Human freedom is not about sex but the nature of love - God calls us to live in the truth while at the same time practicing mercy.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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There is worldwide interest in the Synod of Bishops taking place at the Vatican in Rome. News outlets seem rather obsessed with the issue of the admission to Holy Communion of the faithful who are civilly divorced and remarried without having first been declared free to remarry by Church authorities. The vexing principle at work is Jesus' clearly reported teaching on marriage and divorce in the Gospels. The Church's challenge is how to apply Jesus' teaching in the lives of the faithful. However the bishops in Synod are studying together the much bigger picture of the call and challenge of the family to follow Jesus and live and proclaim the Gospel with our lives in our world today.

For many the issue is about a claim to unrestricted freedom to engage in sex and cut loose from historic and cultural definitions and taboos to the point even of redefining marriage and family. I believe that the true issue at work here is not so much sex but rather the true nature of love. Jews and Christians believe there is only one God, the Creator, who revealed to his Chosen People something of his nature and of his purpose in creating us human beings. He loves his creation and He loves us and simultaneously offers us and expects of us a genuine and reciprocal relationship of authentic love, which manifests itself in a paramount desire for and dedication to the good of the other. God's good is to be known and loved widely as He is and our good as human beings is to live in harmony with God and with each other. This is the heart of the Jewish faith and their specific vocation is to give witness to God in the world.

Jesus fine tuned the understanding of this revelation in his person, teaching, and example to the point of laying down his life for the glory of God and for the salvation and sanctification of sinners. Jesus has given to all of humanity a clearer and more readily understandable teaching and example of authentic love, both divine love and human love. Authentic human love is a living and true reflection of divine love, a love which pours itself out, gives itself completely to the other, holding nothing back and yet losing nothing of itself in the giving. Actually, it is only in giving oneself wholeheartedly to the other that one attains the fullness of authentic love and in a true sense fully becomes a person. In contrast, it is in the self seeking, the obsessive grasping for one's own pleasure and satisfaction, that love is distorted and reduced to a destructive counterfeit that destroys life, people, families, and society itself and that a human being shrinks and shrivels as a person.

After listening to several reports on the Synod and interviews with several bishops and Pope Francis himself, it seems increasingly clear that no one at the Synod is showing any desire to change what God has revealed as this is transmitted in Church teaching or for that matter to compromise the Gospel. A primary factor at play is that the bishops under the influence and example of Pope Francis are becoming more aware and hence also more preoccupied that for quite some time the Church has in many places and at various times been more likely to wield the truth as a club rather than show compassion and pastoral concern for the state and suffering of the faithful. This is the kind of failure of authority to truly serve for which Jesus reproached the religious leaders of his day.

The focus then is not so much on dogma but rather on the attitude and behavior of pastors - bishops and priests - towards the faithful. What comes to mind is Jesus' reproach to the religious leaders of his day that they did not keep the law in their heart, and what is worse, they did not lift a finger to ease the burden they as religious leaders imposed so harshly on the faithful in all that had to do with the observance of religious laws. "You do not enter the kingdom yourself and also prevent others from doing so." They were not faithfully representing God to the people but were in effect only serving themselves. They did not love the faithful as God does.They were obsessed with external observance of religious law but not with the restoration of the people to an obedient and loving worship of God and service of the neighbor.

The principles at work in reviewing the Church's pastoral care of the faithful are several.

1.  God alone is the judge. Jesus made it clear we have no right or authority to judge because we are incapable of acting out of both divine justice and divine mercy simultaneously. Moreover, only God knows truly the condition of souls and He alone is qualified to judge. He alone truly loves each soul and perfectly desires its good.

2.  When Jesus gave authority to the Church to bind and to loose, He did so in order to extend and widen in time and space the exercise of divine mercy which He had inaugurated, not to restrict access to the blessings and new life of the kingdom. The binding is for dealing with sinners' unwillingness to turn away from sin and with hypocrisy and hardheartedness as when Jesus dealt with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes.

3.  The bishops are considering how they and all the pastors of the Church are to exercise the pastoral ministry more faithfully to Jesus and his example. They desire as successors to the Apostles to remain faithful to the truth given to us in the person of Jesus and at the same time to the divine revelation contained in Jesus' person, teaching, and example. The Pope and the bishops are to help us learn and follow the ways of the Lord.

