October 8th, 2006
MASS WILL BE CELEBRATED ON THANKSGIVING DAY, MONDAY, OCTOBER 9th at 10:00 AM
GOD HAS GIVEN US THE EARTH TO BE OUR HOMELAND. ALONG WITH THIS GIFT, WE ARE ASKED TO SHOW OUR THANKFULNESS BY CARING FOR THE EARTH AND BY SHARING OUR OWN GIFTS WITH ONE ANOTHER.
We have received our annual appeal from the Brothers of the Good Shepherd for our assistance during the Thanksgiving Season. You can participate by bringing non-perishable food items on October 7th and 8th and also on Thanksgiving Day, Oct. 9th. The following is a list of urgently needed items: canned vegetables and meats, rice, canned soups and stews, cold breakfast cereals, cookies, tea, instant and ground coffee, hot chocolate, sugar, powdered milk, powdered fruit juice, powdered soup bases (chicken & beef), ketchup, paprika, garlic powder, salt & pepper. Kindly drop off your donations at the front doors of the Church and place them in the designated containers. You have always supported this appeal so generously. Please keep up the good work.
Total: $9,785.67
Registered parishioners, with school-aged children in public or private schools who wish to receive one or more of the sacraments, may pick up a registration form in the main office at any time. Please bring completed forms and related documents to the parish office.
Parents, please bring completed registration forms and relevant documents to the parish office on any of the following days: OCT. 10 (Tue), OCT. 11 (Wed), or OCT 17 (Tue) between 7:30 and 9:00 PM.
This fall we will look at our new “green” church from different perspectives, including: “Who started us in this direction? Why did we choose this way of placing the pews, the altar, the pulpit (ambo)? Do we as Catholics have any tradition linking ecology and religion?” — and any other questions you may have. Each topic will be repeated the following week. You are invited to join us on: DATE: Wednesday, NOVEMBER 1st (to be repeated on November 8th) TIME: 10:30 AM to noon PLACE: Come to the Parish Office
We hope the discussions will be informative and enjoyable. We are also prepared to offer this series of presentations on alternate Tuesday evenings for those interested, beginning NOVEMBER 7th at 7:30 PM. If you wish to attend Tuesday evenings, please phone Mary Landry at 416-293-3760.
we will begin with the topic: How is our Christian life and ethics similar to those of other faith traditions? How are they different? TIME: 7:30 – 9:00 PM PLACE: Come to the Parish Office
The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is one of the Seven Sacraments. This Sacrament is celebrated with those who are seriously ill, those who are preparing for surgery and the elderly. The preferred place for celebrating this Sacrament is in the Church with family and the members of the parish community present. All are more than welcome to attend.
I invite any girl or boy from grade 5 and upwards to join our Altar Servers. This is an important ministry in our parish. Mr. Tom Li, who is in charge of our Altar Servers, will be holding a training session on Sunday afternoon, October 22. If you are interested in serving the parish in this way, please call the parish office and leave your name and phone number or speak to me after one of the Masses. Fr. Paul
The parish is creating a social club for all people between 20 and 30 years of age. Whether you want to network or meet people to hang around with, you are welcome! Our first meeting will be in the Church (date to be determined). All who would like to join or who need more information are asked to email Felipe Sanchez Rijckewaert at: stgabes.socialgrp@gmail.com
| Posted in Bulletin |
October 1st, 2006
I won’t be preaching on the scripture this Sunday rather I’d like to bring you up to date on our new home. We’ve been in our new home over a month now. As you can see behind me they are still demolishing our old home. It’s a home that holds many memories for all of us. I was away the days they demolished the church – that’s such a harsh word – demolish. I was spared the experience. But the other week Father Steve Dunn and I watched as they demolished – there’s that word again, the monastery chapel, our recreation room and our refectory. The machine looked like a giant, hungry dinosaur tearing apart our home. That monastery was our home for many years – it’s loaded with memories – it’s been rough celebrating morning Mass and watching them tearing the place apart. I know many of you have had the same sad feelings as you saw the gradual disappearance of our old church. I know a lot of tears were shed.
