admin « St. Gabriel's Passionist Parish

Author Archive

Bulletin – September 13, 2015

Sunday, September 13th, 2015

BACK TO SCHOOL

Welcome back! We hope you have had an enjoyable summer. For those young people who are off to university, we wish you every success as you begin a new stage of your life. For those students and teachers returning to elementary and secondary school, we wish you a very positive and rewarding year.

STUDY GROUP ON LAUDATO SI’ AT ST. GABRIEL’S

Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, which is addressed to all men and women of good will, reminds us the earth is our common home; yet because humankind has not been using the gifts of creation responsibly, the earth is suffering, the poor and vulnerable amongst us are also suffering. We need to work towards an ecological conversion.

For all who are interested in getting to know more about the encyclical, and to reflect on it, a study group will be held at St. Gabriel’s. We’ll be meeting six times, beginning October 5th, studying one chapter at each meeting.

The Co-leaders of Study Group will be Fr. Steve Dunn, CP and Dr. Dennis O’Hara

Dates of Meetings: Mondays – October 5th, 19th, November 2nd, 16th, 30th, and December 7th.

Time: 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM.

The meetings are free of charge, but donations will be gratefully accepted.

To register or for further enquiries, please call the Parish Office (416) 221-8866 or email Fatima Lee at fatimalee@bellnet.ca.

OUR PARISH’S RESPONSE TO THE SYRIAN CRISIS

The situation in Syria and the news about the plight of Syrian refugees have touched many of our hearts. The parish is considering sponsoring again a refugee family. The help you can give, financially and/or as a volunteer will be most important for the success of this effort. Please stay tuned for how you may help.

If you would like to serve as a volunteer to help with the application and settlement process, please contact Fatima Lee at (416) 221-8866 or email fatimalee@bellnet.ca. A meeting will be arranged shortly to discuss how we can go forward.

BAPTISM

The Parish Family of St. Gabriel’s would like to welcome:

Remy Marc Durieu
Aria Evangeline Elgbe
Mason Alexander Galloro
Cecilia Jaein Lee
Mark Lai Mano
James Edward Murray-Fellin
Julienne Margarrette C. Poscablo
Julian Andres Salcedo
Ethan Li Ngan Sun
Braedyn Liam Wong

All received the Sacrament of Baptism during the months of July and August. Congratulations!

ANNOUNCED MASSES

September 14th to September 19th, 2015

MONDAY – HARRY LEUNG – Requested by John Chan
TUESDAY – MARIA CHOI – Requested by Cecilia
WEDNESDAY – SR. GEORGINA KAMBEITZ IBVM – Requested by Margaret Anne Leckie
THURSDAY – MARGARET, BETTY & POLLY NEWMAN – Requested by Sheila Emblem
FRIDAY – FIORENTINA GIANNOTTA – Requested by Lina Giannotta
SATURDAY – HEUNG-WAH LAM – Requested by Fung, Lam & Montero Families

REGISTRATION FOR SACRAMENTS FOR SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN

St. Gabriel’s Church

September 15th, September 16th, September 22nd and September 24th from 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM.

Registration for children who wish to receive the Sacraments of First Communion, Reconciliation and Confirmation will be held at St. Gabriel’s Church from 7:30 PM to 9:00 PM on the following evenings:
Tuesday, September 15th Wednesday September 16th Tuesday, September 22nd Thursday, September 24th

Please Note:A copy of the child’s Baptismal Certificate is required if registering for First Communion or Confirmation. A fee of $20 is required for Confirmation.

CHILDREN’S FAITH PROGRAM

The Children’s Faith Program for children attending private or public schools will begin on Sunday, September 13th at 10:00 AM. Classes are held at St. Gabriel’s School.

PARENTS CONFIRMATION INFORMATION MEETING

Wednesday, October 7th at 7:30 PM.
St. Gabriel’s Church

There will be a meeting here at the Church on Wednesday, October 7th at 7:30 PM. for parents of children receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation this year.

ST. GABRIEL’S MUSIC MINISTRY

“Those who sing pray twice.”

Our senior choir practices on Tuesday evenings, 7:30-9:00 P.M. and leads community song at the 10:30 AM Sunday Mass.

Our junior choir practices on Thursday evenings from 6:30-8:00 PM and leads the music at the 12:30 PM Mass.

We always welcome new voices and hope you will consider joining us! For more information, please contact the choir director after any of the Masses.

