FAITH/STORIES

VANCOUVER - Pro athletes receive huge salaries and benefit from armies of professionals behind the scenes tending to their mental and physical health so they can perform at the top of their game.

However, when the pressure takes its toll on players and they start to feel spiritually drained, the sports chaplain’s ministry comes into play.

“Our purpose is to serve the community within the team, and our focus is on the person, not their position,” said Dave Klassen, national pro ministry director for Athletes in Action, Canada, whose members work to nurture the spiritual side of athletes. “We’re not trying to find a cure for the athlete so that they can get out on the field and perform as quickly as possible; we care about the whole person.”

FORT SASKATCHEWAN, ALTA. - At age 18, Ada Toner was still contemplating what to do with her life. She had no parents, no education and no profession. As well, within the span of a year, she had received marriage proposals from four different men.

“I was picking berries one day, and I looked over and asked myself which one of those guys would I like to spend the rest of my life with. Then I saw the face of Jesus, and I don’t know if it was in the clouds or a feeling within me or what it was,” she said.

This was her first calling to religious life — a calling she was at first reluctant to accept. She felt like a nobody, with nothing of value to offer the Church. But she took hold of the opportunity and on Sept. 8, 1936 joined the Sisters of Charity of the Immaculate Conception.

EDMONTON - While others around her believed she would make a good sister, it took Sr. Christina Wong a long time to realize it herself.

As a high school student in Hong Kong, she was asked by the sisters who ran the school whether she had considered becoming a nun.

“I was under 20 and I didn’t take their question too seriously because in a convent school the sisters looked after the students,” said Wong, seeing a reverence in them that she did not see in herself.

But after years of searching, Wong made her perpetual vows as a Sister of Providence Sept. 17 at the chapel of Providence Renewal Centre.

From Chile to a religious call in Canada

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EDMONTON - By most standards, Sr. Loreto Andrea Leon Soto was like any other girl growing up in Santiago, Chile. Becoming a nun never occurred to the young girl who had a normal upbringing with close friends and a boyfriend.

But enter religious life she did. After five years of religious formation, Leon made her first profession of vows Sept. 20 at Providence Renewal Centre.

Leon came from a strong Catholic home where faith was essential. Christmas and Holy Week were more than just liturgical celebrations, they were a time to fully express the faith.

Justice office aids refugees

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VANCOUVER - The most shocking experience of her life, says Lindseigh Lochhead, was the year she taught English in refugee camps in Thailand.

“I met many who had been persecuted. The conditions in the camps lacked dignity, and many despaired of ever being able to return home,” said the administrator of the Refugee Outreach Program of the Office of Service and Justice of the Vancouver archdiocese.

Shaken but not discouraged, Lochhead became determined to help. She returned to Vancouver to get a degree, expecting to return to Thailand. Instead an opportunity opened up to work with refugees coming to Canada through government sponsorship programs.

Weekly Crossword #1 - Oct 2nd 2011

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See how you get on with the first crossword in our new series. Select "file > print" in your browser to print off your own copy.
 
And don't worry, we'll be publishing the solution next week! [update - find the solution to puzzle #1 here]

More information: Register launches a wordy new feature this week

Crossword #1

 

Across

1.   He loves, to Livy
5.   Boast
9.   Waldorf or Caesar
14.  Machete
15.  Possess
16.  Dish
17.  English prep school
18.  Kazakhstan’s ____ Sea
19.  Roof overhangs
20.  St Francis of Assisi: “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you have men who will deal likewise with ______________”
23.  Suffix for musket
24.  Classic car
25.  Hobbles
28.  Peruse
30.  Bill
33.  Weird
34.  Anthracite
35.  Tend
36.  John Paul II: “Animals possess a soul, and men must love and feel solidarity for our _______________”
39.  Lug
40.  Adolescent
41.  Warms up
42.  Chemical suffix
43.  Lean-to
44.  Handbag
45.  Mimic
46.  Total
47.  Mother Teresa: “They, too, are created by the same loving hand of God which created us ... it is our duty to protect them and promote ______________”
55.  Essence
56.  Time periods
57.  Birch, for one
58.  Golfer Palmer, familiarly
59.  Location
60.  Marsh bird
61.  Currents
62.  Golf ball holders
63.  Morays

 

Down

1.   Help a felon
2.   Butterfly’s cousin
3.   Lotion additive
4.   Novelist ____ Morrison
5.   Irritates
6.   More unusual
7.   Egg-shaped
8.   Healthy
9.   Gushed
10.  Site of an 1836 battle
11.  Wash
12.  Two fives for _ ___
13.  ___ Moines, Iowa
21.  Drive off
22.  Papal vestment
25.  Used car, perhaps
26.  Angry
27.  Unit of distance
28.  Garbed
29.  Merit
30.  Skater Lipinski, et al
31.  Mountain crest
32.  Stein and Affleck
33.  Villa d’____
34.  Manitoba native
35.  “Moonstruck” actress
37.  Early anaesthetic
38.  _____ a ride (hitchhike)
43.  Acts maliciously
44.  Heartbeats
45.  Eagle’s nest
46.  Tablet
47.  Actress ____ Hatcher
48.  Lend a ____ (help out)
49.  Bridge seat
50.  A great lake
51.  French 101 verb
52.  Dies ____
53.  Astronaut ____ Armstrong
54.  Sets
55.  Cap

