For the 21 people who will participate in the Retreat for Cancer Patients and their Caregivers at Queen of Apostles Renewal Centre in Mississauga, Ont., Sept. 28, they will have an empathetic leader, one who has walked a mile in their shoes.

TORONTO – The statistical probabilities behind praying your way out of stage-four cancer aren’t good. When you’re too skinny, too weak and hallucinating half the time, when friends and family come round to your house and just cry, when unsmiling doctors want to talk to you in the quiet, pastel-coloured room at the end of the hall — you don’t make any long-term plans.