Reflections

Embracing Togetherness

FAMILY DAY - February 19, 2024

Canada’s first Family Day occurred in Alberta in 1990. Ontario first celebrated this special day only sixteen years ago in 2008. If asked about the roots of Family Day, we might find ourselves with few words to say about it. “Professor Google” provided the following information as to how this day spread across our nation:

  • Family Day in Canada is celebrated on the third Monday in February, and technically is not a national, federally mandated holiday.

  • Most Canadians live in areas that celebrate Family Day as a province-level statutory holiday as does British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan.

  • Other provinces have statutory holidays on the third Monday in February,  but these are not called Family Day. The holiday  is referred  to Louis Riel Day in Manitoba, Heritage Day in Nova Scotia, and Islander Day on Prince Edward Island.

  • Also, in the Yukon, the February holiday is called Heritage Day, celebrated on February 23, not as a statutory but a contractual holiday.

Image: Unsplash/Rod Long

Today, society as a whole recognizes that families come in various shapes. A family does not necessarily consist of blood relatives. Perhaps you have witnessed strong family ties among close knit people who love and support each other and see themselves as family.

The third Monday in February has no deeply rooted traditions associated with it as there are with Christmas or Thanksgiving. Whatever the February holiday is named, it provides a three-day winter weekend with precious time to celebrate the bonds of love among and between individuals who identify as family.

Let’s find ways to make Family Day 2024 an occasion to reconnect and  express our gratitude for the role families play in our lives and society.

-Sister Nancy Wales

Valentine Inspiration

How many song titles can you recall that include the word, LOVE?  Do you remember the old tunes, “Love Makes the World Go Round”, “Put a Little Love in Your Heart”, and even Taylor Swift’s “Love Story”? The list is endless.  In today’s world of upheaval, war, and strife more than ever we need a little love in our universe and hearts.

February 14th has arrived and Valentines Day along with it. As usual, the stores, media and online platforms are drenched with hearts and cupids juxtaposed with the horrendous aftermath of the latest bombings near and far.  Still, we who live in more peaceful climes try to carry on with life as usual despite food shortages, homelessness and growing personal debt.

As Valentine’s Day arrives, I picture men running to stores at the last-minute thinking of expensive roses and chocolates that few can afford today, to say nothing of costly gems and jewelry.  Meanwhile, we waste away on a media diet of guns and weapons.  We might well wonder, “Who was this obscure St. Valentine who creates an annual February love frenzy in the midst of seeming darkness”?  In fact, research explains that there were two men named Valentine who were martyred several years apart on February 14.  Google states, “St. Valentine of Rome was martyred in AD269. Two centuries later, on February 14, AD469 St. Valentine’s Day was established by Pope Gelesius, in honor of the Christian martyr”.

Throughout the intervening centuries, St. Valentines Day has continued to be celebrated as a special day honoring love and loved ones. Yes, roses, chocolates and fancy cards are fine, but the legend of St. Valentine about which I learned in elementary school, was a different story.  This Valentine was a humble priest who sometimes lamented that he was neither a revered monseigneur nor exalted bishop but a lowly pastor.  One day, as Valentine was sitting downcast, he heard a whisper, “Do the little things, Valentine, with great love”.  Valentine heeded God’s urging and became a generous, loving presence to his parishioners.

We too, can make St. Valentine’s Day more than the gifting of manufactured hearts and fresh roses. We can craft a card with heartfelt wishes or practice daily acts of love:  helping around home, visiting a shut-in, making a special phone call, cultivating a thankful heart, and sharing lots of hugs.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 -Sister Jean Moylan, CSJ

Image: Unsplash/Pawel Czerwinski

World Day of the Sick

“It is not good that man should be alone—Healing the Sick by Healing Relationships,” is the theme of Pope Francis' message for the 2024 commemoration of the World Day of the Sick, held on 11 February.

February 11 also coincides with the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes.  It is the anniversary of when Our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France.  Our Blessed Mother's many visitations to St. Bernadette resulted in the miraculous waters from the springs at Lourdes where thousands of faith-filled sick have been healed. 

World Day of the Sick is held every year on this date and as a theme for this year, Pope Francis uses the words from Genesis that God spoke after creating the first human, "It is not good that man should be alone." 

Unsplash: Laura Vinck

We are encouraged to seek healing by healing relationships—something our world needs to heed when so many wars are the result of humans not believing that we can live peacefully, together on Earth. 

The operative word is LOVE; not like, or tolerate, or endure, or accept but LOVE where one's focus is on the good of the other.

