Labour Day

We will soon be celebrating the statutory holiday known as Labour Day which always falls on the first Monday in September.  Most of us think of it only as the end of the summer holiday season or the end of the season for wearing white.  Google helped me go back to the origins of Labour Day.

In 1869 labourers were required to work 12 hours a day. A movement began in Hamilton, Ontario called the “Nine-Hour Movement,” to advocate for a shorter work week.  The request of this union spread to Toronto where the demands for a shorter work week were refused by the owners of printing shops, “most vehemently by George Brown of The Globe.”  By 1872 the request had turned into a demand and finally a threat to strike, resulting in a printers strike on March 25.

A series of protests, dubbed the Nine Hour Movement, led to the government enacting The Trade Unions Act, which, for the first time, made unions legal in Canada. (Photo: Parliament Hill, Ottawa. Wikimedia Commons/Library and Archives Canada. C-002837.)

To show solidarity with the printers’ strike, 2,000 workers in Toronto paraded through the city led by marching bands.  The parade ended at Queen’s Park and had increased to 10,000 sympathizers.  George Brown fought back by accusing and successfully jailing members of the strike committee for breaking a Canadian law of 1792-making union activity a criminal offense.

Sir John A. Macdonald embarrassed George Brown by passing the Trade Unions Act on June 14, legalizing and protecting union activity and rescuing the strike committee from prison.  Macdonald became a friend of the working class.

The movement spread and so, on September 3, 1894, 3,000 workers met on Market Square in London, Ontario which was acknowledged to be the first nationally recognized Labour Day in Canada.  According to Craig Heron and Steve Penfold in their book entitled The Workers’ Festival: A History of Labour Day in Canada,“the first union contingents headed off down the city’s main streets under the blazing noonday sun.  Leading the way was a group of seventy-five butchers on horseback, who set the tone of respectable craftsmanship with their crisply white shirts and hats and clean baskets on their arms….”

With this bit of new-found knowledge, I intend to pay more attention to the first Monday of September and pray that workers will find a way to survive the downward trend in the job market.  Difficult decisions are being made by business owners; workers are facing the possibility of jobs losses.  The experience of COVID was a bit of preparation for what the future holds for workers and now we see Artificial Intelligence making its debut on the horizon.  The labour-force survived the Industrial Revolution and I believe the creativity of the human soul will help us evolve our way through the AI revolution.  

-Sister Elaine Cole, CSJ

Love and the Environment

Outside the windows of my residence, I have witnessed this spring of 2026 as being a spring of many memorable oddities, spectacles, wonders, and disasters.

The pair of Canadian geese came back rather early to nest on the edge of our roof garden again.  Mother Goose sat on her nest for way over a month without hatching a single gosling.  This was odd and yet during her time on the nest there were hot days then snowy days and even a little hail on one occasion.

The wild turkeys are amusing with their flamboyant plumage and careful but intentional moves and behaviours during the mating season.  Usually, three birds travel past the dining room window.  Two males strut side by side with their tail feathers fully fanned while following a female sauntering slowly ahead or sometimes dashing out in front. They are huge birds and to see them fly into the trees where they safely roost at night is a sight to behold at sundown.

Every spring I enjoy watching the leaves grow on the trees turning quickly from a green fuzzy appearance to small then large leaves.  But this year was different.  The fluctuating temperatures this spring caused the leaves to grow slowly.

The fact that the leaves grew slowly had a ripple effect on the bird population.  Two robins chose the tree outside my window to build a nest.  Since the leaves took a long time to develop, I was able to watch the amazing architectural achievement right to the depositing of the four tiny blue eggs into the well-built nest.  Then disaster struck.

The disaster I witnessed took place on a cold, rainy, windy spring night when the mother robin was no longer able to protect her eggs from the wind and water and she was forced to abandon the nest.  The pair of robins assessed the damage, cleared out and cleaned up the nest, and proceeded to lay four more eggs as the temperature warmed up and the leaves began to grow larger.  Not long after the rebuilding and repopulating the nest with eggs, we experienced a tornado passing through the south of our city.  Once again, the mother robin had to abandon the nest, and the pair of robins haven’t been seen since.

Living so close to the environment and seeing the effects of changing weather patterns on the bird population has an emotional effect on me.  The obstacles faced by the nesting birds, the courage they demonstrated while protecting their eggs and the helplessness I felt as a silent observer, profoundly moved me.  Is it love?

