The Journey of a Bishop

Exploring Jesuit Spirituality at St. Paul's University - The Skating Oval at Ottawa City Hall

2012-01-30T06:07:00.001-05:00

INTRODUCING FATHER GILLES MONGEAU, S.J.

Last Wednesday evening at St. Paul's University -- as part of the Feast Day celebrations -- I was invited to introduce Father Gilles Mongeau, S.J., who spoke on the Jesuit charism in the context of the 400th anniversary of the Society of Jesus' arrival in Canada.

Fr. Gilles grew up in Ottawa and his parents live here in Kanata, (cf. photo below) so it was a bit of a homecoming, It was an honour for me to present him to a home-town audience.

The seminarians from Holy Spirit Ukrainian Seminary (whose church celebrated St. Gregory [Nazianzen] the Theologian that same day) were present and we posed for picture to mark the occasion.
The photos:

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SKATING OVAL AT CITY HALL

Yesterday was such a lovely sunny afternoon that, after getting back from the Visitation of St. Ignatius Martyr Parish (more on that later in the week), I walked around the ice sculptures and other displays for the NHL All Star Game and saw the recently-opened skating oval outside the Ottawa City Hall. Given the cancellation of skating on the Canal because of the mild weather, there were lots of people enjoying getting some exercise in the open air.

A few photos of the rink, of the Canal and the hockey game decorations:

Jesus Teaches with Authority - WITNESS Interview on Salt + Light Television

2012-01-29T00:44:00.008-05:00

FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Today's Gospel, "Jesus Teaches with Authority" (Mark 1.21-28)

Grant us, Lord our God, that we may honour you with all our mind, and love everyone in truth of heart. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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Prendergast WITNESS Interview premieres

this Sunday on the S+L network

Father Thomas Rosica, CSB informed me a short time ago that the WITNESS interview he conducted with me last October at the Bishops’ Plenary in Cornwall, Ontario will premiere on the Salt and Light Television Network this Sunday evening, January 29.

This is the description of it that the S + L website offers:

October 20, 2011 - In 2011, the English-speaking world welcomed the new translation of the Roman Missal. One of the key figures responsible for the translation was a Canadian Jesuit: Archbishop Terrence Prendergast. The Montreal native is presently the Archbishop of Ottawa, as well as Canada's representative on the Vox Clara committee of the

Vatican

's Congregation for Divine Worship. He previously served as Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto and Archbishop of Halifax. Witness host Fr. Thomas Rosica spoke with the Archbishop at the 2011 plenary assembly of the Canadian bishops' conference.

You can get see it in an advance screening by clicking on the following:

http://saltandlighttv.org/witness/prendergast.php

L.D.S. & M. I.

Ottawa: NHL All-Star Game Host City - St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor - Le centenaire de la province canadienne des dominicains

2012-01-28T06:38:00.107-05:00

In previous years, the NHL All Star Hockey Game could not be held in Ottawa due to the lack of convention facilities. But the opening last year of the Ottawa Convention Centre has made this year's big game a possibility. However, the inconsistent weather (not sufficiently cold for long enough) has wreacked havoc with hopes to skate on the Rideau Canal (which the locals have been grousing about too).

Welcome, visitors! Enjoy your stay!

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SPEAKING OF ALL-STARS,
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS IS TOPS

MEMORIAL – ST. THOMAS AQUINAS,
PRIEST, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

O God, who made Saint Thomas Aquinas outstanding in his zeal for holiness and his study of sacred doctrine, grant us, we pray, that we may understand what he taught and imitate what he accomplished. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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100 Ans de la Province dominicaine canadienne

Les dominicains au Canada fêtent un Jubile en 2011-2012 ; j’ai pu assister a quelques sessions d’un colloque ces jours-ci. Voici un message du provincial sur le site web des Frères Prêcheurs :

Les dominicains au Canada [1911-2011]

Le Jubilé de notre Province est bien lancé. En deux occasions, plusieurs d’entre nous se sont retrouvés à Saint-Hyacinthe. Tout d’abord pour cette belle journée du 1er octobre où, dans une remarquable conférence, le frère Jean-Jacques Robillard nous a permis de mieux saisir nos origines. Autour de l’évêque du diocèse, Mgr François Lapierre, dans le cadre d’une célébration eucharistique joyeuse, nous avons rendu grâces à Dieu pour tout ce qu’a réalisé notre Province. Avec nos invités, tout particulièrement le Prieur provincial de la Province de France qui a su nous égayer, nous avons poursuivi la fête autour d’un bon buffet. Plus tard, le 8 novembre, nous avons procédé à la bénédiction de notre nouveau cimetière et fait mémoire de tous les frères de notre Province qui nous ont précédés…

Merci à tous les frères qui se sont déplacés pour ces deux événements. Beau signe de vitalité et d’attachement à la communauté que nous formons.

Le prochain rendez-vous est fixé à Ottawa. Un colloque développera le thème de la présence dominicaine en milieux universitaires. Il se conclura par la célébration de la Saint-Thomas. Retenez les dates : les 26, 27 et 28 janvier 2012….

Les générations des dominicains canadiens:

le frère Rick van Lier, 39 ans, le frère Benoît Lacroix, 96 ans

Le frère Hervé Tremblay parle du commentaire

du frère Marie-Joseph Lagrange sur la Genèse

Notre Province est à un tournant. Je le vis moi-même bien directement et simplement. Je me suis rendu compte que je suis le seul dominicain à temps plein au Provincialat avec tout ce que cela implique bien concrètement dans l’exécution de certaines tâches. Il a suffi d’un chapitre provincial pour que les choses changent à ce point.

Ce que je vis, des prieurs le vivent, plusieurs frères le vivent. Cela exige une transformation des mentalités et surtout de comprendre que, même après cent ans, nous sommes encore à nos débuts. Non seulement parce que nous sommes moins nombreux, non seulement parce que nos ressources ont diminué, mais fondamentalement parce que notre monde a changé.

Et pourtant, dans la foi, nous sommes convaincus que ce monde difficile à comprendre est toujours aimé de Dieu. Il a encore besoin d’entendre la Bonne Nouvelle de la joie de Noël : vous est né, aujourd’hui, un Sauveur qui est Christ et Seigneur! Aujourd’hui, ici au Québec, au Canada, au Japon, au Rwanda et au Burundi.

En mai, nous nous retrouverons, dans le cadre des nos Assises, pour réfléchir sur le thème de la nouvelle évangélisation... Il s’agit de notre raison d’être, de notre avenir, de notre identité, car nous sommes prêcheurs, porteurs de la Bonne Nouvelle. Comment l’annoncer? Quel est ce monde dont nous sommes partie prenante? Quelle parole lui adresser? Comment notre parole peut-elle renvoyer à cette Parole, à ce Verbe, que Dieu a enfoui dans notre monde? Comment, à la manière de Dominique, poursuivre le dialogue avec l’hôtelier?

Au moment où nous célébrons notre jubilé, je vous souhaite cette joie, cette joie de Noël, que nous ne pouvons garder pour nous-mêmes, cette joie des débuts, aussi modestes soient-ils, cette joie pour laquelle nous sommes encore prêts à risquer notre avenir.

Fr. André Descôteaux, o.p., Prieur provincial

Optional Memorial: St. Angela Merici / SAINTE ANGÈLE MÉRICI - Visit to St. Theresa's

2012-01-27T06:31:00.006-05:00

SAINT ANGELA MERICI, VIRGIN

May the Virgin Saint Angela never fail to commend us to your compassion, O Lord, we pray, that, following the lessons of her charity and prudence, we may hold fast to your teaching and express it in what we do. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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SAINTE ANGÈLE MÉRICI

Vierge, fondatrice de la Congrégation des Ursulines (1474-1540)

Sainte Angèle Mérici naquit à Desonzano, sur le lac de Garde. Ses parents, profondément chrétiens, désiraient que leurs enfants trouvent leur bonheur dans la gloire de Dieu. Pour réaliser cet idéal, ils avaient fait un vrai sanctuaire de la maison paternelle où chacun travaillait sous le regard de Dieu et récitait la prière en commun. Une lecture dans un livre de piété ou dans la Vie des Saints terminait la journée.

A ces pieuses pratiques, Angèle ajoutait les rigueurs de la pénitence. Elle voua sa virginité au Seigneur à l'âge de neuf ans et renonça le jour même à toute parure. Elle perdit son père vers l'âge de treize ans; sa mère mourut deux ans plus tard. Un oncle nommé Barthélémy la prit alors chez lui et s'attacha à favoriser ses pratiques de dévotion. Six ans s'écoulèrent avant que Dieu vienne lui ravir son unique soeur de sang et de sentiments; le décès de l'oncle Barthélémy suivit de près cette perte vivement ressentie.

Doublement orpheline, Angèle rentra à la maison paternelle, acheva de se dépouiller de tout ce qu'elle possédait et se livra aux plus grandes austérités. Elle était alors âgée de vingt-deux ans. Afin de se sanctifier plus sûrement, elle s'affilia au Tiers-Ordre de Saint-François d'Assise.

En 1506, un jour qu'elle travaillait aux champs, une lumière éclatante l'environna soudain. Angèle vit une échelle s'élever du sol jusqu'au ciel et une troupe innombrable de vierges qui en parcouraient les échelons, soutenues par des anges. Une des vierges se tourna vers elle et lui dit: «Angèle, sache que Dieu t'a ménagé cette vision pour te révéler qu'avant de mourir tu fonderas, à Brescia, une société de vierges semblable à celles-ci.» Dieu fournit à Sa servante les moyens de réaliser cet oracle, seulement vingt ans après la mémorable vision.

La réputation de sainteté d'Angèle Mérici s'était répandue jusque dans la ville de Brescia. Les Patengoli, riche famille et grands bienfaiteurs des oeuvres pies, habitaient cette cité. En 1516, ayant perdu coup sur coup leurs deux fils, ils invitèrent Angèle à venir habiter avec eux pour les consoler dans leur peine. A partir de ce moment, sainte Angèle se fixa à Brescia, édifiant la ville par ses vertus. Chaque jour, on la voyait en compagnie de jeunes filles de son âge, rassembler les fillettes et leur enseigner la doctrine chrétienne, visiter les pauvres et les malades, instruire les grandes personnes qui venaient, en foule, écouter leurs conférences. Ces pieuses filles s'ingéniaient à rechercher les pécheurs jusque dans leur lieu de travail.

Suivant une pratique très usitée à cette époque, sainte Angèle Mérici entreprit plusieurs pèlerinages. Comme elle se rendait un jour à Jérusalem avec un groupe de pèlerins, une mystérieuse cécité se déclara dans la ville de Candie, l'affligeant tout le reste du parcours, pour ne cesser qu'à son retour exactement au même endroit où elle avait perdu l'usage de la vue. Dans cette pénible circonstance, la Sainte vit comme un symbole du renoncement qui devait être à la base de tous ses projets. Le pape Clément VII, instruit des vertus et des miracles de sainte Angèle, lui réserva un accueil des plus bienveillants.

Le souvenir de la merveilleuse vision demeurait toujours au fond de son coeur. Un jour, Angèle réunit douze jeunes filles qui désiraient tendre à la vie parfaite. Elle leur proposa de mener une vie retirée dans leurs demeures et les rassemblaient fréquemment pour les former à la pratique des vertus chrétiennes. En 1533, ce noviciat achevé, sainte Angèle Mérici leur révéla son plan, leur démontrant que l'ignorance religieuse était la cause des ravages exercés par le protestantisme et que la fondation d'une société de religieuses d'une forme nouvelle pour l'époque, unissant la vie contemplative à l'instruction des enfants, constituerait un remède efficace à l'état déplorable qui régnait dans l'Église.

Afin de mieux atteindre toutes les âmes dans le besoin, la fondatrice implanta les bases d'un Ordre sans clôture. Ses soeurs parcouraient les prisons et les hôpitaux, recherchaient les pauvres pour les instruire et rompaient généreusement leur pain avec eux. Remontant le cours du mal jusqu'à sa source, sainte Angèle Mérici pensait qu'on ne pouvait réformer les moeurs que par la famille, laquelle dépendait surtout de la mère. Elle réalisait que la mauvaise éducation des jeunes filles provenait de la carence de mères chrétiennes. Dans les desseins de Dieu, la congrégation des Ursulines devait rayonner à travers le monde par l'éducation des jeunes filles.

Le 25 novembre 1535, à Brescia, les premières religieuses du nouvel institut prononcèrent les trois voeux traditionnels de pauvreté, chasteté et obéissance, ajoutant celui de se consacrer exclusivement à l'enseignement. Sainte Angèle Mérici plaça sa congrégation sous le patronage de sainte Ursule.

Dieu l'avait gratifiée des dons éminents de science infuse et de prophétie. Elle parlait latin sans l'avoir étudié, expliquait les passages les plus difficiles des Livres Saints et traitait les questions théologiques avec une si admirable fermeté et précision, que les plus doctes personnages recouraient volontiers à ses lumières. Ses dernières années furent marquées par de fréquentes extases.

Sainte Angèle Mérici mourut le 28 janvier 1540. Pendant trois nuits, toute la ville de Brescia contempla une lumière extraordinaire au-dessus de la chapelle où reposait le corps de la Sainte qui s'est conservé intact de toute corruption. Le pape Pie VII l'a canonisée en 1807. Tiré de J.-M. Planchet, édition 1946, p. 217-218 -- Marteau de Langle de Cary, 1959, tome II, p. 295-296

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A THANK YOU EVENING MEAL & CELEBRATION

WITH ST. THERESA PARISH'S VOLUNTEERS

Recently, late on a Sunday afternoon, I joined close to a hundred members of St. Theresa's Parish and their pastor, Father Vincent Pereira, for an evening of dining and entertainment in thanksgiving for generous service to the parish community.

It was a delightful occasion; some photos:

Saints Timothy and Titus - Lunar New Year Images - Sunday 4B: JesusTeaches "with Authority"

2012-01-26T06:07:00.000-05:00

Rembrandt van Rijn, St. Timothy as a child and his grandmother Lois
(cf. 2 Timothy 1.5), c. 1648

MEMORIAL – ST. TIMOTHY AND ST. TITUS, BISHOPS

O God, who adorned Saints Timothy and Titus with apostolic virtues, grant, through the intercession of them both, that, living justly and devoutly in this present age, we may merit to reach our heavenly homeland. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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Saints Timothy and Titus were two of the most beloved and trusted disciples of St. Paul, whom they accompanied in many of his journeys.

St. Timothy has been regarded by some as the "angel of the church of Ephesus", Rev 2:1-17. According to the ancient Roman martyrology he died Bishop of Ephesus.

The Bollandists (Jan. 24) give two lives of St. Timothy, one ascribed to Polycrates (an early Bishop of Ephesus, and a contemporary of St. Irenæus) and the other by Metaphrastes, which is merely an expansion of the former. The first states that during the Neronian persecution St. John arrived at Ephesus, where he lived with St. Timothy until he was exiled to Patmos under Domitian. Timothy, who was unmarried, continued Bishop of Ephesus until, when he was over eighty years of age, he was mortally beaten by the pagans.

According to early tradition Titus continued after St. Paul's death as Archbishop of Crete, and died there when he was over ninety. (Principal source - Catholic Encyclopedia - 1913 edition)

St. Paul and St. Titus

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MORE ON NEW YEAR GREETINGS, MASS

On Monday, a few photos were posted on the parish celebration at Sheng Shen (Holy Spirit) Chinese Catholic Parish. Here are some additional photos of the exchange of greetings by the Vietnamese Parish representatives (they brought gifts of spring rolls, Oriental fruits and Canadian ice wine) and of my visit to the Chinese community and celebration of Mass with them.

The Vietnamese choir came from Our Lady of LaVang Parish to sing at the Mass at Sheng Shen Parish; two Vietnamese priests also concelebrated the liturgy.

A few photos :

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Meeting with Deacon Peter Fan and the Parish Executive on arrival

Meeting with Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults Team and Catechumens

The catechumens are sent forth after the homily

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Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year “B”) - January 29, 2012

JESUS’ TEACHING “WITH AUTHORITY” PROVOKES WONDER

[Deuteronomy 18.15-20 [Psalm 95]; 1 Corinthians 7.32-35; Mark 1.21-28]

Last Sunday's second reading ended with Paul observing, “The present form of this world is passing away”. This weekend, a similar note is struck when Paul speaks of the value of celibacy—singleness, being unmarried—so that men and women may be “concerned about the affairs of the Lord”.

Paul says this not because, as is sometimes asserted, he has a negative view of sex. His outlook is quite realistic and positive regarding human sexuality. He recognizes it as a divine blessing meant to issue in intimacy within marriage.

Beginning his mini-treatise on marriage, divorce and celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom (1 Corinthians 7.1-40), Paul told the Corinthians, who thought everyone should be celibate, that, instead, “each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband” (7.2-3).

Later, treating the issue of the single state, Paul praised it for allowing one to serve the Lord without distraction (“the unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord”).

By contrast, Paul said, marriage presents complications, producing divided interests. The married Christian must rightly consider how to please his or her spouse rather than concentrating on pleasing God alone (`for the married woman is concerned about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband').

In contrast with our culture, which claims the unmarried state is unhealthy and that wholeness for humans is possible only through sexual relationships, Paul reminds believers that the single state has dignity and value before God.

Through the ages, the Church has affirmed the truth of what Paul says through admiration for religious life, for the celibacy of priests in the Latin Rite and for disciples who, being single for a variety of motives, thereby offer “unhindered devotion to the Lord”.

There is only one reference in the New Testament to Jesus' celibate state, though it is everywhere presupposed. A single saying of Jesus on this theme has been preserved: “Some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the Kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19.12; New International Version).

Those who “make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom” (New Revised Standard Version) remain celibate to devote themselves fully to Christian ministry or witness. Marriage and the family are highly esteemed by disciples of Jesus. Still, exceptional people of the early community remained unmarried as a mark of their singular calling.

Jesus' single-minded devotion to heralding the Kingdom is evident from the outset. Mark's initial description of Jesus' ministry is that it presents “a new teaching—with authority!” The power in his teaching is evident when linked with an exorcism (“he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him”).

Mark stressed the impact of Jesus' teaching without telling us what feature of it displayed that authority. His focus was on the authority as such and on the people's reaction (“they were astounded”). Or, as one translator suggests, ‘they were being knocked out with astonishment’ (R. Gundry).

Mark wanted to emphasize the overwhelming power of Jesus' teaching authority. As long as Jesus taught, astonishment overwhelmed the residents of Capernaum. Mark thought it unimportant to inform his readers what Jesus said in his teaching. Instead, Mark showed that the power of Jesus' teaching authority became manifest in his casting “an unclean spirit” out of a man who came into the synagogue of Capernaum.