To learn more about this year's theme you can read or listen to the message from Rome here. 

-Sister Elaine Cole, csj

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:13

World Day for Consecrated Life: What’s to Celebrate?

By now, the World Day for Consecrated Life, celebrated on February 2nd each year is not news.  In fact, many people, Catholics included, don’t have any lived experience of any women or men currently living that life, and so the day probably does not have much meaning for them.  Gone are the days when most young Catholics had Sisters for teachers, or when parents and children met or worked with Sisters in Catholic hospitals.  Today there are still some Sisters working in various ministries, here and abroad: pastoral ministers in parishes, hospitals and long term care facilities, or helping out in soup kitchens, or on the missions, but that day-to-day knowledge and experience of sisters, brothers and religious clergy is just no longer our reality here in Canada.  To make matters worse, the horrendous stories of physical, emotional, cultural, and sexual abuse by clergy and religious in the residential schools have done much to destroy any positive images many had of religious and religion in general.  So, what’s to celebrate?

Image: Unsplash/Juan Domenech

Well, I think it is no mistake that this Feast is celebrated on February 2nd, Candlemas Day, a feast for blessing and lighting candles.  We don’t use candles much anymore either, yet their tiny, warm and flickering glow changes the atmosphere in any setting.  We might light a candle to celebrate a birthday, to help us focus for a time of meditation, to create a memorial for a tragic event, or to give mood to a particular setting.  We light candles for all our Eucharistic liturgies.  The truth is that candles, fragile and unusual as they are, do have meaning and purpose.  Of course, the paschal candle is THE Candle, as it reminds us of Christ, the light of life, the Risen One, whose resurrection gives us the promise of eternal life and teaches the reality that apparent death is not the end, but merely a transition to new life in even greater fullness. 

So, as we celebrate today this flickering candle that is religious life, I asked some of the Sisters in my local community what they could most celebrate about their experience of Consecrated Life lived these 50, 60 and 70 years or more.  Their responses sounded like this:

  • “I was a nurse before I entered the community, but after I became a Sister I found that my relationship with patients was different.  Many felt they could trust me in a different way, that I cared for more than their physical well-being.  It was very touching to me and fulfilling at the same time.”

  • “I think the wonderful relationships I have had, the people I have met through my various ministries, and the feeling that I have been helpful to some individuals and have grown through their influence on me.  That is a great gift.”

  • “For me I think the greatest blessing has been living in community.  We get the loving support, the witness, and the challenge of so many wonderful women. And we have a lot of fun together too.”

  • “I have been called to do things I never would have thought myself capable of and have received the grace to grow into many new ministries and challenges.  Living Religious Life has stretched me!”

  • “This life has constantly provided me with the opportunities to grow in my relationship with God, with others and with myself.  I had the opportunity to get the help I needed and that has made all the difference.” 

  • “Community constantly calls us to further growth, in prayer, in loving relationships, in awareness and active responsibility in issues of justice and human rights.  We take very seriously our responsibility to help society become a better place.”

  • “I am just so grateful that God called me to this life!  It has been a blessing to me in more ways than I can name.”

….and on and on and on.

Image: Unsplash/BBC Creative @bethbapchurch

Each of us is a little, fragile candle, shedding a small light and warmth in its immediate circle. “If everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world this would be.”  That old song carries much truth.  So, let’s celebrate this wonderful gift that Religious Life is and has been for many centuries.  Celebrate those Religious who have gone before us and on whose shoulders we stand. Celebrate our parents who passed on to us the gift of faith and our first lived experience of a faith-filled community in our homes.  Celebrate our teachers, clergy, friends who encouraged us, challenged us and supported us along the journey.  Celebrate all those, in whatever walk of life, who are lighting their own little candles.  Celebrate those who at this moment are receiving a call to a consecrated life and perhaps have not yet said yes.  We cannot know what might come next for Consecrated Life here in the western world, except that this gift to the persons called to it, to those whose lives they influence, to the Church and to the world, will not die.  It will continue to flicker, and to burn quietly, warmly and glowingly until the time is right for it to flare forth. 

-Sister Mary Diesbourg, a Sister of St. Joseph since 1961

The purpose of the day is "to help the entire Church to esteem ever more greatly the witness of those persons who have chosen to follow Christ by means of the practice of the evangelical counsels" as well as "to be a suitable occasion for consecrated persons to renew their commitment and rekindle the fervour which should inspire their offering of themselves to the Lord" (Saint John Paul II, 1997).

Read Pope Francis’ message on World Day for Consecrated Life.