Vol. XVIII. No. 1
Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019 http://colleagueslist.blogspot/.ca http://colleagueslistii.blogspot.com
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GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE
Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address: waholst@telus.net
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Dear Friends:
This issue of Colleagues List is being sent to you on the weekend that Pope Francis comes to Canada - and specifically, to Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit. I hope you find this issue helpful to better understand these important times in the life of the Christian church in our land.
Of course, there are other items presented here for your benefit.
Please note - If a link below seems to be dead, cut and paste it into the address bar at the top of your web page and it should work.
Wayne
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SPECIAL ITEM
WELCOMING POPE FRANCIS TO CANADA
I write this note to you my readers just days before Pope Francis comes to Canada to personally continue the process of reconciliation with the first peoples of our land; and at their continuing request.
As I write this, I am informed by the words of Phil Fontaine, a committed Christian and for many years the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Please note his words following: https://tinyurl.com/5x3ra9r9
Please note other articles on the pope's visit below.
I am taken by his advice to Indigenous Canadians that - in addition to the need for reconciliation and healing which he hopes the pope will continue to advocate and represent on the part of the church - the first peoples will need to reciprocate with forgiveness.
The Indigenous response of forgiveness has been there from the beginning but it may be that it was too generous and too soon. The healing process takes time but it seems that many have not been ready to forgive - even when they thought they were.
As is the case with all of us who seek to do the right thing, many have been of two minds when they forgave. "I should, but am I ready?"
I think the forgiveness we have been going through is a significant long-term process and not a one-time event. As with many of you, I have been hurt so much by another that I cannot fully forgive at any one step along the way.
It is a good thing that Pope Francis is coming first to visit Canada's first peoples and only by extension, the people of Canada. All Canadians are included in the visit, but the example to forgive begins with those who were profoundly wronged. Rarely, if ever in the past, has a papal visit been of this nature, and for that we should all be grateful.
When I first began studying and reflecting on our Indigenous history I hoped that Canadians in general would become more clearly led by our first peoples. Hopefully, that is what we will be experiencing during this time.
Wayne
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COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Jim Taylor, Okanagan, BC
Personal Web Log
July 7th, 2022
"Making Sense of Meaningless Words"
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Mark Whittall, Ottawa, ON.
Sermons and Blog
July 15th, 2022
"Either/Or"
Elfrieda Schroeder, Winnipeg, MB
In Transit Blog
July 7th, 2022
"Something to Ponder"
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John G. Stackhouse Jr. Moncton, NB
Faith Today
July 1st, 2022
"Interview on the Meaning of Evangelicals"
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Ron Rolheiser, San Antonio, TX
Personal Web Site
July 18th, 2022
"The Temptations of the Good Person"
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NET NOTES
THE POPE'S "PENITENTIAL PILGRIMAGE"
His Contribution to Peace and Reconciliation
Is Focused on the Nation's First Peoples
Catholic Register, Toronto
July 18th, 2022
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FRANCIS' VISIT IS A ONE-OF-A-KIND VENTURE
His Hope is to Truly Engage First Nations People
National Catholic Reporter,
July 20th, 2022
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PAPAL VISIT - ENGAGING IN A "GENUINE RELATIONSHIP"
This Event is a Long-Time Coming
Catholic Register, Toronto
July 22nd, 22nd, 2022
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PASTORS IN PAIN
Christ Can Redeem Your Suffering
Christianity Today,
July, 2022
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CHRISTIANS WHO ESCAPED UKRAINE WAR
JOURNEY BACK TO AID THE HURTING
Bold Efforts in Difficult Circumstances
Christian Week,
July 6th, 2022
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FOUR ST.JOHN'S CHURCHES SOLD IN AUCTION
A Significant Decline in NFLD City Presence
Catholic Register, Toronto
July 6th, 2022
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DALAI LAMA CELEBRATES 87th BIRTHDAY
Opens Special Library and Museum
Religion News Service,
July 6th, 2022
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WHEN I THINK OF DOWNTON ABBEY
I THINK OF THE COSTUMES
Beautiful Objects in a Sea of Inequality
Christian Century,
July 1st, 2022
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SOUTH KOREAN CULT POSES PROBLEMS IN JAPAN
Unification Church Challenges in Neighbour-Country
Christian Week
July 14th, 2022
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POPE NAMES THREE WOMEN TO HELP HIM CHOOSE BISHOPS
Catholic Progress is Slow, but Headed in the Right Direction
Catholic Register, Toronto
July 13th, 2022
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WISDOM OF THE WEEK
Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online:
Love is not consolation, it is light.
- Simone Weil
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We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers.
- Bayard Rustin
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Empires create their own theologies to justify their occupation.
- Mitri Raheb
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Today, if we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa
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Seeds move through their life stages in an endless cycle of seasons — and the cycle of seasons reminds us that the journey never ends.
- Parker Palmer
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The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution that has to start with each one of us?
- Dorothy Day
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Love won’t be tampered with, love won’t go away. Push it to one side and it creeps to the other. Throw it in the garbage and it springs up clean. Try to root it out and it only flourishes.
- Louise Erdrich
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I have come to see that quiet lives on the land are just as important as any politician’s or celebrity’s life, yet they are usually unsung and unnoticed – often fading into the earth without any, except family, to remember them or write them down. To write about the “nobodies” of rural America is to keep alive the names that provide meaning, intimacy, and beauty to our world.
- Gracy Olmstead
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Obviously, while I love all, I must, like Christ, have a special love for the poor. At the last judgement, we shall all be judged by the treatment we have given to Christ, to Christ in the person of those who are hungry or thirsty, who are dirty, wounded, and oppressed.
- Dom Helder Camara
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As Christians we’re not sufficiently truthful with one another, and we fail to acknowledge how some forms of Christianity are idolatrous. When Christianity is identified with American interests or a political party, it needs to be called out for what it is. We’re afraid to do that because we think being a Christian is better than not being one. But bad Christianity is very bad, and we need to be more upfront about that.
- Stanley Hauerwas
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We sometimes try to fit the elderly, disabled, needy, and suffering into our twisted, shallow, and foolishly optimistic visions of the world, but of course it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because sufferers, the ones fallen or falling apart, are outposts of a different sort of world.
I inhabit a world that is not how it should be, but will one day be remade. My pain is not dismissed; my hope is neither false nor shallow. Creation groans, yet it thrills with a hope that can hold both the heights and the depths of my life.
- Jenna Klaassen
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Jesus calls his church to fight the forces of death. It is no wonder that nursing homes and hospitals originated in the Christian community. We dare not give up on those who are sick and dying, for it belongs to our human dignity and calling to nurture life. Jesus did not say, “Don’t bother about what happens to your life.” No, he calls himself the resurrection and the life. “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25).
- Christoph F. Blumhardt
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The Creator’s call to care for our common home has never been more urgent, and requires a range of faithful responses, from individual and grassroots efforts to major policy and legislative changes. Through gardening and food production, the church is offering demonstration plots of abundant life: sites where even in the margins, we tend the earth and one another. What is needed is the cultivation of community where ecological conversion is possible; and of communities where neighbors can work together and live abundantly.
- Sam Ewell
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