Prayers on a plane

When you are a priest, you never know when you'll be called upon. There are things you can plan, such as a meeting I had in Toronto on June 13-14. But then there are things that are just surprises from God. On my way back from Toronto I wound up sitting next to a lovely couple from Arizona who were on their way to Wabush in Labrador (quite a trip!). After some typical chit chat they asked me to pray with them for a member of their family who is sick. So the three of us, sharing row 16, leaned in and prayed. It was a lovely (and surprising) moment of ministry. God bless to them in their journeys.

My personal story of faith

I've recently had a number of conversations in which people have asked me to share my story of faith. It's not the first time I've received those kinds of questions. When I was being made a bishop and was being interviewed by journalists, more than one reporter asked me if I had ever had any doubts or questions about my Catholic faith. In all honesty, while I am a firmly committed believer in Jesus Christ and in his Church, I (like lots of people) have indeed had my struggles. That being said, while those times were certainly difficult, I have to admit that the process of working through those challenges has helped me become the man of faith that I am today. As I sometimes tell people, "I used to believe what I did because I was a Catholic; but now, I am a Catholic because of what I believe." This holds true today. Indeed, it has become even more important to me now that I am a bishop, because as a bishop I supposed to be doing more than just be teaching "the party line". I don't see how I could ever have considered being a priest, much less a bishop, without a profound and examined conviction that what I would be teaching was actually the Truth: the truth about God, the truth about the cosmos and the human condition, and the truth about our deepest longings and our common destiny.

I don't want to claim that my journey of faith is somehow universal, and that everyone is obliged to accept it as universally valid. After all, my life experience is unique to me. That being said, I have often appreciated hearing about the faith journey of others, even though that journey was unique to them. Very often, I found myself challenged by the issues others would wrestle with, and nourished by the answers they found. Most importantly, I would find myself in admiration at their desire to follow where their emerging convictions would lead them. Faith, after all, isn't just an external content, a list of truths: it is also a personal response consistent with those truths.

I am not a perfect Catholic, and I don't want to pretend that my life today is some sort of ideal response to the truths of the Catholic faith. While I'd like to be a living saint (and I really mean that), I know I'm still a sinner, and that I have a long way to go. Still, even that is a grace. After all, one can only know their weakness if they also know their potential strength. The Catholic faith is part of that strength: it has given me a reliable map to guide my life, and firm foundation upon which to build as I have made (and continue to make) my life choices. To be honest, it has also led me to have a life that is, quite frankly, extremely rich and interesting, and full of opportunities for joy. I feel called to share my personal story of faith, in the hopes it will help others find their foundation and source of joy in Christ as well.

Happy retirement to Lucie Martineau

Our diocesan communications Director, Lucie Martineau, is retiring at the end of June. Today was our chance to honour her with a small cocktail (in French, a 5 à 7).

It has been a real pleasure working with Lucie. She is a loyal woman of faith as well as a consummate professional. Her wisdom and experience have helped steer the diocese in some challenging situations.

At the event to mark her retirement, Archbishop Lépine reminded us all that we may retire from our job, but we never retire from being missionary disciples. While she may no longer be working at the diocesan curia, I am sure Lucie will continue to carry the mission of the Church in her heart. Many thanks to you, Lucie, for all you have contributed to the welfare of the people of God and our greater society.

What the heck is the Trinity?

On this Sunday dedicated to the Holy Trinity, I thought I might share a presentation I gave a few years ago to students at Concordia University. Enjoy!

Congratulations to our First Communicants

I had the real pleasure of presiding the mass of First Communion for the parishioners of my parish, Our Lady of Fatima. The kids were so excited and so into it. It was a real joy!

Wonder Woman is all kinds of awesome

I saw the new Wonder Woman movie. I was thoroughly entertained. It is definitely in my top three favourite super-hero themed films of all time. I don't know it if will achieve the number 1 spot (I'd rather wait and see how I feel about it some time down the road, after the initial exhilaration has worn off), but it has definitely de-throned my previous #1 favourite, The Dark Knight.

You might be wondering, "If it de-throned your previous #1 favourite, how come you aren't willing to say this is your new #1 super-hero film?" The answer is because watching Wonder Woman made me realise that The Dark Knight was not really my favourite super-hero film, it was my favourite super-villain film. Batman was ok in that film, but the Joker was awesome, the greatest depiction of Nietzche's ubermann I have ever seen in any medium.

What I loved about Wonder Woman, on the other hand, is that finally we have a DC film with an actual unambiguous hero (or, in this case, heroine). To date we've had an angsty Superman, a vengeful Batman, and a very silly Suicide Squad. Blech. But in the case of Wonder Woman, she just shone.

