In many ways, gratitude is the basis of love.
Sometimes, morality is the enemy of justice. Leading a morally upright life should lead one to act with integrity and compassion. Society itself cannot be good unless a critical mass of its people is morally good. But when we try to make other people good and judge them harshly when they don’t live up to our standards, we become repressive.
Since the Daughters of St. Paul have always printed papal encyclicals and works of the popes, we naturally collected and published John Paul II’s extraordinary “Theology of the Body” — a series of catechetical talks he delivered in the early 1980s.
Open doors
Re: Woman granted voting rights for bishops’ synod (Feb. 14):
After reading the article concerning the appointment of Sr. Nathalie Becquart to the general secretariat of the synod of bishops, it made me think of Jennie Trout and Emily Stowe, the first female physicians in Canada, some 140 years ago, and the suffragist movement which very gradually gave the vote to women in Canada.
Two years after his election to the papacy, Pope Francis was asked about how long his pontificate might last. “I have the feeling that my pontificate will be short,” he said. “Four or five years. I don’t know, or two, three.”
This is the 250th anniversary year of the death of St. Marguerite d’Youville, the founder of the Order of Sisters of Charity of Montreal. The first Canadian-born saint, she was canonized in 1990 by St. John Paul II.
As fall turned to winter, I found a prayer for life transitions in Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals. We were considering a move, in the middle of a pandemic. It all felt very complicated. And the opening line of the prayer resonated with me: “Lord, help me now to unclutter my life, to organize myself in the direction of simplicity.”
I come like a beggar with a gift in my hand. These are the opening lyrics to a song by Sydney Carter that I learned as part of the Toronto Catholic Worker community many years ago. As we enter the season of Lent and its call to prayer, fasting and almsgiving, I find myself quietly singing it to myself. The song continues, “By the hungry I will feed you, by the poor I’ll make you rich, by the broken I will mend you, tell me which one is which.”
Sean Murphy was a Mountie for 37 years and a local coroner for years after that. Yet even he is astonished at how quickly Canadians have become comfortable with obliging health-care workers to perform medically-assisted homicide.
Bad match
Re: Missal updated in Canada (Feb. 21):
Changing the Collect Prayer to read “God, forever and ever” ignores the beauty of the English language itself, which clearly expresses the community of the Holy Father in His three divine personas: the Lord Himself, the Holy Son and the Spirit. Saying “One God” reminds the believer that God’s magnificence is embodied by three partners who are united in one form, the Trinity.
As Canada continues to hurtle toward being a world leader in helping people commit suicide, let us spare a moment to consider an alternative: Giving people a reason to live.