April 19th Homily

Where is the spirit of God in our Church today?  It’s rather easy to see it thriving in the works of charity, in the apostolates we do, even in the people meet, and how we are able to engage with them, not out in a spirit of jealousy or competition, but one of love and respect, one that recognizes the dignity of the people we meet. But even in our beloved universal Church, we all too often get embroiled into respective camps, trying to defend our understanding of what the Church is, how God works through our vision of the great apostolic mission.
   I saw some examples of this phenomenon while reading the New Catholic Reporter this morning as I was trying to catch up on news about a conflict between the Vatican  and women religious in the US, more specifically, a Catholic Social Justice lobby founded by American nuns called NETWORK. Despite all the noble work this group have done in the past 40 years, including taking their fights to Capitol Hill, and Being Christ to the poor on the great stage of American politics, NETWORK has come under scrutiny  and criticism for various reasons in recent years. The main criticism they've received is for their support of the Obama  health plan, and allegedly , for publicly supporting abortion. ( I say allegedly because it's unclear that they have. They've been silent on the issue, but have never spoken in favour it.  I believe the main issue is more Gay marriage and women's ordination).    


   

So, as is the norm on the internet (and one may argue, in the human experience), once the news about this crisis broke out, the few dozens of individuals who dedicate their days to publishing their responses and complaints on the NCR websites, went nuts: Lines were drawn; gloves came off; Criticism continues to rage on both sides: Some rushing to the defence of the nuns, others to the defence of the Vatican Hierarchy. Not very much is achieved, and the great animosity that exists within our Church is only nourished even more. And yet, both sides are convinced that they are doing what God has called upon them to do, or worse, they believe they are doing exactly what Jesus would do. Both sides claim to have right on their side. I think such a debate would have preoccupied me for days in the past, and perhaps have even chipped away at my faith a little. It doesn't anymore, because I understand that this is how we function as humans....and this has nothing to do with God, for one simple reason: In this angry debate, the individuals are not diminished in order to make way for the Grace of God to work in them. Their issues and agendas, becomes God's issues and agendas. This is problematic. Consequently, I still need to hear them out and understand where they're coming from, but I do not need to accept that God's will is in their angry divisive words. For if they were filled with the spirit, they would act like the disciples in the book of Acts, and would obey God,rather than obeying men and women. They would allow the spirit to guide them in efforts to be Christ to the poor by helping deliver them from their afflictions, and would focus on healing the brokenness of our world not with a righteous anger, but a deep and profound forgiving love. It's that very same love that allowed John the Baptist to humble himself before the Messiah. To recognize that the work John had committed his entire life to, was merely earthly work that would meet its divine completion in the labours of another. To understand that while the presence of the Spirit may be limited in his own body, that there was no limit to that divine presence in Jesus. It seems that John is still trying to pave the way for Christ in our own lives. He understands that we get preoccupied by earthly issues that divides our world and creates dissent even within our own beloved Church. However, he reminds us to leave all of that behind, less we get preoccupied by them, and fail to receive the testimony of Christ in our world....less we fall short of obeying the Divine Will, in order to fulfil our own human desires to serve God...these are noble, but they are imperfect, and when we commit our lives to these as opposed to God, we sometimes miss the mark.

From darkness to light

 Happy Easter to one and all!! And what a beautiful season it's been.
 This has also  been a heavy couple of weeks for all students I suppose. It ain't getting any easier for me, with 2 big papers and one smaller one due next week. Unfortunately, being in a non religious university means that they don't give a damn if it's Holy week  or not, they still expect people to be in class, hand in essays etc...c'est la vie.
    Anyways, Matthew (my  brother Jesuit  and the guy with a room next to mine)and I were talking this week, as were slaving over our papers, and at one point, he just said rather bitterly "It's HOLY WEEK..I SHOULD NOT BE DOING THIS. I SHOULD BE PRAYING". Definitely a sentiment I felt as well considering how prayerful my holy week was in Wiky last year...I didn't feel as connected to the holiest season in our calendar this year. Instead, I locked myself in my room and did lots of research.  The plus side of course, was having the opportunity to do discover the wonderful library at the University. Apparently, the main library at t he U of T is one of the largest in the world... but the building itself is freekish:

