`Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord': Isaiah 2:3

Like the Mother Superior in The Sound of Music urging Maria von Trapp to Climb Every Mountain, 10 Dominican contemplative nuns have gone up into the mountains to fulfil their charism to preach God's word and lead others to His service.

Since the first five members of the cloistered congregation arrived in the Vancouver archdiocese a decade ago, a search has been on for suitable property on which to build a permanent monastery. In late August the nuns finally moved "lock, stock, and barrel" from the rolling pastures of rural Langley to 82 acres on Upper Squamish Valley Road.

On a plateau surrounded by sparkling snow-capped mountains and lush green forest, firm roots are being planted for a new Queen of Peace Monastery, with completion expected in about 18 months, according to monastery prioress Sister Claire Marie Rolf.

While four nuns are temporarily sheltered in a 40-year-old renovated house on the site, which will eventually be used as a guest house, the other six have moved into the nearby Mystic Mountain Lodge, which has several bedrooms and space for a chapel and an office.

"We were delighted to find it available just a five-minute drive from our property, with a guest room for a visiting priest to come to say Mass," Sister Rolf explained.

"The prayerful atmosphere is wonderful, and the rooms are accessible to all our members, including Sister Maria Dominica who, at 90, is the eldest in the community and who just celebrated 60 years of religious profession on June 24. A bonus is that we can be close at hand to pray our new monastery into being and give a helping hand where we can."

And give a hand they do!

Several nuns pitched in to help clear the land; Sister Rolf even learned how to drive a tractor with a front end loader to move cedar logs!

"It's a challenge to balance as much wood as possible in the bucket without it falling off along the bumpy road," she told The B.C. Catholic with a laugh. "Fortunately we have discovered how to load and unload the logs and don't drop so many now!"

The community sings songs of praise to the Lord as they wedge and stack the wood.

"On our frequent juice breaks we thank God for leading us to this marvellous spot so we could build something beautiful for Him and His beloved people. The views to the rugged Tantalus Mountain Range and their shining glaciers are so spectacular and offer a fantastic backdrop for contemplation. We are so delighted that we have accomplished this step in the building project."

The community, she said, engaged A/K/A Architectural Studio, a local firm in Squamish, to come up with the monastery design.

"Our friend Nathan Douglas is busy preparing the landscaping design. With the grace of God and surrounded by such competent and generous people, the construction will begin this month if we can raise enough financing. We ask that people keep us in their prayers so that we can go ahead soon.

"The Squamish project will enable us to offer monastic welcome to those who seek to live a time of silence and prayer alongside our community and experience the beauty of God's creations amid fresh waterfalls and streams," said Sister Rolf.

The congregation, she noted, provides for their day-to-day living needs through the works of their hands as artisans. They produce religious cards, icons, sculptures, books, baked goods, organic vegetables, soaps, and candles. They will also farm the new acreage.

"We are so thankful for the ongoing support of many friends, both locally and from further afield, which has enabled us to move to this new stage of our monastic life," said Sister Rolf.

The Dominicans also hope that the Langley property, which has not yet been sold, will soon be off their hands.

Those wishing to make a financial contribution to the Dominicans' Squamish Project will be eligible to receive a tax receipt. Send donations to Queen of Peace Monastery, Box 1745, Garibaldi Highlands, B.C. V0N 1TO. Please mark funds for the Building Fund or Queen of Peace Monastery.

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Half-day kindergarten will continue to be an option for parents and students in independent schools in British Columbia.

In a letter to the Federation of Independent School Associations, the Ministry of Education has informed FISA that half-day kindergarten will continue to be funded if schools wish to employ that model.

“We are very pleased with the announcement,” said Fred Herfst, FISA’s executive director. “As an independent organization, we always want to be able to offer parents a variety of options.”

In the letter Ed Vanderboom, Inspector of Independent Schools, wrote the government “recognizes that independent schools provide choice to parents.” He also noted the Ministry of Education received an enormous amount of feedback from many different stakeholders in the independent school system. “After reviewing these requests, government has agreed to fund full-day and half-day kindergarten programs in independent schools.”

