Fulton Sheen - Quotes on Mary

 

https://journeytotheeternalcity.com/archbishop-fulton-sheen-quotes/#on-mary

• “God, Who made the sun, also made the moon. The moon does not take away from the brilliance of the sun. All its light is reflected from the sun. So Mary reflects her Divine Son; without Him, she is nothing. With Him, she is the Mother of men.”
• “Mary receives praise as a mirror receives light: She stores it not, nor even acknowledged it, but makes it pass from her to God to whom is due all praise, all honor and thanksgiving.”
• “Let those who think that the Church pays too much attention to Mary give heed to the fact that our Blessed Lord Himself gave ten times as much of His life to her as He gave to His Apostles.”

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/7317-the-world-s-first-love-mary-mother-of-god

“The mark of man is initiative, but the mark of woman is cooperation. Man talks about freedom; woman about sympathy, love, sacrifice. Man cooperates with nature; woman cooperates with God. Man was called to till the earth, to "rule over the earth"; woman to be the bearer of a life that comes from God.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“as the mother knows the needs better than the babe, so the Blessed Mother understands our cries and worries and knows them better than we know ourselves.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, World’s First Love, The

“She existed in the Divine Mind as an Eternal Thought before there were any mothers. She is the Mother of mothers—she is the world’s first love.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“The Gospels did not start the Church; the Church started the Gospels. The Church did not come out of the Gospels; the Gospels came out of the Church.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“The Church was spread throughout the entire Roman Empire before a single book of the New Testament was written.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“If it be true that the world has lost its respect for authority, it is only because it lost it first in the home. By a peculiar paradox, as the home loses its authority, the authority of the state becomes tyrannical.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“The melody of her life is played just as it was written. Mary was thought, conceived, and planned as the equal sign between ideal and history, thought and reality, hope and realization.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“A tiny architect works inside the human heart drawing sketches of the ideal love from the people it sees, from the books it reads, from its hopes and daydreams, in the fond hope that the eye may one day see the ideal and the hand touch it. Life becomes satisfying the moment the dream is seen walking, and the person appears as the incarnation of all that one loved. The”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“He has mercy on those who fear Him, from generation to generation.” Fear is here understood as filial, that is, a shrinking from hurting one who is loved. Such is the fear a son has for a devoted father and the fear a Christian has of Christ. Fear is here related to love.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“Our Lord was born not just of her flesh but also by her consent.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“As our love does not start with Mary, so neither does it stop with Mary. Mary is a window through which our humanity first catches a glimpse of Divinity on earth. Or perhaps she is more like a magnifying glass; she intensifies our love of her Son and makes our prayers more bright and burning.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“As the “no” of Eve proves that the creature was made by love and is therefore free, so thy Fiat proves that the Creature was made for love as well.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“The mystery of the Incarnation is very simply that of God’s asking a woman freely to give Him a human nature.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“Real love uses freedom to attach itself unchangeably to another.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

“When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, “You know how it is; one tries to make one’s Mummy just as nice as he can.” When God became Man, He too, I believe, would make His Mother as nice as He could—and that would make her a perfect Mother.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God

Doctors Consider Death by Organ Donation for MAID Patients

 https://epaper.nationalpost.com/article/281492168099156

National Post Fri, 24 Jul 2026

Doctors consider ‘death by organ donation’ for MAID patients
PRACTICE MAY IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF DONOR ORGANS, BUT RISKS ERODING PUBLIC TRUST
SHARON KIRKEY

