Maureen's thoughts

Friday, August 24, 2018

Our Lady of the Cape Pilgrimage - August 2018

Co-Hosted by the Shrine

and the Marian Devotional Movement

Celebrating the Queenship of Mother Mary

with Bishop Pierre-Olivier Tremblay o.m.i., Rector of the Shrine,

Father Tim Nelligan, Pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish, Ottawa, ON.

and Dennis and Angelina Girard.

Bishop Tremblay was ordained Auxiliary Bishop of Trois Rivieres on July 22, 2018.

His Motto is UN FEU SUR LA TERRE so you can see evangelization is very dear to the heart of our new Bishop: hmm and Mary is the
STAR OF THE NEW EVANGELIZATION

Tuesday August 21, 2018

Our Journey begins

I was greatly blessed to have two delightful travelling companions, Ann Louise Revells and Jennifer Huestis, both from Blessed Sacrament Parish. During my three days at the Cape I made many new wonderful friends. The majority of the pilgrims were from Blessed Sacrament Parish.

Ann Louise was our driver ( thank you ) and came by my house around 12:15pm Tuesday and the three of us were on our way. We stopped at Rigaud around 3:00pm and visited the Beautiful Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes situated on a lovely hill overlooking the small town. What a spectacular view!!! Because of highway construction and detours along the way we believe that Mother Mary placed the exit to this lovely town right in front of our noses because there it was and in a split second all three of us said "ok let’s take it" or something like that.

We remained at this Shrine for about an hour and a half and had a lovely picnic sharing all the goodies we brought with us. Thank you mama Mary

I took this photo when we were leaving

We arrived at the Madonna Hotel in Cap de la Madeleine at approximately 6:30pm and checked in. After taking our luggage to our rooms and freshening up, we made our way over to the old Shrine to attend mass at 8:00pm. After mass we drove into the town till we found a Tim Horton’s. Yummy!

After supper we headed back to the hotel and settled in for the night.

Thank you Jesus and Mother Mary for the safe trip and the beautiful day!

Wednesday August 22, 2018

Feast of the Coronation of Mary

This was a quiet day which was actually very nice. I spent most of the time reading, praying, lighting candles and just looking around. I bought a few souvenirs at the gift shop, and visited the small outdoor Kiosk to request some masses. There was a steady but soft rain on and off all day but it was nice and warm so it didn’t bother me at all. Really it was kind of peaceful.

In the evening five of us had dinner at the Stratos Pizzeria in the town. The company was wonderful and the food was delicious

And of course we all attended mass for the Feast of the Queenship of Mary celebrated by Bishop Tremblay at 8 at the old Shrine

After mass we attended a reception in the Basilica basement. There, we were able to venerate approximately 150 first class relics; so amazing! What a blessing!

Final Blessing of the mass

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Photos in the Basement of the Large Basilica

Thank you Jesus and Mother Mary !

Thursday August 23,2018

in the Basilica Basement

After a lovely Continental Breakfast at the Madonna Hotel we headed over to the basement of the large Basilica to hear the miraculous story of Our Lady of the Cape from Bishop Tremblay

Photos from Thursday AM

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Live From the Kiosk DnA Live

1:30 Pm in the Basilica Basement

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Thursday afternoon photos

Mass to the Holy Spirit
at 8:00 pm in the Old Shrine

and the blessing of the roses

Solemn Blessing and closing Hymn

Nada Te Turbe

my favourite Taize Hymn

Nada te turbe
Nada te espanta
Quien a Dios tiene
Nada le falta

Nada te turbe
Nada te falta
Solo Dios basta

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Reception in the

Basilica Basement after Mass

Salve Regina sung by Bishop Pierre-Olivier Tremblay and Fr. Tim Nelligan

Salve, Regina

Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae;
vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae.
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia ergo, advocata nostra,
illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.
Et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria.

The Basilica was the "Hub" for the 2018 Cape Pilgrimage

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Friday August 24, 2018

Going Home

Many of the pilgrims had returned home but for those of us still at the Shrine we had the privilege of attending Mass celebrated by Father Tim Nelligan in the Chapel of the Oblate Residence at 9:00am

After Mass Jennifer and Ann Louise and I prayed the
Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary before leaving for Ottawa
( with meditations by Ann Louise )

Thank you to all the pilgrims and Mama Mary!!!