R.C.I.A. AND ADULT FAITH DEVELOPMENT

Meetings in preparation for the R.C.I.A. (Rites of Christian Initiation of Adults) will begin soon. These meetings are for persons interested in learning more about the Catholic Faith. The exploration may lead the candidate to seek baptism, and become a member of the Catholic Christian community; or for Christians already
baptized into another Christian denomination, the reception into the Catholic Church.

Adult Catholics who have not received the sacrament of Confirmation but who wish to do so are also encouraged to attend these sessions.

As well, these meetings may be an opportunity for “Born Catholics” to deepen their understanding of our faith. Very often, especially for those of us who received our religious instruction at an early age, we tend to grow physically, mentally, psychologically etc., but the understanding of our faith does not grow correspondingly. The RCIA may serve as a good opportunity for us to ask questions and to develop a more adult understanding of our faith.

If you are interested in joining the RCIA meetings or if you would like to have more information about it, please call the Parish Office at 416-221-8866. You can also contact Fatima Lee directly at ext. 228.

SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN PREPARING FOR BAPTISM

If you have, or know of, school age children (ages 7 to 14) who wish to prepare for Baptism, please contact the Parish Office, or Fatima Lee directly, at (416) 221-8866. Classes for them will begin after Thanksgiving.

JUST COFFEE

Fair trade organic coffees will be on sale after all the Masses next weekend.
Regular ground coffee: $5.50
Decaffeinated: $6
Whole Beans: $5.50
Chocolate Bars: $4.50 incl. taxes
Hot Chocolate and Cocoa: $5.00
Teas: $4.25

THANKSGIVING FOOD DRIVE

You can make a difference in the lives of the hungry and homeless this Thanksgiving by participating in the annual Good Shepherd Ministries Thanksgiving Food Drive.

Urgently needed items include: rice, pasta sauces, canned tuna, canned soups, stews, meats, fruits and vegetables, peanut butter, jam, oatmeal, pancake mix, teabags, ground or instant coffee, sugar, cookies and crackers,

Please no fresh or frozen foods.

We thank you for your generous support!

SHARELIFE

Congratulations to the good people of St. Gabriel’s. Our final total for ShareLife 2015 was $204,840. Thank you for your very generous support!

FOOD FOR ROSALIE HALL

Each month the food we collect is sent to Rosalie Hall. With everyone struggling at this time, these donations are more important than ever. Please check the expiry dates before donating since we cannot pass on food that has expired. Thank you for your generous support.

BUNDLE UP WEEKEND COMING UP!

Weekend of September 19th and 20th

Spring Cleaning Year Round!

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul will be collecting gently used clothing for men women and children, shoes, household goods, linens, draperies and toys to support the needy on the weekend of September 19th /20th. They cannot accept books, baby furniture, appliances or mattresses.

Please bring your donations and help others in your community. They will donate or sell these donations to support their outreach efforts. The truck will be open Saturday from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM and Sunday from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Volunteers will be there to assist with loading before and after each Mass.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR ALTAR LINEN CARE

We are in need of volunteers to care for the altar linens. If you would be willing to take on this important task, please call the Parish Office at 416-221-8866.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH IN THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE

Six Tuesday Mornings Beginning September 29th
St. Bonaventure’s Parish Centre, 1300 Leslie Street
Sr. Mary Rose Marrin CSJ will be offering a programme on the topic of Spiritual Growth in the Second Half of Life hosted by St. Bonaventure’s Church on six Tuesday Mornings at 10:00 AM between September 29th and December 1st. For more information or to register, please call 416-491-2360. or email adamscote@rogers.com.

FINANCE CORNER

Weekly Offertory

Our operating expenses average $14,550 per week.

Collection for last weekend:
Envelopes 359 $ 9,049
Loose Change 740
Weekly Portion of Pre-Authorized Giving 163 3,078
Total 522 $ 12,867
Mission Co-Op Collection: $8,409
Shared Collection: $3,120

Posted in Bulletin | Comments Off on Bulletin – September 13, 2015

Homily – September 6, 2015

Saturday, September 5th, 2015

The letter of St. James could be called the first social encyclicals of the Church. James challenges the attitudes and behaviors he sees developing in the struggling Christian communities. Very few if any of the early church were people of power or influence. Most were ordinary struggling men and women trying to keep their heads above water but even with that they were developing their own pecking order. Remember the mother of the sons of Zebedee wanting a special place for her sons James and John among the apostles? Her request caused no end of grief within the group.

James wanted the men and women in his community to know that belonging to Christ they belonged to one another. They were to care for and protect one another. They were to build each other up in their faith and be there for one another in their needs. Community was more important than any rugged individualism.

