June 10th, 2007
Back in 1953 I was stationed in West Hartford. My classmates and I were in our second year of Philosophy. Our professor was a priest named Xavier Welsh. To say he was a character would be an understatement. One day he asked one of his ‘surprise questions’ “does anyone know the name of the philosopher who said, we are what we eat”? Just by chance I’d just read an article in which that philosopher was quoted. His name was Schopenhauer. So I just spoke out his name. There was dead silence. Everyone was in shock, especially Fr. Xavier. He did not consider me his brightest student. My moment in the sun lasted until sundown.
But we are what we eat. If we eat good and healthy food we tend to be in shape and healthy. If we have poor eating habits we pay for them in the long run with all kinds of health problems.
Today we celebrate the wonderful feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. Jesus shocked the people of Capernaum when He told them, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you cannot have life in you. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in him – whoever eats me will draw life from me.” The shocked response of the people was, “this is intolerable language, how could anyone accept it and many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him.”
And this is intolerable language. Whoever heard of eating someone’s flesh and drinking someone’s blood? As the children preparing for First Communion said, “That’s gross.”
But the words and the gift of Jesus are true, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you cannot have life in you. But whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in them.” When you come to a minister of the Eucharist and hold out your empty hand, a symbol of our neediness, bread is more than bread, it is the Body of Christ. Not a symbol, not a memory, but a reality, we receive the body of Christ. The same Christ who promised us, those who eat My flesh and drink My blood will live in Me and I will live in them.
“We are what we eat” has special meaning in this context. We don’t come to Communion because we are good or holy; we come to Communion because we are hungry, hungry to be more Christ-like. Christ becomes our bread of life so that we can become food for others.
When Christ began His public life He said, “the Spirit of the Lord has been given to me – he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free and to proclaim the Lord’s year of favor.” In a way this is our task as well, to continue the work of Christ in our present time and world.
We are what we eat. Nourished by the Body of Christ we can be strengthened by Christ in our ability to love, to be there for others, find the time to make that visit or phone call, write a note. Nourished by the Body of Christ we are given the generosity to put aside our own concerns and be there for others, we are given the patience to listen to other people’s hurts and worries, to bear their burdens. Nourished by the body of Christ who was close to the poor and marginalize people of His day, we are made more sensitive to the issues of poverty and homelessness in our own city and the needs of the working poor who subsist on an inadequate minimum wage. Nourished by the body of Christ who gave sight to the blind, we can come to new sight and insight into the beauty of God’s good creation and the woundedness of planet Earth. Nourished by the body of Christ Who reconciled us to God by His passion, death and resurrection, we can find the willingness to forgive as we have been forgiven. Nourished by the body of Christ we are given Christ’s bigness of heart that helps us to accept and respect people of different faiths and cultures.
As we continue to celebrate this awesome feast we can pray for ourselves and for each that when we come to receive the Body of Christ at this Mass we be blessed to realize: we are what we eat – we are other Christ’s who, nourished by the Bread of life are bread to each other, sources of life, love and healing to all those whose lives we touch.
| Posted in Homily |
Tickets will be on sale after all the Masses this weekend. The ticket price of $125 per person includes hors d’oeuvres, a catered dinner with wine, all taxes and gratuities, and a contribution to a special birthday gift for Father Paul. Don’t forget to buy your ticket and mark your calendar for Saturday, October 27, 2007 at 6:00 PM at the All Saints Church Centre, 3215 Bayview Avenue (Bayview south of Finch).
This year our picnic is planned for Sunday June 24th after the 12:30 Mass. Mark your calendar for this special day with family and friends. We will need volunteers. If you are able to donate some of your time to help organize this great event, then contact Linda Law at 416-981-8029 after 6PM. There will be sign-up sheets will be on the tables at the back of the Church.
Total: $9,415
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Meetings will begin on Monday, SEPTEMBER 17, 2007 at 7:30 PM.
THESE EVENINGS ARE FOR PERSONS INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT THE CATHOLIC FAITH.