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Pro Life homily - Father Bob Poole, August 18, 2018

PILGRIMAGE OF PRO LIFE MASSES

ST. PATRICK FALLOWFIELD

AUGUST 18 2018

10:00am

From: Bob Poole

Subject: homily

ENTRANCE : Welcome to our monthly pro=life Mass. We gather at a particularly

urgent time , when the rights and freedoms we take for granted are very much under

attack. It seems that it is a case of two steps forward, one step back. We can get

discouraged and feel we are losing the battle. But it is especially when we feel we are

facing the Long Defeat that the Final Victory is close at hand. Let us ask the Lord to

encourage us and restore to us the joy of our salvation, as we confess our sins to Him and

ask for His forgiveness. (responsorial psalm)

HOMILY: It is not difficult to work out that the people bringing their children to Jesus

for blessing in the gospel today , are the parents of those same children. They recognize

that Jesus is a very good "thing" and they want him to bless their children with good

things. This reading is suggested for baptism ceremonies and I use it often at such

occasions to speak about the desire Jesus has to bless children with every good thing. He

wants to bless them with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, as St Paul

mentions in Ephesians 1: 3ff . So many parents tell themselves that it is better to let their

children wait until they are of an age to ask for baptism. But parents do not wait to

engage their children in an intellectual discussion about whether they want to be fed, or

clothed, or educated. They automatically know that these things are necessary and good

for their children, and they make the decision to provide them. So, if parents know how

to provide their children with physical and material things, why should they be

disqualified from providing them with spiritual blessings, such as sonship in Christ,

forgiveness of sins, and eternal life ?

"The life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine", says God in our first

reading. Parents do not have autonomous control over their children. They are stewards,

exercising care over their children on behalf of the Lord, to whom each person belongs.

"If we live, we live for the Lord, if we die , we die for the Lord. This is why Christ lived

and died, that he might become Lord of the living and the dead' (Romans 14) . Parents do

not have the right under God to make decisions to abort the child within their womb.

Family members do not have the right to decide whether their elderly , infirm, parents ,

should be euthanized. "I have no pleasure in the the death of anyone, says the Lord God"

, in our first reading from the prophet Ezekiel. God is the God of life, not of death. He

does not desire the death of anyone. When we promote a culture of death, instead of life,

as we are doing in this country of ours right now, we are going right against the will of

God. "Turn then and live" ends our first reading.

On July 25th , 1968, Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) . He

predicted four destructive consequences of contraception -an increase in abortion,

increased infidelity, a general lowering of morality, and a growing disrespect for women .

They have all happened. Humanae Vitae noted the moral and cultural perils of

contraception, and their contradiction of God's will for each husband and wife to perfect

one another and cooperate in the generation and rearing of new life. In the fifty years

since the promulgation of Humanae Vitae , the Church's teaching has been challenged,

rejected, and even ridiculed by the secular culture. I have to admit that , when I became a

priest, 30 years ago, the prevalent mood amongst my fellow clergy men was that Pope

Paul VI had made a huge mistake ,in going against the view of the commission he

himself had established to look into the whole question of contraception. They had

recommended to him that the Church should permit Catholics to use methods of

contraception. In his encyclical, Humanae Vitae, the Pope rejected that recommendation

and appealed to the constant teaching of the Church against contraception, a teaching that

all Christian denominations had accepted , until 1930, and Protestant leaders, such as

Luther, Wesley and Calvin all spoke out against the immorality of contraception.

I was 13 when the document was released, and I remember the consternation that it

produced, how priests and bishops were ordered to promote this teaching, how many

priests and nuns left the Catholic Church in protest, how the laity felt betrayed and made

the decision to reject that teaching. When I became a priest in 1988, the Church was still

swirling in a moral turmoil over this question, and i received and embraced the

conscientious moral rejection of the ban on contraception. I urged married women to go

with their conscience, I gave them all the moral and theological reasons for taking the

Pill, and I thought I was right to do so.

I was brought up sharp when Pope St John Paul II took up this whole question of

contraception and stridently endorsed it, but put it within the whole understanding of the

theology of the body and human sexuality. At around the same time, science was

beginning to reveal the medical dangers to women of using the Pill, we began to

understand that the Pill was not a neutral thing, that it actually created within the womb a

hostile environment to life, that it was actually an abortifacent in many circumstances.

We began to see that, far from freeing women to become mistresses of their own

sexuality, the Pill actually enslaved them more, they were seen no longer as people in

their own right, but as slaves of men's sexual desires, pornography and sexual diseases

flourished, and if a woman became pregnant, the Pill notwithstanding, then the obvious

thing to do was for them to get an abortion.

