Pilgrimage to Sudbury

Our battle in Sault Ste Marie was short, but sweet. We started by going down to the local hospital where they do abortions. About 200 abortions are performed there every year. We met the most dedicated group of men, probably of our whole trip. The pro-life movement in Sault Ste Marie is small, but STRONG! Some of those men have been coming to protest at the hospital week after week for 17 years!!! Their dedication certainly empowered us as we gave them hope too. They efforts have not gone in vain. There are now no local doctors who perform abortions. They have to fly them in from Toronto!

As part of our speaking duties, I was lined up for something new, speaking at an Anglican church. The litrugy at the Anglican church was quite different. We found the service very lax and informal. The minister had to call up someone to do the second reading from the congregation. The minister also played the organ. There was a woman who read the gospel and the sermon. There was a healing service during mass. The whole liturgy was 2 hours! Needless to say, the minister and his wife were very welcoming of us. They wanted to run a story of us in the Anglican paper and they were very pro-life! There were also some very pro-life people in the congregation. However, there were quite a few that were very indifferent to our message and did not stop to look twice at us on their way out.

The rest of our speaking engagements were as expected. We also did something new, which was eat with the poor. We were invited to a "friendship meal" where we got to sit and eat with the poor. I was at a table with a very pro-choice person, who mentioned right away that she did not liked pro-lifers and that she aborted her daughter. It was hard to respond or even correspond with her as she was clearly not in the right state of mind. Outside the church, we came across a unique parking spot, which we think should be in more places and relates so much to do work we are doing, a parking spot for "pregnant and new mothers"!

Our walk to Sudbury can be summarized as hot and long, since we were only doing day walks and we were with only 5 members for most of the week. Br. Paul went to return the rental van and had the longest drive of 20 hours from Sudbury to Winnipeg!

We are staying with the watergate community here in Sudbury. They are some of the most faithful and hardworking people I have seen on this trip yet. The director of this community is handicapped and on a wheel chair. However, she is one of the smartest, determined and dedicated ladies I have ever seen. They are in the midst of defining the constitution for this community. However, this is a lay apostolate and they mainly deal with healing of people and also of the church. The whole place seems like a church with the statues, paintings and Christian reading material that they have got. Their mission is so important in today's broken church. Please pray a lot for their ministry!

We did not have many speaking engagements here in Sudbury, but the people and the priests overall have been very generous and hospitable, respectively. One of the most encouraging moments was meeting this young guy after mass who is on his way to becoming a teacher. He was filled with so much knowledge, zeal and passion for God. He knew himself well and you could tell he was open and searching for what God wanted for him. Meeting such enthusiastic young people really makes me want to work, support and pray for them. There are so few of them left amidst the darkness and disarray that today's youth seem to be going into.

Another blessing of us being here in this Watergate community is getting to spend time with and talk to a wonderful young priest. He was a great resource to bless us and our items, celebrate mass for us and just to talk to. He took us on a tour of Sudbury and treated us to dairy queen. What more can seminarians ask for than a great tour by an awesome priest and then a visit to DQ to finish it off?

Please pray for the diocese of Sault Ste Marie where a number of churches are closing down, there are a number of fairly liberal priests and very few young people attending mass. That's it from Sudbury. We are onwards to our most exciting part of the trip - Barry's Bay, Cumbermere and then Ottawa all in line for speaking in Hamilton next week. Adios for now....

Walking to Sault Ste Marie

On Sunday in Thunder Bay, I attended an outdoor mass. Fr. Terri talked about showing love to our neighbor as people could literally see their neighbors houses from where they were sitting. I gave my first outdoor talk and it was well received. We had an indoor lunch later and I got to meet Fr. Terri's parents and part of his family. Indeed it must be cool to have a brother or son who is a priest in the same diocese as you are living.

That evening I was set to go to a life teen mass at St. Agnes parish in Thunder Bay. Lifeteen was not active there in the summer, so there were not many youth, however, much more than you would normally see in mass. We try to focus our message on the evils of abortions at youth masses rather than the blurb about prayer intentions and donations.

