Two weeks ago we looked at what love is not, based on the wonderful classic by M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled. His book is not a Catholic book; it’s a psychology book (found in the “self-help” section of your bookstore), but Scott Peck was a practicing Christian and the book is very much a ...read more

In our quest to find out what Jesus meant when he said that we must love God and neighbour, we have to be able to define love. We must also be able to stay away from those “love myths”. There are many definitions of love and many volumes have been written on the subject. If ...read more

“Tres cosas tiene el amor que no se pueden olvidar: Que Dios nos amó primero, que hay que darse por entero y ponerse a caminar.” (Tres Cosas Tiene el Amor, Fernando Leiva) Last time, I mentioned a bit of what Pope Francis said during his trip to the World Meeting of Families in 2015. With ...read more

The last two weeks we’ve been looking at love (part 1 and part 2). Jesus said that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love neighbour (Matthew 22:36-40). He also said we have to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). Last week we looked at seven qualities of love. Today let’s begin by ...read more

Last week we looked at how we really have no idea what love is and how inefficient our language is to describe this amazing thing (and command) that we call “love”. We came up with seven qualities of love or love types: 1. Agape (love of God or God’s love) 2. Philial (fraternal love; could ...read more

Would you say that there are love problems? Does love cause problems? Problems with misunderstanding love? Read on and find out why! ...read more

(CNS Photo: A Haitian refugee sticks his head out from a tent set up by the Canadian Armed Forces near Lacolle, Quebec, Aug. 10.) Some 6,000 people, mostly Haitian nationals, have crossed illegally into Quebec from the United States since July. This is the second major upswing in the number of asylum-seekers to Canada this ...read more

Last time we looked at a little bit of the tradition of deacons in the Catholic Church. Deacons go way back and there is a consistent presence of deacons and the diaconate in many Church documents and writings up until the 3rd century. We also saw that the diaconate as a permanent order was brought back ...read more

In the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at the diaconate, first by addressing the event that brought about this whole conversation and then in two parts (part 1 and part 2), briefly, the meaning of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, for I don’t think you can separate the conversation about Church hierarchy outside ...read more

Pope Francis presided over a Mass in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, concelebrated with Cardinals present in Rome, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his Episcopal Ordination. Below is the working translation of the homily: In the first Reading, we heard how the dialogue continues between God and Abraham, that dialogue ...read more