A funeral homily for Mr. Peter Rebello at the church of St. Clement in Toronto on May 20, 2025. Peter died from Leukemia on May 13, the feast of our Lady of Fatima. He was 77.

Music: Be not afraid by Bob Dufford with choir.org

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai on May 18, 2025, at Lyncroft Center in Toronto.

The Lord took care to leave a deep impression on the disciples, the apostles, when he gave them the mandatum novum. (John 13)

It was like a special legacy that he wanted to leave behind. They remembered the words, his tone, but they especially remembered his gestures of tenderness and the warm tone of his voice when he knelt in front of them and washed their feet.

They never forgot that night. It stayed imprinted on their brain.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai on a day of recollection in Ernescliff College on May 11, 2025.

I saw photos of Pope Leo XIV visiting Santa Maria Maggiore, praying in front of the Icon of Our Lady, Mother of God. She is showing us the child. She is showing us her son during the month of May when we have recourse to her.

We can ask him to stir up the fire of our faith. Put little twigs and branches into the fire. The best twigs to get that faith raging is the devotion to our mother, as mother.

It may be small now, but little aspirations, glances at images of our Lady are there to awaken something within us. 

Josemaria would as to “Stir up that fire of faith. Christ is not a figure that has passed. He is not a memory that is lost in history.” Mary seems to stir up devotion in us. She awakens our faith and makes us strong.

Music: Michael Lee of Toronto.

Thumbnail: Icon of Mary in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai at Lancemore Centre in Toronto on May 11, 2025. We all must grow in fraternity. If the centres is like a garden, all the flowers need light, all need water. There is always somebody caring for the cleanliness, showing interest in people coming. Let us examine how we cultivate this special atmosphere around us.

Music: Regi Stone, All Heavens Declares. Straight Arrow records, 2003.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai on April 27, 2025 at Lyncroft Centre in Toronto.

John 20, 21-23: After saying this he breathed on them and said:

‘Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive,they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.’

He had to breathe on them to give them that power. The breath of the Holy Spirit, like a sweet aroma that touched them, that they breathed in, and somehow stayed in them as a supernatural power.

Music: Original track by Michael Lee of Toronto.

A meditation preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai at St. Aidan's parish in Toronto, on April 22, 2025.

The nature of the Easter Octave is that it be filled with joy. This year it is mingled with a sorrow, and upheaval in which we feel orphaned, but also weighed down by the urgency of the moment. The Church really needs a shepherd. It needs its vicar. We are forlorn.

Dic nobis Maria, quid vidisti in via?
Tell us, Mary: say what thou didst see upon the way.

A big concern had been who would remove the stone. We must nurture the optimism that is proper to Easter, and maintain it all our life.

This is a summary of a talk given by Juan Luis Lorda during the 23rd Day of Priestly Encounters, in Valladolid in 2015. We are made up of intellect, will and affectivity, or, in more general terms, we have a heart. But what this exactly means is somewhat opaque and hard to define. How does the heart help us in our decisions? There is a fascinating discussion of classical and modern authors, in particular Dietrich Von Hildebrand's book, The Heart (1965). Also I try to examine the essential relationship between the heart, and our affinity to virtue, or how one ought to live an upright life.

Thumbnail: Auguste RODIN (1840-1917), Plaster bust of Camille Claudel (around 1882).

The joy of Easter Monday, is mingled now with the sorrow from the news of the death of Pope Francis. He has been called back to the Father. A man who gave himself totally to the service of the Church. It happens at the end of the UNIV congress in Rome, and when the Ordinary General Congress of Opus Dei begins. We will offer the Mass for the repose of his soul. This meditation was preached on April 21, 2025 at Lyncroft centre in Toronto, minutes after hearing about the death of Pope Francis.

Music: Michael Lee of Toronto.

A meditation preached at Kintore College on April 15, 2025, Holy Wednesday.

Matt 26, 25: One of the Twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?’ They paid him thirty silver pieces, and from that moment he looked for an opportunity to betray him. Such painful words, at an agonizing time for our Lord. He was chosen as one of the apostles. One for who he had dreams. The most painful realities are not physical. It is the weight of abandonment, betrayal and rejection.

Music: Michael Lee, of Toronto

Thumbnail: Giotto, Betrayal of Jesus, fresco in Padua, Scrovegni chapel 1304.

A meditation was preached at Lyncroft Centre in Toronto on March 30, 2025. The story of the Prodigal Son is a story of conversion, an account of the role that bonds have in our life, and how we must be more aware of them, and strengthen them.

Music: Regi Stone "How Can I tell You", Experience Music 2002, released 2015.

Thumbnail: Pompeo Batoni prodigal son (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.