Because the Parish Community itself is considered the official teacher and guide for potential new members, it is important that some parishioners participate by being present and by sharing their Faith in various ways. Adult Catholics who wish to celebrate the sacraments of Eucharist and Confirmation are welcome. For more information call Mary Landry at 416-221-8866 ext 224.
If you are a couple who would be interested in assisting us to deliver this course three weekends a year, then contact the parish office at 416-221-8866.
The Altar Service is now recruiting new members. If you are in Grade 5 or higher and are interested in becoming an altar server, then leave your name and phone number with the Parish Office at 416-221-8866. The orientation and training for the new members will be held on Saturday, October 13, 2007 from 2:30 PM to 4:15 PM.
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is collecting gently used clothing and household linens for those in need, on the weekend of June 16th and 17th. A St. Vincent de Paul truck will be parked on the upper parking lot near the garden. Volunteers will assist with loading before and after each of the Masses on Saturday and Sunday.
I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR VERY GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THIS YEAR’S SHARELIFE. FR. PAUL
2006 SHARELIFE TOTAL: $163,159.52 2007 TO DATE: $147,642.10
Come join a spirit-filled group visiting three shrines in Quebec: St. Joseph’s Oratory, Cap de La Madeleine and St. Anne de Beaupre. There will be an option to visit the Ile of Orleans and an organic farm/winery (domaine Steinbach); share with your friends and family. The bus will be leaving Blessed Trinity Church on Thursday, June 28th and returning on Sunday, July 1st, 2007. Three night’s accommodation, bus fare and all taxes – 3 persons per room – $265; 2 persons per room – $280. There is a $50 non-refundable deposit. Time is short, so book your seat soon. For more information call Mary at 416-497-7059 and leave a message.
The new cosmology sees God as intimately revealed in the diversity of creation, yet infinitely more than the whole of creation. Humans are recognized as an integral part of the Earth, and not superior to it. The new cosmology and the old cosmology agree that the most important thing for humans is our relationship to God.
| Posted in Bulletin |
June 3rd, 2007
Today we celebrate the feast and mystery of the Holy Trinity. As I’ve said before, a mystery is not something of which we can know nothing; a mystery is something of which we cannot know everything. We are given a glimpse into the mystery of God through the teachings of Jesus. Through the scriptures we’ve come to know that the inner life of God is a life of relationships.
In John’s first letter to the church he teaches us what is the most important thing we should know about God. God is love and whoever abides, lives and acts in love, abides, lives in God and God lives, and is seen in such a person.
John also writes,” Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love. God’s love for us was revealed when God sent His Son into the world so that we could have life through Him. This is the love I mean, not our love for God but God’s love for us when God sent His Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away. My dear people, since God has loved us so much we too should love one another.”
Remember the conversation Jesus has with his friends the night before He was to die? He told His disciples, “By this will all know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for the other.”
The love Jesus and John are talking about is a self giving love, God so loved the world God gave what was most precious to Himself, He gave His Son to the world and the Son so loved us, He gave us what was most precious to Himself, His very life. As St. Paul tells us, “what proves God loves us is that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
A theologian described the mystery of the Trinity, the mystery of God in these terms – “the lover, the beloved and the love between.”
The mystery of the Trinity is not some kind of brainy speculation by scholars. It is the way we experience and mirror God in our world. The way we live our lives as Christians is the Trinity in action.
When we think of God the Father we think of creator of heaven and earth, the life giver. So in our lives when, through encouraging words and actions we help others grow in any way, when, through our presence, we help a person through a crisis or some rough spot in their live, when we recognize and encourage a young person’s abilities and talents, when we rise above a temptation to racism or bigotry and try to respect men and women of other faiths, cultures, life styles, when we do what we can to heal our wounded earth, and especially in all your efforts at parenting and guiding your sons and daughters – in all these things we share in the life giving action of God the Father, creator, Who loving created and sustains all things.
Whenever and however we try to heal broken relationships, when we seek reconciliation or offer forgiveness to others, when we try to make things right between ourselves and others we are sharing in the redeeming work of Jesus, the Son of God Who lovingly sacrificed His life for us and reconciled us to God, making peace by His blood on the cross.