Reactions to the work of the Synod come from at least two extreme positions or views.

As the whole Church, all Christian churches and faithful, and people in the world at large observe the Synod fathers in their collective study and deliberation, there are people who are disturbed and react out of fear perhaps because they need the security of "black and white" answers. Not unlike the religious leaders in Jesus' day, such people try to find their security in setting themselves apart from all those whom they judge to be sinners or guilty of breaking some law. At the other end of the spectrum there are those who look for freedom from any law, from any restriction on their thought, speech, and behavior. They claim to love and to defend the truth, but they are not open to the whole truth, nor do they have any love, true love, for others.

Some of these people go so far as to qualify the RC Church as oppressive, not realizing that they misinterpret the Church's stance as some kind of fascism or dictatorship. Through the centuries the Church has always been composed of people of their own time. When society was such that authority was imposed by force, the Church tended to do likewise. The Spanish Inquisition was a reflection of medieval society in which the rule of law coincided with the rule of force, but today the Church has changed as has the society in which it is embedded. In our world today there are still societies that rely primarily on the rule of force but most western societies rely on responsibility and compliance from their citizens. Similarly, the RC Church no longer imposes or enforces its teaching by physical force or punishment. Even centuries ago when Church authorities did use the harsh methods of the times they were ostensibly seeking the good and eternal salvation of those souls, those people they deemed to be in error and in sin.

Currently, the bishops are remembering that the Church's only authority is that of Jesus in his person, his teaching, and his example to the point of laying down his life. They realize and remind us that our Church, in its ways and practices, comes from the historical process of its development. The laity, such as married couples and families, are witnessing that in many situations pastors treat them harshly rather than with the compassion and kindness with which Jesus treated people. There has been too much insistence on the law and too little on the patience and mercy of God. Church authorities have not only been teaching the truth but at times they have been employing ways of imposing the teaching on people to the point of dictating their behavior and applying punitive sanctions and social pressure. The bishops are trying to recover Jesus' approach, which in any age is a difficult challenge but possible with the help and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Not unlike today then, in Gospel times the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees were constantly trying to pin Jesus down to clear and unequivocal answers that would clearly condemn sinners and cast them out while establishing themselves as "the pure ones", but Jesus consistently resisted this approach and attitude, saying He came for mercy not sacrifice. Those Jesus called hypocrites live their lives on the basis of appearance whereas God looks at the heart, mind, and intentions of the soul.

Jesus was killed for his merciful attitude toward sinners, which threatened all those who sought their security in the letter of the law, and the more the bishops try to approach Jesus' own attitude and pastoral care today and at any time the more they too will be resisted, judged, and rejected. It remains an incredible challenge for pastors to care for souls, to receive them and guide them through the mercy of God, while at the same time striving to increase and perfect the formation of their conscience, to care for the truth while also loving the sinner.

The temptation is great to "take over" the sovereignty of the individual conscience and "dictate" to others their behavior, but that was not Jesus' way. He spoke the truth as clearly and eloquently as He could but left people free to govern themselves, knowing that God alone could judge rightly. When anyone came to Jesus with a request He responded to them, often granting their request, but also warned them to sin no more. We are frightened and severely challenged by the patience and respect God shows each person and expects us to show one another and we continue to seek our security in the letter of the law rather than in a true and living relationship with God.

Only the tyrant refuses to respect others, to grant others the right to make mistakes. It was only with the hardhearted, hypocritical, and tyrannical that Jesus took the tough approach. Our purpose in life is to walk towards the light and none of us accomplishes the journey overnight. If it took me thirty years to come to a point of true conversion, who am I to demand that others make that jump on demand? It is not my concern. Even then, I have not arrived once and for all in safe harbor and must continue to struggle for perfection to my final breath.

God is ever just but simultaneously merciful, kind, and patient. He suffers not the shepherds who lead the sheep astray by letting them do whatever they want without warning them of the dangers they face and ignore at their peril. Shepherds must constantly teach the truth and warn the faithful of the dangers of misusing God's many gifts to us and then in their dealings with the faithful they must present to them the kind, patient, and merciful face of God in Jesus. Not only shepherds but all of us believers must be ever vigilant to confess our own sins and failure to love truly, and only by daily confessing our own sinfulness can we avoid sitting in judgement on others. Those who taste the goodness of the mercy of God can in their turn be empowered by God to show mercy to others. Those who refuse mercy and the humility of self confession and seek to justify and rationalize living in sin are at risk to harden their hearts, which was the overriding condition of many if not most of the religious leaders in Jesus' day. Hardened hearts ever need to justify themselves at the expense of others by accusing others and finding fault in them.

