Salt + Light Blog

A couple of weeks ago I went back to camp.

I was reminded of my first job in Canada: I was a counsellor at Camp Wahanowin in Orillia.  Camp Wahanowin is a Jewish camp and before every meal we used to say the blessing of the bread: Barukh attah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha-olam, ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz. That was some of the first Hebrew I learned. The reason why I was reminded of Camp Wahanowin was not because it was camp, but because this camp that I just participated in is a camp that brings Jews, Muslims and Christians from Israel and Palestine together with Jews, Muslims and Christians in Canada – and all the kids are 11/12-years-old.

Kids for Peace was founded by the Episcopal (Anglican) Church of Jerusalem, at St. George’s College, when, during the last intifada, the college was empty. The administration decided to use their time and space to bring whole families together: Jews, Muslims and Christians, so that they would get to know each other. In Israel, even though there are “mixed” cities and towns, there aren’t many opportunities for Jews to meet Arabs.

I was reminded of another experience. When I was 16, I had the wonderful opportunity to come to Canada to attend Lester. B. Pearson College of the Pacific, a school that promotes peace and international understanding by bringing young people from around the world together. It was our Nobel Peace Laureate Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson who said “how can there be peace in the world if people don’t understand each other? And how can this be if they don’t know each other?” It’s a simple formula: bring young people from different countries together so they can live, study and work together, make friends and when they grow up, they won’t have silly prejudices, but can help bring peace to the world. And I believe it works.

Read more…

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

Last Saturday night, in Calgary, Catholic artists from across North America gathered for the 10th annual United Catholic Music and Video Awards and Conference, under the theme “Called to Serve”.

The UCMVA was founded with the aim of bringing together Catholic presenters from around the world who celebrate their faith through various forms of media, including music, art, radio and television.

This year it’s the first time that the event took place outside of the United States and the first time that the event included a conference. Anyone can be a member of the UCMVA and their membership is increasing yearly. There is excitement among the Catholic industry that finally our Catholic presenters have a unity that gives them hope and encouragement in the ministry work that the Lord has called them to do.

The Awards are not so much of an “awards” ceremony that encourages competition or jealousy. The goal is to celebrate the achievements and to encourage a higher standard of work. There are no winners, but “recepients” and they are not the ones who are “better,” but rather the ones whom their peers judge to have been the most effective in their goals in a particular category that year.

And so, Saturday night we gathered to celebrate our gifts and to recognize the wonderful work that many are doing. The ceremony included performances of every single musical style, from Gospel to Classical, from Praise and Worship to Heavy Rock, from Rap to Country. Performances included Ceili Rain, Jerry Aull, Critical Mass, Denis Grady and the Stone Rejected Band, Tom Booth, MashetiMoses, Chris Bray and Tony Melendez. It was an inspipred evening.

There were many Canadian (and S+L friends) nominated in many categories and congratulations to our Canadian recipients: David MacDonald for Music Video/DVD of the Year, Love is the Only Choice, and Chris Bray for New Artist of the Year-2010 and Praise and Worship Album of the Year, for The Worship Album.

Visit the photo section on our Facebook page for more pics from the Awards show.

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

We are all familiar with award ceremonies –the Oscars, the Junos, the Grammys, the Genies and Geminis – there are also Catholic film and TV awards, the Gabriels – for the last two years S+L TV has won the award for TV station of the year – but have you heard of Catholic music awards? They are the Unity Awards and this year the ceremony will take place in Calgary, August 27th and 28th.  Listen to a recent S+L Radio interview with event organiser Denis Grady:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

There are some 30 categories and among the Canadian (and S+L Radio guest) nominees are, Critical Mass, for group of the year, their song Tantum Ergo, for Devotional Song of the Year, and their song Devotion, for Liturgical/Sacramental Song of the Year; Janelle for Female Vocalist of the Year, and her song What I Gotta Say, for Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year; Chris Bray for New Artist of the Year, his album The Worship Album for Praise and Worship Album of the Year, and his song Called, for Praise and Worship Song of the Year; Critical Mass’ album Body Language and David MacDonald’s album He Rose Again for Modern Rock/Alternative Album of the Year; David MacDonald’s song Oui Je le Veux for International Song of the Year and his music videos Life is the Only Choice and Holy of Holies for Music Video/DVD of the Year. Good luck to all the nominees!

For more information on the Unity Awards conference and Gala, go to www.ucmva.com and I promise a full report when I return- the days will be jam-packed with concerts, workshops and networking. For-sure-highlights are to be Tony Melendez, Ceili Rain, Jerry and Cricket Aull, Fr. Bob Mitchell, OFM, and the Priests Panel.

And look for me, if you’re planning on attending. Would love to say hello.

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

What’s happening to Perspectives: The Weekly Edition during the summer?  That’s the question many of you are asking yourselves this week as you log in incessantly, hour after hour, to our facebook page and our Perspectives page, looking for a new question and for new updates.

We’re taking a break. That’s the short answer. The longer answer is that we need to re-group, re-fuel and re-focus so that, come September we can continue delivering to you the Perspectives Weekly that you’ve come to love.