As Mark's gospel progresses, readers will observe Jesus working three other exorcisms (Mark 5.1-20; 7.24-30; 9.14-29). Yet Mark multiplies the impression of the extent of Jesus' exorcising activity through summary statements that generalize this feature of His ministry (cf. 1.34, 39; 3.11-12; 15, 22-23; 6.13; 9.38).

Mark identifies an exorcism as the first of Jesus' mighty acts and links the exorcism to the authoritative teaching of Jesus. The two activities coordinate and support each other, evoking astonishment and causing the fame of Jesus to spread through the surrounding Galilean countryside.

The people of Capernaum's question (“What is this?”) will soon become a question dominating the first half of Mark's gospel, “Who is this?” (4.41). ultimately, it will become the question Jesus poses to each person, “Who do you say that I am?” (8.29). [Living God's Word: Reflections on the Sunday Readings for Year B; Toronto/Montreal: Novalis, 2011, pp. 49-51]

The Conversion of St. Paul - Ecumenical Service at Dormition of the Virgin Church - Frs. Ernest Tyler & Lawrence Abello, S.J.

2012-01-25T06:57:00.053-05:00

Giovanni Bellini, Conversion of/de St. Paul (1472)

FEAST – THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE

O God, who taught the whole world through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Paul, draw us, we pray, nearer to you through the example of him whose conversion we celebrate today, and so make us witnesses to your truth in the world. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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AN OTTAWA OBSERVANCE
IN THE WEEK OF PRAYER
FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY

On Sunday evening, a goodly throng of English-speaking and francophone Christians gathered at the Dormition of the Virgin Greek Orthodox Church for prayer and reflection on Christ's call to be one (John 17.21).

Afterwards there was a wonderful catered reception in the Hellenic Centre next door where fellowship was extended.

Some photos:

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JESUITS IN ENGLISH CANADA PROVINCE
LOSES THREE MEMBERS IN 24 HOURS

In a 24-hour period last Saturday, three members associated with the Jesuits in English Canada Province passed away. On the morning of January 21, Father William Addley, 68, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Toronto (mentioned on this blog on Sunday), later that day in the Jesuit Infirmary in Pickering, Father Ernest Tyler, 94, engaged for many years in secondary education and then pastoral ministry, and then in the early hours of January 22 in Calcutta, Father Lawrence Abello, 80, scientist and pro-life advocate.

Below a few remarks on Fathers Tyler and Father Abello, who are commended to your prayers:

FATHER ERNEST TYLER, S.J.

April 28, 1917 - January 21, 2012

This morning at 10:30, a funeral Mass will be celebrated in St. Ignatius Chapel of Manresa Spiritual Renewal Centre, Pickering, for Father Ernest C. Tyler who passed away at Rene Goupil House, Pickering on January 21, 2012, in the 94th year of his life and in the 73rd year of his religious life.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, on the April 28, 1917, he attended both Loyola High School and College and obtained a B.A. before entering the Society of Jesus on October 2, 1939 at Guelph, Ontario. He was ordained in Toronto on June 24, 1951.

After completing his studies for the priesthood, Father Tyler did a year of spirituality (Jesuit tertianship) at Xavier Hall in Pass Christian, Mississippi, USA then studied for a degree in education at the University of Toronto. In his ministry, he taught French and religion and served as an educational administrator (academic and discipline) at St. Mary’s University High School, Halifax; Loyola College High School, Montreal; St. Paul’s High School, Winnipeg; and Brebeuf College School, Toronto.

In 1969, Father began a new career in parish ministry at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Toronto, where he helped many people over the next fourteen years; in 1983, he moved to Waubaushene, Ontario to be pastor of St. John the Evangelist parish until 1987 when he moved to Blessed Sacrament Parish as assistant and was Chaplain at Sunnybrook Medical Centre. In 1997 to 2004, he was parish administrator for St. Eugene’s Chapel, a mission church of Blessed Sacrament Parish.

Father "Ernie", as he was called by his fellow Jesuits, loved to play golf and was always interested in the comings-and-goings of his fellow Jesuits; he retired to the Jesuit Infirmary in 2005 where he stayed until his death.

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FATHER LAWRENCE ABELLO, S.J.

June 12, 1931 - January 22, 2012

Father Lawrence Abello SJ, renowned professor, inventor and a devout companion of Mother Teresa passed away on January 22, 2012 at St Xavier's College, Calcutta (Kolkata), his home for twenty-five years. He is survived by his sister Ms Giacinta Auser and his brothers Father Louis and Tony Abello.

Born in Leuven, Saskatchewan, Lawrence Abello joined the Jesuits in 1956; he volunteered for the Darjeeling Mission and went to India in 1959, at the end of his novitiate and juniorate. His formation in India followed the usual route from philosophy in Pune to a teaching internship in Gayaganga, and theology in St Mary’s Kurseong, where he was ordained on March 19, 1966. After a period of spiritual renewal (tertianship in 1972-73) at Vinayalaya, Mumbai, he made final vows in Shembaganur on February 2nd, 1974.

In the meantime, he began what might be called his first career, as philosophy professor in several seminaries in India, during the 1960’s and1970’s, mainly in St Pius College, Mumbai.

Philosophy wasn’t his only interest in those days however; he was always drawn to the world of physics and finally entered that world at St. Louis University and completed an M.Sc. degree in that subject in 1971. On his return to India, he continued his philosophy lectures at St Pius till 1977, then returned to the USA for his PhD in physics at Wayne State University, Detroit; he held two patents for inventions. Before returning to India in 1986 on a visa which allowed him to teach in St Xavier’s, Kolkata, he was active in pro-life ministry, which he continued in India.

Father “Larry” was a devoted companion of Mother Teresa and her sisters, as confessor and guide. He was also the director of the many volunteers who came each year to work with the Missionaries of Charity, to initiate them into life in Kolkata, and especially into life among the poor of that city.

He was soon drawn to the work of Mother Teresa, and for the rest of his life his ministry revolved around it, and the parishes of the city where he became quite familiar. He obtained his Indian citizenship in 1991, through the intercession of Mother Teresa, with whom, we pray, he shares the life of those “who love the poor”.

St. Francis de Sales - Les Confirmations d'Embrun, Rockland

2012-01-24T06:15:00.001-05:00

The Patron Saint of Catholic Communications, St. Francis de Sales produced and printed pamphlets explaining the faith and left them as flyers at households to win them back with love to the practice of the Catholic faith when many were scandalized by the corruption and failure of the church's leaders and were being attracted by Protestant tendencies. His winning ways won back many.

Today he would no doubt make use of social media to keep in touch with his flock and draw others to Our Lord in new evangelizing methods. Please pray for us bishops, priests and others who, to share the faith, blog , use Twitter and Facebook--that we may be motivated by Christ's values alone.

On this day each year, the Pope releases a message for World Communications Sunday (that of the Ascension or the Seventh Sunday of Easter, this year May 20, 2012).

This year's theme is

Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization:

Silence is an integral element of communication; in its absence, words rich in content cannot exist. In silence, we are better able to listen to and understand ourselves; ideas come to birth and acquire depth; we understand with greater clarity what it is we want to say and what we expect from others; and we choose how to express ourselves. By remaining silent we allow the other person to speak, to express him or herself; and we avoid being tied simply to our own words and ideas without them being adequately tested. In this way, space is created for mutual listening, and deeper human relationships become possible. It is often in silence, for example, that we observe the most authentic communication taking place between people who are in love: gestures, facial expressions and body language are signs by which they reveal themselves to each other. Joy, anxiety, and suffering can all be communicated in silence – indeed it provides them with a particularly powerful mode of expression.

Silence, then, gives rise to even more active communication, requiring sensitivity and a capacity to listen that often makes manifest the true measure and nature of the relationships involved. When messages and information are plentiful, silence becomes essential if we are to distinguish what is important from what is insignificant or secondary. Deeper reflection helps us to discover the links between events that at first sight seem unconnected, to make evaluations, to analyze messages; this makes it possible to share thoughtful and relevant opinions, giving rise to an authentic body of shared knowledge. For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate environment, a kind of ‘eco-system’ that maintains a just equilibrium between silence, words, images and sounds.

The process of communication nowadays is largely fuelled by questions in search of answers. Search engines and social networks have become the starting point of communication for many people who are seeking advice, ideas, information and answers. In our time, the internet is becoming ever more a forum for questions and answers – indeed, people today are frequently bombarded with answers to questions they have never asked and to needs of which they were unaware. If we are to recognize and focus upon the truly important questions, then silence is a precious commodity that enables us to exercise proper discernment in the face of the surcharge of stimuli and data that we receive.

Amid the complexity and diversity of the world of communications, however, many people find themselves confronted with the ultimate questions of human existence: Who am I? What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope? It is important to affirm those who ask these questions, and to open up the possibility of a profound dialogue, by means of words and interchange, but also through the call to silent reflection, something that is often more eloquent than a hasty answer and permits seekers to reach into the depths of their being and open themselves to the path towards knowledge that God has inscribed in human hearts.

MEMORIAL – ST. FRANCIS DE SALES, BISHOP, DOCTOR

O God, who for the salvation of souls willed that the Bishop Saint Francis de Sales become all things to all, graciously grant that, following his example, we may always display the gentleness of your charity in the service of our neighbour. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * *

Saint François de Sales, Évêque de Genève (1567-1622)

Prêtre (1593), missionnaire dans le Chablais calviniste (1594-1597), il devient évêque coadjuteur (1599) puis titulaire (1602) de Genève, avec résidence à Annecy. Il applique à son diocèse les méthodes préconisées par le concile de Trente. En 1610, avec Jeanne de Chantal, il fonde l'ordre de la Visitation, à la fois contemplatif et actif. Il donne l'essentiel de sa direction spirituelle dans son Introduction à la vie dévote (1609). Sa spiritualité souriante mais exigeante, portée par un grand talent littéraire, se retrouve dans Traité de l'amour de Dieu (1616) et Entretiens spirituels (posthume). Canonisé en 1665, il a été déclaré docteur de l'Église en 1877. (www.larousse.fr)

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CONFIRMATIONS

Récemment, j’ai présidé quelques célébrations du sacrement de la Confirmation pour les jeunes de deux paroisses vers l’est d’Ottawa: presque une centaine dans chaque communauté.

Voici quelques photos :

Paroisse Saint Jacques (Embrun):

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Paroisse Très-sainte Trinité (Rockland)

Lunar New Year of the Water Dragon in Ottawa Parishes

2012-01-23T06:32:00.001-05:00

Several of our Ottawa parishes are caught up in the celebration of the Lunar [“Chinese”] New Year. The photos are taken from my visit to the celebration in the parish hall of Sheng Shen (Holy Spirit) Chinese Catholic Parish yesterday (New Year’s Eve). Further pictures of the Mass and of the exchange of greetings with leaders from Our Lady of LaVang Vietnamese Parish on Friday will be uploaded later in the week.

AsiaNews.it is a Catholic website that focuses on the Church in Asia. The following is drawn from their informative item on the Lunar New Year:

Today, January 23, the Far East is celebrating the start of the Year of the Dragon. Along with China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Chinese communities all around the world, from New York to Toronto, from Melbourne to Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia will celebrate.

The Dragon is the luckiest sign in the Chinese zodiac because it is the only mythological animal of the 12 signs (the others are all earthly animals: rooster, snake, rabbit, etc ...). This makes it a powerful celestial sign, which brings wealth, virtue, harmony and longevity. It is not by chance that the dragon has always been the symbol of the Emperor and the Chinese are known as "the sons of the dragon."

Chinese astrologers and their predictions have been fighting for some time against the Mayan predictions, which for 2012 foresee - no one knows how - the end of the world. For Eastern futurists, however, this year will fix the troubles of the past years in the spheres of economics and love.

2012 is a year of the "water" Dragon (the influence of one of the 5 original elements). The last such year was 1952. That, and the promise of happiness and wealth was enough to stir in much of the Chinese world to "rush" to have a child in the year of the Dragon! In China, experts are already predicting a 5% increase in births - even with the heavy limitations of the one-child law - and a 27% growth in sales of diapers!

We may ask, will the Year of the Dragon usher in democratic change in China? Maybe not. One thing is certain: this year will see civil society struggle even more in China to defend their rights against the excessive power of the economic and political oligarchy and that the Party will continue its policy of arrests of dissidents, lawyers, bishops and religious figures to avoid any "Arab Spring" made-in-China.

Finally, the Christians. The previous year of the Dragon was the Jubilee of 2000, which marked a revival of religion and faith in the world and in China. Nausea of materialism and the witness of Christians has produced much fruit, even if the government is trying in every possible way to divide the churches and communities.

Despite what many think, the Dragon is on the Christians side. It is true that in the Apocalypse the dragon tries to devour the child of the Woman (Revelation 12: 1-10), but the Chinese dragon is the not dragon of the West. In China, the dragon is one of the sources of the universe’s energy and the swift messenger of the Lord of Heaven.

“Translated” into Western culture, a dragon would be closer to a guardian angel or an archangel, and therefore, the Chinese dragon works for the children of the dragon, but also for the Church!

Photo credit: Mr. Lau (above)

Jesus Calls Simon & Andrew, James & John - The Death of a Friend - A Visit to Valrideau University Residence

2012-01-22T00:32:00.001-05:00

THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Almighty ever-living God, direct our actions according to your good pleasure, that in the name of your beloved Son we may abound in good works. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * * * * *

FATHER BILL ADDLEY, S.J.

October 16, 1943 - January 21, 2012
R.I.P.

Yesterday morning, I received the sad news that Father William Addley had died in St. Michael's Hospital after surgery for abdominal cancer that had been diagnosed shortly after Christmas. He was just about to complete this summer a 13-year stint as Pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in downtown Toronto.

"Father Bill" as he was universally known had been assistant to the the Jesuit Provincial, then from 1984-1990 Provincial of the Jesuits in English Canada Province (at that time known as the Upper Canada Jesuit Province). He was very much appreciated by so many of his Jesuit confreres for whom he showed great esteem and support, often in hidden ways and preferably with himself out of the limelight.

A proud Haligonian, he probably knew that it would take some adjusting on my part--as someone who had "come from away"--when I went to the Atlantic School of Theology in his home town to teach in 1975. So, he called me on the telephone from time to time, to ask how I was doing and to give me news of the brethren in Toronto and elsewhere across Canada, to ask advice and to offer some in my role as an interviewer for aspiring candidates to the Society.

We became friends through those calls and later when I had moved to Toronto as we went looking for housing for the Regis College Jesuits in the area around the University of Toronto. His sudden departure from our midst is hard to fathom: How mysterious God's judgments; how inscrutable his ways.

May the Lord grant this servant of his a merciful judgment and lead him to the waters of eternal life in God's Kingdom that he strove to serve. He will be missed.

Rest in peace, my brother Bill.

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A WARM WELCOME ON A STORMY NIGHT

Last Tuesday evening was a messy one for getting around Ottawa with several centimeters of snow being covered with freezing rain. However, the sand was placed on the steps of Valrideau and the welcome mat was out for me to visit this residence, under the direction of Opus Dei, which houses mainly university students but also some professional women.

The house is spacious and well-organized around a beautiful chapel and dining and meeting rooms that welcome women who wish to grow in their understanding and practice of the faith.

Over freshly baked desserts, juices, teas and coffees, I enjoyed a wonderful exchange with the residents, learning about their study and work programs, interests and spirituality.

St. Agnes, Virgin Martyr - The Consecration of St. Isidore Church

2012-01-21T06:52:00.000-05:00

MEMORIAL – ST. AGNES, VIRGIN, MARTYR

Almighty ever-living God, who choose what is weak in the world to confound the strong, mercifully grant that we, who celebrate the heavenly birthday of your Martyr Saint Agnes, may follow her constancy in the faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * *

Pope says virginity and martyrdom
of St. Agnes example of faith

Pope Benedict XVI held up the life of a young virgin and martyr as an example to seminarians of the total commitment to Christ required by young men seeking to enter the priesthood.

The pope also said that a solid cultural background and intellectual understanding of faith was essential in the formation of priests as spreaders of the word of God. The pope spoke in an audience yesterday with students from one of Rome's oldest and most prominent seminaries, the Almo Collegio Capranica.

Benedict told them that while martyrdom marks a final and heroic act, the “informed, free and mature” choice of virginity is rather the “fruit of a long friendship with Jesus” developed through close knowledge of his words and constant prayer.

Legend says St. Agnes died in 304 or 305 at the hands of the suitor she spurned so she could remain faithful only to Christ. Pope Benedict said the saint faced her fate with exemplary courage. Her martyrdom illustrates “the beauty of belonging to Christ without hesitation.”

The path to the priesthood requires a similar level of commitment, the pope said, as well as integrity, well-roundedness, ascetic exercise and “heroic faith.”

The Holy Father reminded the seminary students that “faith has its own rational and intellectual dimension, which is essential to it,” and that it is the student's responsibility to assimilate the “Christian synthesis of faith and reason.” (Catholic News Service)

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THE CONSECRATION
OF ST. ISIDORE CHURCH,
SOUTH MARCH./KANATA NORTH

CainCo Photography, Kanata

Last Saturday, I joined the parishioners of St. Isidore Church for the dedication of the third church on this site. The church is bright and airy and it is clear that the latest embodiment is striking and is able to meet the growing needs of the congregation for the forseeable future.

The statue of St. Isidore has been carried over from the previous church, opened in 1887, some 125 years ago; the statue rests on a pedestal composed of stones from the previous building. Also, the stained glass windows have been refurbished and a striking brightness to the community's worship. There is a large atrium at the entry to the church and a covered indoor walk-way to the parish hall.

The homily for the occasion follows, with a photo display:

The Consecration of St. Isidore Church—South March, ON

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year “B”)-January 14, 2012

CALLED BY GOD TO BE HIS DWELLING
[1 Samuel 3.3b-10, 19, [Psalm 40]; 1 Corinthians 6.13c-15a, 17–20; John 1.35–42]

At the start of the ceremony the key to the building was handed over to me (CainCo Photo).

God delights to dwell with you (cf. Proverbs 8:31). He loves you so much, He sent His son to die in your place, because you—and I—merit death due to sin. Instead, He offers you eternal life. He has given you the Bible. He has given you the saints. He has given you brothers and sisters—the Church—to walk with you. And, He has given you this new church building to worship in. This is cause for celebration! We can rightfully cry, “Hallelujah!”

