Parish Bulletin for Sunday, March 4, 2012

Second Sunday of Lent

Gen. 22:1-2, 9, 10-13, 15-18   Rom. 8:31-34   Mark 9:2-10   

THE SPEED BUMPS OF LENT

Journeys can be wonderful adventures, but they can also be dangerous. They have a way of taking unexpected turns or offering surprising endings. Many journeys are a normal, even mundane, part of life: same car-pool ride, bus route to work, business flight. But some take us to a new place: a vacation, a different school or career, a detour.

We hear about two journeys in our readings from Isaiah and Mark. Abraham and Isaac set out for a high place; and Peter, James and John are led by Jesus to a mountain. Both journeys offer a new revelation about God. Both required faithfulness.

Every year, we face the same Lenten journey, walk the same way of the cross, listen to the same readings. We participate in the same rites with catechumens and candidates when we have them in our midst. When we begin the season with ashes, we fully plan to make this the Lent where we pay attention to the conversion to which the church and the Gospel call us.

We don't mean for time to slip away - yet days fly by. We have the best intentions - and still we may arrive at Easter without the transformation we intended to have. Perhaps we need a few speed bumps on our path to shake us from our complacency and awaken us to the inner journey of Lent. We need to be jarred from everyday experiences.

Do we face our journey with the same radical faith that Abraham carried up the heights, prepared to offer what we hold most precious to show our deep trust in God's mercy and grace? Yes, God needs to bump our heads on the roof of our cars a bit so we might open our eyes and see that we are not walking alone on our path, but rather are on God's path, which is leading all to the reign of God.

What will make us pay attention? What speed bump will help us hear God's words about Jesus that were spoken to the disciples: Listen to him? Like Peter, we have our own plans. We know where we want to pitch our tents and circle our wagons. We expect God to come right along.

Listening to where God might call us to pitch those tents and set up shop is much harder. It requires willingness to change our hearts and break patterns of comfort and self-righteousness. It demands trusting Jesus on the journey. When it comes to changing our hearts, we each have a journey to make, one that includes soul-searching and personal examination.

On Ash Wednesday, we heard Jesus' words giving us three good markers for how to reform our lives during this season: Give alms, pray and fast. We are all people in need of reconciliation and reform. As individuals and families, parish communities and neighbourhoods, as nations and as God's people, we must ask what speed bumps we prefer to avoid.

What would we prefer to drive around rather than face being jarred into action? What will shake us from self-reliance and apathy so we might see our sisters and brothers on the path, strewn into the ruts and depressions, lost wandering along the way or trampled under our feet? We get complacent. We use distractions to buffer us. But, once again, we have this Lenten season to begin a new journey, to awaken us to what we ignore and neglect.

Our Lenten journey can be dangerous. It can surprise us. We know it led Jesus to Calvary and the cross. But the journey can lead us to reform (as in form again) our lives and return our hearts to God. Or at least jar them with a speed bump or two.

That all our beloved dead, especially

Tuesday, March 6

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Henetta Lee

Thursday, March 8

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Giuseppe Pierri

Friday, March 9

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Mary Waychison

may know the refreshment, rest, and peace of God's heavenly kingdom . . . that all those who grieve may know God's comfort and consolation . . .We pray.

For the Church,that our truest selves, beloved daughters and sons of God, may be revealed more and more through our Lenten observances . . . for the safe arrival in Canada of our refugee family . . . for all refugees world-wide . . . We pray.

In the Gospel, Jesus, who will be sacrificed for us, is identified as God's beloved Son; and in the First Reading, Abraham offers his beloved Son as a sacrifice to God. And so we are invited by the readings to reflect on sacrifice.

What is a sacrifice? And why would God want one, from Abraham or from us? The first thing to see is that a sacrifice is a peculiar kind of gift. In the case of ordinary gifts, which aren't sacrifices, the gift-receiver is the primary beneficiary of the gift-giving. The gift-receiver is the person who has the thing given; and she has something of the giver in the gift, too.

But a sacrifice is a different kind of gift. When one person gives something as a sacrifice, however great his gift is, the gift-giver himself receives something of very great value.

To see this point, consider Maximilian Kolbe, who sacrificed his life for Franciszek Gajowniczek at Auschwitz. The Nazis had randomly selected 10 prisoners to die, as reprisal for the escape of a prisoner; and Franciszek Gajowniczek was one of the 10. When he was picked, he cried out, "Oh, my poor wife! My poor children! I will never see them again!"

But Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward and offered to take Franciszek's place. Kolbe knew that the selected prisoners would be slowly starved to death in a dark and airless bunker. But Kolbe offered his life for that of his fellow prisoner anyway. It took Kolbe two weeks to die in that bunker.

Witnesses who overheard the periodic Nazi checks on those still living in the bunker reported afterwards that Kolbe prayed and sang hymns until the end when his voice failed. In that sacrifice, so hard to make, Kolbe became a person in whom the beauty of love and goodness shone so brightly that the story of his life and sacrifice now illumines all who hear about it.

He gave his life to give life to Franciszek, but he himself received far more than he gave. Who would not want to be as lovely a soul as Kolbe was? And so here is the beginning of an answer to the questions about sacrifice.

Our God, who lacks for nothing, is glad to have the gift of our sacrifices, not because he gets something great from them, but because we do.

ShareLife Parish Campaign celebrates 36 years!

Office for Refugees (ORAT)

ORAT, the Office for Refugees' staff members and volunteers have numerous years of experience helping refugees. The Office's main focus is the Civic (Private) Refugee Sponsorship Program of the Archdiocese of Toronto, which has been in operation for over 30 years.

Just in the last year ORAT submitted applications to bring over 250 refugees to Canada, thanks to the help of parishes and institutions within the Archdiocese participating in the program.

ORAT works to bring refugees from overseas to Canada all the while fostering a sense of community within the Archdiocese, as parishes and religious orders are asked to work together to help newcomers integrate into Canadian society.

This parish, along with St. Thomas the Apostle, anxiously awaits the arrival of the family we have sponsored. It is through ORAT that this sponsorship was made possible.

We are fortunate to welcome one of the members of this hard-working staff this weekend to talk to us about the sheer scope of this office's reach in a world where there are 43 million displaced persons.

Once again, a generous supporter of ShareLife is offering to match all increased donations as well as new donations to a maximum $650,000! This means that any increase in a parishioner's donation from 2011 totals as well as any new donations from those who did not contribute last year will be matched at the end of this campaign.

Such a benefit certainly increases our chance of being able to properly fund our agencies over the coming year.

ShareLife Sundays: March 25, April 29 and June 3.

Your gift makes a difference - we can work wonders!

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, March 11, 2012

Third Sunday of Lent

Exod. 20:1-17   1 Cor. 1:22-25   John 2:13-25

The Gospel for this Third Sunday of Lent gives us a shocking picture of Jesus. The gentle saviour has turned violent. He erupts into anger as he sees merchants vend oxen, sheep and doves in the temple, sees money-changers doing commerce in God's house.

Not only is this unlike the Jesus we know, but doesn't it violate the holy workings of the temple?

These trades-people were selling animals because living creatures were needed for burnt offerings. People had to buy animals somewhere. And they had to get their money changed, since so many of them came from lands with different currencies.

Sounds quite reasonable, doesn't it? Not to Jesus. He screams, "You are desecrating my Father's temple!" He grabs some dividing cords and yanks them into a knot. With these he whips the vendors. Whips them! Quite a terrible sight. So he heaves the carefully sorted coins into an unholy mess on the floor and finishes up by hurtling the tables into this chaos he has created.

How in the world does such fury coincide with the silent, humble Jesus we will see in Holy Week? Then he will barely say a word, even though his enemies will be violating the Father's holiest temple of all, Jesus' very self.

What is going on here? Some external reasons for his vehemence are evident. Vendors were allowed only in the courtyard of the temple, not inside where they now had positioned themselves. And perhaps the dishonest practices of outdoor market-places had stolen their way into the temple. The thumb on the scale, the inflated prices, all of that.

There is another, internal reason which is much more important. Jesus knew with blessed certainty what human beings were created to be. We are made to be filled with God's presence, to be beloved by God and to love God in return. We are most ourselves when we are not entrapped by riches, honour and pride. We are designed to "let go and let God."

Jesus must have been overwhelmed when he saw merchants winking at these Godly values, preferring cold cash, and cheating for it at the dead centre of sacred space. Everything was upside down.

Why did he react so very differently during Holy Week? Why was he silent then? Because by then Jesus had come to understand the depths of his mission: not just to do social action-that's what the temple scene was-not just to cure the people miraculously, not to preach from the hillsides. He saw that he must become one with our death as well as our life, must unite with us in the terrible hurts we get from each other. Only then could he show how very close God is.

Wrath for sure can be an understandable and just reaction to selfishness and greed. The merchants were seeking short-term profit at the expense of freedom, holiness, truth, and completion of the human spirit. Worse, they were foisting all this upon the people Jesus had come to save.

