Years ago, musician Audrey Assad released “I Shall Not Want” on an album called Fortunate Fall. She had discovered a Litany of Humility and set it to music. At a concert she did at my parish, she told us that she wrote it so that she would be inspired to pray it more often.

That has worked for me, and the chorus has become a measure of my spiritual health: “When I taste your goodness, I shall not want.”

Catholic colleges have role to play in abuse prevention

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Both at the national and international levels, Church leaders along with their supporting committees are making significant strides in addressing clergy sexual abuse prevention policies, as well as procedures for making complaints, and are beginning to explore how to accompany those who have been abused.

Although it is encouraging to hear about such progress, it is not realistic to expect that our bishops alone can discover and respond to all victim-survivor needs.

Online Harms Act too long in the making

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Give your children L-O-V-E

It’s legislation long overdue. The introduction of Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, is badly needed protection for the vulnerable — particularly children and youth — against traumas arising from an unsafe and unregulated digital world.

The proposed act identifies seven categories of harmful content, three of which directly relate to children. These include content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor, bullies a child and induces a child to harm themselves.

Looking down on the virtual world

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Do you understand what you are reading?

Acts: 8: 30

The art of reading is rapidly disappearing. According to a study by the National Endowment for the Arts, nearly “half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure.” Even more alarming given my line of work, “College attendance no longer guarantees active reading habits.”

Sneaking polyamory past its sleeping victims

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“Is Toronto finally shaking off the sexual stigma of polyamory?” reads the recent headline in the Toronto Star. News outlets have been peddling polyamory apologetics after a middle-aged woman released a book about her life-changing adventures pursuing polyamory in January 2024.

Honouring a prophet of his own country

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Alexey Navalny was surely a hero. Perhaps he was also a saint. Little evidence is available to buttress the hope that he might someday be recognized as such. Navalny, the Russian dissident who died/was murdered Feb. 16, spoke little of his conversion from militant atheism to Christian Orthodoxy during his abbreviated life.

Wrapping ourselves in holy Catholic warmth

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The world can be a cold, unfriendly, even hostile and angry place — online and offline. It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s not supposed to be that way. God created an earthly paradise for us, but when we reject Him and His ways, we reject our true selves, each other and everything we’re actually longing for. We become prideful and selfish. Put a bunch of prideful and selfish people together and you have a recipe for guaranteed misery.

Listen closely to the heart of Lent

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Fr. Michel Cote is a voice for those seeking to be understood — literally. He is a Dominican Friar who has worked for decades as an interpreter. His small business has served virtually every multi-lingual Catholic entity in our country, from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to my own beloved Development & Peace - Caritas Canada. In his great service, it is likely that no other single person in this country has done more to help Catholics understand one another. Global Solidarity is near and dear to his heart. To us he is more than an interpreter, he is our beloved friend and spiritual elder. A humble man, he would balk at the idea of me writing a column about him. So instead of enumerating his many accomplishments, I would like to share the spiritual invitation that I have received from him in the form of a short Lenten reflection.

The celestial music of God’s created order

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One of the most deleterious effects of our present culture has been our failure to engage in regular contemplation of what is real, that is to wonder at things. The end of wondering is not to gain complete knowledge, though this is the not-so-implicit goal inquiry in our post-modern world. We contemplate the mystery of God, but we cannot fully understand Him since He is God and we are His creatures. If we claim a full comprehension of who God is, what we comprehend is not God at all, or as St. Augustine wrote in Sermon 117, “Si comprehendis, non est Deus,” if you understand, it isn’t God. To contemplate does not aim at full comprehension. It desires to participate in what is a mystery to us, something hidden or not yet fully revealed.

There’s no painting over Jesus’ word

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So it is with every artisan and master artisan …

they set their heart on painting a lifelike image,

and they lose sleep in order to finish their work

Sirach: 38: 27

As a writer I have always had an interest in the complexity of language: the way words could be constructed to say one thing when an entirely different message was intended. This perhaps is most obvious in coded messages — words spoken into dangerous situations that must be disguised to protect the speaker.

Healing a matter of taking the steps

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There is a saying that the law of relationships that are unhealthy is, “Don’t trust, Don’t talk, and Don’t feel.” The ministry of the Church on the street, and all ministry in fact, is to reach out with the law of healing relationships, “Show up, Listen, Don’t judge, and Don’t fix.”