St. Mary's and the Missions

Roman Catholic Parish in Owen Sound

What's New

A Sign of Contradiction

A Sign of Contradiction - Every year since I’ve been ordained a priest I’ve tried to spend a week at a Trappist monastery. I love these monastic experiences because they offer time to retreat from the world and enter into a very different rhythm of life. The monks allow visitors to join them for prayer, and even encourage those on retreat with them to participate in their daily schedule. The day begins at 2:30 in the morning with an hour of prayer in the chapel. The monks

Lent is Here

When you think of the season of Lent, what do you think of? Lent is a penitential season, a time to repent from our sins and to increase in our life of virtue. My big problem with Lent is that it is often perceived as a kind of dark season. After all we use ashes to get us started, and we are reminded of our death: “remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return”. The way I like to think of Lent is as a time of doing a good cleaning of our life. Just as we try

Motorcycle Trip

Motorcycle Trip

The season of Lent begins this Wednesday, and we have much happening in our parish to make this Lent a time of renewal. I like to think of Lent as a time of preparation for Easter. It’s almost like preparing for a very exciting motorcycle trip, there are things that I need to do to prepare my motorcycle and myself for those exciting trips. The better my preparation is, the better the trip will be. It’s kind of like this with Lent and Easter. Lent is our preparation time

Lessons Learned

I am my mother’s daughter. My family will sometimes call me T. Way, when I sound or act like my father – worrying about everything. But I am very much like my mother too. She had numerous admirable qualities, making the raising of seven children appear effortless. Unfortunately, those qualities I did not inherit. If you were sick, in a household of nine, on a busy school morning, you got short shrift. Mother didn’t spend a lot of time fussing over you. In later years, when sh