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Six months after its centennial celebration, St. Joseph’s Parish in Squamish still glows with gratitude — literally.

The parish’s Gratitude Tree, unveiled during its 100-year anniversary Mass in March 2025, now stands on the side of the church — relocated from the foyer to allow more space — as a bronze sculpture with an antique finish, a lasting monument to faith, generosity, and the families who have worshipped there for a century.

Long-time parishioners say the tree is only the latest expression of what their church has always been.

In an interview with The Squamish Chief, Clem Wippich called St. Joseph’s “a lifeline” for the community. “As Catholics, we believe in the presence of God, the Holy Eucharist — it’s the real thing,” he said. “Without it, we’re in bad shape.”

Wippich arrived in Squamish in 1975, when most parishioners were still “railroad people,” mill workers, or miners from Britannia. He said the faith community gave people a sense of belonging when the town’s fortunes rose and fell. “What hurt us the most financially was when the railroads shut down. The pulp mill shut down. The lumber mill shut down. It was a mass exodus,” Wippich told The Chief.

Paul Schilling, who came to Squamish in 1970, remembered helping repair the old church on Fourth Avenue and watching the congregation ebb and flow with the economy. “Community is the main part of the church,” he said. “If there is no church, there’s no community.”

Vida Giroux, a member since 1991, described the centennial as “a once-in-a-lifetime event … so much joy to be together with the community of God-loving people.”

She said parish organizations such as the Catholic Women’s League, founded in 1956, and the Knights of Columbus, chartered in 1985, have sustained that community spirit through decades of charitable work. The CWL’s thrift shop, opened in 1969, still supports parish and civic causes, while the Knights continue to provide scholarships for graduating students.

Each leaf on the parish’s Gratitude Tree bears a name, prayer, or Scripture verse chosen by parishioners to express thanksgiving. Families were invited to “purchase a leaf for $100” to help cover centennial expenses and support parish needs. Together, the engraved leaves form a visible record of gratitude that continues to grow.

“The Gratitude Tree continues to be a beautiful and meaningful symbol of thankfulness within our parish community,” said Doris Suarez, who helped coordinate the project. “Since the start of this project, parishioners willingly contributed and over 95 leaves have been purchased. Even non-parishioners joined, representing their families with messages of gratitude, remembrance, and celebration.”

Suffering can be agony, heartbreak, loneliness, grief, or loss. It can take us to depths of darkness we never thought possible and leave us feeling that the only option in life is to give up.

Those who know suffering might have scars. Scars are permanent stories that remind us of the pain we have endured. I received a few scars a few months ago when I went into surgery to remove three benign lumps from my arm.

I marvelled at how simple the surgery was and how quickly the recovery went. I thought of the other people lined up on gurneys that day and wondered what procedures they might be getting. I opted for anaesthetic and was wheeled into the surgical room. The anaesthetist made a joke about my name being close to Elvis’s daughter’s: “Are your parents Elvis fans?” It was a short nap, a few incisions to heal, and then it was over.

What isn’t over is the suffering I experienced after giving birth. The postpartum depression, mania, and psychosis that come with having bipolar disorder were not part of my birthing plan. Many women suffer from postpartum depression and need support after the birth of their child.

In my case I was hospitalised, locked away from my newborn and husband. It was a time of incredible pain to be separated from my new family. Thankfully, during that time I received visiting passes to be with my daughter and husband at home.

What kept me going then was a photo of my daughter that I kept close and the hope I clung to in Jesus. I wasn’t sleeping well, I was physically recovering from the birth, and I was anxious that I couldn’t breastfeed my daughter. The medicine tanked my milk supply. I had given her a little of the colostrum I had, but it wasn’t enough.

I felt I had failed to be her mother, and I felt I had let down my husband, who depended on me too.

Healing takes time from an episode like that. But with a lot of love, support, and hope in God, I believed I could be well again.

“In difficult moments, I will fix my gaze upon the silent heart of Jesus, stretched upon the cross, and from the exploding flames of his merciful heart will flow down upon me power and strength to keep fighting.” — St. Faustina Kowalska

I can’t get back the time I lost with my daughter, and it’s needless to dwell on it. It’s time to make the most of each moment I do have with her, because that is all I get. Story time, bath time, and swimming lessons are now precious gifts.

In response to Cathy Karsgaard’s Sept. 1 letter on the lack of response to The B.C. Catholic’s MAiD reporting:

This past summer I befriended an elderly woman with terminal cancer who had just been released from hospital. Over several weeks we developed a wonderful friendship. She had lived alone for more than 20 years, having pushed most people out of her life. After her hospital stay she told me she was determined to die on the floor of her home rather than ever return.

At first she was disappointed that I was Catholic. She was a “Bible-believing, born again” Christian. But within days her attitude changed. She loved meeting my family and was astounded to discover people in her community willing to visit, run errands, and simply sit and talk with her.

One afternoon she asked about my thoughts on MAiD. Though disappointed her brother had chosen it, I could tell the idea had crossed her mind. Pain was her greatest fear. I told her Scripture teaches that God alone is the author of life and death, and that suicide is a sin. She nodded in agreement.

Soon after, she was offered a hospice bed, but for some reason she had to go that very day. I saw an immediate shift in her emotions as everything in her life was taken from her control in less than 12 hours. On her second day there, doctors came to “chat.” Within two weeks she was dead by MAiD, even though I know she was opposed to it for at least her first week.

What an absolute betrayal. This woman was finally experiencing the love of family for the first time in decades. Fear of pain led her to “choose” death.

Hospice care has to mean more than removing pain at any cost.

Colleen Roy
Chilliwack

In your Aug. 11 issue you noted that we seldom hear of a “good death.” I would like to share the obituary of my sister, Rose Marguerite McLaren, because I consider it a wonderful story.

Rose Marguerite McLaren
January 30, 1919 – December 15, 2005

Although this is a very sad day for us, for Mom it is an occasion of great celebration. For us, it marks the end of having Mom, Rose, Granny with us—the end of being able to talk with her and to hear her laughter. But for her, it is the completion of a rich life and the beginning of something new. We know she is here in the church with us, her sparkling eyes and wonderful smile waiting for us to begin the celebration of her life’s ending.

The celebration takes the form of a solemn Catholic Mass—a liturgy that always brought her great comfort.

The roar of the black car’s gunned engine didn’t drown out the driver’s angry shout as he sped past our Life Chain on the sidewalk outside St. Joseph’s Church in Port Moody. 

“Garbage,” he yelled. “Absolute f—ing garbage.”

It wasn’t the first insult we heard that afternoon in response to our pro-life placards, and it wouldn’t be the last.

But it was the one that made me realize how vulnerable we were, protected only by our flimsy cardboard signs and our prayers.

For a moment, I thought of April’s Lapu-Lapu Day massacre in Vancouver, and of the drivers who have mowed down pedestrians in terrorist attacks around the world. It could happen here, I thought.

And so, as our parish’s Life Chain organizer, I began watching the traffic more closely. When one motorist suddenly pulled a U-turn mid-block, my heart jumped, until I saw he was just looking for parking. I shifted my prayers from the culture of death to the safety of the dozens of men, women, and children standing with me.

I also prayed for the mental and spiritual welfare of the angry men and women who spewed hatred at us as they drove by.

It occurred to me that every one of the epithet-hurlers was opening a form of dialogue. Our response — silent, peaceful, and prayerful — must have frustrated them. Or maybe it gave them pause to reflect.

I’m no psychologist, but I know from introspection and from raising children that anger is often a manifestation of guilt or unresolved pain. Maybe our non-confrontational, peaceful responses got them thinking about life issues in ways they didn’t anticipate.

Near the end of our public witness, an elderly man on a mobility scooter came zipping up the sidewalk toward us. His face was serious. I braced myself for confrontation.

“What’s all this about?” he asked.

When I explained, his expression softened. He told me he’d been raised Baptist but supported Catholics in our stand against abortion and euthanasia. In fact, he said, if abortion had been legal in England when his mother was pregnant, he surely would not be here today.

“I’m glad I’m alive. Thank you for what you’re doing.”

We chatted a few more minutes before he turned to go, just as our Life Chain hour of witness was coming to an end.

That the Arts Club makes an enormous and valuable contribution to the cultural life of British Columbia is indisputable. However, if further proof were needed, one has only to take note of the company’s latest production: You Used to Call Me Marie.

This play is truly a local production, its genesis found in the Arts Club’s Young Playwrights program, designed to foster new talent. Out of this initiative grew You Used to Call Me Marie, written by Tai Amy Grauman. Its production during the month of Truth and Reconciliation could not be more timely, as the play is essentially a tribute to the Métis people.

Covering a period of about 150 years, this is not simply an historical account of the Métis but a commentary on their story. The play’s focus is to reveal the role Métis women have played in fostering and preserving their culture.

In a series of set pieces, we see the people’s relationship with the land and the wildlife — particularly the buffalo and, above all, the horse. Underlying everything is the determination of Métis women to preserve their heritage through their connection to the land, plants, and animals, even as their people struggled to survive the injustices imposed on them by French and English settlers.

All of this is brought vividly to life through script, dance, and music by a small, talented cast in an imaginative production directed by Lois Anderson.

The play does not pretend to be a straightforward historical account. The horrors of the residential school system are movingly acknowledged. The Riel Rebellion, for example, receives only a brief mention, while the Scrip scandal is merely hinted at. What the play does, above all, is show how, over the years, the Métis survived and preserved their culture with courage and dignity.

In the final scene, the Métis are shown moving into the European world that had so long threatened them. One wonders how long they will be able to hold on to their proud identity. It is all the more reason to welcome this production of You Used to Call Me Marie.

It is yet another reason to support Vancouver’s local arts scene — especially companies like the Arts Club. And while on that subject, it is worth noting that the Vancouver Opera opens its season this month with a production of Rigoletto. Opera fans will doubtless take this opportunity to see one of Verdi’s great works, as well as later productions of Così fan tutte and La Bohème.

The arts scene in Vancouver is truly alive and well.

Your voice matters! Join the conversation by submitting a Letter to the Editor here.

Jesus didn’t hail from a large family, nor did he give explicit parenting advice in the Gospels. But he did tell us a lot about what God the Father thinks about us — his children — and about how God does family.

God is a present Father: physically present, spiritually present, and emotionally present.

Jesus’ parables of the Good Shepherd, and his image of himself as the vine, call to mind profound intimacy and reliance. Through these images and many others, Jesus tells us something about God’s plan for parenting.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” — John 15:5

Some of us have been betrayed by those we love. These words can arouse suspicion and distrust in us. When Jesus tells us we can “do nothing without him,” it can call to mind codependency or domination — especially when spoken by a man. These are fighting words, more apparent evidence of toxic masculinity in the history books.

Yet Jesus shows that when we are attached in a healthy way to the one who cares first and foremost for our well-being, there is nothing to fear. The problem is that few of us know what healthy attachment looks like because we have never experienced it.

Catholic attachment-science expert Adam Lane Smith describes attachment as “a broad psychological term that defines the psychological, physiological, and neurological mechanisms through which humans bond within their social circles.”

The way we interact with loved ones, neighbours, and friends is shaped very early in our lives. Our first relationships form our understanding of healthy and unhealthy behaviour patterns. Smith believes that healing early negative experiences is possible — that with work and attention we can experience rewarding relationships marked by warmth and deep trust.

Jesus speaks to our attachment wounds throughout the Gospels. It is as if he spends his whole ministry addressing them in parables: “I know you couldn’t fully trust them, but you can trust me. I am the Good Shepherd. I will search for you when you are lost and alone. I will not leave you. You belong with me, safe and secure.”

Jesus gave us his Mother from the cross because he knew we would need her tenderness. He sent the Holy Spirit for our adoption because he knew we would need to call God “Daddy.” He instituted the Eucharist because he knew we would need the bread of heaven to sustain us.

A child’s place is securely nestled between its parents. Many of us probably didn’t feel that way.

Be still and know that I am God.   -Psalm 46:10

How much time do you spend in your mind, lost in world of racing thoughts concerning anything and everything but the present moment?

Do you find yourself habitually living in a state of anxious deliberation fueled by past ponderings or future fears— instead of being fully present to God, yourself and others?

Such unbridled thinking—which 12 Step Programs refer to as “stinking thinking’” and Buddhists call “the monkey mind”—literally keeps us “beside ourselves”—instead of resting with a centered awareness of both God’s within, and all around us.

Lately, I’ve become increasingly aware of how difficult it is to stay present to the present, of how quickly one can drift into a no man’s land of fearing, fretting, and fantasizing. This point was driven home last Sunday morning as I sat on the front porch of my sister’s Mississippi bungalow gazing contentedly at the sugar white beach and sparkling Gulf waters before my eyes. All was well with my soul as I enjoyed a contemplative moment of silence basking in the majesty of God’s creation and the hush of his calming presence.

With lightning speed, my thoughts turned to the day’s news of hurricanes, earthquakes and a potential war with North Korea, and just that fast — as though a switch had been flipped — a wave of adrenaline-fueled unrest washed over me. I was instantly aware that I had surrendered a beautiful moment of gratitude and peace-filled joy to a more familiar (and less healthy) state of mind: the anxious preoccupation with something external to me—something that pulled me off center and away from resting in God’s holy presence.

As the week went on, I began to take note of how much time I was spending off-kilter and outside of myself via chronic negative thinking, and how little time I was resting in God from moment to moment.

Glancing at the culture around us, it’s pretty apparent that I’m not alone in this problem.

So why is letting our thoughts run amok such a bad habit?  Because it keeps us living beside ourselves, instead of in what St. Paul called the “inner self”—the inmost center of our being that is made to “be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:16,19). It is only in the inner self, which Jesus called our “inner room” (Mt. 6:6) that we can truly come to know “the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” and experience the “breath and length and height and depth” of that love (Eph. 3:18).

Everyone wants that, right? So why do we avoid our inner room?

Because going into the inner self also means that we will go to the places that are weak, poor, wounded, and sinful—the painful places we need to enter with God, so he can save us, heal us, and fill us with his love and mercy.

The well-known Orthodox priest Fr. Josiah Trenham made waves on social media recently with a powerful message about what it means to live out one’s Christian faith in a broken world. Fr. Trenham is a father of 10 and the founder of Patristic Nectar, an outlet that aims to “bring the wealth of Sacred Tradition to a generation attuned to listening rather than reading.” 

Every person has a portion of the world given to them by Christ

to make beautiful.

For some, that portion might only be a cubicle, but that’s the cubicle where Jesus’ name must be glorified. And if you do that, you can change your world.

If people know that when they go by that cubicle, there’s a person there who loves them, who will stop what he’s doing to listen to them, and who will pray for them, the world around that cubicle can be radically changed. 

So, this is what I want my sons to do: I want them to be human beings … to be a human being means to live with God in everything. That’s what human beings were created to do.

Looking back, looking forward

I wish I had heard Fr. Trenham’s advice years ago when I worked in a cubicle. Back then, life often felt void of meaning. I’d like to think his wisdom would have inspired me to make my cubicle a warm, welcoming place with some cool artwork on the walls, perhaps a scented candle or two … maybe even a cozy chair in the corner. 

But most importantly, this ideal cubicle would have had me in it — fully present with a prayerful attitude, working hard, and welcoming my coworkers with a smile (and even a hug when appropriate). 

Sadly, I look back on my years in a cubicle as a time when I wasn’t in tune with all the beauty that was available to me. I shirked work and complained about my boss and coworkers. I also gossipped. A lot.

I look back on those years as a sad, wasted time when changing my ways and following Fr. Trenham’s advice would not only have had a positive impact on those around me, it would have made me happier and more fulfilled too. 

We live in an extroverted world, and as an introvert and a writer, I love the idea of shutting out the rest of the world for several hours each day to write about faith. I often find it beneficial to remember what the Prophet Elijah experienced in 1 Kings, 19:12 when he found God’s presence not in earthquake or fire but in “a light silent sound.” 

God speaks to us in those silences, which, in all the bustle and noise of modern life, can be hard to come by. As Catholics, our faith brings us to an experience of God through communal worship in the liturgy, as well as through parish life and the Works of Mercy. But for a Catholic introvert like me, it can be a challenge to find the balance between that active engagement with the world and the quiet contemplation I need to sustain me.

Fortunately, our faith connects us with the great Communion of Saints — all those holy souls who have gone before us and still offer us their wisdom and guidance in living a holy life. Whether or not any of them were true introverts is a question lost to history, but the saints can teach us valuable life lessons about how to be our best introverted, spiritual selves.

RELATED: How to Make Friends With a Saint

Saint Clare of Assisi

Clare lived an introverted expression of one of the more extroverted of religious orders, the Franciscans, who were actually among the first orders to reject the cloistered life. They begged in the streets, preached in the towns, and made themselves living examples of the Christ-centered life.

But Saint Clare and the sisters of her order (commonly known as the Poor Clares) lived in a cloister. This was more in keeping with the tradition of the day for all religious orders, men and women. Francis and his brothers were considered eccentric for the public nature of their lifestyle; for Clare and her sisters, it would have been scandalous. They were able to live out the Franciscan charism from within the cloister walls.

The Poor Clares, like their Franciscan brothers, were an order devoted to being public examples of a Gospel-centered life. And like Francis, Clare rejected the idea of the cloister as protection against the evils on the outside. It was a spiritual refuge – a place, as Jesus said, to withdraw to her inner sanctum, close the door, and pray to God in secret. For this Catholic introvert, my prayer time can be like that cloister — a place of quiet, solitary retreat when I need spiritual rejuvenation.

Saint John the Baptist

A fiery, outspoken prophet might seem like an odd example of an introverted saint.

Whether it’s your boyfriend, sister, or best friend, chances are you’ll disagree with someone about something sometime. What are some best practices for having fruitful conversations when you’re both firmly rooted on opposite sides of an issue? 

St. Ignatius has some tips for discernment that work well for resolving disagreements And these hold true whether you’re discussing climate change, where to send the kids to school, or what to do for dinner tonight.  

Before you’re able to discern properly, however, you need to make sure your head is in the right space. 

Father Warren Sazama attributes to St. Ignatius seven attitudes for authentic discernment: openness, generosity, courage, interior freedom, prayerful reflection and examination, having your priorities straight, and not confusing the means with the ends. If you don’t have these attitudes, it will not be possible to discern well. 

So how do these apply to disagreements? 

Openness means coming into a decision without preconceived ideas. This is especially important when you are arguing with someone because if you can’t listen to what he or she is saying, your conversation will be fruitless. If you enter the discussion assuming you know their position, you won’t listen and be able to truly discuss your differences. 

Generosity means that you have to be ready and willing to change, or at least to understand the other side. Often it is easier to argue the crazy opinion you think someone holds than to understand what they actually think and why they have come to believe that.  

Courage is important because what you are discerning (or in this case disagreeing about) may be emotionally charged and sharing your side may be unpopular. You’ll need to have courage to say what needs to be said. 

Interior freedom is necessary for discernment. You can’t be free if you dance around what God is calling you to and never fully commit. Or if you talk around the subject so much that you don’t ever focus on what needs to be done, you aren’t free either. Similarly, when you are disagreeing with someone, you have to get to the point and not fill the conversation with detours. And you aren’t doing either of you a service if you keep intentionally starting and stopping the conversation so that nothing real can be said. 

The fifth attitude is one of prayerful reflection — if you aren’t in the habit of reflecting on your life and praying regularly, you won’t be able to discern well. Prayer and reflection help form your thoughts and opinions, and thus directly affect your views on everything from political stances to questions of morality in daily life. Forming your own conscience well by examining it and by trying to listen to God better every day can only help you grow in wisdom.