Philip III of Spain put the Duque of Osuna in charge of the land of Naples. The Duque of Osuna went to visit the prison on the festival day of that prison. There was a tradition to release one of the prisoners on that day. Before releasing a prisoner, he first asked each of them […]
Once St. Ignatius of Loyola saw a religious who was sweeping the house and asked him: “Who are you doing this for?” The religious answered: “I am doing this for the love of God.” To which St. Ignatius said: “It does not matter if we serve the world in a lazy and neglectful way, but
In 1914, after Germany invaded Belgium, a magazine had a famous cartoon in which it showed the German Emperor saying to King Albert of Belgium, “So now you have lost everything”; and Albert’s answer came: “But not my soul!” Behind this cartoon there is an important teaching that is also in the Gospel: We, human
Blessed Clement Hofbauer, a Moravian religious and priest who was born in 1751, was pastor at St. Benno’s Church in Warsaw, Poland. Once he saw a homeless boy on the street and he brought him to the rectory, cleaned him up, fed him and catechized him. Little by little he started bringing more boys to
Once I read an interesting article that compared our will to the Mint; as the Mint makes coins, so our will makes coins. Our will makes the coins of good deeds, and we make those coins to buy heaven and achieve holiness. To buy heaven, our coins should be genuine and not counterfeit or fake.
A rich man gave an interesting commission to a painter. His painting was to depict only a rooster, but as faithfully as possible. After the commission, the man waited several years without hearing from the painter. Finally, he became so tired of waiting that he went to see what was happening with the painting. He
In 1974 while the Twin Towers were under construction, Philippe Petit a famous high-wire artist, who gained fame for his unauthorized high-wire walks between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, did the same between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New
The very wealthy English Baron Fitzgerald had only one child, a son, who understandably was the apple of his eye, the center of his affections, an only child, the focus of this little family’s attention. The son grew up, but in his early teens his mother died, leaving him and his father. Fitzgerald grieved over
In Granada, Spain, the townspeople are very proud of the beauty that can be found in their city. They say that is the most beautiful city in the world. In fact, a story tells that there is a wall that remembers a blind beggar who used to live in that city, and there is an
It is said that in the Principality of Monaco, judges condemned an offender to the guillotine, even though they didn’t have a guillotine nor an executioner. They ordered both (a guillotine and an executioner) from France, but as the rent was very expensive, they decided to leave the offender in jail and not to kill
