Is music part of the missionary activity of the Church? Or does it remain part of her internal life, as it were, reserved to the worship of God?

TORONTO – A tinkling bell and a jolly umbrella carried up and down the aisles declared St. Michael’s Cathedral the 25th minor basilica in Canada — one more happy moment added onto one of the most significant liturgies in Toronto’s Catholic history.

TORONTO – Following a six-year, $128-million renovation St. Michael’s Cathedral is finally ready to open its doors, rededicate its altar and give thanks to God for its new life in the heart of Toronto.

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.

The starry night sky has always been an invitation to ponder what is greater than ourselves. It is the closest most of us will ever get to confront the ungraspable notion of eternity. The night sky is at once a vault as well as an endless opening to the unknown and to God.

It’s a tale that everyone who has done a home renovation can understand. As the restoration of St. Michael’s Cathedral grew from a simple bathroom installation to a full-scale restoration, one common phrase was often repeated: “the building will tell us what it needs.”

For the masons and stoneworkers at St. Michael’s Cathedral, finishing the job on time meant putting noses to the grindstone by applying grinders to the sandstone.

There are two types of foundations that support a cathedral like St. Michael’s. There is the stone and mortar laid by dedicated workers. And there is the foundation of faith that, in the case of Toronto’s mother church, was cemented by a fledgling Catholic population that included Loretto sisters who gave their lives to help establish the Church in Upper Canada.

Renowned 19th-century novelist Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that “mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.”

TORONTO – Cardinal Thomas Collins, in ordaining the two newest members to the Toronto priestly fraternity, let them know that as priests they are called to be servants of their flock.

TORONTO -  St. Michael’s Cathedral will soon be filled with Christmas worshippers but in the early days of Advent the empty church is in the care of artists and craftsmen whose skilled hands are restoring the cathedral to it former splendour.

TORONTO - Changes to Canada’s Live-in Caregiver’s Program (LCP) promised to improve the immigration path have actually made things worse, says Kristina Torres.

TORONTO - First construction stripped St. Michael’s Cathedral of its spiritual atmosphere, now it is blocking parishioners from entering the pews and sacred space.

TORONTO - A sudden decision to close St. Michael’s Cathedral will scatter cathedral parishioners to other downtown parishes on Sundays for the next nine months while structural repairs and renovations continue on the historic church.

What used to be a house in the heart of downtown Toronto is now a new home for Catholic students seeking a place to study and relax.