Re “Migrants in crisis: Archbishop appeals to PM on behalf of temporary farm workers” (B.C. Catholic, July 13):
The plight of foreign temporary agricultural workers and the abuse they endure warrants a judicial inquiry.
The latest abuse involves the imposition of unjust agreements preventing the migrant workers from leaving the farms for any reason. These are imposed under the pretense of COVID-19 restrictions, conditions that the health ministries never actually imposed upon the foreign workers. Farms have been found to have cheated their foreign workers on food delivery and other charges.
There is a grotesque disparity between the human rights Canadians possess – albeit with the inherent civil rights battles – and the lack of regard for foreign nations on our soil.
All of this could be resolved if we created a “foreign nationals on Canadian soil human rights act.”
Christopher Mansour
Barrie, Ont.
This coming Sept. 12 will be the third anniversary of Father Xavier Royappan’s death. He was assistant pastor at Christ Redeemer Parish for four years, and I recently found a reflection in a spiritual book that captures why so many parishioners loved Father Xavier so dearly. It was in this passage from Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Liturgical Year by Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD, that I was able to discern why and how a person here on earth can play such a big part in a person’s spiritual life. The quotation is as follows:
In evaluating the beauty of created things, the gift of knowledge (an intuition so clear that it admits no doubt) while revealing the essential nothingness of these things, does not deny the relative perfections to be found in them, but shows them as vestiges (footprints), reflections of the infinite perfection of God. It is this light that changes creatures from an obstacle into a ladder by leading us to God, because “the soul is strongly moved to love her Beloved, her God, by the consideration of the creatures, seeing that these are things that have been made by his own hand.
The divine gift of individuals can “urge the soul on to God, inspiring it to seek Him and love Him, the one infinitely beautiful Being.”
I will be eternally grateful to God for the gift of Father Xavier. He is missed and will never be forgotten.
Annette Van Hoenacker
West Vancouver