I think a lot of the public would be fairly horrified by it.
A new paper is reviving the idea of “death by organ donation” — retrieving organs from MAID patients while they are sedated and unconscious but still alive. Current law prohibits it, due to the long-standing dead donor rule, or DDR, which holds that people must be dead before organs can be removed (the “Death Requirement”) and that doctors must not kill a person by means of procuring his or her organs (the “Don’t Kill Rule”).
However, the authors of a new paper published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine say the growing acceptance of voluntary euthanasia complicates the dead donor rule, because people are knowingly consenting to death, and euthanasia laws sanction killing by physicians in “circumscribed situations.”
Death by organ donation might improve the quality of donor organs, they argue, “potentially saving many lives” and allowing donors to maximize their donation.
The idea not only sounds ghoulish, it also risks eroding public trust in MAID and organ donation both, said University of Toronto bioethicist Kerry Bowman, who has spent most of his working life in critical care.
“I think a lot of the public would be fairly horrified by it.”
The authors of the paper — “Contextualizing the Dead Donor Rule in an Era of Voluntary Euthanasia” — said they are not arguing that the dead donor rule should be abandoned. Rather, the authors say it’s time to reassess the rule as it applies to MAID patients, given the growing acceptance of organ donation after euthanasia.
The rule protects people from being killed for their organs and treated merely as a means to benefit others, and has been preserved to protect public trust, they said.
However, voluntary euthanasia “creates a new ethical context” for the DDR, they wrote.
The “categorical constraint on physician killing, for its part, is legally and ethically circumvented by voluntary euthanasia,” two Canadian critical care doctors and a Harvard Medical School bioethicist wrote in the journal.
“The current legal reality of voluntary euthanasia provides a new context for interpreting the Don’t Kill Rule.”
MAID organ donors “are not dead yet, but their death is imminent” and will result directly from their voluntary request to have their lives ended by lethal injection, they said. In those cases, it may become “ethically arbitrary” to require a formal declaration of death before organs are retrieved, they wrote.
“In this landscape, the moral significance of strict temporal sequencing (post, not pre-mortem retrieval) is diminished,” they said.
The outcome isn’t altered “by whether death occurs moments before or during organ retrieval.”
Therefore, the ethical focus should “shift away from identifying a precise moment of biologic death and toward respecting patients’ autonomous decisions, ensuring that safeguards against coercion and exploitation are robust and advocating for a transparent and publicly accountable process,” they wrote.
Under guidance developed by Canadian Blood Services, the decision to receive MAID must precede, and be separate from, the decision to donate, so that people don’t feel pressured to choose either.
However, the possibility of organ donation can be raised once the MAID request has been granted, and increasing numbers of Canadians requesting MAID are asking to donate their organs after death. One study found Canada performs more organ donations after euthanasia than any other country that has legalized the practice. Between 2019, the first year it was available, and 2021, Canada performed 136 organ donations after euthanasia. In 2021, Canada had 41 cases, compared to only 20 in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain combined.
With organ donation after MAID, the person is taken to a hospital and administered life-ending drugs. Next follows a standard organ donation protocol: blood pressure is monitored via a line inserted into a small artery in the wrist to determine when the person’s heart has stopped beating.
Doctors then wait an additional five minutes — the “no touch” period — to confirm death before the person is transferred to the operating room for organ retrieval.
Death by donation “would look in some ways similar, and in some ways very different,” said first author of the new paper, Dr. Carter Winberg, a Canadian critical care doctor currently completing his masters in bioethics at Harvard Medical School.
The person would be brought to hospital and taken to an operating room, where they would receive the same sedating medications used with euthanasia. Except surgery would commence once the person was fully unconscious. Death would ultimately be caused by removal of vital organs.
