We humans need to be tended. Sheep are tended by a shepherd. Gardens are tended by a gardener. Even databases are tended by experts.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Feb. 14 (Year B) Leviticus 13:1-2, 45-46; Psalm 32; 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1; Mark 1:40-45

Fear can be the most impenetrable barrier in the world, far surpassing any fortress or wall built by humans. Fear is strongest when people feel that their well-being and safety is being threatened.

Death has lived in the shadows and been discussed in whispers for a very long time.

As Montreal Auxiliary Bishop Alain Faubert quite rightly puts it, there is nothing complicated about how we should respond to a summer influx of asylum seekers at Quebec’s southern border.

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Feb. 19 (Year A) Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18; Psalm 103; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23; Matthew 5:38-48

The Old and New Testaments speak with a unified voice on so many things.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis called for greater compassion for refugees and marginalized people less than a week after President Trump ordered a temporary immigration ban from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

VATICAN CITY - On Friday Pope Francis stopped by a formation course for bishops on the new marriage nullity process, telling attendees that as bishops, and now as local judges in annulment cases, they must pursue the truth, but never exclude those whose marriages have failed.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) Sept. 25 (Amos 6:1a, 4-7; Psalm 146; 1 Timothy 6:11-16; Luke 16:19-31)

The absence of love is indifference, and it is indifference that will bring our world low if we are not more heedful of divine law. 

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) June 19 (Zechariah 12:10-11; Psalm 63; Galatians 3:26-29; Luke 9:18-24)

Sometimes it takes an act of God to touch and move the human heart so that the tears can flow. Throughout history, up until this very day, people have often meted out countless acts of cruelty, injustice and unkindness towards one another. Leafing through history books, one could get the impression that history is written in blood. The worst part of it is the calloused and numbed consciences that seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge guilt or empathize with the pain of the victims. 

10th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) June 5 (1 Kings 17:17-21a, 22-24; Psalm 30; Galatians 1:11-19; Luke 7:11-17)

Should we ever reproach God for human suffering? People have usually been reluctant to do so, and they spend a lot of effort try to vindicate God. 

YANGON, Myanmar - Cardinal Charles Bo has asked the government of Myanmar to squelch hate speech and do more to help Rohingya refugees, many of whom have fled the country and are trapped at sea as countries refuse them entry.

TORONTO - When Pope Francis talks about dialogue he’s not advancing an agenda or solving the political problems of the Church, Saskatoon’s Bishop Don Bolen told audiences in Waterloo, Ont., and Toronto at a pair of lectures on ecumenical and interfaith dialogue.

Raissa Maritain the philosopher and spiritual writer died some months after suffering a stroke. During those months she lay in a hospital bed, unable to speak. After her death, her husband, the renowned philosopher Jacques Maritain, in preparing her journals for publication, wrote these words:

TORONTO - If death is a part of life then we shouldn’t die alone any more than we should live in isolation. Our deaths should not be coldly institutionalized any more so than our lives. Our deaths should be as surrounded by family, love and compassion as the lives we lived.

SAN FRANCISCO - California legislators have introduced assisted suicide legislation modeled on Oregon's assisted suicide law, energized by the heartbreaking story of Brittany Maynard, a young woman with brain cancer, who moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Oregon to end her own life Nov. 1.