Awkward floated to my lips a few times last week before I saw the pattern. The stumbling and crashing of growing children and adolescents finding themselves in bigger bodies than the days before. Constant adjustments during mask practice sessions. Remembering the diapers and the keys and the shoes, only to forget to pack lunch in a new season’s morning routine. We are making it through, but it is painfully awkward.

Loving enemies

Re: Tabernacle stolen from St. Catharines cathedral:

It is rather interesting that the discarded tabernacle was found on Sept. 9, and the very next day the Gospel reading from Luke (Ch. 6: 27-38) was as if Jesus came out to speak to anyone who might be feeling angry and hateful towards the criminals who did such a disrespectful act: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who abuse you.”  When I read the article I did feel very angry and wanted to exchange with family and friends all kinds of hateful words about the criminals, just making my assumption who they might be.

The Pope’s first official trip outside Rome in more than seven months couldn’t come at a better, or more critical, time.

Sr. Deirdre Byrne is a remarkable woman. Many of you have heard her life story because of the address she gave to the Republican National Convention in August.

The scourge of Catholic priests sexually abusing innocent children is never far from mind in Nova Scotia.

In a recent interview with Global News, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that his government will put forward an “ambitious agenda” for a green recovery. “We know the world is going towards lower carbon,” he said. It appears that he is willing to stake the fate of his minority government on such an agenda.

Statues typically honour those who have done great deeds. They are built so we do not forget our past. To forget the past is to lose hope for a better future. Without a memory of the past, our only vision of reality is that of the present. We are stuck in the ideology of today, reduced to a one-dimensional world. Memory opens horizons.

Work together

As a Past President of the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development & Peace – Caritas Canada (D&P), I am very pleased to see that the bishops want to return to the National Council (NC), the governing board of the organization.  I have always believed their presence at NC meetings is imperative.

The word “jubilee” suggests a joyous celebration, but that is hardly the context for the theme Pope Francis has put on this year’s Season of Creation.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that being enamoured of Marxism is, sadly, once again, in vogue among those who have never lived under its rapacious, anti-human, oppressive iron fist. The scary thing this time around is that a majority of these starry-eyed folks are young people who never even lived through the Cold War. (A few years ago I was on the campus of McMaster University and the bulletin boards were filled with black and red posters: “Join the Marxist Party!”) 

In mid-August, Unilever urged ice-cream trucks selling Good Humor products to play a newly-created jingle.