Organs were once only ever removed from donors declared brain-dead, meaning an irreversible loss of all brain function. They’re medically and legally dead, but their hearts are still beating, and a ventilator keeps oxygen flowing to the heart and other organs until organs can be retrieved, packed in special preservation fluids and sent to the recipient’s transplant hospital.
Twenty years ago, doctors began removing organs from “controlled circulatory death” donors — people who, like MAID patients, aren’t braindead, but whose prospects for recovery are so grim a decision is made to withdraw life support.
However, organs can be damaged during the dying process and mandated waiting period due to a lack of blood flow and oxygen. The longer the ischemia time — that elapsed time without blood flow — the greater the risk the organs won’t function when transplanted inside another body.
Organ donation after euthanasia carries the same risks. However, if organs were removed while still receiving blood, the ischemia time would be shortened dramatically, making lungs, livers, kidneys and pancreases as viable as organs retrieved after brain death. It would also enable heart donation. Most donor hearts are retrieved from brain-dead donors.
“Since death would be a chosen and inevitable outcome in these cases, enabling retrieval under ideal conditions represents a Pareto improvement: no one would be made worse off, and multiple lives might be saved,” they said.
No jurisdiction, as far as they’re aware, is considering or implementing death by organ donation. But in the setting of voluntary euthanasia and organ donation after euthanasia, the idea warrants “open, transparent dialogue,” they argue.
Most cases of organ donation involve people in intensive care who can’t provide first-person consent. Doctors have to rely on substitute decision makers and families “to help us understand their values and wishes,” Winberg said.
“That’s a very different looking context than someone who drives in from home with a family member and is able to have a full conversation with you about their values and wishes.”
With legalized euthanasia, organ donation has entered a “completely different landscape,” he said. “You have competent people asking and requesting their death. You have direct physician killing,” realities that didn’t exist when the dead donor rule was “stamped and defined in the literature.”
Everyone agrees people shouldn’t be used for their organs, he said.
“If the purpose of the death requirement is to maintain public trust and protect patients, can the spirit of that rule be done through other means? Our group would argue that it could be done through other means, if it was done thoughtfully in terms of upstream safeguarding with people who are competent and able to provide first-person consent.”
“So, yes, broadly, we are asking whether retrieval could form part of the process that causes death, rather than always occurring only after death has been declared in this specific new context,” Winberg said.
It’s a scenario his two co-authors raised in an earlier paper published in 2019 in the same journal.
Today, more than 200 million people live in jurisdictions around the world with some form of legalized assisted death.
Death by organ donation “is asking surgeons to take a living person into the operating room and to come out with a dead person, which I think is murder,” Lainie Friedman Ross, a University of Rochester bioethicist, told NPR.
Bowman, the University of Toronto bioethicist who has been involved in many MAID cases, is troubled by the very practice of organ donation after euthanasia.
“There’s a substantial cohort of patients that apply for medical assistance in dying who are approved, yet who choose not go through with it. They take things day by day and they eventually die of their illnesses in other ways,” he said.
But if they have already talked to people about organ donation they might be afraid to say they’ve changed their minds. “I would argue that really erodes the voluntary element of it.”
People who seek MAID “tend to be really, really worn down by the reality and difficulties” of the illnesses they’ve been living with, he said.
“Some have said to me, ‘I take more than I give. Everyone takes care of me. I don’t give anything back.’ I worry about the psychology of that, in a lot of ways.”
Many clinicians also “really hold the desire to not want to waste organs,” Bowman said. “There can be subtle encouragement, definitely, to donate (and) societal praise.”
The authors “are kind of saying the definition of death has evolved, so we don’t have to worry about that as much,” Bowman added.
“You really do need some firewalls,” he said. “Clinicians, whatever they are, have got to put the patient in front of them first at all times. When a person is going to donate and it’s clinically advantageous for them to donate when they are still alive, one is pulling the other.”