Perhaps what contributes to the intensity of contemporary concern about our Church's approach to moral issues and pastoral care is the nature of our culture and society in this age of instant communication and social media. This setting may be abused by those who harbor a hypocritical attitude and seek to exploit the situation in order to justify themselves in their hardheartedness. I remember a class in high school religion when the teaching brother, Bro. French, was giving a class by having us read the text book out loud. The topic was human sexuality and the desirability of chastity. A student stopped reading and questioned the teaching and, finding the brother's responses unsatisfying, asked "But Brother, how far can we go?" This is an adolescent attitude focused solely on pursuing pleasure with no preoccupation whatsoever about true love. The selfish pleasure seeking attitude does not desire true good both for oneself and for the other, but shows total disregard for the will of God and God's intention in our regard. Rather than accept to allow God to lead us to true and complete happiness, we prefer to grasp for caricatures of happiness as the world promotes them.

It is the role of the Church to bring light to such consciences and to insist on the truth, all the while striving to allow Jesus as the Divine Mercy to continue to speak to souls today. Morality is a drama that plays itself out between the individual soul and its Creator, and we cannot avoid suffering the consequences of our collective choices and behaviors. We all share in the collective responsibility to serve the common good and our common need for order. The tension between individual freedom and the common good is a balancing act which requires ongoing discernment on the part of pastors and unrelenting patience, the patience of the loving parent who knows how to be firm with kindness.

That high school adolescent was a sort of Pharisee, an immature one, but a Pharisee nonetheless. Jesus did not hate them but loved them and the love they needed from Him was a firm hand and this is what Jesus showed them. He won some of them over but the others were not yet ready to welcome the light, but perhaps they would later.

Today, with the social media, people from differing points of view are quick to pounce on every word that comes out of the Synod, from the Pope or from bishops. The bishops need resolve and trust in God to be firm and resolute in attending to and following the guidance the Holy Spirit is giving them. They must continue to deepen their study of this complex situation of the Church as mother and shepherd as well as the condition of souls living in our time because we are all called to develop and deepen our humanity. The bishops and pastors are very much in need our prayers.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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What is the Holy See? Exploring its place in the ancient Christian Churches - East and West - from the time of the Apostles.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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The Church of Jesus Christ has many levels... and in a way what follows is an over-simplification for the purpose of clarity....

In the beginning there were five autonomous Christian Churches developed by the Apostles and centered in Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch, Constantinople, and Alexandria.

The great Library of Alexandria and much of the Church leadership and strength were destroyed but in time there emerged the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, which owes its foundation to the apostle and evangelist St Mark.

Much of Antioch was either destroyed or forcibly converted to Islam in the 7th century but there remains a small Antiochan Orthodox Church.

The Patriarch of Constantinople remains the recognized head of all the Orthodox churches, first among equals, but that Church itself is very diminished in members due to forcible conversion practiced since the 7th century by various conquering waves of Islam.

During the second half of the first millennium while Islam was conquering most of the known world and forcibly converting people or killing them or making them second class citizens with no rights and heavy head taxes for life, there developed Orthodoxy, that is, an Eastern form of Christianity with its own cultural expression and spirituality, with over a dozen churches all autonomous and ethnic, that is, characterized by their nationality, language, and culture. 

Then in 1054 due to centuries of increasing political, economic, and religious differences and even violent wars and atrocities - which were more about human nature and not so much about faith or religion - there was a break between East and West, the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church, and the two heads mutually excommunicated the other and all the members of their respective churches.

There are 9 Patriarchates : Constantinople (Greek Orthodox), Alexandria (Coptic Orthodox), Antioch  (Syrian Orthodox), Jerusalem (Greek Orthodox), Russia (Russian Orthodox), Georgia (Georgian Orthodox), Serbia  (Serbian Orthodox), Romania (Romanian Orthodox), Bulgaria (Bulgarian Orthodox); then the other Orthodox Churches are led by Archbishops or Metropolitans rather than Patriarchs (reserved for the more ancient churches); Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Albania, Czech and Slovak lands, Orthodox Church in America, and several "autonomous Churches": Sinai, Finland, Estoia, Japan, China, Ukraine, Chaldean Syrian Church of India, and the Archdiocese of Ohrid, etc.

