The Edmonton police stopped outside the downtown Bissell Centre on Tuesday, as they do most mornings. Their task was to cart away the tarps and belongings of homeless people camped on the street. The previous night, the temperature had fallen to minus 16C, and people were cold.

I arrived to drop off some boots and clothes donated by people from Assumption Parish to the Inner City Pastoral Ministry, the ecumenical Church outreach to people on the street. Tuesday is table day for ICPM, the morning when our pastor, Rev. Quinn Strikwerda, and volunteer Maria Kruszewski hand out clothes, candy and whatever else they have on hand. 

The Gospel for the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe calls us to enter the kingdom of truth. As his death drew near, Jesus said to Pilate, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” (John 18.37)

Farley Magee was the musical leader for years at the Sunday services of Inner City Pastoral Ministry (ICPM), the ecumenical group that serves the beautiful and broken people who populate downtown Edmonton.

Farley died Oct. 11, and his memorial service 17 days later packed the basement of Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples, the church visited by Pope Francis last year on his journey of reconciliation. Farley was a gentle, beloved soul whose difficult life can bring some understanding of those without homes.

International migration has become one of our most pressing issues with about 3.5 per cent of the world’s population (280 million people) currently considered to be migrants. The majority are people on the move seeking gainful employment, while a large minority are fleeing war, violence, persecution, climate change, food insecurity and increased global inequality. 

Remi De Roo named a bishop just as the Second Vatican Council opened in October 1962. He was 38 years old, the youngest bishop in the world. De Roo attended all four sessions of Vatican II, and the experience changed him for life. He gained a new understanding of the Church, one more inclusive than the hierarchical model he had learned in the seminary.

The liturgical calendar turns briefly in late September and early October to the role of angels in salvation. First, there is the Sept. 29 feast of the messengers Gabriel, Raphael and Michael – not celebrated this year because the feast falls on a Sunday – and then the Oct. 2 memorial of guardian angels.

In an interview which the historian Frank Linderman recounted, Plenty Coups, traditional chief of the Crow Nation, refused to speak of his life after the destruction of the buffalo. The chief’s story did not include the years between the passing of the buffalo until his death in 1932. 

Perhaps nowhere in society is the loss of the sacred more evident than in marriage and in the wedding ceremonies which solemnify a marriage.

The journey toward reconciliation between Canadian churches and Indigenous people continues. Not surprisingly, the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 did not end that journey. 

My father was a frugal man who categorically rejected going into debt. He warned me against this way of life more than I can recall. When he and my mother bought their modest home in Regina in 1954, they paid cash. Dad bought used cars, again always paying up front.