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.”

This being Mother’s Day weekend, an editor asked if I’d like to write about it. Initially, I decided to pass because I’ve written about my wonderful late mother many times.

Students at St. Augustine School in Regina were abuzz in the fall of 1960 when we learned a priest was coming who would reveal a secret message from the Virgin Mary.

In mid-April The Globe & Mail gave two days of coverage to the suicide of Adam Maier-Clayton, just 27 years old. He lived for years with a variety of psychiatric disorders and unremitting pain. There is no doubt he knew suffering.

As the Ontario bishops completed their ad limina visit to Rome last week, I couldn’t help but recall one of my favourite stories about one of Ontario’s favourite bishops.

Whether opening a free laundromat for the homeless in Rome or shunning the palatial papal apartments in the Vatican, Pope Francis knows the power of symbolic messages.

On April 29, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy (OLSWA) will graduate the first class of its newly approved bachelor’s degree program.

Data from two major polling firms show Canadians are nowhere close to the caricature of faith-hostile atheists that we’ve been led to believe characterize us.

It’s been said family can provide us with great strength and expose our greatest weaknesses. Or, as comedian George Burns once said: “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”