Category: BC Catholic

For Charles King and the students at Saint John Paul II Academy, the presence of the Shroud of Turin Exhibition is elevating their Lenten experience beyond ordinary fasting and sacrifice, deepening their reflection on the suffering Christ endured through his Passion.

The exhibit, making what could be its final appearance in Vancouver while organizers look for a permanent home, includes a life-sized replica of the Shroud of Turin, the ancient cloth imprinted with the image of a crucified man believed by many to be Jesus. It also includes replicas of items associated with Christ’s Passion, such as nails, a crown of thorns, and the spear that pierced his side.

During Lent, the exhibit is capturing students’ imagination about the meaning of Easter. “It’s really helped us to reflect on the Crucifixion,” King told The B.C. Catholic. “Just seeing the shroud and the crown of thorns and even the nail that Jesus may have been pierced with—it’s a really special invitation to reflect on [his Passion].” 

The exhibit has given King a reminder to pick up his own cross and follow Christ. “Everyone has to carry the cross, especially during Lent,” he said. “If Jesus carried such a heavy cross for us, then we should also follow him and offer up parts of our lives that are difficult.”

That the actual identity of the shroud is uncertain simply adds a valuable element of faith to the experience for King, who says “it’s fitting that there is some sort of ambiguity to the shroud, because after all he’s God and there’s supposed to be mystery there.”

For King, the shroud exhibit is the perfect Lenten feature during the school’s first year in its new building, which opened in September.

“The fact that the shroud is here for our first Lent at our new school is cool because it’s building this culture of strong Catholic faith,” he said.

In addition to the exhibit, students will hear from shroud expert Dr. Cheryl White, who has studied and spoken about the famed burial cloth for over 30 years.

The exhibit typically visits churches, and to have it in a school is a special gift, she said. “All day during your school day, it’s accessible!”

Speaking about the shroud with younger students only became a focus of her career in the past decade, and the experience has been rewarding. The shroud is “a unique intersection between faith and reason,” she said.

Speaking moments before hundreds of catechumens and candidates signed their names in the Book of the Elect in anticipation of baptism and Confirmation at Easter, Archbishop Richard Smith addressed the doubts some might feel as they prepare to become Catholic.

Speaking at the Rite of Election, held over two days to accommodate the historically high number of people seeking entrance and communion in the Church, the archbishop referenced the Gospel reading of Christ’s temptations in the desert, highlighting the devil’s role in raising doubts that may plague those coming into the Church.

“Here, the devil is seducing Jesus away from fidelity to the will of his Heavenly Father,” Archbishop Smith told those gathered at Holy Rosary Cathedral on Feb. 22. “These same temptations can beset those who are chosen to follow Jesus. We need to be aware of them and resist them with the help of God’s grace.”

Such temptations can’t be overcome by our will alone, he said. “Jesus alone is able to stand steadfast against the evil one, and he gives you—he gives us all—a share in his strength, so that we too, [in Christ], can also overcome [the devil].”

A day earlier, another Rite of Election was held at St. Matthew’s in Surrey, where, like the cathedral, the pews were filled with soon-to-be Catholics and their sponsors.

Archbishop Smith assured about 650 catechumens and nearly 120 candidates seeking Confirmation that becoming Catholic has “nothing to do with personal merits or worthiness,” and that the love of God makes them worthy.

“You’re chosen by God to follow his Son to eternal life. Today, God, through the Church, elects you to celebrate Easter sacraments so that through those sacraments, you’ll be united to Jesus and become a member of his Church.”

As new Catholics, they will also be “surrounded and supported by the Church,” he said. “We look forward with great anticipation to welcoming you among the community of disciples of Jesus Christ.”

The Archbishop also reflected on the meaning of the word election, saying it’s usually thought of as making a personal choice. “In this sacred moment, the Rite of Election highlights a reverse dynamic,” he said. “You’re not choosing, you are chosen—the one electing you is God.”

“God bases this choice not upon any merits you have for having considered and weighed what you propose to do, but solely on the basis of his wondrous love for you.”

I found your articles about the history of Catholic health care in Canada interesting. I have a personal connection to that history.

In 1929, my grandmother, Marie, worked with the Sisters of Service who operated a small hospital in Edson, Alberta. She worked in the laundry and it was gruelling. In the photo you can see her outside the hospital, and you can glimpse the conditions. 

I am thankful to the faithful women and men who built up health services in our country. 

Marianne Nederend
Ladner

The B.C. Catholic’s one-sided Venezuela coverage seems to be catering to local expats who support the Venezuelan opposition, without presenting a broader historical context.

