I enjoy watching short videos and reels on social media. I really appreciate the hilarity – and to marvel at the chance of something unexpected having been caught on video. I love how funny people are – and the ridiculous things their pets do. It’s all good, clean fun – or is it?

In the past, I’ve given up social media for Lent, recognizing that it is taking up more time in my life than I would like. I’ve taken the apps off the home screen of my phone, but it doesn't take long before I’ve memorized how to find them anyway. I’ve succeeded in cutting back the time I spend scrolling, and I know I really should fully take them off my phone, but I don’t, because, well, we all know they are designed so that I don’t want to. And it has worked!   

Of course, social media is not the only way in which we are conformed to something of the world, nor is it all bad. But the truth is that renewing my mind is the last thing I want to do when I’m tired, or overwhelmed, or feeling like I need some rest. That’s when I want to zone out, to do something mindless, to be entertained. And of course, we all need time to recharge our batteries. But what Saint Paul is saying here is something different – it’s about a certain intentionality with which we are being asked to live. The times when I am tired or overwhelmed are exactly the times when I am prone to being conformed to the world, and without the discipline of regular prayer, how can I discern the will of God? Why am I even getting so tired and overwhelmed, anyway? 

The difference is restoration and renewal, not just escape from stress or boredom. Growth and discovery are God’s desire for me – He wants me to reach my full potential. Building relationships and creating memories, honing skills, feeding creativity, cultivating curiosity; these are all things that are good and acceptable and perfect. These things are the things that help me recognize He who is responsible for it all, who is more than worthy of my praise; my life then becomes a continual act of worship, and is all the more beautiful for it. 

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Thanks be to God!

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Lindsay Elford

In our lives, there are few times when we will experience truly steadfast love. We’re all, to some extent, changeable, with new passions always in the wings ready to take centre stage. In physics, string theory has been superseded by superstring theory. In music, there is an ever-changing top 100 – what once was ruled by the Beatles and the Beach Boys is ruled by the likes of Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish. The best-selling novels of 1923, including classes like Gibran’s The Prophet and Emily of New Moon by L M Montgomery are the stuff of used bookstores, supplanted from the best-selling shelves by the latest, perhaps less memorable fiction.

As the culture around us moves, we are enticed to move with it. Fashions change. Stars fade. Fires turn to embers. And yet, the Scriptures remind us time and again that the endless re-directing of our attentions and passions is not the example God sets for us. God is entirely faithful. God is always steadfast. He seeks us out when we are messy and covered in mud and brings us home. Even though it would certainly be easier (and less costly) to abandon His feckless children, He still sets us a seat at His table.

But God isn’t some long-suffering parent, inviting us to dinner for better access to recount to us all of our misdeeds and failures. God gives us an example of selflessness and steadfastness not to mock us for being incapable of it in our fallen nature, but to show us how He can redeem our fallen nature. He is our help. He sends His Spirit to overshadow us – to give us the grace that we need – so that we can taste of his steadfastness and grow it in ourselves.

Through the working of the Holy Spirit, we can reject our impulse to be fickle, feckless, and faithless beings and instead live in a changing world with hearts faithful to God, others, and to His mission for us. We can see the beauty in the ancient and the new by seeing God’s purpose in all of it, instead of grasping like a child onto every new shiny thing, abandoning like litter behind us what had entranced us a moment before. The faith of our youth can stay with us, grow within us, and work through us to become a faith that carries and comforts us to our last breath.

God’s steadfastness can grow in us, if we but cling to Him and let Him uphold us.​



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Stéphanie Potter

The human voice. Depending on who you ask, it’s either a characteristic of the Trinity imprinted on humanity, or a complete mystery of evolutionary adaptation.

We humans can call our moms, deliver presidential speeches, imitate Bob Dylan and shout invectives at referees thanks to the unique structure of our larynx. But those same folds and openings that compose our voice boxes make us vulnerable to a very real danger: choking. From an evolutionary standpoint, the trade-off is mystifying. Our voices come at the price of death.

But we Christians know that we were made in the image and likeness of the Trinity. Everything about us somehow represents Him. We can look to understand the importance of our voices in this light. God’s voice created everything. God spoke the Word. When we use our voices, in prayer, praise, instruction, and song, we echo His own throughout eternity.

Which brings us to Jeremiah. He is filled with the Holy Spirit - we know because he feels full of fire. And the fire is compelling him to use his voice, to speak and shout aloud. Here we see clues about the importance of our voices - as reverberators, amplifiers, and proclaimers of the One voice.

Jeremiah’s predicament sounds an awful lot like Pentecost. The fire comes down and the Holy Spirit uses the Apostles voices in miraculous ways to yield conversions to Christ and His Gospel.

Through these rather vocal Apostles we have every priest who has ever lived. Through them, we have had the voice of Christ Himself, in persona Christi, sharing his Body and Blood, and saying those salvific words, “I absolve you of all your sins.”

But before the priest can speak those words, another act of speech is necessary - the confession. Given how I started this reflection pondering the trade-off of speech and choking, I found this passage from Origen pretty intriguing: “Those who have sinned, if they conceal and keep the sin within, they are distressed and almost choked by it …”.

The evil one hates our voices. He wants us silent. Silent about our love of God, choked from confessing our transgressions. The songs of the angels and saints torture him.

So everybody, let’s not only take some time today to appreciate how amazing our voices are, but to use them as they were meant to be used. Say a prayer or a blessing out loud. Unite your voice to the ‘Sanctus’ sung by the heavenly choirs at Mass, even if you’re not a strong singer. I heard recently that singing in a group is one of the top ways to release endorphins - so join in! Let loose in the car, or for your pets. Just don’t be silenced.

Silence is for libraries, not for souls.




​Kate Mosher