When in the living of our lives we are inspired and fired by positive ideas, when we have the courage to follow a new, fresh, creative insight into how to better our lives or the lives of others, when we are open enough to appreciate the goodness of other people, when we are moved by the beauty of creation to praise and thank God we are sharing in the life giving and life enriching work of the Holy Spirit.
As we continue to celebrate this Mass and this feast we can pray for ourselves and for each other that, as always, in the ordinary living of our ordinary lives each of us will experience and mirror the loving and life giving activity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May every aspect of our lives as Christians really be the Trinity in action.
This Sunday, Pope Benedict will canonize a Passionist priest from our community in Ireland. Father Charles Houben was part of the original Passionist foundation in Ireland. He lived and ministered out of our Passionist monastery of Mount Argus in Dublin. He was born in Holland in 1821 and died in Dublin in 1893. He had a great reputation as a confessor and preacher and his grave at Mount Argus has been a place of pilgrimage for years. So today we celebrate with Passionists from around the world for the honour given to our brother St. Charles Houben.
is designed for children from Senior Kindergarten to Grade 8 in our Parish who are attending either private or public school and wish to learn about our Catholic Faith. We are currently accepting new students for the 2007/2008 school year. Registration forms are available at the Parish Office. The deadline for enrollment is June 30, 2007. Volunteers to the program are always welcome. For more information, please call the Parish Office at 416-221-8866.
Tickets will be on sale after all the Masses this weekend. The price of $125 per person includes hors d’oeuvres, a catered dinner with wine, all taxes and gratuities, and contribution to a special birthday gift for Father Paul. Don’t forget to buy your ticket and mark your calendar for Saturday, October 27, 2007 – 6 PM at the All Saints Church Centre, 3215 Bayview Avenue (Bayview south of Finch).
for St. Gabriel’s School will take place on Sunday, June 10 at 2:30PM.
Sunday, June 10th at 3:00 PM We are a group of Chinese (Cantonese speaking) who will meet this month on Sunday, June 10th at 3:00PM in the Library. For information contact Linda Law at 416-918-8029.
We have some pamphlets at the back of the Church about WATER. Our next meeting is on Thursday, June 7th at 7:30 PM. Come and discuss your environmental concerns!
This year our picnic is planned for Sunday June 24th after the 12:30 Mass. Mark your calendar for this special day with family and friends. We will need volunteers. If you are able to donate some of your time to help organize this great event, then contact Linda Law at 416-918-8029 after 6PM. The sign-up sheets will be on the tables at the back of the Church.
Total: $9,146
R.S. Kane Funeral Home in conjunction with the Catholic Cemetery Association would like to invite all Parishioners to an informative evening in the Gabriel Room on Thursday, June 7th at 7:00 PM. Many people are faced with emotional and costly decisions at a time when they are vulnerable and not thinking clearly. Please join us and find out why so many people choose to preplan and prearrange their funeral and cemetery services long before they are needed. Refreshments will be served.
The Altar Service is now recruiting new members. If you are in Grade 5 or higher and are interested in becoming an altar server contact Thomas Li at 416 – 756 – 4995. The orientation and training for the new members will be held in the Fall.
Thank you to the volunteers who prepared 38 casseroles in May. For June, your prepared casseroles (frozen please) will be collected at the Masses on the weekend of June 23/24 for delivery to the Centre. More volunteers are encouraged to become active in helping to feed our less fortunate sisters and brothers. If you require more information or would like to get a copy of the recipe and a casserole pan, please contact Irene Albrecht at 416-221-2791.
has approved a Draft Long-Term Accommodation and Program Plan. This plan will guide the Board in its decisions around school facilities and programming which will better serve the needs of all its students in Catholic Schools throughout the city for the next 10 years. The TCDSB invites all stakeholders in Catholic education to participate in consultation sessions regarding the draft plan. The meeting in our ward will be held on MONDAY, JUNE 4th AT 7:00PM at the Catholic Education Centre at 80 Sheppard Ave. East. It is vital that the Board hears your input and ideas as it moves forward to developing this blueprint for the future.