At a Jan. 17 rally I listened to a history lesson delivered by a Venezuelan gentleman who describe life before Hugo Chavez. There was abject poverty, illiteracy, massive unemployment, and high infant mortality. After Chavez won in 1998, there was improvement in many sectors including literacy.

U.S. interference has wreaked havoc in Venezuela, causing uproar and leading to today’s disputes. Trump’s quotes in the article trying to justify the Jan. 3 actions show the extreme hegemony of the U.S. Much of the discontent and difficulties in Venezuela today stem from years of U.S. sanctions and other measures that have crippled Venezuela.

How many readers support the U.S. invading another country and kidnapping its elected leader? A  balanced article is desperately needed educate Canadians about America’s toxic foreign and domestic policy.

Penny Oyama
Burnaby

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

The question “How is your Lent going?” is not one I would be apt to ask another person directly, but it is one I regularly ask myself.

I usually begin by looking at my life in terms of the pillars of Lent: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. I appreciate the opportunity Lent provides to remove distractions and “extras” from my life and get back to basics in my diet, in my relationship with God, and in my outward actions toward others.

After the Christmas season, my physical health benefits from removing chocolate and snacks from my days and increasing fish, legumes, and vegetables in my diet. Lent is not intended to be a weight-loss program, but fasting can help us develop reverence for our bodies by focusing more earnestly on healthy choices. Fasting also makes us appreciate the gift of food; as we hunger for physical satisfaction, we are reminded that our souls hunger and thirst for God in a way only he can fill.

Prayer leads us toward filling that hunger and thirst, for communicating with God is essential to our spiritual health. In Lent, we are reminded to increase our prayer habits in ways such as attending Mass more than once per week, visiting the Adoration chapel, praying the Rosary or the Stations of the Cross, or getting out of bed a few minutes earlier than usual to read Scripture, a prayerful reflection, or listen to a religious podcast. 

Lent is not a time to decide to make every possible change or to do everything at once, lest we fall flat on our faces before the first week is over. We must pace ourselves by creating attainable goals so that, ideally, once Lent is over, some of our practices remain as permanent habits. It is through these habits that we come to know God in a more intimate — ultimately life-saving — way.

Almsgiving may seem more difficult in our economy, especially since Lent falls during tax season; however, giving to others does not always need to be financial. For many, the money saved by not having extra foods during Lent can be set aside for charity. For others, donating food, clothing, or recyclable containers allows us to think outside ourselves. Even random acts of kindness or extra prayers for others — particularly those who challenge us, or even strangers — allow us to spread God’s love in the world. Knowing God through prayer and sacrificing from our own physical needs through fasting both lead us outward, in keeping with the pillar of almsgiving.

Are these Lenten pillars always easy? No. In fact, Chris Stefanick states, “Lent reminds us that love costs something.

Young Catholics discerning a career in medicine face not only long years of training, but also the challenge of navigating a health-care culture that often demands ideological conformity. On March 7, a panel of Catholic physicians hopes to help students face that reality with clarity, confidence, and faith.

A panel of Catholic medical professionals will meet at Holy Name Church in Vancouver to help young people considering medical careers better understand the beauty of medicine and answer their questions about navigating the necessary training and education.

The event is being moderated and organized by Vancouver family physician Dr. Christopher Ryan, who, with his wife, bioethicist Dr. Yuriko Ryan, is a parishioner at Corpus Christi in Vancouver.

He told The B.C. Catholic the event was inspired by post-Mass conversations with young people curious about working in medicine.

The enthusiasm of local health-care professionals to join the panel has impressed Ryan. He quickly had seven panellists and hopes to have more by the time of the event, representing nursing, pharmacy, and a range of medical specialties. 

“I don’t think that in my lifetime my faith or beliefs were threatened as they are now,” he said. “I think that this is a time to stand up.”

What gives him hope is seeing young people “who are taking their lives and their vocations seriously, standing up for what’s right, and being brave.”

The goal of the event is to help even more young people do just that. While the landscape of health-care training has become more ideological, Ryan believes there are more opportunities than ever for those considering medicine, and they’re all open to practising Catholics. He hopes the panel will help students navigate an increasingly progressive interview process.

He says the public imagination has stagnated on the value of doctors’ personal values, especially if they are religious, and many question the need for Catholic health care or Catholics in medicine. He considers such thinking shortsighted, noting the value of a physician who shares their patient’s perspective on religion and spirituality.