https://epaper.nationalpost.com/article/281492168099156

Father Marcus Schonnop, Awesome Homily, July 18, 2026, Annunciation of the Lord Parish - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Father Marcus Schonnop's website

https://www.frmarcus.com/

 

Canada Day Homily from Father Daniel

 https://www.youtube.com/live/j-BckyzN6ec?si=ax0wXEzDisAO5PFp&t=1057

On Canada Day some Canadian Trivia in case you are unaware

on Canada Day some Canadian Trivia in case you are unaware

June is Pride month. 

June to September is actually Pride season. 

October is LGBT history month in case you missed something during the previous four months. 

November is transgender awareness month for those who are still unaware of what took place from June to October. It also contains transgender day of remembrance. 

January, after a breather for Christmas and New Year's, we have the International Day to End Conversion Therapy on January 7. 

March is a bisexual health awareness month. 

 March 31 is Transgender Day of Visibility in case there was not enough awareness or visibility raised in June through October. 

April is International Day of Pink, which involves all kinds of mandatory school stuff. 

May is International Day against Homophobia, transphobia, and biophobia. And we're back in Pride season again. So, yeah, there's there's quite a lot of stuff that's going on

In case you are unaware. Did you know 

 

50th. Anniversary, Monsignor Joseph Muldoon, Holy Cross Parish, Ottawa, ON Canada, June 7, 2026 - Corpus Christi Sunday

Videos

Entrance Procession

Recessional

Grace led by Archbishop Marcel

Photos

 

Pierre Poilievre CONDEMNS Sex Changes for Kids

Pierre Poilievre made his stance pretty clear:

no irreversible sex changes for kids. Jonathon breaks down Pierre's response to a question from Billboard Chris and a conversation that Pierre had with former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld.

 

The 4th annual National “Pride” Flag Walk-Out Day Monday, June 1st, 2026 - Protest at the Ottawa Catholic School Board

 Despite our Archbishop's request in 2021 to the Ottawa Catholic School Board to support Catholic Teaching and to NOT raise the PRIDE Flag, once again, now in 2026, this request has been ignored. 

Ottawa  Archbishop Marcel Damphousse re. The Ottawa Catholic School Board's decision that  schools fly the rainbow (PRIDE) flag during June ( May 28, 2021), a decision that goes against the teaching of the Church

 

ARCHBISHOP’S MESSAGE  to Faithful Catholics, May 28, 2021 

Decision difficult to understand

Last Tuesday, May 25, the Trustees of the Ottawa Catholic School Board voted 9-1 in favor of a motion to allow schools to fly the rainbow (gay pride) flag during the months of June. This decision, despite my opposition, leaves me confused and disappointed. Many of you share my pain and suffering. I am very aware of this. I have received many e-mails from parents, teachers, and members of our Catholic community who have expressed their displeasure and incomprehension about this important decision that goes against the teaching of the Church. For some, the reactions have been very strong. Faced with this reality, many questions arise. How should we react? What are we to understand about the current state of our Catholic schools in Ontario?

One thing is certain. It is never wise to react and make decisions when emotions are still high. We risk saying hurtful words, judging too quickly with condemning comments, or making hasty and unreflective decisions. As Archbishop, I must exercise my leadership with wisdom and serenity. It seems to me essential to take actions that will give life and not destroy it. Therefore, I need time. Time to calm the emotions and time to acquire the facts to better understand the state of things. Time to consult and ask all the necessary questions.

It is important for you to know that I have no legal authority over Catholic schools or school trustees. The province funds and controls our Catholic schools. Trustees are elected by the people. I can only exert my influence on religious education and moral issues. I did this at the Trustees’ meeting itself. You can find my presentation on the diocesan website.

I understand that this is just one of many school boards in our archdiocese. But you can be sure that the pressure to do this, as in many other school boards in Ontario, is forcing the leaders of all our Catholic schools to reflect and take a stand. For those who feel discouraged by these facts, do not allow yourselves to be drawn into the pit of despair. Instead, turn your attention to the good that exists. How can we nurture and strengthen that which is good?

Let us remember that as a Church we have a mission to see to the well-being of all souls. The thousands of young people in our Catholic schools are among those souls and deserve the best. I believe that more than ever they need our presence and witness to grow in faith. It would be easy to give up and declare defeat. Instead, the Spirit of Pentecost gives us courage, guidance and wisdom to bring about the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ never told us that it would be easy.

