I was born and raised in Glasgow and it does not take long for those who hear my Scottish accent to know I am not a native-born Canadian. However, it does cause confusion at times, as I found out when I came upon a man standing outside a downtown shelter. The shelter is in the heart of the drug area, and so I am always prepared for many and varied conversations.  

On the Second Sunday of Lent, the Gospel was the story of Christ’s transfiguration on a mountaintop. Only three men of faith — Peter, James and John — accompanied Jesus as He was transfigured between Moses and Elijah. The three disciples were ordered to tell no one of the event until after Christ’s resurrection.

In 1936, English novelist Evelyn Waugh published a short biography of Edmund Campion, English priest and martyr. When an American edition of the book was published 10 years later, Waugh wrote in the preface, “We are nearer Campion than when I wrote of him.” 

Politics at the best of times can make anyone’s blood boil, from the mundane local ordinances enforced by your local council right up to the big decisions that affect every-day life, which are of extreme importance to most, especially peoples’ pocketbooks. And there is no “right” side, everyone has their own opinion. Hence, politics, we are told, is one of those thing to never be brought up in polite company (alongside religion of course).

The Pope’s prayer intention for March 2023 was that victims of abuse find within the Church herself a concrete response to their pain and suffering. One organization already responding to such pain by building spiritual bridges between victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse and the general Church community is Awake Milwaukee (Awake).

Google is in a panic. It finally met its match and has a competitor. A code red was issued to staff members at the tech behemoth. What’s all the fuss about? 

Why do we hate one another? Why do wait hate those who are unlike us in what they believe, how they act, or in how God Himself made them? The simple answer is because of the effects of the First Sin, the Fall, through which we became subject to sin, death and corruption. While Our Lord Jesus Christ through His passion, death and resurrection has conquered these effects, we are still prone to sin. Hate is a particular ugly manifestation of the effects of the Fall. 

She walks into the room, and I see she is wearing a very familiar straw hat with a coloured band. I have seen the hat, and its owner, a thousand times: in our Share Lent poster, our mini-magazine, and countless other campaign images — even my e-mail signature. It is like she has walked right out of an image and into our lives — incarnate for us.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, my life changed profoundly one summer evening in 1976. I was partying with friends at a cottage in central New Brunswick. After some time, I wanted some quiet and went to sit on the pier on the peaceful lake. 

Germany’s Catholic bishops seem to have given Pope Francis the unequivocal answer to his famous rhetorical question: “Who am I to judge?”