The Fourth Gospel begins Jesus’ ministry, by having Him invite a group of ordinary men to spend time with him. He asks them to “come and see” where he “abides,” where he lives.

John’s gospel shows Jesus engaging His disciples, as He engages you and me today. He asks questions to reveal himself, to reveal themselves and to reveal ourselves.

Jesus revealed to Peter, “You will be called Cephas,” the Rock on which he will found a community called the Church (John 1.42).

We discover that Jesus resides primarily in the bosom of the Father. No temple or church building can contain all that is God. Still, Jesus is present in you and me, the body of Christ, the capital C-Church: You, and you, and you, are his public witness. Your generosity, your gentleness, your pure heart, and every other virtue God has given to you, attracts others to Christ. It is now your turn to say, “Come and see!”

The early Christians met secretly in house churches because soldiers would immediately destroy public churches and martyr the worshippers. Fortunately for us in the Western world, the emperor Constantine lifted the persecution of Christians in the year 313—almost 1,700 years ago—and allowed the practice of the faith and the construction of religious buildings.

The first St. Isidore church was a round structure built in South March by mainly Irish settlers in the 1830s. The second church was built 125 years ago in 1887, the forerunner to the church we dedicate today.

Like you, a lower case c-church building is a public witness to Christian faith. The architecture, the sacred art, and the sacraments celebrated here, all declare that Jesus is Lord. Every day for generations to come, this beautiful church will beckon to passers-by “Come and see!”

In today’s reading from the First Book of Samuel, we read that Israel was in a sad state. The disobedience and immorality of the two sons of the temple priest Eli reflected the corruption of the country. Eli was a permissive father and his eyes were growing dim, but his priestly anointing allowed him to discern that God was calling Samuel, a boy consecrated to serve in the temple.

“When God calls again, Eli told Samuel, say to Him, ‘Speak, Lord, your servant is listening’.” This Samuel did. He became a famous “seer” among God’s people, showing them the right path. God did not allow any of Samuel’s words to fall to the ground, fruitless.

Isn’t that what is most important for your faith life celebrated in this new church? That constantly, you open yourself to God’s will, saying “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening!” in response to God’s Word proclaimed here.

This Sunday’s readings fit this church’s consecration. They involve a place of divine encounter—God’s Temple—as well as a divine call. Samuel and the disciples were called to service. Similarly, Paul invites us to “glorify God in your body” because, he tells us, “you are God’s temple.”

Like Eli’s Israel, the Corinthian Church was in moral trouble. They saw themselves as enlightened Christians. They were smug about sinful practices. St. Paul patiently set them straight, by showing them that they cannot honour Christ by dishonouring their bodies.

The Corinthians misunderstood healthy sexuality. They called evil good, like the incest of marrying one’s stepmother (1 Cor 5.1–13) and frequenting prostitutes (1 Cor 6.15). Paul corrects that error in today’s epistle reading.

The Corinthian problem is the distortion of the freedom that Christ had won for them. They justified taking licence by mouthing slogans (“Everything is permitted me,” twice in verse 12). Paul replied that this mock freedom can enslave (“but I will not let myself be dominated by anything”—1Cor6:12).

Former pastors were in attendance, including Msgr. Robert Martineau

Paul knew that this world will end, not in death, but in resurrection (“God who raised up the Lord, will also raise us up through his power”). Paul showed that those who are united with Christ in baptism become members of his Body. As Christ’s Body, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. We have been bought at great cost: the death of Jesus Christ out of love for us! Therefore, our mission is to glorify God in our body, with the kind of behaviour befitting this noble status.

Dear friends, what you will celebrate here each Sunday in word and sacrament is the eternal life Jesus won for you by His sacrificial death on the cross. He is “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

In the Fourth Gospel—often called the “Spiritual Gospel”—Jesus helps you find your deepest longings for God, in your heart of hearts, by asking you “What are you looking for?”

What are you looking for? Happiness? Fulfilment? The meaning of life? Your creator? Eternal life? Jesus says, “Come and see.”

Through the intercession of the saints, particularly Our Blessed Mother and your patron St. Isidore, may this always be true, in this lovely new church. Here, your faith is called to a most profound activity. May you always hear God’s Word in this sacred place and see the Father through Jesus, our Eucharistic Lord in this his dwelling-place. Amen.

Optional Memorials: Martyrs St. Fabian & St. Sebastian - Sunday 3B - Jesus, Jonah Say "Repent"

2012-01-20T09:50:00.001-05:00

Today's two saints are optional memorials on the same day but they are treated separately--either a commemoration of one or of the other. However, a number of icons depict them together because both may be venerated on January 20:

SAINT FABIAN, POPE AND MARTYR

O God, glory of your Priests, grant, we pray, that, helped by the intercession of your Martyr Saint Fabian, we may make progress by communion in the faith and by worthy service. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * * * * *

SAINT SEBASTIAN, MARTYR

Grant us, we pray, O Lord, a spirit of fortitude, so that, taught by the glorious example of your Martyr Saint Sebastian, we may learn to obey you rather than men. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * * * * *

Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year "B") - January 22, 2012
TWO GALILEAN PROPHETS: JONAH AND JESUS

[Jonah 3.1-5, 10 [Psalm 25]; 1 Corinthians 7.29-31; Mark 1.14-20]

In Second Kings 14:25, mention is made of an eighth-century servant of God called Jonah, son of Amittai. He was from Gath-hepher, a village of Zebulun in Galilee located not far from Jesus' hometown of Nazareth. In the time of Jeroboam II (785-745 B.C.), this Jonah prophesied Israel's expansion.

Jonah son of Amittai is mentioned in the Book of Jonah (1.1), though the work's connection with the historical prophet may be tenuous at best. Still, the message of the “minor prophet” Jonah is remarkable for its teaching about the prophet's role and purpose in communicating God's summons to repentance.

When called by God to preach conversion to Nineveh, a people whose brutal actions had become a byword in Israel, Jonah fled, taking a ship bound for Tarshish. However, God caused a storm to strike the ship. Subsequently, the sailors cast Jonah into the sea, whereupon a great fish swallowed him. After Jonah's prayer, God delivered him by causing the “whale” to vomit him onto dry land.

Then God reiterated the command that Jonah preach repentance to Nineveh--with spectacular results! “The people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.”

What is striking is that the language of conversion gets applied to God: “God changed his mind about the calamity he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it”.

The parabolic book of Jonah closes with God inviting the prophet himself to have a change of heart. For as soon as Nineveh repented, Jonah went into a deep funk. He had known that God—being compassionate and merciful—would forgive Nineveh, if it repented. And Jonah would have none of this (4.1-5).

God reproached Jonah for feeling sorry for a bush that gave him shade but was eaten by a worm (4.6-10), while being indifferent to God's concern for the 120,000 residents of Nineveh and their animals. We leave Jonah struggling with a call to have a change of heart issued by the God who is concerned that none of His creation should perish (4.11).

Jesus contrasted the outcome of Jonah's preaching (conversion by the Ninevites) with the unwillingness of His contemporaries to heed His call to conversion (cf. Luke 11.32; Matthew 12.41).

Mark describes Jesus' preaching as issuing God's demand to the Galileans of His time to change their hearts because, through His preaching, God's Kingdom had arrived in their midst (“The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the Good News”).

Mark follows Jesus' call to conversion with peremptory commands to four individuals—Simon [Peter] and Andrew, James and John—to leave their occupation (fishing) and family (Zebedee) in order to fish with Jesus for people to inhabit God's Kingdom.

Jesus' invitation that his disciples have a change of outlook touches them negatively and positively. Negatively, discipleship meant for them leaving their way of life and former ties. Positively, it meant following Jesus. Henceforth, they will not only accompany Jesus, but he will let them share his ministry and eventually continue it.

As the gospel proceeds, we will see these and other disciples called to “be with Him and to be sent out to proclaim the message”, even having authority to cast out demons as Jesus did (3.14-15). Jesus' disciples will be invited to an ongoing rethinking of their outlook on life—to conversion.

The assertion that the Kingdom has “come near: in the preaching of Jesus conceals a tension between the present but hidden fulfilment of God's Kingdom in the ministry of Jesus and the Kingdom's future completion in power, the focus of Jesus' teaching in parables. In Jesus' ministry the Kingdom of God entered into history, even though its full appearance is yet to come.

Paul's writings emphasize this ongoing tension between the “already” and “not yet” dimensions of God's Kingdom. He claims that “the appointed time has grown short” and “the present form of this world is passing away”.

For disciples in every age, therefore, living Christian life is paradoxical (“those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions”). It requires an utterly new mind-set, conversion.

Recalling Ottawa's 2nd Archbishop - Visite du reliquaire du Saint Frere Andre

2012-01-19T06:56:00.002-05:00

Today marks the 90th anniversary of the death of Mgr Charles-Hugues Gauthier, Archbishop of Ottawa from 1910-1922. Here is the treatment of his life in ministry from the Canadian Dictionary of Biography (online version); it is by Professor Mark G. McGowan, an Ottawa native:

GAUTHIER, CHARLES HUGH, Roman Catholic priest, professor, and archbishop; b. 13 Nov. 1843 in Alexandria, Upper Canada, son of Gabriel Gauthier, a farmer, and Mary McKinnon; d. 19 Jan. 1922 in Ottawa.

Of French Canadian and Scottish parentage, Charles Gauthier received his early education from the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Alexandria. Later he attended Regiopolis College in Kingston, from which he graduated with high honours in 1863; he subsequently studied theology at the Grand Séminaire in Montreal. On 24 Aug. 1867, at St John the Baptist Church in Perth, Ont., he was ordained by Bishop Edward John Horan* of Kingston. He served as professor of rhetoric and director of Regiopolis College until 1869, when Horan made him pastor of St John the Evangelist parish in Gananoque, a charge that included missions at Howe Island, Lansdowne, Jones Falls, and Brewers Mills. In 1875 he was transferred to Westport and then, upon the accession of Bishop John O'Brien, to St Mary's parish in Williamstown. He spent 11 years there, during which time he opened a new parish at nearby Glen Nevis (which he also administered), constructed a new rectory in Williamstown, built mission churches in Lancaster (1885) and Martintown (1886), and liquidated the debt of St Mary's. Moved to Brockville in 1886, he acted as regional dean and, after 1891, as vicar general for the archdiocese of Kingston. His fluency in English, French, and Gaelic enabled him to communicate with its principal linguistic groups.

Gauthier's pastoral skills, good humour, and financial acumen were acknowledged by his fellow priests when, in an unprecedented step, 37 of them met and selected him as their choice to succeed Archbishop James Vincent Cleary*, who had died in February 1898. Kingston's clergy were fearful that the Vatican might appoint the bishop of Waterford and Lismore, in Ireland, to succeed the Irish-born Cleary, instead of a Canadian who understood the diocese and its needs. Their petition may have influenced the Canadian bishops' recommendation to Pope Leo XIII, who named Gauthier archbishop on 29 July. He was consecrated in Kingston on 18 October.

Like the priests who supported him, many Kingstonians regarded Gauthier as moderate in both politics and temperament - a striking contrast to his predecessor. "The choice of Msgr. Gauthier has been hailed throughout the country, as a special grace of divine Providence," exclaimed Archbishop Joseph-Thomas Duhamel* of Ottawa. "For me, I consider it a gift of God." The new archbishop continued the energetic pace he had set as a parish priest. Within his diocesan boundaries, which extended west from Dundas County to just beyond the Trent River and from Lake Ontario to Algonquin Park, he administered 41,384 Catholics, who constituted 16 per cent of the diocese's entire population. His frequent travels throughout the diocese and familiarity with its growing towns and villages made it easier for him to approve the construction of new churches and rectories, and renovations of ageing ones, in such centres as Odessa (1898), Ormsby and South Mountain (1899), Lombardy (1900), Frankford (1901), Lansdowne (1901), Merrickville (1902), Lanark (1903), Marmora (1904), Toledo (1907), and Enterprise (1908). His episcopate was also marked by the construction of St Francis' Hospital in Smiths Falls, St John's Convent in Perth, and St Mary's of the Lake Orphanage in Kingston, and renovations to Kingston's Hôtel Dieu hospital.

Gauthier's Kingston years were devoid of the sectarian tension that had earned the city the nickname the Derry of Canada [see John Gaskin*]. His own actions won him respect among its Protestants. When St George's Cathedral was gutted by fire in 1899, for example, he was one of the first to offer sympathy and financial aid to Anglican archbishop John Travers Lewis*. Although he contributed to the atmosphere of toleration and commented on the absence of Protestant proselytizing in his diocese, he still worried that local Catholicism was being endangered by mixed marriages, increased socializing with Protestants, and Catholic attendance at public schools. For Gauthier, the establishment of Catholic schools "wherever possible" was the surest way to strengthen the Catholic minority in a largely Protestant province. In 1901, 4,000 out of 6,000 Catholic children of school age were enrolled in the diocese's separate schools; the remaining 2,000, according to Gauthier, lived in areas with no access to Catholic schools. By the end of his tenure new ones had been created in Belleville, Tweed, and Chesterville.

His interest in separate schools extended beyond his diocese. He quickly became a respected leader among the bishops on the issues of teachers' qualifications, textbooks, and school-tax reform. In 1904 justice Hugh MacMahon ruled that members of Catholic religious orders who were employed as teachers in Ontario must obtain qualifications commensurate with provincial standards. Archbishops Gauthier, Duhamel, and Denis O’Connor* of Toronto, however, were alarmed that many sisters and brothers might leave their teaching posts rather than attend classes in the "Protestant" atmosphere of the provincial normal schools. Believing that the members of orders were already well qualified, through teachers' conventions and experience, Gauthier and his colleagues appealed MacMahon's decision to the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, but without success. When John Seath*, Ontario's superintendent of education, produced legislation early in 1907 that required the proper certification of teaching sisters and brothers, Gauthier opposed the plan, fearing the closure of at least four convents in his diocese and the demise of Catholic schools that employed religious. Declaring the bill "odious and unjust," he appealed directly to Premier James Pliny Whitney* to allow the teachers to be certified without further qualification. With the passage of the act on 20 April 1907, Gauthier and his colleagues conceded defeat and began working to ensure that the teaching members adapted to the three levels of certification.

Gauthier coordinated efforts by the Ontario bishops to secure better funding for Catholic schools from the government and also to obtain improvements to Copp, Clark's Canadian Catholic readers series. By 1909 he and his long-time friend Archbishop Fergus Patrick McEvay* of Toronto were the instigators and chief negotiators of a quiet diplomacy to procure for the separate schools a larger share of business and corporation taxes and to have public funding extended to the senior grades of Catholic high schools. At one point in the negotiations, in order to win the desired financial concessions, Gauthier and the bishops were prepared to sacrifice their Copp, Clark Catholic textbooks, which would have been very expensive to revise. Doubts about the wisdom of this course of action arose, however. Gauthier asked Whitney to offer Catholic schools more of the taxes in exchange for which the bishops, after removing the "objectionable features," would allow public school readers to be used as supplementary texts in Catholic schools. Negotiations continued but in 1910 the bishops' hopes were dashed when the government shelved plans for Catholic school reforms because of vociferous demands by Franco-Ontarians for the extension of French-language education. Whitney feared that any concessions to the bishops in the midst of these demands would alienate the Orange faction of his government.

The Kingston archbishop's influence in ecclesiastical politics was complemented by the attention shown him by the apostolic delegate to Canada, Monsignor Donato Sbarretti y Tazza. Their close relationship - Sbarretti sought Gauthier's advice and assistance on several occasions - was fortunate for the English-speaking bishops as they moved to exert their influence over the church west of the Ottawa River. Gauthier was known to be vehemently opposed to French Canadian clerical nationalists and, as Bishop Thomas Joseph DOWLING reported Gauthier's position to Rome, their "impertinent interference with the affairs of English speaking provinces." As an integral part of their struggle for control, Gauthier and other English-speaking bishops attempted to secure their own candidate each time a see became vacant. In partnership with McEvay and Archbishop Edward Joseph McCarthy of Halifax, in 1909 Gauthier acquired the services of Father Henry Joseph O’Leary* as the anglophone bishops' agent at the Vatican. With O'Leary's aid and Sbarretti's confidence, Gauthier and his group were successful in several appointments, including that of Michael Francis Fallon* as bishop of London in 1909. Long admired by Gauthier, this controversial cleric was loathed by Franco-Ontarians, particularly in Essex County, for his opposition to bilingual schools.

The "bishop maker" became a victim of his own success. In August 1910 the Vatican named him archbishop of Ottawa, a position left vacant since the death of Duhamel in June 1909. This appointment came in spite of the fact that Gauthier's name did not appear among the original terna (list of candidates) for Ottawa and that Gauthier himself had recommended the "broadminded" Bishop Joseph-Médard EMARD for the difficult task of administering this explosive archdiocese. Out of 266 priests and brothers there, only 30 were not of French origin. Moreover, for much of the decade, French- and English-speaking Catholics in Ottawa had been bitterly divided over who would control the bilingual University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Separate School Board. Infighting among the board's trustees over teachers' qualifications and spending had prompted the court case that had led to the provincial law on certification. By 1910 demands for the improvement of bilingual schools, spearheaded by the Congrès d'Éducation des Canadiens Français de l'Ontario [see Napoléon-Antoine Belcourt*], had further polarized the church along linguistic lines in eastern Ontario. In Ottawa, Protestants stood on the sidelines and watched with interest as the various Catholic factions waged war in school-council chambers, in the press, and from the pulpits.

Gauthier's colleagues knew full well the trouble that faced him. His fellow bishops in Ontario passed a motion of "confidence and good will" as he embarked on the most difficult task of his career. Bishop Paul LA ROCQUE of Sherbrooke, Que., offered his "condolences" in English. In a similar vein, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier* expressed his concern about the "overwhelming" burden placed on his good friend, and his regret that some Catholics had been critical of the Vatican's decision. Francophone Catholics in the archdiocese were distressed by the appointment of Gauthier, whom they considered an anglophone with a French surname. This reaction had been anticipated by Sbarretti, who had received the papal bulls authorizing the appointment in August 1910 but, to avoid too much attention to a controversial selection, withheld the news until after the International Eucharistic Congress in Montreal in September. In speculating about the appointment in Le Devoir on 19 July, Henri Bourassa* had neatly summarized the opinion of French Canadian nationalists when he asserted that Gauthier was "French in name, English in language and education," of advanced age, and appointed only to secure "the definitive nomination of an English-speaking bishop." Contrary to Fergus McEvay's prediction in November that "the crazy opposition" would dissipate, the anger did not subside. When Gauthier was installed at Notre-Dame Basilica on 21 Feb. 1911, both the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste and the Association Canadienne-Française d'Éducation d'Ontario refused to attend.