 


Designed by:  Bob Carson
 

Church must move closer to Gospel, not to worldly values, pope says

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FREIBURG, Germany - The church must change to respond to the Gospel call and the needs of real people, but that change must be dictated by Christian values and not by greater adaptation to the values of the modern world, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Meeting Sept. 25 with about 1,500 Catholics involved in church ministries, lay movements and civic, political or social activities, the pope said he knows Germany is experiencing a decline in religious practice and is seeing many of its members drift away from church life.

The audience, which included German President Christian Wulff, gave the pope a standing ovation when he finished his speech.

Despite challenges, Catholics in India must evangelize

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CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy - Despite challenges, hardship and trials, Catholics in India must continue to evangelize, Pope Benedict XVI said.

"You must always be prepared to spread the Kingdom of God and to walk in the footsteps of Christ, who was himself misunderstood, despised, falsely accused and who suffered for the sake of truth," the pope told a group of bishops from India.

India has seen a steady rise in anti-Christian violence since the 1990s and the passage of anti-conversion laws in some states. Without specifying "the challenges that the missionary nature of the church entails," the pope told the bishops to "not be deterred when such trials arise."

Pope urges life centered on eucharistic spirituality

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ANCONA, Italy - A religious life centered on and nourished by the Eucharist should lead to a life marked by gratitude for Christ's sacrifice, a commitment to self-giving and real unity within the church and the community, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Traveling to Ancona, on Italy's Adriatic coast, Sept. 11, the pope presided over the closing Mass of the Italian National Eucharistic Congress and held meetings with priests and married couples in Ancona's cathedral and with engaged couples in a town square.

With the Adriatic glistening behind the altar platform, Pope Benedict's homily at the Mass focused on the marks of a "eucharistic spirituality."

Church must teach truth, values that save souls, the world, pope says

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CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy - Catholic schools and institutions need to be "genuinely Catholic" and pass on the values that support communities and the truth that saves souls, Pope Benedict XVI said.

"This saving truth, at the heart of the deposit of faith, must remain the foundation of all the church's endeavors, proposed to others always with respect but also without compromise," the pope told a group of bishops from India.

In a country with large Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Christian populations, the church must continue to teach and promote the "intellectual and moral truth" to the Catholic faithful, the pope said Sept. 8 at the end of the bishops' "ad limina" visits.

Catholics must then bear witness to God's love for everyone and reach out to their neighbors, showing them by their words and actions that Christ is the way, the truth and the life, he said.

Crying out to God is sign of faith, pope says at audience

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VATICAN CITY - Crying out to God when one is in the grips of pain or fear is a sign of faith in God, Pope Benedict XVI said.

A central tenet of faith is believing that the loving God is always close to his creatures and ready to reach out and save them, the pope said Sept. 7 during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.

The pope, who is still staying at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, returned to the Vatican by helicopter for the general audience with about 11,000 pilgrims and visitors. Afterward, he went back to the papal villa, about 20 miles south of Rome.

Continuing a series of audience talks about prayer, Pope Benedict told those gathered for the audience that when they are really hurting or afraid, they can use Psalm 3 to express both their suffering and their trust in God.

In church, love includes calling each to responsibility, pope says

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CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy - The community life of the church must be motivated by love, which includes humbly calling each other to responsibility, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The notion of "fraternal correction," he said, "is not a reaction to an offense suffered, but is motivated by love."

Addressing pilgrims gathered in Castel Gandolfo Sept. 4 for the recitation of the Angelus, Pope Benedict discussed the day's Gospel reading about how to handle a member of the community who does wrong.

Jesus said a church member should first point out the problem in private and, if that does not bring a change, approach the person again with two witnesses. If that does not work, take the matter before the community. If the person still does not acknowledge the error, "one must help him perceive the detachment from the community that he himself provoked, separating himself from the communion of the church," the pope said.

COLF’s latest message focuses on family’s role in shaping vocations

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OTTAWA - Only a few days after Pope Benedict XVI asked forgiveness for the failure of “cradle Catholics who have failed to pass the faith onto others," the Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) released a message designed to help families do a better job.

In its latest message entitled "Love is Calling Your Children," COLF calls on Catholic families to recognize the role they play in helping their children find their vocations and suggests resources to aid them in this task.

“It is within the family — very gradually and in the course of daily life — that children and adolescents learn to know God and to trust Him,” COLF says. “That is where they meet Jesus and welcome Him as a friend.

“As they spend time with Him, they will come to understand that the big challenge for a child of God and a disciple of the King of the Universe is not only to avoid evil, but to do, with Him at their side, all the good they are called to do. Rest assured: Christ will call every single one of our children to a very personal vocation. “Their answer will depend to a great extent on the openness of heart acquired in the family,” it said.