Downward Tree Tops
April 23, 2018
If we were birds, we would see trees as we often imagine God sees the world, down from above on the creation that grows up to give us places of sanctuary and rest.
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Give Thanks
April 23, 2018
In the early morning light, wonder is present within creation, each serving as a conduit of a particular, natural grace.
Give thanks for the sheer rock, its face turned forever towards the Son ...
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Why Do We Scale the Mountaintops?
April 23, 2018
Have you ever scaled a mountain or even a small hill? What is it about the process of ascent? Are we following an intrinsic desire set forth by the desert fathers or our first fathers even, to seek His face?
Will I go up and around it or will I attempt to scale it while keeping my eye on its tallest peek? Why do we scale mountaintops at all? Did it begin with Moses and Decalogue? I begin my ascent without an answer to my question ...
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Reaching Millennials With Religious Education
Beth Green with Peter Stockland
April 20, 2018
Beth Green, program director for Cardus Education, talks to Convivium’s Peter Stockland about new research showing the benefits of religious education for members of the “lost in transition” Millennial generation.
Until the Cardus Education Survey (CES) came along there wasn't an awful lot of data about the role of the school sector and education in this conversation about the religious and spiritual lives of teenagers Peter Stockland: Cardus Education has just released a research paper looking at the Millenn...
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Wrong Way Charlie
Raymond J. de Souza
April 19, 2018
New Democrat MP Charlie Angus’ bid to embarrass Pope Francis into apologizing – yet again – for Canada’s residential schools is wrong, wrong, and monstrously wrong, writes Convivium Editor-in-Chief Father Raymond de Souza.
Angus pronounced himself unsatisfied and therefore wants a resolution of the House of Commons that would demand Catholic bishops invite Pope Francis to appear in Canada and offer contrition He wants Canada’s Catholic bishops to invite Pope Francis to visit Canada to apologize for the role of the Cat...
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The Point Of Our Prayers
Brittany Beacham
April 18, 2018
North America’s public grief ritual includes proclaiming "our prayers are with the victims." The words have become so common they’re often being deemed meaningless, especially from political lips. Convivium contributor Brittany Beacham sees an even deeper problem: Culturally, we no longer know what prayer itself means. What, she asks, is its purpose? And where, above all, does it point?
So as I look forward, as I breathe out words of praise, plead my intercession, lift my supplication, bow my head in repentance and lift my hands in lament, I trust the work of the Spirit of God, not only drawing me into prayer, but further into the heart of God The words that many learned in childho...
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Saskatchewan’s Silent Spring
Alan Hustak
April 17, 2018
In the nightmare and mystery of the crash that claimed 16 lives from tiny Humboldt, Saskatchewan writer Alan Hustak confronts the paradox of an apparently indifferent god’s April cruelty, and eternal faith in spring’s renewal.
Just outside of Swift Current, on the Trans-Canada Highway, you will find a black granite memorial to four hockey players killed in a bus accident in 1986 Now, more crosses will be planted at the same intersection to mark the spot where the collision between a semi-trailer and a bus carrying the Hum...
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Heaven Meets Earth
April 17, 2018
As clouds scatter across the sky, viewers are drawn to the density of the landscape and the sheer creative expanse of creation, heaven meeting earth in tumbling abandon.
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A Beacon in the Night
April 17, 2018
An old, worn tarpaulin is transformed from within by the presence of a torch. Are our worn frame so too capable of being lit by a Holy Flame?
Transform our aged and worn frames into beacons, lit from within by Your holy flame. ...
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Flickering Flame
April 17, 2018
As the sun banks in the low hills of the wadi, the power of a flickering flame brings old biblical prayers back to the tongues of those it illuminates.
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Raw Christianity
Greg Musselman and Hannah Marazzi
April 16, 2018
After 15 years with The Voice of the Martyrs Canada, former sportscaster Greg Musselman has travelled to more than 50 countries where Christianity is persecuted but also, he tells Convivium’s Hannah Marazzi, purified and renewed in the raw choice of loving Christ.
Convivium: You began to work in full time ministry with The Voice of Martyrs Canada in 2003 after serving for three years as a volunteer How many thousands and thousands are being imprisoned for their faith, tortured, or always living under threats that their church is going to be bombed in places l...
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The Ache of Impatient Gardening
Alastair Sterne
April 13, 2018
When Alastair Sterne was sent to plant a new Anglican Network in Canada church in downtown Vancouver, he never dreamed how arid the soil would be. Then the ache in his heart became the joyful hope of trust in God.
Two years have since passed and as I reflect on the past six years of church planting in Canada’s “most secular” city, my mind more readily returns to what I did not expect When I was about to start church planting in Vancouver, a lovely curmudgeon of a pastor said to me, “I look forward to seeing w...
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Jesus And Humboldt
Raymond J. de Souza
April 12, 2018
Father Raymond de Souza, Convivium’s editor in chief, says a pastor’s unadorned call to Christ was crucial following this week’s horrific bus crash in Saskatchewan.
So I admired greatly the words of Pastor Sean Brandow of the Humboldt Bible Church and chaplain for the Broncos hockey team Pastor Brandow and Coach Haugan remind us, though, that what is needed more than anything is to hear from God, to encounter Jesus ...
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Springing the Debt Trap
Peter Stockland with Brian Dijkema
April 11, 2018
This week, Cardus Work and Economics gave municipalities in Ontario data-driven advice about handling new powers over the debt trap that is the payday loan industry. Convivium’s Peter Stockland spoke with program director Brian Dijkema about helping cities help the working poor.
If it is under-utilized advertising space anyway, why wouldn’t municipalities make a deal with credit unions and alternatives to market this product? Why not help them cover one of the major overhead costs? Some libertarians don't like this idea because they think it interferes with the market, but ...
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Harsh Like Halogen
April 11, 2018
Do we have the imagination to find the Divine in the midst of perfection? Where is the sacred to be found in the midst of mass produced perfection, arrangements set just so?
Yet why shouldn’t You be there? In the neat as well as the mess? Here and there, everywhere, even or perhaps especially in the glare of the harsh halogen light. ...