Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

One of Advent’s greatest treasures, especially in the days directly leading up to Christmas, is the the ‘O antiphon’ tradition. Many who may not be acquainted directly with the O antiphons will likely know them through the verses of the much loved hymn O Come O Come Emmanuel. The O antiphons are used as antiphons for the Magnificat each of the seven days leading up to Christmas in the Catholic Church’s evening prayer, and are generally used as part of the Gospel Alleluia at Mass those days. The tradition dates back to the early Middle Ages. In more recent times, some Anglican, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches also incorporate the O antiphons in their prayer and devotional life.

Each O antiphon draws on a prophecy from Isaiah; each offers a title for the promised Messiah and expresses our longing and need for God to come into our world. The original prayers were of course written in Latin. Let’s take a look at one of them in more detail. Isaiah had prophecied, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them a light has shone” (Is. 9:2). The O antiphon begins, “O Oriens,

splendor lucis aeternae,” O Morning Star, splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:

Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” We know this as the verse from O Come O Come Emmanuel as follows:

O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,

And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Each verse of the hymn ends with the invitation:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

And so the days leading up to Christmas unfold, as do the verses of the hymn, and we pray:

O come, Emmanuel, ransom us from our captivity;

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, give us victory o’er the grave;

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high – teach us in her ways to go;

O come, Desire of nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind; bid envy, strife and quarrels cease; fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.

It is helpful that we have multiple images from the prophets for the Messiah who was to come. As Christians we have four Gospels who speak of Jesus’s life and ministry from different perspectives. The Incarnation is a vast mystery, and each prophecy gives us a language to understand something of what God desires to do for us. They tap into our own need for wisdom, for leadership and covenental love, for freedom from what binds us, light within our darkest days, for God walking with us.

St Augustine, in an ‘O’ prayer of his own, prays to God, “O Beauty ever ancient, ever new,” and that has set me to pondering how the glories of our heritage still speak to the deepest yearnings of our hearts; and that today we too are to give new expressions to those deepest yearnings within us. The Jewish roots of the prophecies bring to mind new expressions of yearnings in our day from that same tradition. I don’t know if Leonard Cohen had the O antiphons in mind when he wrote to song Come Healing, but he might have.

O solitude of longing

Where love has been confined

Come healing of the body

Come healing of the mind.

O see the darkness yielding

That tore the light apart

Come healing of the reason

Come healing of the heart.

And finally:

O let the heavens falter

And let the earth proclaim:

Come healing of the Altar

Come healing of the Name.

So here’s an invitation and a challenge, friends. As you prepare to welcome the Lord’s birth, take some time to listen to the deepest yearnings in your heart. And in the refining of prayer, see if those yearnings might take the shape of a prayer or two, your own O antiphons.

O font of mercy, O God of all grace, come be with us in this time of pandemic. Let us know your healing presence, let us see your face.

God bless.

Watch video message HERE

One of my earliest memories of Advent, in the little country church of St. Elizabeth’s west of Gravelbourg, was the singing of the hymn O Come, Divine Messiah. When I was seven years old, we left the farm and moved to Gravelbourg itself, where our faith life was enriched by the traditions of the majority francophone community, and I learnt that there was a French version of the hymn too, that it was originally written in French: Venez Divin Messie. On this second week of Advent, I would like to offer a few reflections on the season, with reference to this wonderful hymn.

We often say that Advent is a season of waiting, and in the midst of this pandemic, we know the experience of waiting. When we hear “O Thou whom nations sighed for,” the words resonate, for the nations today are definitely sighing. Advent invites us to set our sights on the deepest sighing of the nations, the most profound sighing in human hearts, as we sing “Come, come to earth, dispel the night and show thy face, and bid us hail the dawn of grace.” Advent waiting is active, not passive. And it is meant to teach us something, to prepare us to welcome the coming of God into our lives. John the Baptist cries out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths. Let the valleys be raised and every mountain and hill be made low. Here on the flat prairies of Saskatchewan we are well on our way, at least from the perspective of landscape! It’s the rest of our lives that need transforming.

