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Thirteen young people from the Archdiocese of Vancouver will join more than half a million others from 146 countries in Rome this week for the Jubilee of Youth, part of the Church’s Jubilee Year celebrations.

The Vancouver pilgrims include individuals and groups from Holy Rosary Cathedral, St. Patrick’s, and St. Andrew’s parishes in Vancouver, and St. Peter’s in New Westminster. They gathered July 11 at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre for Mass and a reflection session to prepare spiritually for the pilgrimage.

They will be among some 1,000 Canadian youth expected at the July 28–Aug. 3 events, which include a special Canadian gathering July 29 at Sant’Andrea della Valle Church. The two-hour celebration will feature a youth-led welcome, bilingual Scripture readings, faith-sharing, musical performances, and witness panels with youth and bishops. It will conclude with a commissioning prayer and symbolic sending forth.

Several Canadian bishops, along with priests, deacons, religious sisters and brothers, and lay leaders, will be present. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has invited the faithful across the country to pray for the young pilgrims as they seek to deepen their relationship with Christ and offer a powerful witness to the Church’s life in Canada and around the world.

While 68 per cent of attendees will be from Europe, young people will be coming from four other continents and from war zones and areas of serious conflict, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, a pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, said July 23.

“Essentially, this moment of celebration and joy also aims to embrace all young people around the world, indicating that it will be a genuine moment of peace and peace-building in the world,” he said at a Vatican news conference.

“I am thinking in particular of the Christian young people of Ukraine, the Middle East, Syria, Gaza, and Iran,” said Lamberto Giannini, Rome’s prefect, who coordinates maintaining law and order in the city. The seven-day event during the Jubilee of Hope will be “in communion with all of them, because it is for them above all that hope is offered today, and not just any hope, but as we have been taught, the hope that does not disappoint,” he said.

The Vatican news conference featured representatives of the Italian national, regional, and local governments, as well as police and civil protection authorities. They provided many details about what is slated to be the largest of all the jubilee celebrations scheduled for the Holy Year, which has drawn nearly 17 million people so far, the archbishop said.

Shortly after being ordained a deacon, I was asked by my pastor to put together a presentation on the sacraments. Working my way through the task, I came to a point where I needed to produce a slide on what it is that the sacraments provide. That gift, in special abundance, is of course God’s amazing and life-giving grace. 

At that moment, I froze. Had I looked in a mirror, I’m certain I would have seen myself looking like a deer in headlights. Of course, I knew that grace is good. If I were to ask just about anyone if they wanted a bountiful helping of God’s grace, that answer would be in the high affirmative. That said, I found myself at a loss as to how to explain what grace is. Grace seemed to be one of those things that is easier to internalize than it is to explain.

Sure, had I been asked at that time by a parishioner what grace was, I’m confident that I would have been able to tap dance my way to some kind of answer. I likely would’ve responded with something like: It is a gift from God. It is good and will make us better disciples. It will make us happier humans. But I knew that this response was sub-par. There had to be a better way to describe what grace truly is. 

Desiring not to ever poorly shuffle my way through an explanation of something so important, I set out on a mission to come up with a succinct and relatable description of God’s grace.

After analyzing the many definitions of the various types of grace, (Sanctifying, Actual, Sacramental, etc), I came up even more deer-dazed than when I started. But then, I found it, a best-in-class explanation of grace. Confidence immediately replaced my grace-related trepidation. Before me was something that I not only understood, but also something that I could easily share with others.

It came from the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” paragraph 1996, and reads,

Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the Divine Nature and of eternal life.

This short, yet comprehensive definition breaks down into three grace-related truths:

1. Grace is free and undeserved

“Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help God gives us…” Short and sweet, what this tells us is that although we don’t deserve this great gift of grace, God desires to pour it out on us. All we have to do is recognize, accept, and participate within it. Perhaps the greatest example of this is recognizing and believing in Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and participating in it at the altar of the Mass.

In this episode we talk about how to thrive during the summer, when we aren’t in our normal schedules. We chat about some strategies to continue growing in our relationship with God and flourish in whatever situation we are in. We focus on the categories of rest, play, prayer, connection, beauty, self care, and community. We hope you enjoy this conversation.

If you’d like to host a coffee time, lunch, or dinner with a few women, here are some questions to put on the table to spark some good conversation.

