A sorrowful, heart-rending time in Canada for People of Faith as churches are shut down during Easter and the 8-day Easter Octave.

First came the police invasion of Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s Street Church during Easter Saturday Service. Courageous Pawlowski, who fled to Canada from Communism wasn’t having any of it and ordered them out, shouting “Get Out, Nazis!” “Get out!” “Get out!” to their fleeing backs.

“Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s ‘henchpeople’—including local health officials, City of Calgary Bylaw Services, and police have been dogging Pawlowski ever since he started his good works to feed Calgary’s many homeless. (Canada Free Press, April 5, 2021)

“Last April “Social Distancing” police fined him $1.2K for feeding the city’s hungry homeless.”

“I have seen the power of unified Poland during the Solidarity and I have seen what we can do as people if we will only unite,” Pawlowski encouraged the crowd. The preacher who escaped communism and made his home in Canada detailed his oppressive life under the Soviet communists in Poland and warned that Canada is rapidly turning into a communist state.”

Days later it was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)  walling off GraceLife Church, also in Alberta.

Both disturbing events went viral on the Internet, and both are gaining coverage in the mainstream media of the country next door.

Mercifully so when one considers that the Canadian media is, by and large, ignoring this chilling trend.

Moving on a tip from an anonymous police officer who disagreed with yesterday’s walling off of GraceLife Church, plucky Rebel Media videotaped the entire scene.

Hard to believe that this is happening in Canada.

Or is it?

“The plight facing Pastor James Coates sounds like something out of almost any other country other than a supposedly free one, like Canada. Pastor Coates, of the GraceLife Church in Alberta, was recently jailed for a little over a month for violating the Public Health Act because he dared to hold church services. While he was recently released, that’s not the end of the troubles facing him or his church. (Town Hall, April 7, 2021)

“An update list regarding Coates was published by Church Leaders, including to do with his release on March 22. While Tré Goins-Phillips of Faithwire reported that Coates was released after the Alberta government dropped the criminal charges, he also noted that the pastor “is, though, still facing financial charges for violating health orders.”

“On top of that, the government is trying to delay what would have been his May 3 trial, according to Rebel News. While that’s outraged Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, they also also took issue with how the Alberta government erected a wall against the church. Both concerns are laid out in a press release, “Alberta government seeks to delay May 3 trial of Pastor Coates and barricades Church.”

“What video and photo footage we have is otherworldly, especially when it comes to the details we have, such as how the Royal Canadian Mounted Police assisted in walling off the place.

You’d never know that this was a house of worship. What comes to mind is more like a closed down restaurant, or something nefarious that needs to be hidden from society, like an abortion facility or a strip club.”

In the midst of this darkness comes light in the words of Father Sergio Muñoz Fita, pastor of St. Anne Roman Catholic Parish in Gilbert, Arizona, at last Thursday’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper:

(The video is cued up to Father’s homily.)

There’s a missing-the-elephant-in-the room angle to the Pastor Pawlowski and Pastor Coates stories:Even worse than shutting churches down, are the relentless attempts by governments and their bureaucrats to shut down belief in God Almighty among the faithful.

Marxist governments now running so many of our Western countries hate The Creator, and in order to succeed at cowing the masses, must kill off all belief in Him.

Down through the ages, we’ve been there before, but surely nothing quite like this.  In bygone eras they had King Herod, whose brutal rule mercifully came to an end with the death of his evil son, Herod Archelaus.

Today there are too many latter day Herods in public office to count.

Meanwhile, the Herods of our day can starve our bodies while dispiriting the masses they were elected to serve with the spread of Marxist misery.

Don’t let them kill off your immortal soul.

If you can’t pray at church, you can certainly pray from the peace of your own home.

There are too many private homes for all the King Herods and their bureaucrats to shut down Private Prayer.