Search for the historical Victor Hugo
February 19, 2013
By Rev Ed Hird
With the recent success of the movie Les Miserables, people have been looking again at the author Victor Hugo. What is it about Hugo that enabled him to write what Leo Tolstoy called the greatest of all novels? Who was the real historical Victor Hugo?
Every day around 3,000 words are published about Victor Hugo. It has been said that to read the complete works of Hugo would take no less than ten years. Every important poet, novelist and dramatist of his age was shaped by Hugo’s prolific endeavours. Some call him the greatest of French poets. He was the dominant figure in 19th century French literature. By the time he left France in 1851, Hugo was seen as the most famous living writer in the world. Upon his return to France, thousands of people in Paris chanted ‘Vive Victor Hugo’, reciting his poetry, and throwing flowers on him. On his eightieth birthday, six hundred thousand Parisians marched past his house in his honor. At his death, a day of national mourning was declared.
By the time Hugo died in 1883, he had become a symbol of France with all its struggles and challenges. Hugo lived through bloody uprising after uprising. Almost a million Frenchmen had died during this revolutionary period, half of them under the age of twenty-eight. Les Miserables with its passionate message about the barricades reflect this deep trauma of chaos upon unending chaos.
When Hugo was born, his parents were horrified by his appearance. His own mother could not bear to look at him. His own doctor indicated that without a miracle, Victor would not last out the month. With an enormous head and a tiny body, his father said that Victor looked like the gargoyles of Notre Dame. Such an insensitive comment led to his second most favorite novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Ironically after the success of his Hunchback novel, all the nouveau riche wanted their homes to be ornamented with gargoyles.
Victor adored his mother Sophie but she cared little for her children. During his childhood, Victor deeply resented his father Leopold who was always away at war. As an adult, Victor became his father’s closest companion. His own parents had divided loyalties between the royalists and the republicans. Hugo’s parents met in Brittany while his Napoleonic father was stamping out a local royalist rebellion. Both of his parents were unfaithful to their marriage vows, something that repeated itself in Victor’s own marriage.
While only fifteen, Victor applied for the French Academy’s annual poetry contest. His poetry was so advanced that the Academy refused to accept him until his mother produced his birth certificate. Victor loved to write, commenting that ‘every thought that has ever crossed my mind sooner or later finds it onto paper. …Ideas are my sinews and substance.’
His father Leopold saw Victor’s involvement in literature as being like ‘pouring good wine down an open sewer’. So he refused to help fund his literary education: “If you were to elect a career as a lawyer or physician, I would gladly make sacrifices to see through university.” Victor often went without food in his early literary years, saying ‘I shall prove to my father that a poet can make sums far larger than the wages of an Imperial General.’ With great talent and a strong work ethic, Victor became one of a very small band who could earn their living with their pens. One of Victor’s closest friends was Alexandre Dumas, the famous author of the Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers.
One of Victor’s greatest sorrows was that his wife Adele was indifferent to his writings. Even his passionate love poems for his wife, she ignored. Adele warned Victor that ‘it is the fault of passionate men to set the women they love upon a pedestal. To be placed so high produces dizziness, and dizziness leads to a fall.’ Adele’s affair with her husband’s best friend Saint-Beauve crushed Victor, leading him into his own ongoing infidelity. There was great tragedy in Hugo’s life with his own brother Eugene having a mental breakdown at Victor’s wedding and his youngest daughter suffering the same fate after being abandoned by her lover Pinson. One of the deepest wounds was the drowning of Victor’s daughter Leopoldine shortly after her marriage. Out of this great sorrow came great dramatic writing, especially in his novel Les Miserables. Andre Maurois commented that Hugo possessed and would retain all his life long, one precious gift: the power to give to the events of everyday life a dramatic intensity.
Ground-zero in Les Miserables was the gracious Bishop Bienvenue who transformed Jean Valjean by his generous act of forgiveness. Victor Hugo’s son Charles was upset by his father’s choosing of Bishop Bienvenue. Charles suggested instead that his father should have made Bienvenue to be a medical doctor instead of a clergyman. Victor replied to his son: ‘Man needs religion. Man needs God. I say it out loud, I pray every night…” Victor held that humanity is an ‘unspeakable miracle.’ Of all the French Romantics, Hugo made the most explicit usage of the Bible.
