This week we have received two letters - one from Canadian Conference Catholic Bishops (CCCB)  and a second Fr. Erik Oland, SJ, Provincial of the Jesuits of Canada.

Each letter addresses racism from slightly different perspectives but united in its recognition of racism - a moral and social issue.  Both letters offer suggestions as to where we go from here.  Please read and reflect on the two letters attached.
                            
 
                            
For reasons known only to God, world religions from time have focused on the human heart as a symbol for love and for all this is good in human beings.  Consider the prophecy of Ezekiel, in the Jewish tradition, ‘I will remove from your body  your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.’(36:26). Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus among Christians has been a powerful symbol of divine creativity/reconciliation/compassionate love as manifest in Jesus Christ.

The Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is always on the Friday after Corpus Christi Sunday, which will be June 14th this year.  Hence, Sacred Heart Day will be Friday, June 18th.  Would you consider making a novena to the Sacred Heart beginning Thursday, June 11th , in preparation of this Feast?

Any devotion can assist people to be more aware of God’s love for them, and this devotion certainly does that.  Amidst the COVID-19  pandemic and its consequences, this novena can inspire each person to respond to Christ’s love for us.

Parishioners who wish to participate in our parish’s novena can find a copy of the Litany of the Sacred Heart and a Prayer of Consecration attached to this Update as well as on the parish website.  Other forms of this novena are available or currently in use among those who chose to pray this novena.  Thanks for considering your participation in this novena.
Fr. Wayne Bolton, SJ
* SOURCE: Hearts on Fire, Michael Harter, SJ, editor, page 95
      
    

My husband and I were standing in line at St. John’s International Airport tickets counter. The wait got the best of me, and I left him holding our place while I looked for a seat. There were no chairs around, so I settled on a substitute – an opening in the counter where suitcases are pushed through to the ticket agents.

As I sat there, I noticed several people smiling at me.  I become a little self-conscious when I saw a few of them nudge others to look in my direction.  I squirmed around uncomfortably – and that’s when I noticed the screen above my head flashing my weight in green lights every time I wiggled.
Jan Lankey,
Laughter Still Is The Best Medicine: Reader’s Digest, page 46
                                            
 
To be calm and quiet by yourself is not the same as sleeping.  In fact, it means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on onside of you.  It requires the discipline to recognize the urge to get up and go as a temptation to look elsewhere for what is really close at hand.  It offers the freedom to stroll through your own inner yard and rake up the leaves and clear the path so you can easily find the way to your heart.  Perhaps there will be fear and uncertainty when you first come upon this “ unfamiliar terrain”,  but slowly and surely, you will discover an order and a familiarity that deepens your loving to stay home with yourself.
Henri Nouwen,
You Are The Beloved, May 1

 
Our “chosen-ness” is how God sees everyone. If God can see this wonder in everyone, then we are seriously called to bless, name, and proclaim this “blessing” in ourselves and in each other. In this “zone” of blessedness, we see God’s lavish heart. We see wholeness and holiness.

So first, take some moments to look in the mirror and see yourselves as a blessing; and then be that blessing to yourself. Celebrate it. Sing it. Be a blessing with your heart, and with the entirety of your life. When we realize this, we can realize covenants of love with God, each other, and ourselves, achieving the deepest communion with the God who loves us.
David Haas,
Contemporary American Catholic song writer
                    
        
Persons who pray with Living Faith you are welcome to call Fr. Earl Smith, SJ - 754-0170 or email at  earlsmithsj@gmail.com .    

         

Recent events in the United States and around the world have challenged all of us to examine our attitudes towards people of other race, colour, ethnicity, gender, faith, and sexual orientation. In particular, the rallies held in Canada have shown that racism does exist in our country, maybe not as obvious as our southern neighbours. The record of our treatment of our aboriginal sisters and brothers comes to mind quite forcibly.  Have we implemented the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, published in recent years? What about our treatment of immigrants and refugees? Do we stereotype them or recognize their implicit dignity.  One young black man I have the privilege of knowing is often asked, “Where do you come from?” He always answers Canada because this is the land of his birth. People assume he is not Canadian because he is black.  This angers him because he is just as Canadian as I am with my white skin.  Is he just as Canadian as us?
                            
