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Wednesday, August 24, 2022 Jim Davis – Florida Catholic The National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity takes a conical shape, emulating Mary’s spreading mantle.Tiled rendering of Our Lady of Charity greets visitors inside the front doors of the shrine.A mural of famous Church and Cuban leaders towers above the altar.Centerpiece of the shrine is the replica of Our Lady’s statuette, smuggled out of Cuba in 1961. A Cuban flag has been pinned to her mantle.Above the statuette is a larger rendering of Mary with the Christ Child.Mary stands seaside in a full-width window in the small chapel. Flanking her are typical Marian symbols: a fiery heart for her spiritual zeal, and a white lily for her purity.Also in the chapel are two windows with a chalice, wheat and grapes, the elements ...

This piety carries with it certain negative obligations as well. Because all we are and have is the gift of God, we must not clutch at it too tightly: God can recall the gift when he will. Moreover, because God has created us, we must accept the conditions in which he did so; that is, we must accept both our duties absolute (towards God) and contingent (towards family, home, and country). Tolkien’s heroes are strongly bound by such unchosen obligations. Thus Samwise Gamgee, the true hero of The Lord of the Rings, remains unshakingly loyal to his Master, his family, and his own small corner of the Shire: and all this is presented as a praiseworthy and even necessary devotion. Thus Aragorn quite literally carries the legacy of a millennia-old house and wages his ancestors’ unending war again...

“I have been—and remain—very grateful to you for your prayers and to God for His steadfast love. I have indeed seen His faithfulness.” When Elizabeth II took the throne in 1952, Britons had a very definite idea of what monarchs look like. They were tall, handsome men in huge epaulettes, like George VI. At the very least, they might be stately old women like Victoria. And yet here was their new sovereign: a pretty young woman, shy and slight. In her coronation photos, the hand holding the orb rests on her lap, as though her thin arms couldn’t hold it up for long enough to take the photo. That was over sixty years ago. And yet none of England’s great warrior-kings ever commanded so much love and admiration from their subjects as did Elizabeth. But why? In the days to come, there will be no s...

Members of the German “synodal way” failed to pass on Thursday a resolution calling for a change in the Church’s approach to sexual ethics. The resolution failed to gain enough support from bishops at a synodal meeting held this week in Frankfurt. More than two-thirds of participants in the synodal way process voted to adopt a 30-page document entitled “Life in succeeding relationships – The principles of renewed sexual ethics.” But the resolution did not gain two-thirds of the synodal way’s bishop participants, a requirement for the passage of any resolution. Sixty-one percent of voting German bishops were in favor of the resolution, according to initial German media reports; 33 bishops voted for the motion, 3 abstained, and 21 bishops voted no, enough to stop the resolution’s passa...

As a spiritual mother and grandmother to millions, it seems fitting that she should have passed on the feast of the Nativity of Our Blessed Mother, the Queen of Heaven. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was the only British monarch the vast majority of my countrymen have ever known.  Most of us grew up with great admiration and filial affection for her — this formidable woman with an untiring sense of duty who was an example to us all. She was our sovereign for 70 years, and with her deep sense of service that emanated from her Christian faith, the Queen brought stability and unity to the whole nation.  One of my earliest childhood memories was of her Silver Jubilee in 1977 and, as with her Platinum Jubilee that providentially she was able to celebrate earlier this year, the Queen w...