As a matter of full disclosure, I should add that I am a geek. I have been for a long time. For example, I collected comic books as a teenager. Among those comic books was the reboot of Wonder Woman led by artist George Perez. The Wonder Woman character had gone through a few incarnations, including the campy 1970's show starring Linda Carter, but Perez brought the character back to her Greek roots. She was not defined by the name Wonder Woman -- that was what others called her. She was Diana, warrior Amazon princess, come to man's world to chew bubble gum and kick a** (and she was all out of bubble gum -- bonus points if you get the reference). As the character's story arc evolved, the god Ares emerged as her key adversary. This was one scary dude, the personification of war itself -- not a god of strategy and victory, but a god who revelled in conflict, bloodshed, and even bloodlust itself. Yikes.

Seeing this film brought me back to being a kid again. The Perez Wonder Woman was definitely front and centre, as Wonder Woman's origin story and key villain matched that arc, but I have to hand it to the creators of the movie: they somehow managed to get in references to other versions of Wonder Woman as well. By setting the film in WWI (actually, an original setting for the character) they were able to bring in the whole feminist angle (via the suffragettes) without beating us over the head with it. There is also at least one hommage to the Linda Carter Wonder Woman, although it is very subtle. The Linda Carter Wonder Woman used to spin in order to change her costume, which was just about as silly as it sounds. In the film, she doesn't spin, but there is a scene where the camera sort of spins around her, and suddenly she's ready to go in her battle dress. It even start with her letting down her hair à la Linda Carter. A small touch, but classic. (There are references to a later version of Wonder Woman as well, but I don't want to add too many spoilers.)

I've heard some complaints that the movie is too long, or that the final act is too convoluted. Nonsense. The plot and writing are generally pretty tight, with one exception (how can Zeus have created Diana if he was previously killed by Ares?), but more important is how Diana has to confront not only the specific evil she has come to fight, but also the evils created by the simple misuse of free will (which, the movie reveals, are considerable). She even needs to confront herself, in a way. In other words, the character grows. Wonder Woman is not just an origin story, it is a "hero's journey" story, only she is going from someone already heroic to a more mature hero. Not easy to pull off in a compelling way, but it happens. Kudos to the writers.

Ares does make his eventual appearance, showing himself to be a master of deceit and temptation more than just a bad guy who makes things go boom. Yes, there is a final battle, but this is literally a battle between figures from mythological Greece -- people should read some Homer and then see if they want to come back and complain about the final act. And we should also realise that the villain, while named Ares, is really a depiction of Satan -- there is even a scene where Ares and Wonder Woman are speaking in a garden paradise, with Ares trying to tempt her, meaning that Wonder Woman is actually an Eve-like figure. If you don't know the stories you might not pick up on details like that, because the film is subtle about it. I like that.

I am getting pretty tired of seeing films where the supposed catharsis comes through vengeance. In this film, while the main character initially believes, in her naiveté, that her problem can be solved by wrath, in the end it is love that gives her the strength she needs. That's powerful. I think the film could have been improved by a greater exploration of what love actually means (in our day, romantic love is often assumed to be the highest form, a falsehood which does nonetheless find an echo in the film). Still, I do recognize that in the end it's a super-hero movie that has an audience to please. For what it is, the film is well written, well acted, entertaining, and even meaningful. Definitely worth my time, and I'm sure I'll be seeing it again.

My rating: 9.5 / 10

Whatever happened to the Pentecost octave?

I was chatting with a brother priest at lunchtime, and somehow we got on the subject of part of our liturgical tradition: the Pentecost Octave.

What is an "octave", you ask? This is a custom of celebrating a particularly important feast for a period of 8 days. In other words, the feast in question doesn't just get a feast *day*, it gets a feast *week*. An example is Easter, which is celebrated on a particular Sunday, but which continues in its celebration for the week afterwards. Even in secular parlance people are familiar with the notion of "Easter Monday". This expression doesn't just mean the Monday after Easter, it is referring to the idea that the Monday actually *is* Easter, prolonged!

The post Vatican II calendar has 2 octaves: Easter (already mentioned, which goes until Divine Mercy Sunday), and Christmas (which stretches until January 1, the feast of Mary, Mother of God). The older calendar also had an octave for Pentecost, however, which went until Trinity Sunday. For some reason this got dropped, so that the week between the two Sundays is simply a week in what we call "ordinary time".