I thank God for the life and work of Victor Hugo who had such a passion for life, freedom and forgiveness, especially as seen in his novel Les Miserables.
The Rev Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-an article for the March 2013 Deep Cove Crier
award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
The Joy of Les Miserables
January 22, 2013
By Rev Ed Hird
People have been raving about the new musical version of Les Miserable which has already had around three hundred million dollars in worldwide box office sales.
Nicky Gumbel calls it a superb film, a triumph of grace over law, good over evil, love over hate. Eric Metaxas said that it is one of the most vivid, most moving examples of God’s goodness and mercy currently playing at a movie theatre near you. I enjoyed the new movie so much that it inspired me to again watch the 1998 version with Liam Neeson and Uma Thurman. Though my wife and I saw the Les Miserables production many years at Queen Elizabeth Theatre, this time round seemed to be striking a deeper chord with myself. The original novel, which I now have in eBook version, has been in print for over 150 years. Upton Sinclair calls the novel Les Miserables one of the five greatest novels of the world. With 1500 pages (1900 in French), it is also one of the longest novels ever written.
Many of you already know this delightful story of how an embittered ex-convict named Jean Valjean stole from a bishop who turns the other cheek and challenges Valjean to become a new man. Victor Hugo has the bishop say: “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.” In gratitude, Valjean spends the rest of his life showing amazing grace, love and forgiveness to others. The forgiven forgive. Valjean’s life is based loosely on the life of Eugène François Vidocq, an ex-convict who became a thriving entrepreneur known for his good works. In 1828, Vidocq, like Valjean, rescued one of his factory workers by lifting a heavy cart on his shoulders.
The tension in the movie between forgiveness and judgment is expressed through the police inspector Javert relentlessly pursuing Valjean. Javert tells Prisoner 24601 (Valjean) that ‘men like you can never change’. Again and again Valjean shocks Javert by forgiving the unforgivable. Valjean offered to Javert the same radical reconciliation and healing that had been given to him. Javert cannot handle forgiveness because he is so fixated on people getting what they deserve. Javert was legalistic and self-righteous. This caused him to persecute the very person whose life had been transformed, the very person who was doing so much good for others. Javert’s compassion is completely lacking. Life becomes no more than following the rules and trusting in one’s own efforts. For Javert, God is an unforgiving moralistic tyrant. For Valjean, God is personal, caring and loving.
Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine was spectacular, particularly in her singing of ‘I Dreamed a Dream.’ In 1841, Hugo personally rescued a prostitute from arrest for assault. We grieve with Fantine over the injustice of her losing her job and being forced into prostitution to feed her child Cossette. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times notes that Les Miserables ‘delivers an emotional wallop when it counts. You can walk into the theater as an agnostic, but you may just leave singing with the choir.’
Les Miserables reminds us that anyone can change; anyone can become a new person. We are not fated to be bitter and miserable. We can choose the way of forgiveness and joy. We can choose to be a new creation like Valjean. My prayer for those reading this article is that the movie Les Miserables may inspire each of us to forgive and serve one another as did Valjean.
Reverend Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas
-an article for the January 2013 Deep Cove Crier
award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
Thank God for Rear-view Mirrors
December 18, 2012
By Rev Ed Hird 
Every New Year sends us on a new journey along the Highway of Life. Where do we want to drive? What do we want to see? What do we want to become? My forty years of driving in BC have shown me that I am better off when I check my rear-view mirror. Even though ICBC gives me one of the top categories for safe driving, I had a close call once when I neglected to check the rear-view mirror. Without a rear-view mirror, we are driving partially blind.
I am so grateful this New Year 2013 for all the hard work by Janet Pavlik, Desmond Smith and Eileen Smith in producing the brand-new ‘Echoes Across Seymour’ history book. Without a sense of history, we are driving blind. History makes us a safer driver on the journey of life. History helps us discover where we want to drive, what we want to see, what we want to become. History is our rear-view mirror.
