There’s More Here Than You Think There Is!  Artist Mary Pratt was renowned for her paintings whose subject matter focused on women’s work. In an interview, when asked about one painting of empty eggshells, she responded enigmatically, “Love me!  Love Me! There’s more here than you think there is!” In other words, look carefully.

We could say much the same about Saint Bede’s Church, Nolan’s Corners. It is shown here early in the 21st century, long after an addition was made a generation ago. At first glance, Saint Bede’s doesn’t seem to amount to much. It seems to be a very simple building. It certainly was small when built, being no larger than the red brick one room school nearby. Like it, it was built unassumingly of red brick. It was aligned with the forced road that ran past the front door, with no attempt at having its congregation face toward Jerusalem during their devotions.

There isn’t even any mystery as to the age of Saint Bede’s Church, as shown by the year 1886 on the date stone at the top of the narthex gable—a most unusual location, suggesting that it was altogether a last-minute notion to incorporate it. The side windows of Saint Bede’s Church did not have so much as a trace of stained glass in them when this photograph was taken, and the pews inside at that time were little more than benches with a back rail. Those who perceive that this is a very functional building indeed will not be surprised to see the very large, very practical burial ground extending out behind this small rural house of worship.

But once we understand the context in which Saint Bede’s was built, we see that something revolutionary was taking place with the building of this unpretentious house of worship. People from Nolan’s Corners went to Saint James’s Church, Franktown from the 1820s on. Saint James’s was a simple auditory box, with a Palladian window over the altar, and with a tower over the front door to proclaim that this was a church of the British establishment. When a church was built at nearby Smiths Falls in 1849, if larger, it too had the same temple form as the church at Franktown, albeit with pointed windows rather than round-headed ones, but still a tower over the entrance at the front to declare that it was a church of the British establishment.

Saint Bede’s was built 40 years after Saint John’s, Smiths Falls, and 60 years after Saint James’s, Franktown. It might as well have been 500 years. Unlike earlier churches, sharing a handful of traditional names—Christ Church, Saint James, Saint John and Saint Paul—Saint Bede’s stood out with the name of a major early English churchman. Whereas the earlier churches were built expensively in stone, Saint Bede’s was red brick in construction.

The towers signifying the British establishment had given way to a modest entrance porch, and the old temple form of earlier churches gave way here to steep gables and pointed windows proclaiming affinity with the mediaeval past. Where earlier churches featured a communion table on the same level as worshippers, there was a steep flight of steps up to the altar in Saint Bede’s, and the congregation looked up to a large chancel window high above the altar. The source for all this change was to be found in back issues of The Church Builder from 1866 to 1878 consulted by the local clergyman building Saint Bede’s.

The Diocesan Archives collects parish registers, vestry reports, service registers, minutes of groups and committees, financial documents, property records (including cemeteries and architectural plans), insurance policies, letters, pew bulletins, photographs and paintings, scrapbooks, parish newsletters and unusual documents.

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I have been leading a group in the practice of Christian meditation for years. Like its sister practice of centering prayer, Christian meditation asks us to let go of images and thoughts about God and instead to give God our full attention in silence. People ask sometimes how one can justify this use or non-use of one’s time. With so many needs in the world, ought we not to be busy trying to meet them? A bumper sticker version of the question says humorously “Christ is coming again. Look busy!”

Our faith tradition proposes something quite different. The purpose of activity is rest. It’s hard to think of anything more counter-cultural, even in the Church, than this. Activity in any form that is not harmful is seen as self-justifying and true. Has there been any time when there was so much sheer activity as there is today, yet with so little real co-ordination and unity of purpose?

Mere activity – activity for the sake of activity – is simply diabolical – noise for the sake of noise, bustle for the sake of bustle. The Vulgate translation of Psalm 91:6 describes the devil as negotium perambulans in tenebris, “the business that prowls around in the shadows,” sheer mischief looking for a loophole by which it can make an entry. Dorothy L. Sayers wrote that “damnation is without direction or purpose. Why not? It has nothing to do, and all eternity to do it in.” George Macdonald, by contrast, described heaven as “the regions where there is only life and therefore all that is not music is silence.”

