By Deacon Eric Gurash
The first annual Archbishop's Dinner, celebrated on Friday, May 8, was an evening marked by celebration, reflection, multicultural entertainment, and a hopeful vision for the future of the Church in the Archdiocese of Regina. A total of 579 individuals, including ecumenical guests, parishioners and clergy from across Southern Saskatchewan and beyond, attended the sold-out event.
The evening featured multicultural performances from the Filipino Couples for Christ Community and the Nigerian Choir, reflecting the growing diversity and vibrancy of the local Church, a theme Archbishop Donald Bolen would later return to throughout his keynote address, Looking at God, Looking at Us.
Drawing from literature, culture, and Scripture, Archbishop Bolen reflected on how Christians understand God's relationship with humanity and how that vision shapes the Church's mission in a divided and wounded world.
"What we have just lived through in the celebration of Holy Week and the Triduum and now in the Easter season tells us a very different message about how God looks at us," Archbishop Bolen said. "God looks at us with boundless mercy. Jesus loved his disciples, and he loved them to the end. What is revealed at the heart of this season is God's boundless compassion and mercy."
Archbishop Bolen continued to highlight themes of mercy, human dignity, reconciliation, and peace, contrasting the cynicism and fragmentation often found in modern culture with the Christian conviction that every person is seen and loved by God. "God looks upon us and embraces our humanity with a profound, compassionate embrace," he said. "Every Sunday, throughout this diocese and throughout the world, we celebrate God's great forgiving mercy. God does not look at the human condition and say, 'What a mistake. I'd like to just get rid of it all.' That is not the posture of the God we believe in," Bolen remarked.
The Archbishop also spoke about the importance of truly seeing one another's humanity, especially in an increasingly polarized world: "Any human face is a claim on you because you cannot help but recognize the singularity of it, the courage of it, and the loneliness of it," he said. "That recognition changes the way we encounter one another and changes the way we live together as human beings."
As he reflected on the Church's diversity, both locally and globally, including visits to the Philippines, Vietnam, and West Africa, Archbishop Bolen encouraged Catholics throughout the Archdiocese to continue building communities of welcome, dialogue, and peace. "God looks at us in the midst of a world that is tearing itself apart, a world polarized and ready to turn quickly toward conflict and war, and says: 'You are a people called to proclaim peace.'" Bolen continued, "We are called to be people who enter into dialogue, who become instruments of peace, and who witness to another way of living together."
For many in attendance, the evening was also a visible reminder of the strength and vitality of the Archdiocese itself.
Lori Vatamanuk of Christ the King parish in Regina described the evening as deeply moving. "The Archbishop's Dinner was an amazing evening," she said. "A room of nearly 600 people all celebrating our common faith. My heart was full leaving that night."
Vatamanuk said Archbishop Bolen's visible amazement at the turnout left a lasting impression on her. "What actually stood out the most was his awe, his disbelief that we filled the room," she said. "As a member of Christ the King Parish for more than 40 years, it's easy to forget we're just a small part of a much larger family."
She compared the Archbishop's reaction to that of a proud parent witnessing something meaningful in their children, saying, "As an Archdiocese, we should be proud that we filled that room, that people were excited to attend, that we have record numbers of people journeying through RCIA. We're doing something right."
The evening was more than a formal gathering, but a celebration of faith, communion, and shared mission across the Archdiocese of Regina. As Archbishop Bolen reminded those gathered, "Mercy within mercy within mercy, that is how God looks at the human condition. That is the heart of the Gospel, and that is the message we are called to proclaim as Church."
