Yesterday, my high school reunion...
Today, a meeting with Andy, a friend from university days!
I attended Concordia University's budiness school from 1989 to 1992. I was super involved in student life, and my final year I was President of the Commerce and Administration Students Association (aka CASA). It was definitely one of the best (and most important) years in my life, and Andy was part of it through his involvement in student life as well.
We reconnected recently at a gala fundraiser event for a local school. I must admit, it had been so long I didn't recognize Andy at first, but thankfully his memory is better than mine. We promised to reconnect, and although it took a while I messaged him when my schedule had an opening. What a great lunch we had! Part "good old days", part "what have you been up to", and part dreaming up new projects to change the world for the better.
Thank you Andy. Looking forward to reconnecting!
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Saturday, 24 June 2017
30th high school reunion
Yes, it's true: it has been 30 years since I graduated high school. I can hardly believe it!
Our last reunion was 10 years ago (20th anniversary), so we were due for another. It was great seeing people I had not seen in so long, even if I couldn't stay long. And even if I went in my collar, it was nice to just be "Tom" for a little bit.
My first three years of high school were somewhat meh, but my final two years were among the best of my life, especially the last year. Because we were all getting ready for college (called CEGEP here in Quebec) getting good grades (or heck, just graduating) meant that the academic pressure was on. Because my grades were pretty good I tutored lots of classmates my final year. I got a lot of personal benefits from that experience: I discovered a passion for explaining things, I made lots of friends, and in some cases I even earned a few dollars. But I also got a lot of satisfaction from seeing others succeed, and some of those stories came back to me. Who knows, maybe that was part of the genesis of my vocation to the priesthood -- seeing others flourish!
Friday, 23 June 2017
Connecting with family at Aunt Louise's funeral
I was in Ottawa today (June 23) for the funeral of my aunt Louise (celebrated this morning). While a sad occasion it was good to connect with family. My cousins Paul and Patrick were there, as well as their extended family, such as little Ava, a most recent addition (she is my first cousin twice removed).
My mother, brother and sister were also there, along with my brother's oldest daughter Chloe, and my sister's three kids (including Brigid and Paxton, below).
Paxton was especially adorable. I don't get to see him as much as I would like, so sometimes he plays strange with me, but not today. I sat down and he came over and plunked himself down right next to me. No special reason, he just wanted to be close. Again, adorable.
Wednesday, 21 June 2017
Learning about conscience, part 1: Saint Thomas More
I was a kid in a time before video on demand services like Netflix. Heck, it was before PVRs and even VCRs. We had one TV in the house, and if you wanted to know what was going on you consulted the newspaper or a print publication like TV Guide. Or, sometimes you'd be channel surfing and if you came across something you wanted to watch, you either just watched it or you let it go.
I don't remember exactly how old I was when A Man for All Seasons came on TV. It was probably between the ages of 7 and 10. It was an afternoon, and I'm pretty sure it was a Saturday. In those days, Saturday morning was a time for kids to watch cartoons, but at a certain point the kids shows stopped and the "grown up" shows took over. My recollection is that I had finished watching "my" shows, and my dad had come downstairs to watch "his show". But as I was getting up to go, my dad invited me to stay and watch the movie with him. I wasn't too sure -- I generally found "grown up" shows boring. But my dad said, "This movie is about someone you are named after." Really? Wow! So I couldn't refuse.
For those who do not know A Man for All Seasons, it is the story of Sir Thomas More (later known as Saint Thomas More). He was the good friend of King Henry VIII, and at one point was Chancellor of England. This was in the 16th century, when the Protestant Reformation was in full swing on the Continent. At one point Henry had himself declared the head of the Church in England, and communion disintegrated between himself and the Pope. Sir Thomas More could not accept to go down that path, and he eventually lost everything, including his life.