The hymn O Come Divine Messiah reminds us how much we need God. We know it from the mess and woundedness in our lives, and we know it from the brokenness in our world. And it prepares us to recognize and welcome God in all the ways that God comes into our lives. The last verse reminds us that God does not come in the way we would necessarily expect: Shalt come in peace and meekness, and lowly will thy cradle be: All clothed in human weakness shall we thy God-head see.

Advent is a time where we hear of God’s dream for the human race. We hear this strongly in the readings of the prophets: that people that walked in darkness will see a great light; that God is preparing a rich banquet, where all our tears will be wiped away and death will be no more; that the wolf shall live with the lamb, calf and the lion will lie down together, and all will be well on God’s holy mountain; that God will turn our swords into ploughshares, and nations shall not lift up sword against nation. These dreams of God may be hard for us to believe and trust in. In this Sunday’s second reading we hear that God does not delay in fulfilling his promises, but that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. These Advent missives of hope and promise are like a plow that tills the furrows of our hearts, to loosen our doubts and break up the cynicism or despair that may have grown in us. We hear the dream of God in O Come, Divine Messiah too. The captive fetters will be broken, the long-lost fold redeemed; the night will be dispelled; we will hail the dawn of grace, and see God’s face. When life is full of difficulties and challenges, it is a tremendous act of courage to continue to dream God’s dream, to continue to hope, and to carry a deep joy within us.

One final thought, and one last theme in this Sunday’s readings. Both Isaiah and John the Baptist speak about the pathway of our God. In the desert, in the wilderness, prepare the way. A few years ago I had the opportunity to walk the camino in Spain, an 800 kilometre trek from St Jean Pied-de-Port in France to Santiago de Compostela. ‘Camino’ literally means ‘the way.’ On the road to Santiago, the way is marked out by yellow arrows. You need to stay vigilant, otherwise you get lost in a hurry. Each yellow arrow quietly speaks the message that we hear from Isaiah, who exhorts, “This is the way, walk in it” (Is 30:21), and Jeremiah, who relates: “Thus says the Lord: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jer 6:16). In Advent, we are encouraged to walk the good way, to prepare the way of the Lord. But the heart of the message of the season is this: our God comes walking towards us on this path. Like a shepherd seeking out lost sheep, God comes to seek us out. There is a story in the Jewish Talmud of a king who had a son who had gone astray. The king sent a message to the son, return to your father. The son sent a message, I cannot. The king sent another message. Come as far as you can, and I will come to you the rest of the way. Our God comes to us not because we are good, or holy, or deserving, or ready. But out of love. O Come, Divine Messiah, the world in silence waits the day when hope shall sing its triumph and sadness flee away.

Watch video message HERE

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Warm greetings and good wishes of perseverance and hope at this difficult time, when the number of active cases in Saskatchewan have risen dramatically. For many, in the past two weeks, including myself, the pandemic has become real in a new way, as family members, friends, or people we know well have tested positive, are in ICU, or have died. We lift all those who have died and their loved ones, all who have tested positive for Covid and their families, in fervent prayer before the Risen Lord.

As you know, new restrictions have been put in place regarding mask usage, affecting all the parishes of the Archdiocese. The Saskatchewan Health Authority and provincial government have not imposed further restrictive steps on faith communities at this time, but have continued their conversation with faith leaders, and have let us know that there are cases of the virus having spread in worship settings in the province. They have not moved to lockdown, but have arranged a series of urgent meetings, asking what we can do and what we would recommend so that we mitigate risks, encourage adherence to the directives, and reduce movement and duration during worship services. I am grateful for the spirit of consultation which is now prevailing.

