MUENSTER, SASK. - The staff of St. Peter’s College has only one major hurdle to overcome to bring the renovations of Michael Hall, the college building, to an end — namely, completing the fundraising to pay for the final renovation costs, which are close to $4 million.
The success of a recent open house at the college showed that goal can be reached, as there was much enthusiasm and support for the college. The public still considers St. Peter’s College to be an important part of the local district and larger community, according to Robert Harasymchuk, college president.
“Fundraising is a necessary element of St. Peter’s success. The Michael Hall renovations have necessitated financing that we hope will be supported through the generosity of our alumni and the community that supports and depends on St. Peter’s as a hub for sport, culture, recreation and of course learning,” he said. “We are continually seeking ways to improve and expand our programs and services and this is possible with the help of our college supporters.”
St. Peter’s was founded in 1921 by the Benedictine monks of St. Peter’s Abbey and since 1926 has been affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan.
Abbot Peter Novecosky, OSB, chancellor of the college, cut the ribbon to officially re-open Michael Hall after four years of renovations which cost $15 million. The renovations began as a dream 10 years ago, he remarked.
“A number of the alumni commented on the amazing transformation that Michael Hall has undergone,” Harasymchuk said in an interview.
“Although the building looked new in appearance, they said it still had the same ‘feel,’ a testament to the talent of architect Maurice Soloudre in blending the need for modern conveniences while maintaining the tradition and heritage of the building. We also heard some remarks that although many people knew it was a huge undertaking for the college, the renovations were worth it to know that students would benefit from the college for decades to come.”
Renovations affected every floor of Michael Hall, which was gutted, rebuilt and refurbished with new floors, walls, doors, lighting and windows. Doorway entrances were widened, bathrooms upgraded and wiring brought up to standard to enable information technology systems to be used. There are three new science labs on the basement floor. Students can study and visit in a lounge and recreation room, and exercise in a modern fitness centre. One of the most noticeable changes is the new elevator and shaft, an addition to the west side of the building.
Renovations were made possible through the federal Knowledge Infrastructure grant program, the provincial Ministry of Advanced Education, donations from alumni and others who gave to the capital campaign. Miners Construction was the project manager. Support was provided by the college board of governors and the monks of St. Peter’s Abbey.
(Prairie Messenger)
Catholic higher education doesn’t start in a university lecture hall and doesn’t end with a black gown and a piece of paper under a new agreement St. Jerome’s University has signed with the Hamilton diocese and six Catholic school boards.
The agreement will allow the university, diocese and school boards to pool resources for adult education, volunteering, curriculum development and more.
“We look at it very positively as an excellent opportunity to support each other in the mission of Catholic education and to promote Catholic education as a life-long process,” Gus Hubbard, Hamilton Catholic District School Board superintendent of education, told The Catholic Register.
Hamilton, Brant-Haldimand Norfolk, Waterloo, Bruce-Grey, Halton and Wellington Catholic school boards are signatories to the agreement with St. Jerome’s.
Beginning with a casual conversation about Catholic education in Waterloo Region, the agreement was developed with Hamilton Bishop Doug Crosby’s encouragement over a year of meetings. The agreement was signed by all parties Sept. 20.
“It helps all partners to think about Catholic education as something that extends from a child’s early years through high school, post-secondary education and beyond,” said St. Jerome’s religious studies professor Cristina Vanin in an e-mail.
For Barbara Decker Pierce, seeing the joy in the faces of those taking part in King’s College University’s Liberal Arts 101 course is priceless.
The co-founder of the free course offered to London’s underprivileged at the Catholic college at London, Ont.’s Western University, Pierce says she loves “the enthusiasm with which the participants come to the program.”
She enjoys “the look on their faces when they connect with knowledge, when they are treated with respect, when they feel like they’re part of something that is helping them grow as individuals.”
Pierce is the director of King’s School of Social Work. Though the program is run by King’s, it’s a joint activity between Western’s Registrar’s Office, the Dean of Students and the School of Social Work.
King’s is wrapping up the fifth session of its increasingly popular Liberal Arts 101 course. Every fall semester since 2008, the Catholic college has offered free university-level classes to underprivileged members of the London community.
Fifteen participants are selected for each session, and every Tuesday night for the duration of the program, a different liberal arts topic is covered.
This past semester, lectures covered serious issues facing First Nations communities, what psychoactive drugs really do to the mind and body, the economic rise of China, the history of electricity in Canada, the Occupy movement and understanding the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis.
The cross-section of subjects covered is largely dependent on which faculty members volunteer and what they would like to teach. This semester, there are six faculty volunteers.
“The faculty love it,” said Pierce. They enjoy “the love of learning that they see on the faces of people in the program.”
Pierce describes the participants as attentive and always eager to jot down notes and ask questions.
