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CONCORD, ONT. - Jesuit Father Bill Addley took one for the Our Lady of Lourdes team at the fifth annual Provincial������Ƶapp Dinner April 13. In its 125th year in downtown Toronto, the Jesuits awarded their parish with the Magis Award and pastor Addley was there to accept the plaque.

“We gratefully and humbly accept it,” said Addley.

The award is bestowed annually by Canada������Ƶapp English-speaking Jesuits on someone or some community that lives out the ideal of the magis. Magis is Latin for more. St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, urged his followers to constantly ask what more they could do for Christ. Jesuits ever since have called this constant search for more the magis.

TORONTO - Barbara Kowalski usually walks through the streets of Toronto without showing outward signs of faith. But that changed on Palm Sunday.

Walking in a procession from St. Paul������Ƶapp Basilica to St. Michael������Ƶapp Cathedral as part of the Office of Catholic Youth������Ƶapp World Youth Day Palm Sunday event on April 16, she helped to carry the World Youth Day commemorative cross down Queen Street.

“It was nice to show others that this is my religion,” said Kowalski, 23, a legal communications clerk at a law firm in Toronto.

Palm Sunday is recognized internationally as the World Day of Youth.

TORONTO - The life of slain Pakistan minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti is an inspiration to all Christians to live in the footsteps of Jesus, said Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins at an April 16 Memorial Mass at St. Andrew's Catholic Church.

"We look to the example of great heroes like Shahbaz Bhatti to show us the way, to share the light of Christ by what they say, how they live and their life of sacrifice," Collins told about 1,800 people, including some politicians and members of the Pakistani community from different faith groups, who packed the church.

The challenge is "not to be complacent but be inspired" by Bhatti's martyrdom, he said.

Bhatti was gunned down on March 2 by Taliban militants who claimed responsibility for the assassination because of Bhatti's vocal opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Bhatti spoke out against religious discrimination and openly supported the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy. He said the blasphemy laws are being used to prosecute innocent people from minority religious groups in the country.

TORONTO - Hearing Col. Chris Hadfield������Ƶapp space odyssey, students at a midtown Toronto high school say they were inspired to aim high to achieve their goals.

Seventeen-year-old Marshall McLuhan Catholic High School student Eric Zucchetto was one of more than 1,000 cheering students who heard about the Canadian astronaut������Ƶapp adventures in space at an April 11 school assembly.

Zucchetto said he was struck by Hadfield������Ƶapp determination to succeed. And just as Hadfield has made Canada proud through his achievements in space, the Grade 12 student said he wants to do likewise on the soccer pitch.

“I want to represent Canada, too, just like how he represented Canada as an astronaut,” Zucchetto said.

MARKHAM, Ont. - The Serra Club of Markham and Scarborough has kicked off a travelling vocations chalice program aiming to shine the light on vocations.

“The one and only mandate is for families to pray for the vocation to the priesthood and religious life,” said Fran Pulumbarit, chairperson of the travelling vocations chalice program and vice-president of vocations of the Serra Club of Markham and Scarborough.

There will be two chalices involved in the program, which will serve as a reminder for families to pray for vocations. The first has been passed among families at St. Patrick������Ƶapp parish in Markham since April 3.

The second chalice begins circulating at St. Barnabas parish in Scarborough next month.

OTTAWA - The family of assassinated Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti remains committed to its Catholic faith and the fight to improve the plight of persecuted Christians.

Though Bhatti������Ƶapp family knew of the death threats their brother faced as an outspoken critic of Pakistan������Ƶapp blasphemy law, his March 2 assassination still came as a shock, said his older brother Peter Bhatti, who lives in the Toronto area. The immediate reaction was a sense there is no place for us to live, and no hope, he said.

But his mother blessed him at the funeral service and told him, “Don’t worry, he lost his life for Jesus Christ. He chose a faith which our Jesus Christ chose. He is a martyr.”

Bhatti������Ƶapp mother asked Peter and other family members to “please continue in his service and mission so our people will not lose their rights and be able to live in dignity and honour,” he said.

TORONTO - When last year's ShareLife campaign did a little better than the organization's cautious projections, local charities benefited to the tune of $305,000.

Catholic Charities distributes the largest portion of ShareLife money to 31 Catholic agencies at work in and around Toronto. It allocates the money in November, long before ShareLife raises the bulk of the money during Lent.

"People say, maybe we've got this backwards. Maybe we should raise the money and then make the commitment," said Catholic Charities executive director Michael Fullan. "I've called the ShareLife campaign an act of faith, because it really is."

Coming in a bit higher than projections last year allowed Catholic Charities to distribute one-time extra grants to a number of agencies at the beginning of 2011.

TORONTO - This year, April 3 comes with great significance for ShareLife.

On that day, the archdiocese of Toronto������Ƶapp charitable fundraising arm marks its 35th anniversary. And it will also be ShareLife Sunday, the first of three special appeals for aid in the pews of the archdiocese������Ƶapp Catholic parishes. The other two ShareLife Sundays are set for May 1 and June 5.

This year������Ƶapp campaign represents three-and-a-half decades of Toronto������Ƶapp Catholics extending a helping hand to those in need, said Bill Steinburg, ShareLife������Ƶapp communications manager.

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. - Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins has asked Canadians interested in joining a personal ordinariate for former Anglicans to signal their intention to join in writing by May 31.

He told the Anglicanorum Coetibus Conference held in Mississauga March 24-26 he wanted to “clarify the commitment” of individuals to find out “who wants to proceed, understanding exactly what it means.”

Collins, who is the episcopal delegate representing the Holy See in the formation of a personal ordinariate for former Anglicans within the Catholic Church, stressed the importance of individual conscience and that each individual have “fully informed consent to this.”

Though May 31 is not a deadline and Anglicans can commit to joining later, Collins said he wanted to provide the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with an idea of preliminary numbers.

TORONTO - Climate change deniers aren’t what worries KAIROS’ Dorothy McDougall. She worries about Christians who can’t let go of a lifestyle that contradicts the Gospel.

“This is about the accumulation of stuff and the planned obsolescence of stuff,” said McDougall, the ecumenical church-based group������Ƶapp climate change expert. “For Christians to be in solidarity with those who suffer the ravages of climate change in Africa, in Latin America and in the north means transitioning to a carbon-free economy.”

But most of us don’t want to give up our throw-away lifestyles and don’t want to ask what Jesus would think of houses full of stuff, she said.