John McCarthy, SJ, is Socius to the Provincial, director of formation, and doing research and writing in ecology.
48 posts
I love walking through the forest after a good windstorm. Trees snapped off, blown over, uprooted. All part of the dynamic, ordered chaos" of a forest. Like every other living being, trees, if they live long enough - or rather grow tall enough, will eventually be killed by something. For tall trees, wind can be the great destroyer."...
During the gathering of Jesuits that is General Congregation 36, Pope Francis visited for a morning. What did he say to his assembled brother Jesuits?...
A recent study has confirmed that humans got the most deadliest form of malaria from our western gorilla cousins. .. Each year there are several hundred million cases of clinical malaria and more than one million deaths from malaria (over 2700 deaths per day). It used to be thought that the bad air of swamps caused such deaths. We now know of course that mosquitoes, regular inhabitants of swamps, act as the vector for the blood-borne malarial disease....
So many images flood my memory from those few days on the Labrador coast. A mother wolf and her 4 pups, black bears and their cubs, porpoises, seals, catching Arctic char, baked caribou and cloudberry pie for supper, rich productive forests sheltered in the valleys, massive old peaks covered with extensive snowfields in the warm August sun, the solid Canadian shield that determines the landscape ...
Look for the Torngat Mountains National Park in the extreme northern regions of Labrador. All above treeline, the park hosts the highest mountains east of the Rockies and some of the oldest rocks on the planet - up to 3.9 billion years, they say. That's remarkable, considering the age of the Earth at around 4.54 billion years....
What is it about mountains that peak" our attention? Many things I suppose. Mountains are the home of the gods (and God), the purveyors of the sublime and guardians of mystery. Mountains attract countless climbers and hikers. What would Canada be without the Rockies? Jesus of Nazareth preached the "sermon on the mount." Moses received the ten commandments on Mount Sinai. Benedictines prefer to build their monasteries on mountains. "...
On the cardboard sign strung over his neck were the words Argentia ferry." Pack on his back, his thumb was out for the ride. Without hesitation, I pulled over and waited for him. Up he ran, stuffed his gear into the back seat and jumped in."...
I cannot imagine the northern forests without them. Each spring, across the far-flung expanse of spruce, fir and pine, they emerge by the millions. From their aquatic wombs, out they pop. To flight they take, intent on only one thing - blood, warm human blood, in particular....
Human touch comes in many different forms. The touch that heals, the touch that grasps and covets, the touch that calms and reassures. There's the touch of love, the touch of hate, the touch of sexual intimacy that forgives and unites; the touch of rape, incest and pedophilia....
Something amazing about the Eucharist. Here we were, meeting for the first time, coming from different parts of the world, different cultures, different native tongues, and yet united as members of the one Body of Christ. We prayed for family, for safety at sea. The bread and wine became for us all the Body and Blood of Christ. We ate and drank together....
