This past weekend I enjoyed a brief phone chat with Faye McCreedy, the youth ministry coordinator in the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s ministries and outreach office.

St. Mary’s University in Calgary is situated on a sprawling 35-acre property adjacent to Fish Creek Park, the largest urban provincial park in Canada. As a result, our campus is often teaming with wildlife, and here I don’t just mean student parties.

Thomas Merton said that trees give glory to God just by being trees. I imagine the same holds true for birds.

Beauty surprised me last week when I walked out to the car with a small hand in mine: “Mommy, the road is sparkling!” 

Reading the accounts of my great-grandfather’s memories of the First World War, I am given a glimpse into the truly brutal horror of the war field. Yet in the midst of the tales of the ugliness of war, I found one remarkable incident that stayed in my memory.

Should doctors start prescribing a leisurely walk in the forest to improve health and well-being? According to researchers from Japan, the answer is a resounding yes. 

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of Your presence during my time of silence. You have given me the human ability to still myself and listen. You have blessed me with freedom from physical or emotional maladies which could hinder my ability to be silent and still. Yet, despite that gift, a million excuses keep me from coming to You.

Looking at the cathedral-scale art by one of the world’s foremost photographers, theologian Dennis Patrick O’Hara said, “Yes, it’s awesome and it’s awful.”

Canadians take water for granted. We have more ocean shoreline than any nation on Earth and our freshwater lakes and rivers cover almost 12 per cent of Canada’s landmass.

The original Jurassic Park film from 25 years ago rather inventively explored a theme that has been prominent in Western culture from the time of the Romantic reaction to the Enlightenment — namely, the dangers of an aggressive and arrogant rationalism.

Trinity Sunday (Year C) May 22 (Proverbs 8:23-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15)

How does one describe something that is infinite and ineffable in terms that humans can understand? The writers of the Scriptures often used poetry and metaphor, but even these attempts fell short of the majesty of God. No concept, doctrine or metaphor can ever contain the divine reality — they merely point to it and present it to us in the broadest strokes.

An American humorist was once asked what he loved most in life. This was his reply: I love women best; whisky next; my neighbour a little; and God hardly at all!

VATICAN CITY - The World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation should be a time for individuals to examine their lifestyles and the way they impact the environment, Pope Francis said.

Approximately 800 km northwest of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories is Fort Good Hope, a remote, mostly First Nations community through which the mighty Mackenzie River flows on its way to the Arctic Ocean.

Nature, desire and soul, we rarely integrate these well. Yet they are so inextricably linked that how we relate to one deeply colours the others; and, indeed, spirituality itself might be defined as what we each do in terms of integrating these three in our lives.