My name is Warren Schmidt. I am 28 years old and am a native of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In June, 2007, I joined the Congregation of St. Basil, a community of Roman Catholic priests and those in formation for the priesthood. Our Congregation currently has members in 5 countries (Canada, U.S., Mexico, France, and Colombia). It was founded at Annonay, France in 1822. I returned to Canada in June, 2008, after 6 months serving with the Basilians in Cali, Colombia, and entered the Novitiate in Windsor, Ontario on August 15, 2008. I made my first profession of vows as a Basilian on August 15, 2009, and am entering my first year of Theology at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto beginning this September.
Most of the articles and photos on this blog will be the same as those on my first blog at canadiancatholicblog.blogster.com, which I started in December, 2005. I will continue to post my new articles there as well as here, as well as copying old articles and photos from the old site and organizing them on this blog. This is constantly a work in progress as is our journey in faith with the Lord.
God bless and be with all of you!
Firstly, I apolize with you for my email because of in it there is a subject so different to what you are used to receive in your blog. My name is Víctor Ariza Figueroa and I’m living in Cali, Colombia. I want to know if you can help me to make a contact with people or institutions for stablishing me permanently in Canada with my wife and my two children (my daugther who is almost four years old and my son, six months old). We don’t account with the financial resources to travel to Canada but we are urged to leave to our country for several reasons which I could explain you by means a long letter witten by my wife. I’m a public teacher and I teach English and Spanish and my actual situation in Colombia is risked because of I belong a public sindicate and the gouverment doesn’t agree with it. If you considere possible to answer my email and I can send you the long letter (in English), I will thank you very much.
Thank you for commenting on my blog, Le Fleur de Lys too.
I have injoyed you blog and hop to make some more of your articles linked from mine.
As you have written that you are now at an end of your novitiate let me pray that you will as the martyrs did win souls to Christ.
Richard
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog A Canadian Catholic Perspective . Your trivia presentation is great!! Fun but not easy! As I read your blog I wanted to say thank you for not making a long story short. You take the time to spell out your views – which is rare in blogs today!
A few weeks ago I met a fantastic author, 94 year old Jay Jagoe who wrote Light Reading for a Good and Wayward Catholics. He has just launched a new blog entitled The Joyful Catholic. The purpose of the Joyful Catholic Blog is to remind us each day to enjoy our faith and to invite others to the feast!
Jay Jagoe, is a Maryland writer and a Catholic convert. His history includes having flown bombing missions in WWII; an insurance career in Washington, DC; founding Bonabond, an organization for aiding ex-convicts; serving as president of the Salvation Army; and he is the author of five books.
I hope you can take a moment to visit his blog in the hopes that you will inform your readers about it. With your permission we would like to put a link to your blog on The Joyful Catholic.
All the best for your continued success with A Canadian Catholic Perspective!
All My Best
Frank Williams
Dear Frank Williams,
Thank you for your kind comment. It’s great that you enjoy my articles and my Catholic Trivia. This blog is a long-standing hobby and a (very) slow work in progress. It may slow down even more as I enter into my Master of Divinity this September. However, I do intend to keep writing… little bits at a time.
I will check out the Joyful Catholic Blog and also add it to my blogroll. Thank you for that suggestion. Also feel free to add “A Canadian Catholic Perspective” to the links on the Joyful Catholic site.
Many Blessings,
Warren Schmidt
Dear Warren Schmidt,
I enjoyed very much reading your blog recounting your days in Cali before you attended the Basilian Novitiate. I, too, attended the Basilian Novitiate many years ago in 1963-64–and with Frank Amico with whom I graduated high school. There were about 50 novices that year mostly from various Basilian high schools across the country. Fifty young people trying to do good for the Church, for others, and for themselves. One by one, many left the Order, including myself, so that in the end, many years later, only about five were actually ordained within the Congregation of St. Basil–and Frank was one of them. I respect Frank’s determination and courage. He always knew he had a vocation. I can’t speak for the others, but I know now that I did have a vocation, but years ago I did not. To some extent, I feel, at times, like a lost soul trying to find my way back to the right path. To have a vocation is a precious thing–and to have lost it is a very sorrowful thing indeed.