At my age, I did not understand all that was going on in the story. It was set in another century, the dialogue was a fairly advanced form of English, and I knew very little about the Protestant Reformation except that some kids in our neighbourhood were "protestants" which meant they went to a different church than us. But my dad explained things as needed, and my focus anyway was mainly on the main character who had the same name as me.
The story of Saint Thomas More left a deep impression on me, leaving me perplexed and even disturbed. My father asked me what I thought about the story, and I remember asking him the same question.
"I've always admired Thomas More," my father explained. "For me, he is a model of what it means to follow your conscience."
"Conscience? What's that?" I asked.
My dad did not answer the question directly. Instead of saying what it was, he said what it meant. "To live by your conscience means to always act according to the truth. That's what Thomas More did."
I changed the focus of my questioning. "But why did Sir Thomas go all the way to being killed?"
"He didn't want to die," my father explained. "If you noticed, Thomas was trying to avoid falling into the danger set before him. He didn't go looking for trouble, in fact he did his best to get out of it, but when in the end they backed him into a corner and said he had to deny his commitment or else, he refused to do so."
"That's what conscience means," he continued. "To live by your conscience means you have to have courage. Anybody can find excuses to avoid challenges and suffering, but sometimes there are things we have to be willing to sacrifice for. For example, if someone ever made me have to choose between my life and yours, or my life and the life of your mother, or brother, or sister, I'd choose to die rather than let you die. At least I hope I would, I hope I'd have the courage to do that."
Now that got my attention. My dad didn't know it, but he was teaching me about the difference between courage and daring. People will sometimes do something dangerous on a dare, but real courage is not just about daring. It is about daring to do the right thing, even if it costs you.
This, of course, raised other questions in my mind. After all, if following your conscience could have such high stakes, you had better be pretty sure of what the right thing is. After all, there is no point suffering for the wrong thing!
My father confirmed as much. "To follow your conscience takes courage, but you also have to use your brain," he said. "You have to always be willing to seek the truth and stick with it. But it also takes humility, because no one can ever know the whole truth all at once. You have to be willing to admit you don't know everything, and to be willing to ask questions. It helps to be part of a community that is committed to finding the truth and living it. That's what the Church is for."
Getting back to my story, I remember asking my dad if all this conscience stuff was really worth it. Remember, I was a kid and peer pressure was a fact of life. If joining with my friends was the path of least resistance, why not just do that, at least in the normal course of life? My father reminded me that, in the film, Sir Thomas had a conversation with his good friend the Duke of Norfolk, who had tried to persuade Thomas to take a false oath "for fellowship". Thomas replied, "And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?"
I looked at my father and said that this argument did not sound fair. God was going to punish us for not following our conscience? Is that the ultimate reason why we should seek the truth and be willing to suffer for it -- because we are afraid of God?
With great patience, and with (I believe) some delight in the fact that I was pushing the issue so far, he replied that, in fact, having a strong conscience, one that was anchored in truth and had the courage to live it, was actually the source of one of the greatest assets a personality can have: inner freedom. Saint Thomas, in his struggle, showed himself to be more free than the King himself, even when he was locked up in the Tower of London.
We need that inner freedom, my father explained, to be able to live according to the ultimate law: the law of love. I had heard of this law before, during the Bible readings and sermons and church, such as in the expression "love your neighbour". That law doesn't say we have to like our neighbour, but that we do have to love him. We have to even love our enemies. But, as my father explained, how can we do that unless we have the inner freedom to do so? Real love cannot be forced, it must be free. Having a strong conscience makes us free inside, the kind of freedom that Saint Thomas had to declare that he was "the King's faithful servant, but God's first".
"That's why we wind up in Hell if we disobey our conscience," my father explained. "We can't live real love with out. And God is love, Heaven is love. It's not that God will punish us if we don't follow our conscience, it's that conscience is our guide to Heaven, to being with God. And while God sometimes grants people visions or speaks words to them, it's in our conscience that God ordinarily impresses himself up on. If our conscience isn't clear, we can't have a real relationship with Him."
