August 19th, 2020
Food collection for Good Shepherd and Rosalie Hall has resumed. Please bring your food donation and place them in the basket and box provided in the gathering space. Your help in bringing non-perishable food items such as rice, canned goods, pasta, sauces, soups, coffee, tea, sugar, and other similar items will go a long way in assisting the depleted food banks. Please check the expiry/use by dates on these items so we do not pass on food that has expired.
| Posted in Notice |
You may drop off your frozen casseroles the weekend of August 29/30, 2020 at the Masses for delivery to the Good Shepherd Centre. Please remember to mark the label on the pan lid with the name of the casserole.
August 18th, 2020
We are all being encouraged to spend more time outdoors during this pandemic. So we hope this short video of St. Gabriel’s garden will entice you to do just that. If you are not able to visit the garden in person, then you can enjoy it virtually by clicking on the link provided. There are always plants in flower. Right now, Hairy Beardtongue is putting on quite a show in the south garden, with competition from Smooth Oxeye and Calendula and the Lily Walk in the north garden is at its peak. A stroll before or after mass is guaranteed to lift your spirits and calm your soul.
| Posted in Events |
August 2nd, 2020
People brought word to Jesus of the brutal death of his cousin, John the Baptist. Think of the comparison of the banquet Jesus provided the 5000 people and the banquet that led to the murder of John. Herod’s was at the royal court and his guests were sycophants, hangers on. To impress his guests he promised his dancing daughter whatever she wanted. She asked for the head of John on a platter. Herod would look foolish and weak if he didn’t keep his promise.
Jesus was aching with grief. The news of John’s brutal death made him want to be alone to feel his great loss. But things didn’t work out that way. The crowds found him. We have no idea what he told them that day, we only know his disciples presented him with these facts, it was getting late and there was no way they could provide food for all these people. Let them shift for themselves.
This offends Jesus sense of hospitality. He gets the people to sit in the open field and takes the limited resources of five barley loaves and two fish and satisfies the hunger of the people.
Everything Jesus said or did was meant to bring people to closer to God and one another.
These men, women and children who followed Jesus to that deserted place were not stupid people, they were practical people. They knew that at some point they would need to eat. The families had their own hidden stashes. Jesus’ willingness to share the little he with all of them challenged them to share what they had with those around them. And they did and all were fed because all of them followed Jesus’ example of sharing the little he and his disciples had with others. No one went hungry.
Everything Jesus said or did, his parables, his miracles and his inter-action with lepers, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the outcasts and the sinners, are meant to challenge we, his followers to take one step forward toward being a more loving person, a more just person, a more forgiving person, a more compassionate person, a more loving person, even if our movement is something like baby step, it moves us closer to being the kind of person Jesus would have us be.
Today’s gospel calls us to be willing to share, even the little we have for the well-being of those around us.
Will we take that step forward?
| Posted in Homily |
July 26th, 2020
In our first reading we hear of young king Solomon and his encounter with God. God made Solomon an unbelievable offer, ‘Ask what I should give you.’ What if God made you that promise –ask what I should give you. What would ask for – what do you most want?
Young Solomon knew his limitations and his problems. He had an older brother who should have been made king but was passed over by King David. Solomon wasn’t sure of the loyalty of his generals and advisors. In the face of the many things Solomon could have requested he humbly asked for an understanding mind, another translation is a listening heart. He asks for listening heart so that he is able to discern between good and evil. This young king wasn’t interested in wealth and power and expanding his empire. He just wanted to be a good ruler blessed with a listening heart to hear the needs and the hurts of the people and do what was right and just for those God called him to lead.
A listening heart to help him to know what is best for the people, especially the poor, the widows, the orphans. A listening heart to appreciate the struggles of the poorest of his people. A listening heart to grasp what was right and what was wrong. This young and inexperienced king knew in his heart that great wealth and power were not what he needed to govern God’s great people. A listening heart, this was Solomon’s pearl of great price.
Through the ages writers and thinkers claimed that the root desires of the human heart are the pride of power – think of the mess the supposedly most powerful man of the most powerful nation in the world has created for his own people, the mess he has created for the family of nations.
The second driving force of the human heart is the accumulation of wealth, greed is good. The third driving force is the unbridled experience of pleasure. Experience shows us time and time again that all these drives put us on a one way street to nowhere. Powerful people come and go, wealth is accumulated and lost and even the most intense of pleasures become jaded.
We’ve all heard people say, ‘I’d give anything for… good health, a better job, a mortgage paid – whatever. They are searching for their hidden treasure, their pearl of great price.
Think on this for a moment. We are God’s hidden treasure, God’s pearl of great price. When God found us God bought us, not with gold or silver but with the precious blood of Jesus.
What is the hidden treasure we seek, what is our pearl of great price? Could it be in the eureka experience of realizing ‘not that we’ve found God but that God first found us’. Grasping such a wonder we are willing to let go of everything that we thought of importance and value and gladly respond to God’s loving movements in our lives. The farmer and the merchant first had to find the hidden treasure, the pearl and then sell everything to purchase then. It was the finding that started the whole process. It is our finding, our grasping the wonder of John’s teaching when he tells us, this is the wonder, this is the treasure, this is the pearl, not that we love God but that God first love us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.’
As we continue this Mass we can pray for ourselves and for each other that we be blessed, as Solomon was, with a listening heart, a heart that listens to God’s word, a listening heart that hears the cry of the poor and the hurts of family and friends.
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