Our society suffers from its failure to heed the prophetic warning enshrined in Humanae

Vitae. Today, more than four out of every ten North American children are born out of

wedlock. Divorce is rampant. Violent crimes against women have vastly increased,. And

pornography degrades both men and women. But the most tragic consequence has been

that the medical profession has normalized the use of contraception as a medical

necessity, ignoring its abortifacient capabilities and detrimental effects on women’s

health. This use had led to millions of unborn children being killed by abortion as the

"back up" when contraception fails.

Humanae Vitae warned that governments would take coercive measures to impose

contraception on their citizens. Certainly, tyrannical governments have done so, and some

Western nations impose these measures upon Third World nations as a requirement for

foreign aid. In America, recently, we witnessed the Affordable Care Mandate coercing

the Little Sisters of the Poor, and other Christian educational and service agencies, to

fund contraceptive and abortifacient drugs. Here in Canada, the government has insisted

that any organization or church seeking to receive funds ,must sign up to the

government's acceptance of the basic rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and

Freedoms , including explicitly women's reproductive rights, i/e to contraception and

abortion even though these so-called rights are not mentioned in the Charter of Rights

and Freedoms !

Contraception distorts the great gift of our sexuality and leads us to objectify those we

claim to love. The contraceptive mentality is inherently flawed because it convinces us

that we, not God, are the authors of human life. We become self-absorbed by pursuing

our desires instead of God’s will for our lives. Our second reading this Sunday, from

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, urges us to "live, not as unwise people, but as wise, making

the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what

the will of the Lord is." What is the will of the Lord? It is provided in our first reading at

today’s mass. "I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God." God

Sunday, August 19, 2018 - Beginning with Mass -

-Beginning with Mass -

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mass today was concelebrated by our two priests Fr. John Likozar C.C. and Fr. Rob Arsenault C.C.

Fr. Rob gave the homily. And as usual the homily was really good. All our priests give wonderful homilies. We are truly blessed.

Father began with the conversion story of CS Lewis. I didn't know this but Lewis was friends with J.R. Tolkein.

Lewis had a radio program during the second world war and was more or less a Chaplain for the War effort .

He wasn't always a man of faith however. He was born in Northern Ireland, sent to a boarding school and attended university and during the First World War he had no faith at all but he ached for something more. The next 15 years I guess could be called his spiritual journey. He felt there had to be something more to life but he couldn't turn the corner on Christianity: there was always some doubt.

During that time he used to go to a local pub with his friend JRTolkien and a couple of others fellows. Here they had discussions on the mysteries of Christianity: creation, redemption the eucharist etc. They didn’t ask "Is it true ?" "Is it real?" They asked themselves: what does it mean, to be created? To have redemption? What does it mean to have a place in eternity? What does it mean to be known and loved by God?

It was in this environment, with a small group of men with hopes and dreams similar to himself that led CS Lewis to the Truth of Christianity.

Fr. Rob spoke of the power of the Eucharist which is the Body and Blood Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ which is food for our journey. With the Eucharist we can transcend this present age: our circumstances. When we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ we become more like Christ. We can become that better person. Our wounds can be healed. And we can share this goodness with others.

Father said that if one the greatest minds of the last century needed a friend to help know these truths then what about you and me? So he suggested the Faith Formation Sessions in our Parish which will be available again this Fall. It takes a bit of effort but what we receive is like a gold mine which never ends; there is always more. God is not done with us yet. He loves us too much .

Amen

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Part 2

After lunch I dropped over to Debbie's for a short visit on my way for a little gathering at Pat's with Johanna and Maude and their little girls, Agnes and Juliet

Here's Chewie .

Dino got relegated to the basement because he is too friendly and would have jumped on me.

Sorry Dino

I'm not allowed to take Debbie's photo so...….

I think she just means I can't photograph her face

Matthew is ok with having his photo taken .
Notice the tatoo. He's got more on his legs

Part 3- "Maloneys in the Wild"

aka "the loud Maloneys"

Pat told granddaughter Agnes who was coming over and

Agnes answered "They are really loud"

Paula and Sebastian and the umbrella are colour coordinated

I was leaving and forgot my slippers

I put them down when I rummaged through my purse looking for my phone which was in the living room. So after Pat fetched my phone I left without my slippers

Thank you Lord for another day!