After this, we geared up for what we knew was going to be our toughest stretch of the walk. 692 km, from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste Marie and only 6 of us to do the walk. We did our regular city walk through Thunder Bay and the majority response was pro-life, although we did get some pro-choices reactions that were pretty strong and were mainly expletives!

I was on the night team and I knew this was going to be really hard. The night team usually gets less sleep, since we have to move the RV during the day and do certain errands when places are open during the day. Not to mention, we were warned about bears, wolves & moose.

The first few nights are always a little eerie and your mind plays games with you. Usually the 3 or 4 AM shift is the hardest, since you are so tired and you have to keep walking. The last shifts are also really difficult since you have been walking the whole night and your legs are really aching and craving a massage! The best thing about the night shift is when the morning breaks. You see the sky lighten up, the birds chirping. In this case, the highway was right beside Lake Superior and you could hear and see the waves crashing, which is also a welcome addition to the morning sounds. The other good points about the night shift are it is really quiet and there is less traffic and hence serves as a good time for contemplation. The skies are filled with literally thousands of stars on the route from Thunder Bay to Sault Ste Marie on the No. 17!


We stopped by Montreal River and got our chance to swim in Lake Superior. The water is super clear and there are no fish. We said our evening prayer to sunset on L. Superior. Montreal River has got to go down as one of the best venues and campgrounds of this trip. Simply beautiful. The beauty transcends all imagination!

After some intense walking and a regular 140 KM/day, we made it to Sault Ste. Marie today. I was practically stumbling along on my last shift today.We attended a Polish service today and the priest was very welcoming to us. He told us about the amalgamating of two churches in the diocese. What I got from our conversation with him was that our priests and young people need a lot of prayers today.

We are based in an old retreat center in Sault Ste. Marie. The whole house was given for us to stay. This place is huge! It has 11 bedrooms, several washrooms, a huge dining room and kitchen, a private chapel, all exclusively for the 6 of us. Man, we are really spoiled!

Tomorrow we start our adventure in Sault Ste. Marie. Only God knows what's in store for us as we continue down this path. Each day, we wake up to a completely new adventure!

Long Trek To Thunder Bay

The walk to Thunder Bay indeed was long. The great thing is we had an extra walker, Sean to join us. We met him in Winnipeg and in matter of a day he decided to join us. He was God-given because John Deuling was going to leave us in Thunder Bay.

I was on the day team this week. I was told that we are entering bear territory again, so my hair was starting to stand on end again. In summary, the walk was hot, tiring. There were a few honks, mostly pro-life. This was also the first time we would be walking on the No. 1 highway. The traffic there is so much more intense than the smaller roads. We had to move way over every time these huge trucks passed us, which was quite often. The traffic also was much more fast-moving. It was hard to jog on the gravel and my right thigh was starting to hurt. I also got my first blisters of the walk, which I treated immediately. There was definitely a good share of physical pain to offer up.

In Dryden we met with an inter-denomenational bible study group. They treated us to breakfast at A&W and asked us a lot of questions about our walk. In Kenora, Br. Paul met up with a priest that he knew before and the parishners there took us out to breakfast. As usual, it is these people that pray and feed us along the way that keeps us going.

We saw a blue heron in the act of catching a fish which was one of the many treats of the walk. We finally made it to Thunder Bay after what seemed like an endless week of walking from Winnipeg. I was practically limping to the car the last few meters.

At Thunder Bay, we were given an awesome welcome by Fr. Richard of Corpus Christi and his young adult team. We were delighted to talk to them about youth ministry and pro-life work in Corpus Christi. One of the members of the young adult team was the vice-president of the pro-life group of Lakehead university. We gave him some ideas on how to improve the pro-life movement in Thunder Bay. They made us an amazing dinner of spaghetti and mince. After dinner, we got the best gift ever. Fr. Richard opened up the church for us for adoration, confession and our own private mass.

Today, sadly, we had to bid farewell to John. We were scheming ways that we could keep him, but the reality is that good times have to come to an end. It was especially a sad day for us seminarians at Christ the King because John will not be returning to Christ the King next year. He will be discerning with the Jesuits in Montreal. He will definitely be missed by our group. His musical and social talents are just unbeatable! We took a group picture with him beside the sleeping giant on L. Superior and the Terry Fox memorial. Perfect last venue for such a dedicated group of pro-lifers!