It’s a sad feature of our culture that so many of us have little opportunity for genuine interior repose and quiet, and we are reluctant to use it when it comes our way. Perhaps there is a fear that if we are deprived of the distractions, the noise, both literal and metaphorical, which is the condition of regular life, we might have to start paying attention to the disquieting suspicion that the very activity that so dominates life is largely pointless and self-frustrating. Noise can, in fact, make itself louder and louder in order to disguise its own futility.

The book of Genesis provides the pattern of rest. We are told that God blessed and hallowed the seventh day, because God rested from all the work of creation. There is a real sense, of course, in which God’s activity never ceases at all, since God’s creative act perpetually upholds and energizes the universe. Neither is the inner being of God dead or static. It is that unfathomable energy of life and love which is the Holy Trinity. But all this involves no change in God, no alteration or vacillation of actions. God is the unchanging ground of the changing universe. In God, rest and activity are reconciled.

Nevertheless, the truth that the anthropomorphic language of Genesis expresses is that God does not, so to speak, turn away in relief from the created world. God contemplates it and rejoices in it. God is not like the wage-slave who tries to forget work during the weekend break. God is more like the hobbyist who makes things and then takes pleasure in using them, or like the painter who can enjoy looking at a picture she has made.

In the Genesis story, the story of the first creation, it was on the sixth day of the week that God made man in the divine image and gave him dominion over the lower creatures. In the Gospel story, the story of the new creation, humankind was remade by God on the sixth day of the week, the first Good Friday, when Christ, the perfect man, died on the cross. And Christ rested in the tomb on Holy Saturday – the Great Sabbath – in the enjoyment of the work of the new creation. He saw what he had made and behold, it was very good. The consummation of the new creation comes when Christ lies at rest in the tomb, happy in the fulfilment of his work and awaiting his resurrection.

In Christ we have entered into the rest of God (see Hebrews 4:1-11), a rest that is not stagnation, inertia, or boredom, but perfect and unruffled life. Our full possession of this rest awaits us after death, but its foretaste is given to us here. We have already been made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Our life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

So, what about meditation and other contemplative practices? In contemplative prayer, we are not strictly speaking passive but receptive. We are receptive of God’s own self-contemplation, caught up into God’s own life and energized by God. Thus, contemplation is the source and foundation of all truly Christian activity. Many great contemplative saints, outside their times of prayer, have been veritable volcanoes of activity. But that activity has been unified, coherent, vital, and totally concentrated on one object, the fulfilment of God’s will.

Contemplation is, therefore, the source and the end of Christian action. It is the end because our final destiny is to contemplate God in heaven. It is the source, because Christian action is simply the overflow of contemplation.

In Christ we have entered into the rest of God (see Hebrews 4:1-11), a rest that is not stagnation, inertia, or boredom, but perfect and unruffled life. Our full possession of this rest awaits us after death, but its foretaste is given to us here. We have already been made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Our life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

The post On activity and rest appeared first on Perspective.

Depuis des années, j’anime un groupe de méditation chrétienne. Tout comme la prière centrée, qui lui est apparentée, la méditation chrétienne nous invite à laisser de côté les images et les pensées concernant Dieu pour lui accorder toute notre attention dans le silence. On me demande parfois comment on peut justifier cette façon d’utiliser – ou de ne pas utiliser – son temps. Avec tant de besoins dans le monde, ne devrions-nous pas nous affairer à y répondre ? Une version humoristique de cette question, sous forme d’autocollant, dit : « Le Christ revient. Fais semblant d’être occupé ! »

Notre tradition religieuse propose quelque chose de tout à fait différent. Le but de l’activité, c’est le repos. Difficile d’imaginer quelque chose de plus à contre-courant, même au sein de l’Église, que ça. Toute forme d’activité qui n’est pas nuisible est considérée comme justifiée en soi et authentique. Y a-t-il déjà eu une époque où il y avait autant d’activité pure et simple qu’aujourd’hui, mais avec si peu de coordination réelle et d’unité dans les objectifs ?