Discussion Questions

1. How can I more deeply connect with the people God has entrusted to me and with the Lord this summer?

2. What is most important to me to have as foundations that will rightly order the rest of my day?

3. How does God want you to play this summer in ways that feed your heart and allow you to receive His joy?

4. How can you cultivate the discipline of pausing for beauty and holy wonder?

Journal Questions

1. What is my spiritual plan this summer?

2. Where am i growing with the Lord?

3. What does it look like for me to have ongoing fellowship with the Holy Spirit?

4. What do I need to do for self care this summer?

Quote to Ponder

“Vacation time offers the unique opportunity to pause before the thought-provoking spectacles of nature, a wonderful ‘book’ within reach of everyone, adults and children. In contact with nature, a person rediscovers his correct dimension, rediscovers himself as a creature, small but at the same time unique with a ‘capacity for God’ because interiorly he is open to the infinite” —Pope Benedict XVI

About eight years ago, I went to confession with a Dominican priest in a gorgeous chapel in Nashville, Tennessee. Despite the beautiful architecture that framed this sacramental encounter, I was distressed. I couldn’t, for the life of me, stick to any sort of consistent prayer life, I told the priest who sat across from me in his flowing white cassock. My commitment to any sort of focused prayer time – even just 10 minutes of undivided attention for Jesus! – was fraught with laziness, forgetfulness and a persistent lack of prioritization. I would repeatedly renew my commitment to a personal prayer time, but I would never make it more than a few days before I missed a day of prayer. 

This priest – whose name I do not know – will forever be endeared to me for his American directness. 

“What time do you get up in the morning?” 

“Oh, well, I don’t have a set time that I get up each day. It really depends on what’s happening in my life.” 

“Well that won’t work. If you want to be holy, you need to pick a time to get up each morning.” 

That day in confession was an epiphany for me. Through his serious tone, kind heart and direct words, that Dominican priest woke me up to the seriousness of having a routine for holiness.

He clarified for me that one does not spontaneously become a saint. Grace is abundant and we are utterly dependent on the grace of God, but in order to become saints, we need to actively work with grace. A practical way that we can work with grace is to commit to a routine that draws us to Jesus. 

This principle of routine that the Dominican priest introduced to me, I later came to know as a “rule of life.” 

Having a “rule of life” is a Catholic tradition wherein a person selects a set of commitments or “rules” to follow each day in order to consistently grow closer to Jesus. Most religious orders follow a detailed rule of life that governs when they get up, what prayers and for how long they pray each day, meal times, etc. For the laity, we are generally not called to live a religious-style rule of life. However, the principle of having unchanging commitments that ensure that we remain in a momentum of holiness is just as critical for the laity as it is for a priest, religious or consecrated person.

My life has often been akin to what we all experience during the summer holidays: lots of flux and irregularities and spontaneity. Yet even amid summertime vacation or an irregular lifestyle,  having a rule of life transforms the question of “will I pray?”

CAMROSE — Kevin Keech never expected a detour into the Catholic Church when he first pursued a career in policing, let alone a call to serve at the altar. But after years of discernment and personal trials, the retired Camrose police sergeant will be ordained to the permanent diaconate on July 22 at St. Joseph’s Basilica in Edmonton.

Bishop Paul Terrio, retired bishop of the Diocese of St. Paul, will preside over the ceremony. Keech is one of three men being ordained that day and will serve at his home parish, St. Francis Xavier in Camrose, where he and his family have been active for many years. He joins a growing group of 36 permanent deacons serving the Archdiocese of Edmonton.

Keech’s faith journey began in childhood with a Protestant upbringing, followed by years spent largely outside the Church. His return to faith took root after meeting Amelia, the devout Catholic woman he would eventually marry in 1990.

“She kindly invited me to tag along” to Easter liturgies, he recalled. “My introduction to the Easter Triduum was as a non-practising Lutheran who had not attended a church in years. What a surprise it was!”

Their growing family — daughters Megan, Letisha, and Kayla — was the centre of their life together. But it was a near-fatal work accident in 1994 that caused Keech to question the trajectory of his life. He began to discern whether God was calling him toward something deeper.

In 2000, Keech became Catholic. Yet even after entering the Church, faith was not a quick fix.

“I still had an incredibly stressful career to contend with,” he said. “The stress of the job had built up … I struggled to find balance in work, marriage, and family life.”

Eventually, with help from his parish priest and the sacraments, he began to rebuild.

One of the hidden influences during those difficult years was his mother-in-law Maria. “Parishioners referred to her as a prayer warrior,” he said. “I realized that she had been my silent spiritual director.”

Following her death in 2019, Keech began to sense a new prompting — one he believes Maria had quietly interceded for. “It was during my morning prayer routine on several consecutive days that I began to feel a strong calling to the diaconate,” he said. “I felt as if what Maria wanted to tell me on earth was now coming via the Holy Spirit in a way I could no longer ignore.”

He retired from his second career in information technology and applied to the archdiocese’s diaconate formation program in 2020.

“Here I am Lord, I come to do your will,” he said.

OTTAWA — As the Jubilee Year of Hope unfolds, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has released a video and pastoral resources to mark the fifth World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, July 27.