The bilingual schools question would dog Gauthier for the rest of his life. In 1912, following the Department of Education's issue of Regulation 17, which prohibited French-language education after the first form, Gauthier was faced with virtual civil war within the Ottawa Separate School Board. Despite his opposition to the francophone demands of 1910, Gauthier took a more moderate position on bilingual schools in the hope that he might reconcile the factions. In 1912 he appealed to Whitney to allow "a larger measure of French to be taught" in bilingual schools attended exclusively by French Canadian children. The premier refused on the grounds that such a measure would create a "third" school system in Ontario.

By 1914 the situation at the school board had deteriorated. French trustees defied Regulation 17 and, as a result, English-speaking trustees sought an injunction to prohibit the francophones from raising debentures for independent schools and paying salaries to unqualified teachers. In June 1915, after an acrimonious election and bitter confrontations between local priests, the board shut its schools. In September they were reopened by order of the Ontario Supreme Court, and the new premier, William Howard Hearst*, appointed a three-person commission to run the board and ensure its adherence to the provincial regulation. English-speaking clergy and laity lined up in support of the commission, while their French-speaking co-religionists condemned it and francophone bishops appealed to Pope Benedict XV to defend French-language education rights. In 1916 the pope responded with an encyclical, Commisso divinitus, which instructed Gauthier's flock to settle their differences peacefully and not imperil their schools. Neither this intervention nor the mediatory efforts of archbishops Paul Bruchési* of Montreal and Neil McNeil* of Toronto ended the crisis. Later that year, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council upheld Regulation 17 but ruled the Ottawa School Commission illegal, and attempts were made to reconstitute the original board.

During the crisis Gauthier had become increasingly estranged from the francophone Catholics of his diocese. He was notably absent from the biannual congresses of the ACFEO, despite the presence of other bishops, and his francophone priests expressed their disgust at his inability to rein in actions of the English-speaking Catholics. Gauthier tried to maintain a middle course. He instructed his clergy in unequivocal terms to desist from any public discussion of these "vexed questions." In 1917, in the wake of the papal encyclical and the validation of Regulation 17 by the courts, Gauthier and the Ontario bishops issued a joint pastoral urging Catholics to "obey all the just laws and regulations enacted from time to time by civil authorities" and English-speaking Catholics in particular to consider "sympathetically" the "aspirations and requests" of French Canadian Catholics. The bishops acknowledged the ambiguities of Regulation 17 but endorsed its legality, and echoed the pope by asking that Catholics facilitate "an equitable teaching of the French language together with a thorough acquisition of English." Despite these pleas, the tension in the Ottawa board continued, and local priests continued to complain about the tactics of "the other side."

Although weighed down and sometimes demoralized by the schools issue, Gauthier still managed to conduct his day-to-day administrative affairs in efficient fashion, as he had done in Kingston. He continued to monitor the interactions of Catholics and Protestants, noting the increased numbers of mixed marriages, especially in English-speaking parishes. As the Catholic population of his diocese expanded on both sides of the Ottawa River, he approved the construction of church buildings and erected new parishes, including Saint-Bernardin (1912), Ottawa's Blessed Sacrament (1913) and Saint-Gérard-Majella (1916), Vars (1915), and, in Quebec, Boileau (1915), Fieldville (1915), and Hull's Saint-Joseph (1913) and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette (1916). He also presided over the creation of the diocese of Mont-Laurier in 1913 out of the eastern section of his territory in Quebec and the reorganization of his suffragan dioceses northwest of Ottawa. In 1915 the vicariate of Timiskaming became the diocese of Haileybury and four years later the prefecture of Northern Ontario was carved out of its northwestern section. In addition, he supported special collections for the erection of a diocesan seminary (a project unrealized in his lifetime) and for home missions to Ukrainian Catholic immigrants.

The pressures of episcopal administration and the linguistic crisis took their toll on Gauthier. After 1918 his health declined and his appearances became less frequent. In 1921 he issued his last significant public statement, a lengthy pastoral on the needs of separate schools in Ontario. As he had earlier in his career, he made an eloquent plea to Catholics to continue the fight for a just share of the tax assessment and for the funding of senior grades in high schools. He had never surrendered his hope that funding equity, as promised in the Separate School Act of 1863 [see Sir Richard William Scott*], could be achieved through concerted effort. He would not witness the attainment of full funding.

Shortly before Christmas 1921 Gauthier was rushed to the Ottawa General Hospital, where he died of uraemia at 2:35 A.M. on 19 Jan. 1922. He was buried in Notre-Dame Basilica. His funeral was attended by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King*, members of his cabinet, numerous bishops, over 500 clergy and religious, a legion of lay leaders, and his brother and two sisters. In eulogies, former adversaries in the bilingual schools controversy now acknowledged him as a "true friend of the separate schools," while non-Catholics paid tribute to him as a loyal citizen who had stirred up "the patriotic spirit of his parishioners" during the Great War. Given the challenges of his life and his enormous pastoral contribution, the most fitting tribute came from the Ottawa Citizen, which remarked that he had lived up to his motto, In fide et lenitate. Charles Hugh Gauthier had indeed been strong in faith and gentle in administration.

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Visite du Reliquaire du Saint Frère André

Dimanche dernier, je suis allé presider la messe principale à la communauté Saint-Frère-André à l’Église Bienheureuse Vierge Marie, Médiatrice de toutes les grâces a l’occasion de l’accueil du reliquaire du saint patron dans les églises environnantes.

Après la messe, quelques prêtres et moi avons célébré le sacrement de l’Onction des malades pour une trentaine de personnes.

Quelques photos :

Prayer for Christian Unity Week/Semaine de Priere pour l'Unite des Chretiens - Bishop Colin Campbell (RIP)

2012-01-18T08:15:00.001-05:00

Today, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins (January 18-25)

The Week is promoted by the World Council of Churches (WCC), a worldwide fellowship of 349 Churches seeking unity, common witness and Christian service. The Catholic Church participates in this ecumenical initiative, despite not being a member of the WCC.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is traditionally celebrated from 18 to 25 January in the northern hemisphere, and around the time of Pentecost in the southern hemisphere. It brings together Christian parishes and congregations from different confessional families all over the world, who meet and pray together in special ecumenical celebrations.

Each year ecumenical partners in a particular region are asked to prepare a basic text on a biblical theme. Then an international group with WCC-sponsored (Protestant and Orthodox) and Roman Catholic participants edits this text to ensure it is linked with the search for Christian unity.

The text is jointly published by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and by the WCC's Commission on Faith and Order which also accompanies the entire production process of the text. The final material is sent to member Churches and Roman Catholic dioceses, which are invited to translate the text and contextualise it for their own use.

This year's theme comes from St. Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians which promises the transformation of human life - with all its apparent dimensions of 'triumph' and 'defeat' - through the victory of Christ's resurrection.

Following the Angelus prayer on last Sunday, Benedict XVI invited the faithful, "as individuals and in communities, to participate spiritually, and where possible practically in the Week of Prayer, to ask God for the gift of full unity among the disciples of Christ". [Vatican Information Service]

* * *

Almighty ever-living God, who gather what is scattered and keep together what you have gathered, look kindly on the flock oif your Son, that those whom one Baptism has consecrated may be joined together by integrity of faith and united in the bond of charity. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

* * *

Cette année, la "Transformation" sera le thème de la Semaine de prière de l’Alliance évangélique (8-15 janvier) et de la Semaine de prière pour l’unité des chrétiens (18-25 janvier). Il est inspiré du verset "Transformés par la victoire de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ".

C'est le même thème que les Eglises de Pologne ont choisi, soit une phrase extraite du passage de la première épître de Paul aux Corinthiens (15, 51-58): "Tous, nous serons transformés … par la victoire de notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ." L'histoire particulière de la nation polonaise les a fait réfléchir plus profondément sur les concepts de "gagner" et de "perdre", et finalement sur la résurrection comme victoire définitive et totale sur la mort.

La semaine de prière de l'Alliance évangélique est l'ancêtre des diverses semaines qui invitent les chrétiens à prier pour leur unité. La Semaine universelle de prière pour l'unité des chrétiens, qui a lieu du 18 au 25 janvier de chaque année, date de 1935. Elle est due à l'initiative d'un pionnier de l'œcuménisme: le Père Paul Couturier.

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DEATH OF BISHOP COLIN CAMPBELL

EMERITUS OF ANTIGONISH

July 12, 1931 - January 17, 2012

Bishop Colin Campbell, who lived in retirement in Halifax, Nova Scotia passed away yesterday evening; his sister, Sr. Therese, SC was present with him. He was a good friend and always a source of encouragement for me:

Most Reverend Colin Campbell (born in Antigonish, on July 12, 1931) was a Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.

On May 26, 1956 he was ordained a priest in Halifax and he was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Antigonish on December 12, 1986. He was ordained as a bishop the following year on March 19, 1987. He resigned on October 26, 2002.

He was consecrated a bishop by Halifax Archbishop James Martin Hayes, Moncton Archbishop Donat Chiasson and Antigonish Emeritus Bishop William Edward Power (his predecessor) [based on Wikipedia article].

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Bishop Colin had numerous leadership positions in the Archdiocese of Halifax and with the National Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Toronto before his appointment as bishop in Antigonish. He took a course in journalism in California to be able to use the media to evangelize, which he did in a regular Saturday column in the Halifax Chronicle Herald newspaper.

The following essay from the Antigonish diocesan website, is his testimonial to Pope John Paul II in the Great Jubilee Year 2000. It gives a sense of his approach to issues and his writing style.

Tutore te Christe "With Christ as Your Teacher" was his episcopal motto and expresses his conviction that the priest and the bishop listen to Christ teach them and hand on his message to others.

POPE JOHN PAUL II - WITNESS TO HOPE

My dear sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ,

There were mixed reactions to the various images of the Pope over the Holy Days. Some noted how he held on to the crozier for support. Others found him frail at the Mass. Some people told me that they found that he looked more rested than they had seen recently. There was a beautiful shot of him with children releasing doves from Saint Peter’s Square.

No matter what glasses we are using, the man is frail and failing. God has given him his great wish; to be Pope to lead God’s people into the Great Jubilee and the New Millennium. There is endless speculation about how long he can carry on. At least those around him have gotten the message that major scissors must be used to cut the schedule. I pray that the huge delegation that is going from our diocese for World Youth Day in August will find him alive and active enough to inspire.

There is little doubt that two of the great things that he brought the Church are hope and courage. From his first day on the balcony at Saint Peter’s, his cry was: “Be not afraid!” In a world that seemed to have marginalized the Church and the message of Jesus, what advice could be more solid? This lack of fear must be based on hope, knowing that the Church has come through much worse times and that we are but the instruments of the Holy Spirit.

What has he done for the Church? One author sums it up in major points. One or other of them may appeal to you and you may have your own list. In my view, he is the greatest Pope of this century and one of the greats in the history of the Church. I would put him with Pius X and Pius XI as the great leaders of the Church in this century.

His first gift has been a new Papacy. This role has mostly been respected in the world. Even when there were rogues in the office, (and make no doubt, there were some), the position had some clout. But the luster of the Papacy and the credibility of the office in the World and the Church has never been so high. Who has had more visits and more frequent flyer points?

Do you remember when he was elected? I was present for his “Installation” and his first Mass on the Square. The question was:- will he implement the Council or will he downplay it? The answer is now in. He has been a great champion of the Council and all that it teaches. One has only to see the Catechism of the Catholic Church and how it drinks from the teachings of the Council. Every bishop who has visited and dealt with him can speak of his fraternity - my fellow bishops. The bowing and scraping are non-existent.

He who has understood the intellectual underpinnings of the new culture better than most because of his excellent education and his teaching career, has not hesitated to challenge the relativism of much of this culture. In documents like Veritatis Splendor and Evangelium Vitae, he is not only courageous, but prophetic.

There will be tons of ink and many trees cut down for decades to unpack his role in the collapse of communism. When all is said, it will be clear that his role was both powerful and in many cases, immediate. He used his moral authority, intellectual capacity and rare courage to nearly overstep his role as Pope to bring down this myth of economic and human freedom.

Although he came on the scene when ecumenism had passed its polite tea party stage, he has held the course and urged people to be steadfast. His unfailing courtesy and personal warmth not only to ecumenical but inter-faith dialogue, has angered a good number of Catholics. Yet it has shown where his heart is, despite the enormous doctrinal mountains that must yet be scaled.

Because he is so at home with Jews, having grown up with them, he has brought a new breath of air into this dialogue. He has not underestimated the complexity of the situation in Israel, nor will he impulsively take one- sided actions, but he knows that he must move the Church. Watch what his visit to Israel in March will do for this whole challenge.

In my view his most important gift has been his great spiritual leadership. There is no one in the world today that does not know that he is a mystic. Every Catholic knows by his example that the heart of the Gospel is a life of prayer and if we do not have it, we are beating the air. People are not fooled. We know that the man is the spiritual leader of the World with a moral and prayerful authority that is far larger than his “job” as Pope.

Finally, he has been visible and zealous. For all the time I have nattered on and on to seminarians about zeal, I should have just pointed to our Holy Father. He puts any bishop to shame by his work ethic and his visitation around the world. Yes, he still does week-end visits to the parishes in the Diocese of Rome! “The Zeal of the Lord has consumed me.”

May we all meet the Lord with such filled hands. Please pray now for the person who will be asked to follow him. He will need the overpowering grace of the Holy Spirit.

+ COLIN CAMPBELL

Requiescat in pace.

Memorial of St. Anthony of the Desert -Homelands Mass/ Messe multiculturelle

2012-01-17T07:06:00.048-05:00

MEMORIAL – ST. ANTHONY, ABBOT

O God, who brought the Abbot Saint Anthony to serve you by a wondrous way of life in the desert, grant, through his intercession, that, denying ourselves, we may always love you above all things. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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Homelands Mass / Messe multiculturelle

Archidiocèse d’Ottawa Archdiocese

Cathédrale-basilique Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica
2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year “B”)-January 15, 2012

CALLED BY GOD TO BE HIS WITNESSES

[1 Samuel 3.3b-10, 19, [Psalm 40]; 1 Corinthians 6.13c-15a, 17–20; John 1.35–42]

Last Sunday, we celebrated the Epiphany—the coming to faith in Christ Jesus by the peoples of the world. Our gathering for the Homelands Mass (la messe multiculturelle) this afternoon is another expression of the same reality. We do so on the second Sunday after January 6. Blessed Pope John Paul II designated this day for the Church to celebrate, to pray for, and stand in solidarity with, migrants and refugees.

Le pape Benoît XVI a d’ailleurs choisi les thèmes de la migration et de la nouvelle évangélisation pour son Message pour cette journée des migrants et des refugiés 2012. Le pape nous rappelle que « le moment présent appelle l’Église à accomplir une nouvelle évangélisation dans le phénomène vaste et complexe de la mobilité humaine. »

Migration presents an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel. Men and women from around the world, some not knowing Christ, ask to be received in countries with an ancient Christian tradition. Established Canadian Christians need to find good ways for unchurched migrants to meet and to get to know Jesus Christ. We must share the invaluable gift of salvation, which, for everyone, is a source of “life in abundance” (cf. John 10.10). Migrants, too, have a special role to play, becoming heralds of God’s word and witnesses to the Risen Jesus, the hope of the world.

À vous tous qui êtes ici – que ce soit comme visiteurs, comme réfugiés, comme immigrants permanents ou encore comme étudiants – Soyez les bienvenus chez nous et merci d’être là! Votre présence ici enrichit le Canada. Je ne parle pas seulement de vos connaissances, de votre énergie et de votre capacité d’aimer. Je parle également de votre foi.

Continuez de questionner les Canadiens de souche sur le matérialisme et l’indifférence au message de l’Évangile que vous rencontrez ici. Gens de foi, vous avez apporté le Christ avec vous, comme Pierre a apporté le Christ avec lui à Rome.

Prenons quelques instants pour regarder l’image qui paraît sur la couverture de votre livret pour cette célébration. Il s’agit de la sculpture qui se retrouve dans le panneau central du Maître-autel qui est au centre du sanctuaire. Ce bas-relief qui a été réalisé par le sculpteur de renom Louis-Philippe Hébert à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle nous parle et nous interpelle alors que nous célébrons la messe multiculturelle.

Dans la scène de la Nativité qui se trouve juste à côté, on voit les bergers qui viennent voir l’Enfant Jésus, mais les Mages ne sont pas là! Dans l’image du bas-relief que vous avez sur votre livret on aperçoit des rois et une reine à la gauche de cette scène… représentent-ils les Mages… on ne saurait dire!

Chose certaine on y retrouve une personne d’origine asiatique au bas à gauche et une personne d’origine africaine en haut à droite. Dans cette œuvre artistique, un anachronisme… on découvre des religieuses et des prêtres représentants des congrégations et des ordres missionnaires qui ont semé la foi à travers le monde. On y voit aussi des femmes et des enfants qui apprennent à connaître l’Évangile dans un contexte familial, alors que Jésus donne le Sermon sur la montagne.

Cette sculpture nous représente tous, alors que nous nous rassemblons pour partager notre foi en Jésus le Christ ressuscité et glorifié. Il est ici parmi nous. Il nous enseigne, par l’Esprit Saint, les vérités sur Dieu et nous instruit sur les manières de vivre dans l’optique du Royaume de Dieu.

Let’s look at the sculpture pictured on the cover of your liturgy booklet. It’s from the middle panel of the high altar, the centre of our sanctuary. Designed by the famous sculptor Louis-Philippe Hebert in the late nineteenth century, it speaks to our Mass.

The Nativity scene next to it depicts the shepherds coming to see Jesus, but there are no Magi in it. One can perhaps see them in the kings and the queen on the left of the sculpture. There is an Asian person at the bottom left and an African person at the top right.

Anachronistically, there are religious sisters and priests—representing the missionary orders—who helped take the faith to the entire world. But there are also women and children learning in the home, from Jesus, the teacher who is giving the Sermon on the Mount.

This represents us, as we gather to share our faith in the glorified and risen Christ. He is here among us, teaching us through the Holy Spirit, the truths of God and the ways of righteous conduct that belong to God’s Kingdom. St. Paul tells us that the truth of sexual purity must be lived after our baptism as part of our call to holiness.

The Church of Corinth was in moral trouble. They saw themselves as enlightened Christians. They were smug about sinful practices. They called evil good, like the incest of marrying one’s stepmother (1 Cor 5.1–13) and frequenting prostitutes (1 Cor 6.15). St. Paul set them straight, by showing them that they would not honour Christ by dishonouring their bodies.

