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

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death

January 14, 2019 By Mike Landry

Three Words

A year ago today, 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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Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: death, gratitude, hope

March 24, 2016 By Mike Landry

Why did Jesus have to die?

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In the Bible (and in the biblical era), the concept of “sonship” is an important one.  A son is more than an heir to the possessions of his father – there are titles, rights, and responsibilities that come particularly to a firstborn (or only) son.  The understanding or claim that Jesus was (is) the only begotten Son of God puts Jesus on equal footing with God – and to many of his first century audience, this was a scandalous claim.  Judaism has an understanding of the sacred that may seem foreign to many Christians – they treat even God’s name with the utmost care and respect.  For a living, breathing human being to claim to be God’s Son was blasphemy, and those who called for Jesus’ execution did so with the intention of safeguarding that which is sacred:

“We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.”  -John 19:7

While on the one hand, Jesus’ death came about for these very real reasons, the fact is that those who made up the mob crying out crucify him! couldn’t possibly have understood what was happening.  Certainly, Jesus was sentenced to death on a cross for claiming to be God’s son – but He died for a much bigger reason – one which dramatically impacts our claim to live as God’s children. [Read more…] about Why did Jesus have to die?

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Filed Under: Food for thought, Reflections Tagged With: death, Easter, forgiveness, Good Friday, Jesus, redemption, resurrection, sin, Suffering

November 10, 2015 By Mike Landry

Be the Hero: doing what you can

Photo Credit: Chris & Karen Highland (Creative Commons License)
Photo Credit: Chris & Karen Highland (Creative Commons License)

From time to time we all see or hear about professional athletes being put into critical situations for their team: being put on the ice for sudden death overtime in hockey, pitching or batting in the the bottom of the ninth in baseball, or playing an elimination game in any sport.  When interviewers ask if they are nervous, many of them discuss how they’ve trained for years for this moment – and how they relish the chance to make a difference. Jose Bautista’s series saving homerun in the ALDS a few weeks ago was the perfect example of this – with one swing of the bat, he changed the fortunes of his team.  And it was a moment he absolutely savors…

I wish you could have heard my thoughts in that moment. It’s the closest I have ever felt to being a superhero. I felt like I was Batman, and the villain had the girl dangling off the edge of the building. My adrenaline wasn’t 10-out-of-10. It was ten-million-out-of-10.

While sports offer a spotlight for these sorts of heroic actions, there are numerous other careers that make life-saving decisions without the pomp and circumstance that Bautista and many like him enjoy – military personnel, first responders, and those who work in the medical field.  Each man or woman who works in these fields and others like them trains to defend, protect, and save lives – looking precisely to those moments where their actions might make a difference.

I think that every kid who has ever tied a cape around their neck and pretended to be a superhero has felt that same hope,wanting to make a difference.  Many superheroes embody those qualities many of us aspire to: of courage, of selflessness, and that same desire to make a difference in the lives of other.

I had an experience a couple of weeks ago that reminded me that it’s a lot easier to imagine yourself as the hero than to actually be the hero. [Read more…] about Be the Hero: doing what you can

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Filed Under: Reflections Tagged With: accident, body of christ, death, hero, hope, Suffering

September 19, 2015 By Mike Landry

And Jesus Wept…

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Resurrection of Lazarus, 1896, Public Domain.
Henry Ossawa Tanner, Resurrection of Lazarus, 1896, Public Domain.

I wrote this in December 2013 after a former student in one of my schools was tragically killed in a car accident.  May it bring hope in some of your most difficult moments.

One of the more difficult parts of working in a Church are the moments when a young person dies.  I’ve had the privilege of “celebrating” the lives of many young people – children, teenagers, and young adults – leading prayer vigils, playing music, or sitting among family and friends as we mourn not only the loss of life – but also the hopes and dreams that they, and we, had for each young life. [Read more…] about And Jesus Wept…

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Filed Under: Food for thought, Reflections Tagged With: death, hope, Suffering, when God doesn't make sense

July 21, 2015 By Mike Landry

The Last Four Things

"Fra Angelico 009" by Fra Angelico (circa 1395–1455) - The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fra_Angelico_009.jpg#/media/File:Fra_Angelico_009.jpg
“The Last Judgment” by Fra Angelico (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons) 

Let’s get the bad news out of the way right off the bat: we’re all going to die.  While we may not think about it very often, death is inevitable.  It often takes a personal brush with death or the illness or loss of a loved one to make us even consider our own mortality.  Whether you fear it or would be willing to face it with courage, you can’t avoid death.  When Christians talk about death, we are speaking of the end of our earthly lives… the moment where an individual’s soul separates from his or her body (which will decay while awaiting resurrection at Jesus’ return.)

But if we all die, what happens next?  In Catholic tradition, death is the first of the “last four things” – death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell.   [Read more…] about The Last Four Things

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Filed Under: Food for thought, Reflections, Talks by Mike Tagged With: death, heaven, hell, hope, judgment, living faith, Pope John Paul II

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Who is Mike Landry?

A husband & father of five children, Mike serves most days as Chaplain to Evergreen Catholic Schools.

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Diving into Scripture

Echoing an invitation from Archbishop Richard Smith, Mike has some resources to get you started on reading your Bible more often.
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Mike Landry is a Catholic speaker based near Edmonton, Alberta who serves in Western Canada & beyond.
All content is intended to reflect the teachings of the Catholic Church. © 2019, Feel free to get in touch!

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