Last week I was imagining a world without Christmas. That would mean no Christmas music and no Christmas movies. But a world without Jesus would mean much more to our popular culture. One of my favourite Broadway musicals is Les Miz. I never read the novel, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and wasn’t crazy about ...read more

I remember once, a Cuban friend who grew up in Cuba with no Christmas, telling me that she had never seen or heard of a Christmas tree before she left Cuba. But had Christ never been born, the implications would be much worse than not having Christmas trees. Just think of the music we’d be ...read more

Earlier this week I found myself listening to R.E.M.’s It’s the End of the World (although I much prefer the cover by Great Big Sea). It’s a good song and, while I’m not exactly sure what it’s about, I always think about it around this time of the year when all the Mass readings have ...read more

If you’re in the Church, it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore our missionary call. This something Pope Francis has continually talked about since his first year of papacy: go out to the peripheries; get out of the sacristies; go and make disciples of all nations. In a way, the ground was prepared by Pope ...read more

October 11, 2022 marks 60 years since the start of the Second Vatican Council. So what was Vatican II and why does it matter today? Vatican II was the biggest Church event in the 20th century, bringing together all the bishops of the Catholic Church – 2,625 of them! – with the pope and many ...read more

A little over a week ago, I arrived back from my pilgrimage to Israel and Egypt. I was tanned from the Egyptian sun, sleep-deprived and jet-lagged, but happy to be home.  The first week of the pilgrimage, my fellow pilgrims and I visited many sites and places including Capernaum, the House of Peter, Magdala, Tabgha, ...read more