Connect with us

COVID-19

For all those people who missed their religious services this weekend

Published

9 minute read

For every week of every year of their entire lives, billions of people around the world in some way celebrate their sabbath.   Whether Saturday, or Friday, or Sunday, it’s part of the routine of life.  Going to Church, or Temple, or Mosque is no different and no less important than eating and sleeping and participating in any of our passions.  We just can’t really imagine life without it.

In this part of the world (Canada’s prairies) building a Church was often top of mind for European immigrants who arrived here about 100 to 150 years ago. People who literally scraped a small farm from the earth with nothing but the most rudimentary tools and their own muscles would use that same earth to create their first home in North America from sod.  Their first priority was to feed their families.  As soon as they could, they’d build a box out of wood, slap a window and a door on it, and call it a house.  By this time there was an extremely good chance they were also spending time with their neighbours, often from the same part of the world, speaking the same language and practicing the same faith.  While they personally lived in sod or poorly insulated wood huts, they’d be building something far more substantial to celebrate their faith in.

That hasn’t changed much today.  Now immigrants come from all over the earth.  When they arrive, one of their top priorities is to locate other people from their part of the world.  They may be integrating quickly into a new language and culture and all that means, but they are deeply attracted to any links to their language and culture, and faith. So it’s not uncommon to see Mosques on the prairie or Egyptian Coptic Churches, or a Sikh Temple.

We’ve all heard of the term Freedom of Religion.  It’s an important aspect of Western Society, maybe especially for all those who understand it as being Free From Religion.  That’s important too.  As a result, the vast majority of people who go somewhere to celebrate their faith are doing it of their own free will.  They want to be there.  They feel they need to be there.  They have a lot of other options.

That brings me to my life today.  Our family goes to a Catholic Church every Sunday.  Without fail.  I’m an adult and I’ve missed a couple of Sunday masses in my life, but not many.  Even at the heights of my personal struggle with faith and when I’m frankly mad at God, I still go.  It’s at these times, my culture, the example my parents set for me, and maybe even the stories of the saints convince me that this anger or doubt may be deep, but it will eventually pass.  I don’t go to Mass because I think it’s some kind of ticket to the afterlife.  I need it.  Going to Mass is part of my culture, as much a part of me as the language I speak and the food I eat.  It’s who I am.  So when I heard Mass was cancelled this weekend, I immediately thought of my parents.  My mom has never missed mass to my knowledge.  I still remember the one time my dad missed mass.  He couldn’t really get out of bed that day.  Unless he was going to the bathroom.  Then I thought of the important role of the Eucharist in the Catholic Mass.  That’s a whole other discussion.

It wasn’t until I came upon this reflection from Father Emmanuel that I started to feel better, much better.  I think it’s worth sharing with anyone else who is feeling out of sorts in a way we could never imagine in this lifetime in this part of the world.  We cannot attend out religious service.  Please enjoy these words from Father Mbah.

From Father Emmanuel Mbah 

Everything Works Out Together for Good…

When I hear people complaining about the current situation of things, especially with regards to some of the precautionary measures that have been put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic, I cannot help but marvel. I have also heard some women and men of faith crying out that this is the devil’s attack on the Church, owing that churches should remain open and should not be shut down. They see the shutting down of churches as an indirect attack on the faith. Thus, I am drawn to even a deeper wonder: Is it not true that in most cases, we fail to realize the value of what we have until after we have lost it? This cuts across individuals in interpersonal relationship and corporate bodies in employer-employee relationship.

A lot of Christians before now, complain about their different churches; either the priest/pastor is not preaching well or preaching too long, or that parishioners or church members are not friendly and welcoming. Could it be that God is also offering us this time to stay home and experience what it is like not to come together as a worshipping community on the day of the Lord? So that at the end of it all, we would be wiser and more appreciative of the deposit of our faith and the communion and fellowship that we share.

As I reflect further, I also recall Joseph’s experience in the Old Testament, when the brothers out of jealousy sold him out. But at the end of the day, there was not only a happy ending and reunion but Joseph forgave his brothers and said to them, “As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). As such, I believe that everything works out together for good… (Romans 8:28). In other words, something good will come out of our current situation. It will all end in praise to the glory of God.

Stay safe and healthy- Happy Sunday!


PS.  We sort of attended Mass this Sunday.  We joined a few hundred other people on a Facebook live feed from a church in Kerrobert, Saskatchewan.  The Priest there is in charge of four churches in four communities.  Instead of performing four masses over these 24 hours in four different towns, he performed Mass in front of a video camera, all by himself.  He began the virtual Mass by telling us when the church in each community was established.  The youngest one was 97 years old.  In all that time, not during a world war, not even during the Spanish Flu epidemic, this was the first Sunday that the people of this faith have not come together on Sunday.  We’re living in very strange times.  We need all the wisdom we can get.  Thank you Father Emmanuel.