But as the song sings – that was yesterday and yesterday’s gone.
Here we are in our new home – we’re still moving in, its a work in progress. We still have to get used to our new seating arrangement – an arrangement that is totally different from what we are used to. It’s call antiphonal seating and is based on monastery choirs when the monks stood opposite one another as we do and chanted the office back and forth. There is a reason for our seating arrangement.
The church is not the building, it is people. Recently a bishop had dedicated a new church. He remarked to the pastor, you have a magnificent building here – to which the pastor replied, yes and we have a wonderful church ie wonderful people. In his letter to the Corinthians Paul talks about their coming together as church – they had no church buildings in Corinth – when they came together in homes, they were the church. That’s why we chose this form of seating to give you a better sense of community – of being here with other people – people you can see. We all know Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament but the truth is Christ just as present in this gathering – in you good people. Again it will take a bit of getting used to this but I’m sure we all will. I like to suggest you don’t get squatter’s rights – sitting in the same pew every Sunday – move around – mix it up – get another sense of the space, another sense of the church, the people.
Our beautiful stain glass windows are being restored and will be in place as soon as possible. The five windows from the arches in the old church will be placed in the five windows next to the doors of the church – the others will be displayed as banners as the occasion arises. This too is a work in progress. You’ll notice we’ve used much of the glass from the front doors of the old church as we could.
To have a sense of continuity we brought as much as possible from the old church – the pews – the marble for the altar, the pulpit, the baptismal font. Our tabernacle has been refurbished and has a new altar. The space in which the tabernacle is placed will be a chapel of ease – there will be chairs for your use when you come for a visit – it will provide its own ambiance of peace and quiet and privacy. New lighting will highlight the cross and tabernacle.
We brought with us our beautiful statues of the Sacred Heart and St. Gabriel. To tell you the truth I love our statue of the welcoming Christ. He was usually hidden by all the trees on the lawn of the old church – now Christ is very visible and very welcoming.
As I said, we are a work in progress. The chairs for the priests and servers have yet to arrive as well as the chairs for choir. And our reconciliation rooms which are on either side of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament have yet to be furnished. There will be a book of appreciation, which will list the donors and the gifts they’ve provided to our new home.
In the old church we had little if any space to gather and socialize as we entered or left the church. Our new gathering space gives us a wonderful open space – it is graced by our living wall of live plants. This living wall is meant to purify the air in our gathering space. This gathering place will help us be more church to one another – as we take our time coming and going. The underground parking is working out very well and thanks for your patience and co operation in your parking. We’ll appreciate it all the more when the snow falls. Just one thing, spaces marked ‘car pool parking’ are for cars that have more than two people in them.
As you can see our restored stations of the cross grace our west wall. I know some people feel the walls are stark – they are. Someone referred to our cement walls as the elegance of simplicity. You can see this especially when they awash with the colors that come from the stain glass skylights. Our walls speak to us of the earth – sand, water and lime, slag and sludge and they are reinforced by recycled steel and our glass wall opens us up to the world around us – so that even in our worship we won’t be wrapped up in our own space but are open to and aware of the beauty and the fragility of creation.
We are called Canada’s first green church. Every church creates its own atmosphere – it has its own feeling. Our old church offered us a real sense of tranquility. Our new home has its own atmosphere too – we just have to get used to it, let it grow on us.
The goal of all those involved in the planning and building of this new church that the praise and preaching done in this new space will facilitate the greening of those who worship here. Greening in the sense that we all will come to a deeper sense the human family’s oneness with the rest of God’s good creation. Greening in the sense that we all come to a deeper awareness of the truth that ‘we did not weave the web of life, we are strand in the web and what we do to the web we do to ourselves’ – Greening in the sense that we face the truth, ‘the earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth and what we do to the earth we do to ourselves’.