L’activité pure – l’activité pour l’activité – est tout simplement diabolique : du bruit pour le bruit, de l’agitation pour l’agitation. La traduction de la Vulgate du psaume 91,6 décrit le diable comme negotium perambulans in tenebris, « l’activité qui rôde dans l’ombre », une pure malice à la recherche d’une faille par laquelle elle pourrait s’introduire. Dorothy L. Sayers a écrit que « la damnation est sans direction ni but. Pourquoi pas ? Elle n’a rien à faire, et toute l’éternité pour le faire. » (Dante, Divine Comedy. Purgatory. Introduction, p. 61). George Macdonald, en revanche, a décrit le paradis comme « les régions où il n’y a que la vie et où, par conséquent, tout ce qui n’est pas musique est silence. »(« The Hands of the Father », Unspoken Sermons, First Series, 1867)

C’est une triste caractéristique de notre culture que tant d’entre nous aient si peu d’occasions de connaître un véritable repos intérieur et le calme, et soient réticents à en profiter quand ça se présente. Peut-être craignons-nous que, privés des distractions, du bruit, tant littéral que métaphorique, qui est la condition de la vie ordinaire, nous devions commencer à prêter attention au soupçon inquiétant que l’activité même qui domine tant la vie est en grande partie inutile et frustrante. Le bruit peut en effet s’amplifier de plus en plus pour masquer sa propre futilité.

Le livre de la Genèse nous donne le modèle du repos. On nous dit que Dieu a béni et sanctifié le septième jour, car Dieu s’est reposé de toute l’œuvre de la création. Bien sûr, dans un sens bien réel, l’activité de Dieu ne cesse jamais, puisque son acte créateur soutient et anime l’univers en permanence. L’être intérieur de Dieu n’est pas non plus inerte ou statique. C’est cette énergie insondable de vie et d’amour qui est la Sainte Trinité. Mais tout cela n’implique aucun changement en Dieu, aucune altération ni hésitation dans ses actions. Dieu est le fondement immuable de l’univers changeant. En Dieu, le repos et l’activité sont réconciliés.

Néanmoins, la vérité que le langage anthropomorphique de la Genèse exprime, c’est que Dieu ne se détourne pas, pour ainsi dire, du monde créé avec soulagement. Dieu le contemple et s’en réjouit. Dieu n’est pas comme l’esclave salarié qui essaie d’oublier le travail pendant le week-end. Dieu ressemble davantage à l’amateur qui fabrique des objets puis prend plaisir à les utiliser, ou au peintre qui peut apprécier de regarder un tableau qu’elle a réalisé.

Dans le récit de la Genèse, l’histoire de la première création, c’est le sixième jour de la semaine que Dieu a créé l’homme à son image et lui a donné la domination sur les créatures inférieures. Dans le récit de l’Évangile, l’histoire de la nouvelle création, l’humanité a été refaite par Dieu le sixième jour de la semaine, le premier Vendredi saint, lorsque le Christ, l’homme parfait, est mort sur la croix. Et le Christ s’est reposé dans le tombeau le Samedi Saint – le Grand Sabbat – en jouissant de l’œuvre de la nouvelle création. Il a vu ce qu’il avait fait et voici, cela était très bon. L’achèvement de la nouvelle création survient lorsque le Christ repose dans le tombeau, heureux de l’accomplissement de son œuvre et attendant sa résurrection.

En Christ, nous sommes entrés dans le repos de Dieu (voir Hébreux 4, 1-11), un repos qui n’est ni stagnation, ni inertie, ni ennui, mais une vie parfaite et sereine. La pleine possession de ce repos nous attend après la mort, mais on nous en donne un avant-goût ici-bas. Nous avons déjà été rendus « participants de la nature divine » (2 Pierre 1, 4). Notre vie est cachée avec le Christ en Dieu (Colossiens 3, 3).

