Category: BC Catholic

When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, many of us are divided into two distinct camps: the keeners – the same people who love September for the new pencils and the potential – and those of us who, like Catherine Doherty (foundress of the Madonna House apostolate), believe that with God every moment is the moment of beginning again. Catherine doesn’t think we need a new year to change anything. Every day is New Year’s Day.

Whichever side you take, our culture has decided to hang a lot of hopes on January.

Leila Marie Lawler, author of The Little Oratory and writer about all things home, wrote a wonderfully liberating little piece on resolving to improve in baby steps. “I’m not a minimalist except in resolutions,” she writes. Her delightful advice leaves us lots of breathing room.

Lawler’s list includes things like leaving your phone far away from where you sleep and buying an alarm clock. Other resolutions are to pray, from the heart, five minutes a day, to keep the Sabbath holy (this one made another important list way back in the Old Testament), and to plan the family’s menu.

Both of the heavy-hitter Teresas (Therese of Lisieux and Teresa of Avila) wrote that the closer we get to God, the simpler we become. In Psalm 131, we read David’s lament, “I have not gone after things too great…” In the spirit of David’s humility, we recognize our smallness and cling to the generosity and mercy of God.

We recognize our smallness and powerlessness in our reactions and in our close relationships. The new year offers an opportunity to surrender our interactions to the realm of the Holy Spirit, so that love and gratitude can become our main motivators in all that we do instead of fear of abandonment or rejection. May the Holy Spirit reorient our hearts in love “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Indeed, resolutions are little acts of repentance, or to put it in more positive language, to set out for home again. If we saw the dawn of each year as an opportunity for a joyous homecoming instead of something self-focused, the necessary changes would feel more like a relief than a burden.

There is one thing necessary for the new year, every year, and that is the awareness of Christ’s presence in our midst.

In the Lorica of St. Patrick, an ancient prayer commonly known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate, St. Patrick knows exactly what he has to do: seal all entry points of the enemy by firmly rooting himself in Christ.

This prayer could very well be the January prayer of the Catholic: “I arise today, through God’s strength to pilot me: God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to guard me, God’s way to lie before me, God’s shield to protect me, God’s host to secure me.”

As the Jubilee Year of Hope draws to a close, Archbishop Richard Smith is calling Catholics to carry the spiritual graces of the Jubilee into the year ahead through renewed prayer, service, and evangelization.

In his New Year’s message dated Jan. 1, 2026, Archbishop Smith said the hope received during the Jubilee must now be lived as he urged Catholics to become “diligent stewards” of that hope in their daily lives.

Looking ahead to 2026, the Archbishop asked for the coming year to be marked by concrete action, including strengthening parish renewal, deepening prayer and discipleship, fostering healing, and accompanying others in returning to the Church.

He emphasized the central role of the Eucharist, noting that the paschal mystery celebrated at Mass provides the strength needed to sustain evangelization and service.

Archbishop Smith encouraged Catholics to enter the new year with confidence in Christ, openness to the Holy Spirit, and a willingness to witness to the hope they have received. He said the hope kindled during the Jubilee should not remain private, but spread outward to transform lives and renew the world through the Church’s shared mission.

The Archbishop ended his message by entrusting the Archdiocese to the intercession of Our Lady of Hope, asking for her to continue guiding parishes, schools, and ministries in the year ahead.

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The Jubilee Year of Hope may have ended on the calendar, but there is every reason to believe its fruits will remain with us for years to come.

When Pope Francis called the Church to a Jubilee focused on hope, the timing proved both prescient and necessary. In a world shaped by war, polarization, and despair, hope was proposed not as a theme, but as a theological virtue to be cultivated and lived. 

He pointed Catholics to Mary as its model. Reflecting on her suffering at the foot of the Cross, he wrote that “in the travail of that sorrow, offered in love, Mary became our Mother, the Mother of Hope.”

Over the past year, the invitation to hope has borne visible fruit, including within the Archdiocese of Vancouver.

The Jubilee did not erase suffering. The Lapu Day tragedy forced the local Church to confront grief and unanswered questions. But in its wake came testimonies of conversion, reconciliation, and renewed faith. 

Across the Archdiocese, Catholics have shared their Year of Hope stories of prayer rediscovered, hearts softened, and communities drawn closer together.