The B.C. government announced in 2009 that it would make full-day kindergarten available province-wide by September 2011, although the news has met criticism from some who are concerned about the long day children will face and the cost of the program at a time when education cuts are being made in the system.

Dan Moric, associate superintendant of the Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese, said the decision is welcome news for parents in the region. “There is now a funding option for schools to run either full or half-day programs.”

Moric cautioned that the ministry’s decision doesn't mean one school will offer both options, only that communities will have the option of one or the other. “This decision puts some choice back in the hands of parents and the school community they are in.”

Herfst said his office sent two letters to the Ministry of Education over this matter, one back in December and one in June. Herfst noted that of the 350 independent schools province-wide, 140 applied for full-day kindergarten funding for September 2010 and 105 were approved.

Despite the option to continue with half-day kindergarten, Herfst thinks that upwards of 80 per cent of independent schools will implement the full-day model next year when the government offers full-day funding to every school beginning in September 2011.

Herfst doesn't expect much resistance to full-day instruction for 5-year-olds, as there has only been a minor amount of opposition to the new educational scheme so far in B.C. “There were similar concerns in Alberta when full-day instruction was implemented there but most of the opposition abated fairly quickly.”

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By Carol Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS)

Thirteen years after her death, the impact of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s work and prayer is still felt around the world.

Mother Teresa would have turned 100 Aug. 26. The order she started 60 years ago, the Missionaries of Charity, continues its outreach to the “poorest of the poor.” Her spiritual life also continues to gain attention as her sainthood cause progresses.

Many say Mother Teresa’s legacy is the combination of her extreme devotion to the poor and her spirituality, since both were so deeply intertwined.

For young people, the nun is a model of how to live out one’s faith.

“What strikes them is that she practised what she preached,” said Eileen Burke-Sullivan, an associate professor of theology at Jesuit-run Creighton University in Omaha, Neb.

She said students connect with Mother Teresa because they grew up seeing her image on television or in the newspaper and they knew she “lived and died working for poor.”

Burke-Sullivan told Catholic News Service that students appreciate how Mother Teresa made the connection between the practice of faith and justice.

Students at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan., have a vivid reminder of the founder of the Missionaries of Charity in the school’s Mother Teresa Center for Nursing and Health Education, to be dedicated Aug. 26 as part of the college’s new nursing program.

Stephen Minnis, president of Benedictine College, said school officials searching for a name for their new nursing centre kept talking about Mother Teresa even though she wasn’t a nurse.

“Who is a better caregiver than Mother Teresa?” he said, adding that she is a “wonderful example” for students and hopes they will be inspired by her words displayed at the building’s entrance: “Give your hands to serve and your heart to love.”

David Gentry-Akin, a theology professor at St. Mary’s College of California in Moraga, said for all the accolades about Mother Teresa, she also received a fair amount of criticism. Although many thought her work was noble, they also wanted her to do more to “change the system” and some in the Church thought she was too traditional, but the nun’s enduring legacy is her spirituality.

“The work she did is phenomenal,” he said, adding that it was more effective because it was “motivated out of deep faith and holiness.”

Gentry-Akin said a telling feature of Mother Teresa’s spirituality is revealed in a prayer she is said to have prayed each day asking God’s light to shine through her so that those she came in contact with would “see no longer me but only Jesus.”

The prayer’s imagery serves as the title for a book of her writings published in 2007: “Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.” It describes, in her own words, the crises of faith she experienced and how she often felt that God had abandoned her.

After its publication, some said the revelations made Mother Teresa seem less genuine, but Gentry-Akin said it only made her more inspirational.

“The fact that she could go through that and remain faithful makes her sanctity all the greater,” he said.

Margaret Thompson, a history professor at Syracuse University, said: “We are only now beginning to learn how complex she really was, and as historians we’re not ready to issue the final word on her.”

Thompson finds irony in those who dismissed Mother Teresa for being too traditional, saying she was initially viewed as controversial when she left her religious order to start her own order and walked through impoverished neighbourhoods in India wearing a sari.

She said Mother Teresa’s work was not about making good impressions but meeting the needs of people wherever they were.