Alors, qu’en est-il de la méditation et des autres pratiques contemplatives ? Dans la prière contemplative, on n’est pas à proprement parler passif mais réceptif. On est réceptif à la contemplation que Dieu fait de lui-même, transporté dans la vie même de Dieu et animé par Dieu. Ainsi, la contemplation est la source et le fondement de toute activité véritablement chrétienne. Beaucoup de grands saints contemplatifs, en dehors de leurs moments de prière, ont été de véritables volcans d’activité. Mais cette activité était unifiée, cohérente, vitale et totalement concentrée sur un seul objectif : l’accomplissement de la volonté de Dieu.

La contemplation est donc la source et la fin de l’action chrétienne. C’est la fin, car notre destin ultime est de contempler Dieu au ciel. C’est la source, car l’action chrétienne n’est que le débordement de la contemplation.

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Leslie was the beloved wife of the late Ven. Gordon Worden, and loving mother of Rebecca Worden (Peter McCracken), Emily Worden-Kwok (Jeffrey Kwok), and Jessica Worden (former spouse Eric-Vance Bolling). She was adored by her grandchildren Zachary, Kaella, Sarah, Liam, and Kyle.

She had an adventurous life traveling and living in many places while she was growing up because her father was in the military and as an adult with her husband, who was an Anglican priest.

She was a talented musican from a very young age, and she played the piano, autoharp, accordion, and sang. She was a member of several different music groups and choirs. According to her family, “For Leslie, there was never a moment that didn’t call for a familiar or improvised tune.”

Her friend, the Rev. Canon Rhondda MacKay offered the homily at her celebration of life service, and recalled that “for many years, in parishes up and down the valley, Leslie’s ministry had been in church schools with her trusty accordion—eye to eye with the children.”

Leslie studied computer technology at Western University in London, Ont. Her training served her well later in her role as information technologist at Ascension House and the Archives, and while she patiently and generously helped many people sort out computer problems.

She was a dedicated volunteer for many causes including the Girl Guides of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Ottawa Anglican Cursillo Movement. She was co-coordinator for the Anglican Church Women with her friend Marni Crossley.

Canon Rhondda MacKay said, “Her creative energy flowed in caring for others — in her work, in the guiding movement, and her advocacy for women in the church and beyond; as a warden, member of the altar guild and more in this church; in sharing her technical skills wherever they were needed; recycling for a good cause, but most of all through music.

Canon MacKay said, “People have remarked to me how Leslie sparkled. Leslie’s light sparkled for us as humble and caring service in all sorts of ways:

• in her devotion to her beloved family
• in the way she faced challenges with a positive spirit and hopefulness
• in her openness to learning new things
• in her gifts for and appreciation of music.

Her faith was important to her. “Leslie was a light on a hill — a positive presence,” MacKay said. “She constantly shared her light. That is what we celebrate today and hold onto as a life lesson.”

The family welcomes memorial contributions to The Hearts of Compassion Fund (that includes Belong Ottawa, Centre 105, Cornerstone Housing for Women, Ottawa Pastoral Counselling Centre, and the Refugee Ministry Office).

The post Remembering Leslie Worden: 1949 – 2026 appeared first on Perspective.

We live in a time where the world around us clamours with words of scarcity and fear – I will lead in reminding us of our story set in the abundance of God’s reign, offering hope in place of fear. As St. Paul wrote to the Colossians: “You need to remain well established and rooted in faith and not shift away from the hope given in the good news.”

Standing firm in the grace of God we move forward on this awesome journey of hope-filled faith, alive to the challenges which are, in truth, new opportunities to share the good news of God’s love with a world that is desperately seeking hope and meaningful purpose. Together with people of faith across our country and the world, we offer messages of hope, welcome and justice for all, a heart for reconciliation, and loving service in our communities, all “rooted and grounded in the love of God through Jesus Christ” strengthened by the Holy Spirit.

I am blessed to lead and serve as your bishop, and I offer my blessing to all of you as together we embark with energy and intention on this new stage of our journey in our Anglican Diocese of Ottawa.