Developed by the CCCB’s Office for Family and Life, the initiative invites parishes, families, and communities across Canada to recognize the elderly not as symbols of decline, but as vibrant carriers of faith and hope.

Filmed in St. John’s, Newfoundland, the promotional video highlights the importance of intergenerational relationships between children and grandparents — both biological and spiritual. It acknowledges the reality of children living far from their grandparents and the creative ways communications technology helps maintain those bonds.

The campaign is anchored in the message of Pope Francis for this year’s World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. The annual observance, instituted by the Pope in 2021, is held on or near the feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne — the grandparents of Jesus — celebrated July 26.

In his message, Pope Francis encourages both society and the Church to see the elderly as the pinnacle of life — those whose wisdom forms the foundation for a better future.

“Embracing the elderly helps us to understand that life is more than just the present moment, and should not be wasted in superficial encounters and fleeting relationships,” he wrote. “Instead, life is constantly pointing us toward the future.”

“Christian hope always urges us to be more daring, to think big, to be dissatisfied with things the way they are. In this case, it urges us to work for a change that can restore the esteem and affection to which the elderly are entitled,” he said.

In Catholic tradition, the elderly are seen as guardians of memory and faith — witnesses to hope who quietly shape the spiritual fabric of families and communities. The CCCB video and resources underscore this role, drawing attention to the value of intergenerational bonds rooted in trust, prayer, and mutual care.

To turn reflection into action, the CCCB is offering resources to enrich both family and parish life. Families are encouraged to organize storytelling sessions with elderly relatives, create spiritual bouquets, and light candles for their intentions.

Parishes are invited to offer blessings for grandparents at all Masses July 27, invoke the intercession of Sts. Joachim and Anne, and consider launching initiatives such as “adopt-a-grandparent” programs, coffee gatherings, novenas, or a dedicated Ministry for Grandparents.

These pastoral ideas echo Pope Francis’s call for a “revolution of tenderness and care” to help “restore hope and dignity to those who feel forgotten.”

This day is a reminder that hope is not reserved for the young or the strong.

It’s been a busy few weeks, so we’re taking this space to catch up on recent letters, including some farewells and welcomes for Archbishop Miller and Archbishop Smith. — Editor

 I congratulate Archbishop J. Michael Miller for his foresight and the initiatives he introduced to foster vocations in our Archdiocese.

As a past president of the Serra Club of Vancouver, I saw how his strategy of appointing young priests as vocation directors helped build strong, authentic relationships with youth. With Serra Club support, these directors visited schools and parishes, promoting a culture of vocations.

Fathers James Hughes and Mark Schwab stood out for their charisma and dedication. The founding of Redemptoris Mater Seminary and the St. John Vianney Fund further strengthened vocational growth, inviting seminarians from around the world.

What a legacy Archbishop Miller leaves after 18 years of pastoral leadership.

Cleto Dos Remedios
Vancouver

The parishioners of Pembroke, Ont., were blessed to have Archbishop Richard Smith — then Bishop Smith — as our shepherd. I understand what the people of Edmonton must feel in saying goodbye to a good bishop.

I now pray that Our Blessed Mother will wrap her arms around Archbishop Smith as he begins his new mission in Vancouver, leading her Son’s flock with strength and love.

Susan Dagenais
Pembroke

Catholics across the Archdiocese are invited to pray, fast, and witness to human dignity.

The first 40 Days for Life campaign in Vancouver began in 2010 through a collaboration of Catholic and pro-life leaders, including Betty Green, John Hof, and Cecilia Von Dehn, with support from the Archdiocese. 

Archbishop Miller’s 2010 letter encouraged us to be “ardent witnesses to the dignity of human life,” and Father Larry Lynn, our pro-life chaplain, continues to lead with compassion and clarity.

Today, all 77 parishes have been invited to participate. Whether by joining the vigil at 32nd and Willow, hosting Eucharistic adoration, or praying the Reverence for Life prayer, every effort unites us in responding to 2 Chronicles 7:14.

Could The B.C. Catholic help spark renewed interest in parishes that haven’t yet joined? This is the largest coordinated pro-life witness in the world — and well worth promoting.

Nancy Lim
Member, 40 Days for Life Coordinating Team
Vancouver

When the Archdiocese moved its central office from Robson Street, the homeless shelter remained on site for another seven years thanks to Archbishop Miller, who secured an agreement with the developer to keep the doors open until new accommodations were found.

That meant 100 to 120 homeless men had a warm bed every night and coffee in the morning. Yes, the freight elevator sometimes failed, the ceiling leaked, the washers broke, and staff worked through power outages by flashlight.

Do you struggle to handle criticism well? Do you get defensive even when you know there’s room to grow? 

