Rarely do I go political when I blog. And this might not necessarily be “political,” but it’s certainly thought provoking.

The following is an excerpt from an interview in this week’s MacLean’s magazine – the Canadian equivalent of Time magazine – with Margaret Atwood surrounding the issues she tackles in her new book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth.

ps. I’ve never read a single solitary volume of Margaret’s, but she is venerated here as one of the great Canadian writers. Its the angle she presents this little stroke from that intrigues me so much.

Q: And you find that we not only have a debt to the environment, to the earth,

but that it’s coming due rather quickly.

A: It’s coming due. It was very interesting to me that when Louisiana was destroyed in that flood the fundamentalists were very quick to say, it’s the punishment of God on a sinful city. Now that the oil industry has been so hard hit in Galveston, are they up on their pulpits saying, God is punishing the oil industry? No, no, no! The interesting thing about the religious component, for me, is that Jesus hardly mentions sex at all. He’s pretty interested in the poor, he’s pretty interested in selling your worldly goods and storing up riches in heaven. However, religious fundamentalists have made it all about sex, and that’s like saying, ” Look at the sex and we’re just not going to talk about what you may be doing in a financial way that is sinful.”

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Today was supposed to be quiet. Wash some laundry. Skim read some light books I grabbed at the library last night…

Then mid-morning I find out via a facebook friend that today representatives from Madonna House have *returned* the Order of Canada medal given to Catherine Doherty in 1976 in symbolic protest over the same award being given to abortionist Dr. Henry Morgentaler.

Holy crap! This is HUGE!!!

Madonna House has posted an official press release and a letter to the Governor General on their site.

CTV has a short video clip interview with Susanna Stubbs, the Director General of Women from Madonna House, and CBC featured the story on the news at noon but I’ve yet to see that clip online. Oh, here’s two more worthy reads.

For those of you who may not know – not pointing fingers at Americans, hehe – the Order of Canada is the highest honor given to Canadians. According to wiki, it is awarded for “the highest degree of merit to Canada and humanity, an outstanding level of talent and service to Canadians, or an exceptional contribution to Canada or Canadians.” I know of nothing akin to it in the U.S.

Last week on Canada Day, it was awarded to the doctor responsible for making abortion legal in Canada.

The uproar has been great. There are at least 4 Facebook groups asking that the award be revoked and a petition to the same purpose started by Campaign Life Coalition, a notable pro-life advocacy group in Ontario. The same group is planning a public protest in Ottawa tomorrow at noon. One Catholic priest out in British Columbia has supposedly mailed back his award, but the media quickly found the dirt on him which makes his gesture very questionable in the public eye. The Canadian bishops have spoken out too.

But Madonna House seems to be the first to put their money where their mouth is and give the award back. The community took a vote on this measure, and its members were unanimously in favor of the move.

I can’t say that I’m not saddened. I have not been quiet about my love for Madonna House over the years. There is something to be said about Christian work that is so far-reaching as to be noticed and awarded by a secular entity. To me, it is the best Christian work that can be done. Because Jesus didn’t hide among his own, supported and comfortable. He went out, got noticed and we all know how that ended.

Catherine didn’t hide either. Even when she did try to hide and retire in Combermere with her second husband, Eddie Doherty, God had a whole other thing in mind. That thing is the apostolate of Madonna House today. And Catherine deserves her award. I suppose, even after the medal is gone, the honor remains.

What a sacrifice. To willingly hand over the recognition of service and their foundress, earned very literally by the sweat of their brows and work of their hands. I have a strong sense to go do some ironing.

In 1976 Catherine received the Order of Canada for, “a lifetime of devoted services to the underprivileged of many nationalities, both in Canada and abroad.” For her it was her greatest decoration, surpassing the Medal of St. George she once received from the Czar. The Order of Canada was an immeasurable gift to her.
It meant: “Canada accepted me.”

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Ever since reading Kate’s article, I’ve been convicted to try to find a way to put God first in my day. I’ve always struggled with making a proper prayer time and, even when I do, concentrating on it. And these days I’m spending more and more of any given day in front of the computer which is full of delightful and delectable distractions. Yet from there, I found my answer.

