Features/Features

Take in A Christmas Carol — the 1938 adaptation of the Dickens’ classic, above, or any other version — or any other classic Christmas films and integrate seasonal activities with the viewing.

Spruce up your Christmas movie watching

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Since screening Christmas movies together with family and friends has become as ubiquitous as Ugly Christmas Sweater Parties, maybe it’s time to be more than just holly jolly couch potatoes. Perhaps we can find ways to integrate Christmas activities (emphasis on “active”) with the spectating.

Sr. Mary Elisabeth and the Seeds of the Word Catholic Community lead an Advent mission in Medicine Hat, Alta.

Calgary sisters sow seeds of the season

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The Seeds of the Word Catholic Community has covered a lot of ground in southern Alberta this Advent season to empower young and old to prepare their hearts to welcome Christ on Dec. 25.

Christmas Drawing Contest 2021 winners

Christmas Drawing Contest 2021 winners

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Without a doubt, there is an abundance of great artists in the making in our Catholic schools.

The Advent wreath is an important part in developing rituals for the family in the domestic church.

Advent on the home front

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Are we ready for Christ? After almost two years of living through this pandemic, we might feel like we are ready for anything and everything or maybe you are feeling like Charlie Brown just before Lucy pulls the football away.

The Augustianian monastery at Sacred Heart Church in Delta, B.C., is reflected in the flood waters that have devastated the province.

Faith and the B.C. floods

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VANCOUVER -- When Fr. Francis Galvan left Sacred Heart Church in Delta, B.C., for a priests’ study week in Harrison Hot Springs, he didn’t expect to find himself at the centre of a catastrophic flood as British Columbia found itself facing what is being called the storm of the century.

Mother Teresa Catholic Academy in Scarborough alumni Randell Adjei, Ontario’s Poet Laureate, top, and principal Jose Alberto Flores, below, share a passion for helping students find their way through life’s challenges.

Passion, purpose, the poet and principal

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Walking through the halls of Scarborough’s Mother Teresa Catholic Academy, Ontario’s first Poet Laureate, Randell Adjei, and principal Jose Alberto Flores feel a special connection to the diverse and dynamic school community.

Society of St. Vincent de Paul volunteers prepare sandwiches for the needy. Society members didn’t let the pandemic slow down efforts to look after those in need in society.

Vincent de Paul keeps going and going

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Richard Pommainville, in his latest Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SSVP) newsletter address, likens the non-profit global charity to the Energizer Bunny.

Pope Francis greets people as he arrives for a meeting with the poor at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels in Assisi, Italy, Nov. 12, 2021. The visit was in preparation for the celebration of the World Day of the Poor.

Pope Francis visits with poor in Assisi

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ASSISI, Italy -- With a pilgrim's staff and mantle, Pope Francis entered Assisi's Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels with 500 economically or socially disadvantaged people and the volunteers who walk alongside them.

Activists protest the end to the basic income pilot project by Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the Conservative party.

Authors make the case for basic income strategy

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In November 2017 people lined up for hours in Lindsay, Ont., in hopes of registering for Ontario’s basic income pilot program.

“We cannot wait for the poor to knock on our door,” Pope Francis tells us in his message for World Day of the Poor. We must reach out to where they are.

‘Truth about poverty is complicated’

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We are divided, sorted, separated. As the gaps between us grow, society slides into the abstract. Our concrete reality is the opposite of society. Day to day we experience life as individuals. We live in a tight circle of economic security that revolves around our lonely selves.

Death has increasingly not been given its proper due in our modern, technological age, particularly during the going on two-year pandemic. People have not been able to grieve the loss of loved ones properly as funerals have been placed under limited capacity by health regulations, only just recently loosened but still not up to pre-COVID levels. That makes All Saints Day Nov. 2 and the month of prayer for the dead that follows all the more important this year.

Dealing with grief in changing world

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As restaurants, theatres and stadiums open up again, and as daily COVID case counts dwindle across most of the country, the Canadian Grief Alliance estimates that as many as 4.5 million of us are grieving one or more of nearly half-a-million deaths we have experienced in the last 20 months, nearly 29,000 of them directly from COVID.

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