I guess you can't see it too well from this picture, but it's supposed to be some kind of giant turkey, or peacock. A monstrosity of a building in the eyes of many, but I'm not complaining. First off,
I don't need to use that library that often. The ones from the Toronto School of theology -there are maybe 5 theological libraries-  serve me very well!!  This means, I've never had trouble getting the books I needed for research so far...and this week, I got to spend some time in the rare books library and even took a picture of it. Quite stunning, compared to the rest of the library!!  I got to spend the afternoon of Holy Thursday reading a book there -you're not allowed to take books out of the Rare books library..you have to read them there!-

But despite academia being at the centre of my life, as a Catholic (and even more so as a Jesuit), it's impossible for me to avoid the movement of holy week. Even though my prayer was not as rich as last year, I still was incredibly inspired by the services -especially the Easter Vigil one on Saturday night, which lasted almost 3 hours, and ended around midnight and was incredibly moving.-.  But the most symbolic moment for me was on Good Friday at night, when we celebrated what is known as Tenebrae. In the timeline of the Triduum, -the 3 days before easter, so Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil on Saturday- this is a powerful prayer, where we celebrate Christ descending into Hell, or Sheol or whatever you want to call it, and conquering death.  This is not necessarily a celebration that is scriptural, but the idea of Jesus descending among the dead is part most Credes in Christianity.

 I've probably celebrated this before, but I had no recollection of ever having done so...so it was a very powerful service for me. The picture I took is from behind our chapel window in our house. The way it works is that there are 7 candels that our lit on the altar. As we read various passages from the bible together, after each passage, one of the candles is extinguished....until we're in complete darkness. We stay there for a few minutes, meditating on what we've heard, on what it means to us to proclaim in our Crede every Sunday that Christ went into hell to conquer death on our behalf.

It may not seem like much, but to me this is the most extraordinary part of the hole Easter season. We contemplate darkness, so we can receive the light that Christ will bring on Easter morning.  And we do need to enter the Tenebrae in order to appreciate the glory of His light even more. Of course, we don't celebrate the light till 24 h ours laster, but maybe that's the whole point. Easter gives us an opportunity to contemplate the whole passage from darkness to light over a period of time, so that we can understand that there will be tremendous darkness in our own life at times, and that we need to receive it with the hope that it won't last foreever. That Christ's light triumphs over everything...even our struggles with paper writting (-;

My Homily, April 3rd

 Readings: : Isaiah 49:1-6, John 13:21-33, 36-38

  I love Isaiah, there is truly no one from the Old testament more up to the task of leading us into Holy week than he.  here’s a dude who truly gets it.  Yesterday, in one of my favourite passages of the Bible, we heard Isaiah prophesy about how the Son of God, who would be so loved, and cherished by God, that the Lord would place upon him his very spirit, which would empower him to faithfully bring forth justice.. That particular passage, 42:1 is the centre piece of the Matthew’s account of the Baptism of our Lord (it’s referenced twice during the passage). We can see the similarities between the two passages, as Jesus   not only gets baptised, and receives the spirit of God, but gets a public praise and affirmation from  the Great I Am, who lets the world know how special this Jesus of ours really is.

Today’s account continues to develop this theme of being the son, and servant of God and everything  that special relationship to God entails. Obviously, any exegete who looks at this Text will say “clearly, he’s talking about Jesus’ , and clearly he is, speaking about the one who will bring all people before God, who will reconcile to Him all those who have fallen away from  The Path that God has set for them, and who will bring to God many new people. But for us Christians, there is another way of reading Isaiah. Yes, we understand that this is about Jesus, but if we’re brave enough, we can also see that this passages is a call to all of us. For we too, have been called from the womb and have been known intimately by God. We too have been blessed with his spirit which does an infinite amount of great things within us.  We too, have had the almighty look upon us  and say with delight “truly, this is my child.”

    

    Why should the analogies between Christ and ourselves end there? We too, are being called to bring forth justice into the world; we too are called to  be a light to the nations, that God’s salvation my reach the end of the earth.  For what Good is our faith if all we do is recognize that God loves us, takes care of us, protects us, and saves us from evil, if all we do is lead a good  decent life  of comfort?  We are not adopted as children of God so that we can take comfort in our salvation, but so that we can become Men and Women of the world that are taught and formed by God, and will go to the ends of the earth to proclaim God’s wondrous deeds.

But before we get to our own special vocation before God, we must accompany our Saviour, as he walks through his passion. This is why Santiago was urging us to spend more time with Jesus yesterday…not so we just ‘chill out’ with the lord…but so that we may share with him, as we did during the exercises, the very core of his experience of the passion. The rejection, the mockery and humiliation that is to come, the pain, the hatred of others… this is the heart of our faith this week. For having accompanied our Lord through his passion, having felt the pain and darkness with him, we can then accompany many others who have been forsaken by the world, the same way Jesus would be forsaken by his friends.