I never grew up with this tradition, so I guess I don't miss it in any experiential way, but I must admit I do wonder why it was dropped and what we might be missing.

On a theological level, the Latin church is often accused of neglecting what we call "pneumatology", i.e. the theology of the Holy Spirit. Surely a week dedicated to the Holy Spirit would help in that regard!

On a pastoral level, there is something to be said for having a week dedicated to helping people be open to the Holy Spirit in order to better encounter Christ. We Catholics are discovering more and more that individual dedication to Christ, while at the heart of faith, needs to be completed by a personal, heart to heart encounter with Christ. The thing is, we can help people experience the former by means of reason (perhaps why we are more comfortable with it as an approach), but the latter can only be done via a gift of pure grace (and hence is, to a certain degree, out of our control). It is the Holy Spirit alone who permits the personal encounter with Christ, and so our New Evangelization will require a pastorale de l'Esprit Saint, i.e. a pastoral approach with the Holy Spirit being presented and proposed as the key protagonist of our relationship with Christ.

Confirmations at the Filipino Mission

Today is the feast of Pentecost, and I had the pleasure of visiting Our Lady of the Philippines Mission to offer the sacrament of confirmation to 9 children and 3 adults. The welcome was warm as only people of the Filipino culture can do, the ceremony was full of life, and the meal afterwards was delicious! Bring on the lechon!

Many thanks to Father Frank Alvarez, as well as the team of catechists, who joined in the picture you see above (click on it to expand). Congratulations to you!

Confirmations at my parish

As a bishop I have the chance to celebrate confirmations in many different places. Tonight, however, I had the joy of presiding confirmation in the parish where I am pastor (Our Lady of Fatima). I was so proud of those young people! And they were really good, participating well (reading and singing) and answering my questions at the homily. May their lives be filled with the Holy Spirit always!

This new computer is sweet

I bought a new computer a couple of days ago: an Acer Spin 5 laptop. I haven't bought a new computer for at least 10 years now, because up until now I've been taking old PC's and recycling them by installing Linux Mint. I love Linux, I really do, but with all the travelling I've been doing I really needed a better machine to actually get my work done.

The laptop arrived yesterday, and I had a chance to set it up today and take in for a... um... spin! The verdict: wow, this thing is fast! It boots fast, it runs software fast, and the connection speed is great (must be using a more advanced Wifi protocol than my current machine). Frankly, all of this makes it more fun to use.

My plan is to keep this laptop free of all kinds of downloaded crud. A clean software always feels great, like that fresh sensation after you've brushed your teeth (yes, I know I am a geek). I'm still going to keep my desktop as a backup development machine, but for now I'm enjoying this one.

A talk I gave at an interfaith event for peace

This is a talk I gave at the Interfaith Human Rights Celebration for World Peace organized by Canadians for Coexistence. Many thanks to Rabbi Alan Bright for his warm welcome to Shaare Zedek synagogue.

Funny story: I had the time wrong in my calendar and got there over an hour early. I wound up mixing with a family that had come in for some business. They were a bit surprised to see me there, as you can imagine, but a bit of joking banter helped lighten the mood. I'm always honoured to be in a house of God.

We're the Ents

I had a chance last October to speak at a conference in New York City alongside my good friend Glenn Smith. It was an honour to address hundreds of pastors and leaders in the Evangelical tradition. The Movement Day people have posted a video of our talk, so I thought I'd share it with you (unfortunately I can't embed this video, so you'll have to click it).

Movement Day Global Cities 2016 - How do we keep our mission greater than our institutions?

A look back at 2016

2016 was a big year for me in many ways, so rather than just send Christmas cards like I usually do I thought of sending an end-of-year letter instead. I’ve always appreciated getting news from others, and I’m hoping this letter will be meaningful for you.

First, an important piece of context. In July of 2015 our family got word that my father had been diagnosed with an untreatable form of pancreatic cancer. We did not expect him to last very long, but to our surprise and delight Papa was still with us for Christmas and New Year’s, and was doing very well. It was a good start to the year.

Towards the end of January I was blessed to be able to take a trip to Barbados to visit different sets of friends who have winter homes there. I was originally going to stay in a parish, but a mix up in the timing actually brought an even better opportunity: Bishop Jason Gordon very generously let me stay at his home right near Saint Patrick Cathedral (and a five minute walk from the beach!) I went to be able to get some sun, but I came back with new and renewed friendships. It was truly a blessed time.

