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Saturday, December 22, 2001 - 7:01 p.m.
Mom

For the first time in seven years, my mother came to town. Of course, she didn�t come to see me, really. She wanted to go to see a priest at St. Joseph�s Oratory and pray or receive a blessing for my two brothers, who are currently in quite a lot of trouble. I picked her up at the train station at 8 am. She looked good; she lost a couple of pounds. We had breakfast in the train station, took the metro to my place, then off to the Oratory.

In nine years, I have never been inside this place. I never quite realized how beautiful it could be. I learned about St. Joseph (surrogate father of Jesus, model worker, patron saint of the sick and so on) and most especially about Fr�re Andr�. He was arguably the single most beloved Quebec personality ever. I can�t imagine what it must have been like that day in 1937 when he died. The whole idea, I have come to realize, behind churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship is one of peace. The peacefulness I felt while there was therapeutic. I felt peace exuding from not only the place itself, but from every single person inside. Every person. The depressed, the stressed and the hopeless should all go there. And that is what congregation should be all about, not a bunch of people talking about why they and only they are going to heaven.

After the Oratoire, we decided to do a little shopping downtown. I bought a present for S (a practical one, as she had recently purchased herself a number of less practical gifts) and my mother bullied me into buying a Caillou towel for my niece. When we got home, we talked about religion and politics for nearly two hours. It was great. It�s exactly what she needs. She just needs some stimulating conversation, someone to listen to her point of view, and then she�s fine.

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