James insisted everyone be doers of the word not just listeners. His famous quote that caused so much conflict at the time of the Reformation was ‘faith without good works is dead’. James gives this example, ‘if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says to them,’ go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what good is that? Faith by itself, if it has no good works, is dead.’

For James religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this ‘to care for orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself unstained by this world.

In today’s reading James cautions people about showing favoritism towards people of influence especially when they come together as a community in prayer. The front rows were not to be reserved for the high and mighty.

Jesus certainly had rich friends and enjoyed their hospitality. It was a rich man Joseph of Arimathea who provided his grave. But most of his time was spent with men and women on the fringes of society. He went out of his way to be with the dispossessed, people on the fringes, men and women excluded from society. He was always there for the poor.

If we were to measure the amount of space in the Gospels devoted to the hurt or the poor and compare it to any other pet issue we cherish as the “litmus test” of our faith, there is little doubt that the sick and needy are more important than any other reality.

This is our Labor Day weekend. Can we give a thought and say a prayer for the too many young men and women who are un-employed or under employed here in the city. For all their education they remain jobless. Many of these good young people find themselves in the humiliating circumstance of still living at home and depending of their parents.

Can we give a thought and say a prayer for the men and women who make up the working poor of our city. These are good people holding down two, maybe three jobs, accepting less than the minimum wage lest they lose their jobs.

Can we give a thought and say a prayer for the men and women working in the sweat shops of Toronto. Sweat shops are not just in India or Bangladesh .St. James has a message for the owners of these places. ‘Come now you rich ..Listen, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

Unfortunately these good people, and these issues of justice and fairness are not the issues talked about in all the banal rhetoric that’s boring us in the political talks we have to endure these next weeks.

On this Sunday and at the Mass on the Labor Day weekend be mindful of these good men and women and offer a prayer for them in all these different and difficult circumstances of their lives, remembering that for all of us faith without the good work of supporting each other in our different needs is dead.

Posted in Homily | Comments Off on Homily – September 6, 2015

Homily – August 23, 2015

Sunday, August 23rd, 2015

People who heard Jesus’ startling invitation to eat his body and drink his blood were confused and shocked. Whoever heard of such a thing? His words smacked of cannibalism. We can’t blame them for saying,’ this is a hard saying and who can take it.’ Then we hear these words,’ and many of his disciples walked with him no more.’ Jesus knew this would happen. He knew from when choose his disciple those who would be faithful and those who would not. He knew some would stumble and fall and yet would get up and recommit themselves to him and he knew that one would betray him and die in despair.

As many of his disciples and listeners walked away wondering if Jesus had lost his mind he asks the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away’? Peter answers for all of them, ’Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to know that you are the holy one of God.’

I think Peter was saying Lord I don’t really know what you are talking about but I have faith in you and believe you have the words of everlasting life.

What is faith? An old definition said, ’faith is a gift of God by which we believe the things revealed by God to be true not because of any intrinsic evidence in the truth revealed but solely on the authority of God revealing.’ It is so cranial and it is based on authority. Watching ads on TV especially at News times we’re expected to see actors wearing white laboratory coats with stethoscopes around their necks as believable, they have authority and we’d best buy the product they’re pushing.

In the Middle Eastern world, in the time of Jesus and even today the words “faith”; “belief”; “fidelity”; and “faithfulness” describe the social glue that binds one person to another person. These are not acts of the mind so much as sentiments that spring from the heart which is the seat of thought in Middle Eastern psychology.

Peter’s words, Lord to whom shall we go tell of the glue that bound Peter and the others to Jesus. They didn’t understand Jesus but they trusted him. They knew he was someone special, the holy one of God. No one but one from God could say the things he said challenging them to a whole new vision of God, a God who calls them to a whole new understanding of God as Father and shepherd and lover. No one but one from God could do the things Jesus did as he cured the sick, made lepers whole and the blind to see. They were stuck with Jesus and he was stuck with them.

We may be uncomfortable with some Protestant God talk as Jesus being our personal Lord and Savior. We may find it to be too much touchy feely. But it speaks of that glue that sticks a believer to Jesus. That’s the kind of relationship we’re invited to have with Jesus. It’s the kind of glue St. Paul speaks of when he wrote, ‘I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me and the life I live, I live trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave his life for me.’ Paul was stuck with Jesus as Jesus was stuck with Paul. They were inseparable.

‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you’. Every time we receive Holy Communion the glue that binds us to Jesus in strengthened so that nothing can separate us from the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord, made visible in the crucified Christ.

As we continue to celebrate this Mass we pray for ourselves and for each other that we all be stuck with Jesus as he is stuck with us.

