NEW YORK – Directed and co-written (with Jay Cocks) by Martin Scorsese, Silence (Paramount) is a dramatically powerful but theologically complex work best suited to viewers who come to the multiplex prepared to engage with serious issues.

Pope Francis said on Friday that the embrace of God’s love has the power to silence all our sins, no matter how many. He stressed that not all love comes from God but He is the true love. The Pope’s words came during his homily at the morning Mass celebrated in the Santa Marta residence.

My God, my God, why have we forsaken thee. Society is hell-bent on downplaying the existence of God, ignoring Him, pushing Him to the sidelines, pretending that He just isn’t real.

The latest volley in the deity war was fired broadside by the Supreme Court of Canada. In mid-April, the country’s highest court ruled unanimously that the practice of Saguenay, Que., city councillors of crossing themselves and spending 20 full seconds in Catholic prayer before conducting official municipal business was out of bounds.

VATICAN CITY - Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Pope Francis said atrocities from the past have to be recognized — not hidden or denied — for true reconciliation and healing to come to the world.

TORONTO - Schools could be made safer by eliminating a “code of silence” among students that discourages them from informing on classmates, said the head of a panel on school safety.

Few Christmas hymns are more admired than “Silent Night.” The lyrics were penned by a young German priest in 1816 and a schoolteacher added the melody two years later. Together these amateur musicians wrote a simple yet powerful song that lovingly depicts the peace and joy of the holy mother and her new child.

Conchita D’Souza, a second-year Christianity and Culture student at the University of Toronto, equates voting with flipping a stone into a pond. Each vote can create “ripples that will go towards influencing society,” she said.

A month-long retreat opens eyes to importance of sanctifying the mind

How hard do you think it would be to give up all media for an entire month — no cellphone, no Internet, no reading, no radio or TV, no media at all except for a daily newspaper?

Surprisingly, not that hard.

In October, I made the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, an intense, month-long retreat during which I was encouraged not only to be silent but to “fast” from all electronic and digital media. That may seem daunting, but being offline and silent for a whole month is a lot easier than it sounds. (Really!) The change of pace and the silence refreshed me, and the joy of focusing exclusively on the most important relationship in my life is still bubbling inside me.

The hundreds of e-mail messages waiting for me when I got back highlighted how much I engage digitally. Whether I go online for ministry, education, connection with friends and family or enjoyment, the digital experience is important to me. The steady flow of infotainment can empower us, forge connections between us that transcend geography, inspire us, remind us of important things, broaden our perspectives and stimulate our thinking and imagination. But it can also distract us, direct our minds and hearts in unhealthy or negative ways, depress us, confuse us and entice us to focus on the instant gratification that many advertisements and entertainments promise. We all try to filter out what is trivial or annoying but our filters need a higher standard, one to help us focus our use of apps and social media to serve the real of our lives.

The founder of my community, media apostle Blessed James Alberione, used a phrase that seems particularly apt for those who seek to follow Christ in a digital world: “sanctification of the mind.” Sanctifying our mind, or loving God with our mind, is part of the greatest commandment: to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength (Mark 12:30). Since our thoughts determine our choices, sanctifying our mind is essential for living a full life in Christ, as well as preparing for the vision of God in eternity. What we think about most often becomes what we care about most. According to Alberione, sanctifying our mind means paying attention to our thoughts and what we are feeding our minds with — our conversations, our reading and viewing.

To sanctify our minds, Alberione offers this practical advice: 1) examine our thoughts in light of God’s Word, allowing God’s Word to direct our thoughts and to shape us on the deepest level, and 2) fill our minds with the Scriptures and with good reading and viewing that will help us to develop a Christian mentality — a way of thinking that is transformed by faith. Faith opens up our puny human perspective so we can glimpse, even if briefly, God’s point of view. Many saints, including Ignatius of Loyola, Augustine and Teresa of Avila, were greatly influenced by reading Scripture or the lives of the saints.

