July 13th, 2008
I read a short reflection on today’s gospel. The author of this reflection thinks that many who read today’s gospel will try to figure out what kind of soil they are into which the seed, the word of God, the life of God has been sown. Do we see ourselves as people of superficial faith, with no depth, no convictions or are we so distracted with more important life issues that we call upon our faith only in times of troubles or crisis. Do we imagine ourselves as good soil in which the gift of faith takes roots and flourishes? The author of this reflection wisely cautions us, “don’t go there.” He claims if we do we’ll only end up in self-negativity and preoccupation. We’ll keep wondering ‘how am I doing?’ or well get into comparing our faith life with others we imagine to be of deeper faith and end up centering on our failings or weaknesses.
He maintains we should go to the Sower, the Rain-Sender and open our lives to the wonder and the mystery of God’s grace working in our lives in the simplest of ways, in the most mysterious of ways. He tells us, “Listen with the ears you have and see with the eyes you have and know that certainty and security are traps and lead only to yourself.” The life of God, our own personal relationship with God is established on the fidelity of God, a God Who has made promises God will keep. Our relationship with God is founded on a Love that will remain around and within us until what it was sent to do in me and you is accomplished.
We may be tempted to see only our faults and failing, we may be tempted to get into comparing ourselves with others and that is a waste of time. I remember a poster I saw years ago of a young boy – a bit of a ragamuffin – and the poster said, “be patient with me, God’s not finished with me yet.” God’s not finished with any of us yet. The seed of God’s life in each of us is growing in its own mysterious ways and we have to trust that truth. God’s work is not finished.
Going back to our first reading we can hear with new hearing the promise of our faithful God, “As the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return until they have watered the earth, making it spring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be, that goes out of my mouth, it shall not return to me empty but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in all the things for which I sent it.”
There is that quote from scripture, “God works in strange ways God’s wonders to perform.” This is true for all of us. We have to leave ourselves open to the mystery of God’s grace working in all of us – we don’t step out of ourselves and wonder “how am I doing?” In a way we are not the doers – we are a graced and gifted people – “before the world began God chose us in Christ”. As St. Paul knew “by God’s grace I am what I am and His grace has not been in vain”.
As we continue to celebrate this Eucharist, we can pray for ourselves and for each other that we make our own the prayer of the Church, “May God Who has begun this good work within us bring it to completion.”
| Posted in Homily |
July 6th, 2008
During my imposed weeks of inactivity I had a chance to read a few novels. One character in one of the novels titled “The Shack” described God as cold, distant and disinterested. This is a far cry for the wonderful invitation we heard in the gospel. The welcoming Christ invites us, “come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.” How many of us here at this Mass are weary, drained of energy and vision, how many of us at this Mass find our lives burdensome and oppressive? Maybe right now things are ok, we are coping, doing all right, but there have been times when we’ve been hit by illness in the family, by the loss of a job, we faced the death of one we loved, or there have been times when what we thought were close relationships have been weakened by misunderstanding and imagined hurts. And maybe at such times we’ve found ourselves bent low under such burdensome circumstances, and we too felt God was cold, distant and disinterested.
There can be times when we are more convinced of the distance rather than the presence of God in our lives. The saintly Mother Teresa tells us she was more aware of the distance than of the presence of God in her life – but her faith in God’s love for her kept her trusting in God’s presence and care for her and she took Christ’s words in today’s gospel seriously – she accepted His invitation, “come to me” and she yoked herself to Christ’s love and His transforming power. Christ’s yoke is so far removed from the crushing yoke of ritual perfection and outward observance imposed by religious fanatics of that time and ours.
We’ve been told time and again how Christ entered fully in to our human condition, He was like us in all things, He knew joys and happiness, He knew the sustaining gift of close friends, He knew family life and love and He knew great sorrow and suffering. He knew the closeness of God – “the Father and I are one” and He knew the distance of God, “my God, my God why have you forsaken me?”
As we continue to celebrate this Mass today we pray for ourselves and for each other that every day of life, whether that day be a good day or a day of burden, we will be blessed to hear and accept the great invitation – come to me, bring me your joys, your happiness, you accomplishments, your sense of well being – come to me, yoke yourself to me, let yourself be supported, buoyed up, carried by My love for you and we will bear those burdens, those hurts, those pains together.
June 30th, 2008
| Posted in Events |
June 29th, 2008
Total: $9,511.89
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Attention: Those who are interested in learning about the Catholic Faith. This is an invitation to come to our first meeting on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 7:30 in the Library Come with your questions, your curiosity, and your point of view. They will be the basis of our discussion.
To Our Parishioners: Because our Parish Community is considered the official teacher and guide for possible new members, it is important that some of you help by being present and by sharing your faith in ways that are comfortable to you.
Adult Catholics who wish to celebrate the sacraments of Eucharist and /or Confirmation are also welcome.
For more information, please call Mary Landry at 416-221-8866 after Monday, September 8th, 2008.
The 10:30 Senior Choir and the 12:30 Junior Choir will be taking a well earned break for July and August. We want to thank all of these gifted participants for their Ministry of Music. We would like to invite others to consider this important leadership role. The Senior Choir practices Tuesday evenings from 7:30 to 9:00 and sings at the 10:30 Mass. The Junior Choir practices Thursday evenings from 6:30 to 8:00 and sings at the 12:30 Mass. We invite all to consider joining! For more information, please call Marilyn Calderone at 416-618-2041. Remember “Those who sing pray twice!”
Catholic Cemeteries – Archdiocese of Toronto wishes to invite all families within the Archdiocese of Toronto to participate in the Annual Mass for the Faithful Departed on Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 7:00PM. Cemetery locations and celebrants for this year’s annual Mass are as follows: Holy Cross, Thornhill – Most Rev. Richard Grecco Mount Hope, Toronto – Rev. Msgr. Marco Laurencic
A Marriage Preparation Course will take place at St. Gabriel’s Church on the weekend of October 24th to 26th. If you are interested, please contact the Parish Office. Register early as space is limited.