Before the lecture, each class begins with a communal meal.
“The meal is important I think in terms of showing hospitality,” said Pierce. It brings together classmates, faculty, the co-ordinators and the six or seven student volunteers from the School of Social Work.
After the meal, the lecture lasts for about an hour, followed by discussion groups.
“We divide into small groups for some questions that the lecture has presented or provided, and those small groups are facilitated by our social work students,” said Pierce.
“This is a chance for them to work on some of their facilitation skills and also to connect them to the participants.”
The program also provides bus tickets and child care subsidies to participants in need “to remove any barriers people might have from participating,” Pierce said.
Some participants attend the program to test their readiness for post-secondary education. Participants have included those with physical or psychiatric challenges, single parents, immigrants and refugees.
King’s College was founded in 1954 and is sponsored by the diocese of London. Its mission is in part “to foster an environment based on open inquiry, Christian values and service to the larger community.”
The Liberal Arts 101 program is run out of the School of Social Work, said Pierce, as “It’s consistent with our mission to reach out to community, to be present in our community, and it’s also consistent with the values of the School of Social Work, which are clearly to support and assist people in making change.”
The seventh and last class of the program is a dinner and awards night where participants are acknowledged for completing this non-credit course and asked what could be improved upon.
TORONTO - It’s hard to believe, watching John Edwards cradle his giant lute-like theorbo, that the music he is playing could be considered anything but sacred.
As he moves his fingers over the instrument’s neck, the delicate strains of Monteverdi that blossom are both rapturous and heavenly.
However, as Edwards notes, these divine melodies were often the product of secular compositions that hoped to draw in churchgoers during the Catholic Church’s Counter-Reformation.
“While the Protestants are doing three-hour sermons, the mention of the Baroque is sort of for the Counter-Reformation to put ‘sparkly things’ to draw you in that way,” laughs Edwards, one part of The Musicians in Ordinary, who have been commissioned by the University of St. Michael’s College to conduct the Principal’s Music Series for the 2012-13 season. The series launched Oct. 23.
St. Michael’s is acting as a patron of the event, which will serve not only as a one-of-a-kind concert opportunity for students, but also function as an educational exploration of a remarkable period in musical history.
The Musicians in Ordinary are a two-person ensemble of John Edwards, on the towering, lute-like theorbo, and soprano Hallie Fishel. Joined by some of Toronto’s pre-eminent Baroque musicians, Edwards and Fishel will be presenting four concerts that explore the music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods that often times blurred the lines between sacred and secular.
As an example, Edwards displays an image of The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, a famous marble sculpture by Bernini, that is at once a display of reverence and sensuality. The idea, explains Edwards, was for the Church to capitalize on the popularity of the Baroque esthetic that would appeal to the general population as they attended church as well.
“That was what they were aiming for: to draw the people in. So, it seemed... that they were seeing it as giving the public at large an access to the arts, in a way,” said Edwards.
“I think that one of the things, with the Counter-Reformation, they try and use Mary as a ‘selling point’ to draw you in.”
Monteverdi, one of the most popular composers of the time, is featured in the series’ opening concert, along with works by Barbara Strozzi, a courtesan, and Isabella Leonardi, an Ursuline nun, among others. It seems a great study in contrast to hear the works of a courtesan, who writes in her “O Maria”: “She has conformed the hearts of all to her virtue, and she delights in the heritage of the Lord.”
“Luckily they’re inventing opera at the same time, and Monteverdi was an opera composer,” said Edwards. “So he’s using the same tricks as he would use to make you fall in love with Orfeo that he uses those to make you fall in love with the Virgin Mary.”
Monteverdi (who in addition to being a popular opera composer was also the maestro di cappella at St. Mark’s in Venice) was a composer whose work was a foremost example of the transition between the polyphony of the Renaissance to the sheer emotionalism and complexity of Baroque music. This fit perfectly into the Counter-Reformation’s integration of secular elements to reinforce the faith.
“In some ways it’s similar to today; there’s a lot of changes in society... all of a sudden they have access to information. There are all these changes in the music, so how do you integrate things like this? We have some of the same problems in church music today,” said Edwards.
Take Monteverdi’s “Nigra sum,” for example, with text like: “I am black but comely, daughters of Jerusalem. Therefore the king has delighted in me and brought me to his chamber and said to me, ‘Arise, my love, and come.’ ”
This particular piece is from his Mass for six voices to the Most Holy Virgin, which Monteverdi notes is “suitable for the chapels or chambers of princes.” It seems unlikely we would hear such textual interpretation today.
“I think the music in this concert is composed so successfully that I think it can show us something too,” said Edwards of its lasting effect.