My homily on the feast of St Joseph (March 19th)

It is a great privilege for me to be sharing words with you today. Because Joseph, has a very special place in my heart.  Not only did I have the honour to share my thoughts on this quiet, yet incredibly important man in the story of Jesus last year in Wiky on the feast of St Joseph, but ever since I’ve come back to the  Church, he’s been a presence in my life…but my main focus  today will be on the readings…and yes, I will be channeling a little bit of Jonathan Goldstein for this one ( Jonathan is a broadcaster on the CBC who is a great story teller. He has retold the story of the nativity from the perspective of Joseph)

 My initial reaction was to  assume that the 2^nd Samuel passage was a little at odds with the story of Joseph, and even more so with that of Jesus.   I mean, if we think of the prophetic lines about the coming of david’s offspring that will establish a new kingdom pleasing to the eyes of God  and see that from a Christian perspective, it makes sense…but it probably would have had a very different meaning for even someone like Joseph.  Although I’m sure Joseph understood that he came from the royal line of David, it had been so long since the collapse of the kingdom, that this royalty thing may have been nothing more than a distant dream to him, if even that. Perhaps, like many of his countrymen, he still had hope for the coming of a King that would restore the kingdgom of Israel,  and return a sense of pride to the Children of Israel.  Although this simple carpenter was probably not a radical nationalist, we can imagine that he still had dreams that he would see his people’s glory restored by this great messiah, this son of the Great I am.

   So imagine his shock…when he learned that it was his Mary, that would carry this great king…and that the king would not sit on a royal throne –as Nathan had prophesied-and restore the glory of Israel, but he would be humble, poor, and yet, still save the world from it’s sinfulness, and lead them into a new kind of glory…not the one that Joseph and his countrymen had been dreaming about. Not an earthly glory, but one that came from God. The Kicker for me, every time, is that…Joseph goes with it, without a moment’s hesitation. Even Mary questioned a little bit “ you sure I’m going to bring a baby into the world?? Oh Gabriel…did no one ever give you the birds and the bees talk…”.  And this wasn’t even a dream for her..this was an actual angel standing before her talking right at her, telling her how things would unfold

  Our boy Joseph, all he had to go with was a dream…a dream that awakened something in his faith, that connected him with God’s almighty plan, but still just a dream.. Do you realize how foolish any of you would look today if you were making some radical life altering decisions, and when people ask you “ What could possibly possess you to do something so  ludicrously insane??”,  you meekly answered “ God told me in a dream.”  That’s it? One dream? You didn’t discern for a couple of days or pray about this…you just...took instructions from an angel you saw in a dream and took off??? .

 Well yeah. That’s what people who are in love do. They don’t listen to the logic of the world around them.  Joseph’s love for Mary is so deep, that he is willing to go against  the conventions and laws  of the times, and doesn’t tell anyone about her ‘secret baby’ but decides to divorce her..quietly, without making any fuss, so that she could keep her dignity.  A great sign that this man’s  righteousness surpassed that of his world.

Because of that… I do not think God could have chosen a more perfect father for Jesus.   A man who so open to listening to the voice of the divine within him;, a man so commited to a deep experience of love that he would allow his own world view to be challenged and transformed; a man faithful, and unquestioning in his faith until the very end.

We know way too little about St Joseph, and I find that a shame. I
suppose we can always turn to St Brother Andre and the inspiring model
of humility and healing he brought to the world, to remind us of the
grandeur of this man, a silent figure, but an integral part
of  the greatest story ever lived.

Joy, wherever you can find it...

Happy belated St Patty's!!

This past week, A Irish fellow who is a Jesuit in our province asked me what my plans were for St Patrick's. He probably expected some response that involved beer, beer,and more beer.

How disappointed he must have been when I simply said "nothing". 

 Being someone who's not a big fan of ale, it's only in recent years that I became 'interested' in St Patty's, mostly because of the tremendous diversity of people that this celebration brings together. In Montreal, you might as well call the day  "celebrate the city's  ethnic diversity day". It is this celebration -a lot more than alcohol drinking- that developed my interest in this day over the years.