The first few months of 2016 brought to a close an initiative I began five years ago: the extended pastoral visitation of our parishes. Three parishes remained, and so I got a chance to spend time at Saint Patrick’s (January), Saint Malachy’s (February), and Ascension of our Lord (April). Those five years of visits were very helpful in my ministry, and frankly were a tremendous blessing for me as I got to see first hand the living dynamism of our christian communities.

Ash Wednesday brought us into Lent, during which I had the chance to preach a three-day Lenten mission at Saint Edmund of Canterbury parish. As the Church throughout the world was engaged in the Year of Mercy declared by Pope Francis, each evening’s theme looked at some aspect of the mercy God shows us in his love. Evening #1 explored the theme of mercy in the Bible, evening #2 was on the works of mercy in the world, and evening #3 was about living reconciliation – not just the sacrament, but the reality of reconciliation in our life. After each presentation I answered questions from the crowd. It was great to be in teaching mode.

Lent led to Holy Week, and soon it was Easter. My father was visibly weakening, but was still with us both in body and in spirit. Our family gathered with joy for Easter dinner, but within a couple of weeks we were gathering again as he took a turn for the worse. Papa died in his sleep on April 9, sometime in the early morning. Saint Maurice parish in Ottawa (Nepean) was absolutely packed for his funeral on April 14. It was an explosion of grace, and while there was sadness there was also a lot of joy. We buried Papa next next day in the family plot at Notre Dame cemetery in Ottawa in a small ceremony attended by family and friends. Despite our sadness, a silver lining soon emerged: my sister announced that she was pregnant with her 3rd child, and was due on Christmas day! Given the timing, it meant that the first person from our family to know would have been my father, from his point of view in Heaven.

On the pastoral front, the post-Easter season saw the launch of our first-ever diocese-wide Alpha course (April 3). I had been to London, England the previous year to get to know the leadership of the Alpha movement, and we were now ready to offer the course to the English-speaking sector of Montreal. The course gathered people from across Montreal, Laval, and beyond. It was our hope that this session of the course would let people learn the skills to bring it back to their parishes. I am so grateful to the team that put everything together – one day the Lord will let them know how transformative their labour really was for others.

April 26, 2016, was the inaugural general meeting of members for Catholic Action Montreal, a new charity launched with the blessing of Archbishop Christian Lépine to gather the energies of our people to produce practical works of charity. I was elected to the new Board of Directors, with the shared mission to set the vision for the new charity. Exciting times!

May was a very busy month. The many celebrations of confirmation keep bishops occupied after Easter, and 2016 was no exception. I was in Toronto on May 10-11 for the annual dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox bishops, and it was good to connect again with these men that I’ve been blessed to get to know these past few years. I flew to Strasbourg, France, in the last week of May for a session of exams in canon law. I’m happy to report that I passed, meaning that I completed all the requirements of year 2 of my program. Of course, it did take me 6 years to do it, and even with that I was only 2/3 of the way to completion… but more on that later.

June brought other ministry initiatives. On June 7, Catholic Christian Outreach (CCO) launched its new presence in Montreal, working in conjunction with the Catholic chaplain of Concordia University. I flew to Halifax for the first-ever Divine Renovation conference June 13-14, where I had a chance to speak as part of a panel and where I got a chance to connect with a Montreal priest who was completing a 6-month internship to be able to bring the Divine Renovation approach back home with him. I got back just in time to be one of the principal co-consecrators for Bishop-elect Alain Faubert, who became a new auxiliary bishop for Montreal on the evening on June 15. June 25 saw the kickoff of a new camping season at Camp Kinkora, and I was blessed with the chance to say mass for the staff of the camp as it started the season with new management. Finally, I was in Philadelphia June 29 and 30 for the Catholic Leadership Roundtable annual meeting, where I had a chance to be interviewed for my take on the link between managerial practices and church culture. Philadelphia also brought a nice surprise, in that to my delight the Petit chanteurs de Mont Royal were in town for some concerts.

And then, July. And vacation. And probably one of the best spiritual retreats I’ve ever had. The Jesuits have a house in Guelph, Ontario, and that’s where I followed the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius for eight days. Honestly, those days were a balm on my soul. I was really pooped, and all that work meant that I hadn’t really had the time to properly grieve the loss of my father. Those days in Guelph gave me a chance to rest, to recuperate, and to reconnect with the Lord. I am grateful beyond words to those who made it all happen.

I got back to Montreal in August and found myself facing a choice. Archbishop Lépine had asked Bishop Faubert and myself to each become a Vicar General for the archdiocese. This meant that I would have to leave my role as Episcopal Vicar to the English-speaking faithful, a calling that had brought me great joy over the past five years (admittedly with a few challenges too). Archbishop Lépine and I had discussed this change prior to the July vacation, so it was one of the questions I brought with my on my retreat. I began my new role on September 1, 2016.