The longer I live, the more that I love the gift of history. History is about story-telling, story-remembering, and story-celebrating. Janet Pavlik and her dedicated team remind us that life has meaning, pattern and flow. Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees. Life feels chaotic and overwhelming. History helps us realize that we are not alone, that there is direction on the journey of life.
The book Echoes Across Seymour took six years to be born. There were many anxious times when it seemed like there might not be a way forward. Congratulations to Janet and team who kept going and never gave up. Janet’s team gave immaculate attention to each subneighbourhood in the Seymour/Deep Cove area. You will want to have your own copy, as it is a great conversation starter. Special thanks are due to Pacific Arbour for making it possible to have the book in colour. The photos make the book a real keepsake.
History is about real people. Literally hundreds of key residents had their stories told and their family history recorded for posterity. Anyone who has lived or worked for any time in the Seymour/Deep Cove area will recognize face after face of gifted dedicated people who have made a lasting difference. It is remarkable how many local residents have given hundreds of hours to serve their community. An example of such unselfish dedication is seen in the Mount Seymour Lions birthed under the leadership of Joe Thornley. We are a stronger and healthier community, thanks to the investing of the Lions in affordable housing for families and seniors. They do indeed live up to their motto: ‘We serve’.
I was very pleased to see the recognition given to Bruce Coney and the Deep Cove Crier, a unique community newspaper that has done so much to bring the Seymour/Deep Cove community closer together. Jesus gave us the famous Golden Rule, that we should do to others as we would have them do to us. I am thankful for so many people illustrated in Echoes Across Seymour who seek to do to others in practical ways. Thank God for the gift of this memorable ‘rear view mirror’, as we drive into a happy New Year 2013.
p.s. The book can be purchased online or directly at
Deep Cove Heritage Society
4360 Gallant Avenue
North Vancouver
British Columbia
V7G 1L2
T: 604 929-5744
Rev. Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-an article for the January 2013 Deep Cove Crier
award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
More memories from 30 years ago
May 31, 2011
St Philip’s Dunbar where I was priested and served
St Philip's Dunbar courtyard
We lived in the upper floor of this house on West 36th in the Dunbar area
After ordination on May 18th 1980, Janice & I visited England
- This is a photo of our visiting Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, UK with David, Sylvia & Claire Everett, Janice’s cousins
- Through Living Stone Productions, we sponsored many Christian concerts including the Randy Stonehill Band at St Andrew’s Wesley
One of the wonderful fruits of the sometimes painful time at St Philip’s Dunbar was the birth of our first son James. What a joy he has been to us. We are so grateful for the gift of our three sons James, Mark and Andrew. They are irreplaceable gifts from God. I was age 26 at the birth of my first son.
Fatherhood is an amazing gift…
Lord, I give you my dear son. May he live for you all the days of his life.
God the Father loves us more than we even love our own children.
Grandma Olive , holding our first son James, was a very loving lady. She poured into our family in so many ways. We are immeasurably healthier because of her. I always loved to visit her and Grandpa Hird in Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast.
Grandpa Vic Hird had a deep love for children. It brought out the best in him. He had a soft spot for James who was key in Grandpa coming back to faith in Jesus Christ. When James was about two to three years old, he danced before Grandpa Vic, as Grandpa Vic cathartically sang ‘Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong, they are weak but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me, Yes Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.’
One of our favorite places to vacation for the Hird family has been Penticton in the Okanagan. My parents even bought property there at one point, thinking of retiring in Peachland. When our eldest son James was born in 1981, we vacationed that summer in Penticton. Holding James, I was about to go off on the motor bike. Being a wise parent, I gave my son back to my wife Janice, before heading off. 
Every one loved our new son James. My in-laws Rev David and Vera Cline had a particular heart for James. David and Vera at that time were leading Brighouse United Church in Richmond, a booming evangelical congregation before the tragedy that happened to their former denomination.
Nana Allen dearly loved her new great-grandson James. Sadly Nana was to pass away the next year in 1982. We still miss her, but rejoice that she is with Jesus. Her godly example has been a great inspiration to us.