As we approach the great feast of Christ the King, I am reminded of all the places in which we are called to allow Christ to be our King: our hearts, wills, societies, the world around us. When the feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI, he wanted to invite the faithful to participate in the challenges and struggles of the societies in which they lived, but to do so mindful of a higher authority. Political structures have a rightful place in our lives, but also limits, and our ultimate authority is Christ the King. When the re-open Saskatchewan plan was first announced in late April and there was no mention of religious groups and how they would be able to safely gather, we joined with faith leaders from across the province to approach our Premier with the hope of beginning a dialogue about the importance of religious gatherings. As Catholics and citizens, we recognize that civic and health authorities have an important role to play, but we also wanted them to hear what faith communities could provide to our society at a time of deep struggle, in terms of hope, of maintaining a safe environment, and of caring for the vulnerable. The fruits which have come from these dialogues and deeper relationships are most evident in the greater numbers that our spaces are allowed than other public gatherings. While more changes are likely to come, it is helpful to remember the words of Pope Pius XI in the encyclical which instituted the feast: “there seems no reason why we should despair of seeing that peace which the King of Peace came to bring on earth – he who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, who, though Lord of all, gave himself to us as a model of humility, and with his principal law united the precept of charity” (20).

This year on the feast of Christ the King, we will hear the powerful words of Matthew 25 and Jesus’s parable of the last judgement. Jesus our king gives us a word, a word to live by, a difficult and challenging word. The word comes in the form of a question, the last question we are ever likely to hear. The parable tells us that at the end of time, when death is conquered and God is all in all, when we stand before the risen Lord, he will ask: when I was hungry, did you give me food? When I was thirsty, did you give me something to drink? When I was sick, or in prison, did you visit me? When I was a stranger, did you welcome me? The Incarnate Word identifies himself with those in greatest need, and tells us that we encounter him there, in what Mother Teresa refers to as Christ in his most distressing disguise.

The questions ought to make us restless, uncomfortable. They are not new; we know them, we have heard them before. Indeed if we listen closely, we hear them being asked to us daily in a thousand different ways. Sometimes it’s a beggar on the street who asks them to us; sometimes it is a victim of clergy sexual abuse who wants to be heard and respected. Sometimes it is an Indigenous brother or sister who needs help, and sometimes it’s a family member or neighbour who is struggling. Sometimes it is the unborn or those at the end of life who are pushed aside, and sometimes it’s a saint, like John Chrysostom, who reminds us that an afflicted sister or brother is “the most precious temple of all.” Sometimes it’s Pope Francis, who tells us he prefers a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, and sometimes it’s a critic of the church, who points out our lack of integrity.

As we prepare to celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, let us renew our commitment to love and welcome the Lord in all the ways he comes to us. Let us participate in our civic life, work with our elected officials and health authorities, and do all we can to protect the vulnerable. And in all that, let us be guided above all by the Lord, who immerses himself in the sufferings and struggles of humanity and asks us to love and serve him there: Christ our King.

Watch Video Message HERE

Archbishop Don’s Message on Patience

In his letter to the Romans (5:1-5), St Paul speaks a word we need to hear, about endurance, about patience. He notes that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” When I gathered with my little drafting group to prepare this message, the consensus was that I should speak about patience. It has probably never been easy to live with a deep patience, but it seems particularly difficult today to show patience.

The pandemic is demanding an incredible patience from us, and it is exhausting us.
So many people are experiencing fatigue from the pandemic. One of my confreres said recently, passionately, “I am so sick of Covid.” So many of us are tired of restrictions, tired of masks, tired of not being able to do so many things in a normal way. Yet no matter how frustrated we get, Covid 19 continues to surge around the world, and here in Saskatchewan there has been a big spike in cases. Caring for and protecting the most vulnerable among us requires patient endurance. Looking after our own mental, physical, and spiritual health and provide encouragement and support to others suffering from exhaustion and stress requires patient endurance.

