People are hungry for God

I saw the relic of St. Francis Xavier at St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto last Friday where Mass was said by Cardinal Collins. The Church was packed. I didn't stay to venerate the relic as I intended to go on the Sunday at Our Lady of Lourdes.

Then Sunday I went into Our Lady of Lourdes Parish at 1:30 but couldn't get in. The church was jammed and people were spilling out the door.

I returned at 4:30 and got in line. It took an hour and 15 minutes to finally venerate the relic for two seconds. The line of people wound their way through the pews, one line on each side of the church (pictures below).

People are clearly hungry for God. What a lovely thought, when Canada has become so secular and so many of our political leaders preach an anti-Christian worldview. Clearly they can't dampen the desire for God. No matter how hard they try.

Pictures at St. Mike's Cathedral in Toronto

Pictures at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Toronto

The crack lets the light in

Excellent article in today's National Post by Ray Pennings of Cardus:

Are Edmund Burke's "little platoons" -- family, faith, community -- on the way out? Pennings argues that just the opposite is happening.

"...Philosopher James K.A. Smith infers from this historical aberration the emergence of what he calls “cracks in the secular” — fissures or fault lines where the kind of totalizing secularism required for “exclusive humanism” becomes socially unsustainable. “What if an increasingly aggressive secularism (coming especially from secular ‘elites’) is itself a defensive measure, a kind of last gasp of a worldview that feels frustrated and even threatened?” Smith asks in a recent issue of Comment magazine, which he edits for Cardus. 

“What if secularism is loudest precisely because it is a final cry before it is unveiled as implausible and unsustainable? What if secularism has its doubts and is just trying to cover it up by pursuing its agenda all the more aggressively lest (secularist elites) have to consider the alternative?” 

As a distinguished academic, Smith posits rather than proclaims. And of course it is possible to read our present age differently from the direction he and Taylor seem to see it heading. But there is outside evidence to support the appearance of cracks in the secular. Supreme Court of Canada decisions in 2015 on religious freedom — Loyola and Saguenay — reset the relationship between the state and religious institutions. It did so by affirming that the state’s “neutrality” requires a fostering of religious diversity, not its extinguishment. 

Such affirmation can rightly be seen as positively contributing to a healthier understanding of a more robust sense of religious freedom. Its logical implication is that in our evolving post-secular society, exclusive secularism is finally being seen for what it is: a worldview that is making as absolute a truth claim as any other and therefore does not deserve a place of privilege in a public square protected by the “neutral” state. Continuing down this trajectory allows us to imagine a more open, healthier debate in the public square regarding the balance of freedom and order..."

Pennings ends with this:

"So, farewell to Burke’s little platoons? And to the social conservatism that gives them life? I argue quite the opposite. Look for them to make a comeback in our emerging post-secular society."

Wise words from Fr. Dennis

Fr. Dennis has a gift. He has a gift of talking about the Gospel and making it real to the listener. His weekday homilies always gives us practical understanding of the readings. They are well worth listening to.

Fr Dennis Homily today and trusting in God. On suffering and the "Permissive Will of God." God wants to make saints of us. In the parable of the pearl, God wants to cover the grain of sand or pebble with his Grace. God wants us to trust in him, so we will grow in Faith and Holiness. Grace will suffice for the day.

Yesterday's homily on Mary and Martha. St. Martha and the better part, on service and charitable works. Peter Kreeft comments on this passage: how can we make sense of it? By doing Martha Ministry in the Spirit of Mary.

Faith and Healing

Fr. Dennis's Homily on Faith and healing. How it is our Faith that can cause us to heal. It can cause us to heal physically and spiritually.

I have to say I experienced that in my own life.

Fr.Dennis's Homily is beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix6klYR0tMs

The trial of faith of St. Therese of Lisieux

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897)

I have read St. Thérèse's, Story of a Soul, but never really understood it very well, and why she is so important to the Catholic Faith. I couldn't seem to understand her spiritually, even though the book is simply written.

One day at Mass, Fr. Dennis talked about another book, The trial of faith of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, by Frederick L. Miller, STD and how it was such an important book to him. I bought the book. It is amazing. It explains Thérèse's spirituality, so that I am having a far easier time understanding her special faith.

Thérèse suffered intensely, especially in the last 18 months of her life, and she offered that suffering up for people who had lost their Faith, especially priests.

"Throughout her trial, Thérèse saw herself mysteriously identified with those among her contemporaries who had lost the Catholic faith. It would seem that Thérèse, while never wavering in her profession of the Faith, was permitted to experience the darkness of unbelief that afflicts the modern world. She came to understand interiorly that her trial gave her an opportunity to offer herself for the salvation of all faithless souls. We must recall again that Thérèse had solemnly committed herself to work for priests and in particular, for Hyacinthe Loyson, the priest who had lost his faith. In the Story of a Soul, Thérèse identifies herself with apostates and others who had sinned against the Faith."

 I am only on page 67 of the book and am really looking forward to finishing it.