My colleague Dr Harold Ristau brings much experience and many gifts to his exercise of a seminary professorship, in which he is rightly celebrated for his emphasis on personal, sacramental, and liturgical piety and for his focus on teaching and living out the whole great area of Christian Ethics. In particular he came to us after serving a good number of years as a chaplain in the Canadian Armed Forces, notably in gruelling conditions in Afghanistan.

This past Saturday saw Dr Ristau and his wonderful family (consisting of wife Elise and children Katelyn, Simon, Markus, Luke, and Matthias) in Ottawa in order to participate in the Peaceful Demonstration (Manifestation Pacifique) ignited by the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy. After his fellow veterans cleaned and tidied up the National War Memorial that is home to the tomb of Canada’s unknown soldier, Padre Ristau led a crowd of veterans and supporters in a brief and very touching devotion, which included Invocation of the Triune Name, intercession for our country and government, Our Father, and Benediction, whereupon he led the singing of O Canada. Given the relentless secularization of Canada over the past generation and the determined forcing of the Christian religion out of the sphere of public life, the bold yet meek confession of Dr Ristau and his colleagues marks an iconic and, we hope, decisive moment in our Canadian public life. A French Canadian lady who once taught the Ristau children was surely not the only one among our compatriots who got les larmes aux yeux (tears in her eyes) when watching this act of public piety.

Three young men who attended Saturday’s demonstration in the nation’s capital have told my wife and myself how the reality of the unfolding events in Ottawa is the very opposite of what is being mendaciously reported in our government-funded (and hence largely government-controlled) mass media. Canadians of all ages, backgrounds, and ethnicities are coming together in an unprecedented display of goodwill that includes feeding the homeless and cleaning and tidying up public spaces. After two years of increasingly draconian regulations and tightening totalitarian control, our country is experiencing a veritable renaissance and renewal of its identity as the people express their desire for constitutional freedom and the unconstrained pursuit of harmonious communal life. May this Dominion be spared a repeat of the tragedy of Tiananmen Square.

Dr Ristau and his family returned home from Ottawa to celebrate his 50th birthday, which falls today. Happy Birthday, dear Brother Harold, and long may you shine as a bright light in Church and State and in our Canadian public life in general!