Praise to you, Lord, through Sister Water of the ‘Trois-Rivières River’. Where does the name “Trois-Rivières” come from? This name was first used in 1599 by Sieur De Pont Gravé, a geographer who worked for Samuel de Champlain, and was also used during the seventeenth century. Brother Sagard, a Recollect historian, wrote in 1623: “The French named this place Trois-Rivières because it is by a rather beautiful river that empties into the Saint Lawrence River through three main openings, caused by several small islands that meet at the mouth of this river.”[1]

We must add that it was precisely on one of these islands of “the Trois-Rivières River” that Jacques Cartier stopped on his voyage to New France in 1535. Here is what he wrote in a travel journal: “On the seventh day, we put down anchor abeam of a river from the north, issuing from the river, at the entrance of which are four small islands, covered with trees. And since one of these islands extends into the river and is visible from afar, the captain had a beautiful cross planted on the point of this island.”[2] A replica of this cross of Jacques Cartier’s is found on Île St-Quentin. On it is written: “A few metres from here, on a point that extended into the Saint Lawrence and that has since been washed away, Jacques Cartier, on October 7, 1535, during his second voyage to New France, after having dropped anchor in the Émerillon at the mouth of the Saint-Maurice River, had a cross planted that was decorated with the shield of the king of France.”[3]

A few years before the founding of Trois-Rivières (1634), the Franciscans-Recollects who had settled in Québec began to exercise their apostolate at the small trading post located where the Saint-Maurice River and the St. Lawrence River met. It is believed that on July 26, 1615, the Recollect Father Denys Jamet celebrated the first mass in the place called Trois-Rivières. Jamet was accompanied by Father Jean Dolbeau and Brother Pacifique Duplessis. A year later, in 1616, Father Le Caron sent Brother Pacifique Duplessis, an apothecary by training, to attempt the conversion of a few Aboriginals. In a cabin on the Platon, overlooking the river, Brother Duplessis welcomed the young Algonquins: the sick found care and comfort, others learned a little French and some catechism; for this reason, Brother Duplessis is usually given the title of “first schoolteacher” in Trois-Rivières.

Who could have imagined that this humble Franciscan brother would be given the largest historic monument in the city of Trois-Rivières? Yet that is what happened. The Porte Duplessis, a veritable “Arc de triomphe” for Brother Pacifique, marks the main entrance to the Parc de l’Exposition. This gate recalls the memory of Brother Pacifique Duplessis, Franciscan, who died in Quebec City in 1619, and who was the first schoolteacher in Canada (1616–1618) and mainly taught Aboriginal people in a cabin built on the Platon in Trois-Rivières.

May the water in the place called ‘the Trois-Rivières River’ bless the Lord. “Lakes and rivers, bless the Lord!”

Fr. Georges Morin, OFM

Pope Francis has begun his appointments to the Roman Curia with a surprise: Franciscan leader Fr Jose Rodriguez Carballo is the new Secretary of the Congregation for institutes of consecrated life

In his first significant appointment to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis has taken the highly unusual step of naming the actual head of a religious order, Father Jose Rodriguez Carballo, as Secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated life and the Societies of Apostolic Life (formerly known as ‘The Congregation for Religious’).

When the Pope chose him, the 59-year old Spanish priest was Minister General or head of the largest group of the Franciscan family – the Order of Friars Minor (OFM), which has some 15,000 friars in 113 countries. He was first elected to that post in 2003, and re-elected for another six-year term in 2009 as head of an order that is contracting in Western Europe and North America, holding steady in Latin America, and gaining vocations in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

The Vatican broke the news of Father Carballo’s appointment on April 6, and said Pope Francis has raised him to the rank of archbishop.

