Yearly Archives: 2017

22 12, 2017

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

2021-12-02T12:52:45+00:00December 22nd, 2017|

In the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus, in a dull provincial backwater of the Roman Empire, the world's true King tabernacled silently for nine months in the virginal womb of a then unknown Jewish maiden, Mary of Nazareth. The Blessed Virgin Mary’s divine Infant is Jesus Christ, the long awaited Saviour of mankind, Messiah. Christ the [...]

3 12, 2017

Wake Up, Look Up

2021-12-02T12:52:31+00:00December 3rd, 2017|

Hora est de somno surgere. Advent is the austere and sobering start of the new liturgical year. We recall humanity’s primordial expulsion from paradise. We ponder the Four Last Things; death, judgement, hell, and heaven. The cry of Wachet auf rouses sleepy pilgrims from their dreams. It urges us to wake up, and to look up, towards the transcendent horizon from whence [...]

1 11, 2017

From Purgatory to Paradise

2021-12-02T12:52:14+00:00November 1st, 2017|

We should fervently hope that at our particular judgement God’s mercy will allow us into purgatory. Pray hard to get into purgatory. Will it hurt?  Yes, it will. What are the pains of purgatory? Having been judged, and having by God’s mercy escaped damnation, the soul ‘wakes up’ in purgatory to find itself bereft of all its previous bodily senses, [...]

1 10, 2017

Angels and Animals

2021-12-02T12:51:59+00:00October 1st, 2017|

When Christ our Lord was fasting in the wilderness He was with the wild beasts, and angels ministered unto Him. From scripture and tradition we know quite a lot about angels. They were created before us and greatly outnumber the human creation. Angels are greater than us in intelligence, knowledge, power, and beauty, notwithstanding the unique dignity bestowed on human [...]

2 09, 2017

September – Month of the Holy Cross

2021-12-02T12:49:00+00:00September 2nd, 2017|

Thanks be to God that His wisdom often turns dysfunctional human plans upside down and inside out. We see this in the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The instrument of torture becomes the throne of glory. He Who was nailed to the Cross like a criminal is in fact the King of kings before Whom one day every knee shall [...]

26 08, 2017

By Grace and Personal Influence

2021-12-02T12:48:50+00:00August 26th, 2017|

From all eternity God’s wisdom has planned our individual salvation. He has so ordered His creation that even apparently chance occurrences can play a part in the unfolding of our salvation. In the complex and multi-faceted kaleidoscope of daily life, countless instances of human interaction (mostly unplanned by us) all combine in a dynamic synergy of cause and effect. From [...]

13 08, 2017

Newman on Our Lady’s Assumption

2021-12-02T12:48:38+00:00August 13th, 2017|

“It is by the power of God's grace that from this barren and desolate earth there have ever sprung up at all flowers of holiness and glory. And Mary is the Queen of them. She is the Queen of spiritual flowers; and therefore she is called the Rose, for the rose is fitly called of all flowers the most beautiful. But [...]

6 08, 2017

Two Natures in One Person

2021-12-02T12:48:25+00:00August 6th, 2017|

Many have tried to reduce the Person of Christ the God-man to something comprehensible. To try and render Him fully understandable is to try and make Him other than what He is. We must accept that the constitution of His unique Person is ultimately a mystery. The mystery of His two natures in one Person was revealed iconographically (so to [...]

31 07, 2017

Saint Ignatius Loyola

2021-12-02T12:48:13+00:00July 31st, 2017|

Ignatius was born in 1491, the eleventh and last child of a Basque noble, the doyen of the castle at Loyola in Guipuzcoa, Northern Spain. His early life was at court and in the army. In 1521 a canon ball fractured his shin and thigh. The broken bones in his leg were wrongly set, so it was decided to break [...]

15 07, 2017

Praise the Precious Blood

2021-12-02T12:48:01+00:00July 15th, 2017|

Our faith in the salvation which the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ offers mankind also imposes on us a grave responsibility to tell others about it. If we really believe what we say we believe, then we should want to shout it from the rooftops. The desire to tell others the truth about Christ the Redeemer should motivate us every [...]

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