No wonder he hurled himself against these blind money grubbers. His emotion was real and quite impressive. But, by contrast, on the cross he would empty himself out. He would surrender everything, including his fury, a surrender that would cancel out the grubbing of the money changers.

That all our beloved dead, especially

Thursday, March 15

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Celina Pothier

Friday, March 16

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Mr. Luigi

may know the refreshment, rest, and peace of God's heavenly kingdom . . . that all those who grieve may know God's comfort and consolation . . .We pray.

For a cleansing of the temple of our hearts: that we may offer our self-sacrificing service to God and others as we seek to worship God in spirit and truth . . . Lord, in your mercy . . . We pray.

Our Best Instruction Manual

In the Ten Commandments, God gives us the basic instruction manual for life. Elsewhere, in Christ's Sermon on the Mount, that instruction manual is supplied with more details.

The Ten Commandments forbid murder. The Sermon on the Mount commands you actually to love your enemy, turn the other cheek to him, and so on. Such rules are helpful, but it is hard to know in what circumstances they apply. Suppose you take the commandment about turning the other cheek to apply to someone who is beating his wife. If you apply it to mean that you should not try to stop him, you will simply be cooperating with his evil.

The trick is to see that the commandment about turning the other cheek has to be applied in the context of the broader rule: love your enemy. If you enable your enemy to become more evil, how have you loved him?

In the Gospel, Christ uses a whip to drive the moneychangers out of the Temple. In doing this, he helps us understand how to apply the rules. In cases where turning the other cheek would make your enemy worse instead of better, loving your enemy requires helping him to stop his evil in some other way.

And that is why the same Christ who gave the Sermon on the Mount drives the moneychangers out of the Temple. If he had turned the other cheek, he would have been an enabler of their evil. But it is good for them, as well as for others, that they stop the evil they were doing. And so Christ uses force to get them to stop.

Here is the thing to notice, then. God's instruction manual for life is not limited just to the sets of rules in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Christ's life and actions, as they are set out in the Gospels, are our best help for seeing how to live our lives well. Our best instruction manual is Christ himself.

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, March 18, 2012

Fourth Sunday of Lent

2 Chr. 36:14-16, 19-23   Eph. 2:4-10   John 3:14-21

Paul and John agree that salvation comes from Christ. But how do the church and the world interact with that salvation? In the beginning, the church was limited to a few people in the small geographic area of the Mediterranean. Then, it rapidly developed across the Roman Empire and into modern Europe and modern history; that is the Western church.

But since the Second Vatican Council, the church understands herself as a universal church - Catholic not just in theory, but in actual geographic extension. As the church changes in the world, so does her sense of self, her sense of purpose in being a bringer of salvation.

First, the church pronounced: "There is no salvation outside the church." That was a proud, but logical claim. This church saw herself as the kingdom of God on earth, the body of Christ, the privileged preacher of the Gospel. If anyone was to be saved, they had to be aboard this ark of salvation.

But those who objected were considered heretics, therefore beyond discussion. Not only was there no salvation outside the church; the church was not interested in much of anything outside the church. Vatican Council II confronted the church with the modern world. In a fit of fervour, church documents proclaimed: "The hopes and joys and fears of the world are the hopes and joys and fears of the church."

The selfish slogan "There is no salvation outside the church" became "There is no salvation outside the world." That would seem too obvious to say. Yet the value of that proclamation is in focussing the church on its worldly mission instead of on itself. It moves God from a private paradise to an earthy, messy entanglement with humankind.

Besides working in the church, God also works at the factory, the office, the unemployment line, the ballpark, the bedroom, the school, the battlefield. Absolutely nothing and nobody escapes the notice and concern of God. Grace, salvation is everywhere.

Then, somebody noticed that most of the people in God's world are poor and live in underdeveloped countries. Surely God must be especially worried about them, just as his Son was. Some theologians in poor countries are changing the focus of salvation away from church and world. They say: "There is no salvation outside the poor." That may be true, but it's a hard sell for the un-poor people.

We find it hard not to believe that we earn what we have, that we could not eliminate poverty if we tried. But when we settle down from our frantic activity, we cannot escape the root reality: There is one world, one humankind, one church, one God. And that world is tearing a rip between rich and poor, oppressor and victim, the living and the dying.

For us, for the Church, some Christians live luxuriously while others starve, some Christians are protected by police while others are tortured, some Christians drop bombs while others have bombs dropped on them. We have not yet quite realized that we are one family, one body of Christ.

