Wisdom of the Saints

Breanne Valerie

July 11, 2018

While exciting new books with perfectly chosen typography are easy to grab in hopes that they will invigorate our faith, there is better literature that often goes overlooked, writes Convivium contributor Breanne Valerie. The Saints, in their quiet wisdom, illuminate a quieter and simpler way to Christ.

Teresa of Avila in her incredible wisdom provides seven brilliant dwelling places in which to grow and learn about oneself in effort to draw nearer to the true light already sitting within One, the beauty of God’s love and grace reflected in each room, drawing one closer and closer to the centre of ...

Read more...

Faith in the Present Tense

Hannah Marazzi

July 10, 2018

Compelled by the depth of simultaneous faith and suffering articulated in Kate Bowler’s Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved, reader Hannah Marazzi emerges challenged to examine the complex intersections of suffering and faithfulness, trusting, and questioning.

To suffer well, bravely, honestly, painfully – together – a people marked as Kate says, “By the presence of an unbidden God Part memoir, part theological reflection, Everything Happens for a Reason chronicles the lived-experience of its author Kate Bowler – a young theologian diagnosed with terminal...

Read more...

Tuned to True Calling

Chiara Bertoglio

July 9, 2018

Pianist Chiara Bertoglio reflects on her two-fold identity, as both a musician and a Christian. When, as a child, she wanted to be the greatest pianist in the world, she now realizes she was trying to be something other than the actual, flesh-and-bone Chiara – and something other than what she was designed to be.

And it’s not just a matter of emotions or tears: I’m more and more fascinated by how music can really become a theological expression, a language in which and through which one can say and hear meaningful truths about the God who is Truth I teach both piano and musicology, at conservatories and univ...

Read more...

Questions from the Crowd

Jamil Jivani

July 9, 2018

In late June, Convivium’s Peter Stockland engaged in public conversation with lawyer, teacher and community activist, and author Jamil Jivani, 30, about his new book Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity. At the end of the conversation, members of the crowd added their own voices to the dialogue. Here's what they said.

Youth workers are really important in shifting a lot of anxieties that young people have in some of those situations toward positive activities, and offering positive ways of spending your time For most people who have a hard time with their ways of reacting to things in their lives, say a lot of yo...

Read more...

Saintly Youth

Raymond J. de Souza

July 6, 2018

Although young saints are usually martyrs, two admirable teenagers, each marked by a struggle with cancer, advanced a step closer to sainthood yesterday. Saints come in all ages and conditions of life and circumstances, Father Raymond J. de Souza tells us. Let us learn from their venerable examples for it is never too early to become holy. 

Both Alexia and Carlo are unusual in that young saints are usually martyrs Once the human judgement being is complete, before a candidate can be declared a saint, evidence of miracles worked through the intercession of the candidate – another exhaustive process – is required Alexia and her family, f...

Read more...

Trusting Waters

July 6, 2018

Life lived on and by the water, a holy place of sorts. Is not water the space in which we are most continually asked to trust?

Is she headed away for a weekend? Does she transport these beautiful items to market? Is she bringing gifts to a neighbour? Life lived on and by the water, a holy place of sorts ...

Read more...

Home on the Eddy

July 6, 2018

Smog shrouds what little sunlight we get in this season. The water laps on the worn concrete bricks along the eddy I call home.

It is the place in which I have watched the sun rise and fall ...

Read more...

The Watched Waterway

July 6, 2018

Worn rock lapped thin by years of canal murmurings. Brightly coloured dilapidated building keeps watch along the waterway, with shutters for eyes and laundry lines for their instrument of measurement they bear silent witness to the life than unfolds each day along this waterway commute.

...

Read more...

Mentors, Manipulators And Making It New

Peter Stockland with Jamil Jivani

July 6, 2018

In late June, Convivium’s Peter Stockland engaged in public conversation with lawyer, teacher and community activist, and author Jamil Jivani, 30, about his new book Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity. In this third installment of three parts, Convivium will serialize an edited transcript of the discussion so readers who weren’t able to attend might experience Jivani’s remarkable story and wisdom

When I learned how to read about these people who were so similar and so different at the same time, I started to get a sense of what the distinction is between the mentors and the manipulators How do we compete? How do we offer a more compelling identity? A more compelling narrative? How do we give...

Read more...

A Life Saved by Tears

Peter Stockland with Jamil Jivani

July 5, 2018

In late June, Convivium’s Peter Stockland engaged in public conversation with lawyer, teacher and community activist, and author Jamil Jivani, 30, about his new book Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity. In this second installment of three parts, Convivium will serialize an edited transcript of the discussion so readers who weren’t able to attend might experience Jivani’s remarkable story and wisdom

They treat young people and young men in particular as if they are necessary for a Hollywood-esque shift for our species that young men who commit to these ideas and this understanding of a faith can be the difference maker in where the world goes next It’s an Islam that becomes a stand-in for polit...

Read more...

Getting There From Here

Peter Stockland with Jamil Jivani

July 4, 2018

In late June, Convivium’s Peter Stockland engaged in public conversation with lawyer, teacher and community activist, and author Jamil Jivani, 30, about his new book Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity. Over the next three days, Convivium will serialize an edited transcript of the discussion so readers who weren’t able to attend might experience Jivani’s remarkable story and wisdom.

That, to me, is an almost clinical description of people that I've known and experienced in life, of an environment where exactly the kind of things that you're addressing, the rage, that sense of crisis, that sense of identity, unfold The difficulty that men generally have, and certainly younger me...

Read more...

Special Collection: Reader Poetry

July 3, 2018

Convivium recently asked for poets of faith to submit a reflection on the intersection of the divine in their city. Dive into the responses we received from readers!

Raymond Peringer was born of Austrian parents at high noon on Easter in the Extraordinary Holy Year of 1933 in Toronto as Raumund Puhringer Keeping the passion alive, she completed her B.Ed at Queen's and went on to study Theology at the Master's level at Regis College at the University of Toronto R...

Read more...

Broken Hallelujahs For Canada

Brittany Beacham

June 29, 2018

On Canada Day 2018, Convivium contributor Brittany Beacham urges Canadians of faith to take time to pray for the country we love, and those who lead it. Speaking from a Christian Mennonite perspective, Beacham beautifully voices the truth across traditions that to fully honour God, we must ask His blessing on those who work in our service.

The middle finger stood taller than the others, a reminder to pray for the government and the leaders of our country Whether good or bad, righteous or faithless, we pray for our leaders and for God to work through them Throughout the Scriptures, God tells us to pray for our leaders and our governmen...

Read more...

An Attack On All

June 28, 2018

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn itself and rule against Trinity Western University was more than just a defeat for the Evangelical Christian school. It attacked the very idea of community, writes Convivium contributor Ryan Topping.

What the Court here rules is that you may keep your religions, you may own your sincerely formed beliefs, you may form distinctive plans of life… so long as you keep them to yourself How long can our democracy thrive without a public space for religion? Our history is filled with cautionary tales ...

Read more...

Free Not To Speak

Peter Stockland

June 27, 2018

Its purpose is to launch more legal challenges on purely business grounds to the Canada Summer Jobs attestation requirement, and to raise awareness of what spokesperson Tamara Jansen called “shocking overreach” by the federal government “Similarly, the right to freedom of thought, belief and opinion...

Read more...