
Category: Media


29th May 2021
Devotion to Mary
Adam Coates
As May comes to a close, we come to the final post in this series dedicated to Mary. We’ve taken the opportunity of using this month, which the Church has set aside as a time of devotion to Mary, to get to know her better. In this final post, we want to conclude with a few thoughts on Marian devotion.
Further reading
- St. Louis de Montfort, The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin
- Pope Pius XII, Ingruentium Malorum
- St. Paul VI, Marialis Cultus, 56-57
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 971
- Rosary Centre, How to Pray the Rosary
- Catholic Answers, The Rosary
- Simply Catholic, What is the Angelus?
- The Diocese of Brooklyn, Where is the Hail Mary in the Bible?
- Catholic Culture, Month of the Seven Sorrows of Mary
- Tags Marian theology, Mariology, Mary

26th May 2021
Mary, Queen of Heaven
Adam Coates
In our previous post in this series, we considered Our Lady’s Assumption as that moment when Mary was taken up into Heaven, body and soul, to be united with her Son. In this post we will examine what it means for Mary to reign as Queen of Heaven, at her Son’s side.
Further reading
- St. John Henry Newman, Discourse 18. On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary
- St. John Henry Newman, The Queen of Seasons (A Song for an Inclement May)
- Pope Pius XII, Ad Caeli Reginam
- Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Three to Get Married, Chapter 17: Mary, Motherhood, and the Home.
- Lumen Gentium, 59
- St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 41
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 966
- Tags Marian theology, Mariology, Mary
The Assumption of Mary into Heaven
- Post author By stefan
- Post date May 21, 2021

22nd May 2021
The Assumption of Mary into Heaven
Adam Coates

Further reading
- Tags Marian theology, Mariology, Mary

19th May 2021
Mary, Mother of the Church
Adam Coates
Further reading
- Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 6-7
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 963-970
- St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 47
- St. John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 57
- Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, (Ignatius Press, 2011), p. 221
- Tags Marian theology, Mariology, Mary

15th May 2021
Mary, Mother of Sorrows
Adam Coates
Further reading
Related posts
- Tags Marian theology, Mariology, Mary

The Logos & Literature: Elaborating the Divine
#2 Searching for Truth: Fact & Fiction Today
***The talks are made available freely with the request for a donation to support our costs.***
Please donate here:
Fiction plays a powerful role in the search for and perception of truth. Historical fiction offers a means of accessing the past, and contemporary fiction often helps to shape the way a society is perceived. Fiorella Nash will explore the importance of both genres in seeking and reclaiming truths both religious and about ourselves, and in a particular way, the role of the murder mystery genre in the search for truth and justice.
About the speaker:
Fiorella De Maria is an Anglo-Maltese writer who grew up in Wiltshire, England and studied English literature at Cambridge University. A winner of the National Book Prize of Malta, she has published ten books including: Poor Banished Children, Do No Harm, We’ll Never Tell Them, A Most Dangerous Innocence and the Father Gabriel mysteries which have been described as “Miss Marple for the twenty-first century”. She lives in Surrey with her husband, four children and a dog called Monty. For more information about Fiorella, click here.
Other videos in the series:
- Tags catechesis, Catholic, fiction, historical fiction, literature, truth, writing

13th May 2021
The Ascension of Our Lord
Stefan Kaminski
The Feast of the Ascension can appear to have a slightly puzzling aspect. With the celebration of Our Lord’s bodily resurrection at Easter, we know Him to possess a glorified body that is no longer subject to the limitations of our earthly bodies. Although we hear of Christ’s many appearances to the Apostles and other disciples in the time following Easter, it is clear that His human and bodily nature can already be said to exist independently of this world. If this is true, why does a particular moment of “Ascension” need to take place?
The purpose of the Ascension is best expressed by considering the fact that it divides the Easter season into two uneven periods of forty and ten days respectively.
The significance of the period of forty days, from Easter to the Ascension, should be fairly clear to anyone with a cursory knowledge of Biblical history. Periods of forty days or years appear numerous times in Old and New Testaments: the forty days of the Flood, Israel’s Exodus in the desert, Moses’ time with God on Mount Sinai, and various forty years of peace or slavery for Israel and of the reigns of particular kings. Forty is a time of preparation, a time of transition, which therefore points towards a new era.
In this sense, Jesus’ forty days on earth after His Resurrection have a dual significance.
Insofar as the Resurrection proclaims the possibility of our individual redemption and our restoration to righteousness before God, so the Ascension announces the future restoration of human nature to a state even greater than that in which it was created. As St Thomas Aquinas explains, our mortal bodies belong to this earth, a place of generation and corruption; Christ’s immortal and incorruptible body belongs to the perfection of heaven. In other words, Christ’s Ascension points to the complete rehabilitation of human nature – body and soul – in a future, heavenly state, in “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1).
This is the destiny of that organic home of our soul which we call our body; that which the rupture of Original Sin has caused such a problematic relation with. Similarly to the “sneak preview” that Peter, James and John experienced at the Transfiguration, the Apostles are all blessed with a vision of the bodily glory that God intended for us, as a reflection of the spiritual beauty that He blessed us with.
Whilst drawing the future into the present in this way, the Ascension also and simultaneously closes the era of the Son, with the completion of His work of Redemption for the human race. The Apostles benefit from His presence among them during this time, listening to Him “speaking of the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). As much as this offers a completion and closure to His time among them, it is also a time of preparation for the next era. The arrival of the “Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name” (Jn 14:26), will grant the Apostles the fullness of Christ’s authority in order for them to commence their ministry on His behalf. This era or “phase”, which can be spoken of as the era of the Holy Spirit or of the Church, is the last before Christ’s Second Coming and the renewal of all things in Him.
After the Lord’s Ascension and the time of transition to the new era, we are left with another ten days in which to prepare specifically for the great Feast of Pentecost. It is a particular time of prayer for the Church, which, though already “born” from the side of Christ on the Cross, awaits her anointing with the Spirit. Thus, these ten days form a sort of “mini-Advent”, preparing not to receive the Lord this time, but to put into effect His command to “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19).
- Tags crucifixion, death, Good Friday, jesus christ, passion

12th May 2021
Mary, Model of Christians
Adam Coates
Further reading
Related posts
- Tags Marian theology, Mariology, Mary

8th May 2021
The Immaculate Conception
Adam Coates
Further reading
- Bl. John Duns Scotus: On the Fittingness of the Immaculate Conception
- Lumen Gentium, 56
- Gaudium et Spes, 22
- Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus
- Catechism of the Catholic Church: 490 – 493
- Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narrative, (Bloomsbury, 2012), pp. 27-28