Starting the Holy Week Fast for D&P: "My House will be a House of Prayer"

My fast began Palm Sunday after Mass. With no food in my stomach the past appx 36 hours, my thoughts and prayers are yet full with this joyous entry of Jesus into Jersualem. "Hosanna in the Highest" the people cry, laying palms at his feet.

Throughout this fast, I want to offer prayer and reflection on not only Christ's Passion but also his Jerusalem ministry.  In the days ahead I will share how that ministry relates to the mission of Development and Peace as we are trying to live it here in the Central Ontario region.  Life in the field these past two months has been busy.  Between scenes of pirate ships made from plastic water bottles, visitors from Gaza, and travels with Sr. Clare from Timor Leste, there has been no time to breathe, let alone write.

Fasting leaves you no choice - one must slow down. There is now time to share.

"My House will be a House of Prayer"

Upon arrival in Jerusalem, Jesus comes into the temple with a bang - he quotes Isaiah and Jeremiah as he turns over tables and casts out the sellers and money-changers.

Our sacred places cannot be made into marketplaces and neither can our sacred resources.

On Bottled Water Free Day, we arrive early at the TCDSB Catholic Education Center (CEC) to prepare for the big rally.  It is March 10th, the day after Ash Wednesday.  Close to 30 schools have built pirate ships out of plastic water bottles and sailed them here to celebrate a bottled water free culture as part of our Water for All campaign.


 Our stage for the rally becomes incorporated into the sacred space Fr. Mike has created in the Atrium for Lent.  Presentations will be given in front of the chapel. The altar is our rock.  Pirates of the water commodification resistance (over 100 elementary and secondary students) arrive and eventually gather behind the flowing fountain Fr. Mike has placed in the atrium center.

"Do you hear that?"

There are prayers, speeches, poems and music.  A student from Mary Ward opens his spoken word piece echoing the sound of the water and asks, "Do you hear that?"

The sound of living water, flowing water, permeates our desires to see the TCDSB become a bottled water free zone. 




A river made from 1500 plus drops of water, each bearing one person's reflection on their experience of this God's precious gift falls from the 3rd floor and rolls across the stage.

It is time to celebrate this gift - a gift given not for the profit of few but for the life of all.

Thanks to all of you who have already contributed donations.  For others who wish to join them, please click the "support me" button on my fundraising page.