These are the first two examples of Canadian racism that come to mind. Can you think of any others? I encourage everyone to read the article below written by James Martin, SJ, keeping our personal and national attitudes in mind. He offers some very powerful comparisons to the life and death of Jesus, and give us a lot to think and pray about.

        
“As a Jesuit priest, I stand in solidarity with the people lost to armed violence this year, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and many others. I stand with those who stood with them in life and with those who now stand with them in death.

Racism, as St. John Paul II said, is one of the most “persistent and destructive evils” in the United States. It is also a social sin—that is, a sin that is committed not only by individuals, but which is part of the social structure in which all Americans live.

Racism is, as, the Rev. Bryan Massingale, a Catholic theologian, says, a sickness of the soul. This sickness has been spread since the first Africans were forcibly brought to America and sold as slaves 400 years ago. Our nation is one founded and continuously shaped by white supremacy. “White supremacy,” writes Father Massingale, “fundamentally is the assumption that this country, its political institutions, its cultural heritage, its social policies and its public spaces belong to white people in a way that they do not belong to others.

Mr. Floyd’s murder is something that should enrage everyone, but especially white Americans. And make no mistake: the kind of righteous anger that is being felt is the same kind of anger that Jesus felt when he saw the Temple being desecrated in Jerusalem and turned over the tables of the moneychangers in a rage (Jn 2:13-16).  Jesus saw something holy being defamed, as we do when we see a police officer’s knee being pressed upon a defenceless man, and when it is continued to press down on him even when he says, “I can’t breathe.”

How can anyone fail to see the resonances with Jesus on the Cross? Two thousand years ago, Roman soldiers pressed down a wooden cross on Jesus’s body, as other soldiers stood by, and as Jesus died, he cried out, “I thirst” (Jn 19:28). Last month, a police officer pressed a knee down on George Floyd’s body, as other police officers stood by, and as George Floyd died, he cried out, “Water.” So if you weep for Jesus on the Cross, and do not weep for George Floyd, then you are missing the point.
This is what strikes my own heart the most: not simply the legacy of racism that I know and read about, but seeing it in action, and seeing a beloved child of God treated like that. I can’t stand seeing people treated like that. I can’t describe adequately how angry it makes me, and why it moves me to tears. And I cannot imagine what a black person feels when they see that. And they see it a lot.
Do you feel anger, sadness, frustration, confusion and rage over the death of George Floyd? That is your Pentecost: That’s the Holy Spirit moving through you.

This moved Jesus too. Whenever he saw people being mistreated, the Gospels tell us, his heart was “moved with pity.” The original Greek is much stronger: Jesus felt it “in his guts.” This is one reason why he consistently sided with the poor, the outcast, the marginalized. Because this is where Jesus stands. Jesus stands with those who are beaten. Jesus stands with those who are persecuted. Jesus stands with the black men and women who have been killed by armed white men or by police officers. Jesus stands with the protestors crying out for justice, crying out that black lives must matter.

What can Catholics do about these sins?

●    Continue to pray.

●    Look at yourself for subtle signs of racism or discrimination of your thoughts of other people.

●    Become informed.  This can include reading articles on racism, following the news, and reading novels about this topic.

●    Take action.  
 



●    When asked about the commandments, Jesus said,
 
        The most important one is…
        “Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
        with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”
 
        The second one…is…
        “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.”
        ( Mark 12:30-31)
                    

●    “What tends to keep me from seeing a brother or sister in the face of another?
     We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
     Martin Luther King, JR

    
*    In response to the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement we might repeat in prayerful union          with Mother Theresa  these words…
    “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
    Mother Teresa of Kolkata
    

●    An old Rabbi asked a disciple, “how can you tell when night is over and day has begun?”
    The disciple thought a moment and said, “could it be when you see an animal in the distance and you can tell if it is a lamb or a dog?”
     “No”, answered the Rabbi, “think again!”
     The disciple did but to no avail.
     The Rabbi then said, “it’s when you can look into the face of another and see that it’s your sister or brother. If you can’t see this, it’s still night”.  
     SOURCE:    Vision, Year A, Mark Link, SJ