This conversation had a lasting effect upon me, even until today. For example, as I've gotten older I've come to realise this conversation was the start of my passion for ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue (heck, even dialogue with sincere atheists). I like speaking with people who have convictions and try and live by them. Our convictions may differ, but if those convictions are sincere it means the other person is willing to have them tested in the name of a higher principle, i.e. the principle that The Truth is more important than "this or that" truth. As I would learn later, this perspective would eventually come in handy when I started to have my own "crisis of faith" -- that that is a story for another time.
I don't remember exactly how old I was when A Man for All Seasons came on TV. It was probably between the ages of 7 and 10. It was an afternoon, and I'm pretty sure it was a Saturday. In those days, Saturday morning was a time for kids to watch cartoons, but at a certain point the kids shows stopped and the "grown up" shows took over. My recollection is that I had finished watching "my" shows, and my dad had come downstairs to watch "his show". But as I was getting up to go, my dad invited me to stay and watch the movie with him. I wasn't too sure -- I generally found "grown up" shows boring. But my dad said, "This movie is about someone you are named after." Really? Wow! So I couldn't refuse.
For those who do not know A Man for All Seasons, it is the story of Sir Thomas More (later known as Saint Thomas More). He was the good friend of King Henry VIII, and at one point was Chancellor of England. This was in the 16th century, when the Protestant Reformation was in full swing on the Continent. At one point Henry had himself declared the head of the Church in England, and communion disintegrated between himself and the Pope. Sir Thomas More could not accept to go down that path, and he eventually lost everything, including his life.
At my age, I did not understand all that was going on in the story. It was set in another century, the dialogue was a fairly advanced form of English, and I knew very little about the Protestant Reformation except that some kids in our neighbourhood were "protestants" which meant they went to a different church than us. But my dad explained things as needed, and my focus anyway was mainly on the main character who had the same name as me.
The story of Saint Thomas More left a deep impression on me, leaving me perplexed and even disturbed. My father asked me what I thought about the story, and I remember asking him the same question.
"I've always admired Thomas More," my father explained. "For me, he is a model of what it means to follow your conscience."
"Conscience? What's that?" I asked.
My dad did not answer the question directly. Instead of saying what it was, he said what it meant. "To live by your conscience means to always act according to the truth. That's what Thomas More did."
I changed the focus of my questioning. "But why did Sir Thomas go all the way to being killed?"
"He didn't want to die," my father explained. "If you noticed, Thomas was trying to avoid falling into the danger set before him. He didn't go looking for trouble, in fact he did his best to get out of it, but when in the end they backed him into a corner and said he had to deny his commitment or else, he refused to do so."
"That's what conscience means," he continued. "To live by your conscience means you have to have courage. Anybody can find excuses to avoid challenges and suffering, but sometimes there are things we have to be willing to sacrifice for. For example, if someone ever made me have to choose between my life and yours, or my life and the life of your mother, or brother, or sister, I'd choose to die rather than let you die. At least I hope I would, I hope I'd have the courage to do that."
Now that got my attention. My dad didn't know it, but he was teaching me about the difference between courage and daring. People will sometimes do something dangerous on a dare, but real courage is not just about daring. It is about daring to do the right thing, even if it costs you.
This, of course, raised other questions in my mind. After all, if following your conscience could have such high stakes, you had better be pretty sure of what the right thing is. After all, there is no point suffering for the wrong thing!
My father confirmed as much. "To follow your conscience takes courage, but you also have to use your brain," he said. "You have to always be willing to seek the truth and stick with it. But it also takes humility, because no one can ever know the whole truth all at once. You have to be willing to admit you don't know everything, and to be willing to ask questions. It helps to be part of a community that is committed to finding the truth and living it. That's what the Church is for."
Getting back to my story, I remember asking my dad if all this conscience stuff was really worth it. Remember, I was a kid and peer pressure was a fact of life. If joining with my friends was the path of least resistance, why not just do that, at least in the normal course of life? My father reminded me that, in the film, Sir Thomas had a conversation with his good friend the Duke of Norfolk, who had tried to persuade Thomas to take a false oath "for fellowship". Thomas replied, "And when we die, and you are sent to heaven for doing your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?"
