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30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) Oct. 23 (Sirach 35:15-17, 20-22; Psalm 34; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14)

What does it take to get a hearing before the throne of God? How should we pray? Many prayers are directed heavenward each day — each minute and second of the day — but not all of them seem to be answered. The problem is that we fashion the prayer out of what is in our own heart. If our prayer is filled with egotism, selfishness, cynicism and smugness, the prayer is really directed towards ourselves.

Fr. Joshua Roldan commends the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops for meeting today’s young Catholics where they are at in a new normal shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was a double celebration — the launch of a first book of its kind by an Anishinaabe Catholic woman, and a powerful lesson on how a harmonious blend of indigenous rituals and practices with those of Western Christianity could illuminate the path to a renewed spirit of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and an enriched Catholic Church.

Pope Francis is once again reaching out over the heads of world leaders to appeal directly to ordinary people — people of all faiths and none — on behalf of a planet in crisis.

Presence has been swirling around me, chasing me in the fall wind, working its way through my hair. I taste it in time with friends, in singing in a choir, and in the longing to run away from what is hard.

The world today has numerous crises — climate change, pandemic, growing discrepancies of power and wealth, the nuclear threat and war, not only in Ukraine but wars in places that go underreported. Perhaps the greatest crisis is the lack of leadership capable of dealing with these substantive crises.

Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the U.S. bishops’ landmark pastoral letter “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response.”

Magazine huzzahs

I want to extend my congratulations to the staff of The Catholic Register for the excellent commemorative magazine Penance and Progress. The articles are thorough and thought-provoking. 

The pro-life group 40 Days for Life has successfully blocked a legal motion that might have quashed its defamation lawsuit against a pro-choice advocate who sought to “ruin” its campaign.

While creating the generation that came to life from 1946 to 1964, Canadians were in the midst of the Baby Boom.