flemish, and not French. After a difficult and impoverished, but...
A Meditation on the Feast of St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars
August the 4th is the Memorial of St. John Vianney, the Curé of Parish Priest of Ars. Canonized in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, he was named patron saint of priests in 1929 by...
Saint Jean Vianney, a Priest for Priests
On this day, August 4th, in 1859 - the same year that Darwin published his specious Origin of Species, and one year after Marx's Communist Manifesto, both of which, sadly, shook the faith of...
Pope Benedict and the Priesthood
(The holiness of the Church - and hence the salvation of the world - depends much upon the holiness of her priests. Hence, these words from Pope Benedict XVI from August 5th, 2009, on...
Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus
How strictly should we interpret Saint Cyprian of Carthage’s dictum extra ecclesiam nulla salus – outside the Church, there is no salvation? After all, it’s quoted in the 1992 Catechism, and is a dogma...
Pope Benedict and Saint Eusebius of Vercelli
This morning I invite you to reflect on St Eusebius of Vercelli, the first Bishop of Northern Italy of whom we have reliable information. Born in Sardinia at the beginning of the fourth century,...
Eighteenth Sunday: Earthly and Heavenly Eutopia
The feast described by the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading, with its “wine, milk and rich food,” was for the Jews a symbol of the messianic era in which Solomon’s kingdom would be...
Saints Eusebius of Vercelli and Peter Julian Eymard
The Church commemorates two pastors today, separated by a millennium and a half: The fourth-century Eusebius of Vercelli (+371), the first bishop we know of in northern Italy, who has gone down in history...
The Plenary Indulgence of the Portiuncula, or, Our Lady of the Angels
On 2nd August the universal Church celebrates what is called The Pardon of Assisi. This great feast, which ranks as a solemnity within the Franciscan festivities, is another great sign of the immense good the...
Cultivating Hope in Darkness
Hope can be a hard virtue to cultivate. It’s also a virtue we tend to ignore in the good times, only for hope to be drowned by life's sorrows. The virtue of hope, as...
Pope Benedict and Saint Alphonsus Ligouri
BENEDICT XVI
GENERAL AUDIENCE
St. Peter's Square
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Saint Alphonsus Liguori
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today I would like to present to you the figure of a holy Doctor of the Church to whom we are deeply...
Alphonsus of Ligouri, A Moral Teacher for All
Saint Alphonsus Ligouri (1696 - 1787) was a renaissance man, whose kind was a rarity in his post-renaissance era, and even more so now in our age of specialization, often in esoteric subjects that...
Obedience: the true remedy to worldly anxiety
The older I get, the more quickly I can recognize exactly what’s happening when I start to feel anxiety bubbling up: I’ve taken my eyes off the Prince of Peace himself.
My senses are so...