Hiding among the bookmarks on my homepage, I remembered that I’d bookmarked the daily Scripture readings for Mass. And with good reason. I’ve always enjoyed reading them. Whether aloud as a lector, at home in the quiet or once I attended a day long workshop done by Jeff Cavins where he presented a time line of the entire Bible and the faithful covenant God keeps with his people through it all. It’s where my heart is stirred. Go where you are led, eh?

So, my resolution is to put that bookmark to good use and go through the readings prayerfully when I sit down at the computer each day. There are a plethora of other things to poke at – news, the guild, facebook, twitter, email, friend’s blogs and the list goes on forever – but I make the readings one of the first things that I do so that I have his words in my heart while I do all the others.

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So, my conscience has been itching lately. A good friend shared a hard reality with me – that he thought my faith was deeply influenced by and only existed because of my mother’s heavy hand over my life. This is a friend who met me in college at the Catholic Student Center on our university campus at a time in my life when I was leading youth group and college retreats, as well as going to Adoration and reading in Mass once a week.

I began to be offended, even from one I considered a close friend, but in the light of my mother’s death, have reconsidered. What I realize now is that the seed of my spirituality was watered in its earliest days by a schizophrenic woman. And I must be truthful, her personality, even without the disease, existed to control most everything around her. My brother and only sibling didn’t live by her commands to jump, but I certainly asked “How high?” in most matters.

Oddly enough, I came to faith first of anyone in the family, having joined a youth group and found a friend who would drive me to Mass. She and my brother found their own afterward, but once she did, the day-to-day piety in the house was of course guided by her. It is very hard to ask myself whether my faith eventually became a puppet, especially one so obvious as to be visible to those around me.

The summer I turned 19, I read – of my own volition – Catherine Doherty’s most famous book, Poustinia, and fell in love with faith, simplicity, “folding the wings of my intellect” and my Lord in a way that I never had before. And it was from that moment forward that I began making decisions that my poor mother didn’t like. I chose to visit Madonna House. I chose to marry a Canadian and I chose to move away, far away, from home.

Perhaps you can guess what a horrible quandary it was – making decisions based on faith without the truly blessing of the one I had once consulted in all things. How do you argue one heart of faith against another? In comparison, those early years of faith seemed easy, made up of prayers and mechanizations.

Am I being over-dramatic? Nope. My friend was annoyingly right in his observation. I do believe a great deal of my involvement with the Church at the time was pandering, and even though I had come to it first, had evolved into yet another way to make Mom happy.

Thank goodness that God had a fresh packet of seeds hiding behind his back for just the right moment.

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Whenever I have missed someone’s presence, it has been my habit to remember them at Mass.

And in its essence, with our presence at Mass and it being constantly celebrated all over the world and the whole cohort of angels and saints being present as well, doesn’t it seem to you that not only is it a blessed occasion to receive the Son’s offering but that it’s also the closest those of us still hidden from eternal mysteries ever get to those who have gone before?

It occurred to me for the first time today that my mom may be among that number and more present there than anywhere else. And I imagined in my prayers, during my prayers, that she was kneeling beside me and that we could still worship the Word made flesh together.

Where are you going?
Where are you going?
Can you take me with you?
For my hand is cold
And needs warmth
Where are you going?

Far beyond where the horizon lies
Where the horizon lies
And the land sinks into mellow blueness
Oh please, take me with you

Let me skip the road with you
I can dare myself
I can dare myself
I’ll put a pebble in my shoe
And watch me walk (watch me walk)
I can walk and walk!
(I can walk!)

I shall call the pebble Dare
I shall call the pebble Dare
We will talk, we will talk together
We will talk (chorus) about walking
Dare shall be carried
And when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe, singing:
“Meet your new road!”
Then I’ll take your hand
Finally glad
Finally glad
That you are here
By my side

By my side
By my side
By my side

(Spoken- Judas)
Then the man they called Judas Iscariot
Went to the chief priests, and said
“What will you give me to betray Him to you?”
They paid him thirty pieces of silver.

(Spoken – other character)
And from that moment, he began to look out for an opportunity
To betray Him.
(Matthew 26:14-16)

By my side
By my side
By my side
By my side

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