He values having a Christian doctor with whom he has “shared goals, beliefs, respect and understanding.” A Catholic doctor offers the “extra benefits of faith and belief in God and his grace,” bringing consolation that another doctor might struggle to provide.

“We know that God loves us and that there is a life thereafter,” Ryan said. “Having that confidence and maturity is a really great thing to share with [your patient].”

Ryan recalled a conversation with his wife, the other Dr.

Shelly remembers the first time she encountered Sancta Maria House. A small prayer card had blown through the air and landed on her boot. On one side was a picture of a happy-looking woman with the words “thank you God for hearing my prayer and answering it.” On the other side was a phone number.

Shelly, a survivor of domestic abuse, had spent years of her life with a man who didn’t love her, and even when she finally left him at 32, drug abuse was waiting in her next relationship.

“I didn’t know there was an ending to it,” she said. “I didn’t know there was a solution, and I certainly didn’t know there was a God.”

She felt “instant change” when she walked through the door of Sancta Maria House. “I felt something that I hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever. I felt a belonging. I felt hope.”

Shelly is now a house parent at Sancta Maria House and she wants others to know there is help. “[My] humble prayer was ‘God help me to figure out why I’m doing this. Help me to stop. And help me to be able to help others.’”

Sancta Maria House is one of several beneficiaries of the Living Waters Fund, a grant program supported by the 2025 Archbishop’s Dinner to help ministries and organizations that help women find safety and healing from domestic abuse and drug use.

The fund supports safe refuge and long-term support for women fleeing abuse, outreach to women on the streets and those affected by sexual exploitation, assistance for single mothers building stable lives, and healing for women facing trauma and injustice. New applications will be accepted from March 1 to 31. 

Sancta Maria House

Since opening its doors on Valentine’s Day 1960, Sancta Maria House has been a quiet and persistent force for good in the Kitsilano neighbourhood, helping women battling substance abuse find their footing and reclaim their lives.

Through its structured, abstinence-based program, women find a nurturing, family-like setting. In addition to the costs of running the centre, donations help pay for activities and services offered to residents, including arts and crafts and faith studies.

Donations also help buffer women from financial strain while seeking stability, allowing them to stay while their applications for government aid are being processed.

Sancta Maria House has part of the life of St. Augustine’s Parish in Kitsilano, women encouraged to take part in parish life and rediscover a sense of belonging. Over its history, Sancta Maria House has helped more than 300 women, ensuring each resident hears a message of love and finds a path toward renewal.

In recent weeks, we invited readers and health-care professionals to share stories about why Catholic health care matters. The response was thoughtful and deeply personal. The following reflection from a longtime nurse practitioner at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver offers a firsthand account of how faith shapes care in daily practice.

I have been a nurse practitioner at St. Paul’s Hospital since 2006. Over the years, I have had many opportunities to leave for other health authorities, yet I have made a deliberate choice to remain at Providence Health Care. What has kept me here is not convenience or habit, but a deep personal conviction and sense of vocation rooted in our mission: “Inspired by the healing ministry of Jesus Christ, Providence Health Care is a Catholic health care community dedicated to meeting the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of those served through compassionate care, teaching, and research.”

That mission is not abstract. I have seen it lived out in quiet, ordinary, deeply human moments—moments that felt unmistakably different because they occurred within a Catholic health care setting.

Meeting patients where they are

While working in the heart failure clinic, I cared for a man who was recently widowed, living alone, and approaching the end of life with advanced heart failure. Simply getting to the hospital for outpatient appointments was overwhelming for him. Even walking from the HandyDART drop-off to the fifth-floor clinic caused significant physical distress.

At that time, our clinic was not structured to offer home visits. Yet when I requested them, the clerical team moved quickly and creatively to make it possible. I visited him at home several times.

Yes, his symptoms were better managed. His physical suffering was eased. But what remains with me most vividly are the conversations—about his wife, whom he dearly loved and had recently lost, and about his passion for cooking for her. He was profoundly lonely, and that loneliness caused a suffering no medication could address. Those visits offered companionship, dignity, and presence. They alleviated his isolation and accompanied him through to his natural death.

Being seen and heard

Another patient in the heart failure clinic, also nearing the end of life, attended visits with his wife. His cardiac symptoms were reasonably controlled, but his most distressing complaint was something seemingly small: a severely painful ingrown toenail.

Once again, our clerical team helped arrange a home visit, which was not a standard option. I could not treat the toenail myself, but I took his concern seriously and referred him directly to a compassionate podiatrist in the community who also practised at St. Paul’s Hospital. He died a few months later.