The Corinthians distorted the freedom that Christ had won for them. They justified taking license by mouthing slogans (“Everything is permitted me,” twice in verse 12). Paul replied that this mock freedom can enslave (“but I will not let myself be dominated by anything”—1Cor 6:12).

Paul knew that this world will end, not in death, but in resurrection (“God who raised up the Lord, will also raise us up through his power”). Paul showed that those who are united with Christ in baptism become members of His Body.

You have been bought at great cost: the death of Jesus Christ, out of love for you! Therefore, your mission is to glorify God in your body, with the kind of behaviour befitting this noble status.

Later in the epistle (in 1 Cor 12:20–21), Paul wrote “There are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”” I say to you, new Canadians and visitors, you are essential members of the Body of Christ. The Body, the Church, needs you.

Peut-être avez-vous déjà reçu un appel dans votre vie d’enfant semblable à celui de Samuel qui nous est rapporté dans l’Ancien Testament. Il a eu une naissance miraculeuse et a été consacré au Seigneur pour servir au Temple. Dieu s’adressa à lui clairement. Le prêtre Éli eut la sagesse de l’instruire « si l’on t’appelle tu diras : Parle, Seigneur, ton serviteur écoute! » Parce que Samuel lui obéit, Dieu le choisit comme « prophète » et lui confie un rôle important alors qu’Israël a connu plusieurs bouleversements. Il fut le dernier Juge avant les règnes des Rois…un point tournant dans l’histoire des Juifs.

Vous avez peut être aussi reçu un appel durant votre vie d’adulte comme Jean, André et Pierre. Jésus les a appelés à son service et en a fait ses apôtres. À la question « Rabbi, où demeures-tu? », Jésus répondit « Viens, et tu verras ». Une entrevue assez courte pour un emploi pourtant plutôt important!

God does not call qualified people; He qualifies those He calls. Every Christian has a vocation. God is calling you, and you, and you, to be His hands, His feet, and His voice.

Listen for God’s call, and obey. He usually starts with small requests and then He will give you bigger jobs. Peter simply followed Jesus, and He made him the first Pope, the rock on which He built His Church!

As the Psalmist wrote, “in your plans for us there is none equal to you...I delight to do your will.” Thank you for blessing the Church of Ottawa with your witness. I pray that you prosper here and that your adventure with Christ will bear much fruit.

Photo credit: Heri Riesbeck

CNEWA Meeting - A Visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

2012-01-16T07:02:00.025-05:00

Gabriel del Monaco (CNEWA Vice-Director for Development), Carl Hetu (National Director, CNEWA Canada), Msgr. John Kozar (CNEWA Executive Secretary , Archbishops Michael Miller, CSB (Vancouver), Martin Currie (St. John's), Winnipeg Archeparch Lawrence Huculak, OSBM; missing: Archbishop Thomas C. Collins (Toronto)

When the Catholic Near Eastern Welfare Association (CNEWA) was invited to be established in Canada, its purpose was to assist Christian Churches in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Eastern rite Catholics in India: training seminarians, assisting with social development projects, coming to the relief of those suffering persecution (such as Iraqi Christians) and reaching out to others in need in these same regions.

Canadian bishops have accepted to serve on the Board of Directors (we usually meet at the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops annual fall assembly) to offer assistance to the Executive Director and his staff, whose offices are in our Diocesan Centre. The picture of the current board [above] was taken at the October 2011 meeting.

In my capacity as Canadian President, I also attend the international board meeting in CNEWA's offices in the Catholic Pastoral Center of the Archdiocese of New York (in December or January). My visit last week for the Annual General Meeting allowed me a chance to congratulate CNEWA ex-officio President Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan on his nomination as a Cardinal a few days earlier.

After the meeting, it is custom for the Trustees to visit the office staff to thank them for their contribution to the wonderful work that CNEWA is able to achieve with the help of so many generous benefactors.

Some photos:

His Eminence with two finance department staff and CNEWA head, Msgr. John Kozar

* * * * * *

A VISIT TO THE

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM

Since the time of my studies at Fordham University (AB, '67), I have always found a trip to the MET a wonderful immersion in things cultural and historical. So, I looked forward to my chance for a few hours there on Friday morning last week, before my long adventure getting home despite the closure of Ottawa airport. I took a few pictures on my way to the excellent exhibition on The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini.

One may take photos without flash in most of the museum, but not in the special exhibit, so the following photos are en route to the exhibit and the last photo is the poster from the exhibit, a work by Sandro Botticelli, entitled "Ideal Portrait of a Lady" ["Simonetta Vespucci"]:

The Great Hall

Christian stone-work decoration

Reliquary bust of St. Yrick (France)

World Day of Migrants & Refugees - L’abbé Jean-Claude Proulx (R.I.P.)

2012-01-15T07:00:00.021-05:00

2ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Almighty ever-living God, who govern all things, both in heaven and on earth, mercifully hear the pleading of your people and bestow your peace on our times. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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Migration and the New Evangelization

"The phenomenon of migration today is also a providential opportunity for the proclamation of the Gospel in the contemporary world. Men and women from various regions of the earth who have not yet encountered Jesus Christ or know him only partially, ask to be received in countries with an ancient Christian tradition.

"It is necessary to find adequate ways for them to meet and to become acquainted with Jesus Christ and to experience the invaluable gift of salvation which, for everyone, is a source of “life in abundance” (cf. Jn 10:10); migrants themselves have a special role in this regard because they in turn can become “heralds of God’s word and witnesses to the Risen Jesus, the hope of the world” (Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini, 105).

"Pastoral workers – priests, religious and lay people – play a crucial role in the demanding itinerary of the new evangelization in the context of migration.

"They work increasingly in a pluralist context: in communion with their Ordinaries, drawing on the Church’s Magisterium. I invite them to seek ways of fraternal sharing and respectful proclamation, overcoming opposition and nationalism. For their part, the Churches of origin, of transit and those that welcome the migration flows should find ways to increase their cooperation for the benefit both of those who depart and those who arrive, and, in any case, of those who, on their journey, stand in need of encountering the merciful face of Christ in the welcome given to one’s neighbour.

"To achieve a fruitful pastoral service of communion, it may be useful to update the traditional structures of care for migrants and refugees, by setting beside them models that respond better to the new situations in which different peoples and cultures interact with one another." --Benedict XVI

* * * * * *

Décès de l’abbé Jean-Claude Proulx

L’abbé Jean-Claude Proulx est décédé mardi, le 10 janvier 2012. Né le 20 juin 1939, il a été ordonné prêtre le 6 juin 1965 par S.E. Mgr Marie-Joseph Lemieux, o.p., archevêque d’Ottawa.

Sa dépouille sera exposée à la maison funéraire Kelly à Orléans au 2370, boul. Saint-Joseph, aujourd’hui, le dimanche 15 janvier de 14 h 00 à 16 h 00 et de 19 h 00 à 21 h 00 et demain, le lundi 16 janvier en la Basilique-cathédrale Notre-Dame à Ottawa de 9 h 30 avec la messe des funérailles à 10 h 30.

Souvenons-nous de lui et de sa famille dans nos prières.

Jean-Jacques Robillard, OP, pastor of St. Jean Baptiste Parish, Ottawa

2012-01-14T07:09:00.009-05:00

Yesterday's storm--during which I was seeking to return from New York City's LaGuardia to Ottawa--recalibrated my 5:15 arrival to 11:15 (minus luggage), a trip re-routed via Toronto. So the posting today is brief and mainly pix. More next week on my visit to CNEWA headquarters, etc.

Un nouveau curé dominicain,

le frère Jean-Jacques Robillard, o.p.,

à la paroisse Saint-Jean Baptiste d’Ottawa

The great Dominica preacher, St. Vincent Ferrer points the way to heaven

Last Sunday, I presided at the installation of Brother Robillard as the new pastor of the parish of St. John the Baptist, situated within the Dominican Convent.

That Sunday of the Epiphany was also the day set for parishioners to exchange New Year's good wishes in the reception room in the Dominican quarters. I was pleased to share dinner with the community afterwards.

Some other photos:

St. Hilaire de Poitiers - Nouvel archevêque de Poitiers...

2012-01-13T06:54:00.028-05:00

St. Hilaire sacre St. Martin, eveque de Tours

Saint Hilaire de Poitiers

évêque de Poitiers
et défenseur de la Foi,
(315 - 368)
Fêté le 13 janvier

ORIGINE ET CONVERSION

Fils d'un sénateur patricien poitevin, HILAIRE, surnommé par saint JEROME, le "Rhône de l'éloquence latine et la trompette des Latins face aux Ariens" est un des plus grands théologiens du haut Moyen-Age. Il est aussi un des premiers écrivains de l'Eglise occidentale. Il naquit à Poitiers en 315, dans une famille gauloise non chrétienne. D'après Hilaire lui-même les familles patriciennes étaient soucieuses de culture et de bien-être. Leur idéal était bien souvent "d'être riche et de ne rien faire ".

Nous savons très peu de choses sur lui avant que Dieu le prenne en main. Mais il cultiva certainement sa vive intelligence en étudiant la rhétorique et la philosophie et développa sa sensibilité au contact des beautés de la nature. Il devint un orateur, se maria et eu une fille appelée Abra (Abram, Afra, ou Apra). Mais cela ne pouvait suffire à son bonheur, son but étant la recherche de la Vérité. Un soir en lisant la Bible il fut frappé par le Témoignage que Dieu y rend de Lui-même dans l'exode : "Je suis celui qui est".

Conquis par cette définition parfaite, ce fut pour lui un tournant dans sa recherche, une véritable conversion. La transcendance de Dieu qu'il commençait à connaître augmentait jour après jour. C'est en lisant le prologue de l'Evangile de saint Jean qu'il trouva le Vrai Visage du Seigneur et il comprit que le Verbe descendu des cieux donnait, en s'incarnant, à chaque homme, le pouvoir de devenir enfant de Dieu. Et il écrit cette merveilleuse phrase, véritable profession de Foi : "Mon âme accueillit dans la joie la révélation de ce divin mystère. Car par la chair je m'approchais de Dieu, et par la foi j'étais appelé à une nouvelle naissance. Il était en mon pouvoir d'obtenir la régénération d'en haut".

Il dut se faire inscrire parmi les catéchumènes, reçut le baptême vers 350 et continua en apparence, à mener la même vie, tout en méditant l'Evangile. A partir de ce moment, il mena une vie totalement consacrée à Dieu, ne pensant plus qu'à exhorter les hommes à devenir des Saints. Sa femme et sa fille la future sainte ABRA se convertirent à la même époque.

L'EGLISE DE POITIERS

L'évangélisation du Poitou, terre qui accueillera Hilaire comme Evêque est peu connue et reste obscure par manque de documents. Les étapes en auraient été : au premier siècle la mission de saint Martial, disciple de l'apôtre Pierre. C'est vers 290 que les Pictons reçurent leur autonomie religieuse avec Nectarius leur premier évêque. D'autres témoignages existent ; tels que la présence de martyrs, avec le sacrifice de Simplicien ; D'autre part des rangs de l'Eglise Pictave serait sorti Maximin de Trêves qui a accueilli Athanase d'Alexandrie grand défenseur de l'orthodoxie nicéenne, lors de son exil, à Trêves.

HILAIRE DEVIENT ÉVÊQUE

Vers 351-352, l'évêque Paixent de l'Eglise de Poitiers meurt. Hilaire qui jouissait d'un grand prestige car on le savait remarquable théologien fut choisi par acclamations comme successeur. Il accepta dans un esprit de service ses nouvelles responsabilités. Et il appliquera dans sa vie ses propres paroles : "L'évêque est placé à la tête de la maison pour veiller aux besoins et aux intérêts du peuple qui lui est confié" et "L'évêque ne remplit son ministère que s'il fortifie ce qui est faible par un enseignement à la fois authentique et adapté, s'il consolide ce qui tombe en ruine, s'il redresse celui qui s'égare, s'il dispense le verbe de vie à la famille qu'il a à nourrir de la nourriture éternelle". Il fut un évêque aimé se consacrant en premier lieu à la prédication et à la méditation de la Bible. Il rédigea le "Commentaire sur l'évangile de saint Matthieu" (353-356) et accueilli vers 356 le futur saint Martin.

Celui-ci s'attacha à l'évêque Hilaire comme "un converti d'Egypte auprès d'un "ancien" du delta ou du désert" et reçut de lui une formation ascétique. Mais rapidement l'Eglise se trouva en pleine crise dont la cause était l'hérésie arienne (355). Cette hérésie qui nie la consubstantialité du Père avec le Fils au sein de la Trinité fut combattue par une majorité d'évêques occidentaux mais aussi par d'autres d'Orient, comme Basile, Athanase d'Alexandrie, Grégoire de Nysse, Grégoire de Naziance. Devant la volonté de l'évêque d'Arles Saturnin, qui voulait imposer l'Arianisme à toute l'Eglise de Gaule, Hilaire entra en lisse et organisa la résistance. Dès ce moment et à l'instar de saint Athanase dAlexandrie, on le surnommera l'Athanase d'Occident. Ce qui lui valut en 356, au concile de Béziers d'être condamné pour sa Foi Orthodoxe et persistant dans son attitude antiarienne, il fut déposé, puis exilé en Phrygie (centre de la Turquie). Banni, il s'écria : "On peut bien exiler les évêques, mais peut-on exiler la vérité?".

L'EXIL

Du fond de la Phrygie, le grand exilé écrivit inlassablement, car dit-il "on ne peut retenir captive la parole de Dieu". En douze livres, il établit son traité "sur la Trinité". Au coeur de la trame du traité saint Hilaire nous fait découvrir le "mystère du Christ vrai Dieu et vrai homme". Il présente et réfute avec vigueur les thèses de l'hérésie arienne sur la nature créée du Fils et démontre à partir de l'Ecriture son unité d'essence, de gloire et d'action avec le Père. Pour les évêques de Gaules, il écrivit aussi un traité "sur les synodes", recueil de multiples formules de foi solennelle du Concile de Nicée. Pendant son exil, il étudia les Pères grecs et surtout Origène et servira de pont entre les deux moitiés de l'Eglise universelle. C'est aussi suite à la réaction anti-arienne menée par Basile, qu'Hilaire tentera d'unir l'Occident et l'Orient chrétien dans la Foi Nicéenne. Son exil en Phrygie aura eu un effet salutaire sur sa propre formation et sur l'information de l'épiscopat occidental quant au véritable enjeu de la crise aérienne : le salut de l'homme en sa plénitude.

LE RETOUR EN GAULE.

Vers la fin de l'année 360 il revient en Gaule, car les Ariens en Orient redoutaient son influence grandissante. On le surnomma d'ailleurs "le perturbateur de l'Orient". Sa présence, au concile de Séleucie (359) où il avait demandé une séance publique pour confondre les évêques hérétiques, avait été pour eux un coup terrible. Après son passage à Constantinople (360) passant par Rome, Hilaire rentra en Gaule. Son retour à Poitiers fut un triomphe. Il y retrouva son siège épiscopal grâce à l'empereur Julien. Par ses talents d'homme d'action et d'écrivain, par la situation politique du moment il put travailler à y restaurer l'Orthodoxie en éliminant l'hérésie arienne de l'Eglise. Il obtint l'excommunication (Synode de Paris -361) de deux leaders de l'arianisme en Gaule, les évêques d'Arles et de Périgueux et il s'appliquera avec fermeté mais aussi avec la douceur qui le caractérise, à regagner les évêques qui avaient faillis mais qui reconnaissaient leurs erreurs. Ce fut le salut de la Gaule chrétienne. "Tout le monde reconnut, écrit Sulpice Sévère, que notre Gaule fut débarrassée de l'hé résie criminelle par le zèle d'Hilaire de Poitiers."

Plusieurs miracles enthousiasmèrent le peuple ainsi que sa grande charité. Il retrouva aussi Martin qui initié à la vie monastique, s'établira dans un ermitage à Ligugé (Premier monastère de la Gaule). De nombreux disciples viendront rejoindre Martin. Plus tard celui-ci deviendra lui-même Evêque de Tours et sera pour l'histoire l'un des premiers représentants de la vie monastique en Gaule. Mais saint Hilaire continua à souffrir des ravages fait par l'hérésie arienne, il rassembla des conciles, et ira jusqu'à Milan pour la combattre. Epuisé, il revient à Poitiers, rédigea son "contre Auxence" où il dénonça avec force les empiétements du pouvoir impérial sur les affaires religieuses et où il précisa les conditions réelles de l'unité des chrétiens : il aimait dire : "Les oreilles du peuple chrétien sont plus saintes que le coeur de leurs évêques".

Les dernières années de St Hilaire furent empreintes d'une tranquillité qui n'était pas le reflet de son caractère, ni de la paix de l'Eglise. Il préféra se consacrer à l'enseignement de ses fidèles et rédigea alors le "commentaire sur les psaumes", le "Traité des mystères" et de nombreux "Hymnes" pour la vie liturgique. Aux clercs de son Presbyterium, il dispensait une "théologie biblique" qui était avant tout un commentaire suivi de l'Ecriture; se voulant fidèle à une exégèse ecclésiale et à une lectio ancrée dans les réalités du magistère épiscopal afin que la Parole soit reçue dans toute sa réalité et sa profondeur. Si l'oeuvre de St Hilaire, n'eut qu'une influence restreinte en Orient, ses écrits permirent à faire connaître en Occident quelques aspects de la théologie grecque auxquels se référait encore au 12ème siècle un de ses successeurs sur le siège de l'Eglise de Poitiers, Gilbert de La Porée.

Hilaire, ce grand "confesseur" dont parle saint Jérôme mourut à Poitiers dans la tranquillité soit le 1er novembre 367 ou le 13 janvier 368. La date précise de sa mort n'est pas connue. Rapidement au nom de "confesseur" furent associés celui de "théologien et de saint". Oui, Dieu avait planté en dehors du monde mais dans Son Eglise un homme juste comparable à la beauté d'un cèdre et dont le psalmiste dit : "Le juste pousse comme un palmier et il grandit comme un cèdre du Liban".

* * * * * *

En ce vendredi 13 janvier 2012, jour de la fête de saint Hilaire de Poitiers, le Pape Benoît XVI a nommé Archevêque de Poitiers, Mgr Pascal WINTZER, jusqu’à présent Administrateur apostolique de l’archidiocèse de Poitiers depuis la démission de Mgr Albert Rouet le 12 février 2011.

Ad multos annos!

Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys - Bon anniversaire, Mgr Plourde !

