Saturday morning in early June. Sunshine streaming through lilac bushes. Birds singing from underneath leaves that seem to have grown overnight. And tables full of things we hope other people will like well enough to take home. There are stories attached to the stuff. The kids keep changing their minds and sneaking things back in the house. The seeing and the sifting happen simultaneously.

Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 2 (Year B) Acts 9:26-31; Psalm 22; 1 John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8

No one could blame the members of the Jerusalem community for being suspicious of their unexpected “guest.”

Imperfection and I have had a rocky relationship. For years, I pretended she didn’t even exist. When she showed up unexpectedly, I dressed her up in different clothes and tried to pass her off as someone else. I recognized, eventually, that she was actually a roommate I despised. And in more recent years, I’ve been trying to be reconciled to my sister. Imperfection has gifts I need, and she has been much more gracious with me than I deserve.

VATICAN CITY - Mary's Immaculate Conception offers a glimpse to the promised life for all Christians who open their hearts to God and his grace, Pope Francis said.

Saving the open document on my computer, I close my door with intention, mentally leaving the worries of work inside my office. I wish my co-workers a good evening and check in with myself as I walk to daycare to get my littlest one. We drive to school to pick up the big three while I review the evening’s supper plan. My oldest is finally big enough to sit in the front seat and we chat about our days while the small three connect in the back. The days blend together and I am keeping my heart fixed on Barbara Brown Taylor’s question: “What is saving your life right now?”

Awkward floated to my lips a few times last week before I saw the pattern. The stumbling and crashing of growing children and adolescents finding themselves in bigger bodies than the days before. Constant adjustments during mask practice sessions. Remembering the diapers and the keys and the shoes, only to forget to pack lunch in a new season’s morning routine. We are making it through, but it is painfully awkward.

Just off the boundaries of Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School there’s the site of a 600-year-old Huron-Wendat village — longhouses, sweat lodges and plots where people grew squash and beans. That little shard of Toronto’s mostly forgotten, 10,000-year history of human habitation reflects a little of the good news and bad news Toronto has accumulated in its Catholic history.

Pope Francis has declared a special jubilee to help the world encounter the awesome, awful and awe-filled mercy of God. The world prefers cheap grace, and thinks it can get it from the Holy Father. The world — represented recently by Raul Castro and Al Gore — will be disappointed.

VATICAN CITY - Hearing a Catholic's confession should be awe-inspiring for a priest, an experience that makes him look at his own life and willingness to convert, Pope Francis told a group of seminarians, new priests and priests who hear confessions in the major basilicas of Rome.

Guelph and Area Right to Life has begun a crowdfunding campaign to help build a place of healing and remembrance for parents who have lost a child in the pre-born and early stages of life.

If someone who had never heard the story of Jesus were to ask about His origins, we would, I suspect, begin with the story of His annunciation and birth and end with the story of His resurrection and ascension. While that does capture His life, that’s not how the Gospels either begin or end His story. The story of Jesus and the meaning of Christmas can only really be understood by looking at where Jesus came from, His family tree, and by looking at how His story has continued in history. Indeed, that’s how the Gospels tell His story.

A Winston-Salem, N.C., diner will no longer dish out discounts along with dinner to praying customers.

The notice to file a human rights complaint over a Christian Grace being said at a City of Saskatoon volunteer dinner is the latest effort to remove even the briefest of faith references from public gatherings.

It would be easy to dismiss Ashu Solo as a crank, and a rather ill-mannered one, since he was among the invitees honoured at a city volunteer appreciation dinner where a blessing said by a city councillor did not meet with his approval. Mr. Solo was invited because of his work on Saskatoon’s cultural diversity and race relations committee. And anyone who thinks “cultural diversity” has something to do with respect for all religions and cultures hasn’t noticed how often the concept is used to remove Christian references from the public square.