WCR This Week

What you sing and how you sing it on Sunday mornings is about to get more fine tuning. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has launched a search for hymns, songs, chants and Mass settings to include in a new national hymnal. The CCCB plans to replace the Catholic Book of Worship III in 2018. Composers have until Nov. 30 to get their hymns, psalms and Mass settings into the National Liturgy Office in Ottawa. The green CBW III is now more than 20 years old, having first hit the presses in 1994. It has been made obsolete by two separate changes to the liturgy in English-speaking Canada.

In a moving celebration at St. Joseph Basilica July 9, Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith ordained four men to the permanent diaconate. He also ordained seminarian Roger Niedzielski to the transitional diaconate, the final phase of his preparation for the priesthood. After serving as a deacon for a year, Niedzielski will likely be ordained a priest. The four new permanent deacons are professional men with extensive ministry experience in their parishes. They just completed a four-year formation program and were ordained for the service of the Word, altar and charity.

Time and again one heard a familiar refrain from dinner tables at the Catholic-Muslim dinner held at Providence Renewal Centre June 28: "Building bridges." The event was an iftar, the ritual meal that is held at the end of each fasting day during the Muslim month of Ramadan. Two hundred Muslims, Catholics and people of other faiths came together to meet each other, and discover the meaning of the tenets of each others' faiths. By doing that, they, as was said many times during the evening, were building bridges.

Because of Canada Post's threatened lockout of its workers, the Western Catholic Reporter did not provide a print edition of its scheduled July 11 issue. However, we did make the e-edition of that issue available free of charge via the newspaper's website, wcr.ab.ca.

Theodore Waskahat's words were wrapped in reverence. "The presence of God was there." The 29-year-old acclaimed musician mentioned he had been nervous when he played the flute at the third annual St. Kateri Gathering at Maskwacis July 9. The more than 200 people in the audience did not notice any nervousness. They fell silent as they listened to his emotive renditions of The Drum Song and The Lord's Prayer.

As Redemptorist Father Mick Fleming blessed the waters of Lac Ste. Anne July 17, people waded into the lake in droves, anxious to dip themselves into the sacred waters. Many filled jars with the blessed liquid to take back home. A young woman, pain clearly visible on her face, slowly pushed her walker into the lake in the hope of obtaining relief. Younger people helped their elders into the water. Some older people with canes walked in by themselves. Priests and bishops also walked inside the lake to bless the people, one by one.

Matilda Alber and husband Pascal Zafar underwent many challenges back in Syria. Pascal was kidnapped, Matilda's brother was also kidnapped and the couple's two pharmacies were destroyed by bombing. Life was unbearable. So the couple packed what they could and left for Lebanon only to learn that Christians like them are not welcome in the refugee camps. All that is over now, and Matilda and Pascal wear pleasant smiles and seem happy. They have been in Edmonton since October, all thanks to the Sisters of Providence who sponsored them.

Joan Carr, superintendent of Edmonton Catholic Schools for the past 10 years, has been recognized as Canada's leading school superintendent. The Canadian Association of School System Administrators presented Carr with its award of excellence at its Winnipeg conference July 7. The award recognizes the Canadian superintendent of the year.

EDMONTON - Edmonton's Catholic school board will be required to report regularly to Alberta's deputy minister of education after a consultant's report concluded the board is unlikely to alter its high degree of "conflict and confusion" without direct oversight from outside. In a highly-critical 16-page report, consultant Donald Cummings says the board's current governing style – which includes bullying, disrespect, distrust, innuendo and attack – is "intractable."

Jesus moves freely among his fellow men and women, with little regards for their religious practices or even their religious denominations. When Margaret Silf began to believe that, she felt free and started to live outside normal Church structures. She felt those structures were a box, which had become too uncomfortable. Silf is unquestionably a believer, a spiritual woman, but she is not married to "stale" structures.