Along with Fishel and Edwards, audiences of the series will be able to see performances by Tafelmusik’s Christopher Verrette and Patricia Ahern (Baroque violin), and the noted organist Philip Fournier (organist and music director at St. Vincent de Paul Church). Additionally, several of the concerts in the series will feature pre-performance talks by some of the leading scholars in the field.
“That scholarship that we’ve been doing with these different people... it’s silly to do scholarship on the cultural context of performance, and then not do the music,” said Edwards.
“Luckily, with our residency at St. Mike’s, that’s given us a place to present some of this stuff to a real audience.”
For more see www.musiciansinordinary.ca or www.stmikes. utoronto.ca.
Felicity Sattan walked away from Brescia University’s Take the Lead contest a more confident young woman.
Sattan, now a third-year Nutrition and Family student at Canada’s only women’s university, was introduced to Brescia in 2010 when she competed in the London, Ont., school’s all-female public speaking contest. She was a finalist in that year’s contest.
“I always tell my profs and my classmates that Take the Lead was really instrumental in improving my public speaking skills and becoming more confident and just being an all round better presenter, which I think is an important skill in post-secondary,” Sattan said.
She uses those skills often and at least once a semester in each of her university classes.
Take the Lead has been held five times since 2008. It is a recruitment initiative Brescia usually holds once a year where the university invites Grade 11 and 12 female students to develop public speaking skills and compete for the top prize of a one-year academic scholarship to Brescia.
There are two contests this year, the first held last spring and the next on Nov. 10.
With four contest rooms simultaneously active, six or seven student speakers have five minutes each to give their all to their speeches on women who inspire leadership. Then the top six or seven participants make it to the final round. The judges in both rounds are always female. Second prize is $250 and third prize is $100.
“I want them to leave with pride in themselves, for just stepping up to that microphone. That podium is amazing,” said Sheila Blagrave, one of the organizers and director of Communications, Marketing and External Relations at Brescia.
Blagrave wants participants, whether they win or not, to leave with “a sense of community and a sense of belonging to a group of women who share in that.”
Brescia’s close-knit and family like community is what attracted Sattan, who is from Stoney Creek, Ont. But it was Brescia’s “focus on leadership (that) was the big turning point,” she said.
“We stand for cultivating leadership among women,” said Blagrave. “And we propose that women, by the time they leave, are quite bold and willing to take on leadership positions. This contest aligns itself really well with our mission and our strategic objective in post-secondary education.”
Brescia, a Catholic university, was founded 93 years ago by the Ursuline Sisters. It accepts women of all faiths. Affiliated with Western University, students have access to classes on Western’s main campus and its two smaller campuses.
Brescia was also to host the National Conference of the Canadian Catholic Students’ Association Oct. 26.
Pope proclaims seven new saints, including St. Kateri, St. Marianne
By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Proclaiming seven new saints -- including St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Marianne Cope from North America -- Pope Benedict XVI said they are examples to the world of total dedication to Christ and tireless service to others.
In a revised canonization rite Oct. 21, the pope prayed for guidance that the church would not "err in a matter of such importance" as he used his authority to state that the seven are with God in heaven and can intercede for people on earth.
An estimated 80,000 pilgrims from the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Italy, Spain, Germany and Madagascar filled St. Peter's Square for the canonization of the holy women and men who ministered among their people.
The pilgrims applauded the proclamation of the new saints, who included: Kateri, an American Indian who was born in the United States and died in Canada in 1680; Mother Marianne, a Sister of St. Joseph who traveled from Syracuse, N.Y., to Hawaii to care for people with Hansen's disease and died in Molokai in 1918; and Pedro Calungsod, a teenaged Philippine catechist who was martyred in Guam in 1672.
The other new saints are: French Jesuit Father Jacques Berthieu, martyred in Madagascar in 1896; Italian Father Giovanni Battista Piamarta, founder of religious orders, who died in 1913; Sister Carmen Salles Barangueras, founder of a Spanish religious order, who died in 1911; and Anna Schaffer, a lay German woman, who died in 1925.
In his homily at Mass following the canonization, Pope Benedict prayed that the example of the new saints would "speak today to the whole church" and that their intercession would strengthen the church in its mission to proclaim the Gospel to the world.
The pope also spoke about each new saint individually, giving a short biographical outline and highlighting a special characteristic of each for Catholics today.
Pope Benedict called St. Kateri the "protectress of Canada and the first Native American saint," and he entrusted to her "the renewal of the faith in the First Nations and in all of North America."
The daughter of a Mohawk father and Algonquin Christian mother, St. Kateri was "faithful to the traditions of her people," but also faithful to the Christianity she embraced at age 20. "May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are," the pope said.
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, who is of American Indian descent, told Catholic News Service, "I think many young people today are embarrassed about embracing the Catholic faith because they live in a secular culture that's hostile toward religious experience."
