Saint Ignatius of Laconi (1701- 1781) – not to be confused with the more famous Ignatius of Loyala – was a Franciscan friar, born Ignazio Peis in Sardinia, one of seven children of poor peasants. He was drawn to the religious life from an early age, in which path he was confirmed by being apparently miraculously healed of a deadly illness at the age of 17. His parents at first objected, needing his help in the fields, but finally relented. Ignatius joined the Friars Minor Capuchins at Cagliari, and spent the rest of his life in various humble tasks while the tumultuous world of the 18th centur ..read more

Consequent to endeavours and successes in banning nitrogenous fertilisers, establishing “climate change” universities, liberalising sodomy and LGBTQ+, decreasing the age of consent to 14 and thereby legalising paedophilia – all in obedience to the directions emanating from agencies of the United Nations and its patrons, the latest Sri Lankan move towards achieving the objectives of the Agenda 2030 is the proposed enactment of the “gender” bills.  These bills are not merely little misanthropic attempts at societal transformation – or should ..read more

The great desert Father, and founder of cenobitic monasticism, Saint Pachomius, died on this 9th day of May in 348 A.D., eight years before his fellow monk, Saint Anthony of Egypt, generally considered the founder of eremitic monasticism (even if his feast in many calendars is on May 15th). That is, Anthony was a hermit (from eremos – literally ‘desert’ where one went to dwell alone), while Pachomius’ rule was for monks sharing a life in common (from koino-bios – literally ‘common life’). Raised a pagan and drafted into the Roman army in North Africa, Pachomius in his peregrinations came acros ..read more

A blessed feast of the Ascension to all our readers, when Christ ascended body and soul back to the Father, whence He was sent, to that Trinitarian life that is His by nature.  The Ascension is celebrated on Thursday of the sixth week of Easter, the fortieth day after the resurrection of Christ, and nine days before Pentecost, thus comprising the beginning of the earliest ‘novena’. (That it has been moved to replace the seventh Sunday of Easter signifies a diminution in our Christian culture).  Still, if you are able and amenable, begin that novena to the Holy Spirit now, praying for ..read more

As Christians we believe in miracles because the Gospels tell us of miracles performed by Jesus. No founder of any other world religion ever performed miracles, nor did any disciple of such founders ever claim that such power was possessed by the founder. Abraham, whose legacy of belief in one God includes the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths, was not a miracle worker. But if the God of Abraham is the true God, and He intended to establish a true religion, it would need to be a religion in which miracles would sooner or later be claimed as an authentic sign of that religion’s divine origin ..read more

May 8th is the traditional feast day of Our Lady of Pompeii, which reminds us of the power of the Marian prayer of the Rosary, through which the Lord turned a city given to paganism and sin into a city of grace and forgiveness, thanks to the protection of Mary, Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. Various Popes visited this special place of Pompei. Each of them left a great inheritance of reflections, prayers and hope. In his pastoral visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary, on Tuesday 7 October 2003, Pope St John Paul II described his visit one granted to him by the Blessed Virgin. The Pope put ..read more

(Dominic Savio’s feast used to be on the day he went into eternity, but has been moved to May 6th, so here are a few belated words on the young saint, an inspiration to us who have passed many more years on this Earth, and are nowhere near his sanctity. But God can do much, with little). Dominic Savio died on March 9th, 1857, at the age of 14, his last words, ‘what beautiful things I see…! When he was declared a saint on June 12, 1954 by Pope Pius II, Dominic Savio was the youngest non-martyr ever to be canonized in the history of the Church, until the visionaries of Fatima, Jacinta and France ..read more

I had trouble at first believing it, but I just checked, and it’s true: the English translations of Pope Saint John Paul II’s Wednesday audiences have been deleted from the Vatican website: Vatican website's censorship of Pope John Paul II The English translations of Pope John Paul II's general audience addresses, that contained his catechesis, have been removed. I recovered this screen shot of the Vatican's English translation from the Internet Archive The… pic.twitter.com/htnw9ciHqk — Nick Donnelly (@ProtecttheFaith) April 25, 2024 This is rather personal to me, for I use much of his teach ..read more

May the Fourth is the traditional commemoration of the Shroud of Turin, claimed to be the burial cloth of Christ – and there is much evidence that it is. But this is no ordinary cloth, for on it is imprinted – without any explicable scientific means, then or now – a negative image of Our Lord. That is, one can faintly see the image on the cloth, back and front, but when ‘developed’ – like one would a regular photograph- what comes out is all-too-true-to-life, a closeness to God that is palpable. The Shroud of Turin (wikipedia.org/public domain) Here is Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer in an interv ..read more

BENEDICT XVI GENERAL AUDIENCE Saint Peter’s Square Wednesday, 6 September 2006 Philip the Apostle Dear Brothers and Sisters, While we continue to outline the features of the various Apostles, as we have been doing for several weeks, today we meet Philip. He always comes fifth in the lists of the Twelve (cf. Mt 10: 3; Mk 3: 18; Lk 6: 14; Acts 1: 13); hence, he is definitely among the first. Although Philip was of Jewish origin, his name is Greek, like that of Andrew, and this is a small sign of cultural openness that must not be underestimated. The information we have on him is provided by John ..read more