Homilies and Occasional Thoughts

It was a joy to welcome Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast--a good friend whom I first met when I was a high school student and he...

War is hell. Who can argue with these famous words of the Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman? Certainly no one who has seen th...

My mother’s funeral liturgies , both the evening prayer and Mass the next day, will be a central memory of my priestly life, even if I...

I have already posted my mother's obituary and some thoughts I shared at her funeral Mass.  In this final post, I am pleased to s...

The photo above is a final caress by Mom's great-grandson Asher, not long before her death. I suppose I am prejudiced in the...

Jane was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the third and youngest child of Sheldon and Jessie (née McInnes) Banwell. She had a lifelong love ...

Today’s Gospel has a winner, Lazarus, and a loser, the rich man. And a clear target: “those… who loved money.” Our first reading also ta...