When my specialists advised me to step down from St Philip’s on Oct 1st 1981, my father and mother rallied around us, being a great support. My dad Ted has always been very fond of our son James. Family is such a wonderful gift that we don’t always fully appreciate.
James as always is full of life and vitality. You can see why thirty years later James does so well at floor hockey, and is such a strong Canucks fan. Go Canucks Go!!
30 years later….
May 31, 2011
Our lives are in God’s hands. God has been faithful in the last 30 years of serving him as an Anglican priest/presbyter. There have been many surprises along the road. He has worked all things for the good in ways that I would not always have imagined. (Romans 8:28 & Genesis 50:20)
Nana Allen, my maternal grandmother, was an amazing lady. She was a devout Anglican Christian who loved the Book of Common Prayer, and knew that something was being tampered with in the DNA of Anglicanism. Nana knew that I would become an Anglican priest, and told me this years before I even came to personal faith. She was very close to God and heard his still small voice. Nana’s desire was to live until I became a deacon (which she did) and then to live until I became a priest (which she did). She died shortly before my throat operation on May 25th 1982 when God restored my voice. I wrote her funeral eulogy, but had to rely on Rev Harold McSherry to deliver it.
My earlier ordination as a deacon May 18th 1980
In the Anglican Church, they ordain you twice just to make sure that it sticks. My first ordination was on May 18th 1980 where I was ordained as a deacon by Archbishop David Somerville. I was wearing a new suit that I had been given as an ordination present. For my ordination as a priest on May 31st 1981, Archbishop Douglas Hambidge ordained me at St Philip’s Church Dunbar. It was a challenging time because I was having speech therapy but my voice had not returned. My medical specialists assured Archbishop Hambidge that my voice would return in another month or so. When this did not happen, my medical specialists encouraged me to leave St. Philips on Oct 1st 1981 to take up full-time speech therapy. They were concerned that otherwise my voice might never come back. This was a very painful but needed transition. I was off work doing speech therapy for exactly one year on Oct 1st 1982 when I moved to St Matthew’s Abbotsford as the assistant priest with Archdeacon Jack Major. Being at St Matthew’s was life-transforming for me in untold ways.
Absolutely foundational in our Christian walk and growth was our time at St Matthias Oakridge with the Rev Ernie Eldridge. Ernie+ encouraged us to use all of our gifts, especially the gift of music. Janice my wife is a professional musician who graduated from the UBC School of Music. We loved to sing together, especially with our singing group Morning Star. One of the unfortunate side-effects of my Botox treatments every three months is that while it helps my speaking, it limits my singing voice. My guitar playing has greatly improved after eight years of guitar lessons with Tony Chotem. So even though my singing is limited, I am still able to serve in the area of music ministry. When I get to heaven, I look forward to the complete restoration of both my speaking and singing voice. In the meantime, I am grateful that I am still able to preach and serve as a priest, after being told by my GP in 1981 that I would never preach again. Without the throat operation, the ongoing prayer, and the Botox treatments, this would have been my fate.
Christmas is Inescapable….
December 9, 2010
By Reverend Ed Hird
One of the most entertaining book/movies about Christmas commercialization is ‘Skipping Christmas/Christmas with the Cranks’ by John Grisham. As Christmas commercialization will likely always be with us, it is good to have a sense of humour about the silliness that can overtake us. My favorite scene is Luther Crank trying unsuccessfully to drink his tea after an over-the-top Botox session.
For many years, John Grisham has been one of my favorite living authors. Born on February 8, 1955, Grisham is a retired attorney, an ex-politician, and a novelist best known for his works of modern legal drama. Publishers Weekly described Grisham as “the bestselling novelist of the 90s,” selling 60,742,289 copies. Grisham is one of few authors, including Tom Clancy, who have sold two million copies on a first printing. His novel The Pelican Brief sold over eleven million copies just in North America. There is no other person who has authored a number one best-selling novel of the year for seven consecutive years (1994-2,000).
Many people do not realize that Grisham is a committed Christian who has spent time in mission service in Brazil. “I started going out in 1993 with a church group from my home church in Oxford, Miss.,” he told USA Today. “We went down there for the purpose of constructing a church in this little town sort of in the outback and it was such a rewarding experience that I’ve done it several times since.”
