Archbishop Terrence Prendergast delivers homily on Ascension Day
What a joyful Ascension Day for us in Ottawa. Archbishop Terrence Prendergast came to our humble little Sodality of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (the name is almost bigger than our building!) to celebrate an Anglican Use Mass for us.
I told him I wish we could clone him and other bishops were as gracious and generous and kind as he is.
I have no desire to end up living like Geert Wilders or Kurt Westergaard, never mind dead as Fortuyn and van Gogh. But I also wish to live in truth, as a free man, and I do not like the shriveled vision of freedom offered by the Dutch Openbaar Ministrie, the British immigration authorities, the Austrian courts, Canada’s “human rights” tribunals, and the other useful idiots of Islamic imperialism. So it is necessary for more of us to do what Ayaan Hirsi Ali recommends: share the risk. So that the next time a novel or a cartoon provokes a fatwa, it will be republished worldwide and send the Islamic enforcers a message: Killing one of us won’t do it. You’d better have a great credit line at the Bank of Jihad because you’ll have to kill us all.
As Geert Wilders says of the Muslim world’s general stagnation, “It’s the culture, stupid.” And our culture is already retreating into pre-emptive capitulation, and into a crimped, furtive, (Blair again) subterranean future. As John Milton wrote in hisAreopagitica of 1644, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience.” It is a tragedy that Milton’s battles have to be re-fought three-and-a-half centuries on, but the Western world is shuffling into a psychological bondage of its own making. Geert Wilders is not ready to surrender without exercising his right to know, to utter, and to argue freely — in print, on screen, and at the ballot box. We should cherish that spirit, while we can.
Dunn Media produced this video of the March for Life and showed it to us last night at the Rose Dinner.
It is awesome. And his daughter Kathleen Dunn sang at the March and sings beautifully. Kathleen does some of the commentary and I believe her brother Matt also does, too. Great work, really professionally done and quickly turned around.
Had an amazing couple of days. Today I attended part of the youth conference Campaign Life Coalition organizes in conjunction with the March. To say I was blown away by the conference is an understatement.
Pam Stenzel spoke and what a message she had about abstinence and the consequences of sex outside of marriage.
You can get an idea of what hearing her was like by watching this video on YouTube and there are more if you Google her name.
She also shared that her mother was a 15 year old rape victim who decided not to abort her, but kept her pregnancy to term, then gave her up for adoption.
It was thrilling to hear such a hard-hitting, sobering message delivered with great force and humor.
Also speaking were Raymond De Souza (no, not Fr. Raymond De Souza) but a man from Brazil now living in Australia who works for Human Life International (HLI), and the new President of HLI, the world's largest pro-life organization, Fr. Shenan Bouquet who found an eager and attentive audience among the 800 or more young people from all over who came for this event. Fr. Bouquet gave me an interview and he stressed civility in our pro-life message, that no matter how the other side behaves, we must always "take the high road, the narrow road."
And, capping off the conference, Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth came to tell them about his Motion M-312 and explained that all he wanted to do was have a Parliamentary committee set up to examine the 400-year old definition of a human being found in the Criminal Code, in light of the latest scientific information.
The kids loved hearing him. And he didn't talk down to them. He explained that the biggest objection to his motion is this: that if people really examine this and figure out the baby in the womb is a human being then some Canadians might rethink their support for abortion. He also spoke about human rights as being inherent and inalienable and not something granted by governments or by the state that can be cancelled by fiat.
Great message. Shout out to all these folks and to Campaign Life Coalition (CLC). It's also great to see the young emerging leadership in the pro-life movement. Good things are on the move.
Oh, and last but not least, last night at the Rose Dinner, which also featured an outstanding speaker, Stephen Mosher on China's horrific one-child policy, CLC president Jim Hughes thanked Archbishop Terry Prendergast for the leadership he's shown in encouraging other bishops to participate in the March for Life.
That's why it is growing bigger every year, he said. Archbishop Prendergast received a well-deserved standing ovation. I'll post the picture when I download it.
My father has Alzheimer's. It keeps him from saying everything he thinks, sometimes in mid-sentence, but we still get occasional puns and stories that our hearts gobble like truffles. Often his deepest communication, though, is non-verbal: the smile that says, "I know you" from across the room. It is enough. My three-year-old has Down syndrome. When the rest of the world hears, "Ahhh. Rahh!" I know it means, "the dogs next door should come out so I can bark at them." Jumping up and down at the end of the driveway is his way of saying, "the bus is late and I want to go to school." Most of his communication is non-verbal; his actual words strike the heart. He says "IRUVYOU" at bedtime. He nods his head when we repeat it. It may never get clearer, but it's there and he means it with his whole heart. It is enough. -snip[ Because Alzheimer's can make my father absent, we are forced to be more present. When he sings snips of "The Wild Rover" and other favorites, those songs take on greater meaning. Watching him remember the rosary, the rhythms of the mass even as his brain is forgetting, these things stay in our hearts. While it is a long hard process, this dying, if we were impatient with death, we would forfeit time loving him, time we could be singing. Similarly, at mass no one sings the Alleluia like my son. When the cantor begins, he chimes in. Sometimes he doesn't finish when she does and the church echoes with his joy. He's singing the Alleluia the way we're supposed to pray. His song-shy siblings sometimes join his choir. In his absence, fewer Alleluias would ring out. -snip- Suffering is always an opportunity for grace but only after it has been picked up and embraced. The real goal of life is to keep expanding the heart, to grow it outward, for the life of the world.
How about we meet for a photograph at the March for Life. I'm open to suggestions on time, but maybe gathering at the steps of Parliament Hill as the March is starting to leave the grounds for a chance to say hello and get some photos taken.
A blog on religion, politics and storytelling in an age when the truth seems stranger than fiction.
About Me
Name: Deborah Gyapong
Location: Canada
Deborah Waters Gyapong’s journalism career spans more than 20 years in television, print and radio, including 12 years as a producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s television news and current affairs programming. Deborah now covers religion and politics primarily for Roman Catholic and Evangelical newspapers. In 2005, the manuscript for her suspense novel The Defilers won the Best New Canadian Christian Fiction Award. The prize included publication.
The Defilers was released in May 2006.
