TTUMBLER RIDGE, B.C.

The unimaginable happened in Canada, Tuesday, February 10, 2026: a school shooting with innocent children and a tacher being killed. Canada went into shock!

 

On Friday evening thousands of Canadians  joined in the vigil that was held to remember the victims, their families and all the first responders who brought their hands and hearts to help the victims.

 

Leaders asked us to pray.

 

Now, prayer must never be a stop-gap effort that we cry out to the supernatural powers because we have nothing else to hang on to. If that is the only time we pray, it sounds lke a drowning man grasping for  anything to hand on to in order to survive. 

 

We pray to the living  God who has created each one of us. Our lives are a blessing and a gift from the living God who is ever present and who always seeks each one of us, even if we walk away from God. The God we pray to is a passionate God who cries when we suffer, who laments when we wander away in sin and who seeks each and every one.

 

Prayer is never neutral. Each human can and should pray. Each prayer reaches the ears of God.

 

At the end of the Our Father we pray “deliver us from evil.” The more correct translation is ‘deliver us from the testing.” This means we ask to be delivered from such moments that we might give up on the goodness of God. Tuesday afternoon was such a moment. How could someone be so distributed by mental illness that they would inflict such destruction on another human being?

 

We pray for each victim of this shooting, and each family that has been so deeply hurt. We pray also to the teenage shooter who suffered so much from mental illness.

 

We pray for all the survivors who must live with and work through this horrible and painful experience. These memories will go with them for the rest of their lives. May they be given strength from the hand of God to deal with and survive these horrible memories.

 

We pray for the first responders, all health workers involved in the tragedy and all our political leaders who came together on the Friday vigil in Tumbler Ridge. The compassion and support shown in that vigil was one of the finest moments o our country Canada. We pray for every caring heart, every supportive hug that that given at that vigil.

 

We pray for the power that only God can give us when we ask for help and support. God will carry us through these horrible tragedies. 

 

Now, I would invite you in these days  to bring your own prayers to God for the victims and families of Tumbler Ridge.

 

 

TO DEEPEN YOUR LIFE IN GOD

Our life of faith was never meant to be static. Too many people who were brought up as children in the Church do not know where this is supposed to lead them in life. They know the believe in God ,but it does not go much further than that.

 

The life of faith is very dynamic. Once we recover the authentic nature of being baptised we realize that we have been joined to the life and mystery of Jesus Christ and now we are given the means (i.e., the Holy Spirit) to transform us ,more and more, into Christ. You were baptized (i.e., marked) to live out the mystery of Christ in your own life. 

 

As we progress through life , as we interact with the very Spirit of God, our life is meant to be deepened into the mysery of Christ. In other words, we are menat to live and be energized by the very spirit of God. Our prayer and worship is not just doing religios things but is a living sharing in the life and work of the Holy Spirit.

 

The life of faith does not seek to bring us to do good things, but to become so alive to the life of Christ that the good we do for others is actually lived and experienced as doing the good to the very person of Christ. This explains why the Last Judgment is pictured in such human terms. The risen Jesus will not say, “you did good to others.” (Mt. 25, 31-46) 

 

Rather he will say, “I was hungry and you gave me food.”  The act of doing good to others becomes an act of doing good to the risen Christ. The very human act of sharing bread with the hungry is actually sharing bread with Christ himself.

 

We are trying to recover the Biblical sense that all of creation is the first revelation of God.

The creation story at the beginning of the Book of Genesis opens with the goodness that God sees in all that is created. Everything, the earth, the trees, the birds and the fish and then human beings are seen to be good and very good in God’s sight.  Our faith is leading us to recover the sense of the value and the beauty of every created thing. Our faith is meant to open us to a new appreciation of the importance of creation. 

 

Human beings always struggle with the injustices and evil in this world. Some become powerful and greedy and walk away with indifference towards the poverty of their neighbor.

Our Christian  faith challenges us to turn toward our sister and brother in need. Our Christiaan faith opens our heart to the neglect we have toward the poor of this world.

 

Authentic belief in God is anything but static. It is moving us to become more and more the person that God wants us to be. There is so much more of life to be lived with and in our God.

 

 

 

  

THE DIFFICULT PARTS OF OUR FAITH

       

 

Whenever someone takes their Christian faith seriously they discover that there are parts of our faith that are difficult to live and put into practice.  Living out our Christiaan faith is not about what I am willing to put forth. It is all about living up to the demands that God makes of his people. 

 

God is not indifferent to the way that we humans treat each other. We are very reluctant to try to express the anger  in the heart of God over the way that human beings bomb each other in war. Is not God angry when Russian bombs hurt and destroy the lime and the home of a little Ukranian  grandmother? 

 

Is not God joyful when two teen age boys rush forward to lift an elderly person who has slipped on the ice while trying to board the city bus to go downtown?

 

Now the first part of divine revelation is in the act of creation when God has made woman and man in the image of God. Each human being carries within their very body, the sign, the value and the love of the Creator God. Each and every human being, no matter how limited, carries the very image of God. 

 

When we reflect on how well the parts of our body function ,we are amazed that each one of  is  a living miracle. Reflect on the functioning of your kidneys. They work twenty-four hours of day removing excess water from our blood and all sorts of wastes from our blood stream. They keep us incredibly healthy – twenty-four hours a day. 

 

Are you not a living miracle?

 

\Now the difficult part is recognizing that every human being is a walking, talking image of God. There are no exceptions. No matter what color their skin, what age, how brilliant and competent they are, no matter how mobile or immobile they are or no matter how intellectually function they are.  This one is the image of God!

 

Every day we are confronted with this challenge. As we live and work with people who are different from ourselves, we are being challenged to see the image of God in the other. We are called to respect and treat with kindness the divine image in the other.

 

Jesus challenges us in the Last Judgement (Mt. 25, 31-46). When we come before God the risen Jesus does not say “you did good to another.’ Rather Jesus identifies with the action towards our fellow human being. “I was hungry and you gave me food.” All good done to another is good done toward the Son of God.

 

Daily life is a challenge to see the image of God in the other. 

 

How wonderful that our Christian faith challenges us to live, breath and walk like the Son of God!