Fr. Mike Schmitz discusses how to handle criticism, exploring three primary approaches: denial, acceptance, and gratitude. He emphasizes the importance of discerning what part of the criticism is true, acknowledging those truths, and discarding the falsehoods to avoid unnecessary self-condemnation.

In a message for Sea Sunday, Cardinal Michael Czerny acknowledged that while seafarers witness the “boundless beauty” of the seas, they also endure its “physical, spiritual, and social darkness.”

The Catholic Church observes Sea Sunday on the second Sunday of July each year, praying and advocating for seafarers and all who work at sea.

Ahead of this year’s observance, Cardinal Czerny, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, released a reflection on the often-overlooked labour of seafarers.

He began by highlighting the millions of workers in the maritime industry — from ship crews to dockworkers, coast guard personnel, and customs officers — whose “hidden efforts,” he wrote, bring many of our daily necessities to shore.

“Today as well as in the past,” he wrote, “seafaring can entail absence from home and land, for months and even years. Both the seafarers and their families may miss significant moments in the other’s life.”

In addition to long separations, many seafarers are “threatened by injustices, exploitation, and inequality,” the Cardinal said.

He also praised the Church’s seafarers’ ministry, which provides pastoral care and advocates for the rights of maritime workers. Known internationally as Stella Maris — Latin for “Star of the Sea,” an ancient title for the Blessed Virgin Mary — the ministry operates in hundreds of ports around the world.

This “ministry of the sea,” Czerny wrote, helps “bring the peripheral into the centre” by encountering maritime workers in person and in prayer, improving their material and spiritual conditions, defending their dignity and rights, and promoting stronger international cooperation.

In the second half of his message, Cardinal Czerny reflected on two episodes in Church history connected to the sea.

First, he recalled the Apostle Paul’s journey to Corinth — a major port city — where Paul found a large following but soon faced divisions within the new Christian community. Czerny said Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians offers encouragement today to “work for increased unity, not only among people who are different from each other, but also among people who are experiencing division and mutual tensions.”

He also noted how the sea has long served as a channel for evangelization. “The Church today,” he wrote, “can draw inspiration from the inhabitants of shoreside communities who were the first to hear the utterly new message of Christ from seafaring apostles and other missionaries.”

“We cannot,” Czerny concluded, “be open to life’s possibilities if we prefer the comforts of the familiar.”

In the Archdiocese of Vancouver, parishes are invited to include seafarers, as well as port chaplains and volunteers who support them, in the prayers of the faithful.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has issued a two-page Note on Prayer for the Jubilee of Hope. The note, written by the bishops’ Commission for Doctrine, outlines characteristics and forms of Christian prayer, and concludes by sharing prayer resources, compiled by the bishops’ Ad hoc Committee for the Jubilee.

Published as part of the CCCB’s ongoing efforts to encourage spiritual renewal during the jubilee year, the document invites the faithful to rediscover the heart of Christian life through prayer. 

It offers a reflection on how prayer connects believers more deeply with God and one another, and emphasizes that prayer is rooted in trust and hope.

This resource forms part of a wider national initiative to encourage participation in the jubilee, proclaimed by Pope Francis for 2025.

A Note on Prayer

Prayer is a universal human activity. It can be found in every country, in every period of human history, at every age of life. It expresses the awareness of a relationship with a Being greater than oneself, distinct from oneself, present within oneself.

Christian prayer is clearly marked by faith in God who has made himself known, not only as the Creator of the universe, but as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The faithful pray to the Father through the Son in the Spirit.

We learn to pray, just as we learn to speak, walk or sing. The Gospel offers a profound insight into this. Impressed by Jesus’ prayer, the disciples ask him to teach them how to pray: he teaches them the “Our Father,” with its two poles: God and humanity. Several other Gospel passages show Jesus at prayer, in close contact with his Father (abba = dad), jubilant under the action of the Holy Spirit (Mt 11:25–27), in anguish before death (Lk 22:39–46), and confident on the Cross (Mt 27:46; Lk 23:46). The great prayer recounted in chapter 17 of Saint John’s Gospel reveals the heart of Christ.

Prayer is personal, that is, it expresses and enriches the faith of each person, unique and precious in God’s eyes. It is also communal, since it is lived in union with others, whether physically or spiritually present, those living in this world and those who have already entered into eternity. It is spiritual:

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” (Rom 8:26)

Prayer takes on different hues: adoration before God’s unfathomable mystery, thanksgiving for his countless and unceasing benefits, petition in the face of daily difficulties, intercession for our sisters and brothers in humanity. It can be vocal (out loud), mental (in the mind through meditation); the body participates (seated to listen; kneeling to adore and implore), eyes closed and recollected.