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I was greatly encouraged by Father Hawkswell’s article in the Jan. 20 edition entitled “Worship as one body.” 

We should indeed be united in our worship and follow the guidelines of our bishops, as described in The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM), which can also be found on the Canadian bishops’ website, cccb.ca. 

The word Catholic means universal, so the more we deviate from the guidelines of our bishops and make up our own individual rubrics, the less Catholic we become. I think it important for all priests, choir directors, and all involved in the leadership of liturgy to be familiar with the GIRM.

I was glad that Father Hawkswell emphasized the importance of silence in our liturgical worship. Silence during Mass renews our sense of wonder and is essential for effective contemplative and meditative prayer. When I was a teenager, it was the silence during Holy Communion that led to moments of deeper conversion and a maturing of my faith. I would argue that it is only in silence that a conversion to Christ is possible.

So my plea to my fellow Catholics is: please don’t deprive us of silence in church. Our lives are already noisy enough. We do not need to fill every second of the Eucharistic celebration with sound. “Even before the celebration itself, it is a praiseworthy practice for silence to be observed in the church … so that all may dispose themselves to carry out the sacred celebration in a devout and fitting manner.” (GIRM 45)

Devotions, such as the Rosary, are good, but fitting preparation for the liturgy is of greater importance, so devotions should be prayed individually in silence rather than communally.

A long quiet time after Communion is important. “When the distribution of Communion is over, if appropriate, the Priest and faithful pray quietly for some time. If desired, a Psalm or other canticle of praise or a hymn may also be sung by the whole congregation.” (GIRM 88, emphasis mine).

A Communion hymn is not mandatory, but optional, because silence is of greater importance.

Mark Norbury OP
Port Moody

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Near the end of Pope Francis’ new autobiography, appropriately titled Hope for the Jubilee year, he shares a poem from the 20th-century Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet.

The poem is at the end of a chapter titled For The Best Days Are Still to Come, and the poem’s title, On Living, serves as a fitting close for a book titled Hope.

The last lines of the poem are:
“And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you
I haven’t said yet …”

We can pray that the most beautiful words that haven’t been said yet will soon be allowed to be said, because we’ve been steeped in times when speaking freely has not always been possible.

Jan. 24 is the feast of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists, and a moment to reflect on the importance of freedom of speech, not just as a political issue but as a teaching of the Church. In 2025, we might ask ourselves whether the fundamental right of speech, as the Church puts it, is gaining or losing ground.

In the words of Pope Francis, there’s some reason to hope the best days are still to come, but it’s not an exaggeration to say that the past decade hasn’t been the best time for freedom of expression, in Canada and around the world. There’s no need to wade through the quagmire of ways limits on speech have been imposed. Let’s just say it’s been easier to talk about some issues than others.

It’s been difficult to watch, particularly from a journalistic perspective. Reporters and commentators did not shine over the past few years, in large measure leaving their traditional post as gatekeepers and joining the ranks of censors and regulators.

They and their news organizations, through programs with Orwellian names like the Trusted News Initiative and the Trust Project and the proliferation of media “fact-checkers.” Financial incentives – from Google to government – ensured traditional media weren’t going to upset any apple carts, not when those carts carried the apples that fed them.

The increasing clampdowns on freedom of expression in the last decade aren’t just disappointing. Catholic teaching calls freedom of speech a fundamental human right that’s essential for human dignity and the common good. We are created in the image of God, and human dignity includes the right to freely express our honest thoughts and opinions.

The Second Vatican Council document Communio et Progressio, which I often quote during journalism talks, says, “It is absolutely essential that there be freedom to express ideas and attitudes” if public opinion is “to emerge in the proper manner.”

In the first half of chapter 6 of the First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 6:1–8), St. Paul accused the Corinthians of suing each other in Gentile court. He wrote, “To have lawsuits at all with one another is defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?” (1 Cor 6:7).

St. John Chrysostom commented, “But someone will say, ‘It is a terrible thing to suffer wrong and be maltreated.’ No, my friend, it is not terrible, not at all. How long will you be distressed about present things? God would not have commanded this if it were terrible. Consider this: the one who has committed injustice leaves the court with money but with a bad conscience, but the one who has suffered injustice, even if he is deprived of his money, has confidence before God, a possession more precious than countless treasures.…

“But someone will object, ‘What are you saying? I have been deprived of all my possessions; do you order me to keep silent? I was maltreated; do you exhort me to bear it meekly? How can I?’ You are quite mistaken; it is easy, if you look up to heaven, if you behold its beauty and see where God has promised to receive you if you suffer injustice nobly. Look up to heaven, therefore, and, as you do so, consider that you have become like the One who sits there above the cherubim (see Heb 9:5, 25). He too was insulted and bore it, he too was reproached and did not seek revenge, he was struck and did not strike (Mt 26:67–68). He repaid his enemies, who had done such things, with innumerable acts of kindness, and he ordered us to be imitators of him.”