First Nations Trapper calling for a team to support farmers, loggers, miners, and “fossil fuel people”

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

Follow Author

2025 Federal Election

Mark Carney refuses to clarify 2022 remarks accusing the Freedom Convoy of ‘sedition’

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Mark Carney described the Freedom Convoy as an act of ‘sedition’ and advocated for the government to use its power to crush the non-violent protest movement.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney refused to elaborate on comments he made in 2022 referring to the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy protest as an act of “sedition” and advocating for the government to put an end to the movement.

“Well, look, I haven’t been a politician,” Carney said when a reporter in Windsor, Ontario, where a Freedom Convoy-linked border blockade took place in 2022, asked, “What do you say to Canadians who lost trust in the Liberal government back then and do not have trust in you now?”

“I became a politician a little more than two months ago, two and a half months ago,” he said. “I came in because I thought this country needed big change. We needed big change in the economy.”

Carney’s lack of an answer seems to be in stark contrast to the strong opinion he voiced in a February 7, 2022, column published in the Globe & Mail at the time of the convoy titled, “It’s Time To End The Sedition In Ottawa.”

In that piece, Carney wrote that the Freedom Convoy was a movement of “sedition,” adding, “That’s a word I never thought I’d use in Canada. It means incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority.”

Carney went on to claim in the piece that if “left unchecked” by government authorities, the Freedom Convoy would “achieve” its “goal of undermining our democracy.”

Carney even targeted “[a]nyone sending money to the Convoy,” accusing them of “funding sedition.”

Internal emails from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) eventually showed that his definition of sedition were not in conformity with the definition under Canada’s Criminal Code, which explicitly lists the “use of force” as a necessary aspect of sedition.

“The key bit is ‘use of force,’” one RCMP officer noted in the emails. “I’m all about a resolution to this and a forceful one with us victorious but, from the facts on the ground, I don’t know we’re there except in a small number of cases.”

The reality is that the Freedom Convoy was a peaceful event of public protest against COVID mandates, and not one protestor was charged with sedition. However, the Liberal government, then under Justin Trudeau, did take an approach similar to the one advocated for by Carney, invoking the Emergencies Act to clear-out protesters. Since then, a federal judge has ruled that such action was “not justified.”

Despite this, the two most prominent leaders of the Freedom Convoy, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, still face a possible 10-year prison sentence for their role in the non-violent assembly. LifeSiteNews has reported extensively on their trial.

Continue Reading

COVID-19

17-year-old died after taking COVID shot, but Ontario judge denies his family’s liability claim

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

An Ontario judge dismissed a liability claim from a family of a high schooler who died weeks after taking the COVID shot.

According to a published report on March 26 by Blacklock’s Reporter, Ontario Superior Court Justice Sandra Antoniani ruled that the Department of Health had no “duty of care” to a Canadian teenager who died after receiving a COVID vaccine.

“The plaintiff’s tragedy is real, but there is no private law duty of care made out,” Antoniani said.

“There is no private law duty of care to individual members of the public injured by government core policy decisions in the handling of health emergencies which impact the general population,” she continued.

In September 2021, 17-year-old Sean Hartman of Beeton, Ontario, passed away just three weeks after receiving a Pfizer-BioNtech COVID shot.

After his death, his family questioned if health officials had warned Canadians “that a possible side effect of receiving a Covid-19 vaccine was death.” The family took this petition to court but has been denied a hearing.

Antoniani alleged that “the defendants’ actions were aimed at mitigating the health impact of a global pandemic on the Canadian public. The defendants deemed that urgent action was necessary.”

“Imposition of a private duty of care would have a negative impact on the ability of the defendants to prioritize the interests of the entire public, with the distraction of fear over the possibility of harm to individual members of the public, and the risk of litigation and unlimited liability,” she ruled.

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, Dan Hartman, Sean’s father, filed a $35.6 million lawsuit against Pfizer after his son’s death.

However, only 103 claims of 1,859 have been approved to date, “where it has been determined by the Medical Review Board that there is a probable link between the injury and the vaccine, and that the injury is serious and permanent.”

Thus far, VISP has paid over $6 million to those injured by COVID injections, with some 2,000 claims remaining to be settled.

According to studies, post-vaccination heart conditions such as myocarditis are well documented in those, especially young males who have received the Pfizer jab.

Additionally, a recent study done by researchers with Canada-based Correlation Research in the Public Interest showed that 17 countries have found a “definite causal link” between peaks in all-cause mortality and the fast rollouts of the COVID shots as well as boosters.

Continue Reading

Trending

X