I left off describing my European pilgrimage last May about two weeks ago. I thought I’d pick it up again with my thoughts on Medjugorje itself.
For those who don’t know, Medjugorje is a small town in Bosnia-Herzegovina where (it is said) the Virgin Mary began appearing to a group of peasant children sometime in the early 1980’s. More that that, while these visionaries are now fully grown, they claim to still be receiving apparitions of Mary — yes, over 20 years later.
Before I begin, a quick note: Andrew Sullivan has the absolute best coverage of the events unfolding in Iran that I have been able to find in English. Check it out. Now, on to the main post…
Today marks the start of the Year for Priests, and here in the diocese of Montreal we started with a bang: the ordination to the priesthood of our brother Michael Leclerc. Congrats, Father Michael!
Since I work in the Archdiocesan curia, I sometimes have access to special materials. Here is the text of the homily delivered by Cardinal Turcotte this evening:
My brothers and sisters in Christ,
Today is a very important day in our Church – and this, for three special reasons.
Tonight was a very special occasion for me: a reunion dinner of the past Presidents of the Commerce and Administration Students Association of Concordia University (I was President from 1991-1992). This photo shows the people who were Presidents around my time:
Benin is a country in west Africa. I just finished meeting with Bishop Paul Vieira of the diocese of Djougou (in the north of the country). He came as the representative of the episcopal conference of that country, to see how to encourage relations between the church of Benin and the Catholics of Quebec.
This afternoon I took part in an ecumenical pilgrimage to Saint James Anglican church in Stanbridge East, organized by the Order of Saint Lazarus. As you can see from the photo, it is really a lovely little church (seats about 40, maybe).
We left late Sunday evening (May 17) and took May 18 as a day of rest. Our first major day of pilgrimmage, therefore, was Tuesday, where we started our visits of the 4 major basilicas of Rome. We saw these two today:
When I first started blogging, my blog was entitled “Waiting in Joyful Hope”. Was it a sappy name? Maybe, but I loved it. It expressed who I was, and it also expressed my own blogging philosophy — to share on the “amazingness” of the priesthood.