In the course of the last two thousand years, the primary cause of aggravation, discord, and violence in civil society yet implicating the churches was the confusion between secular and religious interests and between religious leaders and worldly rulers. In the beginning, when the Roman Empire stopped persecuting the one Church, religious and secular affairs remained separate. With time, kings sought the blessing of the Church and the Church sought the protection of monarchs, and this opened the way for secular leaders to manipulate and make use of the Church in ways that at times were immoral and lead to what seemed to be religious wars but were mostly about politics, economics, and demographics.

It is only since the creation of the Vatican City State in 1929 that the Roman Catholic Church in particular has been freed from worldly concerns and governance and free to devote itself entirely to the service of God, the service of its members, and the service of humanity as a whole.

As time went by, during the early Renaissance and the subsequent centuries some of the Orthodox felt that they were drawn by God to reunite with Rome, with the successor of the Apostle Peter, and they became Eastern Rite Churches such as the Greek Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, Chaldean Catholics, and so on, who were considered traitors and heretics by those who remained Orthodox.

Today, the Orthodox churches continue to be autonomous under the figurehead leadership of the Patriarch of Constantinople, first among equals, who doesn't have the kind of authority that the Pope has over all the Catholic Churches, the Latin Rite or Roman Church and all the Eastern Rite Churches.

The Roman Catholic Church

The Pope is first of all the Bishop of Rome, the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Rome. There are some 500 parishes there.

As Bishop of Rome from the time of the 12 Apostles the Pope came to be recognized as the "first among equals" among all the bishops and patriarchs, who are head of their respective churches. Primarily this was because the first Bishop of Rome, the first Pope, was St Peter, the first among Jesus' 12 Apostles, but also in the time that followed because so many of the Popes were martyrs for Jesus and for their faith, killed by Roman authorities over 300 years.

Over the centuries, primarily due to having greater resources and also accumulating a large library of documents and teachings, the Bishop of Rome came to be recognized as a moral and religious authority, one whose role was to assure the defense of the faith, one in whom Jesus Himself accomplished his promise recorded by Matthew in 28:20 that He would remain with us until the end. So Catholics believe that Jesus assures the Pope will always defend the faith and never make a mistake in the expression and teaching of the faith and of morals.

During the thousand years after the end of the Roman persecutions, so until the Renaissance, Europe was a vast land governed by princes and kings of various sorts, so the land was a bunch of principalities and kingdoms and, occasionally, empires that combined several of the smaller areas into a larger entity or empire. It happened sort of naturally that the bishops and in particular the Bishop of Rome came to rule a large area of land with responsibility to care for and protect the inhabitants. So, the Pope in time developed and army and used it. It is not possible to really understand that or have any sympathy for the people who lived then unless we try to put ourselves "in their shoes or minds".

We are all children of our age and we are least likely to understand objectively the times we live in simply because we are in them and cannot see the big picture as clearly as those who look at us from the outside. It is very arrogant of us to take a superior stance and judge others - either in the past or in other cultures and societies - as primitive, barbaric, or what have you when what we are doing is judging them by our own standards - which they have never known or experienced - instead of judging them by their own standards, which is the only fair way to judge anyone.

During the Renaissance, the Church and especially the Church in Rome became a patron of the arts and sciences, and provided the resources for artists - painters, sculptors, architects - and scientists to develop their field of expertise simply because these churches were among the few organizations other than monarchs who had the means to do so. In this way, the various dioceses and most of all Rome became depositories of art and scientific works. This is why we still have today the Vatican Library and Archives containing manuscripts of historical value going back almost two millennia and the Vatican Museum.

These are of value to the whole human race and don't just belong to the Roman Catholic Church, which continues to be the custodian, assuming the responsibility and expense of maintaining them and keeping them secure. Whether ordinary people contributed offerings voluntarily or their money was taken from them by force as taxes or by persuasion in order to obtain spiritual benefits; either way the religious architectural, artistic, and historical heritage belongs to the people of every age and generation, and the Church remains a stable and trustworthy custodian of this part of the human patrimony.