Does sanctifying our mind mean we can only visit faith-driven Internet sites or only read Catholic newspapers? Not at all. But it is important to: evaluate what we feed our minds with; choose content that will nurture our faith; and balance what we take in and how much time we spend online.

If we consistently view content that promotes values contrary to the Gospel (and it’s hard not to do that today), it’s important that we spend time reinforcing Jesus’ teaching in our lives. Negative influences can be both blatant and subtle. For example, I’ve enjoyed some currently popular post-apocalyptic, dystopian stories because of their social commentary on dangerous tendencies in our society today. But a steady diet of dystopian narratives makes me overly pessimistic about the future, forgetting that God is always with us, no matter what.

Giving voice to our faith online, perhaps by responding to or avoiding digital media that is contrary to the Gospel, or by engaging respectfully in matters of faith, is another way to be digital followers of Christ.

Most of us aren’t called to live “in retreat” from the digital world. Instead, we are to be salt that flavours it with faith, hope and love. Developing a Christian mentality by sanctifying our minds is critical for us to be both whole and holy people in today’s pluralistic and secular digital world.

“Defending the voiceless is our mission.” Cardinal Thomas Collins, addressing a packed house at the annual Cardinal’s dinner on Oct. 11, couldn’t have been more blunt in delivering that pro-life message to the Ontario government. Catholic schools largely exist to impart the teachings and moral values of the Church. On the issue of life, Church teaching is unequivocal, just as the cardinal’s position is immovable.

His comments came a day after Education Minister Laurel Broten made the outlandish claim that being pro-life was tantamount to misogyny and therefore pro-life activities were unwelcome in Catholic schools because, she suggested, advocating misogyny contravenes Bill-13, the province’s new anti-bullying law.

“Taking away a woman’s right to choose could arguably be considered one of the most misogynistic actions that one could take,” she said.

Catholic educators have every right to bristle at the minister’s rhetoric. She apparently believes that when Catholic teachers use the catechism to profess that life begins at conception and abortion is immoral, they are teaching Catholic youth to hate women. The suggestion is ludicrous and reflects the very intolerance that prompted the minister’s own anti-bullying laws. A minister serious about confronting misogyny would investigate the rise in Canada of sex-selection abortion that targets females. Catholic education is not the problem.

Catholic students are taught to respect life and love all. Catholic teachers are hardly women haters — they’re mostly women! To label them misogynists is as absurd as accusing ministers who send their kids to Catholic schools of being anti-Catholic.

The cardinal’s other point was to underline again that Catholic education rights are enshrined in Canada’s Constitution and are protected in the provincial Education Act. The soon-to-be-retired premier or his education minister have no authority to make Catholic schools less Catholic by coercing them to abandon a core mission. Also, parents have a constitutionally protected right to send their children to publicly funded, faith-filled school environments that promote Catholic morals and values.

“Both the Constitution and the Education Act make it clear that the Catholic identity of the school must be respected,” Collins said. “It is our mission to speak up for all those who suffer, and especially for those who are voiceless.”

After using Bill-13 to force Catholic schools to accept gay-straight clubs, Broten now seems poised to use the bill to trample other religious freedom rights. That is very troubling. Will a pretext be devised to muzzle Church teachings on, say, divorce, same-sex marriage, contraception, chastity and fidelity? The bill was sold as a means to subdue bullies, not crush Catholic education.

Broten repeatedly says she supports Catholic education. But it’s becoming increasingly unclear if she even knows what that is.

Celebration is a paradoxical thing, created by a dynamic interplay between anticipation and fulfilment, longing and inconsummation, the ordinary and the special, work and play. Life and love must be celebrated within a certain fast-feast rhythm. Seasons of play most profitably follow seasons of work, seasons of consummation are heightened by seasons of longing, and seasons of intimacy grow out of seasons of solitude. Presence depends upon absence, intimacy upon solitude, play upon work. Even God rested only after working for six days!