Yes, Waiting in Joyful Hope has had a brave new beginning, moving over to WordPress and hosted on fatherdowd.net itself. Welcome!
Today was the press conference to announce the grand opening of our new chapel and prayer room at the Lakeshore hospital. The Executive Director of the hospital, as well as yours truly, a Rabbi, and an Imam, were all present as the main panel. We spoke about the place of the chapel in the healing mission of the hospital, and then there was an opporunity for pictures. Quite a bit of media was there, including Montreal’s Téléjournal, who had a piece on the 6 pm news. Also these:
I received a letter from the Archdiocese two days ago. I am getting transferred.
Where, you may ask? I will still be a half-time chaplain at the hospital, but my parish assignment will be changing. I will be returning to St. Thomas à Becket parish, as a half-time assistant, starting September 1.
Just call me Fr. Ping-Pong Ball.
Or, well, don’t. It does sound funny.
Those of us involved in the ecumenical movement need to take a global look at our mission. In my opinion, this vision needs to take into account a few key points:
Why bother?
All together now: “INDEED HE IS RISEN!”
I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to the prayers of the Divine Office, wondering how the beauty of the breviary can be brought to more people. There are a number of barriers, after all: the cost of the book(s), as well as the complexity of this form of prayer, can be daunting for some. On just a purely pedagogical level, it would be worthwhile to have some sort of “little office” to help people be gradually introduced to the liturgy of the hours, before they jump into the full Divine Office.
My flight to Washington DC went very well, and it gave me a chance to have a couple of unexpected encounters. One of the guards at the security checkpoint was actually a parishioner, and a family I met in the airport was from my former parish of St. Thomas a Becket! At one point, in the waiting area of our gate (they were taking the same plane as me), two little girls came by and asked, “Are you Fr.