The post A note of thanks appeared first on Perspective.

Over the course of its 150-year history, Saint James’s Church at Manotick faced the problems of growth, in particular the conundrum of responding to the pressures of owning a heritage building.

Saint James’s Church originally was built in 1876 on land donated by Moss Kent Dickinson, owner of the large stone village gristmill at Long Island, who was mayor of Ottawa for a time.

Saint James’s was built in a developing village and became one of the signature architectural features of the village. Its builders could not have anticipated the pressures of a growing congregation. Fortunately, there was nothing in its development to match the grisly event that happened at Dickinson’s Mill a mere 100 yards upstream 15 years earlier.

In early March of 1861, Joseph Merrill Currier and Moss Kent Dickinson organized a day of festivities to celebrate the first anniversary of their stone gristmill. Part of the day’s activities included a tour of inspection of the mill itself attended by Currier and his wife Anna. A smiling Anna, elegantly dressed and coiffed in the fashion of the day proudly took her husband’s arm and strolled through the building. All the machines were turned on to show friends and officials alike the power of the water turbines. No one could speak above the noise, and all marveled at the mill’s technology and delighted in its obvious success.

Then suddenly, as if out of a nightmare, Anna lost her balance. She fought to keep a hold on her husband’s arm, but her billowing crinoline was caught in one of the machines. Her friends and guests, standing only a few feet away, were powerless to help. Her screams were barely audible above the noise, and as her husband and guests watched in shocked horror, Anna was sucked into the machine, hurled against its post, and killed before the machine could be stopped.

Fifteen years later, Saint James’ Church was an essay in carpenter Gothic, with porch and vestry wings. Notably, it had no tower. From 1877, the congregation at Manotick was part of the Parish of North Gower with nearby congregations worshipping in churches located at Kars, North Gower and the 1st Concession of Osgoode Township.

Saint James’s Church grew. And steadily. So much so, that by 1887, it headed the Parish of Manotick, with churches at the outlying stations of Kars and Osgoode. It was at that time that the house of worship was raised on a new foundation. Fifteen years after that, in 1902, we are told that the church was “greatly improved” by enlarging the nave and building a bell tower with battlements on the front. By this point, the house of worship no longer bore much resemblance to the house of worship first put up just a quarter of a century earlier.

It is curious how parishes become inured, even accepting of change. What once seemed startling comes to be treasured and even taken for granted as having always existed. Change often is forgotten. The fiftieth anniversary of Saint James’s Church was celebrated in 1926, with many parishioners somehow assuming that the building had always existed in its then current form from the beginning. They came to assume that the tower had always been in place. As growth continued, in 1946 the basement was made into a parish hall.

In the black and white photograph shown here, Saint James’s Church was barely able to contain an AYPA (Anglican Young People’s Association) conference that took place in the village circa 1950. Indeed, by 1958, such was the growth of this congregation that Manotick had become a one-point parish, with Saint George’s Church, Hawthorne briefly serving as an out-station in 1978-1979.

Which brings us to the conundrum faced by parishioners at Saint James’s Church in the 1980s. For by then, the house of worship no longer could hold the congregation.  What were they to do?

Previously there had been four solutions to such a dilemma elsewhere across the Diocese of Ottawa. The first was to retain the old church and integrate it with a larger new worship space, as had been done at All Saints Church, Westboro and at Christ Church, Bells Corners.

A second option was to send their venerable house of worship to a heritage site such as Upper Canada Village, and build anew elsewhere, as Christ Church, Moulinette had done.

Yet a third option was to tear down the old church and put up a larger more modern building, as Saint John’s Church at Iroquois did. This was a controversial option, given the many ties to the old church, as in local minds it defined Manotick, much as did Watson’s Mill.

And fourth, the congregation could decide to abandon the old church and build at a new site, as had been the case when Saint John’s, Merivale was abandoned for Saint John the Divine, Nepean (long since burned down) in the 1960s.

