CANADA AS OUR SPIRITUAL CONCERN

 

This has been quite a week in Canada. On Tuesday we had King Charles deliver the   ‘speech from the throne” to open this session of the Federal Parliament.

 

Canadians are up in arms at the hostile attitude of the president of the United States. Countless Canadians are changing their travel and vacation plans by not traveling to the States. The airline companies have reduced the number of flights that they normally have to the USA. There is tension in the air.

 

But this is a moment for us to take a step back and recognize great strengths in our Canadian society that we have taken for granted. Now there is economic and productive strength. We are a prosperous society but what makes us strong is found in the social strengths that we have and lives as a society.

 

There is incredible strength in our ability to accept and adapt to many different groups that compose Canada. We were founded by compromise: French, English, Aboriginal, Catholic and Protestant. We live that spirit of compromise well today by the way that new-comers can be integrated and become successful in this society. 

 

We hold strong respect for the law of the country and guard the integrity and independence of our courts. When we examine some other countries, we hold tight our respect for and honesty of our courts. 

 

Here is where we must bring the values of our Christiaan faith to our perception of our Canada.  Too often in the past there has been a deep divide in thinking about the consequences of our faith and our life as a society.

 

First we must work towards justice and equity n our society. The goods of the earth are meant for the well-being of everyone. The resources of the earth are meant for all; not just the rich and the powerful. When we stand among all the other countries of the world, how wonderful that we practice family allowance and have an old age pension. Our socialized medicine is for all ( as imperfect as it is at the moment).

 

Our Christian faith must motivate us to work for justice for all. All human rights must be recognized and practiced at all levels of society. We are working toward a society where there are no ‘minority’ groups in Canada.

 

Our Christiian faith has so much to offer, support  and challenge our Canadian society. This is the season to rediscover what our Christian values offers to Canada and gives us courage to deal with the issues of intolerance, marginalization , poverty and exclusion in our Canadian society.

 

This is the season to rediscover the values and challenges that our Catholic social teaching brings to the Canadian narrative. There are so many ways that our Christian faith can strengthen our Canadian society: from sea to sea to sea!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT CHURCH DO I LIVE IN?

This title really puzzles people. “Of course I live in the Church. Where else would I live?”

 

We  have always lived in two modes of being church. There is the institutional mode that provides religious services. This would be the people that ‘get their baby done’ and ‘have their funerals in a religious space.’  The church provides the rites of passage for life and gives moral guidance to the society at large (that does not mean that anyone follows its moral teachings).

 

Then there are the people who live in a church of transformation. Our Christian faith is not doing the right things, but becoming the right person. All the teaching and the sacraments of the church are directed to a life of transformation. We are meant to become the living extension of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is to take flesh in our flesh.

 

Now, everyone stands somewhere along this spectrum. 

 

We are being called to become a church of transformation. Our preaching and teaching must guide us to a true change  of life. In other words, the gospel of love and justice that Jesus gave us must change us into the love and justice of God. 

 

We are not afraid to tackle the rough issues in our own lives and the life of the society in which we live. We may say we believe that every human being is made in the image of God. But  it is in the living that we are responding to the Holy Spirit who is moving us to see our fellow workers, who speak a different language, have a different color and have cultural differences  from the majority as a living image of God. In every country of the world, Christians are struggling with treating their fellow workers as God values them. It is in our actions that our beliefs prove to be authentic.

 

We are struggling to become aware of the effects of our industrialization on the planet. We are taking seriously our responsibility to hand on to future generations of humans a planet where all forms of life can thrive. We are recognizing how our society has  become  detached from the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere. As believers we are struggling with inter-generational justice: that is, handing on a liveable planet to all the generations  that will come after us. 

 

In our prayer and our liturgies ,we are not burdening God with our demands but rather entering into the compassion, justice and heart of God. We seek to know what is on the heart of God so that we can walk with our God who moves us to a strong sense of justice, especially toward the poor and excluded. We take very seriously that no one is ever a ‘disposable human being’ to be forgotten and cast aside in the human reality. 

 

In a church of transformation it is the people who are hungering for change in their lives. They have been given the Holy Spirit and now they want to Holy Spirit to do it work in us.

THE NEW POPE

 

I am sure that everyone in the world was surprised that the Papal Conclave would elect someone that was born in the USA. There was a wise fear that this could be too much American control and influence  over the world. 