2012-01-12T06:45:00.011-05:00

MEMORIAL OF SAINT MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS, RELIGIOUS

Almighty God, who called Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys to leave her homeland so as to educate young people in the Christian life, direct, we pray, our words and our deeds that along the varied paths which lead to you, we too, by her example and prayer, may proclaim the loving presence of our Saviour. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * *

Marguerite Bourgeoys was born in Troyes, France in 1620 and died in Montreal in 1700. As one of the older girls of a Christian, middle-class family, Marguerite had to assume the responsibility for the household when her mother died. At the age of twenty, she had a conversion experience during a religious procession that profoundly influenced her future mission and focused her values. She felt singled out by the Blessed Virgin. In response, she joined a local group of women who gathered to do charitable work as an extension of a cloister in Troyes.

Marguerite served as leader of this extern group and, as her service, taught the children in the poor section of town. In 1653 Paul de Maisonneuve, founder of Montreal, passed through Troyes and invited Marguerite to join him in Ville Marie as a lay teacher to instruct the children of the colonists and the Native Americans. In June 1653, she sailed from Nantes on a three-month voyage to the New World. Marguerite's humanitarian and Christian work in Canada was principally as educator and founder.

The wilderness was so hard on the colonists that she had to wait for five years before children survived until school age. In the interim, she instructed the Indian children. In 1658 she opened her first school in a stone stable given her by the town leaders. Marguerite had a broad concept of education. She saw the school as a vehicle of religious and social development. Unique to her time, she provided education for all, giving special attention to girls, the poor and the natives. Education in Marguerite's schools consisted in the basics of literacy, religious instruction, home economics, and the arts.

Beyond the classroom, she worked with families, assisted in faith formation in the parish, and addressed the social service needs of the colonists. Noteworthy among her contributions to the colony is the special vocational schools she established to provide the domestic skills a young woman would need to run a home in the wilderness.

She became the official guardian to the "filles du roi", young orphan girls sent by the monarch to establish new families. She lodged them in her own home, served as a matchmaker, and prepared them for their new life as pioneers.

Her signature appears as a witness on many of the early marriage contracts in Montreal. As a result of these activities she was affectionately referred to as "the Mother of the Colony".

Marguerite made three trips back to France to recruit other women to join her in her work of education and to obtain civil approbation from the king.

Marguerite's apostolic spirituality was a special gift to the Church. She was a woman of action inserted into her time as is attested to by the mark she left on the history of Montreal and education in Canada. She was a woman of faith, deeply committed to the service of the Gospels.

She was personally motivated by the missionary journeying of Mary in service to her cousin, Elizabeth, and desired to form a group of uncloistered women who would imitate Mary in this mystery of the Visitation.

Marguerite had an exceptional and practical love of God and neighbor. She had a great desire to serve the Church in its most local form, the parish. She exhorted her extern congregation of educators to be "daughters of the parish" - to worship with the people and use the local church as a source of spiritual nourishment.

Her Congregation received Church approbation in 1698 and at that time pronounced vows as uncloistered religious. Today the Congregation de Notre Dame numbers 2600 sisters in North America, Japan, Latin America, and the Cameroons in service to the people of God in the spirit of the Visitation.

On November 12, 1950 Pope Pius XII beatified Marguerite Bourgeoys. Canonizing her October 31, 1982, Pope John Paul II gave the Canadian Church its first woman saint.

* * * * * *

MGR PLOURDE A 97 ANS!

Today, Archbishop Joseph-Aurele Plourde, Emeritus of Ottawa, reaches a new milestone as the oldest bishop in Canada, beginning his 98th year. Congratulations!

Meilleurs voeux, Excellence!

Portrait de Mgr Plourde par Cyril Leeper, 1986

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time B - Mike Budge at 50

2012-01-11T06:56:00.024-05:00

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year “B”) - January 15, 2012

VOCATIONS: GIVEN FOR GOD'S PEOPLE

[1 Samuel 3.3b-10, 19, [Psalm 40]; 1 Corinthians 6.13c-15a, 17-20; John 1.35-42]

The Call of Samuel

The Canadian and United States Conferences of Catholic Bishops simultaneously published a pastoral plan to follow up the Third Continental Congress on Vocations to Ordained Ministry and Consecrated Life in North America, held in Montreal ten years ago in April 2002.

The Congress's theme—“Vocación, Don de Dieu, Given for God's People”—expressed in three official languages the Church's conviction that all service to God's people is a response to divine initiative.

God continually calls youth, as we see in the reading from the Book of Samuel. Today's crucial challenge today remains to find guides able to help those called to respond—as Eli instructed Samuel—with a joyful self-offering, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening”. Samuel's childhood call developed as he grew; the Lord stayed by him and ensured that his prophetic ministry was effective ([God] ‘let none of his words fall to the ground’).

The programmatic booklet was entitled Creating a Vocation Culture in North America. The first part, in three chapters, reflected on the experience of the Congress, which many agreed was an extraordinarily positive one (the opening chapter cites as its leitmotif the experience of Jesus' encounter with his two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, “Were not our hearts burning within us?”)

Then, consideration was given to the complex realities of the North American Church today (“the field is the world”), citing the other event that took place ten years ago, the World Youth Day in Toronto as a special “vocational moment” lived out in North America, and noting the shifts in generations and the unique characteristics of each (Millenials and Gen-Xers).

The third chapter explores the biblical and theological foundations for vocation ministry (“Jesus interpreted to them what referred to Him in all the Scriptures”), some of which are present in this and next Sunday's readings.

The second half charted a path for the future in vocation ministry in Canada and the United States. The authors were convinced that the Church has the best chance to discover, affirm and nurture calls to ordained ministry and religious life when it professes that all disciples are called by God to live their vocation—including marriage and the single life—in service to the world.

Two appendices close out the work, the letter of Blessed Pope John Paul II to Congress delegates and a statement crafted by young adult delegates during a special session they held one evening.

The youth delegates expressed their desire for a covenant relationship with the Church, and pledged to offer back to the Church all that they would ask for and receive. They specifically called on those in consecrated life and ordained ministry “to offer us authentic joyful witness to your way of life, that we may experience the passion of your service... and share your deep excitement and deep love of Christ and the Church”.

They also invited religious and priests, in ongoing dialogue, to inspire them and help them recognize the gifts they bring to church life. They said they need, “continued nurturing of our personal vocations as baptized Christians, inclusive of all vocations to the married, single or religious life”. They expressed a desire for spiritual directors who would share their skills with them, along with meaningful catechesis, ongoing formation and education.

They stressed the importance of “authentic and true witnesses to our faith who are not afraid to be vulnerable in sharing their story, including their strengths and weaknesses”. Finally, they urged the Church to focus on youth and young adults: “We thirst for support in living our Catholic faith and desire to share that faith with a world that hungers for God”.

As in the Old Testament lectionary reading, the call motif is evident in the Gospel, in which Andrew and another, unnamed disciple come to know Jesus as God's Messiah. They recall even the time of day—the tenth hour—or four o'clock in the afternoon.

Discovery of Christ, however, cannot be kept to oneself; it must be shared. So Andrew brought the good news to his brother Simon, leading him to Jesus. Simon's encounter was so profound it required a change of identity; henceforth he would be Cephas, which means “Peter” (“Rock”), the one to whose care the Lord would entrust his sheep (cf. John 21.15-17).

As the Church in Canada recalls the two major events of 2002—the Vocation Congress and World Youth Day—it is important to reflect on how the hopes of expressed following the Congress have helped develop a “culture of vocation” for all God’s people.

* * * * * *

PILGRIMAGE ORGANZIER FETED

For years, Mike Budge has organized the annual early-August five-diocese (Alexandria-Cornwall, Gatineau, Mont-Laurier, Ottawa and Pembroke) pilgrimage to Sainte Anne de Beaupre (with stops at the Shrine of Our Lady at Cap de la Madeleine and sometimes at St. Joseph's Oratory). He reminded me that my next date to serve as host-bishop is coming up in August 2014.

On the weekend he turned fifty, which led family, co-workers, friends and pilgrims to celebrate his special day. I dropped in to the celebration; some photos:

Les Soeurs franciscaines missionaires de Marie ont 135 ans! - Resumption of Ordinary Time

2012-01-10T06:56:00.000-05:00

Sceau de la Congregation, rue Presland

Le vendredi passé, l’abbé Daniel Berniquez et moi, nous sommes allés visiter les Sœurs franciscaines missionnaires de Marie à l’ occasion du 135^e anniversaire de leur fondation aux Indes. Il y a quelques années elles on vendu leur maison, rue Presland, et le jour du grand départ arrive sous peu : cinq religieuses déménageront à la Maison-mère à Montréal et celles qui restent, iront dans une maison, promenade Riverside, prise en location.

La supérieure Sœur Carmelle nous a accueillies avec chaleur au nom de la communauté. Les fmm ont reçu le groupe Queenship of Mary avec aspiration à la vie consacrée, pour une année de formation initiale. En reconnaissance, ces dernières ont chanté en français quelques chants de Noel.

* * * * * *

La congrégation des franciscaines missionnaires de Marie a été fondée à Ootacamund par la Bienheureuse Helene Marie Philippine de Chappotin de Neuville, en religion Sœur Marie de la Passion—née le 21 mai 1839 à Nantes, décédée à Sanremo (Italie) le 15 novembre 1904—qui avait reçu le 6 janvier 1877 l'autorisation du Bx. Pie IX de fonder un nouvel institut spécifiquement destiné aux Missions.

Historique

Mère Marie de la Passion fonde une maison autonome à Ootacamund aux Indes, après sécession avec sa communauté d'origine, et le Bx. Pie IX approuve cette nouvelle congrégation en 1877, avec un noviciat à Saint-Brieuc. Elle est destituée de son poste de supérieure en 1883 à cause d'oppositions externes, mais elle est réhabilitée l'année suivante après enquête du Saint-Siège. En 1885, les constitutions sont approuvées avec affiliation au Tiers-Ordre régulier de Saint-François. L'institut est approuvé définitivement en 1896.

En 1904, année de sa mort, l'institut comptait 2 069 religieuses dans quatre-vingt-six maisons, fondées dans vingt-quatre pays. En 2002, les franciscaines missionnaires de Marie étaient 7,700 dans soixante-dix-sept pays des cinq continents ; elles sont environ 7,000 actuellement dans plus de 800 communautés.

Apostolat

Les franciscaines missionnaires de Marie sont vouées à la mission universelle, prêtes à aller partout et à tous, pour annoncer l’Evangile du Salut à ceux à qui le Christ n'a pas été révélé, à ceux parmi lesquels l'Église est moins présente, avec une préférence pour les pauvres. Elles organisent des séjours en coopération pour les jeunes de 25 à 35 ans.

La supérieure générale est une Australienne, élue en 2008 pour six ans, Sœur Suzanne Phillips, fmm.

* * *

* * * * * *

ORDINARY TIME RESUMES TODAY

Ordinary Time is the liturgical period outside of the distinctive liturgical seasons, and runs 33 or 34 weeks. In Latin, Ordinary Time is called Tempus Per Annum ("time throughout the year"). Ordinary Time falls between Christmas and Lent, and between Easter and Advent, exclusive.

Introduction

The Latin Tempus Per Annum ("time throughout the year") is rendered into English as "Ordinary Time." Many sources, online and in print, suggest that Ordinary Time gets its name from the word ordinal, meaning "numbered," since the Sundays of Ordinary Time, as in other seasons, are expressed numerically.

However, others suggest the etymology of "Ordinary Time" is related to our word "ordinary" (which itself has a connotation of time and order, derived from the Latin word ordo). Ordinary Time occurs outside of other liturgical time periods, periods in which specific aspects of the mystery of Christ are celebrated. According to The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, the days of Ordinary Time, especially the Sundays, "are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects."

Ordinary Time, depending on the year, runs either 33 or 34 weeks. When it runs 33 weeks, one of the numbered weeks must be omitted. The number that gets omitted is the one that would normally be scheduled to be observed after Pentecost Sunday. For example, in 2010, there were 9 weeks of winter Ordinary Time, so logically, the 10th Week of Ordinary Time should be scheduled after Pentecost. However, because there were only 33 weeks of Ordinary Time in 2010, the 10th week was skipped, and actual numbered week observed was the 11th week of Ordinary Time.

Basically, Ordinary Time encompasses that part of the Christian year that does not fall within the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, or Easter. The Catholic Church celebrates two periods of the year as Ordinary Time. The first period begins after the Feast Baptism of the Lord (the Sunday after The Epiphany) has ended. Some interpret this to mean that Ordinary Time begins on Sunday night, while others, including The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, specifically mention the first period of Ordinary Time beginning on the Monday [or in this year 2012, the Tuesday] after the Baptism of the Lord.

Either way, the point is the same. The next Sunday is still reckoned "The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time," because it is the Sunday of the second week in Ordinary Time. The reckoning can be confusing, and has many asking "what happened to the first Sunday in Ordinary Time?"

This first period of Ordinary Time runs until the Tuesday evening before Ash Wednesday. The Second period of Ordinary Time runs from the Monday after Pentecost until Evening Prayer is said the night before Advent begins. This includes Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of Ordinary Time. In some denominations, the Sundays of the second period of Ordinary Time are numbered "Sundays after Pentecost."

Ordinary time does not need to be "ordinary," and is not meant to mean that somehow we get a break from the Liturgical Year. The opposite is true: Ordinary Time celebrates "the mystery of Christ in all its aspects."

Many important liturgical celebrations fall during Ordinary Time, including, Trinity, Corpus Christi, All Saints, the Assumption of Mary, and Christ the King. In addition, the Church continues to celebrate Saints days and other events such as The Octave of Christian Unity.

The major feasts, when occurring on a Sunday, trump the regular Ordinary Time Sunday lessons and liturgy. In the Catholic Church in Canada, Corpus Christi is transferred to a Sunday, so often there are fewer than the 33 or 34 Sundays labelled "Sundays of Ordinary Time," although these Sundays still fall within Ordinary Time.

We also may remember and celebrate the parts of Jesus' life that were ordinary, much like our own lives. The color of green is appropriate because it is the most ordinary color in our natural environment.

History

The use of the term "Ordinary Time" was used before the Second Vatican Council, but it was not until after the council that the term was officially used to designate the period between Epiphany and Lent, and the period between Pentecost and Advent.

Rather than being called the "Season of Ordinary Time," the times were called "Season After Epiphany" and "Season After Pentecost" After the new Catholic Calendar took effect in 1969, these older designations were no longer used. However, some (including some Anglicans) still use the older designations. Interestingly, the Church in the Patristic period never seemed to effectively and concisely classify or label Ordinary Time, even though the time certainly existed (www.churchyear.net).

The Baptism of the Lord - Celebrating Christmas with Eastern Rite Christians

2012-01-09T09:14:00.002-05:00

The Baptism of the Lord (Year “B”) - January 9, 2012

JESUS' BAPTISM FORESHADOWS HIS CROSS

[Isaiah 55.1-11; [Isaiah 12]; 1 John 5.1-9; Mark 1.7-11]

The opening of Mark's gospel (1.1‑13) has been described as a dramatic prologue introducing the actors and setting of a briskly-told play that is comparable to a Greek tragedy. At the core of this prologue is the narrative of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.

The evangelist Mark's rough-hewn Greek style can appear naive. His frequent use of the Greek adverb “immediately” and a constant stream of the conjunctive “and” (both of which—unfortunately in my view—get removed in translations that smooth over and flatten out the “infelicities” of the original) suggests a narrator who is breathless to share his “good news” narrative with eager listeners (“and just as [=and immediately] he was coming up out of the water”...).

Again, despite the apparently simple pattern of his gospel's structure, Mark has arranged three revelatory scenes (one at the beginning, a second at mid-point, and the third at the end) to communicate Jesus' true identity.

Firstly, at Jesus' baptism (1.9-11), the heavens were opened and only Jesus saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on Him. This awareness of the gift of God's Spirit will lead Jesus to exercise the Spirit's power throughout the gospel.

By Mark's allowing his audience to see the true import of the baptismal event, of course, he gives them, in advance, the correct interpretation of Jesus' words and deeds.

It would seem that we are likewise to understand that Jesus alone (but with the hearers and readers of the gospel listening in) heard the words pronounced by the heavenly Father at the baptism, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The words are a citation of Isaiah 42.1, which are followed, in Isaiah's text, with the words “I have put my Spirit on him” that tie in with the baptism.

Secondly, at the transfiguration (9.2-8), similar words came from heaven, this time addressed by God to the three chosen disciples: “This is My Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” A few verses earlier, Jesus had begun to instruct his disciples about his coming passion, death and resurrection (8.31-38).

The proclamation of Jesus as God's Son intends to counteract the possibility of Peter, John and James (or the gospel hearers) taking offense at Jesus' future suffering or his challenge to take up their cross and follow him.

Lastly, a third articulation of Jesus' identity takes place immediately after He cried aloud and died on the cross (15.33). In this instance, the confession of Jesus' identity comes not from God but from the Roman soldier who had seen Jesus expiring with such force that his last breath—the outpouring of the Holy Spirit--had torn the veil of the temple in two: “Now when the centurion, who stood facing Him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God's Son’”.

In contrast with the earlier confessions of Jesus' divine Sonship, which were given to a restricted number of listeners (to Jesus alone at the baptism, to Peter, James and John on the mountain of transfiguration), the pagan soldier's declaration was a public statement.

What Mark wants to suggest by the revelation of Jesus' true status to ever-widening circles, I believe, is that it is only with the crucifixion that one can truly understand His divine Sonship. Without reference to the cross, there is a danger that Jesus' divinity will be misconstrued as a personal prerogative and not as an emblem of His call to be God's suffering servant, who brings righteousness to Israel and the Gentiles.

As the gospel story unfolds in the weeks to come in the Sunday gospels (and in the next few days and weeks until Lent begins), we will note that Jesus regularly silences the demons who reveal his identity as God's Son. For the unclean spirits, in league with Satan, unveil Jesus' divinity to thwart his ministry and deflect Him from his mission.

Mark's “messianic secret”, as the silencing of those who would reveal his identity has been called, suggests it is dangerous to speak of God's Son without reference to Jesus' fulfilling that role by dying on the cross “as a ransom for many” (10.45). As we shall see in coming weeks, this truth has implications for all the baptized who would be Jesus' disciples.

