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SAULT STE. MARIE, Ont. - A priest in the diocese of Sault Ste. Marie is taking his homilies worldwide, using the Internet as the latest communication tool to reach the unchurched.

Editor������Ƶapp note: Lent is a time of almsgiving, fasting and abstinence, but most importantly, it is a time of prayer. During the six weeks of Lent, The Catholic Register will present the favourite prayers of well known Canadians. We start the series with Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto.

Archbishop Thomas Collins says one of his favourite prayers — probably the one he resorts to most often during the day — is the Jesus Prayer.

His final wish. Several weeks ago when the doctor of palliative care visited Arcbishop Anthony Meagher, now in the later stages of cancer, he said: "I have three questions I would like to ask you." The archbishop nodded.

Among the still Judean hills
Where shepherds grazed their sheep,
Angelic song like sudden dawn
Woke slumberers from sleep.

Though startled so, they did not know
That heaven had contrived,
To tell through them, good news to men.
"Day after" had arrived.

No rain of bombs in megatonnes
To tear and break the earth
No searing fire, but angels' choir
Announcing Jesus' birth.

A promise old, His birth foretold,
This Saviour who would come.
In Him who lay in manger hay
Salvation had begun.

"Day after" is, the time since His
Coming as man to earth,
Reversed the fall, gave hope to all.
Redemption had its birth.

No scheming man for all his plan
Could overcome with might,
What Mary's child had reconciled
By humble birth that night.

No force so strong, no reign so long
could change the heart of men,
As God was able, in a stable,
Through a babe in Bethlehem.

And since that birth, no place on earth
Can ever be the same
For 'twas earth's Lord shepherds adored,
The day that Jesus came.

In weakness odd, the strength of God
Lay in a tiny child
A voiceless herald to save the world
That sin and death defiled.

A world deranged, forever changed
O shout with joy and laughter!
Since Jesus came, we're not the same,
We've living His "Day after"!

It was a once-in-a-lifetime celebration for St. Patrick's parish, Napanee, my parish when I left to the seminary more than 60 years ago, and since my retirement 10 years ago.

"Do I have a deal for you!" Fr. Louis DiRocco called out to his fellow priests on the closing session of our fall meeting to hear and talk about life and work in today's parishes.

Are you a fetish? Or do you have one? It's like a compulsion that makes you a slave to a habit or routine. The dictionary defines it as an "inanimate object worshipped by savages for its magical power…" or something that is "irrationally reverenced."

It's a 15-minute boat ride from Kingston to Wolfe Island. Commuters working in the city or high school students go back and forth every day on the hourly trips. A lot of people who are not islanders just go for the free boat ride.

The dream of owning your own home may be everyone������Ƶapp nightmare when things go wrong.

“I like people who think like me,” I heard a college professor say in class, dismissing all objections to his claim to infallibility of his lecture on moral values.