We don’t know how to celebrate things as they’re meant to be celebrated.

OTTAWA – After a 15-year hiatus, an evangelization conference organized by Canada������Ƶapp bishops will return in April and is already sold out.

A number of years ago I attended a funeral. The man to whom we were saying goodbye had enjoyed a full and rich life.

I don’t always find it easy to pray. Often I’m over-tired, distracted, caught-up in tasks, pressured by work, short on time, lacking the appetite for prayer or more strongly drawn to do something else.

Several years ago Hollywood made a movie, City of Angels , about an angel named Seth whose job it was to accompany the spirits of the recently deceased to the afterlife.

Our society tends to divide us into winners and losers. Sadly, we don’t often reflect on how this affects our relationships with each other, nor on what it means for us as Christians.

TORONTO – Fr. Ron Rolheiser������Ƶapp next book will be about death. 

Five years ago the popular newspaper columnist, book author, theologian and university administrator was diagnosed with colon cancer. It was caught early. A six-month round of chemotherapy seemed to knock it out. But two years ago it came back. Now there are chemo pills every day and check-ups every six months.

A colleague of mine shares this story: Recently, after presiding at Eucharist, a woman from the congregation came up to him with this comment: “What a horrible Scripture reading today! If that������Ƶapp the kind of God we’re worshipping, then I don’t want to go to Heaven!”

What is the real root of human loneliness? A flaw within our make-up? Inadequacy and sin? Or does Augustine������Ƶapp famous line, “You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” say it all?

They say that the book you most need to read finds you when you most need to read it. I’ve had that experience many times, most recently with Heather King������Ƶapp book Shirt of Flame, A Year with St. Therese of Lisieux.