Canned Food Miracle!!

St Mary students did it again!!! The Advent Canned Food drive brought in a whopping record-breaking

36 290 items for the Brockville food bank. It's AMAZING!! There are only 750 students in the whole school!

Every year the students show me the meaning of compassion. I understand why God chose a teenage woman to be the mother of Jesus. Teenagers give themselves so fully and with such creativity to their ideals. Working with them is a blessing, and a constant reminder that we are called to live for and with the other - the stranger, the poor, the forgotten. And that we're meant to enjoy the journey! (The pictures show students sorting food in the chapel, and a group busking for cans outside the local grocery store on a Saturday morning - yes, Saturday!)

Climate Change Vigil

Yesterday, my husband Brian and I joined thousands of people around the world for a vigil in support of a meaningful agreement about climate change at the Copenhagen summit. The picture I've uploaded is from the vigil in Copenhagen itself. Climate change will affect poor countries the most, and we need a commitment on everyone's part to keep atmospheric carbon levels under 350 parts per million. Our local paper covered the Brockville vigil (see http://www.recorder.ca/). I especially love the sign in the picture that reads, 'There is no planet B'!

Babies

My sister Laura had a beautiful healthy baby boy last Monday. We're rejoicing at his arrival, but collecting ourselves after the trauma Laura went through. She hemorrhaged after delivery, and ended up back in the OR for surgery, followed by a transfusion of 7 bags of blood in short order. In another age or a different place, she wouldn't have survived.

Laura and baby Jacob are now home, but it will be a while before she feels like herself again. The residual effects of her experience include fluid on her lungs, anemia, fatigue, and high blood pressure. But she will recover.

It makes me wonder, when I think of Mary accepting her pregnancy 2000 years ago, if she gave any thought to the physical risks involved. There were any number of reasons to say no to the angel's request. And yet, faced with all of it, she just said yes. I wish I had that kind of courage.