 Of course, now as I am not only a staunch Catholic, but also a religious brother, the day has a little more meaning to me, seeing that Patrick is one of the Greatest Saints in Christianity. So does it bother me that all these people clad in green and boozing it up have absolutely no concept of the religious element  of this day? I mean, after all, it is supposed to be a day when those who are abstaining from Alcohol during Lent can really let themselves loose and have a great time, with the intention of going back on their Lenten fast the following day. Nowadays, you mention Lent to any of these drunken kids out there (they can still be heard 'painting the town' green from my bedroom window), and most of them will say "don't we celebrate that  on Easter day?". Oh in the past I would have let out a great sigh and just walked away from the poor student, depressed about the lack of spirituality and religion in our world today.

Has that changed?

A little. Today, I went to Guelph for Spiritual direction, and after a wonderful session with my director, went for a little walk on the land....it was prayerful and quite peaceful...but thanks to that little walk...I missed my bus and had to wait 2 hours for the next one. So I hung around downtown Guelph, and watched, what looked like EVERY SINGLE STUDENT FROM THE UNIVERSITY in Guelph walking around in state of drunkeness...but still incredibly happy. And there was something almost infectious about the mood in the air.

 Still, isn't my call as a religious to move away from this kind of behaviour, to abandon superficial source of happiness and seek out a more divine source of eternal joy? Oh...absolutely. Don't get me wrong, I did not envy or desire to be experiencing what these young people were...their quest for cheap fun that will only last till the evening is over and will make them sick in the morning  is the last thing I yearn for these days. I am at peace and incredibly happy  in my journey with, and towards God. There isn't much in this world that could replace this wonderful feeling.

  Through this wonderful journey of mine,  I am slowly beginning to learn, the Pastoral response to these festivities is neither to condemn, nor envy them, but simply to share the joy with them.  I don't think I even want to be the one to argue that the Ignatian charism of 'finding God in all things' is applicable here. It trullly isn't.. But at the same time, there is also nothing edifying about looking down on these young people for not having spirituality, or a desire for more from life.

 I realized that when I was walking home in the evening. Toronto was quite foggy tonight, so it made for a very eerie atmosphere, but the laughter and joy of the people echoed on every street corner. It...it felt like New year's eve to tell you the truth. And rather than condemning the revellers for not being creative enough to be able to find other ways of expressing their youthful energy,I found myself relishing in their joy, and even glad that I was able to share this with them, even for a little bit.  Even if I wish there more spirituality in the world today, I am glad that there are events like these that bring people together in one huge celebration of life...

A holiday renewal

Note: This is a much older post...I'm not sure if I had put it on my blog or not.
 I should also note that I am blogging more regularly with my scholastics  brothers: http://www.iboetnonredibo.blogspot.com/
My contributions to that one will be bi-weekly..more than I can say for this current blog.
I'm sure this one will find it's renewal at some point!!



My semester ended a few weeks ago. It's been a good one, with it's own set of challenges.
In my own little way, I have grown in God's love deeply enough to understand that being loved
by God means being given the strength to renew ourselves, to strive even more towards that perfection that God invites us to. It's probably something none of us ever will achieve.However, the most important thing I learned a long time ago in my faith journey, is that I have to accept the invitation towards perfection, without ever expecting to reach it. The moment one thinks they have perfection, they fall into the trap of complacency. I'm not free of the poison of complacency myself, but my labors towards building the Kingdom of God on earth move me further and further away from this! This has been the most positive thing of my year...growing in confidence in my own little contribution in helping build God's kingdom on Earth.


    One of the more difficult aspects of my journey that is almost becoming a routine for me considering how often I come back to it, is one rather complex question: How do I live my own vocation as a Brother, 'seperately' from the vocation of my scolastic -future priests- brothers/house mates, yet still in complete communion with them? I knew my community of studies would be a difficult place to make some progress in finding an answer to that question, being surrounded by guys who just have a different way of proceeding, and different ambitions than I do. It does become hard for me to be in such a community and to not compare how they approach their work, and how I approach mine. Those who know me well will be groaning at this point and be saying " are you still comparing yourself to others? When will you let of that?"


   Honestly? Probalby never. I mean, put yourselves in my shoes: We haven't had a brother enter the Society of Jesus in almost 40 years, and the last one that considered entering would have done so with a carpentry background. So there are no more young brothers left, and most brothers in the Society are people that have specific manual skills. Other brothers have followed a similar path of studies in the past, but they're not really my peers, at least, not in age! So, here I am, trying to help formulate an identity for Brothers in the Society of Jesus of Canada in the 21st century, and being surrounded by priests, older brothers, and future priests. I've never been in such a unique position in my entire life. Fr. Doug in Wiky was the first to point to this challenge I had, when he told me that I had no role models in terms of Brothers in Canada. This makes the path even more challenging.



