The timeframe to extend medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to those living with a mental illness is fast approaching. From March 17 onward, people whose sole condition is a mental illness are expected to be eligible to end their suffering through MAID.

Snow has finally starting falling in Saskatchewan, as January brings in a new year and its usual push for resolutions. At the same time, my social media feed is also full of gentle reminders that it is okay to just have made it through. I have been thinking about how these two extremes can be healthily connected at the heart of things. Just as snow falls gently over the ground, and fog wraps its way over the earth, it is a gently held intention that allows us to move peacefully through the season we are in.

In the recent flurry of jarring communiqués from the Vatican, a rather important instruction may have been missed by most. Within it, one key sentence may also have been overlooked. It’s the December instruction from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on the proper handling of the ashes of the deceased following cremation of a baptized Catholic Christian.

This new year has rolled in with a sense of helplessness in the face of major crises facing humanity. How do we have any realistic expectation of overcoming:

The Christmas season is a time of rest for me. To clarify, I mean the Christmas season as we celebrate it in the Catholic Church, from Midnight Mass through to the baptism of the Lord.

I think we can all agree that mobile phones are now ubiquitous. What I hadn’t expected was that their impact was literally changing our body shapes.

I have written before of my respect for folk singers who look at the world and give voice to truths that are often hidden from our view. Many years ago, I heard such a phrase that has haunted me, and in some ways has shaped the ministry of the Church on the Street: “Truth is a story scribbled in chalk, an hour before the flood.”

Ironically, to understand why many Canadians stomach a system hostile to right-to-life organizations, anti-abortion legislation proposals and any meaningful discussions about pre-born rights or if life begins at conception, you have to look back to the birth of this nation.