St. Kateri also "grew up in a place where there was great hostility toward Christianity," Archbishop Chaput said, but she resisted all efforts to turn her away from her faith, "so in some ways she would be a model of fidelity in the face of persecution on religious freedom grounds."
Archbishop Gerald Cyprien Lacroix of Quebec told CNS that the canonization of the first aboriginal of North America is "huge for us." St. Kateri, he said, is an excellent model for young people of "living a simple life, faithful to the Lord in the midst of hostility."
St. Kateri's life and canonization show that "saints don't have to do extraordinary things, they just have to love," Archbishop Lacroix said.
Francine Merasty, 32, a Cree who lives in Pelican Narrows, Sask., said, "Kateri inspires me because she's an aboriginal woman. According to sociologists, aboriginal women are at the lowest (social) strata, and for the church to raise up to the communion of saints an aboriginal woman is so awesome and wonderful."
Jake Finkbonner, the 12-year-old boy from Washington state whose healing was accepted as the miracle needed for St. Kateri's canonization, received Communion from the pope during the Mass. Jake's parents and two little sisters did as well.
Speaking about St. Marianne of Molokai in his homily, Pope Benedict said that a time when very little could be done to treat people with Hansen's disease, commonly called leprosy, "Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage and enthusiasm."
"She is a shining example of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved St. Francis," the pope said.
Leading a group of Hawaiian pilgrims, including nine patient-residents from Kalaupapa, where St. Marianne ministered, Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva said St. Marianne is "an inspiration for those who care for those most in need, which is what all Christians are called to do. Now, with universal veneration, she can inspire people around the world."
With thousands of Philippine pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict praised St. Pedro, a catechist who accompanied Jesuit priests to the Mariana Islands in 1668. Despite hostility from some of the natives, he "displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel."
The pope prayed that "the example and courageous witness" of St. Pedro would "inspire the dear people of the Philippines to announce the kingdom bravely and to win souls for God."
Pope Benedict also cited St. Anna Schaffer as a model for a very modern concern.St. Anna was working as a maid to earn the money for the dowry needed to enter a convent when an accident occurred and she "received incurable burns" which kept her bedridden the rest of her life, the pope said. In time, she came to see her pain and suffering as a way to unite herself with Christ through prayer, he said.
"May her apostolate of prayer and suffering, of sacrifice and expiation, be a shining example for believers in her homeland, and may her intercession strengthen the Christian hospice movement in its beneficial activity," the pope said.
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Contributing to this story was Francis X. Rocca.
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You can enjoy the features below about St. Kateri Tekakwitha on CatholicRegister.org.
The Catholic Register is proud to continue our Year of Faith coverage by celebrating the canonization of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native North American woman to become a saint. We have produced this special section that highlights her life of faith, courage and hope.
There are two ways to read the articles.
You can view the articles in the embedded reader below as they were printed in the newspaper . Click the "Expand" button in the centre of the player to go full-screen for the best reader experience. You can then zoom in on specific pages with the magnifying glass button or by using the scroll wheel on your mouse. Click to the side to navigate through the pages and press the ESC key on your keyboard to exit.
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You can also enjoy the articles on CatholicRegister.org. Over the weekend, we'll be adding articles below for readers to browse.
University of St. Michael's launches ambitious fundraising campaign
By Evan Boudreau, The Catholic Register
TORONTO - On Sept. 29, the Feast of St. Michael, the University of St. Michael's College officially launched its Boundless Community fundraising campaign.
"Today the University of St. Michael's College, from our unique position with the University of Toronto, and together with the strong, steadfast loyalty of our alumni and friends, is announcing a historic never-before fundraising campaign," said Sr. Anne Anderson, president and vice-chancellor. "This campaign, unprecedented in scope and scale for St. Michael's, will seek to raise $50 million over the next five years."
And those in attendance heard that the campaign is already making great progress.
"I am delighted and proud to announce to you all today that we are already $24 million towards that vision," said Anderson. "This is an extraordinary accomplishment of which we are proud and grateful."
The funds will be used for a variety of improvements. Facilities will be digitally upgraded to modernize the school's academic environment while outdated furniture replacements, including in residence, will make studying more comfortable. The John M. Kelly Library, which has already received a rare collection of British author G.K. Chesterton's books, will broaden its range of material to meet the demands of 21st-century education.
Core funding is to be established for what Anderson called "hallmark College programs" — Book and Media Studies, Celtic Studies, Medieval Studies and Christianity and Culture — while the theology graduate program will also see further financial support.
Additionally, the SMC One — Cornerstone Program will be established with the money raised.
"Unlike no other first-year program at U of T today, Cornerstone will build character, enhance the pursuit of social justice and create a platform for greater dedication to community," Anderson told about 200 people attending the event. "We will reaffirm our Basilian founders commitment to goodness, discipline and knowledge for every first-year students."