With over 110 million books sold, John Grisham and his wife, Renee, “measure the success of the year on how much we give away,” Grisham told USA Today. They have set up a foundation to oversee their giving — “the bulk of it goes to church and related activities” — to which “the kids have said, ‘Look, don’t give it all away.’”
Grisham now wishes “I’d joined the Peace Corps … for a couple years out of college.” He added, “As my years go by I think I’ll spend more and more time doing … mission work, probably in Brazil.”
Fittingly, Grisham in his book ‘The Testament’ makes a heroine of an illegitimate daughter Rachel Lane, an unknown missionary in the deepest jungles of Brazil. Troy Phelan, the 10th-richest man in America, outrages all his greedy family by giving Rachel his $11 billion fortune. Ironically, Rachel leads a simple life and couldn’t care less about money. The interaction between Nate O’Riley the recovering alcoholic lawyer and Rachel Lane reveals the depth of Grisham’s spiritual convictions. “Nate closed his eyes … and called God’s name. God was waiting. … In one glorious acknowledgment of failure, he laid himself bare before God. He held nothing back. He unloaded enough baggage to crush any three men. … ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered to God. ‘Please help me.’ As quickly as the fever had left his body, he felt the baggage leave his soul. With one gentle brush of the hand, his slate had been wiped clean.”
Grisham explained to USA Today, “Nate tried power and women and booze and drugs and the fast life and all the good things that money can buy. He’s crashed and burned four times in 10 years and it’s obvious he can’t save himself. I wanted to take a guy like that and sort of follow him on a kind of spiritual journey, his quest for a spiritual cure. … I was challenged by the goal of seeing if I could make such a spiritual journey work in a popular novel, in commercial fiction.”
This Christmas, I encourage each of us to make a spiritual journey that goes far beyond Christmas Commercialization. May this Christmas be an encounter with the humble manger.
The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
Louis Riel’s Parting Messages to Humanity
December 9, 2010
“INTERVIEW WITH RIEL”
(Regina Leader Newspaper, Saskatchewan,Nov 19th 1885 )
by Mary MacFadyen McLean (my great grandmother reporter)
“His parting Messages to Mankind”
“The reporter of the Leader having received the orders of the proprietor to see Riel before his death and have an interview with him, waited on Captain Deane who was suffering from a severe accident, and who said he would be most happy to oblige the LEADER, but he doubted if he could do so were he in charge, but his superior officer was there, and he had no authority to act without his orders.
“Who is he?” asked the reporter.
“Col. Irvine.”
“Reporter: “I fear Col. Irvine is not friendly to the LEADER, which, in the public interest has felt bound to criticize him. However I must not enlarge on that head with you. My marching orders were to ‘See Riel,’ whom it was understood desired to see the Reporter of the LEADER with whom during his trial he frequently communicated.” Believing it useless to wait on the gallant Col, I repaired to the Queen City of the plains and went to my lodgings where I had the ‘Materials’ with which I had long been armed in preparation for this crisis. When first the officer in command of the LEADER said ‘An interview must be had with Riel if you have to outwit the whole police force of the North-West,’ I resolved various schemes. I reflected what great things had been done by means of the fair sex, and I thought, suppose I enlist on my side the fair ‘Saphronica’ and get her to put the ‘Comthethes’ on ‘Irvine’s susceptible fancy, and let her represent the LEADER. Saphronica was willing. A young lady of undoubted charms and resolute will, she essayed the officer in command, and, strange to say, his sense of duty or his fears of the Government, were stronger than his gallantry and Saphronica utterly failed to corrupt the guard. But on this, the Editor in chief frowned. At last I hit on a plan of my own. Accordingly on the evening of my refusal by Deane, I repaired to my lodgings, put on a soutaine (liturgical term for a robe) armed my chin with a beard, put on a broad brimmed wide awake, 
and stood Mr. Bienveillee the ancien confesseur of the doomed Riel. I hung at my bosom an enormous silver crucifix and now, speaking French, presented myself at the Barracks. The guard made no difficulty, and I believe they took me for Pere Andre. Entered his cell, I looked round and saw that the policeman had moved away from the grill. I bent down, told Riel I was a LEADER reporter in the guise of a pretre, and had come to give his last message to the world. He held out his left hand and touching it with his right, said: “Tick! Tick! Tick! I hear the telegraph, ah ca finira, “quick, I said, have you anything to say? I have brought pencil and paper — Speak”. Riel: “When I first saw you on the trial, I loved you.”