I looked at my father and said that this argument did not sound fair. God was going to punish us for not following our conscience? Is that the ultimate reason why we should seek the truth and be willing to suffer for it -- because we are afraid of God?
With great patience, and with (I believe) some delight in the fact that I was pushing the issue so far, he replied that, in fact, having a strong conscience, one that was anchored in truth and had the courage to live it, was actually the source of one of the greatest assets a personality can have: inner freedom. Saint Thomas, in his struggle, showed himself to be more free than the King himself, even when he was locked up in the Tower of London.
We need that inner freedom, my father explained, to be able to live according to the ultimate law: the law of love. I had heard of this law before, during the Bible readings and sermons and church, such as in the expression "love your neighbour". That law doesn't say we have to like our neighbour, but that we do have to love him. We have to even love our enemies. But, as my father explained, how can we do that unless we have the inner freedom to do so? Real love cannot be forced, it must be free. Having a strong conscience makes us free inside, the kind of freedom that Saint Thomas had to declare that he was "the King's faithful servant, but God's first".
"That's why we wind up in Hell if we disobey our conscience," my father explained. "We can't live real love with out. And God is love, Heaven is love. It's not that God will punish us if we don't follow our conscience, it's that conscience is our guide to Heaven, to being with God. And while God sometimes grants people visions or speaks words to them, it's in our conscience that God ordinarily impresses himself up on. If our conscience isn't clear, we can't have a real relationship with Him."
This conversation had a lasting effect upon me, even until today. For example, as I've gotten older I've come to realise this conversation was the start of my passion for ecumenical and inter-faith dialogue (heck, even dialogue with sincere atheists). I like speaking with people who have convictions and try and live by them. Our convictions may differ, but if those convictions are sincere it means the other person is willing to have them tested in the name of a higher principle, i.e. the principle that The Truth is more important than "this or that" truth. As I would learn later, this perspective would eventually come in handy when I started to have my own "crisis of faith" -- that that is a story for another time.
Tuesday, 20 June 2017
News articles on diocesan policy on prevention of abuse
The Journal de Montreal had an article series today on our diocesan policy for the prevention of abuse. They were doing a follow up from an article that came out around this time last year. I'm glad this got front page treatment, as I feel it is important that we emphasize the importance of this issue for our diocesan church. (I'm not a big fan of the headline, as it places far too much emphasis on one element of prevention, but the articles themselves are pretty good.)
Other articles quickly followed. I was interviewed by the CBC for one of them, and while the headline had the same emphasis, I found the article to be fair.
A further Google search will reveal even more articles. I have not had a chance to read them all, but I've been pleased so far. This issue is too important, and I'm hoping these articles will help us not only advance our pilot project further, but help all community groups, Catholic or not, do what's right.
Other articles quickly followed. I was interviewed by the CBC for one of them, and while the headline had the same emphasis, I found the article to be fair.
A further Google search will reveal even more articles. I have not had a chance to read them all, but I've been pleased so far. This issue is too important, and I'm hoping these articles will help us not only advance our pilot project further, but help all community groups, Catholic or not, do what's right.
Another step in the journey to Christian unity
I had an awesome meeting today with Glenn Smith of Christian Direction (far right) and Mac Pier (middle) of the New York City Leadership Center. I got to know Mac particularly when I spoke at the Movement Day conference last October (see this past blog post on the subject). Mac flew in from New York and we spent the day exploring how to advance the cause of Christian Unity, especially between Catholics and Evangelicals. May we all be one!
For those interested in learning more about this emerging relationship, you should check out the landmark document Evangelicals and Catholics Together (sometimes called ECT).
For those interested in learning more about this emerging relationship, you should check out the landmark document Evangelicals and Catholics Together (sometimes called ECT).
