World Day of Prayer 2025

February is the shortest month of the year and we are already looking at March and planning for World Day of Prayer which always takes place each year on the first Friday of March.

This year's prayer service was put together by the women of the Cook Islands and is to be celebrated on March 7, 2025.  I appreciated finding this attached video because I had no idea where the Cook Islands were.  The women of the Cook Islands tell their story as indigenous people being colonized and their story is not unlike that of the indigenous people in our own country of Canada.

““I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.””

— Psalm 139

If you wish to take part in the prayer service, please search for the Christian Churches in your area that will be gathering to pray together for the women of the Cook Islands.

-Sister Elaine Cole, CSJ

Image: Hanny Naibaho/Unsplash

About Family

In Alberta, it was noted that February was a month without a day to have a holiday celebration.  Alberta passed the first Family Day Act in 1990.  The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta—Helen Hunley—established the third Monday of every February as Alberta Family Day.  Other Provinces adopted the holiday over the next twenty years.  Saskatchewan founded “Family Days” in 2007, and Ontario followed in 2008 then British Columbia in 2013.  British Columbia is the only province to choose the second Monday of the month instead of the third Monday. Other Provinces have adopted similar holidays in February.

Family Day is meant to provide an opportunity to spend quality time strengthening family relationships.  I’m reminded of the scripture from Exodus 20:12, that reads

“Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you”.

You may recognize this as the Fourth Commandment given to Moses on Mount Sinai.  It’s rather curious to note that this is the only Commandment with a condition attached, with a ‘provisio’.  Respect, esteem shown your parents merits long life wherever God is leading you.  This could be one interpretation of the Fourth Commandment.

I believe the Indigenous Community live instinctively their love, respect and esteem for their elders and merit to live long in this God-given land.

Perhaps we should focus on our families showing the members love, respect and esteem, so that we too can live long and peacefully in this land we call Canada.

-Sister Elaine Cole, CSJ

An Indispensable Man

Years ago, when I moved and began teaching at a new school with a new staff, I found this poem in my mailbox.  It touched me in a positive way; so much so, that I kept it all these years.

“THE INDISPENSABLE MAN

Sometime, when you’re feeling important,
Sometime, when your ego’s in bloom,
Sometime, when you take it for granted,
You’re the best qualified in the room:
Sometime when you feel, that your going,
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions,
And see how it humbles your soul.

Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out, and the hole that’s remaining,
Is a measure of how you’ll be missed.
You can splash all you please when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop, and you’ll find that in no time,
It looks quite the same as before.

The moral in this quaint example,
Is to do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself, but remember,
There’s no indispensable man.”

— by Saxon White Kessinger

On December 30, we celebrate the anniversary of the death of Father Jean-Pierre Médaille, S.J. who founded our Community of the Sisters of St. Joseph 375 years ago. 

When I think of putting my hand into a bucket of water up to my wrist and taking it out without stirring or splashing, I imagine this man travelling from village to village in France, just doing the best that he could for the women of his time trying to do for the suffering people around them the best that they could.

It was my privilege to visit France over twenty years ago.  The place where Father Médaille was buried has become a parking lot and I envision not only the humility of this man but also the humility of St. Joseph the patron Saint of our Community.  It seems to me that it was not so much their physical presence on earth at the time that was important, but it was the lasting effect of what they allowed God to do with their lives on Earth that was and is still important.

When they lived their lives on Earth and then disappeared, our Earth was not “quite the same as before.”

-Sister Elaine Cole, CSJ

Memory Work - First Day of Fall

When I was a child ‘memory work’ was very important in school.  As a child, it was a big effort to learn prayers by rote, to memorize perfectly the answers to the questions in our Catechism, and to memorize certain numbers of lines of poetry.

Then later in life I began to understand all the things I had memorized as a child.  The prayers, Catechism answers and poems, were no longer just words strung together but the words I had memorized found their way to my heart.

Trees by Joyce Kilmer, is one of the poems that touches my heart every year as I ponder their awe-inspiring beauty in the Autumn of their lives.  I’ve even found that my memory works best when I sing the poem. 

May these words reach your heart today.

-Sister Elaine Cole, csj

Trees

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the Earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Joyce Kilmer, 1886-1918

Images: Ricardo Gomez Angel @rgaleriacom | Aaron Burden @aaronburden Unsplash

Let's Celebrate, eh!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

School is out!  Now we can review what we have learned.  It’s holiday time!

Image: Chi Liu @chiditty/Unsplash

We begin by viewing our country—Canada. 

We’ve learned that we are a country that values its freedom and when we look around the world at wars and totalitarian regimes, we get a sense of how fragile freedom is.

We’ve learned that our land produces enough food to feed Canadians as well as provide for other countries, yet we are not encouraging youth to farm and are paving over more and more prime farmland every year.

We’ve learned that we provide education for all our children, yet we see rising in our society, more and more bullying, violence, suicide, mental illness and addictions especially among young people.

We’ve learned that a sense of belonging is what each person craves.

We’ve learned that we are dependent on nature. Plants and animals, the four seasons provide for our very existence, and we are learning, and need to learn more, how to dance together in harmony.

We are aware. We have attitude. We need action.

HAPPY CANADA DAY - LET’S CELEBRATE, EH!                                      

- Sister Elaine Cole, CSJ                                                    

Image: Hermes Rivera @hermez777/Unsplash