It is clear that hope was never meant to be confined to a single year. What the Jubilee has accomplished is a kind of catechesis, teaching Catholics not only the importance of hope, but how to live it.

In his New Year’s message, Archbishop Richard Smith urges Catholics to carry the Jubilee’s graces forward, stressing that “hope, once received, must be lived,” and calling the faithful to become “diligent stewards of this hope in our daily lives.”

He invites the archdiocese to let “the fire of hope kindled during the Jubilee” spread outward through prayer, the Eucharist, parish renewal, and service, transforming lives and renewing the Church’s shared mission.

The same emphasis has been heard from Rome. Pope Leo XIV, reflecting on the Jubilee Year of Hope in recent days, prayed that its legacy would endure. He has pointed to hope as something that “sprouts” even amid suffering, something that must be protected like a fragile flame.

What emerges from these messages is that hope is not a mere moment for the Church. Of the three theological virtues — faith, hope, and love — hope seems to be acquiring a particular urgency. It reminds us that in a world that can often appear marked by hopelessness, God has not given up on us.

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Archbishop Richard Smith’s 2026 New Year’s message

January 1, 2026

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As we come to the close of the Jubilee Year of Hope, the Lord now calls us to carry the graces granted to us into the year ahead. Hope, once received, must be lived. Let us, then, become diligent stewards of this hope in our daily lives, drawing from the paschal mystery celebrated in the Eucharist to sustain our efforts in evangelization and service. With this in mind, I look forward to 2026 as a year in which we put the blessing of this Jubilee into action: strengthening initiatives that inspire renewal in our parishes, deepening our life of prayer and discipleship, fostering healing, and accompanying those who seek a way back to Jesus and his Church.

My prayer is that we step into this new year with confidence in Christ, a renewed openness to the Holy Spirit, and a willingness to witness to the hope we ourselves have received. In this way, the fire of hope kindled during the Jubilee will not only warm our own hearts but spread outward, transforming lives and renewing the face of the earth through our shared mission.

May Our Lady of Hope intercede for us and continue to guide our parishes, schools and ministries in this new year.

Yours sincerely in Christ, 

✠ Richard W. Smith
Archbishop of Vancouver

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Pope Leo XIV, at Christmas Mass during the Night, said Christ’s birth brings light into the world’s darkness — and where the human person is welcomed, God is welcomed too.

“To enlighten our blindness, the Lord chose to reveal himself as a man to man, his true image, according to a plan of love that began with the creation of the world,” the Pope said in his homily in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 24.

“As long as the night of error obscures this providential truth, then ‘there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger,’” he added, quoting Pope Benedict XIV’s homily at Christmas Mass on Dec. 24, 2012.

“These words of Pope Benedict XVI remain a timely reminder that on earth, there is no room for God if there is no room for the human person,” the Pontiff said.

Leo celebrated the Christmas Mass, also known as Midnight Mass, for a packed Vatican basilica at 10 p.m. The Vatican said an estimated 6,000 people were inside the basilica for the Mass, while another 5,000 people followed the papal Mass via jumbo screens in St. Peter’s Square.

In a surprise before the Mass, the Pope stepped outside St. Peter’s Basilica to greet those who were forced to stay in the rainy square, because there was no more room inside.

“The basilica of St. Peter’s is very large, but unfortunately it is not large enough to receive all of you,” Leo said, thanking everyone for their presence, wishing them a merry Christmas, and bestowing his apostolic blessing.

Just now: Pope Leo surprised and blessed the crowd that could not get into St. Peter’s Basilica for tonight’s Christmas Eve Mass. “The basilica of St. Peter is very large, but unfortunately, it is not large enough to receive all of you. Tante grazie per venire qui questa sera.” pic.twitter.com/vMK1Zmibl8

— EWTN Vatican (@EWTNVatican) December 24, 2025

The preparatory readings and the sung Proclamation of the Birth of Christ — also called the Kalenda Proclamation — preceded the Mass. The Pontiff removed a cloth to reveal a wooden sculpture of the Christ Child, placed in front of the main altar of the basilica, after the chanting of the Kalenda Proclamation. A group of 10 children dressed in traditional clothing from different parts of the world brought flowers to the figure of Baby Jesus.

