Father Bob Bedard his life

Biography of Fr. Bob Bedard ( I found this on the Companions' facebook page)

The success of Fr. Bob came primarily from helping others develop a deep relationship with the Lord and encouraging them as they sought to follow God’s direction for their ministry. The evidence proving this success comes from St. Mary’s parishioners. It appears that a greater number of effective ministries were created than in any other medium-size Catholic parish over the past 50 years.

Robert Joseph (Bob) Bedard was born on July 17, 1929, in Ottawa, Canada. His parents were Henry Bedard, a civil engineer with the Canadian government and Eileen Bedard (Starrrs), a stay-at-home mother. Contrary to what his parents had hoped for, he turned out to be an only child. As he grew up, he said prayers including the rosary every night with his parents and attended mass every Sunday, but did not take on a role as an altar server.

Growing up, he was introverted. He even convinced his parents he should delay starting school for a year because he was so timid. In high school, he found girls to be attractive but did not go on dates because he was too shy to approach them. Later in life as a teacher and a pastor, he countered his social unease by actively tracking names, so he could use them to show respect and help build rapport. Many people were surprised that he seemed to know them by name.

As a youngster and teenager, hockey provided his main source of enjoyment. However, at age 15 he contracted a serious case of infectious hepatitis and missed a couple of months of school along with two seasons of hockey. He was unable to get back into competitive hockey at age 17 because his skating was a problem.

His original career ambition was to become a dentist. He started an aggressive program in his final year of high school partly because he felt he was behind his peers by starting school a year late. His father realized he was having difficulties in school and arranged for him to drop algebra and physics, taking Latin instead. Without the math and science background, he no longer had the university requirements for dentistry.

With his career undecided, he chose to pursue a three-year arts degree. Towards the end of the first year, his pastor preached from the gospel, “What does if profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his immortal soul?” The next day while walking to school, Fr. Bob felt God called him to be a priest and he accepted. From that day forward, he began attending 7 am mass on his way to school.

After finishing his Bachelor of Arts degree, he entered St. Augustine Seminary in Toronto. He was ordained on June 6, 1955, and then worked for three years as an Associate Pastor at Assumption Parish in Vanier, a working-class neighborhood in Ottawa. He attracted a large number of altar servers by involving them in sports. He also sought to inspire vocations to the priesthood and had a group of young men aged twelve to sixteen meeting every two weeks. However, none went on to attend a seminary.

The diocese then created St. Pius X, a new Catholic high school intended as a preparatory seminary. Fr. Bob was one of four priests sent to establish this initiative. Since the students were not going on to the seminary, it became a regular Catholic high school. Fr. Bob taught there for nineteen years, at times taking on the role of principal and rector.

Although Fr. Bob had no experience in playing basketball, he accepted the request to become the basketball coach and took it seriously. His senior team won 77 consecutive regular season games, competing against schools much larger than St. Pius X. It seems that coaching players to success gave him some experience to effectively support parishioners in establishing Christian missions when he became a pastor.

The year 1975 brought fundamental changes in the life of Fr. Bob. In February, he was appointed as the Archbishop’s representative to the Charismatic movement in the English sector of the Archdiocese. Soon after a life-altering event occurred. Fr. Bob had been a priest for twenty years but said that he did not find prayer to be effective, so his praying was minimal. He began attending the weekly meetings of the Life in the Spirit seminar to check it out. In the fifth session, the group leader asked him what Gift of the Spirit they should pray over him for. Fr. Bob had an unusual request: he asked for the gift of being able to engage in serious prayer. He drove home feeling nothing had changed. When he woke up the next morning, he said that “he had an unmistakable desire to pray” and the changes this brought to his life were both intensive and extensive.

Fr. Bob felt the deep daily morning prayer led him to a much better life. Fr. Bob then set up a prayer group in the school. This became very effective with students committing their lives to the Lord. This better life also experienced his basketball team becoming more effective by defeating the top-ranked team in Ontario in a three-set match to win the Eastern Ontario Championship for the first year.