 

Now we have Pope Leo XIV! Everyone asks: ‘And what do you think of the new pope?”

 

I hope that this papacy continues to challenge and move the world, Christianity and the Catholic Church  (count how the issues are ranked here) to a more compassionate concern for the poor of this world. 

 

A very wise mystic, Mister Eckert, asked so many centuries about on the feast of Christmas: What does it matter that the Son of God was born among us, if he is  not born in each one of us?

 

What does it matter to have a well-organized church, i.e, clear doctrines, a well worked Canon Law and a supportive financial system if we do not have the practice of charity? 

 

The name that a pope chooses for his papacy speaks of the tone, the thrust of this leadership. By choosing the name Leo he is underlying that Pope Leo XIII, in 1891, laid the foundation for the social justice teaching of the church with the encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (i.e. new things) in which he made clear the rights of workers to a liveable wage, safety and protection under the law. This was in the upheaval that the industrial revolution was producing and it was a clear call for justice towards the workers in the factories, shipyards and iron foundries. 

 

May this Pope Leo point the world in the direction of concern for the thousands of displaced people due to war and economic upheavals. May this papacy keep us alert and uncomfortable about the suffering of the poor of this world. 

 

In Canada we have difficulty imaging the turmoil and distress that any form of war can have on the lives of people. May humanity always be challenged by the pope and church leadership to work toward peace and justice in the war zones of the world. 

 

I am strongly uplifted by my fellow Christians who support and help the refugees of war-torn zones to resettle in our country and begin a safe life in Canada. The support and help that these new refugees are given by my fellow Christians strengthens my belief in Christianity. 

 

I hope that the new pope continues to give direction to the top 20 percent of the world who are the affluent and economically blest, to share the wealth and success of their production and well organized economies. How wonderful it is to see my fellow Christians bring food that will be shared through the food bank. 

 

May Pope Leo be a beacon of light to lead us to turn more to the poor of this world; especially the poor within our own countries. Even if many Christians are uncomfortable with the direction that the new pope will take, may he move our hearts closer to the poor of this world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE RESURRECTION MUST COME ALIVE

We are well into the fifty days of Easter (Easter to Pentecost). Many Christians have difficulty imaging the Resurrection. “It is true. It happened but how do I get it through my head? How do I make sense of the resurrection?”

 

The resurrection of Jesus came as a complete surprise. No one had ever heard of such a thing. It was impossible after the horrible murder and public shaming of Jesus.

 

The resurrection of Jesus is always an event of divine revelation. God breaks through the limits of human experience. Not only is Jesus alive and eating breakfast with his disciples but he  continues to give of his divine life to the disciples and the believers.

 

The resurrection is always a dynamic event. There was a historical event. Jesus returns among us but he comes to us as the Son of God. Jesus must now be resurrected in each one of us. This is the very dynamic part of the resurrection: it must happen in our space and time and in our Church communities.

 

The resurrection happens in us when we turn toward the poor and excluded of our society. It when we reach out to help others have food security, (can’t afford groceries), give medical attention and help refugees become established and secure in this new homeland. The resurrection takes definite shape and form when we reach out in compassionate ways toward those who do not have as much as the majority of citizens.

 

The resurrection happens when we share food with the food bank. There are many people who have a tough time making ends meet. The donation of peanut butter and rice, cereal and canned tuna was the sharing of Christ’s goodness through the sharing of food. How well this expresses Jesus teaching that ‘I was hungry and you gave me food.’

 

The resurrection is alive and well in those moments when we visit the nursing home and take the hand of our elderly mother in her dementia. She held our little hands when we were a fearful three-year old. Now, we bring her human comfort then we hold her eighty-nine year old hand. And the simple smiles that we give to the other residents affirms their value. A smile is always a sign of deep human communication.

 

The resurrection  is shared when you pick up the telephone or call someone for coffee who has lost their adult child or the spouse of six decades. There are so few words to be spoken but much care and understanding is shared in just being present to the grieving friend. Probably the resurrection is shared more in the silence and the compassion than in any words that are ever spoken.

 

We rise with Jesus when we live, walk and work in his love. The resurrection becomes flesh in our flesh, in our compassion, our shing and our love for the lost, the wounded and forgotten of Canadian society.