In his homily, the Pope recalled that, “for millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky” attempting to read the future in the stars. 

Yet, they remained lost and in the dark, he said. “On this night, however, ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light’ (Isaiah 9:2).”

In his first Christmas “Urbi et Orbi” message as pope, Leo XIV urged the world to embrace “responsibility” as the sure way to peace, while pointing in particular to the suffering of people in Gaza, Yemen, and those fleeing war and poverty as refugees and migrants.

Before an estimated 26,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Dec. 25, the pope appeared at the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to deliver the traditional Christmas blessing “to the city and to the world,” eight months after his May 8 election.

In one of the most evocative passages of the message, the pope cited at length from “Wildpeace,” a poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, contrasting “the peace of a cease-fire” with a deeper peace that arrives unexpectedly — “like wildflowers” — after exhaustion and conflict.

“Responsibility is the sure way to peace,” Leo said. “If all of us, at every level, would stop accusing others and instead acknowledge our own faults, asking God for forgiveness, and if we would truly enter into the suffering of others and stand in solidarity with the weak and the oppressed, then the world would change.”

The pope framed his appeal around the Christian proclamation that Christ “is our peace,” adding: “Without a heart freed from sin, a heart that has been forgiven, we cannot be men and women of peace or builders of peace.”

Turning to concrete “faces” of contemporary pain, Leo said that in becoming man, Jesus “took upon himself our fragility, identifying with each one of us: with those who have nothing left and have lost everything, like the inhabitants of Gaza; with those who are prey to hunger and poverty, like the Yemeni people; with those who are fleeing their homeland to seek a future elsewhere, like the many refugees and migrants who cross the Mediterranean or traverse the American continent.”

He also named those who have lost jobs, underpaid workers who are exploited, and prisoners “who often live in inhumane conditions.”

Leo offered “a warm and fatherly greeting” to Christians, “especially those living in the Middle East,” recalling his recent trip to Turkey and Lebanon. “I listened to them as they expressed their fears and know well their sense of powerlessness before the power dynamics that overwhelm them,” he said.

“From God let us ask for justice, peace and stability for Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and Syria,” the pope continued, as he invoked Scripture on righteousness and peace.

He also prayed “in a particular way for the tormented people of Ukraine,” asking that “the clamor of weapons cease,” and that the parties involved — “with the support and commitment of the international community” — find “the courage to engage in sincere, direct and respectful dialogue.”

Pope Leo XIV on Christmas Day deplored the “falsehoods” used to justify wars that leave young people “forced to take up arms” and “sent to their deaths,” while also drawing attention to the humanitarian suffering of displaced people, including families living in tents in Gaza.

In his first Christmas as Pope, Leo celebrated Christmas Day Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, reviving a practice not seen since 1994 during the pontificate of St. John Paul II. Reflecting on the prologue of St. John’s Gospel, the Pope said in his homily that the Christmas liturgy highlights a striking contrast: God’s Word, which acts with power, comes into the world in utter weakness.

“The ‘Word’ is a word that acts,” Leo said. Yet, he added, “the Word of God appears but cannot speak. He comes to us as a newborn baby who can only cry and babble.”

Leo said the mystery Christians celebrate at Christmas cannot be separated from the vulnerability of those whose dignity is assaulted by war, displacement, and poverty. He urged Catholics to let Christ’s birth pierce complacency and move them toward tenderness and solidarity.

“‘Flesh’ is the radical nakedness that, in Bethlehem as on Calvary, remains even without words – just as so many brothers and sisters, stripped of their dignity and reduced to silence, have no words today,” he said.

In one of the homily’s most striking passages, Leo connected the Gospel image of the Word “pitching” his tent among humanity with the reality faced by families living in makeshift shelters amid conflict.

“Dear brothers and sisters, since the Word was made flesh, humanity now speaks, crying out with God’s own desire to encounter us. The Word has pitched his fragile tent among us,” he said, before asking: “How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold; and of those of so many other refugees and displaced persons on every continent; or of the makeshift shelters of thousands of homeless people in our own cities?”

The Pope also described the toll of war in terms of both shattered communities and wounded consciences.

“Fragile is the flesh of defenseless populations, tried by so many wars, ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds,” he said. “Fragile are the minds and lives of young people forced to take up arms, who on the front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths.”

