Since the beginning of our current crisis and the start of isolation and confinement, the media have been awash with advice on how we might successfully use this time in order to self-improve and catch up with our lives, while remaining healthy and making ready for a new normality. And...
Lent’s not just about giving stuff up! It’s an opportunity to exercise our prayer muscles. Amy Hamilton has enlisted expert speakers for this year’s Lenten Series on Monday evenings, “Teach Us To Pray”. Come to Cathedral Place for a robust soup at 6:30 and this Lenten Course at 7. (Please sign...
Thursday, May 25, 2017, is Ascension Day. This is an ancient observance, kept by the whole church since its early days, even as local variations developed in different countries. Here is a poem on the subject by Malcolm Guite, the poet-priest and chaplain of Girton College, Cambridge. He writes: “the mystery...
I completely understand the innkeeper who answered the knock on his door to find two strangers, complete with donkey and a child about to be born. I understand his frustration, his exhaustion, his feeling of having nothing more to give. His not wanting to linger at the threshold explaining. He’s...
by Kat Speeckaert As my church life starts gearing up for Advent I find myself, once again, filled with a heavy dread. I hate this season. The past few years have been marked by the same feeling of wanting this to not be happening. I want Advent to be over....
In last week’s Porous Church column, “Making it Explicit”, I reflected on the importance of being explicit about my faith and my doubts. Erica Jacobs-Perkins, a member of our young adult community who has left Montreal for the next steps in her journey, sent me her thoughts and has agreed to...
I leave my home to go to work before the sun rises, and most of the people I encounter are huddled against the wind or trying to drink coffee without either missing the bus or spilling it all over themselves. For the most part, we look at the ground, we...
In Louisville, Kentucky, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, a tall tourist information plaque… exactly the kind you see in cities and by roadsides describing famous battles and birthplaces… marks the spot where the monk and author Thomas Merton was swept up into a fresh experience of God’s own life...
Erica Jacobs-Perkins is a member of Christ Church Cathedral. Having finished her studies at McGill in both English literature and music, she is heading off to Prague and then to Chicago for the next steps in her musical career. She will be missed! But, before she goes,...
Back in 2002, I attended a prayer service where the topic was idolatry. At the end of the sermon, the presenter stepped away from the lectionary and bowed right at a vase of flowers on the altar before going back to his seat. It seemed fitting in a service focused...