Born in Lodoselo, Spain in 1953, Carballo did his early studies in schools run by the Franciscans in that country and, in 1973, was sent to do biblical studies in Jerusalem. After being ordained priest in Jerusalem in 1977, he gained degrees in Biblical Theology in the Holy City and a further degree in Sacred Scripture from Rome’s Biblical Institute. In the following years he held increasingly high posts of responsibility in the Franciscan order in Spain and, in 2003, was elected Master General of the worldwide order.

In his new role as the second highest official in the Vatican congregation that oversees the life and work of some 900,000 consecrated men and women in religious orders and communities worldwide,  Fr Carballo will work closely with the Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, who has led this important office since 4 January 2011.

The Spaniard will bring his rich international experience as head of a major religious order to his new post of responsibility.

Pope Francis means business. He is quickly giving a clear and definite direction to the Church.

The Church exists for mission and needs to get out into the world, to be with people as bearers of Christ’s presence and love in the reality of their lives.

Speaking to priests at the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday he said:

“We need to’go out’, then, in order to experience our own anointing, its power and its redemptive efficacy: to the ‘outskirts’ where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters. It is not in soul-searching or constant introspection that we encounter the Lord: self-help courses can be useful in life, but to live by going from one course to another, from one method to another, leads us to become pelagians and to minimize the power of grace, which comes alive and flourishes to the extent that we, in faith, go out and give ourselves and the Gospel to others, giving what little ointment we have to those who have nothing, nothing at all.”

And what he emphasised in that homily he enacted later on Holy Thursday, when he celebrated the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, not in the splendour of St Peter’s Basilica, but in a Roman Detention Centre for youth where he washed and kissed the feet of 12 young people, including two girls.

This “going out” to where Christ’s light and grace are most needed is how he has lived his vocation and priestly ministry for many years.

Before the conclave began he spoke to the cardinals about the dangers of narcissism, of a Church caught up in herself. Here is a passage from that short speech, just now made public.

“Evangelizing pre-supposes a desire in the Church to come out of herself. The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.

When the Church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and then gets sick. (cf. The deformed woman of the Gospel). The evils that, over time, happen in ecclesial institutions have their root in self-referentiality and a kind of theological narcissism.

In Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Obviously, the text refers to his knocking from the outside in order to enter in. But I think about the times in which Jesus knocks from within so that we will let him come out. The self-referential Church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him out.

Put simply, there are two images of the Church: the Church which evangelizes and comes out of herself, and the worldly Church, living within herself, of herself, for herself.”

The Lord has given us a pastor “after his own heart”, a shepherd’s heart.

This Pope is seeking, in the grace of the Spirit, to model for the Church the core of the Gospel of
God’s redeeming grace.

Taken from the Franciscan Ponderings’ Blogspot: www.FranciscanPonderings.blogspot.ca

The night he was elected, according to New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Vatican officials and staffers came forward to meet the new Pope.  He politely put them off: “Not now, the people are waiting.” Then he went to the balcony. When he appeared before the world, he was plainly dressed, a simple white cassock, no regalia, no finery. He began with the simple “bona sera” and ended by wishing us all a “good night, have a good rest”, as if talking to family members.

Looking at his non-verbals, which experts believe are much more truthful than language, he comes across as someone with simplicity, a prayerful man of faith and warmth, like one who comes “to serve  and not to be served.” This has since been confirmed by his subsequent meetings  with different groups and his heart-felt, often unscripted, talks and homilies that reveal a deeply pastoral heart. It has also been confirmed by what we have learned about his choices and lifestyle as Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires. All this conveys a person of substance and yet one with a light
touch.

The fact that almost every account of him uses the word “humility” or “humble” to describe him, is indicative of how we pick up people’s actual “energy” much more than their words or actions. People are drawn to accessibility, to loving presence. A priest say: “I would go to him for confession!”

There is no doubt the Benedict, Pope Emeritus, is a man of great holiness and humility. However gestures can carry great power. And the right gestures can be bearers of transforming grace.

