Everyday For Life Canada: 2013

The Holy Family is our model family

Servant of God Luigi Giussani died in 2005. He was a priest in Milan, Italy, and was the founder of the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation. It's purpose is to form the laity in order to prepare them to work with the Church's mission to evangelize. He was a priest ahead of his times because there's a great need for this in today's Church. Every baptized person has this evangelical responsibility.

Dec

Radio Maria Canada's president left a great faith example to follow

Just two weeks ago the former president Professor Luigi Pautasso of Radio Maria Canada and Holy Mother World Networks, HMWN, died after suffering from a lengthy illness. He was born in Italy on December 27, 1931 and died December 16, 2013. He earned his PhD in 1989 on the life of Toronto Archbishop Fergus McEvay, 1852-1911. He knew several languages including French, Italian, English, Latin and Aramaic.

Dec

Christmas: Thank you Baby Jesus!

In the December 2013 issue of the Magnificat, there's a prayer called "Blessing before a Christmas Stable" written by Father Peter John Cameron, O.P. It's a wonderful and touching prayer to celebrate and give thanks to God for sending us the gift of Baby Jesus to redeem the world. We can use it to reflect and to pray on the meaning of Christmas in front of a nativity scene either at home or in church.

Dec

The birth that changes everything

The director, Fr. Livio Fanzaga of Radio Maria Italy has written this wonderful and spiritually inspiring Christmas message for his listening audience. He writes a very touching and reflective letter addressed to Baby Jesus. We liked it so much that we translated it from the Italian to share with our readers. If there are any errors in the translation, the mistakes are mine and not Fr. Livio's.

Dec

Catholic students bring the message of Christmas to the marketplace

On Dec 7, 2013 the students from Thomas Aquinas College, in California, brought the joy of Advent and the promise of Christmas to the shopping mall. The You Tube post states,

More more than 100 Thomas Aquinas College students descended on Ventura's Pacific Mall ... for a choral 'flash mob.' After stealthily gathering around the mall's Christmas central lobby — by the Santa Claus photo center and a Nativity display — the students simultaneously burst into song.

Dec

Our annual Christmas food drive

This weekend the St. Vincent de Paul Society of our parish, St. Bernard de Clairvaux, held its annual Christmas food distribution drive to help the needy in our community. Approximately 76 families came to pick up non-perishable food items and a food voucher. Many of these families had also received home visits and assistance during the past year from our group of volunteer members.

Dec

Understanding the thinking of Pope Francis

Before Pope Francis became pope, as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he issued a pastoral letter for the Year of Faith. It was addressed to the priests, the consecrated religious and the lay faithul of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. By reading this message, we come to a better understanding of his thinking and the evangelical emphasis he is giving the Church as pontiff.

Dec

Nelson Mandela's Canadian connection and anti-life side

International media and the political world have heaped all kinds of praise regarding the deceased former president of South Africa and civil rights leader Nelson Mandela. However, the Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, has had the courage to remind the faithful and others that while we mourn the death and pray for the soul of Nelson Mandela we cannot forget that he signed the legalization of abortion in South Africa.

Dec

Canadian lawyers sign a declaration against euthanasia

Canadian Lawyers recently signed a Declaration against euthanasia and asssited-suicide. It's a statement to affirm the protection of human life. With Quebec pushing ahead to pass Bill 52 that would make euthanasia and assisted suicide legal, this is welcome news.

Dec

Celebrating the feast of the Immaculate Conception

The Church's teaching on the Immaculate Conception goes back to Pope Pius IX with his proclamation in 1854 that,

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin. (Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus,1854) This what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches about our Blessed Mother.