Messages: “I wish to send messages to all. To Lemieux, Fitzpatrick, Greenshields. I do not forget them — They are entitled to my reconnaissance. Ah!” he cried, apostrophizing them, “You were right to plead insanity, for assuredly all those days in which I have badly observed the Commandments of God were passed in insanity (passé dans la folie). Every day in which I have neglected to prepare myself to die, was a day of mental alienation. I who believe in the power of the Catholic priests to forgive sins, I have much need to confess myself according as Jesus Christ has said: “Whose sins you remit, they are remitted.”
Death: “Here he stopped and looked in his peculiar way and said: “Death comes right to 
meet one. He does not conceal himself. I have only to look straight before me in order to see him clearly. I march to the end of my days. Formerly I saw him afar. (O rather ‘her’ for he spoke him in French). It seems to me, however, that he walks no more slowly. He runs. He regards me. Alas! He precipitates himself upon me. My God!” he cried, “will he arrive before I am ready to present myself before you. O my God! Arrest it! By the grace, the influence, the power, the mercy divine of Jesus Christ. Conduct him in another direction in virtue of the prayers of Marie Immaculate. Separate me from death by the force the intercession of St Joseph has the privilege of exercise on your heart, O my God! Exempt me lovingly by Jesus, Marie, and Joseph, from the violent and ignominious death of the gallows, to which I am condemned.
“Honorables Langevin, Caron, Chapleau, I want to send them a message, let them not be offended if a man condemned to death dares to address them. Whatever affairs hang on you, don’t forget, ‘What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?’
“Honorable Messrs. Blake and Mackenzie, I want to send them a message. For fifteen years you have often named me, and you have made resound the echoes of your glorious province, in striking on my name as one 
strikes on a tocsin. I thank you for having contributed to give me some celebrity. Nobly take from me advice nobody else will dare to give you. Prepare yourself each day to appear before your God.
“The Vice-Regal throne is occupied with magnificence. He who occupies it is brilliant, and my eyes cannot fix on him without being blinded. Illustrious personages the qualities with which you are endowed are excellent. For that reason, men say ‘Your Excellency’. If the voice of a man condemned to death will not appear impertinent to you: it vibrates at the bottom of the cells of Regina to say to you: Excellencies, you also do not fail to hold yourself in readiness for death, to make a good death, prepare yourself for death!
Sir John Macdonald! I send you a message. I have not had the honour to know you personally. Permit me nevertheless to address you a useful word. Having to prepare 
myself for death, I give myself to meditation and prayer. Excuse me Sir John. Do not leave yourself completely carried away by the glories of power. In the midst of your great and noble occupations, take every day a few moments at least for devotion and prayer and prepare yourself for death.
“Honorable and noble friends! Laurier, Laflamme, Lachapelle, Desjardins, Taillon, Beaubien, Trudel, Prud’homme, I bid you adieu. I demand of God to send you the visit of Death only when you shall have long time desired it, and that you may join those who have transformed death into joy, into deliverance and triumph.
“Honorable Joseph Dubuc, Alphonse, C. Lariviere, Marc. A. Girard, Joseph Royal, Hon. John Norquay, Gov. Edgar Dewdney, Col. Irvine, Captain Deane, I would invite them to think how they would feel if they had only one week to live. Life here below is only the preparation for another. You are good Christians, think of eternity. Do not omit to prepare yourself for death.
“O My God! How is it death has become my sweetheart with the horror I feel towards her? And how can she seek me with an attention proportioned to the repugnance she inspires? O Death, the Son of God has triumphed over your terrors! O Death I would make of thee a good death!
