John McCarthy, SJ, is Socius to the Provincial, director of formation, and doing research and writing in ecology.
48 posts
Growing up in St. John's, Newfoundland, I would love it when a hefty snowstorm would shut down the city. For days, the strong northeasterlies blew in off the North Atlantic. The seemingly relentless snow-ladened howls whistled the wires, whitened the landscape and scurried through every drafty nook and cranny in our house....
Before becoming Socius to the Provincial, John McCarthy,SJ taught at St. Mark's in Vancouver. During that time he wrote today's post about what teaching means to him....
At an early age I was seduced by nature; tempted by rock, wind and water, invited by barrens, bogs and forests, infatuated by the wilderness of my native Newfoundland. Mesmerized, obsessed, blinded, I fell for nature. The affair continues....
Are you weak enough to be a follower of Christ? I've been struggling with this question for some time now. Maybe it's got something to do with Lent. Or maybe, it's got more to do with that time of my life when I am past any illusion of personal grandeur or salvation through right works. I know only too well the furious weakness that often assails me....
The celebration of Easter changes with the cosmos. Easter is a so-called "moveable" feast. Unlike Christmas, Easter is celebrated at different times each year. We celebrate it on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox. In the Northern Hemisphere, Easter signals the time of rebirth, the strengthening of the sun, the fresh beginnings of the new life of spring....
Catholic saints are a weird lot. Through no obvious power of their own they do great things. Today is the Feast day of a Canadian Saint - Kateri Tekawitha. She is the first Native American woman to be canonized and is often called the Lilly of the Mohawks....
Father Bill Addley, SJ died in Toronto on January 21, 2012 and was buried in Guelph. Father Addley had served as Provincial Superior for the Jesuits in English Canada and at the time of his death in 2012 was the Pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Toronto....
During my doctoral studies at UBC, one of my fellow graduate students did a most unconventional dissertation. He spent a year by himself on a small, windswept, rain-soaked island miles off the coast of southern Chile. His dissertation, entitled A Year in Wilderness Solitude attempted to answer the question, What are the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of living for an extended period in deep wilderness solitude? The dissertation was eventually published by New World Library in 2009 as Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes: A Year Alone in the Patagonia Wilderness....
I helped a friend of mine cut a Christmas tree the other day. It was a balsam fir, a lovely, fragrant, symmetrical tree. Native to North America, in Canada, balsam fir ranges from Newfoundland to Alberta. When I was young, I loved going off into the woods to cut balsam fir Christmas trees with several of my buddies. We would make a day of it. Set a fire, beans and bacon, homemade bread, and some fresh coffee or tea - sweetened of course with Carnations condensed milk....
At 5:02 PM on Monday, 18 November 1929 an underwater earthquake occurred in the North Atlantic, registering 7.2 on the Richter scale. Two hundred and sixty-five kilometres to the north the people of the fishing communities that dotted the south coast of Newfoundland felt the ground tremors. They could never imagine what was to happen....