Today is ShareLife’s Third and Final Collection “God has nobody on earth but yours, no hands but yours…Yours are the hands with which He is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people.” St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
2006 SHARELIFE TOTAL: $163,159.52 2007 TO DATE: $143,473.10
Come join a spirit-filled group visiting three shrines in Quebec: St. Joseph’s Oratory, Cap de La Madeleine and St. Anne de Beaupre. The bus leaves Blessed Trinity church on Thursday, June 28th and returns on Sunday, July 1st. For information call Mary at 416-497-7059.
in memory of Olivia Barron on June 10, 2007 at East Don River Park. For information contact Gina Lipton at 1-800-563-5483 or visit www.liver.ca/events to register.
May 27th, 2007
On April 24th Bishop Greco celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation with the young people of the parish. This week I visited the school and asked the students what they remembered most about their Confirmation. They all remembered the first words of Bishop Greco’s homily when he spoke about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He told the students, ‘You don’t deserve them. They are gifts and gifts are freely given. We aren’t owed them and we can’t earn them, they are freely given.”
In the fourth Eucharist Prayer used for this feast of Pentecost we pray,” and that we might live no longer for ourselves but for Him, He sent the Holy Spirit from You Father as His first gift to those who believe, to complete His work on earth and bring us to the fullness of grace.”
The presence and the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives is a gift, something we can’t claim, something we did not earn. The Spirit’s gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Counsel, Fortitude, Piety, and Awe and Wonder are given to us to help us in our daily struggles to live our Christian lives.
Today people from around the city will be coming to visit our church of St. Gabriel’s. We have been invited to participate in Doors Open Toronto. People will come to see Canada’s first ‘Green Church” Our new church has been given wonderful write-ups in the Globe and in the Star.
But the intention of the Passionists in building our ‘green church’ was that the ‘green church’ would help us become ‘green people’. Our ‘green church’ is meant to sensitize us through our garden, our living wall, and the way the sun light plays on our cement walls, to the wonder of God’s good creation. Our ‘green church’ is meant to help us appreciate our connectedness with all other life systems on the planet. Our ‘green church’ is meant to help us reflect on our own personal life styles, our consciousness as to what we purchase, how we deal with our garbage, our use of chemicals and the impact these all have on the health and beauty of Earth. Our ‘green church’ can make us aware of our need to use the Holy Spirit’s gift of awe and wonder, awe and wonder at God’s beauty manifested in the awesomeness of creation. As the psalm sings,” the heavens proclaim the glory of God, the vault of heaven proclaims God’s handiwork.”
We can be stunned by the brilliance of a sunrise or a sunset or the stars that brighten the night, but do we have awe and wonder at the intricacy of a spider web or a violet or the smallest of insects? In awe and wonder can we grasp, how fragile are the life systems of the planet?
Because we can’t spray our lawns have you noticed the bumper crop of dandelions in the area? The playground at Elkhorn school is bright with the yellow of the humble dandelion – a flower we’ve declared a weed, a pest, an intrusion into our well kept lawns. Imagine for a second the life communities of Earth declaring the human species, us, as the dandelions of the planet, a pest that spoils the beauty of Earth. A weed run rampant, taking over the space of others, exterminating other life species. In a way that is what we humans have become an intruding force in the balance and well being of the planet.
Our green church is meant to make us more conscious of our need to enter into a more mutually life enhancing relationship with Earth, a relationship that enriches our lives and the life of the planet, a relationship that put us into a win win situation with Earth instead of the lose lose relationship which we now have with Earth.
As we continue to celebrate this feast and Eucharist of Pentecost we can pray for ourselves and for each other that we appreciate and use the Spirit’s gift of awe and wonder as we seek to deepen and heal our relationship with God’s good creation.
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.
Learn about Passionists and our insignia »
Companion for the Walk of the Stations of the Cosmic Earth
St. Gabriel’s Garden – Guided Sensory Reflective Walk