As we continue to celebrate our Eucharist we can pray for ourselves and for each other that our time spent in our new home will be blessed by God, bring us closer to each other and to the wonders of God’s good creation.
| Posted in Homily |
Total: $8,103.78
ATTENTION – THESE EVENINGS ARE FOR PERSONS INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT THE CATHOLIC FAITH.
This is an invitation to come to our first meeting OCTOBER 4th AT 7:30PM in the Library.
Come with your questions, your curiosity, your point of view. They will be the basis of our discussions.
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 various ways that are comfortable to you.
ADULT CATHOLICS: who wish to celebrate the Sacraments of Eucharist and/or Confirmation are welcome also.
For more information, please call Mary Landry at 416 – 221 – 8866 ext. 224
Time to study, time to learn about religious topics that interest you, puzzle you, concern you. We meet every second Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, we have two separate groups who meet alternate Wednesdays.
TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 3RD AT 7:30PM
WEDNESDAY MORNING, ECOLOGY GROUP, OCTOBER 4TH AT 10:30AM
Grade 3 to University. Please join us for practice on Thursday evenings from 6:30 – 8:00PM. All are welcome!
for children 4 to 10 years old, takes place each Sunday during the 10:30 AM Mass. For information please contact Tim Lychy at 416-225-4069.
will meet on Saturday October 7th at 1:00 PM in the Library.
will meet on Sunday October 8th at 3:30 PM in the Library.
We have received our annual appeal from the Brothers of the Good Shepherd for our assistance during the Thanksgiving Season. You can participate by bringing non-perishable food items on the weekends of September 24th, October 1st, October 8th and also on Thanksgiving Day, Oct. 9th. The following is a list of urgently needed items: canned vegetables and meats, rice, canned soups and stews, cold breakfast cereals, cookies, tea, instant and ground coffee, hot chocolate, sugar, powdered milk, powdered fruit juice, powdered soup bases (chicken & beef), ketchup, paprika, garlic powder, salt & pepper. Kindly drop off your donations at the front doors of the Church and place them in the designated containers. You have always supported this appeal so generously. Please keep up the good work.
Thank you to the volunteers who prepared 25 casseroles for September. For October, your prepared casseroles (frozen please) will be collected at the Masses on the weekend of October 28/29 for delivery to the Centre. More volunteers are encouraged to become active in helping to feed our less fortunate sisters and brothers. We would like to return to the monthly number of casseroles we had last year, which were about double this month’s total. 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.
September 24th, 2006
I’d like to say a few words on what is called the Entrance Antiphon for today’s Mass. We usually don’t say this antiphon because we have an entrance hymn. It goes, “I am the savior of all peoples, says the Lord. Whatever their troubles I will answer their cry and I will always be their Lord.”
The other night I was watching Billy Graham’s daughter on TV. She’s written a new book and was being interviewed on it. The gist of her message and book was – unless you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior you cannot be saved. That’s it. She kept quoting Scripture — I am the way the truth and the life – No one can come to the Father except thru me. The interviewer asked, does that mean everyone else is lost. Her response was, “these are not my words, these are the words of Scripture – Jesus is the way – the only way to come to salvation.”
That’s a far cry from “I am the savior of all peoples – whatever their troubles I will answer their cry – I will always be their Lord.” It’s scary the way some people take ownership of God and God’s love and mercy. The TV news is overloaded with pictures of radical Moslems rallying and protesting and calling for the death of anyone who does not see God as they see God. Calling peoples of other faiths, infidels – basically lost souls.
But Christians have people of the same ilk. Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior or you’re done for. Accept God, accept Jesus as we do or you’re lost – damned forever and that’s not just for those who are non-Christian but other Christians as well. There was a time when we were taught ‘outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation’ – thank God we’ve moved beyond that.
For so many people it’s so difficult to deal with diversity – to relate to people who are different, ideas that are different, cultures and faiths that are different. Diversity is what makes the world go round – diversity permeates creation.
