Long time between posts!

It has been a long time between posts - a few hours short of a week.
Stephanie Benedetti - our parish Youth Minister - was commenting on Tuesday that I was overdue for a Blog post!  Stephanie is the one who did all the hard work of investigating and designing and training the rest of the team on the updating of the parish web site. All of this is in addition to organizing our youth ministries (Edge and LifeTeen), visiting schools, and attending sports games and activities within the parish.   Yeahhhh Stephanie!

Last Thursday I went to the Tie-Breaker hockey game in the Memorial Cup round robin - between the Owen Sound Attack and the Kootenay Ice.  The Attack went up in the first period 2-0, and the Ice battled back and the second period ended 3-2 for the Ice.  In the third period the Ice score 3 goals in less than 5 minutes.  The Attack got another goal but then Kootenay added an empty net goal in the final minutes and the final score was 7-3.  Owen Sound was eliminated, and Kootenay went on to fight St. Mike's Majors in the semi final. I met one of our parishioners at the game - Jordan is being confirmed this year - and he had heard me talking about the Attack at Mass on Sunday morning!  (We wont hold it against him that he is a St. Mike's Majors fan!)  So while the Attack were not in the Memorial Cup finals - they are still OHL Champions!!!
Looking forward to next year - Go Attack Go!

Friday I drove to Sarnia - usually I drive through Sarnia on my way to the States for shopping trips to the Detroit area (one of those 2 day breaks is coming up after masses on Fathers' Day - when I will head to the US with my Dad!) This trip to Sarnia was part of a series of Talks that Catherine Ecker and I have been giving over the years to the RCIA team members in the Diocese of London.
We spent a day with the teams from across that Diocese looking at the Period of Purification and Enlightenment - which usually corresponds with the season of Lent. It was hard to do these talks - and preach - in the context of Lent, when we are in the great 50 days of the Easter Season !!!

Monday we began our Confirmation Marathon! I call it that because we are celebrating Confirmation each evening - Monday to Thursday for 2 weeks!  When you do the math: 8 celebrations - with 30-34 candidates at each celebration - you realize we celebrate the sacrament with almost 285 young people.  Each of those young people receive's a certificate signed by yours truly! That means lots of ink on certificates!  These are joyful days - yet also full - since I still have to see couples for marriage appointments, for Baptism appointments when they have an infant to Baptize, and there are people who just need to talk about things that are going on in their life.

This morning we celebrated Mass at St. Michael - our Catholic High School in Bolton. The entrance procession included representatives of each of the clubs, teams and activities in the school this inaugural year.  It was impressive to see how many different activities have been started in this first year of St. Michael's being open!  The chaplain - Urszula Cybulko - spoke at the end of Mass of how these activities represented the love of the teachers.  That the teachers had loved the students and had committed to being with the students and helping them realize how they are gifted and talented in so many ways.  God bless the work our teachers do in each of our schools!  Go Thunder!