25 Dec

I was sitting with a group of people in the peaceful, prayerful atmosphere of the Loyola House chapel listening to Father Eric leading us in a personal reflection as part of an evening service of reconciliation. He was suggesting that sometimes there is buried in our memories an experience, perhaps even going back to early childhood, where we have been hurt or have hurt someone in a way that leaves us in need of healing or forgiveness. As I thought about this, to my surprise the memory of a little brown coat came to me and I had to struggle to hold back the tears....

18 Dec

Back in Advent I presided at at the Catholic Community's Sunday Mass at the University of Guelph. It afforded an opportunity to speak about the importance of John the Baptist, not only for the season of Advent....

18 Dec

Back in Advent I presided at at the Catholic Community's Sunday Mass at the University of Guelph. It afforded an opportunity to speak about the importance of John the Baptist, not only for the season of Advent....

11 Dec

I teetered on the slender branch of a deciduous tree. One hand was grabbing the trunk and the other trembling towards a plug. My job was to connect plugs of two different strands of coloured lights, light the tree, and make it look nice for Christmas. It was my job both Christmases, I think, because I am the only one in the house young and fit enough to climb a tree. Once I climbed the woody mammoth resignedly, I found myself divided about the task. One part of me was sure that I would fall to the ground with a massive thud, and another part of me wanted to take the risk of moving precariously closer to the plug, which was hanging on another branch overhead and needed connecting....

20 Nov

Last year, six students and two teachers – from Loyola High School in Montreal - went to the Dominican Republic for one week, to witness first-hand the debilitating effects that the Dominican sugar industry had on its workers....

17 Nov

The land finally succumbed. Resistance had weakened in the cool of the evening. Nothing could stop it now. Slowly, quietly, in the hush of dusk, it crept landward, draping the headlands in its cool, moist embrace. Funneling up harbours and valleys, wafting through open windows, shrouding all in silence, it advanced, relentlessly. The darkened land would now sleep, blanketed in the shroud of night....

14 Nov

I think we're texting ourselves to death. I was reading a story by a relationship therapist who claimed that Canadians text 8 billion messages a month. The point was something like: "How can anyone have a relationship when there's all that texting going on?"...

07 Nov

For over a year now Canadians have witnessed the sad spectacle of people appointed to the "Upper House" tumble into a quagmire of alleged criminal activity in the form of mismanaged expense claims and other unfortunate behaviours. A handful of entitlement-preoccupied prime-ministerial appointments have smeared the reputation of a Canadian institution: the Senate. What's distressing about their shame-filled example is that in the midst of these headline-creating scandals, some of the remarkable work of their fellow Senators, past and present, is easily overshadowed....

05 Nov

Did you know that the co-operative movement is at work in more than 100 countries, and that it has more than 800 million members? Would you be surprised to hear that four out of every ten Canadians belong to at least one co-op? (In Quebec, co-op membership includes 70% of the population.)...

24 Oct

One of the things I learned in the arcane world of Catholic publishing is that RCIA also stands for Ranting Censorious Intimidating Attacks. These are the letters that arrive when a published work meets with, let's call it, disfavour of a particular kind. Always intense, and invariably layered with threats and accusations. For eight years I drafted the replies. Here is the story of one of them....

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