None of these solutions precisely suited the good Anglicans of Manotick. To begin with, the congregation did not want to leave their site. There was the matter of strong local appreciation of built heritage that did not take kindly to tearing down a focal building from the past, especially as the author of the recently published The Architectural Heritage of the Rideau Corridor, Barbara Humphreys, was a member of the parish.

A compromise (which did not please heritage folk) was decided on. The decision was made to tear down the old church and design a larger building to look exactly like it, incorporating such architectural elements from the old such structure as the stained glass windows in the new.

Worship services were held in the Royal Canadian Legion hall for 10 months while the old church was taken down and the new one built. The colour photograph here shows a crane in place just before a wrecking ball levelled the old house of worship after various architectural components to be saved had been removed.

A new much larger church, capable of sustaining future growth, arose on the site of the old house of worship.  Curiously, it looked very much like the church that had stood on the site for a century, incorporating many of the features that had accumulated over the decades, such as the stained-glass windows.  Bishop Edwin Lackey conducted the dedication service in the new church on 10 March 1985, and 17 years later Saint James the Apostle Church was consecrated by Bishop John A. Baycroft on 24 October 1993.

And now, Saint James the Apostle Church at Manotick is celebrating its 150th anniversary as a centre of Anglican worship. Thanks to its much larger fabric, it is a dynamic parish of the Diocese of Ottawa.

If you would like to help the Archives preserve the records of the Diocese and its parishes, why not become a Friend of the Archives?  Your $20 membership brings you three issues of the lively, informative Newsletter, and you will receive a tax receipt for further donations above that amount. 

Diocesan Archives 51 M4 11

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One hundred and thirty years ago, on the 7th of April 1896, the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa emerged from the eastern section of the Diocese of Ontario. And seventy years after that, in 1966 the western section of the Diocese of Montreal was transferred to the Diocese of Ottawa, effectively doubling its territory in size. Just a month ago, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe of Ottawa marked the first of these anniversaries by proclaiming April 7, 2026, Anglican Diocese of Ottawa Historical Day.

Anglicanism locally was much older. Anglicans around Cornwall were beginning to organize missions some 240 years ago. As David Farr remarked in “The Daughter Church:  The Genesis of the Diocese of Ottawa,” ecclesiastical authority in the Ottawa Valley for most of the first century had always been remote. First administered from Halifax, then Quebec and, after 1839, Toronto, this region lay on the fringe of established religious order in Canada. In 1862, the region was given its own ecclesiastical format when the fifteen counties in Ontario east of the Trent River and south of the Ottawa River were carved out of the Diocese of Toronto.

All of this history is reflected in the west window of Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa created in 1982 by Christopher Wallis of London, Ontario, as photographed by Brian Glenn.  Ostensibly created to mark the sesquicentennial of the first Christ Church being built in 1832, in this window Wallis was handed the challenge of graphically summarizing the place of this episcopal parish—and by extension the Diocese of Ottawa—in the history of Anglicanism in Canada, and more particularly in the general history of this region. Hence two-thirds of the way up the window we see the coats of arms of the Diocese of Nova Scotia, the Diocese of Quebec, the Diocese of Toronto, and the Diocese of Ontario based at Kingston.

The larger composition of this remarkable window is a cross, emblematic of Christianity.  The Celtic cross design recognizes the huge Anglo-Irish population that arrived in this region in the early nineteenth century.  In Canada’s first census (1871) that asked people what they considered their ethnic origin (as opposed to their country of birth) to be, in the five rural counties around Ottawa 42,000 more people claimed to be of Irish origin than did in Canada’s two largest cities of Montreal and Toronto combined.  Most of the early Anglican clergy serving the region in fact came from England, but it was only after Confederation that English-origin Anglicans began to predominate in the congregations spreading across the region.

At the centre circle of the cross is Christ the agnus dei from whom the parish of Christ’s Church, Bytown took its name. At the apex of the window Christ the King is shown sitting on a rainbow, while a satellite is depicted orbiting the heavens. Even as the window celebrated the region’s history, it was taking note of modern developments.