Founded in 1852 as a Basilian college, the school has produced more than 50,000 alumni. This year alone the university has more than 4,800 undergraduate students and an additional 350 pursuing graduate degrees. That's more than 5,000 people who appreciate these fundraising efforts.
"On behalf of the Student Union, I would like to express my humble thanks and appreciation to all the volunteers and leaders in our community, men and women who model exemplary behaviour in their commitment to the academic mission of St. Michael's," said Mike Cowan, Student Union president.
"Their tireless work and generous philanthropy make this a better place for us all."
Additional and increased scholarships and bursary support will also be a result from this campaign.
OSHAWA, ONT. - When the doors opened at Msgr. Paul Dwyer High School in early September, it marked 50 years of secondary Catholic education in Oshawa.
The celebrations commenced Sept. 9 at the school in the city east of Toronto, with events scheduled for the duration of the school year. The year-long celebrations are to allow as many of the school’s approximately 8,000 graduates — who include author Randy Boyagoda, former Toronto Argonauts wide receiver Andre Talbot and comedian/actor Justin Landry — to attend.
“We wanted to share this celebration over the course of a year so that if someone is away for something they didn’t miss out,” said Randy Boissoin, chair of the 50th anniversary Committee. “We thought if it was over the course of a year we could generate excitement and build up to May 2013 and hopefully with that excitement work on creating an alumni database.”
Boissoin wants to establish an alumni scholarship fund to assist school graduates who face rising post-secondary tuition costs.
The original high school, run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, operated out of their local elementary school and was named St. Joseph’s Senior School when it opened in 1962. Private at the time, the school offered only Grade 9 and 10 classes in its inaugural year, adding Grade 11 the following September, and Grades 12 and 13 in subsequent years.
“The interesting thing at that point is that the convent for the Sisters was not ready,” said Sr. Conrad Lauber, appointed the school’s principal in 1967, the same year the Oshawa Separate School Board began providing $300 per student in Grades 9 and 10. “At that point the Sisters were driven from Morrow Park (Toronto) out to Oshawa, both the elementary and secondary teachers, and they were picked up again at six o’clock and taken back.”
By the time Lauber became principal — a post she held until 1979 — St. Joseph’s Senior School had relocated and became known as Oshawa Catholic High School (the name change came in 1965). One year later the construction of the convent on the school’s new grounds at 700 Stevenson Rd. N. had been completed, meaning Lauber no longer faced the more than 50-km commute.
The early years were a struggle for the school, as full funding of Catholic education was still years down the road. Unable to compete with the salaries from the public system, Oshawa Catholic High School relied on clergy and dedicated laypeople, who were willing to forego the salaries and benefits offered by the secular school board. This reliance on the latter grew even greater in 1969 when tragedy struck. After an end-of-year staff social, a station wagon with a number of staff in it was involved in an accident. Two Sisters and a lay teacher were killed, and four other Sisters were injured and unable to return to the school. Lauber was the only one able to resume teaching duties.
With few available and qualified clergy, Lauber turned to the laity to fill the positions, putting extra financial stress on the already struggling school.
“At one point when I asked the (Sisters of St. Joseph) for more funding our general superior ... told me that we might not even be able to continue next year because we didn’t have the finances,” said Lauber.
With no additional funding forthcoming, nothing significant at least, Lauber turned to the local community to save the city’s only Catholic high school.
“As we lost Sisters from the staff we had to replace them with laypeople and our costs increased significantly. So to stay alive we ran a walk-a-thon,” said Lauber. “In those days we walked miles not kilometres. The kids walked 25 miles and the parents walked five miles and we raised $56,000.”
Such success turned the walk-a-thon into an annual event which helped cement full-spectrum Catholic education in Oshawa, said Boissoin, who remembers participating in the walk-a-thon as a student from 1974 to 1979.
“When we were forced to do the walk-a-thons and the fundraising activities there was an incredible Oshawa Catholic High School pride within the community ... it also solidified us as a community,” he said. “It was an opportunity for people to show that this is important. When you had a walk-a-thon of that magnitude ... it was almost like a statement.”
It was during this era the Sisters of St. Joseph first sought another name change to honour Paul Dwyer — the spark that lit the school’s flame.
“Msgr. Paul Dwyer was the inspiration behind the founding of the school,” said Lauber. “He’s the one that wanted Catholic education in Oshawa.”
Although approved, Dwyer declined the honour in 1973, telling Lauber over lunch that he felt Dwyer would be too hard for immigrants to spell — something he felt conflicted with his image of welcoming new Canadians with open arms.