Patience is especially difficult in an age of social media, and in an age of polarization. We see something we disagree with and we respond, we express our frustration. The opportunity that we have in face to face encounters, to say “am I hearing you correctly,” or “what do you mean by that,” or “have you considered this perspective,” those are often absent in social media. And the more controversial or dramatic our statements, the more likely we are to get hits, to have people pay attention to us. But the result is often polarization instead of dialogue, misrepresentation instead of understanding. One friend put it this way for me: patience is “an antidote to the driving force to act with immediacy and respond with urgency and view every situation within the virtual world as though it was the end of all worlds.”

As a people of faith, however, we are encouraged to ask “what is God’s way?” And while there are times when God acts with urgency and decisiveness, salvation history and even modern science suggest that God generally acts with incredible patience. If the universe is almost 14 billion years old, it is instructive that God waited almost 10 billion years before creating the earth, and another 4 ½ billion years before sending a Messiah. When God becomes incarnate in Jesus, it was not the fastest way to communicate or show us the face of God. Mary was pregnant with Jesus for nine months. Jesus waited 30 years for ministry. Just before his public ministry began, he spent 40 days in the desert. He patiently walked with the disciples as they struggled to understand who he was, and how God was loving us into redemption. St Paul exhorts us, “let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). I am thinking of Star Trek’s ‘mind meld,’ which passes everything in one mind into the brain of another. God could have done it that way, but didn’t. Instead he showed us the slow and excruciating way of giving everything, unto death on the cross. After the resurrection, the Risen Jesus only met sporadically with His apostles and other disciples. The paschal mystery, the sending of the Holy Spirit, come in God’s time, as does clarity in the teaching of the church. God is incredibly patient. And of course each of us has the personal witness of God’s great patience with us, for often, mercy takes the shape of a patience that endures.

Friends, we are about to celebrate the great feasts of All Saints and All Souls. The first shows us many paths to holiness, many ways of adapting one’s life to do it God’s way. The second, All Souls, invites us to ponder those who have gone before us, especially those we have loved, who have died. In the face of death, in the face of God’s promise to transform us, to bring us to new life, the only posture that is open to us is patient trust in the great mercy of God.

So next time you find yourself fretting, full of anxiety, or frustrated or bursting with annoyance, remember and put your trust in the slow working of God, the patient and persevering way of God with us, and try to do it God’s way, relying on God’s patience, and showing that patience to others. Rich blessings along the way. 

Watch Here

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ of the Archdiocese of Regina,

In the coming days, the people of Saskatchewan will be going to the polls for both provincial and municipal elections. As you know, Catholics are called to be engaged citizens, and to participate in the electoral process as able, using every opportunity to serve the integral promotion of the human person and the common good. We are all aware of unhealthy developments in our democracy and in the erosion of public discourse about meaningful issues. A few days ago I sat down with a few colleagues to reflect on how we bring our faith to bear in the way we approach the election. These reflections are a result of that conversation.

The first thing we did was to attend to Pope Francis’s new Encyclical on human fraternity, Fratelli tutti, and on the fifth chapter, on “A better kind of politics.” Pope Francis observes that “for many people today, politics is a distasteful word” (176), but insists that it needn’t be so. Our current needs globally and in each nation call for “a better kind of politics, one truly at the service of the common good” (154), one “capable of reforming and coordinating institutions” (177), upholding the dignity of the human person, and putting social love at the forefront rather than economics. Love is not only personal and devotional; it has a civic and political dimension (181). It is an act of love, for instance, “to strive to organize and structure society so that one’s neighbour will not find himself in poverty…. If someone helps an elderly person cross a river, that is a fine act of charity. The politician, on the other hand, builds a bridge, and that too is an act of charity” (186).

Pope Francis offers challenging words to those engaged in politics, noting: “politics is something more noble than posturing, marketing and media spin… we do well to ask ourselves, ‘Why I am doing this?’, ‘What is my real aim?’ For as time goes on, reflecting on the past, the questions will not be: ‘How many people endorsed me?’, ‘How many voted for me?’… The real, and potentially painful, questions will be, ‘How much love did I put into my work?’ ‘How much social peace did I sow?’ ‘What good did I achieve in the position that was entrusted to me?’” (197).