On October 29, 1975, tragedy struck when a student came into Fr. Bob’s religion class and started shooting. Three people died including the shooter, who committed suicide. Fr. Bob worked hard to support the grieving students and it remained a devastating experience throughout his life.

Five weeks after the shooting, a student came to him for help. She had high grades but was now close to failing her tests because she could no longer sleep properly. Fr. Bob felt called by God to pray for her so he did even though he felt uncomfortable since he had never tried such a healing ministry. That night was her first good sleep and this prompted Fr. Bob to get involved in healing prayer. He had many successful healings, some of which were clearly miracles. He was most successful when praying for a dental problem suggesting that perhaps this was God’s response to his previous desire to be a dentist.

At the end of the school year in 1977, Fr. Bob left his teaching at St. Pius X. For the next few years, he was involved in various roles, including with Charismatic ministries involved with prayer groups, healing prayer, and speaking at conferences across North America. He also became a member of the New Jerusalem, a covenant community that lasted for three years, taught a course for lay people on how to get involved in ministries, and supported various parishes. In September 1984, he approached the Archbishop saying he felt called to pastor a parish. He became pastor of St. Mary’s parish in Ottawa on October 12, 1984.

When he started, St. Mary’s parish had a small number attending mass, and Fr. Bob said he felt “panic” for not being effective. After a couple of months of quiet time, he reported that he was called on to use the term “give God permission” and that God would act if enough parishioners gave God permission. Fr. Bob had never heard of this term, but later learned that St. Mother Teresa was also using it.

For an entire year, Fr. Bob preached about giving God permission. A typical homily would ask if you were satisfied with the status of St. Mary’s, did you think God was satisfied, did you feel God had the power to change things, and were you prepared to let God take over? On the church bulletin, he wrote: “Lord I give you permission to do anything you wish (Dangerous prayer, Caution needed).”

Fr. Bob saw his role as one of supporting others in answering their call from God. He declined to suggest any new ministry as he sought to have God speak directly to the parishioners. He actively lived his teaching of “Don’t take yourself seriously but take God seriously” by not seeking a position of control.

Church attendance grew in such a steady fashion that by 1977 restrictions were placed on attendance by the fire marshal. Large numbers of people came to the Lord, while others enhanced their relationship with Him. Parishioners went door-to-door through the parish to encourage people to accept the Lord. While many people feel Fr. Bob should be canonized because of the type of personal relationship that he helped them foster with God, even those who did not know Fr. Bob could see what the Lord accomplished with the multitude of effective ministries coming from a medium-sized church.

Some parishioners were led to senior leadership positions, such as two bishops, the North American English/French leader for the International Charismatic Catholic Renewal Services, and the head of the Archdiocese Deaconate. A significant number became priests, nuns, and deacons. At one point more seminarians were coming from St. Mary’s than the rest of the Archdiocese combined. Fr. Bob founded of the Companions of the Cross, a Vatican-approved society of priests. He was also the co-founder of the Servants of the Cross, an order of nuns, and was involved in establishing another order, the Queenship of Mary.

Establishing and supporting of prayer groups became a priority for Fr. Bob from the time the group prayed over him in 1975 on the gift of prayer. This was extended to healing ministries where St. Mary’s parishioners became actively involved at the local, Archdiocese, and international levels through healing and teaching.

Fr. Bob’s nineteen years as a high-school teacher gave him the experience to spread the gospel as a pastor and coach parishioners to develop gospel ministries. While Fr. Bob and the Companions have taken an active role in spreading the gospel through television, the internet, and retreats, the St. Mary’s parishioners also spread the Word through many ministries. This is unlike the common attitude of parishioners who feel such ministries are reserved for the clergy. Examples of initiatives set up by St. Mary’s parishioners are the New Evangelization Summit which is the world’s largest Catholic summit that has live video feeds, the New Life Retreat operating both at St. Mary’s and at other parishes, and Merivale Academy, a private school that ensures orthodox Catholic teaching.