When we return back to Corpus Christi we got ourselves organized for the evening masses. Frances and I were set to go to St. Peters, the first Slovak church in Canada. The priest, Fr. Terri, was ordained just a month ago and he gave us an extraordinary welcome. He came and picked us up, gave us an excellent reception, took us out to dinner and welcomed us to his youth group bocchi ball social. All, very memorable activities.

That takes us unto this moment. More to come about Sunday in Thunder Bay and our route to Sault St. Marie. Bye for now

Walking into Winnipeg

We spent the rest of our weekend with Regina giving talks at many parishes. We were scheduled to speak at 6 parishes with 7 of us. All of this has given me a good exposure to many priests, their style of operating and preaching. It has also given me exposure to the liturgy in many churches which include the lay people helping at the liturgy and the choir. We prayed outside the Regina hospital and got an interview there with one of the Catholic reporters. It was good to show our support for pro-life as a large group.

Even though we spoke at 6 parishes, none of them gave us the opportunity to speak to youth. We really wanted to hit the youth in Regina. We went to the divine mercy chapel in Regina and prayed about it. I guess God must have wanted that too, since at the chapel was a retired priest who was going to celebrate a youth mass at the Regina Cathedral! We admired his dedication because though he was a retired priest, having had multiple surgeries and clearly weak, he did celebrate mass. He gave us one of the biggest welcomes ever. He asked all of us walkers to come up to the front of the cathedral and he allowed us to exit the church with him. I think we touched a lot of people because we got a lot of donations including a young man, Kevin, who wanted to walk with us that night. Now, given that we had to cover a huge distance from Regina to Winnipeg, we considered this to be a huge blessing.

We set forth that night on the long road to Winnipeg. Kevin was a huge help to our walk and we thank him for his spontaneous response and desire to walk with us. We set a record in distance that night. We covered 135 KM! Our walk on the road to Winnipeg can be summarized as heavy winds, limited reaction and lack of cell coverage.

We did stop by Portage La Prairie and Brandon. We went to another beautiful Ukranian liturgy in Brandon. The Ukranian priest in Brandon gave us $70 in donations and another lady in the parish matched that. The donations they said was just for our breakfast that day. The Ukranian priests, liturgy and lay people continue to amaze me with their generosity and hospitality.

We reached Winnipeg on Friday to a blistering 31 degrees! The heat just sapped the energy out of me. When I reached my last of my 5 KM shifts, I was ready to pass out and happily welcomed an iced cap. A lady came up to us on our first stop in the city of Winnipeg and she was so pleased with what we were doing, she gave us a $40 donation. Pretty good for someone who just randomly noticed us in the parking lot of mall!

Our time in Winnipeg has been short, but busy. We got to pray outside the woman's hospital in Winnipeg, where they do abortions. My highlight of Winnipeg was experiencing the traditional Latin mass. We were scheduled to speak at Pope Pius the X. I really enjoyed the liturgy, especially the reverence and respect that they have for our Lord. I spoke about our walk and they asked us several questions about our journey. A young man from Pius the X took us out to dinner and we had an interesting talk about the differences between Pius X being in schism with Rome. Needless to say, there was no blood drawn and the 3 of us took of unscathed!

We attended an amazing BBQ with a Catholic family that knew 3 of the walkers. I spoke with the mother of 9 at the BBQ and she shared with me how much she would like to show others how much love there is in the Church.

Finally, I was scheduled to go to St. Vital parish for the 8PM mass. The priest there wanted me to strictly keep to the script when I gave my talk. I was a bit dissapointed with this because you usualy show a lot of enthusiasm and draw more people when you speak from the heart and share a bit of your own personal statements. However, out of obedience, I did this and the results for somewhat poor given the number of people at mass.

That's it for Winnipeg. We are onwards to Kenora and then to Thunder Bay today. Should be a long journey. Another 700KM atleast from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay. We are now half-way through our journey. Another 40 days to go. We are now in our second lent. Should be exciting!