Rest assured that I am personally committed to accompanying the stakeholders at all levels to ensure Catholicity in our schools. It will be long and hard work, but necessary. Prayerfully, together we will succeed. There are many good people who are well intentioned in our school boards. It is a matter of accompanying them well. Perhaps we have missed the mark in this regard. I think it is important to recognize where, as a Church, we have not done everything possible to educate, train and prepare people for mission. It is never too late to start.

 Please continue to pray for me, as I do for you.

 Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

 Saint Joseph, pray for us. 

X Marcel

At the time, Pat and I thanked the Archbishop
below

Dear Archbishop Marcel Damphousse

Thank you for standing for the truths of our Catholic Faith by voting against a motion to fly the homosexual “Pride flag” at Catholic schools in June in 2021, and telling them that the flag is a “political statement that endorses behaviours and lifestyles contradicting the Catholic Church’s teaching.” I am sorry for not thanking you earlier

It is a very strange culture we are living in when our Catholic Schools are no longer teaching our children the truths of our faith.  I have grandchildren who attend Catholic Schools, and I feel a heaviness in my heart and a sadness in my soul for what is happening

God bless you!

Patricia Maloney, Ottawa, On

Maureen Ward, Ottawa On  

Photos from today

There were approximately 40 in attendance

Thomas D'Arcy McGee Primary School in Beacon Hill North 

Grades Junior Kindergarten to Grade 6 

I took this photo from the bus today

An Ontario School Board again says “No” to the “Pride” Flag

 From Campaign Life Coalition

Last year, LGBTQ activists brought in heavyweights like former Premier Kathleen Wynne, Mississauga City Councillor Alvin Tedjo, and the Peel Regional Police in the hopes of pressuring the Dufferin Peel Catholic District School Board to fly the “Pride” flag.  

The DPCDSB refused. In fact, they voted 9-1 to ensure flag neutrality inside and outside schools and board offices. It was a much better year for students because of it.

But we knew the activists weren't done.  

This time around, at a meeting on Tuesday night, they recruited former Mississauga mayor/former leader of the Ontario Liberal Party Bonnie Crombie, Toronto Catholic District School Board trustee Markus de Domenico, and First Vice-President of the Toronto Elementary Catholic Teachers Robert Bauer as star players in their line-up of pro-"Pride" flag delegates.  

The meeting was only held as lobbying from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association prompted Education Minister Paul Calandra to instruct the board supervisor to order the DPCDSB trustees to re-examine their neutral flag policy, which has been in effect for well over a year now.  

And once again, despite enormous political pressure, the trustees almost unanimously refused.  

My trustee, Brea Corbet (Mississauga Wards 9 & 10), the only dissenter, put forward a motion to fly the “Pride” flag and she didn’t get a single seconder. No seconder, no vote. Status quo remains.  

Hallelujah!   

I’d like to ask you to thank the trustees for their courage and steadfastness. You can find their contact info below. 

Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, centre, surrounded by CLC staff and other supporters 

I’d also like to ask you to thank His Eminence Frank Cardinal Leo as well. The spiritual leadership and episcopal direction from the Cardinal were invaluable and an answer to many prayers.

Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, delegated on his behalf at this meeting, reading a statement explicitly supporting the DPCDSB’s current flag policy.  

To quote just a couple of portions of it:  

“A Catholic Board cannot contradict the faith dimension when important decisions such as these are to be made—it would mean not being in communion with the Catholic Tradition and belief system. It is logical that Catholics should not promote symbols that are antithetical, contrary or not in conformity with the Catholic faith . . . We need to look for symbols within the Catholic Tradition which convey what needs to be conveyed without running the risk of confusing the youth and of presenting morality in a way that is disconnected from the truths of Christ and the Church. Why would we even turn to and rely on secular symbols to communicate what we as Catholics believe and stand for especially in such crucial and critical issues as the quest for identity and the sense of belonging?” 

The statement concludes:  

“…the Cardinal Archbishop of Toronto unequivocally supports the current flag raising policy of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board. It is imperative that we show deference and respect to his leadership and his ministry and accept this position as our own.”  