Father George T. Montague, SM, wrote, “What stands out in this section is how real Paul considers the new family of Christians to be. How much does our being a Christian and our belonging to this family affect our identity? Our identity as citizens of our country is reinforced at every turn: the media, the traffic lights, our taxes on income or sales. If Sunday worship is the only reinforcement we receive for our Christian identity, it is likely to fall far short of what God means it to be. That is why other means—prayer, Scripture reading and study, parish ministry, retreats, faith-sharing groups—are needed to strengthen our Christian identity. If our secular identity is primary, we would probably rather sue than be reconciled within the Christian community, as Paul would expect.”

The second half of Chapter 6 is against immoral conduct (1 Cor 6:9–20). The Corinthians used two slogans to justify sinful behaviours: “All things are lawful for me” and “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” (1 Cor 6:12–13).

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
First Reading: Neh 8:1–4a, 5–6, 8–10
Second Reading: 1 Cor 12:12–30
Gospel Reading: Lk 1:1–4, 4:14–21

To appreciate this Sunday’s First Reading, we must know its background.

In 587 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, including Solomon’s temple, and deported the inhabitants to Babylon. In 538 BC, King Cyrus of Persia, who had defeated Babylon the year before, allowed the Jews to return home and instructed his governors (“satraps”) to help them rebuild.

(In 1879, archaeologists discovered a clay cylinder bearing an inscription by Cyrus confirming the above Biblical account, and on April 16, 2015, Israel issued a stamp commemorating the event.)

As the new temple began to take shape, the high priest Hilkiah announced, “I have found the book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.” 

Seven months later, “the whole people gathered as one man” and “called upon Ezra the scribe to bring forth the book” and read it aloud. It took Ezra “from early morning until midday,” for it contained the detailed regulations concerning worship that God had prescribed at Mount Sinai, which fill Chapters 25–31 of the Book of Exodus.

Pope Francis referred to those regulations in his 2022 apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi, on the “liturgical formation of the people of God.”

The authentic “art of celebrating” the liturgy is more than a mechanical observation of rubrics (at one extreme) or an “imaginative—sometimes wild”—disregard of rules (at the other). The rite is “a norm,” he said, but a norm “is never an end in itself”; it is always designed to protect “a higher reality.”

The Church’s liturgy has authority, for, like the creeds, it developed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus. Accordingly, priests and other liturgical ministers must take “special care” to adhere to it, Pope Francis told the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith early in 2024.

However, he said in Desiderio Desideravi, the congregation must also adhere to it in “all the gestures and words that belong to the assembly”: gathering, processing, sitting, standing, kneeling, singing, acclaiming, looking, listening, and keeping silence. Thus “the assembly, as one body, participates in the celebration”—like the “whole people” who “gathered as one man” to listen to Ezra.

Making the same gesture and “speaking together in one voice” impose a “uniformity” that does not “deaden,” the Pope said, but “educates individual believers to discover the authentic uniqueness of their personalities not in individualistic attitudes, but in the awareness of being one body.”

“Individualistic attitudes”—like extending one’s hands in unexpected or flamboyant gestures, speaking at a different pace from everyone else, or kneeling when one should be standing and vice versa—draw attention to oneself and distract others (including the priest!)

The St. John Brebeuf Secondary community had the rare opportunity to venerate a first-class relic of their patron, St. Jean de Brebeuf, alongside relics of three other Canadian saints — St. Kateri Tekakwitha, St. Charles Garnier, and St. Gabriel Lalement.

The relics were visiting from the Canadian Martyrs Shrine in Midland, Ont. Jesuit Fathers John O’Brien and Edmund Lo brought the relics as part of a cross-country event marking the Jubilee Year celebrating the Canadian Martyrs.

The day began with a Mass at St. James, next door to SJB, concelebrated by Fathers O’Brien and Lo and joined by Father Ron Dechant, OMI, of St. James, and Father Gio Schiesari of St. Mary’s in Chilliwack.

In his homily, Father O’Brien shared stories of the lives of the saints. After the Mass, students and faculty were able to come forward to venerate the relics.

The Shrine of the Canadian Martyrs has been designated as an official pilgrimage site for the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. The Western Canada tour was organized so Canadians across the country could make a Jubilee pilgrimage.

The major relics of the Canadian Martyrs on include the skull of St. Jean de Brébeuf and bones of St. Charles Garnier and St. Gabriel Lalemant. The three men were among the eight French missionaries who first brought the Gospel to Canada and were martyred during the Huron-Iroquois Wars of the early 1600s.

