Mike Landry: Catholic speaker, writer, & music minister in Alberta, Canada HomepageMike Landry: Catholic speaker, writer, & music minister in Alberta, Canada

Reflections

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Deacon Pat Hessel’s Homily from SPA Graduation 2019

The following is the text of the homily Deacon Pat Hessel of Holy Trinity Parish delivered to the St. Peter the Apostle Catholic High School Class of 2019 on Saturday, June 2, 2019:

            Many cultures around the world have initiation rites for men and women.  An initiation rite is sometimes called a rite of passage: a ritual that people go through that marks a change in their status in society.  Initiation rites are usually linked to reproductive maturity, representing the movement from childhood or adolescence to adulthood.

            Those being initiated are sometimes challenged physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  The challenges are not necessarily meant to test the abilities of the person.  Rather, the whole initiation process is a quest of self-discovery.  The initiates are forced to discover who they really are.  They often face very dangerous situations.  One of the purposes is to show them that, in some circumstances, they are powerless.  So, while the initiation occurs at a time in their lives when they will become increasingly powerful members of their society, they have this experience of powerlessness, in hopes that the wisdom that comes from this experience will prevent them from abusing the power that will come to them.

            The initiation rite ushers them into a new position in their society.  Some of our aboriginal groups in Canada still have initiation rites, but for the most part we don’t have this experience.  And no, that wild beer-bash on your 18th birthday doesn’t count as an initiation rite!  In our society, I think today – graduation day – is the closest we have to a rite of initiation.  As a graduate, you will be viewed differently by society.  But will you view yourselves differently?  Do you see this as a milestone?  Does this change anything?

            In your retreat, Mike Landry used the image of a blank canvas, suggesting that your life to this point has been about shaping the frame and stretching the canvas – getting things ready.  And the rest of your life will be about creating a work of art on that blank canvas.  It’s a wonderful image, and it does make your graduation look a lot like an initiation rite.  In an important way, your life can change, but that’s up to you.  Today could be the start of an amazing new journey, or just another day.

            As I said, one of the things that happens in an initiation rite is that the initiates, through the challenges they endure, discover who they really are.  So, for you, that means questions like: “Who am I apart from the expectations of my parents – my teachers?”  And as you take more control over your life, you ask: “What things are important for me?  How will I fill that blank canvas – the canvas I’ve prepared with the help of so many people?  Am I really ready to grow up yet, to take responsibility for myself?”

            I don’t pretend to be an artist (it was my worst class in school), but often, the artist begins a painting by laying out the background for that painting.  The background then, anchors the painting.  And I think it’s important – actually critical – that you consider carefully, what will be the background – the anchor of the work of art that will be your life.  For some people, their main purpose or goal is the accumulation of money, for others, the accumulation of things, or a successful career.  For some, it’s marriage and family.  You can understand that whatever forms the background of your painting – whatever anchors your life – will have a profound effect on your decisions, your actions – the course your life will take.

            In the first reading today, Saint Paul told the Ephesians: “I pray that according to the riches of [God’s] glory, [God] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through [the] Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts…as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”  So, for Paul, the background – the anchor – was love.  He described it as: “…the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge.”

            And Jesus said something similar in the Gospel that we just heard: “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”  When we hear the words: “abide in my love,” we can, again, envision the painting that is our life set against this background of love.  And then, the primary motivation of our life is that, as Jesus said: “…you love one another as I have loved you.”  And he said that he wanted us to base our lives on love, in his words: “…so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”  Doing this, loving one another as Jesus loved us, doesn’t get in the way of career or family, or material comforts.  It simply anchors all of these parts of our lives to the love of God.

            I think it’s important that each of you considers where God, and the love of God, fits into the work of art that will be your life.  Will God be the background – the anchor, the touchstone?  Will your decisions and actions always refer back to Jesus’ words: “…love one another as I have loved you?”  Or will God show up in your painting only intermittently, like when you get married, if you do get married: “Got to do that in church.”  Or when your children, if you eventually have them, need to be baptized: “Got to do that in church.”  Or when your loved ones pass from this world to the next: “Got to do that in church.”

            Do you see what I’m asking?  How will God appear in your picture?  Will God be the anchor of your artwork, or just a minor detail here and there, or not at all?”  I hope that for each of you, “not at all” is not an option, but increasingly the world seems quite happy proceeding without even acknowledging the love of God – even the existence of God.  But, you know, whether we understand it or not, God IS the anchor for all of our lives.  The real question is whether and to what extent we realize it, and how that realization affects us each day.  You’ve all attended Catholic school for a number of years.  You cannot be ignorant about the message of Jesus – the message of love.  The question is what you will do with that knowledge.