“Elzear de la Gimodiere! Roger Goulet, and you whom I regard as a relative Irene Kerouak, prepare yourself for death. I pray God to prolong your days, Louis Schmidt, I ask of the good God to enable you to come to a happy old age. Meanwhile prepare yourself for death. Listen to the disinterested advice of one condemned. We have been placed in this world only for the purpose of probation.
“And you whom I admire and respect, Glorious Major General Middleton, you were kind to me, you treated me nobly. Pray see in my words the desire to be as little disagreeable as possible. Life has been smiling and fortunate for you. General, if there is one thing I have appreciated more than being your prisoner of war, it is that you chose as my guard Captain Young, one of the most brave and polite officers of the army. Captain Young, Be not surprised if I send you a message through the LEADER newspaper which I understand with reconnaissance has not called out against me, prepare yourself all your days. Death also disquiets himself about you. Do not sleep on watch. Be over well on your guard.
MESSAGES TO FATHER CHINUIQUY
“And you whom death spares and does not dare to approach and you whom I cannot forget, Ancien Preacher of Temperance, Chinuiquy, your hairs are white, God who has made them white slowly, wishes to make your heart white right away (tout d’un coup). O be not angry at the disinterested voice of a man who has never spoken to you, to whom you have never given pain, unless it be in having abandoned regrettably the amiable religion of your fathers. The grace of Marie waits for you. Please come.
The prisoner paused, and in the pause, one heard the skirr of the spurred heel of the Mounted Policeman and the neighing of one of the horses in the stables hard by, and I said: “Is this all? Have you no more to say?”
“No more”, replied Riel. “Father Andre has been here. He has told me there is no hope, that he has had a letter from my good friend Bishop Grandin. I have taken the sacraments. I am prepared. But yet the Spirit tells me, told me last night that I should yet rule a vast country, the North West, with power derived direct from heaven, look!” and he pointed to the vein in his left arm, there the spirit speaks, Riel will not die until he has accomplished his mission and –
He was about to make a speech and I left him with some sympathy and no little sadness. I felt that I had been in the presence of a man of genius manque, of a man who, had he been gifted with judgement, might have accomplished much; of one, who, had he been destitute of cruelty might even command esteem, and as I rode over the 
bridge and looked down on the frosty creek, and cast my eye towards the Government House where happy people were perhaps at dinner at that hour, I said to myself: “Why did he murder Scott? Why did he seek to wake up the bloody and nameless horrors of an Indian massacre? Why did he seek the blood of McKay and his fellow peacemakers? Unhappy man there is nothing for it. You must die on Monday.”
Here as I passed near the trail going northwest, the well known voice of a home-returning farmer saying ‘Good night’ woke me from my reverie. In twenty minutes, I was seated at dinner. I joined in the laugh and the joke, so passing are our most solemn impressions, so light the effect of actual tragedy. Our emotions are the penumbras of rapid transitions of circumstances and vanishing associations and like clouds, we take the hue of the moment, and are shaped by the breeze that bloweth where it listeth.”
Mary MacFadyen McLean, maternal great-grandmother of:
The Reverend Ed Hird
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
Investing in God’s Kingdom
October 30, 2010
What does it mean to invest in God’s Kingdom? Click to check out the latest newsletter on this theme.
Investing in God’s Kingdom (Click here)
Transforming a Woman’s Soul
September 11, 2010
By Rev Ed Hird
Many of us, whether women or men, fail to remember that we are made in God’s image. God does not make any junk. He makes all things beautiful in His time. God is beautiful. God is the author of all beauty and all creativity. The Psalms tell us that we worship to behold God’s beauty. That is why we are repeatedly encouraged in the Good Book to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
On a recent visit, I was shown a fascinating book by Heidi McLaughlin entitled “Beauty Unleashed: Transforming a Woman’s Soul”. For the past 22 years, her passion has been to help women walk in the knowledge that they are one of God’s most glorious creations.
Heidi says that ‘there is nothing more beautiful than a woman who knows that she is loved. She is the one who glows with energy when she walks into a room.’ ‘Every human being’, Heidi writes, ‘on this planet yearns to be loved. Everyone looks for something real and tangible: unconditional love.’
