On the March 14th program there was a 42-minute interview of two people affected by the 1978 shooting in Toronto of a Brinks guard. One was the perpetrator and the other was a daughter of the victim. They talk about their own long journeys to forgiveness. The woman, Margot van Sluytman, was a student at Notre Dame High School in Toronto at the time. In trying to deal with its effects she left home and was about to drop out of school. She credits Sister Lucille Corrigan with helping her which she described as a lifesaving act for her at the time. You can hear the interview at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-march-14-2017-1.4022956/how-one-woman-came-to-forgive-the-man-who-murdered-her-father-1.4023042
This was the title of the third annual Social Justice Symposium sponsored by the Cooper Institute on Saturday, March 11. The afternoon began with “environmental” entertainment featuring a popular PEI singer-songwriter Teresa Doyle who sang a couple of her compositions regarding climate change including “The World Is In A Pickle” and “The New Titanic” which, among other things, suggests that: “A Ship Of Fools We Are, sitting on our deck chairs, we push the climate to the brink… and think the boat will never sink…”
In this Gospel passage, we discover Jesus in one of the unique encounters recorded in the Gospels. We find him in conversation with a woman, the longest conversation with either man or woman of which we have a record. He was on his way to Galilee from Jerusalem. Jews and Samaritans were divided by religious differences, and Jews usually avoided going through Samaria, a country lying between Judea and Galilee. Rather, they made a detour. Jesus was audacious in transgressing the current customs and daring to speak in public to a woman, a Samaritan at that, and one who was looked upon as being a sinner.