Dr. Mary Marrocco is an associate secretary for the Canadian Council of Churches. She is also a teacher, writer and lay pastoral worker. Morrocco explores the lives and writings of the saints, spiritual writers and theologians‚ and how they relate to contemporary life.

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Faith: Being in silence teaches us God’s voice

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In an emergency ward, in another country, I lay on a table awaiting the physician. Lightning flashes of pain shot through my body, weak from days-long inability to take in water and food.

Faith: We find God in our quietest moments

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In a fantasy movie, two fallen angels are on a quest. As often happens with quests, violence ensues. They battle it out, angels and humans, blood and wing-feathers flying. Towards the end of the movie, when it’s too late, God wakes from a long nap and wanders in, yawning.

Faith: A good birthday question for Canadians: Who are we as a people?

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Brian and Adin married and lived in Canada. She was originally from the Middle East, he from the British Isles. Over the years, they had to sort out where their differences came from: from different family backgrounds, personal differences or the different nations they’d belonged to.

Faith: Chiara’s story reveals a new meaning of joy

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One day, my brother put a book in my hand. The book, a biography called Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy, appealed to me. I read it into the small hours of that same night.

The loneliest moment leads to a revelation

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One of the loneliest moments of my life happened on an Easter Sunday morning.

Living water of Jesus will satisfy our thirst

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Growing up by the shores of one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world, I never thought of water as a resource needing to be conserved, or an essential commodity over which people would fight wars.

Lent shines a light on our path to renewal

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Andrew and Martha sat glumly. They were stuck in the same argument they’d had so many times before in their life together as a couple. One stabbed using sharp words, the other stonewalled using the silent treatment.

There is light even in darkest of places

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These winter days, in the “ordinary” time from Christmas to Lent, can be tough.

Reconciliation is harder than we think

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How difficult is human relationship! How glorious, how deeply and universally sought-after it is! Our hunger for relationship can draw out the best and the worst in us. The deepest wrestling is with one another, in relationship — be it person to person, nation to nation, or Church to Church.  

Mary and child is an enduring image of wonder

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At a major-league baseball playoff game in Toronto last year, after a questionable umpiring call, disgruntled spectators started throwing beer cans onto the field of play.