January 28th, 2007
Total: $10,172.90
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We are forming an environmental focus group here at St. Gabriel’s. We will meet once a month on the first Thursday of each month beginning on February 1st at 7:30PM in the Gabriel Room. Everyone is welcome to join us and share your ideas. For more information please phone Mary Landry at 416-293-3760.
on January 31st and February 7th at 10:30AM we will decide on what we want to study next. Please come with your ideas! Everyone welcome. Please contact Mary Landry if you have any questions at: 416-293-3760.
TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 30th 7:30 – 9:00PM Library “How are our Christian life and ethics similar to those of other faith traditions? How are they different?”
Friday, February 2nd at 9:30 AM
Every first Friday of the month from 9:30AM to 12 noon. Please see the time schedule on the table inside the Church.
Saturday, February 3rd at 3:15 PM
We meet in the Library on the first Saturday of every month at 3:15PM. We welcome all who wish to share this time with us. For information please contact Linda Law at 416-918-8029.
Sunday, February 4th at 4:00 PM
We are a group of Chinese (Cantonese speaking) who get together the first Sunday of every month at 4:00PM in the Gabriel room. For information please contact Linda Law at 416-918-8029.
Sunday, February 4th at 11:30 AM in the Gabriel Room
On the first Sunday of each month, the Passionist Centre for Ecology and Spirituality facilitates a 30 minute reflection and discussion prompted by the readings for that Sunday’s liturgy. The guided reflection brings an ecological perspective to the readings.
Casseroles for the Good Shepherd Centre collected this weekend help to feed up to 700 people a day. Find out how to participate in this activity from volunteers in the Gathering Space.
A “Come and See” Weekend for single Catholic men and older who are considering a possible call to the Diocesan Priesthood will be held at St. Augustine’s Seminary on Friday, February 2nd to Sunday, February 4th, 2007. To register or for further information, please contact The Office of Vocations at 416-968-0997 or by email at: vocations@vocations.ca
at St. Joseph’s Morrow Park: Is a ministry to help widowed, separated and divorced persons make a NEW BEGINNING in life. There are retreat weekends, monthly meetings and support groups.
To register or for more information, please phone 416-222-1101 ext 107/258.
is a fundraising project to raise funds for “b.r.a.i.n. Child” which supports research into brain cancer in children and the Meagan Bebenek Endowment Fund at SickKids.
Friday, February 23, 2007 at 6:00PM The Liberty Grand, Governor’s Ballroom 25 British Columbia Drive, Exhibition Place Toronto, Ontario $100.00 per person Call 416-239 – 7843 or meganswalk.com
MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 2007 from 2:30 – 7:30PM at St. Gabriel’s Church in the Gathering Space. Please help by donating the ‘Gift of Life’.
| Posted in Bulletin |
January 21st, 2007
One of the emphases of our new church, which structurally opens us up to the world around us through our south window, is our connectedness to the rest of God’s good creation.
The newspapers and the TV have been filled with strange weather happenings around the globe – we’ve had a mild December and most of January while Victoria has had snow and cold weather. Governments around the world are facing up to the reality of global warming. We are finally admitting that human consumerism and pollution are taking their toll on the health of the planet. As I’ve said before, the earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth and what we do to the earth we do to ourselves – we did not weave the web of life, we are a strand in the web and what we do to the web we do to ourselves. All life systems of the planet are interconnected and interdependent. As individuals and as a species we cannot life in isolation – what we do and how we live affects those around us.
As it is with our life on planet earth, so it is with our life within the church.
This truth is expressed so powerfully in today’s second reading of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and his description of the church, not the building but the people, as the body of Christ. Christ is the head of the body and we, each one of us, are important members of that body we call church. No one member of the body can say to any other member of the body ‘I have no need of you’. The Pope cannot say that to us, nor can we say it to the Pope. Our new Archbishop cannot say that to us, nor can we say that to him. We cannot say that to the person sitting next to us at this Mass. We do need one another.
As St. Paul reminds us, ‘when one member suffers the whole body suffers, when one member is honored all rejoice with it together.’ In the past few years the body of the church has suffered because of the scandals of sexual abuse – we are a wounded church, a wounded body in need of healing. At the same time, we as church can rejoice over the lives and example of good men and women who brought life and holiness to the church – and I’m thinking here of the late Archbishop Tony Meagher of Kingston, who used to be the pastor of Blessed Trinity Parish. He was a good man and a holy man who served the church – the body of Christ – well. The truth of the matter is, the body of Christ is holy if we are holy, and it is wounded when we failed to live our lives as followers of Christ.
As members of the body of Christ each of us can echo the words of Jesus in today’s gospel – the Spirit of the Lord has been given to me – at our baptisms and confirmations – the Lord anointed us – to bring good news to the poor. The good news of God’s love for each of us when God sent His Son into the world to die for us – the good news that Christ is with us no matter what our faults and failings – the good news that no matter how much we may devalue our own self worth, Christ thought enough of us to die for us. Because of our baptisms and confirmation each of us can say, I have been sent to proclaim release to captives – not necessarily people in prison but friends and family members held captive by addictions, by unhealthy relationships, held captive by depression or discouragement. As members of the Body of Christ each of us can offer new sight to the blind – good people blind to their own goodness, good people blind and indifferent to the needs of the poor right in our own neighbourhood, good people blind to God’s concern for them.
