George Orwell wrote in “Politics and the English Language” that “political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” 

With the death of Bishop John Michael Sherlock on Aug. 12 at the age of 93, I expect that I am not the only member of the sprawling Diocese of London whose sense of bereavement is mixed with bursts of jubilation at a race that was so well run. 

“We’ll be coming to visit from July 22 to July 30,” I told my mother-in-law, who had come to Windsor from her home across the border in Michigan to see my son play soccer. 

Sleeping late on a Sunday morning a few weeks back, I decided to substitute the 9 a.m. Mass at the church just down the road in our home parish for an 11:30 Mass in a nearby parish.

It was Mother’s Day when Anne Margaret McAvoy said her last goodbyes, spoken more with quiet groans than with words. She was a wonderful woman who loved deeply with a gentle heart. Through her words and deeds mom taught us to stay close to God.

Graduation season is upon us. Universities, high schools, elementary schools and these days even kindergarten cohorts celebrate and move forward to places unknown to them. 

Canadians ought to reflect on the summer of 75 years ago with an equal measure of pride and sadness.

Critics are dubbing it “the nastiest cut.” The Ontario government’s planned termination of the Transition Child Benefit is a cruel measure that strikes at the soft underbelly of society: an estimated 16,000 children each month in low-income families who have nowhere else to turn.

If Canada wants reconciliation with its Indigenous citizens, Canada has to change. If the Church wants reconciliation with the Indigenous people it has harmed, the Church has to become more deeply, more truly, more fully what it is.

Do you remember how your parish prepared to celebrate the Easter Vigil?