Posted in Homily | Comments Off on Homily – August 23, 2015

Homily – August 16, 2015

Sunday, August 16th, 2015

Our first reading tells us to lay aside immaturity and live. Lay aside an immaturity that tells us that happiness is found in superficial unattached relationships, fulfillment is found in the things we have, our possessions. Wisdom, a gift of God, invites us to eat the bread she has baked and drink her wine of insight an insight that offers us a deeper meaning of our lives and what life is all about. Wisdom offers us an insight into a deeper understanding of our faith and of our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The men and women who listened to Jesus that day so long ago must have thought he’s lost his mind. Jesus told the people, ‘unless you eat the flesh of the Son or Man and drink his blood you have no life in you – whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, they abide in me and I abide in them.

Eating someone’s flesh and drinking a person’s blood was abhorrent to these people. For them blood was the life source of a person and to tamper with that would be unthinkable. But Jesus will not take back away from his gracious invitation – this is my body, take and eat, this is my blood take and drink. Jesus will not water down his promise,’ whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in them.’

Yet how many times in a day do we feel unworthy of feasting on God because of choices we’ve made, habits we are unable to break or dark spirits we entertain? Yet here we can remember the words of Pope Francis, ‘The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.’ As I’ve said many times before, when Jesus gave us the Eucharist he gave to us as a gift but over time the church has made it a reward. Receiving Holy Communion is not a question of worthiness it is a question need.

Next Fall at the Synod on the Family a controversial issue will be whether or not divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive Holy Communion. Put it another way, who should be welcomed and who should be turned away from receiving the life giving Body of Christ?

This is truly a deep pastoral question. I bite my tongue and turn the page when celebrating Mass in another parish and I am asked to make an announcement before communion; if you are not a Roman Catholic, if you do not attend Mass regularly, if you are in an invalid Mass you are invited to come for a blessing but you are not to receive Communion. I find this message a far cry from the gracious invitation of Jesus,’ come to me all you who find life burdensome and I will refresh you. I’m reminded of a solution a priest friend of mine came to when he worried about giving communion to people he knew hadn’t been to church for a long time or couples who came to receive whom he knew to be in irregular marriages. He said that it dawned on him that Jesus is old enough to take care of himself.

Jesus’ invitation to all of us here at this Mass and at every Mass is to take our seat at the banquet table with Jesus and feast on his life!

Posted in Homily | Comments Off on Homily – August 16, 2015

Homily – August 2, 2015

Sunday, August 2nd, 2015

Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life. Everyone one of you, in one way of another, has to work, sometimes at two jobs, to put bread on the table; you have to provide for your families. Jesus tells us to work for the food that endures forever. We don’t really have to work that such a bread, it is freely and generous given to us in this Eucharist and at every Eucharist. Just as God gave the manna, bread from heaven, to the complaining people he was sustaining in the desert, so Jesus gives us the new manna, his body and blood at this Mass and at every Mass.

Jesus Christ is the manna of God, the living bread come down from heaven. Jesus makes us this promise,’ whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

We all hunger after our own flesh pots. It’s natural. We always want more and more. The more have the more we want but none of the things we want can never replace a loving and personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the nourishment of our lives.

There was a song out years ago and the words went,’ flowers, perfume candy but you, you never gave me you, you never gave the greatest gift of all, you never gave me you. So many relationships end because flowers, perfume and candy – all the goodies we think to be so important, can never replace the greatest gift the gift of ourselves to each other. So relationships and marriages end in bitterness and disappointments because we fail to give the greatest gift, ourselves.

We are what we eat; physically we become what we consume. Jesus gives himself totally to us in the Eucharist with the promise that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood, as we do at this Eucharist, will live in him and he will live in us. The Christ living in us helps us live Christ-like lives. Christ helps us to be a loving and forgiving person. He helps us to avoid being judgemental people who judge the motives of others. He helps us be accepting men and women, open people who accept others as they are, who they are. Jesus, our bread of life, helps us to be forgiving people, people willing to let go of past hurts, past injustices. Christ who loved each one of us even unto his death on the cross, helps us be generous men and women who are willing to be there for friends and strangers who need our help. Finally it is good to remember that Jesus, our living bread come down from heaven, is the only one who can satisfy our deepest hunger, our hunger to know what our life means and how we are to live it. At this Mass we gratefully accept Chris’s gracious invitation – come, take and eat, take and drink.

Posted in Homily | Comments Off on Homily – August 2, 2015

St. Gabriel's Passionist Parish