As the story goes, St. Walstan, the patron saint of farmers and farm animals, was foretold of his death in a vision three days before it happened on May 30, 1016. Being a humble, pious man known for his charity, the English farmhand went to confession, then gave final instructions for his burial.

I read somewhere years ago that one of the great sources of human anxiety is time. Time is too slow or too fast or there is not enough of it. We live on schedules and deadlines that seem to push us harder than we would like or is even healthy.

Premier Christian Radio in the UK just sponsored a survey that investigated how the COVID crisis has affected religious beliefs and attitudes. There were three major findings — namely, that 67 per cent of those who characterize themselves as “religious” found their belief in God challenged, that almost a quarter said the pandemic made them more fearful of death, and that around a third of those surveyed said that their prayer life had been affected by the crisis.

Despite plenty of reasons to believe otherwise, Christianity remains the greatest force in the global push for human equality, human rights and the dignity of the human person.

I recently gave a virtual commencement speech at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Barry’s Bay, Ont. Incidentally, OLSW (as it shall henceforth be abbreviated) is one of only two Canadian Catholic colleges or universities on the prestigious Newman Guide of the Cardinal Newman Society.

 It has become commonplace to speak of our current reality as “a time like no other.”

Canada has been riding the fast track on assisted suicide for almost five years, yet it still hasn’t put in place effective protection for health care providers who do not want to play any part in ending a life this way. It’s called conscience rights and it is one of the freedoms specifically mentioned in Canada’s Charter.

Unfurling Bernadette Devlin, Quebec’s Catholic bishops, Irish nuns and William F. Buckley Jr. in the same thought, never mind one sentence, might be considered psychologically, even rhetorically, impossible. Well, there it is. Impossibility vanquished. 

In our corner of the country, we fancy ourselves as extremely welcoming and hospitable folk.

A woman passes by a crowd protesting public-health measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Her destination? The hospital, to visit her husband, intubated and fighting for his life from the virus.