The cross arms of the larger cross featured wavy blue lines to represent the Ottawa River, a major east/west transportation route for both Indigenous inhabitants and early French explorers. The upright of the cross is comprised of the Gatineau River flowing from the north, and the Rideau flowing from the south, with the three rivers converging on the Lamb of God, to convey the idea of believers being “washed in the blood of the lamb.”

There is much subtlety to this design. Drawn to the range of colours across the larger window, we do not notice at first the silhouette of tall pine trees on either side of the windows.  They, of course, signify the huge impact of the timber industry across the Diocese over six generations from the 1780s to the early twentieth century. Tulips along the window’s base pay tribute to the Ottawa Tulip Festival, it in turn alluding to Canadian sacrifices in liberating the Netherlands during the Second World War. Also across the base of the window we see coats of arms of the Diocese of Ottawa, Christ Church Cathedral, the then City of Hull in 1982 and the City of Ottawa.

Four oval insets also allude to aspects of the long history that in time led to the establishment of the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa. First, the oval on the upper left of the main window includes images of explorers Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain and Martin Frobisher. It was on the latter’s voyage west of Greenland in 1576 that a priest on the ship held the first Anglican service in what today is Canada.

The oval on the upper right shows a tall ship and a background of fur pelts and a codfish, indicating the economic basis of the fur trade and cod fisheries that supported settlements in the eastern provinces, eventually leading to Anglican settlers heading west to the Ottawa country.

A third oval on the lower left provides an image of people gathering at the 1832 Christ’s Church in Bytown—the first Anglican house of worship in Ottawa. We also see an image of Philemon Wright’s Hull settlement where the first Anglican worship services took place—in the first house of worship of the denomination built in what today is the National Capital Region.

The fourth oval on the lower right shows the Centre Block of Parliament, viewed from Gatineau. In front of it are the flags of France and Great Britain, reflecting the passage of time when Canada moved from being a colony of one to the other.  A small red roundel featuring Sir John A. Macdonald, if intended to mark his role in bringing about Confederation, more recently marks his notorious role in establishing residential schools for Indigenous children. [Much of that terrible history has come to light since the window was created in 1982. Archbishop Michael Peers’ 1993 apology on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada for its role in running schools was the beginning of Anglicans’ ongoing work toward truth and reconciliation with Indigenous people.]

The middle of the lower window shows a great stream of people, framed by an Indigenous person and an African-Canadian standing prominently in the foreground, and encompassing various people from the diocese and Ottawa’s history. They include: Joseph Montferrand, a legendary lumberjack; Philemon Wright, a prominent settler at Gatineau and pioneer of the regional timber industry; Lord Dalhousie who secured the site to build the Rideau Canal entrance locks and Lieutenant-Colonel John By who oversaw Rideau Canal construction, built bridges between Hull and Bytown, and laid out the original site for Bytown.

Others portrayed here include Nicholas Sparks (the image is really his son, Nicholas Sparks Junior) who donated the site of Christ’s Church in Bytown; the Rev. Adam Hood Burwell, the Rev. Samuel S. Strong and Dean John Strutt Lauder—the first three rectors who presided over the parish as it moved from being a pioneer worship community to cathedral; Bishop Guigues, the first Roman Catholic bishop of Ottawa; Mère Elisabeth Brûyère who opened the first community hospital; and Charles Hamilton—the first Anglican bishop of Ottawa.

The sole identifiable Anglican woman portrayed in this group was Roberta Tilton, who organized the Woman’s Auxiliary nationally, with members in churches across the Diocese of Ottawa sending funds and bales to support Indigenous communities across western and northern Canada from the nineteenth to the 21st centuries.

We celebrated our 130th anniversary just a couple of weeks after the first woman was installed as Archbishop of Canterbury and one month before Bishop-elect Kathryn Otley is to be seated as the 11th Bishop of Ottawa, the first woman to become bishop in this diocese.

