“So good to see you.”

And with those words, Cardinal Thomas Collins launched into the first Mass at St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica June 17 where he had a live congregation since the COVID-19 pandemic closed churches in the Toronto archdiocese and nationwide in mid-March.

It won’t be a normal Sunday by any stretch of the imagination, but for priests across Ontario over the weekend of June 20-21 there will be a beautiful sight in front of them: a live congregation.

Couples struggling in their marriage have been hit with a double whammy by the COVID-19 lockdown, according to a counsellor with Catholic Family Services Toronto.

They’re schools educating young minds in different regions of Ontario, from the gritty working class streets of Scarborough to the picturesque shores of Georgian Bay in Collingwood.

It comes as little surprise to Chrystal Desilets that one year later, the federal government has no action plan in place in response to the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Ontario churches can resume celebrating public Masses after the provincial government lifted the blanket ban on services.

Like much of the nation, the best-laid plans of the Catholic Women’s League have been set aside by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It could be a year or longer before churches in Canada can begin welcoming large numbers of worshippers, said a member of the country’s Special Advisory Committee on COVID-19.