            Elsewhere in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, he says: “Let us, then, be children no longer, carried about by every wind of doctrine…Rather, let us profess the truth in love, and grow into the full maturity of Christ the head…Through him the whole body grows, and…builds itself up in love.”

            Today can be just another day for you, or it can be the beginning of a new and intentional way of living in the world; intentionally showing to yourself and others the love that God has shown you, and will continue to show you.  Your canvas is waiting.  You are the artist.  Create a true work of art – a work of art anchored in God’s love.

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Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

Photo credit: Johan & Natasja on Flickr (used under Creative Commons copyright license)
Photo credit: Johan & Natasja on Flickr (used under Creative Commons copyright license)

Liturgically speaking, Holy Saturday is the quietest day of the year – the time between Jesus’ death, and his resurrection which takes place at the Easter Vigil, technically Easter Sunday. Holy Saturday has always seemed to be such a quiet day in the midst of a very busy week – especially when I try to put myself into the shoes of the apostles, who would have distinctly felt the emptiness and loneliness of Jesus’ death most profoundly.  The following is the text of an ancient homily from Holy Saturday as found in the Liturgy of the Hours – and is one of the most beautiful explanations I’ve found for the silence of this day:

What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.

[Read more…] about Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

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mikeisthird.com: New Name, Same Site

Please update your bookmarks, as I’ve moved from thirdplaceproject.com to mikeisthird.com. If you arrived here looking for answers on a specific topic, feel free to use the menu above or the search box below. Read on to hear why I’ve made the change:

It’s been nearly 22 years since I first embraced the call to serve God in some form of youth ministry. Over that time, I’ve spoken and sung at summer camps, youth groups, retreats, parish missions, youth rallies, and in schools. For about half of that time, I’ve sought to maintain a visible, online presence. That’s why in 2008, I launched the original version of this website – iamthird.ca.

There were a variety of reasons why this name was chosen: largely, a desire to summarize our life’s work as Catholic Christians: first of all, learning to love God “…with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37) and second, “to love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). It was these commandments of Jesus that Catherine de Hueck Doherty, the foundress of Madonna House, lived without compromise, and expressed in one simple statement: I am third.  Simply put, this means that to follow Jesus is to embrace a life that places God first and our neighbors second… making our ultimate goal third place.

A few years ago, based on the fruits of my own prayer and some advice that I would be better equipped to serve if the site were a .com, we migrated everything over to thirdplaceproject.com. Part of the goal at that time was to assemble a group of people who would contribute not only to the site, but also to some of the other aspects of my ministry – notably speaking and music.

Two things led me to believe that a change was necessary. First of all, things didn’t unfold as I thought they might. I find myself most often speaking, singing, and writing largely on my own rather than as a part of a larger group (which a “project” would imply.) Second, it seems like I’ve lost something in going from iamthird to the thirdplaceproject: namely, that whenever I used mention that my site was “iamthird,” – students would ask why. This gave me the opportunity to explain, as above, why Catherine Doherty coined the phrase. For whatever reason, “Third Place Project” was either too formal or abstract sounding to elicit the same questions.

So, once again, I’ve moved. And I’m planning to make my permanent online home here at mikeisthird.com. All of my best articles about YouCat, scripture, and practical applications for our faith remain here. The name is short and sweet, and hopefully it will give me opportunities to explain to those whom I serve in speaking, writing, and singing our simple mission as Christians: to put God first, our neighbour second, and ourselves third.

Are you looking for answers to some of your faith questions?  Would you like to deepen your life of prayer?  Do you want to read more about me (Mike Landry)? Would you like to have me out to speak or sing at your school, parish, or other group?

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Three Words

Two years ago, on January 14th, 2018, I said farewell to my father as he died due to complications related to cancer.  It was one of the hardest days I’ve ever lived – I wrote the following a couple of days later to try and put into words what my dad means to me.

In my day-to-day life I play many roles.  I’m a Chaplain, musician, wannabe writer, geek, husband, and a father of five.  This last role – father – is probably the most intimidating one of all of them, as I’ve been entrusted with the incredible responsibility of teaching and shaping these five little lives to become both responsible citizens and (hopefully someday) saints.

That last role – being a father – and much more seem harder this week as the man who first taught me what that word means, Robert J. Landry, died on Sunday afternoon.

I’ve been trying to put words to the way I’ve been feeling since , and I’ve found three.  I feel gratitude, I feel loss, and I feel hope.

