Driving home after returning a second new dehumidifier that wouldn’t work in less than a week, I couldn’t help thinking about the so-called “good old days” when things were built to last.

The death on May 31 of Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, patriarch emeritus of Kyiv, former head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), resonated in Canada where, outside of Ukraine, the largest Ukrainian Catholic community is found.

A few weeks ago the Sunday New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy feature about a Vancouver Island man who had chosen to die by euthanasia. John Shields, a former priest who later married, was suffering from a rare disease that caused proteins to build up in his heart and painful nerve damage in his arms and legs, the Times story said.

One Saturday night years ago, my mother won a trip to Monaco and the French Riviera in a raffle. The next morning, I remember her putting more money in the collection plate than usual.

As I write this, I’m fixated on a photo of eight-year-old Saffie Rose, the youngest victim of the Manchester bombing. Her picture is part of a newspaper photo array of the young victims of that awful night.

Allowing for caveats, Canada could find itself with a trinity of powerful Catholic leaders in coming months.

In Toronto the priestly ordinations usually have a maternal character. The customary date is in May, Mary’s month, and usually falls the day before Mother’s Day, which is not a religious feast day, but certainly can be looked upon with the eyes of faith.

As a fan of murder mysteries, I was drawn to a new Netflix series entitled The Keepers, a true-crime story about the murder of a popular young nun who was a high school teacher in Baltimore.

The request was simple: “I’m going south for a week, could you give me a ride to the airport and pick me up on my way back?”

In a recent Toronto Sun column, John Snobelen had four wise, albeit chilling, watch words for those in the not-for-profit world. They are: “The atrophy of purpose.”