  However, from the moment I arrived in Toronto for studies, I realized how well surrounded, well supported I was. How many priests and how many of my peers have confirmed my vocation and its uniqueness by 'validating' the way I operate. Some would see the fact that I still need validation once in a while as a sign of weakness, but to me it's an expression of the human reality that none of us are as strong as we think on our own, and that our true source of power is that which we gather from our community.


   So we come back to this sense of communion. My experience of communion and love for God and others deepened these past months, not only within my community, but with the larger communion of Saints that is our Catholic Church. People like Theresa of Lisieux and Bernard Lonergan have been shaping my spiritual and intellectual growth in ways I'm still trying to process. To my surprise, my sense of growth has been accompanied with a deepening of my sense of love of self, and my confidence in the role I can play in the future within the Society of Jesus. The difficulty remains that I still don't know what that role is necessarily going to be, but as my wise parents once put it, since my Jesuit journey has begun, I have always struggled for a week or 2 with new environments, and have eventually, always found a way to find my niche, and even thrive there. This idea is one of my greatest sources of trust for the coming year. I know I'll still struggle some more this year, because it's the struggle that leads me to this path of holiness that I seek to live.

 Much more to tell...I'll probably make a seperate post about my holiday experience!!

The life of a Brother in Toronto

It's been a long time since I've written on this blog. My apologies for the delay! I guess, you can say I've been a little busy, but also, shockingly, I think I've lost a bit of my desire to write in the past little while. I don't quite understand where this is coming from other than the fact that I have a lot to do, but I can't forget that during my pilgrimage, I was given a bit of a revelation: There are many things I could end up doing as a Jesuit, but there's only one thing that Christ really seems to be calling me to do with all my heart, and that is writing. The reason for this is that there is still a dream that I cling to that I can impact the world, and help create social change as a Jesuit, and I don’t see myself achieving this in better ways than through my writing. It may be just a dream, but at the same time, I find myself in a position -even in here in Toronto- where people turn to me for help, where they depend on me, and are even helped by my actions. SO it's not a pipe dream, it's the reality of my vocation. I make myself available to people, which means that I can and do help more than I can ever immagine. Furthermore, I know that my writing has impacted people in the past emotionally, or otherwise. So why wouldn't I come back to it? No reason. I guess that's why I'm here this morning!!

It's now time for the Toronto Vs Montreal segment. Some dramatic pictures to illustrate this segment:

                                                                               T Dot

                                                                                 VS

                                                                                Mdot

Toronto is a lovely city, and even though I miss Montreal...actually, there’s no even thoughs here..I miss Montreal. Toronto is still and will always be a lovely and inviting city with lots of diversity and culture. That doesn't change the fact that Montreal just has more charism, more energy, more colour. I guess that's my own bias. This is why I put this survey on my Blog. I was talking to someone about Bagels recently, and it dawned on me that I had heard of a debate in Montreal as to which place had the best bagels, but could not remember the results of that debate, so I leave it up to the people to resolve this one!!

 But back to my Toronto Vs. Montreal  point, there’s no question that I miss lounging around on St Catherines on a Friday night, or that I’m annoyed I couldn’t be in town for the Arcade Fire concert, or that I long to be closer to my family, or even that there’s a part of me that has died when I left McGill Choral…I can’t deny any of that. However, Toronto is a city with great charm, and thanks to the Jesuits, to my Toronto family,  to the Newman center, to a little Movie called Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and to Ted’s perpetual flair for adventure, I have found my niche here as well: Like Montreal, Toronto is a great walking city; It tries to rival Montreal in terms of fine dining (Does very well in some departments, and not so much in others –that’s my way of saying that nothing can come close to rivalling Schartz, at least, not in Toronto!-);It has a great cultural scene ( The one thing Montreal does poorly in, Toronto is great at: Musicals!!!!) and does have interesting history. I mentioned a movie though…Scott Pilgrim was not only filmed in Toronto, it’s based in Toronto and largely filmed with Canadian actors with a large American contingency as well! It’s the first movie I saw at the house this year…I just stumbled upon it..I had no idea what it was going to be.  It turned out to be a lovely tribute to this city, a very funny movie, but also a very artistic approach to storytelling. If you’ve not seen it yet, and are looking for a cute story and a creative film, I highly recommend it.