The Cardinal’s voice made all the difference.  

As I argued in my own delegation, if the provincial government is only asking trustees to reconvene because it recognizes this matter as denominational, then there is nothing to reconsider, because the Church has made its position clear.  

The trustees were really given a choice—submit to their spiritual authority or to earthly authority. They overwhelmingly chose correctly.  

---

Please take a moment to express your gratitude to His Eminence. Please also send a message of thanks to the trustees who did the right thing:  

His Eminence Frank Cardinal Leo
archbishop@archtoronto.org

Trustee Paula Dametto-Giovannozzi (Caledon/Dufferin)
pauladamettogiovannozzi@gmail.com

Trustee Anisha Thomas (Brampton Wards 1, 3, 4)
(647) 444-2738
anishathomas@hotmail.ca

Trustee Darryl D’Souza (Brampton Wards 2, 5, 6)
(416) 528-8515
darrylbcd@yahoo.com

Trustee Shawn Xaviour (Brampton Wards 7-10)
(416) 705-1030
shawnxaviour@gmail.com

Trustee Mario Pascucci (Mississauga Wards 1 & 3)
(416) 230-3611
mariopascucci@rogers.com

Trustee Herman Viloria (Mississauga Wards 2 & 8)
(416) 452-9345
hviloria@rogers.com

Trustee Stefano Pascucci (Mississauga Ward 4)
reelectpascucci@gmail.com

Trustee Thomas Thomas (Mississauga Ward 5)
(416) 845-8225
trusteethomas3@gmail.com

Trustee Luz Del Rosario (Mississauga Wards 6 & 11)
(416) 726-7614
luz_del_rosario@hotmail.com

Trustee Bruno Iannicca (Mississauga Ward 7)
(905) 270-0536
bruno.iannicca@3web.com

---

What’s next? 

One of the meeting’s delegates, Rob Bauer, is First Vice-President of the Toronto Elementary Catholic Teachers and a member of the TCDSB’s "2SLGBTQ+ Advisory Committee." He was asked by Trustee Brea Corbet if His Eminence had ever weighed in on the TCDSB’s flag policy. He responded, “Not that I can recall.” 

Surely, he knows that the Archdiocese of Toronto opposes the flying of the “Pride” flag, but nobody should be able to say “Not that I can recall” ever again.  

No trustee, especially, should have any wiggle room when it comes to this issue.  

The Catholic school boards in Toronto and Durham still fly the “Pride” flag and others still celebrate “Pride” month.  

The Archdiocese’s direct intervention in the DPCDSB has proven to be pivotal. Thanks to it, over 70,000 students in Ontario’s second largest Catholic school board will be protected from ideological indoctrination this June. We need to encourage similar intervention in other boards, and from other bishops. 

Maybe “Catholic” trustees in other school boards will continue to defy the Church, but I think it would be much, much harder to do so if they had to look the Cardinal or their respective bishop in the eye as they did so.

Green-lit Trustee Paula Dametto-Giovannozzi (Caledon/Dufferin), third from left, accompanied by CLC staff and supporters, including fellow delegates Greg Tomchyshyn (CitizenGO) and Mason Schmidt

Also, Ontario municipal elections are rapidly approaching.  

When it was apparent the LGBTQ activists weren’t going to get their way at the end of the meeting on Tuesday, they started chanting “Shame!”  

They said “Vote, vote, vote!” and “Get them out!” 

If they’re going to be politically engaged, we need to be too. We need candidates of our own to run. Look at what the DPCDSB trustees were able to accomplish. Imagine we had good, solid trustees on every board.  

Please prayerfully consider putting your name forward. We need you.  

In Christ, 

Josie Luetke
Director of Education & Advocacy
Campaign Life Coalition

P.S. Don’t forget about National "Pride" Flag Walk-Out Day and the pray-ins taking place next week! We will send out an email tomorrow with locations.