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One of the ways I have found over the years to help me hold onto the Easter certainty and joy is in rereading a little book, The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century Carmelite monk. (You can find the text of this book online for reading on-screen or download a free pdf at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/lawrence/practice.)

This small book is about leading a holy life in the midst of our daily multitude of tasks and responsibilities. When I first encountered this book I thought that the idea that I with all my failings could lead a holy life and be holy was impossible. After reading it, I realized that I had had a very limited idea of what holiness was all about.

The Oxford dictionary defines holiness as: “The state of being holy: a life of holiness and total devotion to God.” This definition sounds more like something that can be attained by only the greatest saints than something I could strive for. But for Br. Lawrence, a holy life is captured in the phrase, “our only business is to love and delight ourselves in God.” His view of a holy life is grounded in his open trust in Christ and of Christ’s love for him. To be holy in this way is to take delight in seeing and knowing Christ. Br. Lawrence sees each task he must complete and each person he encounters as just such an opportunity to love and to know Christ.

He also writes about the joy of making little sacrifices each day, such as striving to love even the difficult tasks and people, which he did by having a constant conversation with God throughout the day. This approach to prayer freed me from thinking that only the formal structured prayer that I had grown up with was acceptable to God. To begin each task with a prayer of thanks to God and offering the work as an act of love transforms even the most dreary things we must do. Even in the face of suffering, such a prayer of offering transforms it into an opportunity to experience the presence and and love of God in the midst of the suffering.

Striving with God’s grace to see Him in every person and moment of life has enabled me to experience Christ in a deeper and more dynamic way. For if we praise and thank Him only in the midst of the joys and beauties of life, we miss knowing the Christ of the Cross who embraced rejection, suffering and death for us and who is with us in our own suffering and sorrow.

Such a simple change of perspective and practice, but one that challenges us to break down the division we make between our spiritual life and our daily reality. This Easter, ask the Risen Lord to give you the grace to live by the hope of Easter every hour of every day, and the grace to take delight in your love of God and of His boundless love for you and for all of us.

— The Rev. Canon Stewart Murray is a retired priest of our Diocese.

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Every day, Cornerstone walks alongside women and gender diverse people navigating motherhood under some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable. Many are mothers who do not have custody of their children — not because they don’t love them, but because housing instability, safety concerns, mental health struggles, substance use and systemic failures have made it nearly impossible to stay together. These are not isolated situations. They are the predictable outcomes of systems that continue to fail families.

Mother’s Day can be a glaring reminder of what is missing. Some of the women we serve are grieving: their children, their relationships, their own mothers and the futures they once imagined. It shows up in the quiet ache of a photo tucked under a pillow in a shelter bed. I also hear the grief in the voices of the mothers who I talk to on the phone who might be in the throes of panic, guilt, and pain as they try and navigate supporting their daughter who is in our shelter, struggling with mental health issues or substances. At Cornerstone, we hold space for all of it.

And yet, despite all of this, these mothers persist. Cornerstone walks alongside mothers who are doing the exhausting, often invisible work of rebuilding their lives – fighting to regain custody of their children, to heal, and to be reconnected with their children again. Their resilience is not something to romanticize; it’s something that should make us question why they have to be this resilient in the first place.

This is what motherhood looks like, too — and it deserves to be seen.

If we’re serious about honoring mothers, then we need to look beyond individual strength and towards collective care and responsibility. It’s about systems. The lack of affordable housing. The inaccessibility of childcare. The gaps in mental health and substance use supports. The barriers to family reunification. These are not side issues, they are the conditions shaping whether mothers and children can stay together and thrive.

As we approach Mother’s Day, I invite our community to expand its understanding of what it means to celebrate mothers. That means holding space not just for joyful stories and gratitude, but for grief, complexity and ongoing struggle. It means recognizing that real support goes beyond kind words — it requires action, investment, and accountability.

Because imagining a different world for mothers isn’t enough. We have to be willing to build it so mothers can thrive and create the lives they want for themselves.

To all mothers — biological, stepmothers, foster mothers, caregivers, guardians, and everything in between: we see you and you matter.

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