This past Sunday, Pope Benedict visited Rome’s Great Synagogue. Pundits were predicting a less then cordial meeting, but the Pontiff was warmly received, and the meeting was considered a success by both Catholics and Jews. In this week’s Vatican Report from Catholic News Service, John Thavis and Cindy Wooden provide insight into the Holy Father’s visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome.

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This month on Lectio Divina, Archbishop Thomas Collins reflects on the servants and the wedding feast as found in Matthew 22:1-14.

This is the dramatic parable where the king prepares a marriage feast, and invites his servants, but they refuse to come.  The Archbishop also includes the portion from Matthew 24:45-5: the passage that speaks of the wicked servant who, when his master is gone, beats his fellow servants and hangs out with drunkards… but his master comes at a time when he does not expect it!

The January edition also marks a return to Vespers.  For the first four episodes this season, to help set a prayerful tone for the evening’s Lectio Divina, the Archbishop presided over Compline — the Church’s night prayer.  This month, Archbishop Collins invited the seminarians at St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto, to assist at Vespers before the actual Lectio Divina meditation.  The seminarians will continue to be part of Vespers for the rest of the year.  St. Augustine’s has seminarians from a number of different dioceses, so it’s nice to see our future priests!

Pray our Lord’s parables, and join us for the broadcast edition of Lectio Divina with Archbishop Thomas Collins: The Parables of Jesus, Sunday, January 24th at 8:30pm ET with an encore presentation Wednesday, January 27th at 8pm ET, only on Salt + Light Television!

It seems that every day I am reminded of my own mortality. If it’s not news from Haiti, it’s news that someone has died – or has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. No one wants to think about death or about losing a loved one, but death is one of life’s certainties: we will all die, and how we prepare for this time is terribly important.

I am not an expert, but at any time of loss it is very important that we surround ourselves with support – not just friends and family but professionals, too. The worst thing we can do is isolate ourselves, although that may be what we want to do most. When it comes to death, in particular, it’s also important that we have the assistance of good, experienced funeral directors. And it may be wise to think about it when we are not under pressure or when we’re grieving.

This is the topic of an all-new Catholic Focus: Coming Home. We invited some friends from Dignity Memorial, a network of funeral homes from all over North America, to help us sort through some of those things that we don’t want to leave unprepared. Tune in and find out what things you should consider when planning a funeral. Find out what to look for when searching for a funeral provider. Find out what the difference is between pre-planning and pre-arranging a funeral and, more or less, how much it can all cost.

As Christians we believe that the best is yet to come and so preparing emotionally and spiritually is certainly most important, but we can’t forget all the practical stuff either.

The prayer at the end of the funeral liturgy says:

“For even dead, we are not at all separated from one another, because we all run the same course and we will find one another again in the same place. We shall never be separated, for we live for Christ, and now we are united with Christ as we go toward him . . . we shall all be together in Christ.”

And in many ways, it is a good funeral director, not just one who is sensitive to our beliefs, but one who will put our needs and concerns first, one who is centred on living people, that can help us celebrate this new kind of unity.

Be sure to watch Coming Home on Catholic Focus, this Wednesday, January 20th, at 7 and 11 pm ET (8 pm and midnight PT)

One thing is for sure: Mary saw the predicament the wedding party was in. She went to Jesus. “They have no wine”, she said.

She is going around today saying to all of us, ‘They don’t have water to drink and food to eat in Port-au-Prince. They don’t have shelter, their houses have been flattened, they don’t have parents, they have lost their children. They are still trapped under the rubble and they are crying for help. They don’t have medicine, they need someone who is a doctor now. Their limbs were crushed by the rubble, and had to be amputated without anaesthesia because there was none. Their cathedral is no longer. It’s all ruins. So beloved son, and beloved daughter, what are you going to do about it?’

Mary our mother is always interceding for us. She is saying something to you and me on behalf of her sons and daughters in Haiti. ‘They have no wine’. May she intercede for all those who are suffering pain and loss, especially in Haiti today.

Excerpt of homily by Fr. Colman Mruma, preached on Sunday, January 17th at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto. The Gospel reading is John 2:1-11.

Learn how you can help at saltandlighttv.org/haiti

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
Ephesians 4:29

Four letter words of the expletive variety have never really been part of my vocabulary. Sure, I knew about them, but they weren’t words used in my home growing up and they never really held much appeal. In high school and university, I was the friend people tried not to swear around. And it cost you 25 cents if you swore in my car. “Our language is rich with words,” I would tell my passengers. “Don’t ruin it by swearing.” Yup, I drove on the high road and left curse words in my dust.