-Sister Elaine Cole, csj

Images: Hannah Schulte/Unsplash; Elaine Cole

Reflecting on the World Day of Prayer

Sister Elaine Cole, left.

World Day of Prayer 2026 was held at Trinity Lutheran Church in North London on Friday, March 6.  The prayer service was prepared by Christian women in Nigeria with the theme, "Come Unto Me".  The program included testimonials of a Nigerian widow bearing the burden of systemic oppression; of a Nigerian woman bearing the burden of religious persecution; of a Nigerian woman bearing the burden of poverty and despair.  The members of the planning committee led the singing of the Theme Song that was written and composed especially for the service entitled "Come Unto Me".  The first verse is as follows: 

Are you down and feeling lonely, are you weary and oppressed, you don't have to be discouraged, Jesus says, "Come unto me".  

The women in the photo are members of the planning team for the event and are from the Anglican, Lutheran, United and Roman Catholic Churches.  Sister Elaine Cole, far left, was a member of the team representing the Sisters of St. Joseph.  You can find her behind the flowers and flags.   

In 2027 World Day of Prayer will be celebrating one hundred years of Christian women from around the world coming together in spirit, uniting on a common day to pray for relevant issues affecting women and children.  Amen!

Header Image: Milada Vigerova/Unsplash

The Spiritual Path of Lent

Lent is that annual time of year when I am challenged to examine the spiritual path I’m walking on.  Am I even walking on a SPIRITUAL PATH?

To walk a spiritual path presumes there have been choices along the way which keep me focused on what I cannot see.  Here is one example.

Why are the leaves on my plant all facing toward my window?  If I turn the plant, then over time the leaves again all face toward the window.  Do they have a longing to be outside growing beside that tree in the backyard?  Or do they have some inner awareness that their life depends on the light energy coming from outside my window?  I am a witness, not of the energy my plant is using for its life but I am a witness of the effect the invisible energy is having on the actions of my plant.

I think our lives are more complicated because we have to CHOOSE to face the direction of the energy we need for our lives.  Am I even facing in the direction of the energy I need to walk on a spiritual path?  Love is that energy.  Life is about experiencing being loved and respected and giving love and respect to another.  Life is about relationships, about receiving and about giving.  The way I receive and give love energy is a choice I make. 

During LENT we witness the life of Jesus; we witness all His loving relationships no matter the hardships he suffered.  His primary gaze was loving obedience to the will of the Father and then actively sharing that love with his followers.  Approaching Holy Week, I ask myself, am I even on that spiritual path with Jesus?

Finish this Lent, by going home and letting your plants teach you how to follow the energy you need for saving the life of your soul. 

-Sister Elaine Cole, csj

Images: Erika Osberg/Cemrecan Yurtman/Kelly Sikkema | Unsplash

World Day of the Sick

World Day of the Sick

World Day of the Sick will be celebrated on Wednesday, February 11, 2026.  The theme, for this day is, “The compassion of the Samaritan: loving by bearing another’s pain”. 

If you think about this parable in Luke’s Gospel (10:25+), you will recall that the Samaritan who was journeying along the road came upon the man who had fallen victim to robbers.  In the parable the Samaritan seemed bound by conscience to care for the injured man who was in his path.

When I read the passage, it seems to me that it’s not necessary to go looking for those who are sick and who I think might ‘need’ me, but rather it is necessary to notice those whom God places in my path.  This will require that I live fully conscious of those whom God places in my path.  It might also require that I at times must overcome feelings of impatience, or inadequacy, or guilt, or even disgust when approaching someone “in my path”.  It’s not always easy to smile.

I am familiar with the quotation, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.   I am also aware that love makes sacrifice easy and perfect love makes it a joy.  Reading the words then, living the words, will be the journey of a lifetime.  Ultimately, it is God’s love that I want to bring to my neighbour.  That requires faith and it requires consenting to God’s presence and action in me.  The Saints teach us how to love.  Mother Teresa would say,

“Stay where you are.  Find your own Calcutta.  Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right where you are—in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools.”

-Do Something Beautiful for God The Essential Teachings of Mother Teresa, p.80.

-Sister Elaine Cole, csj