Each of us in sent to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor – that the grace and love and power and healing of our loving God is with us always – yesterday, today, tomorrow.
As with planet earth so with the church we are one, we are interconnected, interdependent – we cannot say to any one ‘I have no need of you.’
As we continue to celebrate this Mass on a day on which we begin a week of prayer for the unity of all Christians, we can pray for ourselves and for each other for the grace and insight we need to see how important each of us is for the well being of the church, the body of Christ – for the church is wounded when we are unfaithful to our call to be Christ-like but the church is holy when we are who we are called to be – the body of Christ – for the Spirit of the Lord has been given to us.
| Posted in Homily |
Total: $9,965.11
There are still some envelopes to be picked up in the Gathering Space. Please enter your full name, address with postal code and telephone number on your envelopes. It is important to throw away any envelopes that you may have from previous years, as old numbers are reassigned to new parishioners.
TO RECEIVE AN INCOME TAX RECEIPT, USE THE NUMBER ON YOUR NEW BOX
Every four years, the universal Church gathers to celebrate Jesus living and present in the Eucharist. It is a time of prayer, of reflection and of commitment. The conference will take place in Quebec City, June 15 to 22, 2008.
To help Christians to discover, deepen and celebrate the Eucharistic Mystery as a gift of God for the world, THE ARK OF THE NEW COVENANT was created.
THE ARK OF THE NEW COVENANT, which is travelling across Canada, will be here in Toronto in January 2007. The closest locations are as follows:
For more information, please visit the Diocese website at: www.archtoronto.org
10:30AM to NOON PLACE: Gabriel Room on WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24th (repeat of January 17th ) This presentation will also be offered on TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 23rd at 7:30PM.
Your prepared chicken rice casseroles (frozen please) will be collected at the Masses next weekend for delivery to the Good Shepherd Centre. More volunteers are encouraged to get a copy of the casserole recipe and a pan and give it a try. For more information, please contact Irene Albrecht at 416-221-2791.
Dear Fr. Paul and Parishioners,
I want to thank you personally for participating in Good Shepherd Centre’s Christmas food drive.
Your generous participation in the Christmas food drive has helped the Centre fill its pantries, ready to serve more than 260,000 meals and snacks in 2007. Thank you for giving us such a great start to the year.
Your gift of food will help sustain and comfort thousands of individuals who would otherwise go hungry: the homeless and people who live on fixed incomes (seniors, the disabled) who might have to choose between eating and paying the rent.
Thank you for taking the time this holiday season to remember those most in need in our community.
Is a thought-provoking social evening for adults (19 – 39 years) where a speaker provides opportunity for discussion.
MONDAY, JANUARY 22, 2007 from 7:00 – 9:00PM at Duke of York Pub
“Dying to Live: Desperate & Dangerous Immigration on the US-Mexico Border”
January 14th, 2007
Back in 1835 my great grandfather built a farm house in a place called Barnsville, New Brunswick. The farm house is still there and I have a first cousin living in it. As kids our great summer adventure was to spend a week at the farm helping my uncle hay – I know we weren’t much help but he was gracious about it.
One of the things I remember about the farm, other than the outhouse and the straw mattresses, was a big rain barrel at the kitchen door. This was the water used for washing dishes or clothes. A skunk has fallen in the well that was near the house and ruined its water. There was a spring a good ways away and it was a chore to get the spring water to the house. The rule of the house was the spring water was only used for making tea or drinking. It was special.
The water used in today’s gospel would be like the rain barrel water – run off water, not fresh, water used for washing hands and feet of visitors. Not first choice water, that was too precious for ordinary ablutions. It was this run off water Jesus used in today’s gospel – we could call it the least of the least but through His words of love and life He transformed it into choice wine in order that the wedding celebration of His two friends could continue. Scripture tells us God gave us wine to gladden our hearts and certainly the hearts of this young couple must have been gladdened by this wonderful gift since their own wine had run out.
The second reading is about how the Christian community is blessed with a variety of gifts. Every parish experiences this reality of the Christians of Corinth. Every parish is blessed with men and women gifted with the ability to lead, to plan, to teach, to be involved in issues of social justice or outreach into the neighborhood or to help build a sense of community in a parish. Every parish is blessed with people who have the ability to proclaim the scriptures with intelligence and meaning, people gifted with the ability to make people feel welcome, people with good voices to form choirs, people who are at ease in visiting the sick and shut-ins.