Monday, 19 June 2017
RIP to my aunt Louise Turner (nee Dowd)
My siblings and I remember her kindness during many a visit to her home when I was young. She was suffering from dementia in recent years, so we kept those memories for her. Now she is with the Lord. May she rest in peace.
UPDATE: Here is her obituary.
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Congratulations to Edwin and Nora!
Congratulations to Edwin (baby on the left) and Nora (baby on the right), two cousins I had the honour of baptising today. I have known (some of) the families for many years now, and I've had the pleasure to get to meet even more. God bless to all, and welcome to God's family!
Thursday, 15 June 2017
Experiencing communion for the first time
Some time after my first confession our religion teachers began to shift gears, starting to prepare us for our first communion. For those unfamiliar with the Catholic tradition, the "communion rite" is the time during a prayer service (usually a mass, although not exclusively) where the people approach a minister to receive and eat what appears to the eye as either a piece of bread (most common), some bread with some wine (less common), or just a bit of wine (least common, for exceptional circumstances). As they are distributed during the communion rite, the term "communion" also commonly applies to the substances being consumed. A person's "first communion", therefore, refers to the first time a person participates in the communion rite by going up and receiving communion.
In some spiritual traditions, such as for many Eastern Catholics, a person receives their first communion at the same time they are baptized, i.e. it can be given even to an infant. However, in the Latin tradition (to which most Roman Catholics belong), communion is not given to infants, but is delayed until the person has attained a level of maturity called the "age of reason" (generally considered to be around 7 years old).
Of course, that doesn't stop little kids from wanting to receive earlier. Any minister of communion can tell stories of what often happens when parents bring their children up with them in the communion rite. "Let me see!" they sometimes say when we place the wafer (called a "host") in the adult's hand. "Can I have some? Why can't I have some?" they sometimes exclaim. I've even had a few come up and perfectly imitate the gesture of receiving communion, not noticing Mom or Dad behind indicating, with a shake of the head, that the little one has not yet made his or her First Communion. On some level they know that something special is happening with communion, and they want to take part.
I was no different. I knew I had to wait until I had made my First Communion, and I don't recall making a lot of fuss otherwise. Still, I was curious. During our annual summer holiday at a cottage in the country, I asked the kindly parish priest if I could try a host. My father accompanied us to the sacristy, where the priest took a host out of a tin and gave it to me. It tasted like... not much.
Sometime later I found myself reflecting on this experience. The host was way too small to be worthwhile as food, and as a culinary experience it left something to be desired. So I asked my father about it: what was the big deal?
His answer floored me. "After the host is consecrated, it isn't bread anymore. When we receive the host in communion, what we are actually receiving is the Body of Jesus."
Wait, what?
How was THAT possible?
"It's called 'transsubstantiation'," he explained (and yes, he used that word). "It means that the host keeps all of the outward appearances of being bread, including the look and the taste, but it isn't bread anymore. It is Jesus' body."
This all seemed very strange to me. I didn't have a lot of trouble thinking that transsubstantiation was possible — after all, God could do anything, so if that's what he wanted to do that was his business. But to be honest, it didn't sound terribly plausible. In fact, it sounded a little gross. So I asked where we Catholics got this strange notion that we were eating Jesus' body in communion.
My father's answer? "From Jesus himself." And then he went to a Bible, and showed me chapter 6 of the gospel of John, where Jesus said that the bread he would give the world was his flesh (verse 51). He also showed me how people disputed this saying (verse 52), how some found this teaching intolerable (verse 60), and how some even stopped following him because of it (verse 66). "People had taken him literally," my father explained, "and Jesus did not correct them. When it was the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and said 'this is my body", and then he took wine and said 'this is my blood'. He meant what he said."
I had heard those words before, of course, during Sunday mass. I knew the priest spoke them over the bread and wine, and I knew they had been the words of Jesus. My father explained that this was why we would kneel at that point, why the priest would elevate the elements after each set of words, and why we would ring the bells and bow our heads. Jesus was now present, ready to be received by us as food.