Those needs are still carried out by 5,029 sisters of her order in 766 convents in 137 countries. The order’s work also has expanded to priests and brothers of the Missionaries of Charity as well as lay Missionaries of Charity who run orphanages, AIDS hospices, and centres for refugees and the disabled.

Currently there are 377 active brothers serving in 21 countries, 44 contemplative brothers in five countries, and 38 Missionary of Charity fathers in five countries. At the time of Mother Teresa’s death there were 3,842 sisters, 363 active brothers, 14 contemplative brothers, and 13 priests in the order.

Five years after her death, the Vatican began the process of beatification for the woman often described as a “living saint.” In 2002 the Vatican recognized one miracle attributed to her intercession. Her canonization is currently awaiting proof of a second miracle.

A sister at Queen of Peace Convent, the North American motherhouse for the Missionaries of Charity in the New York City borough of the Bronx, told CNS that there is no shortage of miracles attributed to Mother Teresa. The sister, who did not want to be identified, said she spent a year in Calcutta working on the nun’s sainthood cause and spent three days simply entering miracles into the computer that people attributed to Mother Teresa’s intercession.

The sister said she’s convinced the order continues its work through her prayers.

“We constantly feel her spirit,” she said.

Contributing to this story was Chaz Muth.

By Angelyn Dee
Special to The B.C. Catholic

Close calls with death have occurred all too frequently in the life of Father Christopher Antony, HGN.

In 2003 he survived a three-day coma that lasted from Good Friday until Easter Sunday. He has twice been held at gunpoint by terrorists, survived a bomb blast and even the deadly tsunami of 2004 that wiped out everything and almost everyone on India’s Andaman Island that he called home.

Each brush with death has only strengthened the conviction within Father Chris that, in his own words, “God has a plan for me. I am called as a priest, but there is something special He wants me to do in my priesthood. I am still trying to discover what it is.”

Born in India as the eldest of three sons, Christopher could not consider the priesthood. Eldest sons were expected to help support their families and parents, and it was unlikely a seminary would accept him.

During his childhood, his grandfather would take all the grandchildren to 5:30 Mass each morning and would always tell Christopher’s mother, “Make Victor a priest.” Even when his family moved to their island home in 1982, Grandfather’s last words as they boarded a bus were, “Make Victor a priest.”

At age 11, Christopher was sent to a Catholic boarding school along with Victor. There, various priests recognized a priestly vocation in him, but Christopher’s response was always to point to his brother: “Not me, but him.” As he always ranked first in his studies, Christopher’s father wanted him to be a doctor. His brother, Victor, was to be the priest.

However, God’s plan prevailed and Christopher did eventually enter the seminary. For the first three years his father discouraged him and pleaded with him to leave and even kept him home for two years. But Christopher was determined and eventually his devout father came to realize that it was him, and not his brother, who had a priestly vocation.

Ordained in 2003, Father Chris is a member of the Heralds of Good News. Founded in 1984 with the specific aim of promoting vocations and sending out saintly and hardworking missionaries to places where there is a shortage of priests, Father is one of four HGN priests who arrived in Vancouver in July last year.

Assigned to St. John the Apostle Church in Vancouver, where his humble and quiet presence is felt, Father Chris assists Msgr. Mark Hagemoen with the daily life of the parish. His special love is Holy Mass. “Everything I prayed for during the intentions of the Mass, I have received, even little things. I realize the importance and the effects of Holy Mass. I try to follow the words of Mother Teresa, ‘Say every Mass as if it were your last’.”

Described by Msgr. Hagemoen as “a gentle pastor of souls … a humble priest who desires to serve Christ and his Church”, Father Chris hopes to dedicate himself to parish ministry for the next several years, after which his superior would like him to study for his doctorate degree in Mass Media Communications.

It is Father’s dream to one day evangelize through the media in his native India, where he earned the Gold Medal Award for his Masters degree in Communications and founded the Heralds Animation and Social Communication Center. For now, Father Chris is in Vancouver, where God’s plan for him continues to unfold.

Although the Year for Priests has ended, The B.C. Catholic received a number of contributions profiling priests. Because the stories are compelling in themselves, while also illustrating the importance of priestly vocations, we will continue running articles inspired by the Year for Priests.