During the summer, casseroles will be collected on the weekends of July 26/27 and August 30/31. More volunteers are encouraged to get a copy of the recipe and a pan and give it a try. For more information, please call Irene Albrecht at 416-221-2791.
We thank the parishioners of the Archdiocese who have contributed to the recent relief efforts in China and Myanmar (Burma). A total of $181,123 was reported for Myanmar. A final total for China is not yet available.
Catholic Family Services of Toronto is looking to expand our team of volunteers beginning with the planning and preparation of a special Wine Tasting fundraising event this fall. We are currently looking for volunteers who would like to assist us in our preparations for this event. Any parishioners interested should contact Mark at 416-921-1163 or by email at mevans@cfsofto.org.
The Office of Catholic Youth (OCY) of the Archdiocese of Toronto is calling all young people between the ages of 14 and 35 to attend their World Youth Day celebration to be held at Martyr’s Shrine in Midland from July 17th to July 20th. Please register immediately by by visiting www.ocytoronto.org or calling John Dawson at 416-599-7676 Ext. 226.
On Sunday, August 24th the Feast of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows will be celebrated at Immaculate Conception Parish, 300 Ansley Grove Road in Woodbridge. Communal singing, prayers and confession will take place in the Church during the afternoon. A Procession and outdoor Mass will begin at 3:00 PM. Please inform all your friends.
The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has invited the universal church to celebrate a Jubilee Year dedicated to St. Paul, from June 28, 2008 to June 29, 2009. From September 21 to October 4 and October 15 to October 18, 2008, we will retrace St. Paul’s journeys in Greece, the Greek Isles and Turkey. For further information, please visit the Catholic Biblical Association website at www.cbac.org, email Sr. Jocelyn Monette at jocmon@sympatico.ca or call 416-406-4398
2007 ShareLife Total: $164,652.60 2008 ShareLife to Date: $157,860.00
| Posted in Bulletin |
June 22nd, 2008
Just a few words on today’s gospel. Jesus is sending His disciples to proclaim the Good News. In a way He wants them to be like Jeremiah, to be of good courage and speak all the louder when the powers that be demand silence. He gives His disciples and the future church the task of moving from the private to the public forum, from the whisper to the proclamation, from the dark to the light. This would be a costly task but they were to trust the truth that they would never be alone – He would be with them, they were of more value than sparrows and the very hairs on their head were numbered.
Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul, rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. What is it in our day that can destroy our souls, deaden our spirits?
You probably heard this example before: if you take a frog and put it in a pot of boiling water the frog will immediately leap out of the pot. If you take that same frog and put it in a pot of lukewarm water and then gradually turn up the heat you will end up boiling the frog.
I think that what can kill our souls, our spirits is not something that shocks and alarms us, it is something more sinister, more devious. What can destroy our souls could a pervading mind set or attitude that we never have the courage to question and gradually may have become our own. We can ask ourselves have we become desensitized to ways of thinking, acting and relating that are basically unchristian, un-Christ-like.
Take these examples: We can loose our Christian sense of justice when we allow ourselves to get used to the reality of men and women living on the streets, when we accept homelessness as something normal, when we are not bothered by the number of working poor in our city, when we think food banks are here to stay. These are the mind sets that can steal our souls of any sense of care and concern for our brothers and sisters in need.
We lose our Christian sense of the dignity and worth of the human person when we allow ourselves to become numb to wrongness of the recreational sex seen on so many TV shows, when we see as normal using and abusing other people, not as persons worthy of respect, but as objects to be used for pleasure, and when we see as normal or typical, relationships devoid of any sense of commitment or loyalty.
We loose our Christian sense of honesty and integrity when imagine it to be ok to cheat on expense accounts or taxes, when we betray the trust others put in us, when we see advantages as there for the taking because that’s just the way things are done in business or politics.
We lose our sense of our own worth when we see human life as disposable, when we see the number of abortions in the country as just another statistic or when we buy into the mind set that our seniors, who have contributed so much to our community through the years, as financial burdens on our health system, and the chronically ill as people who should be, for want of a better term, put down. We lose our sense of human worth and dignity when we find ourselves in favor of the death penalty.
We lose our sense of integrity when we are not bothered that commitments and vows are so lightly broken and lives are broken.
Mindsets, these attitudes such as these, that are so common in our society are like the lukewarm water that slowly boils the souls right out of us and we lose our identity as Christian men and women.
The important thing here is to face head on the attitudes and mindsets that are hurting our souls, killing our spirits. What present day powers are dominating our hearts, our ways of choosing and acting? How we live our lives as Christian men and women should actually insult and assault the pretending powers of our times. Jesus always meant us to be a cut above and counter-culture to the times. “You have heard it said by the ancients, love your neighbour and hate your enemies … but I say to you”. Jesus is always calling us to new ways of living, loving and relating.
Let’s face it, there are all kinds of attitudes and mindsets, ways of acting and relating to others, that if we let them become our own, can deaden any Christian value and virtue that we have.
So as we continue to celebrate this Mass we can pray for ourselves and for each other that by the mindsets and attitudes by which we live, our lives may always bear witness to the teaching of Jesus so that we always acknowledge him before others.
Founded by St. Paul of the Cross, every Passionist takes a special vow to spend his or her energies in promoting remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus, the memory of the Cross, and reflection of the meaning of the Cross for the world.
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Companion for the Walk of the Stations of the Cosmic Earth
St. Gabriel’s Garden – Guided Sensory Reflective Walk