 

  There are other things I really love about Tdot…the CN Tower that changes colours at night, the same passion for their hockey team that Montreal has for the Habs (doesn’t make me want to cheer for them, but I still respect the passion!! I was elated that the Flyers took them down a notch or two on Monday!!). But what’s helped me above everything to see the human face of this city, is my apostolate. It’s interesting: we all have very different apostolates. Adam and Santi work with the youth program of one parish, Ted works with immigrants, the other guys work with Catechism or RCIA or liturgy in various parishes around the city.  I was the only one given a genuine street ministry, and I’m quite honoured by that. I work at a soup kitchen every Monday. The place I work at is the Brothers of the Good shepherd. It’s a place started by a religious community, that still has a good presence of priests and brothers, although I think it’s mostly run by  non-religious these days. They get something like 1000 people every day. They are by far the best organized community soup kitchen I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen many in my life. They compost food and recycle things; they have 100s of volunteers every week; they also have apartments for guys trying to reinsert themselves in the world. It’s  a wonderful operation. Most importantly for me…it’s a connection I have to the real world. These are not men and women that spend their days talking about philosophy and theology (as the people in my environment do. It’s important to do this too, but it’s not the real world for me)…they’re trying to survive…they do their best. But what amazes me every week is that despite their hardship, they have more faith in God than most people I encounter. I’ve argued this in a previous blog (or maybe it was in a homily. I say homilies rather frequently here! ) but it blows my mind that while there are people out there, “occupying cities” around the world or sipping tea in a trendy place in town, who claim they could never believe in God in a world filled with injustice, the people who most beautifully believe in God in this world, are those who suffer injustices and marginalisation . So while young people reject God because of their strongly voiced objections vs the injustice and while they speak of the bleakness of the world 24/7, the people I meet at the center, who may not be sure from day to day where their food will come from, seem to have an insurmountable amount of hope. My theory as to why this occurs? The ones who complain about capitalism or the state of the world don’t have to depend on the kindness of strangers to survive every day. Or if they do, they’re not aware of it (that would not surprise me. Atheist are affected by God just as everyone else is...they just don’t know it!!) When one has to start depending more on others to survive, perhaps one develops a bit more a sense of gratitude for life, and one learns to see God in that hope, in that gratitude. That’s my Catholic/Jesuit interpretation of the situation.

 The impact this experience has had on me, is that, as I’ve said, it’s kept me grounded. It’s reminded me that, outside my little Catholic world, there is a whole society of people in pain, suffering, alone, yet still full of peace, hope and love for others. It also forces me to be more than just a student. My studies are important, I’m getting good grades and am learning a lot about my faith and the experience of religion and about being a Disciple of Jesus Christ, but it’s when I come to this place that I learn what true discipleship is. Giving my time to serve others, but also receiving from them all that they have to offer. It’s a humbling and beautiful experience.

 The final piece to my Toronto Jesuit experience lies at Newman Center. Originally, when my superior asked me what I wanted to do for Apostolate, I mentioned that I’d love to work at Newman. I have a feeling that my future vocation will be largely built around helping university students make sense of their faith in a complicated modern secular time. My principal desire is to guide them through their spiritual struggles, but also to give them a sense that there’s more to life than studies…. that a true Catholic faith should be expressed in Social Justice, not just going to Church every Sunday. Anyways, I digress. My superior told me that it may be a good idea to experience something

Different, so that’s how I ended up at Good Shepherd’s, and I’m glad I did. However, I didn’t let that prevent me from interacting with the Newman crowd. I’m just surprised how quickly it happened. I have one little lady to thank for that.

  Sonal is an MDiv student who has 3 classes with me. We get along very well and have gotten along since day 1, but it’s not in class that I met her, but at Newman. She’s one of the Campus ministers who also lives at the Newman center with all the other student campus ministers. Eventually, she began to invite me to lunch and supper and study sessions at Newman. I’ve gotten to know almost everyone there pretty well. There’s many opportunities for ministry, but I’m mostly there for friendship, and if ministry comes out of it, then, praise be to God. I’m mostly happy to have met such a good friend as Sonal so quickly. School has barely started and we were already talking like old friends!!

Anyways, that is my life in Toronto. Lots of good friends…a wonderful community at home, and a very inviting and friendly one at Newman as well.challenging work academically and apostolically… but a tremendous

Sense of joy and peace that accompanies the whole thing. I’m blessed really.

 I’m thinking really hard about all of you out there. God bless you all!