Michael Czerny S.J. of the English Canadian Province is missioned to the office of the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. This is the first in a series of weekly articles which Michael will write from Ash Wednesday until the inauguration of the new Pope. Michael will report personally with reflections on the ecclesial and spiritual drama as seen from within....
In Pakistan, where I did secondary school, a cup of tea can sell a carpet or bring two families together to agree on their children's marriage. Sometimes that can take many cups of tea! I'm accustomed to what a cup of tea can say, what it means. It is no different at L'Arche...
There is a long tradition going back to the early Church of a time of fasting, penance, and asceticism before the liturgical memorials of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Christ. Today one hears of people giving up things: chocolate, alcohol, foods of certain sorts, or taking up things: a daily rosary, or the reading of a devotional book, or the practice of a pious exercise....
Saskatchewan can be a challenging place to live in winter. Although I grew up here, it was not until I returned after a thirty year absence that I realized it. This particular year winter has been-- winter!...
Now that I have reached the ripe age of eighty, an event I celebrated this past July, people sometimes ask me when I plan to retire. My usual answer goes something like this: "People retire in order to be free to do whatever they enjoy doing, and, since I thoroughly enjoy what I am presently doing what would it mean for me to retire? Besides, we Jesuits rarely actually retire"....
I have always wondered at the fact that all of the first companions of St. Ignatius were priests before they were Jesuits. In this light, I have reflected on the question, "do I think of myself as a priest who is a Jesuit or a Jesuit who is a priest?"...
After two months of winter, the landscape seems rather forlorn, lonely, dreary, on these cloudy days of which we seem to get more than our fair share in Ottawa. As I look out my window towards the houses of Old Ottawa South, it is hard to imagine that Ash Wednesday and Lent are upon us, and that Easter is only about two months off, with its promise of new life and growth in spirit and nature....
The canonization of the first North American First Nations Catholic took place in Rome last October 21. For me, the six months leading up to it involved a deepening relationship with the saint....
For seven years now, I have taken teachers in the University of Manitoba's Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in Education (PBDE) program and undergraduates in the Catholic Studies program at St. Paul's College on an intensive three week Field Study program in India (Delhi, Agra, Darjeeling, Kolkata, and Varanasi)....
One day, people went about their business, sharp and alert, and then, the very next day, the streets and roads were filled with slack-jawed zombies peering into little screens, tapping compulsively into little keypads, oblivious to anyone and anything around them....