In the late 1800's there arose in Europe a trend of nationalism and in various places the principalities and kingdoms were abolished, sometimes through civil war, and replaced by states with national governments and eventually with elected officials. It was Mussolini who, in 1929, signed a Concordat with the Pope who surrendered that last remaining Papal States to the government of Italy and in turn Italy left the Roman Catholic Church with the Pope at its head a small parcel of land called Vatican City - much smaller than Montreal and about the size of Mont Royal Park - and recognizing Vatican City as a state; so it is now the Vatican City State with recognition at the United Nations which was itself formed in 1948.

So we have

Vatican City State - a state equal to other nation states but existing as a principality, like Monaco and Lichtenstein. The Vatican is also called the Holy See - this is the Chair of Peter, the Pope as religious and moral leader of the Roman Catholic Church with all his appointed officials and assistants

The Roman Curia - all the officials and groupings constituting the Holy See and working under the Pope's leadership at the service of the universal Church: the Secretariat of State (like a Prime Minister and his Office), Congregations, Tribunals, Pontifical Councils, Synod of Bishops, Offices, Pontifical Commissions, Swiss Guard, Institutions Connected, Labour Office of the Holy See, Pontifical Academies, Pontifical Committees

The Diocese of Rome operates like any other diocese around the world but is among the largest if not the largest. This link gives information about Rome but the Rome website is difficult to log into.

The Roman Catholic Church exists worldwide in the form of local churches or dioceses. Larger dioceses are called archdioceses and the archbishops have some jurisdiction over some neighboring dioceses called suffragan dioceses. However, each diocese is autonomous and the local bishop or archbishop has full authority and responsibility to govern and serve the faithful and the whole population under his jurisdiction, but also is answerable to the Pope who continues to have moral authority over all the bishops together and each one in particular. This is demonstrated in the practice of bishops being personally appointed by the Pope after the Congregation of Bishops has carefully researched the best possible candidates.

From the point of view of civil law, property, assets, personnel, and all forms of management, each diocese is truly autonomous, as if it were simply a member of an association of dioceses worldwide. Each diocese is regulated according to local civil and criminal codes of law.

Some people and organizations are trying to hold the Pope responsible for the abuse of children worldwide, but this shows their lack of understanding of how the Roman Catholic Church works. The Pope has moral authority to try to lead the bishops of the world in the best possible direction, but in the end, each bishop is responsible under local laws for his governance in civil and criminal matters, just as every priest is responsible for his own conduct under those laws.

Bishops are now being held accountable for not having properly managed priests reportedly having committed sexual abuses of children and for not having acted promptly enough to prevent such priests from having further access to children. However, what these accusations seem not to take sufficiently into account is the historical circumstances at work at the time of those sexual abuses, such as the prevailing medical and psychological expertise concerning such behavior and abuse. In addition, those accusations don't seem often to take into account the positive measures taken by many bishops and dioceses to isolate and attempt to treat priests accused of or caught in the act of abuse.

In a social climate in which the general population could not tolerate even contemplating the possibility of sexual abuse, it was difficult if not impossible for bishops to offer to help the reported victims, even though in many cases attempts were made to offer what care could be offered at the time.

Whenever it can be established that priests abused, they must be held accountable according to local laws, and in the end, they will also have to answer to God. When it can be established that bishops failed to govern properly, to prevent such priests from abusing again or to offer timely and effective assistance to victims, then they too must be held accountable according to local laws, and eventually to God.

One of the most serious and misunderstood issues relates to financial compensation of victims because people misunderstand the Roman Catholic Church as a depository of riches and wealth, comparable to billionaires and large corporations that enrich their shareholders. The truth is that the Roman Catholic Church, from a human point of view, is not a single entity like a billionaire or a multinational corporation.

The Roman Church has thousands of dioceses and each one has some form of civil incorporation. In Québec, due to the Napoleonic civil Code, each parish is an autonomous corporation and the bishop does not "own" the assets belonging to parishes. The "riches" of the Vatican are mostly architecture, art, and archives, and no one actually "owns" them, though in human affairs all man-made things must "belong" to someone or some organization. Vatican City "owns" the buildings and art "treasures" of the Vatican, but really, these are part of the patrimony of humanity in general and of Roman Catholics and Christians in particular.