Fr. Bob frequently spoke in his homilies about supporting the poor and many ministries were created by parishioners to do so. An example of this is the Parkdale Food Centre, a foodbank ministry established jointly with Protestant churches. St Mary’s got actively involved to the extent that other churches were asked to reduce their donations because of excess money in the bank. It now has an annual budget of over $1 million and more than 2,000 donors. Another example is Jericho Road, a ministry where 8 houses were established to support homeless men and bring them to the Lord. The St. Mary’s Knights of Columbus has also been effective and was named the top council of over 100 in Ontario.

The pro-life movement was also an important issue for Fr. Bob and St. Mary’s parishioners. Once Fr. Bob encouraged active involvement, the majority of people attending pro-life events were from St. Mary’s and they remain actively involved. In addition, they lead the March for Life, the National Campus Life Network, and the Catholic Organization for Life and Family.

Along with concern for the unborn, protection from sexual predators was also important to Fr. Bob. He played a key role in the removal of homosexual predators from Ontario seminaries. As well, a former St. Mary’s parishioner leads the Archdiocese program to protect youth from possible predators in the Church.

While Fr. Bob actively preached in a conservative fashion on the need to follow Catholic moral teachings, he also spoke of the need to help those in prison. St. Mary’s parishioners engaged in prison visitation. MAP, an award-winning organization, was created to support released offenders and minimize their risk of re-offending.

The development of youth ministries made up another key of success to St. Mary’s. Fr. Bob, the Companions, and St. Mary’s parishioners played major roles in developing of the two major national youth organizations, Catholic Christian Outreach and NET Canada.

When parishioners left St. Mary’s, they frequently took their roles with them across the Archdiocese as a mission for their new parishes. At one point, it appeared that the majority of the parishes had a former St. Mary’s parishioner supporting missions there. While churches throughout Canada are being lost, the role of St. Mary’s parishioners appears to be a positive factor for the Ottawa Archdiocese to maintain its parishes.

In 1990, Fr. Bob left his role as pastor of St. Mary’s to focus on his role as General Superior of the Companions. He remained somewhat involved with St. Mary’s living in a building next to it, preaching some of the homilies, and supporting parishioners. Most of his time was spent on the Companions as they were developed with four distinct pillars that reflected his understanding. These are in the words of Fr. Bob:

Eucharistic - “We were to develop celebrations of the Liturgy that would be both joyful and reverent. Total participation of the congregation would be our aim as well. Music would be a high priority. In addition, we would feature adoration of the Blessed Sacrament with as many hours a week as the participants could fill.”

Charismatic - “We would lay down the red carpet for the Holy Spirit and invite Him to carry out the Father’s will. We would become familiar with all the ways and gifts of the Holy Spirit, teach the people about them and encourage these ways.”

Marian - “We would be consecrated to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, according to the teachings of St. Louis de Montfort.” Fr. Bob was strongly influenced by the Marian Congress held in 1947 near his home which over 100,000 people attended. This congress is being revived, led by a former St. Mary’s parishioner.

Magisterial - “We would be totally onside with the official teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Anybody who might want to know what we teach would only have to check with the Catholic Catechism, the documents of Vatican II and the teachings of Pope John Paul II.”

Eventually, Fr. Bob found the job leading the Companions “became more and more demanding” and in 1992 he developed serious sleep problems. Initially, medication resolved the problem but it became ineffective three years later. In early 1996, he left the Companions on medical leave to seek treatment. He spent time in the hospital where he was given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). At that time, ECT treatment involved high doses of electricity through the brain, and this caused memory loss.

Fr. Bob returned to the Companions in 1997 as Director of Admissions and was awarded the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Cross by the Vatican. He continued helping people but was not as active as before the ECT treatment. His brain gradually declined and he passed away on Oct 6, 2011. God continues to have great success through the men and women Fr. Bob had encouraged through His divinely inspired message to “Give God Permission.”