By now, my corduroy Levis were covered with snow from wiping out, and the snow was turning to ice against my skin. My brother looked truly sorry for my misery.

On Jan. 29, federal Minister of Health Mark Holland introduced legislation seeking a three-year delay in the extension of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to those suffering from mental illness.

Deacon Andrew Bennett was certainly right in his Feb. 11 column to correct my error in generalizing the “approval” understanding of blessings as being “corrupted and secularized.” I was unaware of the Eastern understanding of blessings. An online commenter graciously corrected me after my article was published.

Those with keen eyes for systemic abuses within the legal world might turn their gazes on a class action lawsuit that has left publicly hanging two Canadian Roman Catholic Cardinals.

Overview of the legal action filed Feb. 2, by Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine to prevent Quebec forcing MAiD into a palliative care centre in former church still owned by the Archdiocese.

Earlier this February, the sovereigns of social media were summoned to Washington, D.C., for what the wise woman of American mainstream media, Peggy Noonan, described in her column as a ritual denunciation and show of outrage by the U.S. Senate’s judiciary committee.

Saying the family is the basic building block of society was once a “motherhood and apple pie” sentiment. Motherhood and apple pie, being, of course, a cliché alluding to all that is both normal and good. We need a new cliché. Today motherhood itself is no longer “motherhood and apple pie.” 

I have always been frustrated by moments, especially in political speeches, where half a well-known adage is presented as proof of concept, completely ignoring the original context and the fuller saying. We see this often when someone cherry-picks part of a saying to prove their point but leaves out significant context that might disprove their argument as a whole.

People are curious and beautiful and mysterious. One of the things I love most about humans is our capacity to make meaning. It is endlessly fascinating to me that many people can be in the same room, experiencing the same objective reality and come away with such beautifully different perspectives and subjective understandings of what has happened. We are all living in the stories of our lives, whether we acknowledge them or not. 

Ash Wednesday is on the horizon. While Catholics are getting ashes on our foreheads, much of the rest of the Western world will be buying chocolates and flowers. I don’t remember Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day previously. Google says the last time was in 1945, a little before my time.