So Pope Francis, with the simplicity and wisdom worthy of his namesake, is letting his gestures speak a “word” that is capturing the attention of Church and world.

Taken from the Franciscan Ponderings Blogspot: http://franciscanponderings.blogspot.ca/

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose the name Francis (the first time a pope has taken that name) in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is both the first Jesuit pope and the first pope from the Americas. He is also the first pope from outside Europe since Gregory III in the 8th century.

Cardinal Bergoglio became known for personal humility, strong attachment to tradition and a commitment to social justice. A simple lifestyle contributed to his reputation for humility. He lived in a small apartment, rather than in the palatial bishop’s residence. He gave up his chauffeured limousine in favor of public transportation. Bless the Lord for our new Pope!

Praise to you, Lord, through Sister Water of Lac Saint-Pierre, which is located at the heart of the St. Lawrence, between Sorel and Trois-Rivières. The lake was named by Samuel de Champlain after he passed through it on June 29, 1603, the feast of St. Peter.[1] Champlain observed about this lake, “The water is almost dormant in the lake, which is filled with fish … The fishing here is more plentiful than any I have ever seen.”[2]

Lac Saint-Pierre constitutes one of the major components of the St. Lawrence ecosystem. The farthest upstream of all freshwater basins of the St. Lawrence, Lac Saint-Pierre is bordered by the most expansive freshwater floodplain in Quebec, such that its area grows by more than 600 km² during periods of high water. Except for the ship channel, which has an average depth of 11 m, Lac Saint-Pierre is characterized by its shallowness (less than 3 m deep).[3]

Thanks to the river, Lac Saint-Pierre runs the length of an archipelago of about a hundred islands interspersed with swamps, bays and channels amid a spectacular natural environment. (The most famous of these channels is Chenal-du-moine, which was so named in the seventeenth century after the discovery of the frozen corpse of a Recollect monk.)

People on the south shore of the river call this archipelago “the Sorel islands,” and people on the north shore call it “the Berthier islands.” The archipelago as a whole is part of the Lac Saint-Pierre Biosphere Reserve, as designated by UNESCO.

The main reason for this recognition is that 90% of this territory of over 400 km² has remained untouched, even though it is in a settled area. In this reserve are found close to 290 species of birds, nearly 90 species of fish and 27 rare plants. The Lac Saint-Pierre archipelago is the site of the largest known heronry in the world. Located on Grande Île, it is home to over 5,000 herons! Also, the banks of Lac Saint-Pierre host rich wildlife and aquatic areas for migratory birds. In the spring, the Baie-du-Febvre floodplain is a resting spot for some 500,000 white geese on their long migration journey.

May the ‘quiet waters’ of Lac Saint-Pierre, with its islands populated by birds, bless the Lord. “Let the many coastlands sing and be glad!”

Fr. Georges Morin, ofm

[1] Translated from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac_Saint-Pierre

[2] Translated from http://books.google.ca

In 1935, Brother Marie-Victorin named these islands the Hochelaga archipelago, using one of the oldest names for Montreal. The Hochelaga archipelago, also known as the Montreal Islands, is a group of islands at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa in the southwest part of the province of Québec, Canada,[1] which empty into Lac des Deux Montagnes at the northwestern part of the greater Montreal area. The archipelago includes all the islands, around 130 of them, on the Mille-Îles River, which is 42 km long. The largest island in the group is the Island of Montreal, which forms the main portion of the City of Montreal. The city has jurisdiction over 74 smaller islands in the archipelago, most notably Nuns’ Island, Île Bizard and the two islands that served as the site of Expo 67, Saint Helen’s Island and the man-made Île Notre-Dame. The second-largest island in the archipelago is Île Jésus, which along with the Îles Laval and several smaller islands makes up the city of Laval.[2]

