Tag Archives: Great Commission

Bartholomew de Las Casas: Missionary Advocate for the Indigenous People of New Spain

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

When in 2016 Pope Francis visited Chiapas, Mexico, to demand rights for the indigenous people of Mexico, he was on familiar ground for champions of indigenous rights. Four hundred and eighty-one years earlier, in 1544, one of the great champions … Continue reading →

Posted in Christianity | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thomas Merton and the Great Commission

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

Thomas Merton spent his life contemplating his purpose in the world, trying to discern how his desires and ambitions fit God’s plan. Born in France in 1915, Merton was well-traveled, a convert to Catholicism, and by his own admission was … Continue reading →

Posted in books, Christianity, God's Providence | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dorothy Day and The Catholic Worker

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

Dorothy Day was a lay missionary. She was not a member of a religious order (although she did become a Benedictine oblate), rather she was a convert to Catholicism who completely embraced the religion to guide her everyday existence according … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Christianity, Great Commission | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fanny Allen (1784-1819): From Vermont to the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

Fanny Allen’s commitment to the Great Commission was not flashy, the stuff of grand tales of perseverance, suffering, and martyrdom—more the everyday, the challenges to faith of family and friends, the renewed commitment time and again, the daily putting on … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Christianity, Great Commission | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ignatius of Loyola, Soldier for Christ

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

Ignatius of Loyola was a soldier for Navarre, Spain, who became a soldier for Christ. Recovering from battle wounds at his family’s castle in Loyola in the Basque region of Spain, he experienced conversion in which he renounced his former … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Christianity, Great Commission | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jean Baptiste Lamy (1814-1888), Missionary Bishop on Horseback

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

Visitors to downtown Santa Fe are drawn to two majestic buildings, the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi and the Chapel of the Loretto Sisters. Little would one suspect today that the founder of these two buildings, indeed the father … Continue reading →

Posted in American History, Biography, Christianity, Great Commission | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Juniper Berthiaume (1744-?) French Missionary to the Penobscot Tribe

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

Pope Francis said on his Apostolic Journey to Canada in July 2022, “I have been waiting to come here and be with you! Here, from this place associated with painful memories, I would like to begin what I consider a … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Christianity, Great Commission | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Missionary John Thayer

Posted on September 11, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

John Thayer (1755-1815) was a New England convert, educated at Yale where he was taught that all things Roman Catholic were despicable. Then he went to Europe and underwent a conversion—a most unexpected religious change. He wrote a book about … Continue reading →

Posted in American History, Christianity, Great Commission | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Martyr for Christ: Jean de Brébeuf (1593-1649)

Posted on August 4, 2025 by theamericanplutarch

The images of the great martyrs of the past, those disciples and followers of Christ who committed their all—body and soul—to the Great Commission, to spread the word to all creatures worldwide, inspired Jean de Brébeuf as a young man … Continue reading →

Posted in American History, Biography, Christianity, Great Commission | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Force of Life

Posted on June 17, 2022 by theamericanplutarch

“Every creature is thus the object of the Father’s tenderness, who gives it its place in the world. Even the fleeting life of the least of beings is the object of his love, and in its few seconds of existence, … Continue reading →

Posted in Christianity, Natural History | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment