Author: admin

“Love the Lord your God and love your neighbour as yourself.” 

This is pretty widely understood to be the end goal of the Christian life and, at a surface reading, it sounds pretty agreeable. What do we do when we find ourselves at the end of what used to be a fruitful and loving relationship? When we experience the pain of a falling out? The boundaries are so much harder to draw.

A good, close friend is easy to love. Loving an enemy is certainly more difficult, but if you don’t know them too well, you can abstract the enemy enough into someone you can accept in Christ. The most difficult place to love is in the person we were once close to but are no longer.

In 2022, I moved to a new city and immediately set myself to the task of trying to find a good new community. It wasn’t easy but I was lucky enough to fall into the company of a group of young Catholic men who were on fire for their faith, invested in fraternity, and generally speaking just a good time to be around. I really connected with one of these guys in particular and invited him into my life.

About a year later, some of the cracks started to show. It was clear there were ideological and theological differences, the kinds of things that seem stupid to argue about in retrospect but felt so important in the moment. It culminated in a very awkward situation, one that showed clearly which sides of the aisle we both stood on, and resulted in consequences that would be very difficult for us both to accept.

There was no dramatic breakoff point. It just became clear over time that the trust and depth and intimacy that used to be there wasn’t anymore. The relationship was broken. I forgave him and I’m sure he forgave me too; but things were still weird.

In the Christian world, it’s become almost a cliche at this point to state that forgiveness and reconciliation aren’t the same thing. That you can release someone from the bitterness and anger in your heart without rebuilding the friendship to be exactly where it was before. It’s a helpful distinction; but it breaks down when we try to figure out how we’re going to live when we’re still in each others’ lives. I didn’t cut myself off from my friend and he didn’t cut himself off from me either. We were in the same community, often attending Masses in the same Parish. We were going to have to live here with one another. How could we find peace with that?

It was a sunny, pleasant Saturday on the second of November. I found myself in a graveyard, leaning my wet cheek against the jacketed shoulder of Nathan, my fiancé of two months. Tears were spilling out of my eyes, and my heart ached, though I had never met the woman whose grave we were looking at. It was All Souls Day, a day in the Catholic Church (November 2nd, the day after All Saints Day) where we remember the dead and pray for their souls. We decided to visit the gravesite of Nathan’s late Oma, who passed away during Nathan’s high school years. As we stood and looked at her burial place, a surprising depth of emotion welled in my heart. Although I felt empathetic to what Nathan might be feeling, I also related some of this emotion to unprocessed grief from the death of my long-distance grandmother just the year before, whose grave I had yet to see.

The gentle tears soon changed into heavy chest sobs that were begging to be released. I took a moment to sit alone in the car and pray. I realized, as I processed, that I have felt this particular ache before. It has shown up when I have sat and listened to the story of a parent who had suddenly lost their child in an accident, or when I’ve looked after cancer patients who were fighting for more time with their children. I’ve also experienced this gut-wrenching pang after helping patients whose babies have tragically died in their wombs.

This ache of witnessing death and grief always produces a refrain in my heart over and over: we were not made for this.

And friends, this is true.

We were not made for death.

Death, separation from God, was a direct result of the fall of Adam and Eve, of humanity choosing sin over relationship.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” Romans 5:12

Last year I was working through some grief in a particular sorrowful mystery of my life. When I brought my heart to the Lord and asked Him, “if you love me, why would you let this happen when you know how much it means to me?” I felt Him whispering “remember My character”. The purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to enable a path for us to live eternally, with Him. Our God is not a God of death, but of life. That’s who He is. That is His character. He is the God of sunsets, fresh flowers, babies, warm soup, laughter, intimacy, and so much more.

This past summer, my family found ourselves in that familiar late-May whirlwind. My husband and I are both educators, and that whirlwind included final grades, forgotten lunchboxes, back-to-back recitals, parish festivals, Scout meetings, and overlapping calendar invites. And while the liturgical calendar forms our spiritual lives, I admit it’s the school calendar that sets the tempo of our days. My entire family feels scattered — emotionally, spiritually, even physically. Some weeks, it seems like the four of us barely see each other in the same room.

We desperately needed something to pull us back together.

One Sunday evening, we started small. We sat on the couch, lit a candle, and opened some little journals I’d picked up. My husband and I offered a few simple prompts, and we each wrote our answers: What were your roses this week? What were your thorns? Where did you see God? How do you wish you had acted better? What would you like to change in the week ahead?

Then we ended with a prayer. Sometimes an Our Father, a Hail Mary, or a Glory Be. Sometimes one of our kids recites a Bible verse they’ve been memorizing. We offer up our hopes and ask: How might we change, appreciate more, and do better next week? We called this practice our “End-of-School Examen.” It wasn’t planned as a long-term ritual — just a much-needed pause amid the end-of-year storm. But it gave us space to reflect, reconnect, and remember what matters. And it helped us start noticing where God had been all along. He had always been there with us in the whispers before school music recitals, in those rare teamwork moments of cleaning up spilled juice at breakfast together, and, most importantly, in the here and now tired joy of our family finally all in the same room at the same time, taking the time to be together and be with God, too.

As summer settled in, the Examen naturally slipped away. Our evenings slowed. We had more time to connect in other ways — swimming in the neighborhood pool, playing Crazy Eights at the kitchen table, simply being together. But as the new school year crept closer, that old familiar tension returned: How would we carry the peace of summer into the storm of the school year?

There was so much to do: back-to-school bashes. Music lessons. Meet-the-teacher nights. Religious education signups. Everything was revving back up again. And I found myself wondering: Would the rhythms of the academic calendar drown out the rhythms of the Spirit? So, in these past few weeks, we brought back our Examen — with a new purpose.

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Jer 20:7-9
Second Reading: Rom 12:1-2
Gospel Reading: Mt 16:21-27

Baptized humans live two different kinds of life in two different worlds. The first is our natural life, which God gives us through our parents. It begins with our conception and is nourished by food. The world in which we live it consists of what we can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.

The other is our supernatural life, God’s life, which he gives us through his Church. It begins with our Baptism, which the Church calls our re-birth, and is nourished by the Holy Eucharist. The world in which we live it cannot be perceived by our senses: we live it largely by faith and trust.

“Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see,” says the Letter to the Hebrews.

From this Sunday’s Readings, it seems that there has always been conflict between the two kinds of life.

Jesus reproaches Peter for “thinking not as God does, but as humans do,” even though Peter has just recognized Jesus as “the Son of the living God.”

Jeremiah says that for him, “the word of the Lord” has become “a reproach and a derision,” making him “a laughingstock all day long.”

It is a conflict that we have to recognize. We must “reacquire the consciousness of belonging to a minority” that is opposed to the spirit of the world, said Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, in The Ratzinger Report. We must “find again the courage of nonconformism, the capacity to oppose many of the trends of the surrounding culture.”

That courage is something we have to teach our children, for Catholicism is not simply an “add-on” to our natural human life.

“Do not be conformed to this world,” St. Paul urges, “but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”

In explaining the title of his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis says the following.

“The English poet William Blake wrote The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure of what he meant.

“But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable “either-or”; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain.

Waiting for Hugh Freiberg outside Gilmore Park United Church in Richmond, I didn’t know what to expect. It was late, but the sun was still peeking out, and I knew we were going out to deliver food to Richmond’s homeless population with the Food Delivery Coalition, which Hugh co-founded. I knew that St. Paul’s and St. Joseph the Worker Parishes in Richmond were involved with the ministry. I knew Hugh is a parishioner at St. Joseph the Worker, and I knew that he was a grandfather. Otherwise, nothing else.  

Hugh was taking me out on his last delivery run. He was retiring from the helm of the Food Coalition after 14 years of bringing food to the homeless population of Richmond. Honestly, I imagined a pretty strait-laced ministry man; I thought maybe he’d drive a van and wear conservative clothes. When he pulled up in a Dodge Ram pick-up truck loaded with food, tattoos peeking out from under his T-shirt sleeves, with a long goatee on his chin, my idea of what “church ministry people” looked like had to stretch a bit.

None of this mattered. Hugh was friendly, driven, and direct. Almost before I could ask any questions, we were pulling up to a nearby house to deliver some hot dogs, watermelon and water.  

The man at the house wasn’t technically homeless, but his situation was precarious, and Hugh believed he needed help. “His family’s from Yugoslavia,” Hugh told me as we watched him walk across the yard. “He’s got a messed up right arm as you can see – he can’t feed himself; he can’t cook, he can’t do anything.”  

Hugh and the man talked while I stay in the truck – he didn’t want photos taken, and I didn’t know how he’d respond to the idea that I was going to write about the evening.  

The man was grateful, and as we watched him walk back inside, Hugh tells me he is worried that after his retirement, guys like this will fall through the cracks. “[Outreach workers] try to focus only on the homeless,” he says. “But he’s previously homeless, a victim of slumlords [Hugh estimates there are 15 people living in the house, better described as a dump, all paying around $1000 a month in rent], and disabled – he has huge gratitude.”  

This set the tone for the evening.  

Until recently, Hugh lived in Richmond, but he was born in Saskatchewan. His family moved around, first to Edmonton, then the Lower Mainland, and back to Edmonton. He eventually settled in Vancouver in 1992.

When I’m tired and overwhelmed, what I most crave is being comforted by someone who is both gentle and steady. The kind of person who makes you feel calm just by looking at you. This is what it’s like to read Rediscovering Rest, the new 30-day devotional, written by Hannah Chartier. 

Rediscovering Rest is split into 30 daily readings, and each reading concludes with questions for practical application. It’s perfect if you’re feeling overwhelmed or short for time, because each reflection is both brief and potent. Each day, Hannah reflects on Scripture, Church documents, stories from her personal testimony, and the writings of saints like Pope Saint John Paul II or modern geniuses like Cardinal Sarah. The devotional is written in a heartwarming manner, but it avoids platitudes. If you’re feeling shaky, Hannah’s writing offers the steadiness of Gospel Truth. 

Throughout Rediscovering Rest, Hannah draws from her own experiences of exhaustion and toddler-induced sleep deprivation. Hannah’s sometimes confessional reflections on what it is like to feel desperate for rest amid relentless circumstances (parenting toddlers!) give this devotional its unique perspective. I appreciated her meditations on how being vulnerable before God and humbly admitting our weaknesses is a pathway to being filled with “abundant life.” It gave me hope to read her personal accounts of deep tiredness being met by God’s divine intervention and healing providence. 

Here’s one of my favorite excerpts (from Day 13), where Hannah describes how God provided for her, after a morning of despairing exhaustion:

“I walked out to the back of the orchard… asking myself why we had even come. Most of the fruit on the trees had gone bad, or the trees were bare. But then, right at the back of the orchard, were rows upon rows of untouched trees, drooping with beautiful, ripe cherries. I suddenly felt gleeful, my exhaustion forgotten… Sitting there, surrounded by an abundance of cherries, I was struck by the overwhelming goodness of God. He was showing me, in real time, what abundant life looked like.” 

Rediscovering Rest also reminds the reader that we do not live in a merely natural world. Reality is supernatural. Our God is the King of the Universe, and even when it seems like our exhaustion is naturally insurmountable, God provides supernatural antidotes. He desires that you receive deep and consoling rest, no matter where you are. This is the resounding message of Rediscovering Rest. Tribulations and tiredness are an inescapable part of life, and this devotional will give you the vision you need to remain renewed even when your natural circumstances are troubling. 

I pray that this devotional leads you to a greater sense of the “peace that surpasses all understanding,” just as it did for me.

Many of us struggle to rest. Busy with work and parenting, stressful family situations and endless social opportunities lead us to feel like rest is the last thing on our to-do list. Yet, somewhere deep inside, we know this lifestyle isn’t sustainable. There’s a yearning in our hearts for true, deep rest – something that won’t just happen after one night sleep or by putting our phone away for an evening. 

It requires a shift in our priorities. It requires us to stop pushing rest to the side as yet another thing we will “do” when we have time. It is time to build our lives on rest, instead of on productivity and busyness. 

This shift is illustrated in the story of Mary and Martha. Jesus visits the sisters and Martha rushes around getting things done, while Mary sits at the feet of Jesus, allowing her body, mind and soul to be refreshed in His presence. Jesus calls Martha out, says these words “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.” 

Only one thing is needed: to sit at the feet of Jesus. This is the center, the foundation of living a life of rest. 

But what does that mean? 

Many saints have written about what it means to live a life of active contemplation. Contemplation, simply defined, is peaceful awareness of God’s presence within our hearts. Active contemplation means that we are cultivating this practice, not just in our morning prayer time, but throughout our activities of the day. In the words of St. Francis De Sales: “A thousand times in the day offer your soul to Him; fix your inward eyes upon His sweetness…” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Ch. 13) 

If we understand true deep rest as the refreshment of body, mind and soul in God’s presence, then active contemplation is how we build a life that is centered on rest. 

It’s not a quick fix. Most of us keep our minds and hearts occupied with tasks, entertainment, worries and a thousand other things. But the rest we crave will only come if we slowly build our mental and spiritual capacity for being aware of God’s presence. This continual return to Jesus is the remedy for our fractured, tired lives: “No matter what state we are in, if we let ourselves go [to Jesus], we shall rest in the hollow of his neck… that’s where he adds, ‘I will be your rest.’” – Catherine Doherty, “Thoughts on the Little Mandate”, 1969 unpublished 

Growing in the awareness that God is with us in our immediate circumstances will help us to see what things in our lives keep us stuck in physical, mental and spiritual exhaustion.

I always imagine that summertime will be relaxing, with days spent luxuriating on my front porch in the sun, drinking a few beers around a campfire with my friends, and packing up the car for camping trips with my kids that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Reality is often much less idyllic. Between church events, weekends away, ceaseless BBQ invitations, and the glum reality that I still have to go to work even when the weather is nice, summer can feel more like a jumble of commitments, an endless race from place to place.

In the middle of the chaos, usually the first things to go are those disciplines that, in more stable times, keep me anchored to Christ and living from a place of deep relationship with Him. The slow mornings I spend by candlelight with my Bible in the dark of winter are replaced by mad dashes to get work done early enough to enjoy the afternoon sun. Carefully planned and prepared Sabbath days replaced by road trips home from a camping weekend.

Many of these things are good – events and commitments I look forward to all year, especially when my driveway is buried under a mountain of snow. Still, I often wish that my relationship with God wasn’t so easily derailed, not by sin but by lack of routine.

What I need in this season is not a more dogged commitment to my Google Calendar but simple, portable rhythms, rituals, and routines that slowly, quietly, but meaningfully redirect my gaze to meet the loving gaze of Jesus Christ. Jesus was no stranger to busyness and interruption. While my relationship with the Father often rests on a sense of stability and structure, Jesus sought the Father in any quiet, deserted place He could find. It’s in this season that we most need “portable disciplines” like the ones Jesus had even in the chaos of the crowds and a life on the road.

Through the years, there are a few things that have stuck that, while not always feeling as rich as my disciplines in steadier seasons, keep me rooted in God’s ever present love.

Short Morning Prayer

I love a long morning devotional time, with a cup of coffee and extended silence. On a weekend away, or even just at the start of a busy day, I’ve learned to be okay with short prayers. God is generous and understanding and even if we can’t give Him an hour of dedicated time, He still wants to spend some time with us. On these busy summer days, sometimes my prayer time just looks like an Our Father prayed slowly and with intention.

Virtues are something that all Catholics should strive to cultivate in our lives. In this series, Patrick Macken explores how these virtues are lived out in the world of professional sports.

Humility

In a 1979 Angelus talk, St. Pope John Paul II referred to humility as the true foundation of human greatness which required profound inner strength. We need to be aware that all of our gifts and abilities are on loan. Humility is the absence of pride and arrogance — it is giving credit to God over self. 

In sports, humility manifests itself by giving credit to teammates, accepting the role you are asked to play, respecting the developmental process as well as remaining coachable and open to learning. Sadly, we see very little of this in professional sports now: the in-your-face celebrations after scoring a touchdown in football, the embarrassing bat flick after hitting a home run in baseball, or players standing over their opponent after performing a slam dunk in the NBA. Even seeing players publicly scold their coach for how they were utilized or how much they were played is unfortunate. 

Players are being told by their agents that the crowd wants to see bravado and conflict. This means more money for all. I personally believe that many fans would prefer to see more humble, selflessness, courage and respectful athletes. 

I should clarify that arrogance, which is bad, is not the same as confidence which is good. This is a belief in what God can do through us. 

Here are a few examples of humble athletic personalities from the present and past with some of their thoughts on humility.

Football 

Fernando Mendoza, Heisman trophy winner: This devout Catholic overcame long odds to lead his team to the National Championship in 2025. He is known for emphazing that his success is due to his faith, family and teammates. He sees his role as a responsibility rather than an ego-driven endeavour. In his Heisman Trophy speech, Mendoza quoted: “Toughness doesn’t need to be loud, it can be quiet and strong” (John O’Leary).

Barry Sanders, NFL Hall of Fame: Sandres was an incredible running back for the Detroit Lions. He far preferred to talk about the team and their accomplishments rather than his own. After scoring his many touchdowns, he was well known for simply giving the ball back to the referee without any celebrations.

Hockey 

Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Vancouver Canucks and NHL Hall of Fame: These two were considered great leaders, yet they always acted with class in the best interest of the team. They accepted a lower salary to allow for the team to get better and were known for deflecting attention away from themselves towards other teammates.

In my last column, I reflected on some general insights from Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity). I now wish to explore the five main takeaways from the “Conclusion” to this document: truth, education, relationships, justice and peace, and rebuilding. 

The topic of Artificial Intelligence is admittedly overwhelming. While I appreciate many conveniences of technology, immediate and often incorrect AI responses to simple Internet searches and inaccurate transcripts for online videos, fill me with fear for the future. Therefore, I appreciate our Pope’s hope-filled offerings in this rapidly changing world. Four paragraphs in his encyclical’s “Conclusion” begin with the imperative “Let us…”, as he shares ways to follow our Christian call and “assume an active role” in building the Kingdom of God (MH, 236). 

Paragraph 237 exclaims, “Let us remain faithful to the truth!” Even though algorithms and digital content can offer information, Pope Leo reminds us that we must “prefer what is right despite the most appealing content” and “immediate results” (MH, 237). The Holy Spirit’s Gift of Wisdom allows us to seek and love the truth. While computers can hold data and can be programmed to generate answers, AI does not have the ability to discern due to the absence of conscience.

In the First Book of Kings, we hear that the voice of God was not heard in the noise of wind, earthquakes or fire, but was recognized in a “tiny whispering sound” (1 Kings 19:12). Bishop Barron reflected on this small voice, namely our conscience. He reminded us that our “objective moral values” allow us to recognize right from wrong, making us proud of our good choices and resulting in shame when we choose poorly. Pope Leo acknowledges that technology is a current reality, but likewise states, “fidelity to the truth requires integrating the possibilities offered by technology within a framework marked by wisdom” (MH, 237). To remain faithful to the truth, we must follow God’s voice and our consciences – our objective moral values – to consider multiple points of view, to choose fact over opinion, and to discover the nuances in documents, conversations and situations, as only human beings created in the image and likeness of God can do. 

Paragraph 238 begins with the imperative, “Let us invest in education, beginning with ourselves!” As a schoolteacher, this command resonates with me. Not only must I challenge my students to evaluate information, using their consciences, I must constantly do so myself. I must challenge myself to stay current with new platforms and research methods. Pope Leo states, “We all need to learn how to engage with the digital world in a human way … we must consider the digital world as a new continent to be evangelized” (MH, 238).