Hundreds of years ago St. Thomas wrote – we must say that the distinction and multitude of things – comes from the intention of God – Who brought all things into being. Because God’s goodness could not be adequately represented by any one creature alone God produced many and diverse creatures so that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine good – might be supplied by another. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform – in creatures is manifold and divided – hence the whole universe together – participates the divine goodness more perfectly – and represents that divine goodness better – than any single creature – because the divine wisdom is the cause of the distinction of all things.
The diversity we see around us in the multitude of species – in the diversity of peoples, cultures and faiths – all these are manifestations of the divine goodness.
Some one has said that the religions of the world should be focusing on what we have in common instead of what divides us. What we have in common is our belief in a supreme being – God, creator of all. What we have in common is a commandment of love. What we have in common is a command to care for our neighbour – what the many religions in the world could have in common is the project of working for world peace, ending poverty, promoting the dignity of every human being, promoting reverence for creation and working toward the healing of the earth.
Last Wednesday we had a wonderful gather of people. It was sponsored by a group called “faith and the common good” This group has a new project called ‘greening sacred spaces’ Our church was their flagship. They are encouraging temples and mosques and churches to be more efficient in their use of energy, to refit themselves to be more energy efficient and to encourage their people to be more conscious of their use of energy and their consumerism.
Our concept of Islam must reach beyond the images of enraged people protesting and burning images of the Pope or whoever else they feel insulted their faith. We would not want non Christians to see us as those who basically tell them they are lost if they do not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Diversity in all creation, diversity in the human family springs from the love of our creating God. That’s why it is important to remember the words “I am the savior of all peoples, says the Lord. Whatever their troubles I will answer their cry and I will always be their Lord.
This is an invitation to come to our first meeting SEPTEMBER 18th AT 7:30PM in the Library.
WEDNESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 27TH AT 10:30AM
I invite any girl or boy from grade 5 and upwards to join our Altar Servers. This is an important ministry in our parish. Mr. Tom Li, who is in charge of our Altar Servers, will be holding a training session on Sunday afternoon, October 22. If you are interested in serving the parish in this way, please call the parish office and leave your name and phone number or speak to me after one of the Masses. – Fr. Paul
2005 SHARELIFE TOTAL: $176,612.27 2006 SHARELIFE TOTAL: $163,159.52
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. All are welcome. Coffee and tea are provided. No fee. The next gathering will be held on Sunday October 1, beginning at about 11:30am – (after the 10:30 Mass and before the 12:30pm Mass) – in the large meeting room.
We have received our annual appeal from the Brothers of the Good Shepherd for our assistance during the Thanksgiving Season. You can participate by bringing non-perishable food items on the weekends of September 24th, October 1st, October 8th and also on Thanksgiving Day, Oct. 9th. The following is a list of urgently needed items: canned vegetables and meats, rice, canned soups and stews, cold breakfast cereals, cookies, tea, instant and ground coffee, hot chocolate, sugar, powdered milk, powdered fruit juice, powdered soup bases (chicken & beef), ketchup, paprika, garlic powder, salt & pepper. Kindly drop off your donations at the front doors of the Church and place them in the designated containers. Your donations will allow the kitchen staff and volunteers to prepare upward of 750 meals and snacks daily. You have always supported this appeal so generously. Please keep up the good work.
is a new singles club for Catholics of all ages who have never married, divorced, widowed or annulled. Sunday brunches, dining out and seminars are only a few of the many activities offered. This club is free to join. For more information or to join, please go to the web site: http://newlysingle.meetup.com/739/
a Ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto, welcomes young adults 18 – 39 to engage in opportunities that generate spiritual growth and community-building. On Monday, September 25th, Bishop Boissonneau will be speaking about “SUNDAY: YOUR VISION OF GOD & YOUR VISION OF YOURSELF”. This will take place at the Duke of York Pub, Bloor St. West and Bedford Rd. from 7:00 to 9:00PM. For more information please contact Vanessa Nicholas at 416 – 222 – 1426 ext.276 or visit www.faithconnections.ca
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