I feel gratitude because these days have given me pause to consider just how much of who I am I owe to him.  When I consider some of my great loves – playing music, the Edmonton Oilers, my love for sci-fi (Star Wars/Star Trek) – a lot of these go back to Dad.  For most of my life I’ve watched Dad with his guitar.  I can remember him playing on our living room couch with hockey on in the background and the TV on mute.  I spent 10 years in various Scouts Canada groups, and for 9 of those Dad was one of our group leaders who always came to camp with his 12 string in hand and led us in singing goofy campfire songs and reflective songs during “Scouts Own” sessions on Sunday mornings.  And most of all, I remember spending New Year Eve at Dad’s side many times at his cousin’s house in Beaumont where Dad’s guitar would be joined by a banjo, an accordion, and often even a stand up bass for hours of east coast favorites.  I think those evenings are the closest experience I’ve ever had to a proper Nova Scotia kitchen party.  It was these evenings that first inspired me to take guitar lessons – dad went to a pawn shop & picked up an old guitar, then turned the strings around so I’d have something to learn on.

Through work, Dad used to get tickets to Oilers games through the 1980’s.  You may recall that the 1980’s were a pretty good time to be an Oilers fan (and I didn’t understand then just how lucky we were to see the Oilers as a Stanley Cup contender every year!)  Every time we went to a game, he’d buy me a souvenir hockey puck -the collection of which I still keep on display in my office at St. Peter the Apostle CHS.  While this love for the Oilers has not been nearly as rewarding over the last dozen years, I was able to take Dad to a few hockey games the last few years.  We both set foot in Northlands Coliseum (Rexall Place) one last time a couple winters ago to watch the Oilers lose.  He was with me and a few of my kids last March in Edmonton’s shiny new arena for an Oil Kings comeback/overtime win.  But my favorite hockey more recent memory with him would probably be our trip to the World’s Longest Hockey game a couple of winters ago, when he, my oldest son, and I, got to go and contribute to that incredible cause.

And yes, all of you who have to put up with my overall geekery (and my fabulous Star Wars puns): I owe at least some of that to Dad as well, as I started watching Star Trek with him in the mid-80’s.

Overall, I’m grateful that for 37 1/2 years, Bob Landry was my dad.  No, he wasn’t perfect (but neither am I).  Some of the lessons we learned in our weakness and through tough times may be some of those I am most grateful for.

That I feel loss is probably pretty obvious.  My dad is gone.  I won’t be able to call or text my dad with a question when I start filling out my taxes, and countless other small moments I’ve come to take for granted.  I know, like any wound, this will heal and the ache won’t quite be the same tomorrow as it was today… but there’s no shortcut through it.  And I find it doubly hard because I’m also getting to see this through the eyes of my kids for whom Pepe is the second beloved grandfather they’ve lost in a year.

I also feel hope.  If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that hope is a regular theme I’ve tried to write about (particularly when discussing death.)  In a nutshell, it’s one of the hallmarks of Christianity: in spite of the fact that sin and suffering exist in our world – and death seems to bring those of us left behind a great deal of suffering – none of these get the last word.  Our belief in the resurrection, in a life after death is something that brings with it hope.  I think that once the shock of what’s happened this week has worn off a bit, that hope will take up a more prominent place in my heart.  My dad experienced a lot of suffering throughout his life, from the loss of his mother at the age of 15 to the cancer he was fighting up until the moment of his death.  It is my hope and my prayer that he’s now able to experience the reward that comes from that suffering.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon him.  May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

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An OGRE To help you grow closer to God

The Following represents my talk notes from the closing keynote talk at the Prince George Diocesan Youth Conference on April 22nd, 2018

As we come to the end of our time together, I want to encourage you with some words from St. Padre Pio:

In the spiritual life one must always go on pushing ahead and never go backwards; if not, the same thing happens as to a boat which when it loses headway gets blown backwards with the wind.

The first thing I would challenge you to do is to go home with your eyes wide open to your surroundings. Does the music you listen to, shows you watch, and the people you interact with on social media push you ahead and deepen your relationship with God… or are they pulling you away?

  • The alcoholic who is serious about recovery stays away from the bar (and pours out any more beer he has been keeping in the house). The drug addict often has to leave town.  The porn addict doesn’t just clear his browser history, he installs accountability software on his computer, cell phone, and he looks through his DVD collection to see if there’s anything that would lead him into the near occasion of sin.
  • As you arrive home tonight, keep your eyes open this week for those things you might need to change, those things which are pulling you away or acting as an anchor to keep you from the life that Jesus wants for you. BE HONEST.
  • If you really trust Him, you’re not worried that what you give up will outweigh what you get: there is no promise in this world that can match up to the promises of God.

Most of that is about not going backwards.  How do you PUSH AHEAD in your spiritual life?  My solution is that I want to give you an OGRE.  This OGRE represents four tips that will help you pray at multiple times per day–to walk the path of renewal and cooperate with the Spirit of God in you who is always working to push you away from death and towards life.

