Adventus.org in English Adventus.org en françaisPost for July 26, 2008
Sorry for not posting for the past few weeks, I’ve had a LOT on my plate. I’ve got a wedding to do today, but I’ll try and catch up otherwise over the course of the weekend.
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Post for July 25, 2008
I had lunch with Father Marco Guzman today. He was the priest that got me set up for my month in Mexico, and now he is returning home. Many thanks for all your help, Father, it was great getting to know you.
As a special treat, Father Guzman gave me a gift: a Spanish-language sacramentary! This is a major addition to my liturgical books collection, and I look forward to practising the mass in Spanish. Thank you Father!
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Post for July 24, 2008
I had a wedding rehearsal today for Deanna and Nick, who are getting married this Saturday. I really like this couple, and I look forward to the day.
The wedding will be taking place at our local Slovak church (although you won’t hear any Slovak from me), so I also had a chance to spend some time with the pastor Father Francis. He’s a young priest (younger than me in both age and years of ordination) who come to Canada shortly after ordination to take charge of this parish. After the rehearsal we drove to the post-practise party, and had a really nice chance to chat with people and with each other. I’m hoping I’ll be able to help him find some additional ministry within the city, as the Slovak Catholic population is rather small (and getting older).
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Post for July 23, 2008
I drove up to Camp Kinkora today, to offer mass at the Diocesan Liturgy Camp. There were over 60 campers there this year, from small kids to big teenagers (and the staff as well). I was recruited to go by a former parishioner of mine (shout-out to Fiona!) who welcome me warmly when I got there. We set things up, and after people had assembled I took the time to explain each element of the mass as it was being celebrated. The people seemed to appreciate it, and the kids were certainly paying attention, so I see this as a success.
Now I know there will be some who object to this practise of an “explained mass”, because on one level it does depart from the established rubrics. That being said, one of the explicit goals of the liturgical reform was the help people come to a more intelligent participation in the liturgy, and this necessarily involves some explanation. The role of “commentator” was established at one point: this was a person who explained the rites as they occurred, given that they often were actually happening in Latin, or in a soft voice (or both). Once the liturgy was translated and made more interactive, however, the commentator role tended to fade out (even if it is still implied in certain Vatican documents). Typically, a priest now acts as his own commentator, when this role is still considered useful.
Such as, at a diocesan liturgy camp.
“Commentator moments” are not mentioned in the rubrics, it is true, but that is because the Roman Missal is not fundamentally a book of catechesis. That being said, commentator moments are not forbidden either, and used appropriately can enrich the liturgical experience, both in the celebration itself and in the long-term for those attending.
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Post for July 22, 2008
I began my day today with a new function: after a (surprisingly long) visit to the bank I am new a signing officer of the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism. My signature is needed for any cheque over $500 (except for common recurring expenses). Why me? Because I am the Treasurer of the Centre, so in reality this change should have happened a long time ago. I am hoping to get a new financial system in place soon (development is progressing) and this is part of the renewal of our fiscal control mechanisms.
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Post for July 21, 2008
More programming for the tool I am working on for Adventus. I’ve bumped up against a coding roadblock that will require a redesign of some earlier material I thought was done. *sigh* At least there is progress.
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Post for July 20, 2008
This weekend I was at the Journey to the Father conference in Cornwall. I had never been to one of these conferences before, but I was asked to go as a guest speaker this time. So Friday I packed up the car with luggage, laptop, projector, and so on, and headed out to “Saint Raffles” parish.
The first person I met when I got there was Father James Mallon, a priest of the Archdiocese of Halifax and founder of the John Paul II media institute. We chatted a bit about his media work (you can imagine I am quite interested in that sort of thing), and then I headed to the rectory to put my things.
It turns out Father James was the main speaker at the conference this year, so he led the opening ceremonies Friday night. And then the rain came. And the thunder. And the lightning. And the funnel cloud warning. So we headed for shelter, splitting up the boys and girls into two locations. I was supposed to lead a rosary reflection for the whole group, so I started with the boys, telling them the story of how I came to love Marian devotion — but the rain was so bad there was no way I was going to get to the girls’ location. They had a backup plan, though, so it worked out, especially for me: as I was with “the boys”, the place was full of priests, so I got a chance to go to confession. Nothing like the sacrament of Reconciliation to get back on spiritual track.
Saturday morning I took it easy, taking in a presentation by Angèle Ragnier, the co-founder of Catholic Christian Outreach. Her talk was to the girls on how to be a “woman of God”. Of course, I was not particularly interested in this for myself (duh!) but it was interesting nonetheless.
My own talk was Saturday afternoon, on the topic “If God is good, why is there evil?” Unfortunately, it didn’t go as well as I would have liked. I used Powerpoint heavily in my presentation, but unfortunately it was so bright outdoors where we were that (even under the tent) it was hard to see the screens. They also weren’t very well positioned, so the overall effect was a bit of a downer. My second session was a general Catholic Q&A, which went well (albeit with a smaller group).