Joining them is a relic of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Indigenous North American saint and the patron of First Nations peoples.

At St. Anthony of Padua in Agassiz on Jan. 11, veneration of the relics will take place from 10 a.m. until the 5 p.m. anticipatory Mass celebrated by Father O’Brien.

The relics will also visit Holy Rosary Cathedral on Sunday, Jan. 12, and Monday, Jan. 13. On Sunday, Mass will be celebrated by Archbishop Miller at 11 a.m. and in Spanish by Father O’Brien at 6:30 p.m. Veneration of the relics will be available during the following times: 12:30–1 p.m., 2–4 p.m., and 7:30–8 p.m.

On Monday, Jan. 13, a Votive Mass of St. Jean de Brebeuf will be celebrated at 12:10 p.m., with veneration available from 1–4 p.m. For tour details, visit martyrs-shrine.com/relic-tour.

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The following is excerpted from Church for Vancouver by publisher Flyn Ritchie on Jan. 8: 

Roughly 40 per cent of all charitable organizations in Canada are religious. Their status was threatened just before Christmas, when the Standing Committee on Finance released its “Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of the 2025 Budget“ in the House of Commons on Dec. 13.

One of the report’s many recommendations was to “Amend the Income Tax Act to provide a definition of a charity which would remove the privileged status of ‘advancement of religion’ as a charitable purpose.” Local NDP MP Don Davies was one member of the standing committee.

The proposal has been overshadowed by the turmoil within the ruling Liberal Party. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland quit Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet following the weekend, on Dec. 16, instead of delivering the government’s fall economic statement.

Trudeau himself announced on Jan. 6 that he will be stepping down as leader of the party; he also prorogued Parliament (which includes ending committee activity).

And it is fair to say that even if the Liberal government were not in such disarray, it is by no means clear that this government would have acted on the proposal – or another, which called for no longer providing charitable status to anti-abortion organizations.

However, the issue is popping up more and more, and one local organization is very invested in the proposal.

Ian Bushfield of the BC Humanist Association posted a comment about the situation on Jan. 6, noting, “Both recommendations mirror submissions made by the BCHA in July.”

Last summer, the BCH wrote to the House of Commons Finance Committee with three asks for Budget 2025: No charitable status for anti-abortion organizations, Remove “advancement of religion” as a charitable purpose, and Repeal the clergy residence deduction. . . .

“Already, evangelical and conservative religious groups are in uproar over this suggestion. This is why we’re asking you to write to your MP to support these changes.”

He was right, at least, about the response from Christians.

The potential damage to churches and other religious organizations – and to the nation itself – could be very significant. The prompt response by religious leaders shows how seriously they are taking the issue.

Father Raymond J. de Souza, writing for the National Post on Dec. 29, acknowledged that the finance committee’s many proposals were broad-ranging and non-binding:

“The committee holds many hearings during the fall, inviting various experts, advocates and rent-seekers to make their case that the government should do this or that thing. . . 

“The committee bundles it all up, decides what recommendations to adopt, and then reports it all to the House.

While many amateur historians who delve into the depths of parish records can find the exercise frustrating, this has not been the experience for St. Matthew’s parishioner Daisy Wong.  

She has been enjoying collecting bits and pieces of the Surrey parish’s history. Driven by a desire to share that history with newcomers, Wong hopes they will gain a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the parish community they have inherited. If it helps them contribute to the parish or join even a single ministry, all the better.  

Storytelling is a profoundly human activity. It not only gives shape to the world but it also helps to bridge the gap between people who may not have shared experiences. Like St. Matthew’s, growing communities sometimes struggle to integrate the new with the old, and stories can help.  

“I feel that if people knew a little bit more about the human aspect of things, maybe they would have a sense of gratitude about what they have now,” Wong told The B.C. Catholic.  

Since the summer, she has poured over binders full of parish records and tracked down stacks of old parish bulletins saved by the Stones, one of the parish’s founding families. 

She has run into some surprising hurdles. Photos were more plentiful before the advent of digital photography. People seemed more intentional about documenting happenings at the parish when it took some effort. Social media, it would seem, has made us lazy.  

Wong is still determining how she will ultimately share the stories she gathers through her research. However, she feels a sense of urgency. Older parishioners are passing away, and with them go their stories. 

In addition to archival materials, Wong has begun collecting interviews with significant St. Matthew’s community members, as well as its previous pastors, such as founder Father Glenn Dion. Talking about it gets her teary-eyed.  

“Gratitude is the biggest message I want to portray,” she said, “because I truly feel that without these people who work so hard we wouldn’t have such a vibrant and wonderful parish.”  

“I just feel like the baton needs to be passed,” said Wong, adding that many parishioners who built that parish deserve some recognition.  

