Sunday Service: Spirituality and Action

Catherine Hembling, Mei Jia Lam, Huguette Sansonet, Ruth Walmsley

The service will be exploring deep Spirituality and how spirituality relates to actions. Personal stories will be told in that regard.

Catherine Hembling is a 45-year member of the Unitarian Church, and a 20 year Buddhist practitioner. She is an avid outdoor person, and musician. She is a member of the UCV Environment Team, and became an activist against the construction of Trans Mountain Pipeline Extension and member of the multifaith prayer circle in 2019. She was arrested and incarcerated in the spring of 2021, and is one of three original Alouettes Sisters, (named for their initial performance in Alouette Women’s Correctional Centre.)

Huguette Sansonet was raised on a small farm in France. Brought up as a Catholic, she eventually became an Existentialist. She practiced as a Child Psychiatrist, and at UCV, joined Refugee, Environment, Social Justice, and IPA Teams. As head of the Refugee Team she has supported over one thousand refugees settling in Greater Vancouver over the years.

Ruth Walmsley is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and a passionate activist for social and environmental justice. In Sept. 2021 she engaged in spiritually rooted non-violent civil disobedience as part of a multi-faith prayer circle direct action group, which she founded in 2018. She was arrested and incarcerated for 9 days in Feb. 2022 at the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge, B.C.

Download the Order of Service

Weekly services