So what happens in the summer? Well, that’s the time when we re-broadcast some of our favourite episodes.  Some, you may have missed, and some, you just can’t get enough of, so keep tuning in every Friday (or Sunday) night, 7:00 and 11:00pm ET (8:00pm PT), for Perspectives Weekly: The Reruns.

This week, join me as I re-visit my featured chat with Brother Emile of the Taize community, when we asked the question: “Should prayer require effort?”

And remember, you can always visit our Perspectives page to watch all your favourite episodes, whenever and wherever you like.

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

Today I’m thinking about summer… ahh summer… I remember very clearly, as if it was yesterday, the last day of school before the summer break – not sure why we even went to school that day, ’cause it was one big party. We would celebrate the end of the school year and then… hello freedom!

I remember spending hours on my bike – riding around my neighbourhood – sometimes playing with or hanging out with my friends, from school or the neighbourhood. I remember spending days at my grandmother’s house – we spent a lot of time there anyway, but in the summer, sometimes we would go for a week or two – and she’d take us to the lake and to the neighbourhood restaurant for fried chicken.

At some point in the summer we’d go to the beach – now, I grew up in Panama, so going to the beach is part of day to day living, but the beach in the summer means long days, and no schedules – looking for hermit crabs and admiring the sunset…

Summer for us also meant a bit of structure: there was swimming lessons or tennis – a couple summers I went to art school, so it wasn’t all play, but a good mix of organized activities and unstructured play.  I learned a lot from both and remember both fondly.

Now I have kids of my own and they’ve never had too much of a structure in the summer. It just hasn’t worked that way. But we live in a place where they can spend all day on their bikes, or they can go into the forest, or down to the river. They can spend all day kicking a soccer ball or throwing a basket ball. They do spend sometime playing video games, but in our case, most of the time is spent outside.

Summer for us means taking it outside. Our back deck becomes our living and dining room. Our BBQ becomes our kitchen and the breeze blowing through the trees gives us dinnertime music.

I don’t know if you’re reading this thinking that I am nuts ’cause your summers are not at all what I am describing, but no matter what your summers were or are like, I hope that they mean a change of pace. I hope that they mean that you can look at the world from behind your bicycle’s handlebars and not from behind your desk; that you can process the world by sitting under a tree with a good book and not through the voice of your teacher or boss. So here’s to change of pace, to slowing down. Here’s to summer!

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

So far we’ve looked at sin and at the reasons why the Sacrament requires that we confess to a priest. I know some of you still struggle with that.

Perhaps going through the ritual will help a bit. Remember that every Sacrament has a ritual – but the Sacrament is not just the ritual. In the case of Reconciliation there are some things that have to be part of the ritual for the Sacrament to “work”, so to speak. These are, in short, the same elements that need to be in place for the Sacrament to take place: repentance, confession, forgiveness and penance.

Remember that all Sacraments consist of matter and form. In Reconciliation the matter is the sins confessed   The form are the words of absolution: “By the ministry of the Church, may God grant you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” There are also two essential elements that need to be present for the Sacrament of Reconciliation to take place:  the acts of the penitent and the absolution of the confessor.

The acts of the penitent are four:

1. Examination of conscience (so you can truly find all the sins)
2. Contrition (that you are truly repentant)
3. Confession (you gotta confess them) and
4. Satisfaction/Penance (what the Priest asks you to do to make amends)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that: “Those who approach the Sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God’s mercy for the offense committed against Him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by example, and by prayer labours for their conversion.” (CCC#1422)

Read more…

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

Listening to these people on the streets in Whitehorse made me think a lot about why we celebrate fathers (and mothers) and why it’s important to do so. Not so much that I have to thank my own father for what he’s done for me, my brother and our sisters, what he sacrificed for us (although that’s important too), but to celebrate fatherhood in general.

It’s around this time of the year that we hear (mainly from groups like Focus on the Family) about the “crisis of fatherhood.” I mentioned this to a friend the other day and he sarcastically threw it right back at me, “Crisis?” as if I was making a big deal out of nothing.

But the reality that an estimated 23.6 million children, 32.3% of the world’s population, live in the absence of their biological father, cannot be ignored. Note these other statistics:

• Children in father-absent homes are five times more likely to be poor.
• Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.
• Children from single parent homes have more physical and mental health problems than children who live with two married parents.
• Boys in single parent homes have more illnesses than girls in single parent homes.
• Children in single-parent families are two to three times as likely as children in two-parent families to have emotional and behavioural problems.
• Three out of four teenage suicides occur in households where a parent has been absent.
• Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school.
• Adolescent females between the ages of 15 and 19 years reared in homes without fathers are significantly more likely to engage in premarital sex than adolescent females reared in homes with both a mother and a father. (source www.fathers.com)

The list goes on. Whether causation can be proven or merely correlation, I don’t think these statistics can be ignored.

