The work for God goes on quite simply in this way; one does not always have to wait for something out of the ordinary. The all-important thing is to keep your eyes on what comes from God and to make way for it to come into being here on earth. If you always try to be heavenly and spiritual-minded, you won’t understand the everyday work God has for you to do. But if you embrace what is to come from... Read more
Going My Way, a 1944 film directed by Leo McCarey. It is a light-hearted musical comedy/drama about a new young priest (Bing Crosby) taking over a parish from an established old veteran (Barry Fitzgerald). Crosby sings five songs in the film. It was followed the next year by a sequel, The Bells of St. Mary’s. This picture was the highest-grossing picture of 1944. It won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Crosby). Its success helped to... Read more
Br. Gregorio Bühl came to Italy at the age of 17 from Villingendorf, Germany, where he was born on September 13, 1896. After his novitiate he expressed the wish to go on the missions, but God disposed otherwise and in August 1923 he was assigned to the novitiate community where he remained for 50 years as sub-director. His intense spiritual life found its nourishment in prayer, the Eucharist and filial love for the Most Blessed Virgin. He died a saintly... Read more
On this day in 1925, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Quas Primas, in which eh instituted the Feast of Christ the King. Read more
The Christian Mysteries are an indivisible whole. If we become immersed in one, we are led to all the others. Thus the way from Bethlehem leads inevitably to Golgotha, from the crib to the cross. When the Blessed Virgin brought the Child to the temple, Simeon prophesied that her sould would be pierced by a sword, that this child was set for the fall and resurrrection of many, for a sign that would be contradicted. His prophecy announced the Passion,... Read more
Paolo Uccello was an Italian painter and a mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. Giorgio Vasari in his book Lives of the Artists wrote that Uccello was obsessed by his interest in perspective and would stay up all night in his study trying to grasp the exact vanishing point. He used perspective in order to create a feeling of depth in his paintings and not, as his contemporaries, to narrate different or succeeding... Read more
Francis William Petre was a prominent New Zealand-born architect based in Dunedin. Before his time, 19th-century New Zealand architecture was dominated by an almost institutionalized Gothic revival style, used by the British Empire for its far-flung colonies. Petre, one of the first of New Zealand’s native-born architects, played an important part in guiding it towards the Palladian and Renaissance styles of southern Europe, which were more suited to New Zealand’s climate than Gothic. Able to work competently in a wide... Read more
Teodorico Pedrini was an Italian priest, missionary, musician and composer. Pedrini was born in Fermo, Italy. He joined the Vincentian Fathers in 1698 and was ordained shortly thereafter. In 1710, he was sent to China as a missionary. He served there until his death. Besides being a priest, Pedrini was also a musician. This competence helped him first to be admitted to the Court of the Chinese emperors then to gain the favour of three successive Emperors, ruling during his... Read more
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