And then… and then… three months ago I joined a women’s basketball league. And I discovered – with horror – that I can be a bit of a potty mouth. Maybe it’s the heat of the game. Maybe it’s the example set by my teammates. Or maybe, just maybe, my language is not as wholesome as I thought. But missed shots, bad plays, and elbows to my nose released from me words I didn’t even know I knew. What shock – what a horrifying surprise to be so offended by someone’s string of profanities only to realize…that they came from me.

“How was the game?” my husband asked when I came home from my first night of basketball.

“We won,” I said. “But I swore.”

The second game was no better. In fact, it was worse as the curse words leapt from my mouth even louder than before. Same with the third and fourth games. Each night I left the gym – no matter having won or lost – feeling ashamed of my loose tongue and my clumsy choice of words.

Then one day, God – in His infinite wisdom and, perhaps, tired of my dirty mouth – gave me the words from Ephesians: “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth,” I read. I immediately cringed and repented (again). But because no admonishment is given without guidance, I read on: “…but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.”

In basketball (as it is in any team sport) there is lots of room for edification. Teammates need cheering. Refs need encouragement. (It’s true, they do.) The opposing team needs to hear they’re providing good challenges. Bad games can turn to good with a positive attitude, some laughter, and good cheer. Sure, this sounds like no arena or gymnasium you have ever been in before…but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Even if it’s only in the gym I’m playing in, I would much rather be an example of grace than of grime.

So I’m cleaning up a mess I never thought I would make. In that split second of play, I’m making my effort to turn a harsh negative into an encouraging positive. Our language is rich with words…I just need to pick the right ones and give grace to those who hear.

The following article was published in the YSN newsletter, which is sent to the student journalists writing for The Catholic Register’s Youth Speak News section. The article is a response to the question, “How can you cover a religious story as a journalist, while still having a personal spiritual experience?”

Though it’s been over a month since I returned from filming in the Holy Land, I’m still spiritually “unpacking” the experience. It was not the retreat I envisioned.

Yes, I lived in Israel and the Palestinian Territories for five weeks and explored a great number of biblical sites, such as the Church of the Nativity and the Holy Sepulchre. But the logistics of scheduling 27 consecutive filming days—in a foreign, complex land, no less, where English is not universally spoken—left regrettably little time for reflection. [The intense schedule also explains my conspicuous absence from the S+L blog in November and December.]

Experiencing this challenge early on, it became obvious that to film film a documentary about pilgrimage, I needed to engage in some immersion journalism. To remain an objective observer in these sacred sites, I reasoned, would conceal the spirituality of such “thin places” where the supernatural seems so readily perceived.

My approach to each ancient church was simple enough: genuflect always, always mean it. Though I could not attend Mass daily, when I did worship, it would be with all my soul. I resolved—and upon each profane failure, resolved again—to never curse the setbacks that came along with an opportunity so clearly blessed.

In some ways, my spiritual experience was augmented by my press pass. We were usually among hundreds of visitors at each attraction, yet the priests and religious overseeing the sites would usually accommodate our filming requests. Special among them was our entrance into the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem. This small plot of land, fenced off from the public, contains some of the most ancient olive trees in Israel—some may have stood over Jesus as He sweated blood in anguished anticipation of His passion.

I was also privileged to receive special insights from our interview guests, who included some of the most prominent religious figures in the Holy Land. Who better to explain the poignancy of the Western Wall than Yona Metzger, one of the two Chief Rabbis of Israel? And who has a better perspective on Middle East Christianity than Archbishop Fouad Twal, the Patriarch responsible for all Latin-rite Catholics in the Holy Land?

Despite those advantages, at just about every stop I found myself thinking about when I could return without any professional responsibilities—to pray without interruption and be unconcerned with capturing each moment on film. If all goes well this spring, our finished documentary will mulitply a similar desire among our audience: to go to the Holy Land on a proper pilgrimage.

After the security breached on Christmas Eve at the Vatican, some are questioning the security at the Vatican. Others are  asking, who is in charge of looking after the Pope? In this week’s Vatican report from Catholic News Service, John Thavis and Carol Glatz discuss Security at the Vatican.

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