Asking hard questions isn’t reserved for political candidates. At a time of polarization and hardening of political lines, it is also important to think about how we participate in the political process, and to recognize the ways in which our political engagement shapes both our own spiritual health and that of our communities. In addition to carefully studying how our Catholic values are or are not represented in the various party platforms, we need to also attend carefully to the impact that politics has on our souls. Do we find that our engagement with our neighbours who might not share our political commitments builds up our capacity to engage in rigorous but respectful dialogue, our willingness to work together for the common good? Do we ever find it difficult to imagine that a good person might come to a different political conclusion than we do? If we are honest before God in prayer, do we find ourselves more or less charitable, or patient, or honest, or generous, because of our political activities and commitments? As Catholics, we should recognize that the health of our society depends more on our own and our community’s growth in virtue than on who wins the next election. So I invite us all to consider that an election is not merely a matter of deciding who to vote for, but a way in which we grow or fail in virtue, a way to build up or tear down our communities.

With the forthcoming provincial election in mind, the Saskatchewan Bishops have approved a non-partisan resource for voters in our province, in collaboration with an organization called Catholic Conscience. We have set up a website, https://catholicconscience.org/saskatchewan2020/ , which “offers voters an opportunity to ensure that Saskatchewan is guided by leaders who will provide practical and efficient leadership with the good of all in mind – including the unborn, the elderly, the young, families, and those who are too often forgotten by society – as well as workers, farmers, business owners, and all future generations.” The website provides a range of information to assist with your discernment, and most notably, a chart which identifies various aspects of Catholic social and moral teaching, and provides the statements from the platforms of the parties running in the forthcoming election. Political parties have been approached and invited to update or provide new information so that anyone using the website will have as comprehensive information as possible. We are immensely grateful to be able to work with “Catholic Conscience,” and hope that you will find this website helpful.

The Catholic voting process always involves informing ourselves about the teachings of the Church and issues relevant to the election, and looking at what our voting options are. Once the election is over, we are also encouraged to stay actively and respectfully engaged with those who have been elected – whether they are our own preferred candidates or not.

Finally, we are encouraged to bring our own discernment, and those running for office, to prayer. Let’s conclude this reflection in prayer:

Lord, Father of our human family,
Your Son Jesus taught us in the Parable of the Good Samaritan
that each of us is called to care for our brothers and sisters
without concern for our differences or what divides us.

Pour your spirit out upon each and every one of us:
Give us, and all involved in the forthcoming election,
a spirit of humility, to acknowledge our failures,
a spirit of gratitude for each of the gifts that you have given us,
a spirit of wisdom, to guide our actions in accordance with your teaching.
a spirit of fraternity so that we might have concern for the most vulnerable,
and a spirit of love, so that we might abide even more fully in you.

O God, Trinity of Love, from the profound communion of your divine life,
grant each and every one of us a deeper sense of unity.
Give to us a desire to sacrifice ourselves for our brothers and sisters.
Help us live like your family did, with simplicity in Nazareth
and as the early Christian community did, whose charity spread throughout the world.
O Good Shepherd, Christ the King,
you are our guide.
Continue to guide us, then, to your will
in this, and in every moment of our lives.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.
St Joseph, pray for us.
St Joan of Arc, pray for us.
St Juan Diego Cuahtaltoatzin, pray for us.
St Kateri Tekakwitha, pray for us.

Archbishop Don’s Weekly Message – Watch HERE

Archbishop Don’s Weekly Message

Watch HERE

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ of the Archdiocese of Regina,

Warm greetings in the Risen Lord. It is now 3 months since my last video message. It was the start of the Summer, and now we are into October. Regarding the pandemic and the guidelines for faith communities, not that much has changed. But I thought it would be helpful to give a quick overview of where we are at, and identify a couple of areas where questions have arisen and where we face challenges.

