Today is January 6th, and I am thinking of the three wise men. And the three wise men make me think of distances. I was always intrigued about distances in Israel. When I read that Mary and Joseph walked from Nazareth to Bethlehem, or that Mary rode on a donkey, it’s hard to appreciate how ...read more

I remember when my wife was pregnant the first time: the excitement of this new life growing inside of her,  the first time we heard the heartbeat. We spoke to the baby, we sang to him, played music… Unfortunately for many women (and men) this is not the case. Some women feel scared to be pregnant. ...read more

Muslims around the world celebrated Tuesday the feast of Eid al-Adha – commonly known as Eid, which marks the end of Hajj. Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the city in Saudi Arabia, regarded as the holiest site in Islam, since the prophet Muhammad proclaimed Islam in that city in the 7th century. Hajj ...read more

[audio:http://saltandlighttv.org/blog/audio/wyd2011_theme.mp3|titles=WYD2011 Theme Song][/audio] The official hymn for World Youth Day 2011 was released on the eve of November 9th, Feast of the Virgin of Almudena, Patroness of Madrid. “Firm in the Faith,” was performed by the Youth Orchestra of the Community of Madrid and the Youth Choir of the Escolanía de El Escorial. Both groups ...read more

It took me a while to figure out what exactly is the Holy Land. I mean, most people probably think of the modern country Israel as “the Holy Land,” but is it? Arriving in Jordan, we quickly figured out that the term “Holy Land” applies to an area much larger than what is modern-day Israel. ...read more

It is Saturday and we arrive to a house in a middle-class neighbourhood of west Amman. There is quite a crowd gathering for the day’s events. Inside, the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary have a full-morning planned. In the back room there are dozens of children participating in an activity. They are all Iraqis displaced because ...read more

It is my hope that, with Bishops from around the world gathered for this year’s Synod on the Middle East, the eyes of the world will be turned to Rome for new insights on how to respond to issues in the Middle East. When I was in grade 10, we had a foreign student come ...read more

The census is back in the news with the government potentially voting on keeping or scrapping the mandatory long-form. Several years ago (either 1991 or 1995), I was fairly unemployed and Fr. Bert Foliot, SJ, my pastor at the time, hooked me up to work for the Census Canada. All I had to do was ...read more

The Holy Land is considered holy because Jesus lived here. It is also holy because most of the prophets lived around here. But it is also important because here is where it all began: Christianity was born here. Today though, 2000 years later, we equate the Middle East with Muslims. We hear about Jews and ...read more

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 ...read more