On April 9th we aired a Perspectives: The Weekly Edition episode on men. Our guests were Fr. Chris Valka, Jason Genaro and Jay Wall. We spoke a lot about the intrinsic God-designed differences between men and women. Afterward, Jason and I continued our conversation (for about another couple of hours) with respect to fatherhood. Jason was very clear about why God is Father. That is not a coincidence. Jesus was very clear about calling God “Father: – that’s not because of the patriarchal society of the day. There is something very male and very fatherly about God. But what is that? (I’d love to hear your comments on that.) What I do know is that there is something about fatherhood that’s important, not just that we all need fathers, but there’s something Godly about it.

Read more…

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

Last time we looked at sin: mortal sin and venial sin and the reason why we continue sinning even after Baptism. We all have a tendency to sin called concupiscence and so that’s why we need Grace to help us bring those disordered appetites into proper order.

And I don’t think most people have a problem with that. We know we sin and that we need God’s grace. The problem people have with the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the part about confessing to a priest. It’s not a question about Sacraments; it’s a question about the Priesthood.

After Jesus rose from the dead, John 20:21-23 tells us he appeared to the disciples:

When it was evening on that day and the doors were locked… Jesus stood among them and he said, ‘peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so I send you.’ Then he breathed on them the Holy Spirit and said, ‘receive the Holy Spirit.’ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them, if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

This is when Jesus gave the power to forgive sins to the disciples. Those disciples in turn passed it on to their disciples (through the laying of hands, or “ordination”), and so on, until this day.

Jesus gave the Apostles the power to forgive sins, but really it’s God who forgives our sins, not the priest. God forgives our sins THROUGH the priest. Bishops and priests act as God’s instruments of reconciliation.

Why then, do we have to confess our sins to a priest? Why not just go directly to God?

Read more…

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

“Take your shoes off and leave them here. Proceed through this door. Leave your clothes, all your clothes in one of these shelves. Go through the shower. Wash well. On the other side you will find clean socks and coveralls. I’ll meet you on the other side.”

With those words Wally, our faithful cameraman and I were left. Our camera and tripod had to be wiped down.

Very strange feeling. What kind of facility was this?

It was like that movie Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo about the outbreak of a deadly airborne virus.

We were at Cronin Farms to do a segment on Migrant Workers. But don’t get me wrong. The workers are not kept in a sterile labour prison camp: the pigs are.

Mike and Amy Cronin are pork producers. They live in the northern part of the Diocese of London. Their operation involves the breeding and birthing of pigs for consumption. They run a bio-secure facility (hence the showering before entering) to protect the animals from infection.

The reason why were there is that Mike and Amy employ five Guatemalans who are in Canada because of the temporary workers’ program. Juan told us that about 80% of his salary goes back to Guatemala to his wife and 11 year old son. He is an engineer by trade, but had lost his job with the new government and had been struggling since. He came to Canada over a year ago.

In a way, these guys are not really temporary workers. They are not the traditional ones who come for six or so months to work in the fields during the planting and harvest seasons. They are here with a year-long visa, only returning home for three weeks while their visa is renewed. The nature of the work at the Cronin Farm is that there is work all year round.

I live very near the Holland Marsh, north of Toronto, and am familiar with many of the farms in that area that employ migrant workers. Many are forced to work under sub-standard conditions. Many receive poor training and therefore are more subject to injury. They are forced to work seven days a week. Sometimes they are not allowed to leave the farm. And they also live in sub-standard conditions.

What we saw at the Cronin Farm was admirable. Juan and his four work-mates live in a house (the old Cronin home). They each have their own room. They have satellite TV and two vehicles to use. They pitch in for their own meals, but often they are invited for a meal with Mike, Amy and their six children. But it’s not about what material possessions they have. It’s really about the relationship.

Juan shared with us at the dinner table that they are very grateful to Mike and Amy for their generosity. They don’t call them “boss” but “friends.” And that’s what we saw. A couple who recognised the dignity of all, who gave their employees only what they would have for themselves and their children. It was remarkable. Truly, they are friends. I was reminded of Jesus’ words to the disciples at the Last Supper: I no longer call you servants; I call you friends (John 15:15).

Keep your eyes on our Weekly Perspectives’ topics in the coming weeks, as we will be dealing with the issue of migrant/temporary workers. So stay tuned.

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann

Last week we went on a mission.

Wally, the ever reliable cameraman, and I went with a group of students from St. Joan of Arc Catholic Secondary school in Mississauga, Ontario, on a mission trip to the Yukon. The plan was to spend the first two days at Camp Braeburn, north of Whitehorse helping get the camp ready for the summer. The students painted, chopped wood, cleared brush, took out an old wood stove and fixed and painted the dock.

Wally and I stayed at the Oblate House in Whitehorse. We were most blessed to be in the company of three of the pioneer Oblate missionary priests who helped bring Catholicism to the Yukon. Now retired, Frs. Pierre Rigaud, Joseph Guilbaud and Pierre Veyrat, live with Fr. Jim Bleackley, Rector of Sacred Heart Cathedral, at the Oblate House. We also met the famous Fr. Jean-Marie Mouchet, who started a cross-country skiing ministry in Old Crow, and has left a lasting legacy all over the Yukon.

Read more…

Share

Pedro Guevara-Mann