From our Bishop

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Comforting those who mourn in this difficult time

Bishop Shane Parker January 1, 2022

I write this column in early Advent, as the “New Year” of the church has just begun. When you read this column, the new calendar year ...

Holding on to holy simplicity at Christmas

Bishop Shane Parker December 1, 2021

For a number of years, just before and after the turn of the millennium, I wrote for the Ottawa Citizen in a weekly feature called ...

The encompassing communion of “all my relations”

Bishop Shane Parker November 1, 2021

As the child of Irish immigrants, I grew up with the expression “back home.” We moved frequently as a military family and, without a permanent ...

Bishop Shane and Albert Dumont walking on a path under a tree canopy

Reconciliation is not a spectator sport

Bishop Shane Parker October 1, 2021

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada called upon the federal government, in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, “to establish, as a statutory holiday, ...

collage of photos of a rainbow from a kayak

Paddling out of the storm

Bishop Shane Parker September 1, 2021

Last summer I took myself up to a large lake in Algonquin Park for an annual three-day silent, solo, retreat. Like all of you, I ...

Bishop Shane praying in front of Christ Church Cathedral

As summer begins and we seek rest…

Bishop Shane Parker June 1, 2021

It is very hard to believe that one year ago, on May 31, 2020, the day of Pentecost, I was consecrated to be your bishop. ...

The provenance of Sister Jerusalem

Bishop Shane Parker May 1, 2021

When I was consecrated and seated as the Bishop of Ottawa on May 31 last year—the Day of Pentecost—I was presented with a pectoral cross, ...

The Aedicule and rotunda in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

The hope we need to sustain us can never be destroyed

Bishop Shane Parker April 1, 2021

I have written before of pilgrimages to the land of the Holy One, and how I look forward to leading them again in the future. My ...

The making of Brother Thankful

Bishop Shane Parker March 1, 2021

In mid-March last year, everything changed overnight. Words that had been abstract and distant suddenly became real and present: novel coronavirus; severe acute respiratory syndrome ...