There was a special dinner that evening in a nearby school for all the invited guests and speakers (such as myself), so I got a chance to kid around with people at my table while enjoying a delicious meal. I discovered that they organizers had also set up an adoration chapel and the volunteers were coming around the clock to ensure an all-day-all-night presence before the Blessed Sacrament, interceding for those taking part in the conference. No wonder I was feeling the effects of grace so powerfully!
This adoration chapel also drew a most interesting person with whom I had a most delightful discussion: a local Anglican gentleman, who (while not being Catholic) supported the conference 100%. We had an excellent chat about the recent state of affairs in the Anglican Communion (which is really in dire straits), and I came to realize that the debate among the Anglicans is really a microcosm of the debate within the pluralistic religious universe in which we now live: IT’S ALL ABOUT SALVATION. What is salvation? How do we attain to this salvation? What is the place of Jesus/the Bible/the sacraments in this story of salvation? Anyway, our discussion was wide-ranging, and I think I’ll be putting up a few posts on the Adventus site eventually to deal with some these questions.
Saturday evening concluded with a beautiful time of public adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, again led by Father James Mallon, and then sitting in a field hearing LOTS of confessions. I got to bed around midnight.
Sunday the mass was presided by Archbishop Marcel Gervais, with the preacher being Bishop Paul-André Durocher. As it turns out, his homily also dealt with the problem of evil, so at least the kids got a good double-dose of the topic. I know both bishops quite well, and we had a nice chat before I packed up and headed to Ottawa to visit the folks.
It was a good weekend for me. I was feeling a little discouraged (it had been a tough week at work), so this conference brought me back to what it’s all about.
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Post for July 17, 2008
I got together with some of the guys I did my pilgrimmage to Germany with back in 2005 (our World Youth Day gang) and we played Settlers of Catan. While I had never played this game before I had heard of it, and I know it is one of the most popular games out there. The game itself was lots of fun, but so was the time spend with this rather competitive group of guys!
Next time, Supremacy!
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Post for July 16, 2008
I did something tonight I’ve never done before: I took in a show to the Just for Laughs Comedy festival. Now it’s not that I don’t like to laugh — I love to laugh! — but I find a lot of comedy these days involves just either insulting people or using shockingly coarse language. The real comic geniuses, those capable of identifying the absurd and pointing it out in a way that shows us how absurd it is, are few and far between.
So why go? Because Carrie Gaetz, a friend of mine, was performing for the very first time at the festival, in the Homegrown Comics competition, and I wanted to support her. Turns out my sister-in-law came too, and well as a mutual friend named John.
Carrie was interviewed before the competition, and as it turns out I got an anonymous mention in the resulting article. I remember sitting with Carrie once when she was wondering if she should continue to pursue comedy as a calling, and I encouraged her to do so, but not to fall into the trap of cheap laughs. I personally believe that real comedians share a bit in the gift of prophecy — not the ability to see into the future, but the ability to see the world around them clearly, in a way others might not, and to bring others into that vision. I do it with homilies, and Carrie does it with humour. My prayer is that she can help laugh us all into virtue.
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Post for July 4, 2008
No, it’s not the basilica in Rome, it’s a friendly nickname for Peter’s Cape Cod in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. I headed over there today for lunch with a priest friend of mine, to share fellowship and to talk about some new responsibilities being added to the scope of his priestly ministry — and to see how I’ll be able to help him out, something I am looking forward to. The restaurant was his idea, but since it’s Friday I appreciate having a fish menu.
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Post for July 3, 2008
Well, not quite. This afternoon I actually headed over to Anjou, a sub-section of Montreal, to meet with a brother priest who is himself from Brazil. Although we had seen one another from large diocesan gatherings, we had never actually met or chatted, so this was our chance to get to know one another. We headed out to his favourite coffee shop (where “it takes like coffee from home”, as he put it), and had a good couple of hours just sharing priestly brotherhood.
I love days like this.
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Post for July 2, 2008
I was chatting with Terrel Joseph today. He’s the webmaster of the Montreal Challenge Movement, and we were discussing some of the issues and opportunities the movement is facing.
One thing Terrel mentioned is that it is getting harder and harder to find a place to hold a retreat weekend. Now to be honest, this is a problem I’ve seen coming for a LONG time, particularly when the diocese decided to abandon financing the Youth Impact Centre a few years ago. Because the schools are now non-denominational, the movement usually only has access to private Catholic schools — and they are now getting tougher on their requirements for overnight events (i.e. by default they don’t allow them anymore).
We need to think outside the box, so I mentioned to Terrel an idea I had years ago to basically be able to build a portable retreat centre within a parish basement. Basically it is a fancy set of cubicle dividers that hook together like LEGO blocks, except the walls are more than chest-height, and it is possible to add doors and even a ceiling. I think I still even have the diagrams somewhere.
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Post for July 1, 2008
More programming today. I love solving these sorts of puzzles. And I’m happy to report that the first major functional element is now in place and working well. I’m able to copy articles from publicly available news feeds and store the information in a database, while custom altering it to preserve original authorship and copyright information.
Now that I have some articles to work with — real articles from the field, not just fakes I dummied up for testing purposes — I’ll get to work on on the container documents for those articles.
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