The ‘O’: Make a Morning Offering

I remember visiting my high school girlfriend’s family and seeing in big letters on the wall in her brother’s room “MAKE A MORNING OFFERING.”  I never really understood what it meant until a few years later, at Bible School when one of our instructors told us to do the same.

It really is quite simple: by making an offering of your whole day (good, bad, and ugly) to God at the very start of your day, you do what we did last night – bringing Him with you and remembering He is with you in all circumstances and at all times.  This is in direct opposition to what we do by our sin, which is to separate ourselves from Him (as we saw yesterday morning) and ultimately to exclude Him from our lives.

There are formal prayers you can use:

My God, I adore You, and I love You with all my heart. I thank you for having created me, made me a Christian, and preserved me this night. I offer You the actions of this day. Grant that all of them may be in accordance with Your holy Will and for Your greater glory. Protect me from sin and from all evil. Let Your grace be always with me and with all my dear ones. Amen.

 Making an offering of your day is a simple way to start on the right foot – before you even set foot on the floor to get out of bed.  If you don’t know what to say, google a morning prayer, but feel free to simply offer Him your day in your own words. We learn prayer the same way we learn to talk: imitating words and sounds before finding our own. The point is to offer it ALL to the God who loves you and gave you that day in the first place.

The ‘G’: Say Grace

A couple years ago, a group of youth from my parish decided to try and pray Grace before lunch while at school for a whole week.  On Sunday night, it seemed to them to be a fantastic idea… but on Monday at 11:30, it was much more intimidating.

My youth minister used to say that every time we pray in public, it is a small humiliation – an act of love – for the God who was completely humiliated for us. What does this do? Makes us just a little more like Him.  Saying Grace before our meals helps us to recognize the presence of God in our day (and from whom we get all we have.)

While it may seem like a trivial thing, saying Grace three times a day means you are stopping to pray three times a day… which is also a very good thing.

The ‘R’: Read Your Bible (and not just the easy parts!)

When he was Archbishop of Edmonton, Cardinal Thomas Collins used to carry a small, pocket sized, red Bible in his suit coat pocket.  He took every opportuinty he could to remind us that Bibles are meant to be red (read.)

For most people who make a New Year’s resolution to read the Bible, it’s sometime in February or March that they give up (having come upon Leviticus’ commandments not to sleep with animals or your sister, they are understandably disturbed). But it’s all inspired, God speaks to us in all of it, and you need to make sure it stays red/read.  And by that, I mean daily.

There are a ton of reading guides out there.  If you enter it into Google, you’ll find a few good ones.  The App store on the iPhone and Google Play both contain many as well – check with your youth minister or priest to help find a good one. Try and find out what readings your church will be reflecting on next Sunday and read those ahead of time (easier to do in some faith traditions than others).

One simple way I would recommend that will allow you to read the New Testament in 4-5 months:

a) read a chapter in the morning starting in Matthew, and going through the 4 Gospels Acts of the Apostles, and the Letter to the Romans) – 133 total chapters

b) read a chapter in the evening (starting with the 1st letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, then going through all the letters and the book of Revelation.) – 126 total chapters

You could also just read one chapter a day – this would allow you to get through the New Testament in 9-10 months (depending on how faithful you are to your reading.)

(If you want to try and get through the whole Bible, feel free to use this handy Bible Reading Checklist to keep track of your progress.)

The point, though, whatever plan or guide you go with is to read it.  EVERY DAY.  Allow God to speak to you through it, discover yourself in it, and have your faith deepened by it.

The ‘E’: Make an examination of Conscience

One traditional form of prayer in our Church involves ending your day with a brief examination of conscience, taking an honest look at the day and the ways in which you did or did not respond to God’s grace that day.

There is great wisdom in this practice, because it not only allows you an opportunity to see the patterns of sin in your life… but also to look for opportunities to do something about it in the next day.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be the formal examination of conscience we did yesterday afternoon. (You can find that on the second page of this document.)  It could also be something as simple as (SLIDE 11) asking yourself how you did at loving God & loving your neighbor today.

The point is to make the space, to check your heart, and to ask God’s grace to do better tomorrow.

If you take on this “OGRE” – begin your day by offering it to God, stop three times to say grace, and end it by reflecting on how you’ve chosen life (and death) that day, you’ll be praying six times a day and allowing the breath of the Holy Spirit to breathe you forward.

Remember that Jesus has promised “I am with you always” – on your best day, your worst day and everything in between.  He has been around since the beginning of time – ad he was there for your specific origin story.  He was there when you found yourself drawn to the “distant country” – and when you were ready to make your return home again.  He was there in every moment you have ever felt afraid.  He was there on the Cross to restore your relationship with Him (and others).

He loves you.  I am praying for you.