“He also said so many other people were involved in the establishment of the school he didn’t want to take all of the credit,” said Lauber, who saw the name change in 1976 to Paul Dwyer Catholic School following Dwyer’s death that year. “Obviously his wishes to not have the school named after him were ignored.”
TORONTO - When Barbara and Stephen Barringer decided to announce to their children that he would be working towards becoming a deacon, their son’s immediate comment was, “Oh wonderful. Dad’s always been great at preaching and now they’re going to give him a licence!”
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TORONTO - There’s no denying that Deacon Kevin Brockerville is a communicator.
When he talks about his wife, he smiles wide. When asked how he balances family and his deacon responsibilities, he jokes about having two ropes tied around his neck, eyes lighting up in laughter. And when he describes the people who have helped him throughout his life, his emotion is clear.
And he communicates all of this while being deaf.
Not able to hear since age three, Brockerville credits his faith with moving him forward. And it all started with a teacher in his hometown in Newfoundland.
“She would always take me to the church,” Brockerville said through an interpreter. “I didn’t really understand what church was. I would sit there and see people kneeling and praying but I didn’t know what that was.”
It was this teacher who also made sure Brockerville received the proper education.
“She found where the school for the deaf was that I could go to,” he said.
The school was in Halifax, and moving there for Brockerville was a necessary step in his spiritual journey.
“There I started understanding,” he said. “They taught religion, so I got the idea about my faith. It’s a struggle for the deaf to understand religion but I’m very happy that I had the education that helped me.”
Brockerville moved back to Newfoundland after school, and met a missionary priest from the United States who could sign.
“My mouth was wide open, I was so shocked,” Brockerville said. “‘You mean there’s a priest that can sign?’ It really inspired my wanting to serve. He’s a priest and he’s serving us.”
By the end of the 1960s, then with a wife, Gertrude, who is hearing impaired but not deaf, and his first child, Brockerville moved to Toronto for work and started attending Holy Name Church at Pape and Danforth, where the deaf ministry in Toronto gathered at the time.
“Everyone was signing and the priest was signing,” Brockerville said. “Wow, it was so powerful to me to see that everyone would come.”
The ministry has since moved to St. Stephen’s Chapel in downtown Toronto, where Brockerville serves as a deacon.
“I just felt that God was calling me to serve the deaf people,” he said about his decision to join the diaconate.
But he described his studies — culminating in his ordination in 1984 — as a “real struggle.”
“I was the only deaf person,” Brockerville said. “It was harder (for me) than (for) the hearing people because I had a hard time understanding the language.”
Brockerville explained this is a common thread for all deaf people in grasping theology, and said homilies have to be very simple when signing.
In the end, though, he made his way through the four years of diaconate study.
“I kept listening with my eyes. I kept watching,” he said. “I know that I struggled. But I had to trust God and I trust Him.”
Today, there are four locations for the deaf ministry in the archdiocese of Toronto: in Toronto, Barrie, Oshawa and Mississauga. Brockerville, who spends his time at the downtown Toronto location, is the only deaf deacon, and so has much responsibility, not only with serving at Mass and giving homilies, but also in helping deaf people with further interpretation of the services.
“Some of the deaf have questions about their faith, and if they’re studying something or reading something, I help them,” Brockerville said.
But this man — who said above his responsibilities in the diaconate and in the deaf ministry is his responsibility to his family — is anything but boastful.
“I don’t look for rewards, I look to serve,” he said. “I just follow the faith. I’m here to serve and I serve the best way I can.”
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TORONTO - For nearly 30 years, George Jurenas patrolled the streets of Toronto, keeping people safe. Today, this retired cop patrols the hallways of hospitals, giving people hope.
Jurenas was ordained a deacon in 2008, and has spent most of his time since as a chaplain at Trillium Health Centre in Mississauga and with the Peel Regional Police. And while he said his main inspiration for entering the diaconate was his own parish deacon, he recognizes his years with the Toronto Police Service showed him he had what it takes.
“People would call me Father Confessor,” Jurenas laughed. “(After I arrested people) they’d be sitting in the back of the cruiser and just seemed to open up to me naturally.”
Meeting so many different kinds of people in his profession, Jurenas said, taught him some valuable lessons.
“Over the years, what I found was people aren’t evil,” he said. “No one wants to live on the streets, no one wants to rob a bank, no one wants to put a needle in their arm. There’s usually a reason why they did what they did. There’s a hurt or a pain or something behind that action that for one reason or another placed them there.”
It’s a lesson that has helped him in many situations, like once when he was faced with a patient who, to put it lightly, did not care for his help.
“I introduced myself, said hi, I’m the chaplain, and I basically get, ‘eff off,’ ” Jurenas said.
“I said hey, no problem, God bless you. But you never know. Someone could be in a real bad place… and it’s not that they don’t ever want to talk to you, it’s just at that time.”