Visible "heads" in the Church, bishops, have of themselves no wealth, unless they are of a rich family and share in the enjoyment of such estates. Regrettably there may be here and there bishops who have "enriched" themselves by siphoning off some funds for their personal use, either in legitimate ways or "under the table", but such cases are few indeed, and when they do occur, they are generally caught and reprimanded. Wherever bishops are in their person the "corporation" which "owns" the assets of their diocese, what constitutes their "wealth"?

Generally all church properties have been purchased and built for the people and by the people. Ordinary citizens like us for generations have contributed their hard-earned offerings to the Church in order to be able to worship in a building offering them shelter from the elements and at the same time through religious art and architecture evoking in beautiful ways the God in whom they believe and whom they come to worship. Dioceses that enjoy surplus funds employ them to maintain those buildings, offer additional services, and provide alternative places for formation, retreats, and recreation, like retreat and formation houses and camps.

When victims and their representatives sue a local church for compensation, the amounts are generally in an order of magnitude that can in effect bankrupt a local church. Because churches do not operate for profit, literally, any surplus funds are needed for personnel development and building maintenance. Large sums attributed by courts to compensate victims generally require that churches be closed and sold. That means that your church or mine would have to be closed, sold, and the money given to victims because father so and so abused them sometime in the past. For one victim to be compensated for sexual abuse, more victims are made now when they lose their church which they have supported. The compensation does not come from the perpetrator of the abuse, nor from the bishops involved at the time of the abuse, but rather from ordinary people today who in effect lose their church and must either begin all over again or must go somewhere else.

This doesn't mean that victims don't deserve compensation, they do, but more than that, they need competent assistance in order to come to terms with what they suffered, somehow get past it, and resume living and giving meaning to their lives. For this the Church hold a heavy responsibility to do all it can to help them achieve an optimal outcome, but simple financial compensation is a view of things inspired by our very twisted western society whose primary value is money and the accumulation of wealth and all the pleasure one can possibly afford. Wealth and pleasures of the flesh do not bring happiness, but rather a meaningful life.

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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How quickly the days go by... as shoulder to shoulder we work with the Lord Jesus to build the Kingdom of God in human spirits and lives.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Good morning to you, or whatever time of day it is as you read me. The last 17 days have been so full.... Life in my family seems like a roller coaster ride some days.... It is a consolation for all of us to have one another, all the more so because we are relatively few. 

It is a fact of life that I have not been close to any of my cousins, perhaps because our lives were so different, and for a time I had a lot of difficulty enduring cigarette smoke and most of them were smokers.... I'd be open to renewing their acquaintance again... perhaps when I retire.... 

It was Saturday, December 9th that I had my first big breakthrough with my website when I enjoyed dinner with Marcus Arts, his dear wife and son, and then he introduced me to the art of webmastering. He helped me with the software and tutored me on its use. While there I searched the web and found a good web host and service provider and signed up. From then on, I found my way, continued doing what Marcus had shown me, and made new web pages, designed them and loaded all kinds of files. 

It was as if a huge backlog of pressure built up over the past several years was finally allowed to rush forth! I had long accumulated reflections and documents that have various uses in the course of ministry that I wanted to make available both to share with other priests and with the people I serve and work with. It's all about the kingdom of God and not personal glory. 

So these past few weeks have been particularly intense with creativity and the preparation and loading of homilies as MP3 files and miscellaneous Word documents and web pages from a few good Christian web publishers. My web site has been a real construction zone!!!! My intuition in reviving this English blog and in beginning another en français was that when the dust settles I will be able to slip into either one and log theological reflections on my days and experiences in the vineyard of the Lord; so that He might get the glory and souls might be helped, and that we who labor together might become more transparent to one another. 

For these reasons I must heartily disagree with the professor who was quoted by the Gazette as saying that bloggers are primarily lonely and isolated individuals, for whom blogging is a kind of substitute for relating directly with real people. Get a life, please! Loneliness is part of the human condition for everyone, and it hits particularly hard at the turning of 40 - somewhere between 36 and 44 - according to Dr. Jeannine Guidon, who founded the Institut de Formation Humaine Intégrale de Montréal. 