Leo framed Christmas as a proclamation that peace is not merely a hope for the future but a gift already present in Christ, even when few recognize it.

“Bible reading is an education in itself.”  — Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The Bible may be without error, but that didn’t prevent nine mistakes from finding their way into the Saint John’s Bible — a masterpiece 12 years in the making.

But its creators simply handled the errata with a nod to tradition, echoing the medieval monks who corrected slips not by hiding them but by illuminating them with playful marginalia: a bird here, a bee there, even a lemur tugging a missing line back into place.

Those nine tiny blunders aren’t flaws so much as fingerprints — reminders that while Scripture is flawless, its transcription is the work of human hands, with all the gifts and limitations that brings. And that very humanity is part of what makes the Saint John’s Bible so beloved wherever it travels.

This fall, coinciding with St. Mark’s College’s 70th anniversary and Corpus Christi College’s 25th, the colleges hosted one of the Bible’s most sought-after volumes — Gospels and Acts — for a three-month residency.

On Sept. 17, the colleges marked its arrival with an event featuring Brad Neary, director of The Saint John’s Bible project, who captivated a large audience of students, faculty, and community members with the story of the Bible’s remarkable creation.

As someone who has worked with the Saint John’s Bible for well over a decade and with virtually all its scribes and artists, one of my favourite roles has been taking the volume out into the community: schools, parishes, and gatherings large and small. By the end of its time with us, I had presented the Bible up close to more than 800 people across some 70 individual showings.

These visits included everything from kindergarten and primary classrooms at St. Patrick’s Elementary, to senior high students at St. Thomas More Collegiate and St. Thomas Aquinas; Grade 8 and 12 classes at Little Flower Academy and Notre Dame; and staff and students at John Paul II Academy. Virtually all religious education students at Vancouver College — along with their teachers and staff — also had the chance to encounter the volume.

Parishes welcomed it warmly as well, especially St. Matthew’s in Surrey, St. Mary’s in Vancouver, and a closing presentation to the Catholic Women’s League at St. Peter’s in New Westminster.

The Bible  visited the JPII Centre twice: first for Archdiocesan staff, then for Catholic principals at a regular meeting. On campus, it was presented to graduates of St. Mark’s College’s graduate school of education and to parishioners of St. Mark’s Parish.

As the Jubilee Year of Hope draws to a close this Christmas season, we invited parishioners across the Archdiocese of Vancouver to share their journeys of faith. For them it was a year defined by pilgrimage, renewal, and as one contributor put it, “Waters of Grace.” Their stories remind us that hope is not a feeling, but a choice to trust in God’s providence amid the trials of life.

Growing in the virtue of hope

Losing my job just two weeks after getting married was overwhelming and honestly not how I imagined the start of married life. Fear and uncertainty set in quickly. Around that time, I reached out to my spiritual mentor, and he shared the example of Martha and Mary – which, interestingly, was also the Gospel that same week. He simply asked me: Would I choose to be overwhelmed like Martha, or would I rest in God like Mary?

That question stayed with me. I chose to be like Mary of Bethany – to sit at the Lord’s feet, surrender the situation, and trust him completely. That decision changed how I walked through this season. During my unemployment, I gave many interviews, but nothing seemed to move forward. On the very first day without a job, I came across an opening that felt like a real boost to my career. I applied in July with a quiet sense of peace, trusting God to lead the way.

The interview process continued through Aug. with three rounds plus HR. After the final interview, Sept. was silent. The waiting was hard, but instead of giving in to fear, I leaned into prayer and trust. This phase also drew my husband and me closer – to God and to each other. Our marriage didn’t begin with a smooth, storybook start; it began with challenges that led us into family prayer and helped us build a truly Christ-centred marriage.

I finally received my offer letter in October. I lost my previous job on the feast of St. Anthony, and I had trusted in his intercession that God would restore what was lost. Today, I see that prayer answered – far beyond what I imagined. This journey taught me that hope isn’t the absence of struggle, but the choice to trust God in the middle of it. All praise and glory to God, whose timing is always perfect.

— Joyce Villaverde, Youth and Young Adult Ministry Coordinator

Christ is our hope

We usually hear: Christ is our hope! But what does it mean? How do we understand hope?