The protocols for celebrating a Mass in the Archdiocese of Regina remain unchanged. The need to sanitize hands and surfaces and the 2m physical distancing between households continue. The number allowed to attend a Mass can be 30% of building capacity, to a maximum of 150 people, and parishes need to be keeping track of the people who attend each Mass. The way communion is handled is determined locally by each parish priest and his parishioners from a short list of options that have been provided. Singing is only permitted if everyone present is wearing a mask.

The archdiocesan protocol team has recently developed some directions for parishes to hold gatherings outside of Mass. As we enter a season when catechesis and sacrament preparation would normally begin, there are ways for these type of gatherings to be held safely. Attention to detail and pre-planning continue to be important when making the decision to return to any type of meeting or gathering. Staff at the archdiocesan offices are available to assist parishes in navigating the decisions and the details.

As you are likely aware, there are different interpretations about how we as society and as church ought to respond to the pandemic. Are the directives too rigid? Are they too lax? Taking part in the societal debate on this can be fruitful, a good thing to do. Right now it feels as though on the internet you can find experts who take radically different stances. But the church here needs to work with our Saskatchewan civic and health officials, and to be guided by their directives. The working relationship we established gave health officials the confidence to allow faith communities to minister within the parameters just laid out. We continue to raise questions as they arise, and to work within their guidelines.

One question that has arisen internally in the Church concerns the dispensation from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass, a dispensation which has been widely granted by bishops throughout the world. Of course, bishops have sought to protect vulnerable people from feeling obliged to gather with groups where they might contract a serious and possibly fatal disease. We also recognized that the need to limit the number of people gathering indoors at any one time meant it was simply impossible, in larger parishes, for everyone attend Mass, at least on Sunday. As the pandemic drags on, the question of when this dispensation might end is a legitimate one. If Mass is, in fact, the center of our Catholic faith, the place where we meet Christ in the Eucharist and where we truly become who we are as Church, we dare not give the impression that it is unimportant.

The increasing likelihood of further waves of the pandemic and the continued vulnerability of many in our faith community means that the dispensation is likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future, here and around the world. That said, I would like to remind us all of the immense value of our attendance at Sunday Mass. A dispensation granted for specific legitimate reasons is not an announcement that Mass is unimportant. If you are able to safely attend Mass, I strongly encourage you to join your parish community, to receive Christ’s gift of himself to us in the Eucharist, and, in this time of separation, anxiety, and loneliness, to remember in prayer those members of our community who are not able to sacramentally join in “the source and summit” of our Christian life. It is my fervent prayer that, whether we are or are not able to attend Mass, the Lord might use these trying circumstances to draw each of us closer to Himself, given for us.

One other challenge that we face in our contemporary situation concerns the reception of the Eucharist. In offering different ways in which communion can be received, we worked with the more general guidelines of health officials, and asked questions about what would be safe and what would put people’s health in jeopardy, and we made decisions accordingly, decisions not everyone is happy with. Here, I would like to stress two things. First, the Eucharist is to be treated with reverence. Our deep conviction is that Christ is present in the Eucharist, and we should not lose sight of that. Deep love and reverence for the Eucharist is a good and holy attitude that we want to encourage in the Church. Second, it is also our deep conviction that we see the Body of Christ in the lives of all the faithful, especially the most vulnerable members of our community. Listen to this homily excerpt from St. John Chrysostom in the 4th century, about how we are to revere Christ in the Eucharist and in caring for our vulnerable sisters and brothers: “Do you want to honour Christ’s body? Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honour him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked. For he who said ‘this is my body,’ and made it so by his words, also said: ‘You saw me hungry and did not feed me, and inasmuch as you did not do it for one of these, the least of my brothers, you did not do it for me.’… Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.”

Dear brothers and sisters, may you know God’s bountiful blessings as we walk together as church, both treasuring the Eucharist and caring for the vulnerable. Perseverance to you all!