Part of the road to reconciliation has to involve a change in culture and nothing moves culture forward more than art.

Last summer I was privileged to travel on pilgrimage to France with a young adults group. The 2 1/2- week trip (called “In the footsteps of St. Eugene de Mazenod”) under Fr. Marcin Serwin OMI, served to bring to light the full breadth of the foundation of who and what the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate are.

Growing up in a parish with a lively and abundant presence of Oblate priests, one could see the zeal, excitement and, most importantly, the joy the priests shared. I assume from this, not surprisingly, a fascination was born which quickly turned into a desire and yearning to be and act like them.

EDMONTON The Oblates of Mary Immaculate have deep roots in Edmonton and in Canada as a whole. In fact, the missionaries were paramount in establishing the archdiocese and other dioceses across the West.

On Jan. 25, 1816, six priests came together in Aix en Provence, France, drawn by an inspiration so powerful they were prepared to dedicate their lives to it. They were roused into action by the situation of the poor people around them, whose lives were changed by the events of the French Revolution.

St. Eugene de Mazenod was born in 1782 in Aix-en-Provence, France. His father, Charles Antoine, was a member of the French nobility and the President of the Aix parliament. His mother, Marie-Rose Joannis, was affiliated with the expeditiously evolving bourgeois merchants.

Two hundred years ago the French aristocrat Eugene de Mazenod gathered a few priests into a kind of evangelical team in southeastern France. They went into neglected, impoverished parishes preaching in the local dialect of Provençal, not French, sharing their lives and the Gospel with poor people who had been left behind by modern France.

Few artists have left as lasting a legacy as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In just 35 years of life he composed more than 600 musical works that are acknowledged as the pinnacle of symphonic, operatic, orchestral and choral music.

OTTAWA - When Brigadier General Guy Chapdelaine, Canada’s new Chaplain General, spent Christmas in Afghanistan in 2006, he took no chances on what might be in store for him.

MONTREAL - The Church of the Gesù is in the heart of Montreal, just east of Place Ville Marie. Hidden from view, in part by a high stone wall, its main doors are four metres above street level and the marquees between the ascending spiral staircases mean it is easily mistaken for a theatre. Which the Church of the Gesù also happens to be.