Two memorable events concerning the Franciscans-Recollects are associated with the Hochelaga archipelago and are commemorated in one location: Sault-au-Récollet. The more famous of these events is the first Mass celebrated on the island of Montreal, on June 24, 1615, at Rivière des Prairies, by Recollects Denis Jamet and Joseph Le Caron, in the presence of Champlain. The second is the drowning of Recollect missionary Father Nicolas Viel in the Rivière des Prairies in 1625, together with a young Frenchman named Ahuntsic. To commemorate this first Mass and also the drowning, in 1915 the city of Montreal erected in the middle of Nicolas Viel Park a granite stele (pillar) topped by a cross. (On the walls of the Montreal Cathedral are two large tableaux representing the first mass of June 24, 1615, and the drowning of Nicolas Viel in 1625.)

May ‘the extraordinary crossroads of running water’ of the Hochelaga archipelago bless the Lord. “Let the many coastlands be glad!”

Fr. Georges Morin, ofm

Praise to you, Lord, through Sister Water of Lac Saint-François and Lac Saint-Louis. Between the Thousand Islands and Montreal, in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, lies open water with areas large enough for them to be considered lakes, but whose flow is typical of a river. Moving downstream, we find Lac Saint-François and Lac Saint-Louis.

Lac Saint-François, measuring around 7 km wide and 57 km long, is the first widening of the St. Lawrence River. Located between Québec and Ontario, it extends from Cornwall to the western point of Salaberry Island. It covers an area of 272 km², of which 70% is in Québec. Fed by Lake Ontario, Lac Saint-François flows as a single water mass with very little input from the tributaries (less than 2%). Upstream of Lac Saint-François, three major dams, namely the Moses Saunders, Long-Sault and Iroquois, regulate the river flow. Both the Beauharnois and des Cèdres generating stations play the same role downstream, at the outlet of Lake Saint-François.[1]

Lac Saint-Louis is a natural widening of the Saint Lawrence River, located southwest of the island of Montreal. Twenty-three km long and more than 11 km wide, it has an area of 208 km², of which Île Perrot occupies one fifth (41 km²). Situated at the confluence of large waterways, Lac Saint-Louis receives inputs from two main water masses: the green waters of the Great Lakes, which flow along the south shore and the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the brown waters of the Ottawa River, which mix with those of the Great Lakes on the north shore. Fluctuations in flow and level are rather unremarkable due to upstream regulation. … they are primarily influenced by the Ottawa River during major floods.[2]

May the waters of Lac Saint-François and the two main waters of Lac Saint-Louis bless the Lord. “Lakes and rivers, bless the Lord!”

Fr. Georges Morin, ofm

Praise to you, Lord, through Sister Water of the Thousand Islands. The Thousand Islands are an archipelago on the border between the United States and Canada, in the Saint Lawrence River, where the river begins in the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. The islands extend for around 80 km downstream from Kingston. There are 1,865 islands altogether; some have an area of over 100 km², while others are tiny and are nothing more than shelters for migrating seabirds.[1]

A few of the Thousand Islands that are sprinkled throughout the St. Lawrence River are dotted with cottages or summer homes, accessible by boat or by bridges. Islands near the riverbanks may have hotels on them. The sparkling water, bordered by forests, and the pink granite rocks that were slowly eroded by glaciers, attract settlers from the two nations that border on the islands. The many parks along the shore are a delight for the eyes.

“Let the earth rejoice!, and let the many islands rejoice!” “Let the floods clap their hands.”

Fr. Georges Morin, ofm

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Islands

But then he asks the core question: Is it true?

Is it true?

In this Year of Faith that question goes to the heart of our believing. Is it true that God has come so close to us? Is it true that he now shares our humanity so we can share his divinity? Is it true that foolish love has led God to such astonishing means to reach us?

Is it true?

Wishing you light and joy unbounded as you ponder that question during these days of grace!

Christmas

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green…

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare
-
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

John Betjeman
(1906-84)

Taken from Franciscan Ponderings blog: http://franciscanponderings.blogspot.ca/