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Talk about a jampacked weekend.   Saturday we are celebrating the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, and then right back to church on Sunday to celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord.  I would like to use this reflection to focus on Mary, and what a model of faith she is for all of us.

The Solemnity of Mary, from the church in Canada’s point of view, carries a great deal of importance as it is one …

Several years ago, I was approached by a student from Crandall University and asked to do an interview about what it was like to be Roman Catholic.  This young lady was doing a project for her Religious Studies class and wanted to see the similarities, and differences, between the Baptist tradition, in which she was raised, and Roman Catholicism.  In her work for her project, she came to mass every Sunday for a month, interviewed myself and a couple of others, …

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”     Mark 9: 37

Anyone who has ever come to church with young children in tow knows what a harrowing experience it can be for the parents.  Depending on their age, there can be all kinds of encouraging words spoken by the parents to the child(ren) on the journey to church to impress upon …

Whenever I have occasion to think back on my childhood, usually to share a story with my own children about “the good old days” and “the way things used to be”, one of my fondest memories is the smell of homemade bread cooking in the oven.  Many days I would arrive home from school to freshly baked loaves of bread coming out of the oven and cooling on the kitchen countertop.  As I think about it, I would happily …

“Whoever abides in me and I in them bears much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”(John 15: 5); we hear these words from Jesus in our Gospel reading this week.  This is a lesson that is taking me a lifetime to learn, and in fact, is still a work in progress.  More the second part of the statement than the first, as I don’t think there is much to debate in the first part.  Having said …

Opening Questions

Have you ever been so mad at someone that you just wanted to do something, anything to get them back?

Do you have any special things you do to calm yourself down when you are upset?

Can you forgive someone who never told you they were sorry?

Two things really jump out at me when I hear the story that Lexie and Karen read for …

Our first reading this week is very familiar to us as it is the second reading every year at the Easter Vigil.  The story of God calling Abraham to take his only son, Isaac, and go on a three-day journey to Moriah to “offer him there as a burnt offering” always stirs up a lot of questions in me.  For instance: At any time in those three days, did Abraham have second thoughts?  Did he ever think that this …

Well we’re coming up on New Year’s Day this week which means one thing for sure:  2020 will soon be in the rear view mirror.  Most years we would spend some time thinking back on the year that had passed and re-living the wonderful times we had and the friends and family we shared them with.  I am sure we will do the same this year, but the challenge will be how to fill the other 23 hours and …

I am going to start this morning by getting you all to think back to the time when you were preparing for your first reconciliation.  For some of us , it will be quite a while ago, and for others, perhaps it is fairly recently.  I know for me, it was so long ago that it wasn’t even called Reconciliation.  It was the Sacrament of Penance or Confession.

I remember being so nervous; also a little …

As I sit to write this, the date is October 19th and it has been 214 days since Premier Higgs declared a state of emergency and our province was, in effect, shut down.  In church world, there have been 31 Sundays come and go since we were last able to gather as an entire faith community, and not just the ones we could fit in and respect social distancing guidelines.  And now (as I write this) we are back …