This is my first communique as your Christian Family Life Chairperson for the Province of BC. It will be learning experience for me as I have a lot of reading ahead of me. So please bear with me. I will endeavour to keep you updated with what is new and upcoming in this chair. If you have any concerns or questions pertaining to this chair please feel free to contact me.

Congratulations to our Immediate Provincial Past President Barbara Dowding to her position as Resolutions Chairperson on the National level.

The National March for Life, May 14th 2009 will mark 40 years since former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s omnibus bill decriminalizing abortion in Canada. Let’s be part of this and help defend the unborn.  See if you can get your parish involved in a march to coincide with this date.

On July 1st the governor general of Canada named Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada. A letter was sent to R. Honorable Michaelle Jean expressing the League’s disappointment and distress in the mater and that they revoke the decision.  We must continue to write our letters to our MPs.  We have to protect the unborn!Bill C-484, (an act to amend the Criminal Code (injuring or causing the death of an unborn child while committing and offence), passed 2nd reading in the House of Commons and was sent to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.  We have been asked to send individual letters to all committee members urging them to have full hearings on Bill C-484.  A list of committee members may be obtained from the government website.

Bill C-562, (An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (right to die with dignity) was introduced by Francine Lalonde and received first reading on June 12th 2008.  The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) warns that the reintroduction of such a bill threatens the lives of people with disabilities and other vulnerable Canadians. There will be a National Euthanasia symposium on October 24-25, 2008 at the Victoria Inn Hotel in Winnipeg.

I would like to leave you with a story written by Bernie Shehan: (read Bible passage Job 12; 1-12)

We live in a culture that reveres its youth and ignores its elders.  Nearly every other culture does the opposite and is the richer for it.  We are the poorer for having put our grandparents in retirement villages, far away from grandchildren who don’t know the wisdom they are missing by not having Grandpa and Grandma around.

The things we can learn from our elders are limitless. They were born in a time that was very different from our own, and their perspective on life can be of great value as we struggle with our daily lives in this fast paced, unsettling era.  Imagine for a moment: A person born at the end of the last century would have lived through the First World War, the Great Depression, yet another world war, and the suburbanization of our country.  A telephone would have been a rare thing in the home of their childhood; now their grandchildren can have phones in their cars, their purses and their pockets.

Life has changed at a speed never seen before in human history. More than ever, we need the sagacity of those who lived in a slower time.

Are the elders all gone from your life?  Look around – people who have lived rich, full lives are sitting near you in a pew, at the train station, in a nursing home.  Ask them questions.  Listen; really listen, to their answers.  Let them teach you with their stories.

Prayer for Priests

Keep them, I pray Thee, dearest Lord, keep them, for they are Thine
Thy priests whose lives burn out before Thy consecrated shrine.

Keep them as spotless as the Host, that daily they caress; their Host,
That daily they caress; their every thought and word and deed, Deign,
Dearest Lord, to Bless.  Amen.

Peace be to you family and friends.