Everyone person here is blessed in one way or another with gifts, talents that are theirs alone but gifts given for the common good, gifts meant to be shared. But how often do we really appreciate those gifts, enjoy those gifts, and share those gifts. How often do we dismiss, devalue these gifts by thinking of them as something like the water in the rain barrel, not worth all that much, not worth sharing with others. How often do we see our lives as bland, without excitement, without zest? Just rain barrel water, just rain barrel lives. Yet today’s gospel shows us how Jesus takes what we consider to be so bland, so boring, so ordinary – so, ‘just there’, and transforms it into choice wine – something rich and exhilarating, something to be shared and enjoyed by ourselves and others.
Maybe there are times when we look at our lives, our jobs, our family life, our relationships and we say, I have no wine, no zest, no enthusiasm, my job is a grind, my family life is dull, and really what have I done with my life? These are all downers; these speak of left over rain water stagnating in a barrel. These thoughts and feelings speak of how we’ve lost our awareness of how our lives have been blessed with gifts that are ours alone. These thoughts say, ‘I have no wine’. We all go through such times, such downers. That’s why we start each Mass trying to be mindful of how are lives are blessed and gifted.
Maybe a gospel like today’s can help us in our down times when we really feel not all that good about ourselves, our lives, our jobs. Maybe we can find the trust to take these very real feelings to Christ and honestly say, “I have no wine”. Maybe we can trust that Christ will grace us as He graced His newly married friends by taking our feelings of being inadequate and grace us with a deeper appreciation of how our lives have been blessed – blessed with health and love and friends and faith and abilities uniquely our own. Maybe we can appreciate in new way how lucky we are. In that sense of appreciation may we take the gifts with which we have been blessed and share those gifts with others.
Dear Good People of St. Gabriel’s:
I mentioned in my Christmas letter for 2005 that, as we were preparing to move to our new home, we were going to provide a new home for a refugee family from Rwanda.
The Ntigulirwa family came to Canada in December of 2005. Sister Maria Lanthier has been working with the family along with some of our parishioners. She sent me this update as to how the family is doing…
“In the past 12 months, the Ntigulirwa family is quite proud of what they have accomplished with the assistance of the settlement team from St. Gabriel’s and the financial assistance from the parish for their living expenses. Without your generosity, they would never have been in position to do what they are now able to do from this time forward – take care of their own rent, food, utility bills, transportation needs, clothing, medications, etc.
For the last 11 months, Ezechiel worked the late shift at a bakery company. In the mornings he studied to improve his English, to obtain the highest level of forklift driver certificate, to obtain a driver’s licence, to finish a course in handling dangerous packages, and to complete maintenance training course with the Montessori school board. By late November he was ready to apply in several places for a new job, expecting to accept the first company that responded. Within 2 weeks, his own bakery asked him to transfer from the branch where he had been working to their branch in North York to become a forklift driver. This meant a salary raise of $3.50 per hour and a second raise after his initial 3 months of work for the new location. By March 1st, approximately, he will be earning a salary of $14 per hour (with the chance of going even higher after 6 months).
Ange is now in Grade 2 at the Ecole Publique Francais Montessori where she stands near the head of her class (no fees required).
Seraphine, for the first time in 9 months after a painful pregnancy, is only this week back in ESL class with her 3 year old son and the new baby. Ezechiel did well in negotiating with the YWCA to find a place that would accept all three.
It now seems this family from Rwanda will do very well indeed in Canada. They are proud and delighted with the way things turned out, as well as deeply grateful for the role of St. Gabriel’s in its generous response to their dream of one day achieving resettlement in Canada.”
Total: $10,903.14
TIME: 10:30AM to NOON PLACE: Gabriel Room WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17th (repeat on January 24th )
This presentation will also be offered on TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 23rd at 7:30PM.
TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 30th TIME: 7:30 – 9:00PM PLACE: Library “How are our Christian life and ethics similar to those of other faith traditions? How are they different?”
Fair trade organic coffees will be on sale after all the Masses next weekend. Regular ground coffee: $5 Decaffeinated: $6 Whole Beans: $5 Chocolate Bars: $4 (incl. taxes) Hot Chocolate and Cocoa: $4.50 Teas: $3.25 to $4 by variety
TO RECEIVE AN INCOME TAX RECEIPT, USE THE NUMBER ON YOUR 2007 BOX.
for single Catholic men and older who are considering a possible call to the Diocesan Priesthood will be held at St. Augustine’s Seminary on Friday, February 2nd to Sunday, February 4th, 2007.
To register or for further information, please contact The Office of Vocations at 416-968-0997 or by email at: vocations@vocations.ca
The Ark: a Chest: In this case, the Ark is a seat, as well as a container. It will hold the King, Christ, present under the form of the Eucharistic species exposed in a monstrance. The chest will also contain the Scriptures and the Bible – Christ present through his word.
A Symbolic Boat: The boat brings to mind Noah’s Ark. However, it refers more to the boat of Peter. Ever since the institution of the New Covenant, the boat has been a symbol of the Church, the people of God who are journeying together.
The New and Eternal Covenant: Refers to the New Covenant Jesus signed with the people of the Old Covenant. This new covenant marked by the Pascal Mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection and celebrated in the Eucharist.
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