Wong has been at St. Matthew’s since its early days, and she remembers kneeling on the hard gym floor before the church building was completed, an experience she believes is difficult to communicate. Without kneeling on the hard gym floor, it’s hard to appreciate the entire story of the parish founders, she said. 

She hopes her children will one day look at their lives and see their parents’ hard work, the same way she is trying to help newcomers understand the work done to create the parish community they are part of and enjoy.

Health Canada’s new annual report about medical assistance in dying (MAiD) revealed that euthanasia now accounts for nearly five per cent — 15,343 people — of the nation’s total fatalities (326,571) in 2023. 

Rebecca Vachon, health program director for the non-partisan think tank Cardus, declared the report “reconfirms that Canada has one of the fastest growing euthanasia and assisted suicide programs in the world. The dramatic rise in MAiD deaths since 2016 is far faster than the federal government, the courts or pro-euthanasia activists ever publicly predicted before or since legalization.”

The data patently reveals that Vachon is over the target with her argument. Consider that it took the Netherlands, for decades viewed as a leading nation in the medical-killing department, until 2021 — 40 years after euthanasia was legalized — for the procedure to account for at least 4.7 per cent of all deaths. Canada reached that dubious threshold in just seven years. 

Even the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the group that filed the Carter v. Canada constitutional challenge that ultimately legalized MAiD, is now heralding the guardrail gospel. Liz Hughes, the association’s executive director, told the National Post the group is “aware of concerning reports of people being offered MAiD in circumstances that may not legally qualify, as well as people accessing MAiD as a result of intolerable social circumstances.” Hughes affirmed that “governments must put in place, actively review and enforce appropriate safeguards to ensure that people are making this decision freely.”

Alberta wrapped up a process on Dec. 20 that invited the public to weigh in on the province’s euthanasia policies. 

Mickey Amery, Alberta’s minister of justice and attorney general, urged Albertans in November to participate in the process because she said the governing United Conservative Party recognizes “that medical assistance in dying is a very complex and often personal issue and is an important, sensitive and emotional matter for patients and their families. It is important to ensure this process has the necessary supports to protect the most vulnerable.”

Depending on the survey results, some of the possible changes to Alberta’s euthanasia-related “processes, procedures, oversight and protections” that could arise in the coming months include:

• Creating a new agency and legislation to provide assisted suicide oversight;
• Forming a mechanism to empower families or other eligible individuals to dispute MAiD cases;
• Enacting a framework to allow for “appropriate sharing of confidential medical information related to MAiD determinations”; and
• Introducing new criteria that limits MAiD eligibility.

Along with conducting the survey, the government canvassed various academics, advocacy groups, public bodies, religious organizations and regulatory organizations.

Nicole Scheidl, executive director for Canadian Physicians for Life (CPL), shared via email some of the actions CPL hopes Danielle Smith’s government will take.

 “When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.’” (Mt 2:1–2).

The Epiphany has always been a favourite feast of mine. I love hearing how the magi knew they needed to search for a king and how they found him in the humblest of circumstances. During Advent, I benefitted from daily reflections reminding me of the magi and their importance in the story of our salvation. In this article, I will share a collection of the words of wisdom I have recently acquired.

The magi brought their earthly gifts to the Christ-Child and then returned home a different way due to the threat of King Herod. Not unlike today, Christianity from the beginning was humbling, uncomfortable, and even dangerous. Emily Stimpson Chapman reflects on the fact that being Christian is worth the risks:

“Look at the babe in the manger and the man on the cross and bow down before him in wonder, gratitude, and awe. Let the holy fire of his love wash over you. Trust it. Risk everything for it. Risk everything to share it, too. Because in the end, it’s the only love worth having. It is not safe. But it is real. It is glorious. And it does save.”

Author Danielle Bean reflected, “The regal splendor of the magi contrasts with the simplicity of the manger, reminding us of Mary’s song in the Magnificat: ‘He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly’ (Lk 1:52). In Baby Jesus, we see the perfect union of humility and exaltation. God humbles himself, taking on human flesh, so that we may be lifted into his divine life. Where is God inviting us to be humbled and where does he desire to lift us up? When we lay down our pride and earthly treasures at his feet, we open ourselves to joy.”

In examining Botticelli’s painting, Adoration of the Magi, Bean also writes, “This scene weaves together majesty and humility. Kings bow before the infant Jesus, beautifully reflecting Jesus’ words: ‘The first will be last, and the last will be first’ (Mt 20:16). Though the magi were esteemed in the eyes of the world, they laid their treasures at the feet of a child born in poverty, acknowledging him as the King of Kings. God calls us to reorder our priorities. Are we putting Christ first in our hearts, or are we clinging to worldly distractions? By humbling themselves, the magi found their true treasure in Jesus.”