We can choose to be either part of the problem or part of the solution. As Heidi puts 
it, ‘wherever we are, our love can melt the hardest heart, heal wounded hearts, show compassion, or quiet an anxious or fearful heart.’ Love is the most powerful force in the universe. The heart of Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross was love. As we love hurting people, we help them discover that there is hope and a future.
Heidi teaches that ‘to unleash our greatest beauty, we must let go of expectations.’ This is the heart of the well-known phrase ‘Let go and let God’. So often we cripple ourselves with our hidden demands of how life should be going. Surrendering our hopes, dreams and fears to God will take a heavy load off our shoulders that was never meant to be there. We are called to cast our cares on Him, for he cares for us. That is why the Great Physician said: “Come to you, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and you will find rest for your souls.’
God is offering a beauty rest that will transform your soul. As Heidi puts it, ‘I believe that there is nothing God wants to do more than to shower us with his life.’ God sees your beauty and calls it forth. Will you say yes to His beautiful love?
The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector
St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver
Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)
-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier
http://stsimonschurch.ca
-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’
http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com
p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.
-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada
You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide
As Sick as our Secrets
September 5, 2010
By Rev Ed Hird
There’s an oft-heard saying in the recovery community: “We’re as sick as our secrets.” Over the years, I have met many people in abusive situations who have paid a great price to eventually extricate themselves from the vicious cycle of manipulation and recrimination. Sexual and physical abuse, in particular, scars the victim deeply. Often the victims falsely blame themselves. Recovery from abuse involves breaking the conspiracy of silence and deception perpetrated by abusers. Only the truth, however painful, can really set us free. Secrecy keeps us chained to our abusers.
At the heart of the ‘twelve steps’, in Step Four and Five, is the willingness to break the power of secrecy by admitting to God, yourself, and another person the exact nature of how you have wronged other people. I have done many ‘Fifth Steps’ for others over the past twenty-eight years. It is always such a privilege. I feel like I grow so much through this opportunity. I notice, however, that ‘Fifth Steps’ are very difficult in our secretive, victim-based culture. Many people want to come to me and admit the exact nature of how they have been wronged, but not how they have wronged other people. Until we can open up and get such things off our chest, we are still stuck with guilt, recrimination, and self-doubt. We really are as sick as our secrets.
The Good Book tells us to cast our cares upon the Lord, for He cares for us. I have found that sharing deeply my heart with another caring, listening person can be profoundly liberating. That is why we are encouraged by James, Jesus’ brother, to ‘confess our sins to each other and pray for each other that we may be healed.’ I have a number of friends who have had the courage to go see Bonnie Chatwin, a North Shore Pastoral & Clinical Counselor. It was not at all easy for them to do this, but I was amazed by the breakthroughs that they have achieved. How much do we want to be well? Often the price of being well is giving up our obsessive need for independence and secrecy, and beginning to trust another person with our life story.
We as Canadians live in a culture that has become more secretive and private. The vast majority of Canadians still believe in God, prayer, and Jesus’ resurrection, but such faith concerns have largely gone into the closet. There is a widespread perception that faith is so personal and private that it cannot be mentioned publicly.
The fast-rising and falling Da Vinci Code fad fit totally into that way of thinking. It implicitly taught that true spirituality is about dark hidden secrets that only the elite may know about: secrets allegedly hidden in Da Vinci’s paintings, secrets covered by an alleged secret society named the Priory of Sion, secrets about Mary Magdalene and Mother Eve in the Garden of Eden. Over one hundred million North Americans have either read the Da Vinci Code book or seen the movie. There is something in us that is drawn to secret knowledge and secret passageways. But is secrecy really the way to health and life? Is secrecy really the key to genuine spirituality?
The most famous person in the world once said: “I have spoken openly to the world…I said nothing in secret.” (John 18:20) Jesus also said that “whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed or secret is meant to be brought out into the open.” (Matthew 4:22) Rabbi Saul/Paul, who was Jesus’ most famous disciple, commented: “we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, we set forth the truth plainly…” (2 Corinthians 4:2)
edhird