Pope Benedict XVI baptizes one of 16 infants in the Sistine Chapel
to mark the Baptism of the Lord, January 2012

THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

Almighty ever-living God, who, when Christ had been baptized in the River Jordan and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him, solemnly declared him your beloved Son, grant that your children by adoption, reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, may always be well pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * * * * *

UKRAINIAN CHRISTMAS
AT HOLY SPIRIT SEMINARY

On Friday evening, January 6, I joined the staff, seminarians and friends of Holy Spirit Seminary in Ottawa for their Christmas Eve gathering and festive supper (a meatless but otherwise ample meal as may be seen in the following pictures):

Their Christmas greeting is: "Christ is born" to which the reply is "Glorify Him!"

"The great star, the true supernova that leads us on, is Christ himself" - Blogpost #1000 and a New Look!

2012-01-08T00:25:00.000-05:00

SOLEMNITY – THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD

O God, who on this day revealed your Only Begotten Son to the nations by the guidance of a star, grant in your mercy that we, who know you already by faith, may be brought to behold the beauty of your sublime glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * *

Sandro Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi (1470-75), Florence: Uffizi

CHRIST THE TRUE SUPERNOVA

The wise men followed the star. Through the language of creation, they discovered the God of history. To be sure – the language of creation alone is not enough. Only God’s word, which we encounter in sacred Scripture, was able to mark out their path definitively. Creation and Scripture, reason and faith, must come together, so as to lead us forward to the living God.

There has been much discussion over what kind of star it was that the wise men were following. Some suggest a planetary constellation, or a supernova, that is to say one of those stars that is initially quite weak, in which an inner explosion releases a brilliant light for a certain time, or a comet, etc. This debate we may leave to the experts.

The great star, the true supernova that leads us on, is Christ himself. He is as it were the explosion of God’s love, which causes the great white light of his heart to shine upon the world. And we may add: the wise men from the East, who feature in today’s Gospel, like all the saints, have themselves gradually become constellations of God that mark out the path. In all these people, being touched by God’s word has, as it were, released an explosion of light, through which God’s radiance shines upon our world and shows us the path. The saints are stars of God, by whom we let ourselves be led to him for whom our whole being longs.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Solemnity of the Epiphany 2012

* * * * * *

T.S. ELIOT'S POEM

"JOURNEY OF THE MAGI"

I never tire of this poem by Eliot and love re-reading it every year at the Epiphany. An autobiographical reflection on his conversion to faith in Christ, it speaks for every disciple's transformation through the encounter with the Christ Child.

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times when we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wineskins.

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

* * * * * *

Blog-post #1000

and a New Look

Blogger has a counter that tells how many posts have been published and this morning's presentation is listed as the thousandth since April 2009. To mark the occasion, a new look has been chosen from among the many options the blogsite offers, my consultant Ted Hurley and I have come up with a slightly new look, hoping it is legible and interesting.

For your information, Ted also tracks the number of persons who have recently logged on and where they come from on a recent analytical listing:

179 Hits 35.80% Canada

145 Hits 29.00% United States

57 Hits 11.40% Italy

15 Hits 3.00% France

14 Hits 2.80% India

9 Hits 1.80% United Kingdom

9 Hits 1.80% Israel

7 Hits 1.40% Germany

7 Hits 1.40% Netherlands

6 Hits 1.20% Philippines

5 Hits 1.00% Australia

4 Hits 0.80% Pakistan

3 Hits 0.60% Japan

3 Hits 0.60% Mexico

3 Hits 0.60% Bulgaria

2 Hits 0.40% Venezuela

2 Hits 0.40% United Arab Emirates

2 Hits 0.40% Panama

2 Hits 0.40% Switzerland

2 Hits 0.40% Spain

In a recent month the statistics were:

Page Loads          Unique Visits    First Time Visits       Returning Visits
Total     22,593                   16,100                12,709                          3,391
Average  706                         503                    397                              106

Saint Brother Andre / St. Andre Bessette - Epiphany Proclamation of Easter & Moveable Feasts

2012-01-07T06:31:00.052-05:00

ST. ANDRÉ BESSETTE, RELIGIOUS

Lord our God, friend of the humble, who blessed your servant Saint André Bessette with a great devotion to Saint Joseph and a remarkable concern for the afflicted and the needy, grant that, through his intercession, we may follow his example of prayer and charity and so enter with him to behold the splendour of your glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * *

VISITE DU RELIQUAIRE DU SAINT FRÈRE ANDRÉ

DANS L'ARCHIDIOCESE D'OTTAWA

Vendredi le 13 janvier 2012 - Communauté chrétienne Saint-Frère-André 344 ave Cyr, Ottawa – église Marie-Médiatrice

3h30 - 4h30 Célébration d’accueil
4h30 - 5h30 Eucharistie
6h00 - 9h00 adoration

Samedi le 14 janvier 2012

· 9h00 - 12h00 Paroisse Notre-Dame-de-Lourdes

· 12h00 - 6h00 Paroisse Saint-Sébastien et Saint-Louis-Marie-de-Montfort

· 6h00 - 21h00 Communauté congolaise (à l’église Marie-Médiatrice)

Dimanche le 15 janvier 2012 (Communauté chrétienne Saint-Frère-André : église Marie-Médiatrice)

· 8h30 - 10h00 adoration Communauté chrétienne Saint-Frère-André

· 10h00 Célébration eucharistique en présence du reliquaire

· 11h00 Sacrement des malades et clôture

* * * * * *

Qui ne connaît le Frère André Bessette, thaumaturge du Mont-Royal et grand ami de saint Joseph à qui il attribuait les innombrables guérisons obtenues par son entremise? Il a été canonisé le 17 octobre 2010.

Né le 9 août 1845, le petit Alfred était le sixième de dix enfants. A l'âge de 9 ans, il perdit son père, puis trois ans plus tard, sa mère. Alfred devint donc orphelin à l'âge de 12 ans; bien que d'une santé débile, pendant treize ans, le petit devra, pour subvenir à ses besoins, errer ça et là à la recherche du travail.

Puis, en 1870, Alfred Bessette entre au noviciat des religieux de Sainte-Croix et reçoit le nom de Frère André. C'était l'année même où Pie IX constituait saint Joseph patron de l'Église universelle. Au sortir du noviciat, le frère André reçoit la charge de portier au collège Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur, poste qu'il gardera pendant 40 ans. Il cumulait plusieurs emplois, tels: brosser les planchers, laver les vitres, entrer le bois de chauffage, couper les cheveux des élèves du collège, sonner le réveil matinal des religieux, faire les commissions, sans compter bien d'autres petits travaux d'entretien et de bricolage.

Dans ses multiples occupations, il ne perd pas de vue le surnaturel. Chacune de ses heures est peuplée de prières. Il médite surtout les souffrances du Sauveur et converse avec saint Joseph, son saint de prédilection.

Plus tard, face à l'affluence des foules, le Frère André accueillera les gens dans sont petit bureau, de six à huit heures par jour, beau temps, mauvais temps, et cela durant plus de vingt-cinq ans. Les guérisons miraculeuses allèrent en se multipliant. Les gens venaient de tous les coins du Canada, des États-Unis et même d'Europe, pour demander leur guérison.

Et le Frère André d'observer souvent. "C'est étonnant, on me demande souvent des guérisons, mais bien rarement l'humilité et l'esprit de foi. C'est pourtant si important. Si l'âme est malade, il faut commencer par soigner l'âme. Avez-vous la foi? Croyez-vous que le bon Dieu peut faire quelque chose pour vous? Allez vous confesser au prêtre, allez communier, vous reviendrez me voir ensuite."

Les centaines et centaines de béquilles, de cannes, de corsets et d'ex-votos, laissés par les infirmes guéris par l'intercession du bon Frère André, attestèrent longtemps les guérisons physiques obtenues à l'oratoire Saint-Joseph. Mais combien plus d'âmes furent guéries et converties rien qu'à voir et entendre l'humble portier du Mont-Royal?

Puis le 6 janvier 1937, fête de l'Épiphanie, le petit Frère André, usé par les années et un dévouement à toute épreuve, s'éteignait peu après minuit, âgé de 91 ans. Saint Joseph venait chercher son cher dévot, celui qui avait tant travaillé à répandre son culte. Un de ses amis a laissé du St. Frère André le témoignage suivant: "Il a passé sa vie à parler des autres au bon Dieu et du bon Dieu aux autres."

Puisse l'intercession du St. Frère André obtenir du bon saint Joseph, le secours nécessaire à la sainte Église afin qu'elle traverse les écueils sans nombre, suscités par la tempête qui la secoue présentement dans sa navigation vers le port céleste. -- Revue Magnificat, Janvier 1987, p. 12 (mis a jour janvier 2012).

* * * * * *

PROCLAMATION OF EASTER

& OTHER MOVEABLE FEASTS

On the Solemnity of the Epiphany, following the Gospel and Homily, a Deacon of Cantor may sing the dates of the major feasts of the year beginning with the Resurrection of the Lord and its preparatory period of Lent.

The following is one format that may be employed (sung formats are readily available on line); it contains the dates for this Year 2012 (the dates are as the feasts are observed in Canada; the dates in countries or regions that observe the Ascension and/or Corpus Christi on the earlier tradition of a Thursday should be advanced by three days).

The parts in italics at the beginning and end are expansions of the core proclamation:

“The glory of the Lord has shone upon us and shall ever manifest itself among us until the day of his return. Through the rhythms and changes of time, let us call to mind and live the mysteries of salvation.

Know, dear brethren (brothers and sisters), that, as we have rejoiced at the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, so by leave of God’s mercy we announce to you also the joy of his Resurrection, who is our Saviour.

On the 22nd day of February will fall ASH WEDNESDAY, and the beginning of the most sacred Lenten season.

On the 8th day of April you will celebrate with joy EASTER SUNDAY, the Paschal feast of our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the 20th day of May, the ASCENSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

On the 27th day of May, the feast of PENTECOST.

On the 10th day of June, the feast of the MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST.

On the 2nd day of December, the FIRST SUNDAY OF THE ADVENT OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, to whom is honour and glory for ever and ever.

Every SUNDAY, when we recall this paschal mystery (the Lord’s death and resurrection), holy CHURCH makes present this great and saving event in which Christ has forever conquered sin and death.

Likewise in the feasts of the holy Mother of God, of the apostles and saints, and in commemoration of the faithful departed, the pilgrim Church on earth proclaims the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

To Christ who was, who is, and who is to come, the Lord of time and history, be endless praise for ever and ever. Amen.”

Congratulations to Cardinal-elect Thomas Collins! Changes in Canada's Liturgical Calendar - La porte de la foi / The Door of Faith

2012-01-06T06:22:00.018-05:00

Today the Holy Father named Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto and twenty-one others Cardinals of the Church. Congratulations, Your Eminences! Congratulations, Archbishop Collins!

* * * * * *

Cast your kindly light upon your faithful, Lord, we pray, and with the splendour of your glory set their hearts ever aflame, that they may never cease to acknowledge their Saviour and may truly hold fast to him. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

* * * * * *

CHANGES IN CANADA'S LITURGICAL CALENDAR

We have been accustomed to celebrating Brother Andre's feast on January 6, his "heavenly birthday" as he died on January 6, 1937. But the Holy See did not want him to stay on this date as there are many countries in the world that still celebrate the Epiphany on this date, and their celebration of St. Andre Bessette would therefore be perpetually impeded.

So in Canada's new liturgical calendar that came into effect with this liturgical year and the new (English) Roman Missal, we will celebrate him on January 7 (though in the USA his feast is kept on January 6). Other changes in Canada's new liturgical calendar include the following modifications:

January 8: The transfer of the Patron of Canonists, St. Raymond of Penyafort from January 7, now dedicated to St. Andre Bessette.

Bishop Nykyta Budka

June 27: Addition of an optional memorial of the Blessed Nykyta Budka and Vasyl Velychkowsky, Bishops and Martyrs [of the Ukrainian Catholic Church]; Budka was the first Ukrainian Bishop in Canada but died in the Soviet Gulag.

Blessed Andre Grasset

September 2: Addition of Blessed Andre Grasset, Montreal-born Priest, Martyr of the French Revolution.

September 24: Transfer of Blessed Emelie Tavernier-Gamelin, Religious [because St. Pio of Pietrelcina is assigned her old date of September 23].

September 25: Transfer of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs [because their date in the universal calendar, September 26, has been displaced in Canada by the Canadian Martyrs].

So far as I can tell, the other Canadian Saints and Blesseds retain on their feast-day dates from earlier versions of the liturgical calendar.

* * * * * *

La Porte de la foi et

L'annee de la foi 2012-2013

Communiqué à propos de la Note de la Congrégation pour la Doctrine de la Foi
relative aux indications pastorales de l'Année de la foi

L'Année de la foi a été annoncée par la Lettre apostolique Porta Fidei du 11 octobre 2011. Elle débutera le 11 octobre prochain, cinquantième anniversaire de l'ouverture du Concile oecuménique Vatican II, et se conclura le 24 octobre 2013, en la solennité du Christ Roi. Comme il l'a annoncé à l'aube de son pontificat, Benoît XVI entend replacer au centre de l'attention ecclésiale la rencontre avec Jésus-Christ, et avec la beauté de la foi qu'il dégage. Consciente des questions dont la foi est sujet, l'Eglise ressent comme tout à fait actuelle la question que le Seigneur se posait: Lorsque le Fils de l'homme reviendra sur terre, y trouvera-t-il encore la foi? (Lc 18, 8). Si la foi n'est pas revitalisée, déclarait le Saint-Père lors des voeux à la Curie Romaine (22 décembre 2011), si elle n'est pas une conviction profonde et une force tirée de la rencontre avec le Christ, aucune réforme ne sera efficace.

A la demande du Saint-Père, en collaboration avec certains dicastères et le Comité préparatoire de l'Année de la foi, la Congrégation a rédigé une Note sur les indications pastorales de l'Année de la foi. Constitué près cette même congrégation, ce comité compte le Cardinal William Levada, le Cardinal Francis Arinze, le Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, le Cardinal Ivan Dias, le Cardinal Francis E. George, le Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, le Cardinal Marc Ouellet, le Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, le Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, le Cardinal Stanisław Ryłko et le Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Mgr. Salvatore Fisichella, Mgr. Luis F. Ladaria, Mgr. Mario Del Valle Moronta Rodríguez, Mgr. Gerhard Ludwig Müller et Mgr. Raffaello Martinelli.

Daté de l'Epiphanie et publiée le lendemain, le document comprend une introduction, qui rappelle que l'Année de la foi entend contribuer à raviver chez tous les fidèles l'adhésion au Seigneur et à approfondir la foi. Ainsi pourront-ils être des témoins crédibles du Ressuscité, capable d'indiquer aux autres la porte de la foi.

Le début de l'Année de la foi coïncide avec deux grands évènements de l'histoire de l'Eglise, l'ouverture de Vatican II (11 octobre 1962), concile voulu par le bienheureux Jean XXIII, et le Catéchisme de l'Eglise catholique (11 octobre 1992), voulu par le bienheureux Jean-Paul II.

"A partir de la lumière du Christ, ...le Concile Vatican II a voulu approfondir la nature intime de l'Eglise et son rapport avec le monde contemporain... Après le concile, l'Eglise s'est engagée dans la réception et dans l'application de son riche enseignement, en continuité avec toute la tradition, sous la sûre direction du magistère".

"Pour favoriser une correcte réception du concile, les Souverains Pontifes ont convoqué à plusieurs reprises le Synode des évêques, ...en proposant à l'Eglise des orientations claires par le biais d'exhortations apostoliques post-synodales. La prochaine assemblée générale du Synode (octobre 2012) aura pour thème: La nouvelle évangélisation pour transmettre la foi chrétienne".

"Depuis le début de son pontificat, Benoît XVI s'est fermement engagé en faveur d'une juste compréhension du concile, repoussant comme erronée ce qu'on appelle "l'herméneutique de la discontinuité et de la rupture" et promouvant ce qu'il a baptisé "l'herméneutique de la réforme" et du renouveau dans la continuité".

Le Catéchisme de l'Eglise catholique, "fruit authentique du Concile Vatican II" qui prend place dans un "renouveau dans la continuité", comprend "du neuf et de l'ancien". Il reprend l'ordre traditionnel de la catéchèse qu'il articule en quatre parties: le Crédo, la liturgie, l'agir chrétien et la prière, tout en l'exprimant de manière à répondre à notre temps.
L'Année de la foi sera une excellente occasion pour étudier et diffuser le contenu de Vatican II et du Catéchisme.

Les indications pastorales de la Note tendent à favoriser "la rencontre avec le Christ grâce à de vrais témoins de la foi, comme une meilleure connaissance des contenus de la foi". Celles ci n'entendent pas exclure d'autres propositions que l'Esprit pourrait susciter de par le monde parmi pasteurs et fidèles. Etant donné que ses compétences ne se limitent pas à la défense de la doctrine authentique et à la correction des erreurs, la Congrégation pour la doctrine de la foi apportera son soutien à tout ce qui favorise la vérité de la foi (Pastor Bonus, nn. 48-51).

Les propositions de la Note s'articulent en quatre parties: 1) Eglise universelle; 2) Conférences épiscopales; 3) Diocèses; 4) Paroisses, Communautés, Associations et Mouvements, dont voici quelques exemples.

Parallèlement à l'ouverture solennelle de l'Année de la foi et aux autres manifestations présidées par le Pape, tels le Synode des évêques de 2012 ou la JMJ de 2013, on suggère des initiatives oecuméniques destinées à favoriser le rétablissement de l'unité des chrétiens. Ainsi, une cérémonie oecuménique solennelle réaffirmera la foi dans le Christ de tous les baptisés.

Les conférences épiscopales sont encouragées à améliorer la qualité de la formation catéchistique universelle comme celle des catéchismes et manuels locaux, afin qu'ils soient parfaitement conformes au Catéchisme de l'Eglise catholique. La même attention sera portée à l'utilisation des techniques de la communication et de l'expression artistique: émissions de radio et télévision, films et publications sur la foi et son contenu, sur la valeur ecclésiale de Vatican II, y compris pour le grand public.

Au niveau diocésain ensuite, cette année particulière devra être une occasion de faire dialoguer positivement foi et raison, par le biais de congrès ou de journées d'étude, notamment près les universités catholiques. Mais aussi d'organiser des cérémonies pénitentielles, qui insisteront tout particulièrement sur les péchés contre la foi.

Enfin, dans les diverses structures base de la communauté ecclésiale, on insistera sur la célébration de la foi dans la liturgie, tout particulièrement dans l'Eucharistie car, "dans l'Eucharistie, mystère de la foi et source de la nouvelle évangélisation, c'est la foi de l'Eglise qui est proclamée, célébrée et fortifiée". De toutes ces initiatives doivent naître, croître et dépendre toutes les autres propositions, en particulier celles des nouvelles communautés et mouvements ecclésiaux.