People like Francis of Assisi and Benedict of Nursia before him who went and spent years alone in a cave were not lonely, isolated people who couldn't face the rigors of relationships! No, they were people who could no longer ignore the profound and very intense desire in their soul to know and experience God directly, and it was the Spirit of the Living God who attracted them into solitude. The Holy Spirit even today attracts receptive souls into various forms of solitude - temporary, permanent, or periodic - in order to more easily perceive and actively communicate with the Three Divine Persons and then emerge purified for more transparent relations with other people. Whoever faces the rigors of relating in the dark night of faith with divine persons can certainly face the uncertainties and demands of relating to other human beings in the flesh!      Fr. Gilles

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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I'm a priest - why all this web activity? Who's going to read or listen to it? We're building the Kingdom of God together.

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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Yes indeed, that is an interesting question. Why should a priest, who has so many things to do and people to see, bother with a blog like this or a web site or an additional blog en français? This question was put to me by a dear friend today, and I'm so grateful that he did, because it sent me into the depths, where the meaning and purpose of our lives is to be found. 

As Dr. Jeannine Guindon was fond of saying, as a guiding principle and as an integral part of the formation program she pioneered since the 1950's through the 1970's, it's about the meaning and purpose we choose to give to our lives through the decisions we make and what we then say and do that makes us the persons we are becoming. 

As my friend's question burrowed down into my soul, I began to notice again the depths of gratitude that I have been enjoying these past several months.... two years ever since my sabbatical experience in Chicago, really.... I'm grateful for the great grace and privilege of having been chosen and loved by the Blessed Trinity from infancy... I still remember my Christian Initiation: first Penance, Confirmation, and First Holy Communion.... there was Someone there! Indeed there was a Triple Someone there! 

For decades from youth into adulthood there was painful confusion and inner conflicts, and it wasn't until a good and holy elder priest who loved young people shared with us the great grace of silence, reflection, and prayer, that I had a real opportunity - for the first time in my 27 years of life - to look back on my "sacred history" with God. Once those flood gates opened, I couldn't get enough of silence and retreats and prayer and then getting to know the three Divine Persons and how They were present and speaking / guiding deep in my mind, heart, and soul.... 

Then came another great struggle and wonderful call: to follow Jesus and serve Him as a priest.... After 23 years and counting, I am filled with gratitude to overflowing for the privilege of seeing Jesus speak, heal, enlighten, teach, warn, reproach, caution, instruct, form, lead, love, and nourish through me, and that is only the beginning of it.... It goes on! It's so clear to me how great God is for bringing about such wonderful blessings and life in others through the poverty and weakness that I am! 

There are countless blessings going on all the time in my parents, who despite - no perhaps because of - their growing weakness and increasing illness, are aging and entering into the Fall and Winter seasons of their lives so graciously.... 

My sister and I are only two, and it has been and continues to be at times such a burden, and yet, we are being changed, purified, stretched and blessed as well as our parents by the opportunity and challenge of attending lovingly to our aging parents.... 

The transition I have been living from Becket to St. Luke and to the Lakeshore General has been and continues to be quite exciting and exhausting, but I have a deep sense that it is all good and for the glory of God. In fact, that is why I am bothering with this blog and began one in French and finally have succeeded in activating a web site. It is to put on display all the gifts the Lord is pouring out for you his people through me, such as I am. 

So we are posting the homilies on the website*  and occasional reflections here. Beloved sisters and brothers in Christ, and other guests, feel free to share this site with your friends and family, with fellow students and work colleagues. Our Creator and God is doing a wonderful thing in people in our time, despite the dreariness and violence that the media are constantly feeding us in the form of a daily dose of poison. It's about time we give ourselves another diet than this poison. 

*(Note: In the Fall of 2020 in full Covid-19 Pandemic I migrated recent homilies (older homilies will remain at the old website until Spring 2022) and other pages from this 2007 website and launched a new website hosted by Blogger at: https://gillessurprenant.blogspot.com)

We know there is evil out there, all around us, and yes, even within us, but that is why it is such Good News that God has sent us a Saviour in Jesus Christ! Jesus is God the Father's antidote to the poison unleashed as a dragon's vomit by the father of lies and chief rebel, the primodial serpent.... Jesus is Lord and has crushed the serpent, overcome the dragon, and robbed him of his treasure hoard. He has made us children of God so that we might enjoy the freedom of his children. 

"Glory be to God our Father in his only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, victorious over sin, suffering, and death, and in the Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of life! now and always and forever and ever! Amen!"                  Fr. Gilles

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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