This also explained what happened after receiving communion. I remember being impressed at seeing my parents pray in silence after receiving communion. As I got closer to my first communion, I found myself wondering what I should be "doing" during that time of silence. My father's suggestion was an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be. I knew those prayers, so that seemed simple enough.
Once our special catechism classes for first communion were over, I knew the big day was coming. However, our parish at the time had a curious practice, in that there was no big group first communion ceremony as was found in many other parishes. Instead, the parents were encouraged to decide, as a family, on a particular Sunday when the young boy or girl would receive their first communion along with the regular parish community. As I recall, there was not a lot of extra ceremony.
It was at this time that my mother had an idea. Her suggestion was that I receive my first communion on the Thursday of Holy Week. For those who don't know, the mass of Holy Thursday evening is the special moment of the year when we commemorate the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus. Every mass is a memorial of that moment, of course, but Holy Thursday has that character in a special way. As she pointed out it would make every Holy Thursday from then on an extra special event in my life. Given everything I had learned, it made sense to me.
I don't recall feeling anything particular in the moment when I finally did receive my first communion. I went up, I received and ate the host, I went back to my seat, and I said my prayers. It was all very matter of fact, and I felt as much.
That is, until the end of mass.
My experience of the end of your usual Sunday mass had been: a closing prayer, a set of announcements, and a final blessing and dismissal. Grand total, about 5 minutes. Mentally, I started to already shift gears into going home.
Except this was Holy Thursday.
After the closing prayer, suddenly everyone was back on their knees. The priest put on what looked like an extra white robe (which I would much later learn was called a "humeral veil"), and picked up the vessels that contained the leftover hosts. Instead of putting them back in the tabernacle, he then began to walk around the inside of the parish church with them. It was a procession, complete with candles and an altar server waving incense.
As the priest walked around, the choir began to sing. It was all a capella, i.e. no instruments. I had never heard that gorgeous melody before, and it was all in a language I didn't understand (I later found out it was the Pange Lingua, being sung in Latin).
Through it all, something spoke to me in my heart, impressing on me not words but concepts:
"This is holy."
"What the priest is carrying, is holy."
"What you received, is holy."
It was a genuine religious experience. Despite whatever hesitations I might have had before, I never again had trouble believing in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist — or at least, not for many years, and even that time of challenge was never about the Real Presence as such. But that is a tale for a later installment of this story.
In some spiritual traditions, such as for many Eastern Catholics, a person receives their first communion at the same time they are baptized, i.e. it can be given even to an infant. However, in the Latin tradition (to which most Roman Catholics belong), communion is not given to infants, but is delayed until the person has attained a level of maturity called the "age of reason" (generally considered to be around 7 years old).
Of course, that doesn't stop little kids from wanting to receive earlier. Any minister of communion can tell stories of what often happens when parents bring their children up with them in the communion rite. "Let me see!" they sometimes say when we place the wafer (called a "host") in the adult's hand. "Can I have some? Why can't I have some?" they sometimes exclaim. I've even had a few come up and perfectly imitate the gesture of receiving communion, not noticing Mom or Dad behind indicating, with a shake of the head, that the little one has not yet made his or her First Communion. On some level they know that something special is happening with communion, and they want to take part.
I was no different. I knew I had to wait until I had made my First Communion, and I don't recall making a lot of fuss otherwise. Still, I was curious. During our annual summer holiday at a cottage in the country, I asked the kindly parish priest if I could try a host. My father accompanied us to the sacristy, where the priest took a host out of a tin and gave it to me. It tasted like... not much.
Sometime later I found myself reflecting on this experience. The host was way too small to be worthwhile as food, and as a culinary experience it left something to be desired. So I asked my father about it: what was the big deal?
His answer floored me. "After the host is consecrated, it isn't bread anymore. When we receive the host in communion, what we are actually receiving is the Body of Jesus."