Un Secrétariat pour l'Année de la foi sera institué près le Conseil pontifical pour la nouvelle évangélisation, qui coordonnera les initiatives des dicastères romains comme celle de dimension ecclésiale universelle. En mesure de proposer des initiatives pour l'Année, il disposera d'un site internet spécifique destiné à fournir toutes les informations sur son déroulement.

Les indications pastorales de la Note de la Congrégation pour la doctrine de la foi veulent inviter tous les fidèles à s'engager dans l'Année de la foi, afin de "partager ce que le chrétien a de plus cher, le Christ Jésus, rédempteur de l'homme, roi de l'univers, principe et finalité de la foi".

* * * * * *

The Door of Faith &

the Year of Faith 2012-2013

Communiqué on the Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
with pastoral recommendations for the Year of Faith

With his Apostolic Letter Porta fidei of 11 October 2011, Benedict XVI declared a Year of Faith. It will begin on 11 October 2012, 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II, and will conclude on 24 November 2013, Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ Universal King. The Holy Father's aim in promulgating this Year is to focus the attention of the Church on the theme which, since the beginning of his Pontificate, has been closest to his heart: the encounter with Jesus Christ and the beauty of having faith in Him. The Church is well aware of the problems facing the faith and feels impelled by the question Jesus Himself raised: «When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?» (Lk 18: 8). Therefore, «if faith does not take on new life, deep conviction and real strength from the encounter with Jesus Christ, then all other reforms will remain ineffective» (Christmas address to the Roman Curia, 22 December 2011).

By order of Benedict XVI, la Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has prepared a Note with pastoral recommendations for the Year of Faith. The Note was written in consultation with other Dicasteries of the Holy See and with the help of the Committee for the Preparation of the Year of Faith. That Committee, by pontifical mandate, is under the auspices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and includes among its members: Cardinals William Levada, Francis Arinze, Angelo Bagnasco, Ivan Dias, Francis E. George, Zenon Grocholewski, Marc Ouellet, Mauro Piacenza, Jean-Pierre Ricard, Stanisław Ryłko and Christoph Schönborn; Archbishops Salvatore Fisichella and Luis F. Ladaria; and Bishops Mario del Valle Moronta Rodríguez, Gerhard Ludwig Müller and Raffaello Martinelli.

The Note is dated 6 January 2012, Solemnity of the Lord's Epiphany, and will be published the following day 7 January. It contains an introduction followed by a number of pastoral recommendations. The Introduction explains that «the Year of Faith is intended to contribute to a renewed conversion to the Lord Jesus and to the rediscovery of faith, so that the members of the Church will be credible and joy-filled witnesses to the Risen Lord, capable of leading those many people who are seeking it to the door of faith».

«The beginning of the Year of Faith coincides with the anniversaries of two great events which have marked the life of the Church in our days: the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, called by Blessed Pope John XXIII (11 October 1962), and the twentieth of the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, given to the Church by Blessed Pope John Paul II (11 October 1992)».

Vatican Council II, «beginning with the light of Christ, ... wanted to elaborate on the intimate nature of the Church and its relationship with the contemporary world». «After the Council the Church – under the sure guidance of the Magisterium and in continuity with the whole Tradition – set about ensuring the reception and application of the teaching of the Council in all its richness».

«To assist in the correct reception of the Council, the Popes have frequently convoked the Synod of Bishops, ... providing the Church with clear guidance through the various post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortations. The next General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held in October 2012, will have as its theme: The New Evangelisation for the Transmission of the Christian Faith».

«From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI has worked decisively for a correct understanding of the Council, rejecting as erroneous the so-called "hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture" and promoting what he himself has termed "the 'hermeneutic of reform', of renewal in continuity"».

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, being an «authentic fruit of Vatican Council II» (Apostolic Letter Porta fidei, no. 4), is an integral part of that "renewal in continuity". It includes «what is new and what is old» (Mt 13: 52). On the one hand, it embraces the old and traditional order of the catechesis, being divided into four parts: the Creed, the liturgy, Christian life and prayer; but at the same time it expresses this in a new way, in order to respond to the questions of our own times.

The Year of Faith will be a propitious occasion to make Vatican Council II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church more widely and deeply known.

The pastoral recommendations contained in the Note aim «to aid both the encounter with Christ through authentic witnesses to faith, and the ever-greater understanding of its contents». Through these pastoral recommendations - which do not intend to preclude «other initiatives which the Holy Spirit will inspire among Pastors and faithful in various parts of the world» - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is seeking to offer its help, because its specific functions include not only safeguarding sound doctrine and correcting errors but also, and foremost, promoting the truth of the faith (cf. Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus, nos. 48-51).

The Note groups its suggestions onto four levels: 1) Universal Church, 2) Episcopal Conferences, 3) Dioceses and 4) Parishes, Communities, Associations, Movements. Some of the specific suggestions it makes are given below.

For example, along with the solemn opening celebration for the Year of Faith and other events in which the Holy Father will participate (Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, WYD 2013), various ecumenical initiatives are being planned «aimed at "the restoration of unity among all Christians"». Moreover «there will be a solemn ecumenical celebration in which all of the baptised will reaffirm their faith in Christ».

On the level of Episcopal Conferences, attention will be given to the quality of catechesis, and efforts will be made to examine «local catechisms and various catechetical supplements in use in the particular Churches … to ensure their complete conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church». It is also hoped that use will be made of the language of the mass media and art, with «television and radio transmissions, films and publications focusing on the faith, its principles and content, as well as on the ecclesial significance of Vatican Council II».

At the diocesan level, the Year of Faith is considered, among other things, as an occasion for «renewed creative dialogue between faith and reason in the academic and artistic communities, through symposia, meetings and days of study, especially at Catholic universities», and as a favourable time for «penitential celebrations … in which all can ask for God's forgiveness, especially for sins against faith».

At the parish level the focus remains on the celebration of the faith in the liturgy, especially in the Eucharist, because «in the Eucharist, mystery of faith and source of the new evangelisation, the faith of the Church is proclaimed, celebrated and strengthened». It is on this foundation that other initiatives will come into being, develop and spread, particularly those undertaken by Institutes, new Communities and Ecclesial Movements.

«A Secretariat to coordinate all of the different initiatives promoted by various Dicasteries of the Holy See, or other events relevant to the Universal Church, will be established within the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation». The Secretariat «can also suggest appropriate initiatives» for the Year of Faith, and «will open a dedicated website with the goal of making available useful information» on the subject.

The recommendations contained in the Note invite all members of the Church to work to ensure that, during the Year of Faith, we may rediscover and «share that which is most dear to us: Christ Jesus, the Redeemer of mankind, Universal King, "leader and perfecter of faith" (Hb 12: 2)».

Thursday before Epiphany - St. John Neumann, CSsR - Christmas Season Images (Ottawa)

2012-01-05T06:21:00.028-05:00

O God, who by the Nativity of your Only Begotten Son wondrously began for your people the work of redemption, grant, we pray, to your servants such firmness of faith, that by his guidance they may attain the glorious prize you have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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ST. JOHN NEUMANN

SAINTLY BISHOP OF PHILADELPHIA

Perhaps because the United States got a later start in the history of the world, it has relatively few canonized saints, but their number is increasing.

John Neumann was born in what is now the Czech Republic. After studying in Prague, he came to New York at 25 and was ordained a priest. He did missionary work in New York until he was 29, when he joined the Redemptorists and became its first member to profess vows in the United States. He continued missionary work in Maryland, Virginia and Ohio, where he became popular with the Germans.

Neumann took seriously our Lord’s words, “Go and teach all nations.” From Christ he received his instructions and the power to carry them out. For Christ does not give a mission without supplying the means to accomplish it. The Father’s gift in Christ to John Neumann was his exceptional organizing ability, which he used to spread the Good News.

Today the Church is in dire need of men and women to continue in our times the teaching of the Good News. The obstacles and inconveniences are real and costly. Yet when Christians approach Christ, he supplies the necessary talents to answer today’s needs. The Spirit of Christ continues his work through the instrumentality of generous Christians.

At 41, as bishop of Philadelphia, he organized the parochial school system into a diocesan one, increasing the number of pupils almost twentyfold within a short time.

Gifted with outstanding organizing ability, he drew into the city many teaching communities of sisters and the Christian Brothers. During his brief assignment as vice provincial for the Redemptorists, he placed them in the forefront of the parochial movement.

Well-known for his holiness and learning, spiritual writing and preaching, on October 13, 1963, John Neumann became the first American bishop to be beatified. Canonized in 1977, he is buried in St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia.

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IMAGES DE NOEL

(OTTAWA)

Cathédrale-basilique Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica

Crèche dehors/outside Christmas Crib

Portes formelles de l’archevêché /

Formal Doors of the Archbishop’s Residence

Wednesday before Epiphany - Sunday of the Epiphany B - St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

2012-01-04T06:20:00.028-05:00

Grant us, almighty God, that the bringer of your salvation, who for the world’s redemption came forth with newness of heavenly light, may dawn afresh in our hearts and bring us constant renewal. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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Solemnity of the Epiphany (Year “B”) - January 8, 2012

IN WHAT YEAR WAS JESUS BORN?

[Isaiah 60.1-6; [Psalm 72]; Ephesians 3.2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2.1-12]

Elm Street, a magazine published “for Canadian women” until 2004 was distributed free in some urban centres of

Canada

at its launch in 1999. One came to my house in Halifax. The 1999 Holiday edition caught my eye because of its cover story “And Heaven and Nature Sing”, a feature on the Jesuits who work at the Vatican Observatory.

In discussing the ways in which science and faith can relate, the author, Alison Rose told how the year before, just before Christmas, Vatican workers were seen setting up a crib at Castel Gandolfo where the Observatory offices are located. The last statues to be added were those of Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, ancient astronomers who followed a sign in the heavens they believed would lead them to a new-born king.

When she mentioned this to Jesuit brother Guy Consolmagno, he called up on his Mac computer "Voyager", a program used by amateur astronomers to observe the stars. After typing in 6 BC, a date commonly assigned to the birth of Jesus, the program slowly projected onto the screen a series of dots on the horizon that depicted “an extraordinary alignment of Venus, Saturn, the moon, Jupiter, sun, Mars and Mercury, all centred on the constellation Aries, in the sky over Judea, on April 17, 6 BC”.

The writer wonders whether this is “the event that the wise men calculated, that in the telling and retelling of the story over two millennia has been transformed into a star? According to the story, this is the moment when a transcendent God entered space and time, long ago, to live a human life” (p. 40). This is an unusual reflection in today's secular media, the type that perhaps only the Christmas story can still occasion.

Today's solemnity of the Epiphany, the “manifestation” or “revelation” of Jesus to “wise men from the East”, to non-Jews, the Gentiles, evokes the beautiful sentiments attached to gift-giving and the profound implications of a surrender to Christ:

“On entering the house, they saw the Child with Mary His Mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage”. Then, “opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh”.

This year, as people adjust to writing 2012, indicating how many years ago Jesus’ birth took place, it may seem odd to realize that he was likely born around 6 BC. How do we arrive at this date and how could such a miscalculation have happened?

Scripture tells us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea “in the time of King Herod” (Matthew 2.1). But we know from world history that Herod began his rule in 37 BC and died in 4 BC. Therefore, Jesus' birth had to have been prior to this latter year.

At the close of today's gospel account, we are told that the Magi, after being warned in a dream not to return to Herod's court in Jerusalem, “left for their own country by another road”. This infuriated Herod, who ordered the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, “all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men” (2.16). This has led scholars to assign a date for the birth of Jesus between 7 and 4 BC.

But how did the miscalculation come about, if Jesus' birth was meant to be the watershed between BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini, the “Year of the Lord”)?

Our distinction between BC and AD dates to the sixth century when a monk named Dionysius Exiguus worked out a chronology intended to centre on the birth of Christ. Unfortunately, his calculations were off by six years!

As well, in his scheme, the year 1 AD immediately followed the year 1 BC, so there was no year 0. Accordingly, a decade ago, many held that the second millennium could not be complete until the end of the year 2000, and so the Third Millennium only began in the year 2001.

For Christians, however, the Great Jubilee celebration was for 2000 years of the presence of Jesus in our world, the occasion for a year of thanksgiving for all the peoples of the world.

Whatever the calculation of the years or the stars, our age—like past generations—prays with the psalmist, “May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice”.

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SAINT ELIZABETH ANN SETON

Today in the United States and in the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth, the feast day of Mother Seton, founder of the Sisters of Charity and architect of the Catholic school is observed.

Mother Seton is one of the keystones of the American Catholic Church. She founded the first American religious community for women, the Sisters of Charity. She opened the first American parish school and established the first American Catholic orphanage. All this she did in the span of 46 years while raising her five children.

Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton is a true daughter of the American Revolution, born August 28, 1774, just two years before the Declaration of Independence. By birth and marriage, she was linked to the first families of New York and enjoyed the fruits of high society. Reared a staunch Episcopalian by her mother and stepmother, she learned the value of prayer, Scripture and a nightly examination of conscience. Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, did not have much use for churches but was a great humanitarian, teaching his daughter to love and serve others.

The early deaths of her mother in 1777 and her baby sister in 1778 gave Elizabeth a feel for eternity and the temporariness of the pilgrim life on earth. Far from being brooding and sullen, she faced each new “holocaust,” as she put it, with hopeful cheerfulness.

At 19, Elizabeth was the belle of New York and married a handsome, wealthy businessman, William Magee Seton. They had five children before his business failed and he died of tuberculosis. At 30, Elizabeth was widowed, penniless, with five small children to support.

While in Italy with her dying husband, Elizabeth witnessed Catholicity in action through family friends. Three basic points led her to become a Catholic: belief in the Real Presence, devotion to the Blessed Mother and conviction that the Catholic Church led back to the apostles and to Christ. Many of her family and friends rejected her when she became a Catholic in March 1805.

To support her children, she opened a school in Baltimore. From the beginning, her group followed the lines of a religious community, which was officially founded in 1809.

The thousand or more letters of Mother Seton reveal the development of her spiritual life from ordinary goodness to heroic sanctity. She suffered great trials of sickness, misunderstanding, the death of loved ones (her husband and two young daughters) and the heartache of a wayward son. She died January 4, 1821, and became the first American-born citizen to be beatified (1963) and then canonized (1975). She is buried in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

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O God, who crowned with the gift of true faith Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton's burning zeal to find you, grant by her intercession and example that we may always seek you with diligent love and find you in daily service with sincere faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ....

The Holy Name of Jesus - VISITE À RICHELIEU

2012-01-03T06:09:00.028-05:00

OPTIONAL MEMORIAL

THE HOLY NAME OF JESUS

O God, who founded the salvation of the human race on the Incarnation of your Word, give your peoples the mercy they implore, so that all may know there is no other name to be invoked but the Name of your Only Begotten Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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Some thoughts for the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus from Fr. Aaron Pidel, SJ, who blogs at www.whosoeverdesires.wordpress.com:

Given the significance of the Holy Name, we might do well to reflect a bit on the commandment corresponding to this gift—“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain.” Since the Lord’s name is a token of both majesty and nearness, observing this commandment means approaching God from two sides. On the side of majesty, we reverence God’s name. We don’t call upon Him flippantly or emptily. The Catholic liturgy models this reverence when it calls for the priest to bow his head slightly at every mention of the name of Jesus. This is one side of the second commandment.

But there is another side that perhaps we consider less often–the side of nearness. God has revealed his name to us, it seems, with a very definite purpose: to persuade us that He is the sort of God who sees, who judges, who has concrete plans for our lives, who expects us to call upon Him and to enter ever more deeply into His friendship. An important way of not using God’s name in vain, therefore, is to respect this purpose—i.e., to cultivate friendship with Him.

But how does one go about cultivating such a friendship? St. Ignatius used to describe the sort of prayer most suited to a God with a name as “colloquy” or conversation. He first encouraged the one praying to review Jesus’ words and deeds in the Gospels, and then—like Mary—“to reflect on these things in her heart.” After reflection, the one praying, in a way both intimate and reverent, was to talk to God about what stirred within him. In St. Ignatius’ words,

The colloquy is made by speaking exactly as one friend speaks to another, or as a servant speaks to a master, now asking him for a favour, now blaming himself for some misdeed, now making known his affairs to him, and seeking advice in them (Ex. Sp. #54).

As a servant to a master. Yet as one friend to another. It’s for such reverent friendship that God revealed his Holy Name. It’s left to us to see that He not have revealed it in vain.

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Visite aux prêtres retraités à Richelieu

De gauche a droite: Pere Latourelle, Mgr Quesnel, Pere Tache

Le 27 décembre pendant un séjour à Montréal avec ma parenté et les jésuites de Loyola, je suis allé à Richelieu pour une visite à Mgr Roger Quesnel de notre archidiocèse et aux oblats et jésuites dans leurs infirmeries là-bas. J’ai célébré l’eucharistie avec mes confrères jésuites et j’ai diné en compagnie de Mgr Quesnel, et les pères Alexandre Taché, omi et René Latourelle, s.j.

Voici quelques photos :

The Memorial of St. Basil the Great & St. Gregory Nazianzen - Papal Prayer Intentions - Clergy Luncheon

2012-01-02T06:21:00.033-05:00

St. Basil (329-379) was a brilliant student born of a Christian family in Caesarea, Cappadocia (Turkey).

For some years, he followed the monastic way of life.

He vigorously fought the Arian heresy.

He become Archbishop of Caesarea in 370.

Monks of the Eastern Church today still follow the monastic rules which he se down.

St. Gregory (329-389) was also from Cappadocia.

A friend of St. Basil, he too followed the monastic way of life for some years.

In 381 he became Archbishop of Constantinople.

It was during this period the Arian heresy was at it height.

He was called "The Theologian" because of his great learning and talent for oratory.

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O God, who were pleased to give light to your Church by the example and teaching of the Bishops Saints Basil and Gregory, grant, we pray, that in humility we may learn your truth and practise it faithfully in charity. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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The Holy Father's January Prayer Intentions

Victims of Natural Disasters. That the victims of natural disasters may receive the spiritual and material comfort they need to rebuild their lives.

Dedication to Peace. That the dedication of Christians to peace may bear witness to the name of Christ before all men and women of good will.

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CHRISTMAS CLERGY LUNCHEON

On Thursday, close to 80 priests and seminarians dropped in for the annual Christmas luncheon held between Christmas and New Year's at my residence and the Notre Dame cathedral parish hall. Dress is casual and spirits were upbeat.

Some photos: