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August 27, 2007
An ice-fisher from Sachs Harbour, NWT, and a sugar-cane farmer from the Fiji Islands have more in common than some may think.
The Redemptorist Fathers used to be famous for three-day parish retreats. Many of the older men in the order can tell stories of years they spent driving town to town, spending a week in each parish they visited concluding with a marathon of preaching.
Editor's note: As concern for the environment raises new heights, it's worth exploring what Christians are doing about the crisis, and what Christian theology has to say. This package of stories highlights some of the ways Christians, particularly Roman Catholics, are grappling with the issue. Read more...
TORONTO - The serenely modern Catholic Church of St. Joan of Arc, on Bloor Street West in the High Park neighbourhood, was one of Toronto’s earliest post-Vatican II ecclesiastical settings designed to accommodate the reformed liturgy initiated by the council.
August 28, 2007
BURLINGTON, Ont. - For 32 summers, Prof. Josef Svoboda and a small band of students would trundle off from Toronto to Canada’s far north where they would spend their days measuring tiny flowers, counting samples of small plants and monitoring weather patterns and the melting of glaciers. And in the long evenings under the midnight sun, they would talk about life, the universe and God.
Mary Sojczynsky is looking forward to chowing down at the fourth annual Organic Harvest Feast at Guelph’s Ignatius Jesuit Centre Sept. 15.
It’s not just about avoiding pesticides any more. In fact, if you choose wisely, the food you eat can help to ensure more than just your own health. According to Community Sharing Agriculture farmer Heather Lekx, choosing to eat organic foods should also help to put your conscience at ease.
GUELPH, Ont. - In a recent Ignatius Loyola News newsletter, Fr. Jim Profit, S.J., wrote, “After working in the garden all day, I felt tired, stiff and sore, yet completely revived and bore my dirty fingernails with pride. Working with soil is an experience of the soul for me…. There is something about this land that invites the experience of community, life and God.”
The resurrection of an old-growth forest is growing one square metre at a time. The Jesuit Collaborative for Ecology, Agriculture and Forestry started fund-raising for the Old Growth Forest Project in November 2006 and has raised $70,000, half in the $20 for a square metre donation. One anonymous donor sponsored $35,000 worth of square metres.
Ecotheology, a spirituality deeply connected to nature, reverence for the Earth, a strong conviction that the environmental crisis is a religious crisis of faith and morals — none of this should seem exotic, revolutionary or unorthodox to practising Catholics, according to University of St. Michael’s College liturgy professor Chris McConnell. In fact, it should be as familiar as the Mass.
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C), Sept. 2 (Sirach 3:17-20, 28-29; Psalm 68; Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24; Luke 14:1, 7-14) Twelve-step programs have freed countless people from addictions and restored them to health and sanity. The first three steps are the hardest, and they are the downfall of not a few. The sufferer must admit that his or her life is out of control and that they are not God after all.
My old friend Julia was describing her battle with her body. Conflict between body and spirit is often part of physical illness. Sometimes it seems the body is attacking us, as though it were the enemy.
There is a powerful moral imperative for politicians of this generation when it comes to the environment. It is a call for leadership, for a consequential change in the way our society relates to nature — for a society that may not yet want it.
[/images/stories/canada_people/Lauwers.jpg]Former Prime Minister Kim Campbell once famously remarked that an election campaign is no place to debate major public policy changes. The electorate judged her harshly, but she was right to point out that the process of fighting elections has a negative effect on the merits of a policy.
An old joke says that when God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, He gave him a rake. Then, He added, “I made the Garden perfect. Now take care of it.”
August 29, 2007
An Evangelical Christian scientist, with the support of 134 scientists and public health officials, has challenged the federal government to either continue funding a safe injection site for drug addicts in Vancouver or admit ideology and not science is behind its decision to close down the three-year old InSite safe injection facility .
August 30, 2007
MONTREAL — The Canadian Centre for Ecumenism is taking it to the street. The Montreal-based centre for dialogue among Canadian churches has left its historic setting inside the Grande Seminaire de Montreal and taken up a storefront address in downtown Montreal.