August 2004

Today the final element of the new parish home theater system was installed. The speakers are in place, the projector is mounted on the ceiling….all that was left was to paint the back wall with special reflective “goo paint”. And now, it’s all done.

I got a call to go anoint a couple at the hospital. The poor people are both sick, and trapped in their beds on separate floors. How could I refuse? And then the nurse drops a bombshell:

“By the way, do you speak Italian?”

“Um, well, no, not really.”

“Oh. Well, they don’t speak English or French. I hope you’ll be able to make do.”

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

I’ve written in the past the I felt the Lord wanted to bring a renewed ministry of apologetics to Quebec society. Through a set of simple coincidences I saw some of that dream start to be realised. My friend Richard got in touch with me a few days ago, offering to give a talk on the Dan Brown’s book “The DaVinci Code”. We brought a few people together for a “conversation” about Catholic apologetics, followed by the talk.

I had an interesting conversation today with Dan Kennedy, the CEO of Human Life of Washington state, as well as Interim President of Catholic Educator’s Resource Center (USA). He had written me a while back through my blog, and we finally had a chance to connect.

Most of our conversation dealt with brainstorming how to get the pro-life message out more effectively. It seems to clear to those of us IN the movement, so why does it seem so hard for others to “get it”?

Today I had some friends over: Fr. Stephen Otvos, whom I’ve mentioned several times in this blog, as well as a couple of seminarian buddies.

So what do two priests and two seminarians do when they get together? Nuke the world of course! I am referring to an old board game I own called Supremacy – The Game of the Superpowers. It isn’t in print anymore, and I hadn’t played it in 15 years, until I proposed it to the guys a couple of weeks ago. Now we are hooked!

The parish recently received the donation of a home theatre system – a Vidikron VPF-40S projector and a set of 1980 Klipschorn speakers. While each piece is quite old, they are quality products (and given that they are a donation, the price is certainly right!)

I was on-call for the hospital ICU last night, and at 9:30 my pager went off – a woman had complications from surgury and was dying. So off I went. We prayed, I anointed, we chatted, I stuck around – I left around 11:00 pm.

As I was walking through the parking lot of the hospital, almost at my car, the pager went off again. This time it was Emergency calling. So, back into the hospital I go….at least I didn’t have far to travel!

Many people tell me how difficult the sacrament of Reconciliation is for them….they’d like to live it, but for some reason (fear, shame, the memory of a previous bad experience, etc.) they are being held back. Often the reason they hold back is even vague to them….and that’s part of what makes it so hard.

Recently I had a chance to live this sacrament with someone who shortly afterwards she sent me an email about it. I wrote her back to ask permission to post her message to my blog, as a form of encouragement to others. Here was her reply:

People sometimes wonder if the sacraments actually *do* anything. Part of the problem, of course, is that the sacraments are not something that can be measured scientifically….it’s hard to imagine concocting some sort of double-blind control-group experiment to see what effects the sacraments might have. On an individual basis, we see that the sacraments don’t have just one targeted effect, but are meant to speak to the person in the whole of their being….their body, yes, their soul, certainly, but also their emotions and even their relationships.

On Tuesday I blogged about the event coming up today at St. Joseph’s Oratory, and basically showed how the controversy was a mountain being made out of a molehill.

On of the points I made was that the Communications Director of the Oratory said to me explicitely (and I have my notes from the conversation) that NO sacred space of the Oratory was being used for the controversial conference.

There is an email going around regarding an upcoming conference at St. Joseph’s Oratory, which is quite critical (and a bit hysterical). I found out about it from an email I received from a friend of mine:

Fr. Tom, below is an email I received about St. Joseph’s Oratory. Usually when I receive emails such as this, I check the validity before I respond. Can you be my validity check on this?

J.M.J.

HELP US SAVE ST. JOSEPH’S ORATORY FROM PAGAN INFLUENCE!!

I thought my experience on Wednesday was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but apparently not. Just this evening, I had a chance to live (once again) grace upon grace.

Today was a huge day pastorally, with many different difficult pastoral issues confronting me, so I decided to stop in at St. Joseph’s Oratory and have a chat with Brother André, their resident saint. Never mind that he’s been dead since 1937 – the communion of saints is powerful enough to transcend even death. While there, I was struck by how trusted a priest is by the faithful.

Last Friday I blogged about a man whom I visited in the hospital, who was seriously ill. Today I got a call at around 4:00 pm, asking to come quickly to the hospital – the medical staff estimated he only had another hour to live, two tops.

As many of you know, the last time I played squash I accidentally broke a couple of ribs. Today was my first day back at it, as Fr. Stephen and I got together once again for our regular game.

I’m happy to report I survived largely unscathed. We did a bit of cardio on the treadmill afterwards, which felt really good. Nothing like a bit of exercise to invigourate the body – and the mind!