Wait, what?
How was THAT possible?
"It's called 'transsubstantiation'," he explained (and yes, he used that word). "It means that the host keeps all of the outward appearances of being bread, including the look and the taste, but it isn't bread anymore. It is Jesus' body."
This all seemed very strange to me. I didn't have a lot of trouble thinking that transsubstantiation was possible — after all, God could do anything, so if that's what he wanted to do that was his business. But to be honest, it didn't sound terribly plausible. In fact, it sounded a little gross. So I asked where we Catholics got this strange notion that we were eating Jesus' body in communion.
My father's answer? "From Jesus himself." And then he went to a Bible, and showed me chapter 6 of the gospel of John, where Jesus said that the bread he would give the world was his flesh (verse 51). He also showed me how people disputed this saying (verse 52), how some found this teaching intolerable (verse 60), and how some even stopped following him because of it (verse 66). "People had taken him literally," my father explained, "and Jesus did not correct them. When it was the Last Supper, Jesus took bread and said 'this is my body", and then he took wine and said 'this is my blood'. He meant what he said."
I had heard those words before, of course, during Sunday mass. I knew the priest spoke them over the bread and wine, and I knew they had been the words of Jesus. My father explained that this was why we would kneel at that point, why the priest would elevate the elements after each set of words, and why we would ring the bells and bow our heads. Jesus was now present, ready to be received by us as food.
This also explained what happened after receiving communion. I remember being impressed at seeing my parents pray in silence after receiving communion. As I got closer to my first communion, I found myself wondering what I should be "doing" during that time of silence. My father's suggestion was an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be. I knew those prayers, so that seemed simple enough.
Once our special catechism classes for first communion were over, I knew the big day was coming. However, our parish at the time had a curious practice, in that there was no big group first communion ceremony as was found in many other parishes. Instead, the parents were encouraged to decide, as a family, on a particular Sunday when the young boy or girl would receive their first communion along with the regular parish community. As I recall, there was not a lot of extra ceremony.
It was at this time that my mother had an idea. Her suggestion was that I receive my first communion on the Thursday of Holy Week. For those who don't know, the mass of Holy Thursday evening is the special moment of the year when we commemorate the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus. Every mass is a memorial of that moment, of course, but Holy Thursday has that character in a special way. As she pointed out it would make every Holy Thursday from then on an extra special event in my life. Given everything I had learned, it made sense to me.
I don't recall feeling anything particular in the moment when I finally did receive my first communion. I went up, I received and ate the host, I went back to my seat, and I said my prayers. It was all very matter of fact, and I felt as much.
That is, until the end of mass.
My experience of the end of your usual Sunday mass had been: a closing prayer, a set of announcements, and a final blessing and dismissal. Grand total, about 5 minutes. Mentally, I started to already shift gears into going home.
Except this was Holy Thursday.
After the closing prayer, suddenly everyone was back on their knees. The priest put on what looked like an extra white robe (which I would much later learn was called a "humeral veil"), and picked up the vessels that contained the leftover hosts. Instead of putting them back in the tabernacle, he then began to walk around the inside of the parish church with them. It was a procession, complete with candles and an altar server waving incense.
As the priest walked around, the choir began to sing. It was all a capella, i.e. no instruments. I had never heard that gorgeous melody before, and it was all in a language I didn't understand (I later found out it was the Pange Lingua, being sung in Latin).
Through it all, something spoke to me in my heart, impressing on me not words but concepts:
"This is holy."
"What the priest is carrying, is holy."
"What you received, is holy."
It was a genuine religious experience. Despite whatever hesitations I might have had before, I never again had trouble believing in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist — or at least, not for many years, and even that time of challenge was never about the Real Presence as such. But that is a tale for a later installment of this story.
Corpus Christi procession 2017
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Prayers on a plane
Tuesday, 13 June 2017
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.
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.
Monday, 12 June 2017
Happy retirement to Lucie Martineau
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.
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