Jurenas never gave up on this man, and eventually they were able to turn a corner. But he’s not always so calm and collected, especially working in the palliative care ward. And it is in showing his true emotions that Jurenas sees the biggest difference between his former job and current work.
“I don’t have to pretend to be tough,” Jurenas said. “I can actually cry with people. There is strength as showing your weakness. As an officer, you (have to) play … tough, and there’s a reason for it. If you act mushy people will walk all over you.
“As an officer you’re always standing behind this façade. I’m tough, I’m in control. Then you realize none of us are really in control.”
This hit close to home for Jurenas when he was diagnosed with prostate and bladder cancer himself before becoming a deacon. He underwent an operation and radiation therapy and is now in remission, but he said the experience gave him insight into what people are feeling and going through in hospitals.
“I’ve laid in that bed,” Jurenas said. “No matter what faith you are, we’re all going through the same fears, the same worries and the same pains when we’re lying in that hospital bed.”
Jurenas uses this kind of non-denominational approach to spirituality in his chaplaincy work.
“For me as a Catholic deacon, it’s really neat when I do go visit people from other faiths, whether it be Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, you name it,” Jurenas said.
“We meet together at a certain spiritual, emotional place. Some people say does it weaken your faith? I always tell them if anything, it strengthens my faith. There’s a face of Christ in all of us.”
Jurenas saw this as particularly true when he experienced what he described as a miracle — a man who was told he had months to live walked out of the hospital a year and a half later. Jurenas and the man’s wife, a Muslim woman, had been praying together every week, he with his rosary, she with her amber beads.
“There’s a sense of respect of each other, even though we’re from different faiths and backgrounds,” Jurenas said. “It just shows you when we concentrate on what we have in common, Christ finds a way.”
Jurenas has also found humour in many situations, such as the time he came across a patient and recognized him as a former biker — one whom he had arrested at least half a dozen times in downtown Toronto.
“I used to tell him, you’re not really good at (being a criminal),” Jurenas laughed. “If (I), this beat cop, can arrest you half a dozen times, you should probably look for another line of work!”
Even former arrestees, Jurenas looked to help.
“Here’s a guy, a big feared biker. When he’d walk down the street people would move out of his way,” Jurenas said. “And all of a sudden he’s like a baby, wearing a diaper, can’t really leave the bed. It really affected him emotionally, that self-esteem drop.”
And so Jurenas went out and bought this man Harley Davidson stickers for his wheelchair.
“It was just beautiful to see, he went from this depressed state to laughing and joking,” Jurenas said. “Last thing I heard he’s at a long-term care facility and he’s scooting around.”
But ever humble, this devoted husband and father of four would never take too much credit.
“I’m basically a mirror, and I just show what you have inside of you,” he said. “At the end of the day you have to realize you’re not a superhero, you’re not a saviour. You’re just a very mortal human being.
“You do what do can.”
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Early Scripture makes reference to a form of the diaconate
This month marks the 40th anniversary of the arrival of the diaconate in English Canada. But the history of the diaconate actually dates back to the earliest days of the Church.
The first mention of the diaconate comes right out of Scripture, said Deacon Peter Lovrick, director of the formation program for the diaconate at Toronto's St. Augustine's Seminary, who pointed to references from St. Paul in Romans, Corinthians and Timothy in the New Testament.
But the most substantive reference to the diaconate is Acts 6:2-7, which directly refers to St. Stephen as the first deacon:
"And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, 'It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables. Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.'
"What they said pleased the whole community, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.
"They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them."
The closing session of the Council of Trent is depicted in an illustration from the 17th century.
- CNS photo/courtesy of Art Resource
Lovrick said some scholars dispute whether these words are specifically pointing towards a diaconate, though Stephen went on to become the first martyr of Christianity, and his name lives on as the patron saint of deacons.
"Many of the early fathers of the Church wrote about deacons," Lovrick said. "Deacons in the early Church had a pretty prominent role, eventually taking upon administrative and juridical positions in the Church.
"They were very closely connected to the bishops… but they were a distinct group. They were not priests."
After several centuries of deacons working closely with bishops, things started to change, said Lovrick.
"They brought in the various orders," he said. "It began to look that the deacon was a step to be a priest, and it became that way."
Today, there is a transitional diaconate, the step immediately before one becomes a priest, and the permanent diaconate, for those who do not go on to the priesthood. But before these were established as distinct ideas, the permanent diaconate began to wane by 1000, and soon disappeared in the western Church.
The Council of Trent, a council of ecclesiastical and theological experts who met in Trent to discuss important matters in the Catholic Church, was the first occasion after the original decline of the diaconate that the idea of a renewal was brought up. In 1563, during the council's 23rd session, came the call for a restoration of the diaconate, a movement that was stirred in the Eastern Catholic Churches, where the permanent diaconate had not been quite as weakened.
