Back in the summer of
2001, five years after I had moved away from the Ottawa Valley, the City of
Ottawa hosted the Francophone Games. Immediately after the Games closed over
100 participants, from abroad, decided they were not going back home to their
country but instead were seeking refugee status in Canada. The next day, a
popular radio talk show host (akin to Rush Limbaugh) began his show with a
roar. He came out with guns firing. Calls …
I am not sure if this story is in any of Fr. Richard Rohr’s numerous books or not, but he does tell it on a C.D. retreat talk entitled “Fire from Heaven.” It goes like this.
“There is a
story that an artesian well had sprung up in the middle of the desert, and it
was a marvelous well with clear, nourishing, and copious water. People began to
come and to drink and to celebrate their …
We continue
the journey of living our faith amidst a pandemic. Provincial health officials
are loosening, ever so slowly, some of the restrictions we have all been living
under. Premier Higgs even suggested church services can resume outdoors albeit
with cars spaced a safe distance apart. Bishop Vienneau is not moving in that
direction, as we would still not be able to share in Communion and having a
“drive-thru” Mass would trivialize the sacrament. I agree.
Our
faith, based on the gospel reading for this Sunday, tells us that God does not
love the world in some big, bland, generic way. God’s love is particular and
concrete. Love that is not concrete is not love at all. Love is about this
particular young man (not all men) whose addiction is costing our family
dearly. Love considers this particular woman (not all women) who just became a
widow. Love takes into account this particular guy, (not …
Of the four gospel writers, Luke is by far the best
storyteller. And today, we have Luke’s best story. By the way, scholars and
archeologists to this day, cannot find, in the Holy Land, this place called
Emmaus. They keep unearthing dig after dig, each, as the story tells us, 11 km
from Jerusalem, but they still cannot find it. From a storyteller’s point of
view, what is important is that these two disciples are going away
from Jerusalem. …
Just
when I thought things could not get worse, with all the suffering COVID-19 has
brought the world, things actually did get worse with the mass shooting in Nova
Scotia this week. With 23 known dead, what great pain there must be within
those families, including the family of the shooter.
When I try to
ponder something that is either too good or too bad, my mind boggles, and I
lose words. Even wordsmiths—writers,
poets, and …
The Resurrected Lord told his disciples to remain
in Jerusalem and to wait for his spirit to come to them, a spirit
he promised them at the Last Supper, a spirit that would clothe them with power
from on high (see Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4). Waiting is easier said than done.
Waiting implies we remain in the same spot, even, and especially, when we would
rather be elsewhere.
With the coronavirus severely curbing what we …
All liturgical celebrations, not just Sunday Mass, have
one theme. That one theme is the death and resurrection of the Lord, or what we
theologically call the “Paschal Mystery.” You may have also heard the paschal
mystery referred as the “Easter Mystery” or the “Christ-event.” When we
celebrate a baptism, we are celebrating the paschal mystery. The candidate
enters the baptismal font (the tomb) and joins with Christ in his death but
also emerges from those same waters and …
Every Holy Week, the “Passion of our Lord Jesus
Christ” is proclaimed twice — once on Passion/Palm Sunday to begin Holy Week and
again, on Good Friday. This year, had we
been able to gather, we would have heard the passion readings of gospel writers
Matthew (Passion Sunday) and John (Good Friday). However, in the midst of these trying times,
there is a line, found only in Luke’s passion reading, that really speaks to
me.
We are living in unsettling times, dangerous times, and
paradoxical times. Every day we hear from health officials or politicians
something to this effect: “keep apart but remain together.” That sound like a paradox to me—keep apart,
but remain together. How do you hold the paradox, the contradiction together?
The keeping apart is a physical keeping apart; the remaining together is
non-physical. We find living this paradox difficult because we are social
beings and we were never meant to …