Eight years after his death, his wife went out of her way to find me working in the atrial fibrillation clinic.

2nd Sunday of Lent, Year A
First Reading: Gen 12:1-4
Second Reading: 2 Tim 1:8b-10
Gospel Reading: Mt 17:1-9
By Rev. V.J. Hawkswell

This Sunday’s First Reading describes how God called Abram. By this call, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, God began gathering his people into his one Church.

The Gospel Reading describes how Jesus chose Peter, James, and John and “was transfigured before them.” This event, just six days after Peter had recognized Jesus as the Son of God and Jesus had chosen Peter as the rock on which he would build his Church, “confirms Peter’s confession,” says the Catechism.

Thus Abram and Peter were called and chosen for pivotal roles in God’s saving plan. Are we envious, or are we thankful that we ourselves are not chosen and called in this way? Is it a blessing or a curse to be chosen?

The truth is that God has chosen us; he does choose us and calls us “with a holy calling,” as St. Paul says in the Second Reading. The Catechism confirms that we are all, no matter our state of life, “called to holiness,” to “the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity.” As Jesus said, “You must be made perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Holiness means “ever more intimate union with Christ,” the Catechism explains. We enter it through the sacraments. In Christ’s Mystical Body, we enter into the intimate union of the Holy Trinity, and in the Holy Trinity we find the happiness for which God made us.

However, the Catechism stresses, “the way of perfection passes by way of the cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle.”

Renunciation is precisely the business of Lent. Through self-denial, we cultivate detachment from this world in order to become more firmly attached to heaven.

“Many people today—even some Christians—misunderstand Christian self-denial,” says Scott Hahn in his book Lord, Have Mercy. “They try to dismiss it as psychologically sick, world-hating, dour, joyless, and masochistic.”

There are two misunderstandings here, he says.

First, Jesus himself said, “If a man wishes to come after Me, he must deny his very self, take up his cross, and begin to follow in My footsteps.” Self-denial “is not optional”; there is no “alternative, self-indulgent way of salvation.”

Second, self-denial is not “a denial of the goodness of the world. Christians sacrifice the best of things not because they think the world is evil and must be put to death, but because they know the world is very good—so good that it can distract us from what’s far better.” We are tempted to enjoy its good and pleasant pastimes rather than going to confession or Mass or visiting our grandmother in the nursing home.

Archbishop Richard Smith drew on Indigenous imagery to speak about faith and reconciliation at St. Paul’s Squamish Nation Church in North Vancouver, telling parishioners that Christ is the weaver who binds humanity together.

“When we share faith in Him, we are brought together as his people and we are created by the Lord into something of astonishing beauty,” he said in his homily during the pastoral visit. 

Archbishop Smith met with Squamish Nation elders, a meeting he personally requested. “We talked and shared stories for almost two hours,” he said. “The non-Indigenous—our country broadly—has so much to learn from Indigenous ways, from the traditions, from the culture, from the learnings.”

Reflecting on the ceremonial paddle he was given by the Squamish First Nation when he arrived in Vancouver last year, he recalled elders telling him the paddle was a lifeline, necessary for traversing the water in a canoe. Christ is the same, he said, “Jesus is our eternal lifeline. He, and he alone, is the one sent by the father to lead us to heaven.” 

Many people in the world today “need to be thrown that lifeline,” he said. “There is great suffering in our world today. There is a great sense of loneliness” amid the world’s “fracturing” and “division,” from warring nations to families.

During his visit, Archbishop Smith was shown Indigenous baskets made of cedar root and cherry bark, an image he used to reflect on Christ’s role in uniting humanity. Christians, he said, are like a basket woven together by Jesus himself. “Who does the weaving? [It’s Jesus,] because he is the lifeline,” he said, “the one who does the intricate interweaving that brings humanity together.”

As he finished his homily, he reaffirmed the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s commitment to truth and reconciliation. “I want you to know—I want the people to know—that I am committed, and the Archdiocese is committed to that ever-closer interweaving among ourselves,” he said. 

“My hope and my prayer is that as we grow in reconciliation—the Church and Indigenous peoples together—as we look at that basket as see it as symbolic of the interwovenness that we want to exist between ourselves.”

He ended with a call to work together, asking the Lord “to interweave us so that we will become a beacon for others that says unity and reconciliation is possible.” 

Hope is real and tangible, he said, “and we can touch it the more deeply that we are reconciled with one another.