The honeymoon, such as it was, didn’t last long. The next day (September 2) I got a call from my sister Miriam. Through her tears she informed me that she was already in labour – at only 23.5 weeks, perilously close to the edge of viability for the baby. The pains subsided shortly after, but the threat of a severely premature birth hung over us. I headed to Ottawa as soon as I could, and while I was visiting Miriam on Monday, September 5, the labour pains began again. Little baby Temperance was born that day, weighing only 1.5 pounds (680 grams). She was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the Ottawa General Hospital, where she would spend the next several months learning to breathe, to eat, and generally to be a baby. It was a stressful time, especially for my sister and her family. Still, people rallied to help them. A meal train began to take care of the cooking for a while, and a GoFundMe campaign was launched which raised over $10,000 to help them with expenses. Some of the neighbourhood kids even did a lemonade stand fundraiser to help do their part. I am eternally grateful to all those who offered prayers and material support for Temperance and her family.

While that drama was unfolding in Ottawa, my work as a bishop kept up its usual crazy September pace. I am the Bishop-promoter of the Apostleship of the Sea for Canada, a ministry which took a new step forward when we both hosted a gathering for port chaplains at the beginning in September as well as a special lunch for bishops with port chaplains during the plenary meeting of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in Cornwall at the end of the month. I also preached a 4-day mission in the middle of September at my parish of Our Lady of Fatima, and finally I headed to Strasbourg, France, once again to start the third (and final) academic year of my degree in canon law. I’ll be honest, as I was boarding the plane for Paris I wondered if I needed my head examined, because this third year would involve one trip of a week’s duration per month until March (i.e. seven times!). Still, this was another thing I had prayed about during my summer retreat, and I really felt that God wanted me to do this – so off I went.

October brought with it a wonderful grace to which Our Lady of Fatima parish had been working for several months: the celebration of the dedication of our parish church on Thursday, October 13, the 99th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. The Sunday after, October 16, the parish celebrated the living stones that make up the community by hosting an intercultural day, showcasing the many nations and cultures that make up the parish. It was amazing, and as I boarded the plane that evening to France for trip two of seven, I did so with real joy in my heart. Not long after returning from France seven days later, I was headed to the airport again, this time to speak alongside my good friend Glenn Smith at a conference in New York City run by an Evangelical think-tank dedicated to urban missionary work. It’s rare that a Catholic bishop gets a chance to address a couple of thousand evangelical pastors, and I was truly honoured to have the chance. It was also my first-ever chance to see the Big Apple, and staying at a hotel right near Times Square added something special to the experience.

The month of November brought with it a truly extraordinary experience: Montreal’s second Parish Vitality Conference (November 10-12). With access to workshops, speakers, and a rally gathering our movements and associations, 250+ attendees explored how we can transform our love for our parishes into practical movement forward for their growth and vitality. Just a few days before, Father Ray Lafontaine was announced as my successor for the pastoral leadership of the English-speaking Catholics of our Archdiocese, and so the conference served as a good occasion to “pass the torch”. I congratulate the team who did such amazing work on the conference – I am so proud of you.

The fact of no longer having two jobs meant, of course, that now I could bring greater focus to my role as Vicar General for economic and administrative affairs. And there was plenty of work to do! My 3-5 year action plan was approved, giving the green light to how we would organize things in the months ahead. I worked on drafts of new policies for human resources and document control, with other implementation plans to follow. And I had two more week-long trips to France, one toward the end of the November and another three weeks later, in December. There was never a dull moment, including a chance to present to a parliamentary commission in Quebec City (December 7, my 15th anniversary of priesthood) and to connect with the Department of Canadian Heritage in Ottawa, where I met Minister Mélanie Joly (December 8).

All that administrative stuff began to die down as Christmas approached, and it was with a deep sense of satisfaction that I joined my parishioners in prayer for the masses of the Christmas weekend. I made it to Ottawa on December 27, to spend the few remaining days of the year with family. People asked me what I was planning on doing for that time, and I answered, “I’m going to hold Temperance in my arms. I have no other plans for the rest.” And so I did, a moment that was definitely a highlight of the whole year. Little Temperance, you will recall, was originally due on December 25, and holding her was my best Christmas present ever.

Like I said, 2016 was a big year, and a tough one. Lots more could have been said. I want to thank all those who supported me and my family with their friendship, prayers, and patience. 2017 already promises to also be a big year as well, so stay tuned!