"The original proposal that went into the council was very ambitious and spoke a great deal about the separate order," Lovrick said. "But there were other things going on in Europe. Nothing really happened until the 20th century.
"For 500 years, (the restoration) was on hold."
Of all places for the diaconate to begin its revival, it was the Nazi concentration camp Dachau during the Second World War. A small number of Catholic priests were detained there, in a cellblock called the "priest block." And it was there the rumblings of a new diaconate were formulated. Frs. Otto Pies and Wilhelm Schamoni spearheaded the movement.
"They saw Europe crumbling around them," Lovrick said. "They saw the ravages of war, they saw the attack on the Church.
"They had faith that we were going to get through this, but when we got through this, we would be in the ruins and things would need to be rebuilt."
These priests began to write about bringing back the diaconate envisioned at Trent, about how deacons could help the priesthood restore faith after the war. These thoughts were published, and another mind began to write about similar ideas — Fr. Karl Rahner, the great theologian.
"Rahner talked about how there were lots of people in the world doing diaconal things, but they weren't given the sacramental grace of ordination to do it," Lovrick said. "It only made sense to empower people to do what you were asking them to do. That was his basic argument."
The Dachau concentration camp was the unlikely place where talk about the revival of the permanent diaconate evolved. - CNS photo/Reuters
Meanwhile, a charitable movement in Germany called Caritas was getting very involved with restoring the diaconate by publishing articles and hosting open forums for discussion. By 1962, efforts by several groups and individuals came together with a petition for Pope John XXIII, which made its claim:
"Well-known theologians have studied the matter from the historical, theological and practical points of view, and have arrived at the consensus that the proposed restoration (1) is possible, (2) would bear great fruit in the interior life of the Church, and (3) would do much to foster the cause of unity among Christians which Christ so dearly desires."
What followed were seven questions and potential issues of reinstating deacons, and reasons and answers behind all of them; this petition set into motion the events of the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II, much like the Council of Trent, discussed the Church and its place in the modern world. It ran from 1962 to 1965, and the restoration of the diaconate was a solid fixture of discussion.
But the council did something that Trent didn't — it followed through on the diaconate discussion.
"In the (Second) Vatican (Council), 101 propositions were specifically on the diaconate," Lovrick said. "There was a lot of back and forth, some cardinals in support… others against it. But by 1964, the dogmatic document of the Church, Lumen Gentium, (had a) very clear section on the deacons calling for the restoration on the diaconate."
Four years later, in 1968, came the first ordination ceremonies of deacons since the Reformation — fittingly, in Germany. Several other countries, including Colombia, followed suit, so that by 1970 there were almost 100 permanent deacons around the world.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Winnipeg in 1968 and voted overwhelmingly to ask Rome for permission to restore the diaconate in Canada. By 1969 it was granted.
Toronto came aboard in 1972, thus forming the first class of permanent deacons in the archdiocese of Toronto, who were ordained two years later. To date, 272 men have been ordained deacons in Toronto.
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When asked just what exactly is a deacon, Steve Pitre bursts out laughing.
“You’ve asked the question that theologians have been pondering for 50 years, and they still haven’t come up with a definitive answer,” said the co-ordinator of the permanent diaconate for the archdiocese of Toronto.
That’s because the nature of the deacon’s work is so all-encompassing and thoroughly engaged with his community that it can often be difficult to lay a strict definition to their ministry.
“The deacon is to be the icon of Christ the servant. When we talk about service, it’s in three areas: charity, liturgy and the word,” said Pitre.
Diaconate candidates in Toronto do four years of formative study and practice at St. Augustine’s Seminary. Unlike a priest, the deacon is ordained through a call to service. The ministry is open to all men between the ages of 35-59, both single and married, and, if married, requires the complete consent and support of his spouse (wives are active in their husband’s ministry).
“If he’s married, the call comes from his marriage and therefore from his family. But, in essence too, even if he’s single, it’s still coming from the family, from his support and from his friends,” said Pitre.
“While everybody seems to see us strictly in liturgy and preaching, that really comes from our service of charity. It starts with our families first, the community and then with a special emphasis on the less fortunate, the weaker members and the marginalized of our society,” said Pitre.
Indeed, in St. Ignatius’ letter to the Trallians, he notes: “… as ministers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, the deacons should please all in every way they can; for they are not merely ministers of food and drink, but the servants of the Church of God.”
In this way, the deacon serves as a vital part of our Christian community. They work not only in parishes, but in all places where there may be need such as hospitals, prisons, even on the streets. They are the mission of service personified, bringing the liturgy of our faith and the essence of charity to all in our communities who may be at need.
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