How can God gather and guide his church to bring salvation? I don't presume to know. But I know what I would say if I were God. I would say: "My friends, I implanted in you voracious desires and embedded you in a luxuriant paradise. So I won't hold too much against you - if you care for the desperate, disconsolate members of your extended family. Because money, lust and power fade away, but my beloved poor people will always cry out to you."

Come to think of it, that is pretty much what God did say when he sent his personal messenger 2,000 years ago.

That all our beloved dead, especially

Thursday, March 22

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Narcisa Castro

Friday, March 23

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † John Walter

may know the refreshment, rest, and peace of God's heavenly kingdom . . . that all those who grieve may know God's comfort and consolation . . .We pray.

For the gift of hope: that as we encounter violence, greed, and power, God will fill our hearts with hope and help us to walk in God's ways . . . Lord, in your mercy . . . We pray.

From Heartbreak to Joy - The Last Word!

The enemies of the Jews smash Jerusalem, as the First Reading describes it. The walls of the city are torn down. The Temple of God is burned down, and all its holy things are smashed. And the people are taken captive to Babylon. Their country, their customs, their language, their cult, their Temple-it's all lost.

In the Psalm, there is a poignant picture of the people's heartbreak over this destruction of their home. The people who wrecked Jerusalem want the Jews to sing Hebrew songs for them. That request is the final blow. How can we sing the Lord's songs in a strange land? – the captive people say to themselves in their grief.

The Epistle says that God is rich in mercy and great in love. Why then doesn't God protect his people from heartbreak like this? One piece of the solution is in the Gospel Reading. God doesn't want to destroy people; he doesn't allow suffering for the sake of hurting them. Rather, God is looking for a remedy, as the First Reading puts it. God is willing to use desperate measures, even the heartbreak of his people, to save them.

And not only that, but God is willing to use his own suffering too. As the Gospel says, God gave his beloved Son to save the world. Christ was betrayed by his friend, put to public shame, officially condemned, tortured, and put to death. Any one of these things is enough for sorrow, isn't it?

And so, in the incarnate Christ, God uses his own great suffering as the final remedy to bring people from death into life, when all other remedies have been tried and failed. Heartbreak by us, by Christ, is for life, not for death.

And here is what else we need to see. Jerusalem was rebuilt, and the Temple was restored, as the First Reading explains. Christ's death was followed by his resurrection. In each of these cases, heartbreak was turned into joy.

And so heartbreak is not the last word. Elsewhere the Psalmist says, "Put your trust in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." When the story is God's, heartbreak is not the end of the story. Joy in finding your heart's desire in God is.

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, March 25, 2012

Fifth Sunday of Lent

A tiny grain finds itself deep within the soil, with its small self tucked into complete darkness. And yet it is fearless. It is comforted by the tough, safe shell that is its home. The seed belongs there, and it knows it. In quiet. In growth.

Then calamity! The shell-shelter turns tight and invading and painful. The growing seed sits shocked that its protector is opposing it, holding it back. Crushing it. Then, suddenly, as if planned from all eternity, the husky shell cracks right open. "Wait, wait, I need you," the seed shouts! But moisture trickles in, and bits of dank, cold soil. Anything and everything can now march right into the heart of what was a quiet, pure place.

The seed goes to pieces. What is left of it copes somehow, crazily extending a new, thin arm outward and steady by jerks, slithers its whole self through the cracks in its shell. It has to get out of there. It dares its way into the rough, cold mud. How foolish and shaming. Stay where safety is, you fool!

But the transforming little self slowly takes on an unexpected new life. It has a new home now, right in the slippery soil. It moves around with caution. Upwards it goes. There is much in its path, including a huge, unmovable rock. A jagged, rough, uncaring rock, heedless of tiny green shoots. And so the story ends.

Except that the former seed appears to have will power. It is seeking something-urging itself toward some pressing objective, rooting its way with intuitive ambition. Fingering along the brutal under-edge of the rock, fearfully and with rending pain, and after what seems like years it achieves the far under-edge of this gnarly rock and guess what. It starts upward again.

What a trip. Now there are hard clods to press through, and pebbles aplenty. The higher it goes the more dry the surrounding soil becomes. The top crust of ground forbids any penetration. It is an ultimate, intractable, stupefying barrier. And so the story ends.

Except for one voice from deep within. Push. Push, it whispers. I am with you. The young sprout feels just a thinnest lesion in the tough skin. With a certainty that might have been written on its heart, this vine-to-be discovers where it was meant to be - in a heaven of light and warmth, bathed in the sun's astonishing rays. The plant stretches and yawns in the wafting breezes of Spring.

It is just like our own journey, isn't it? Dark corridors can seem to be our life. But Jesus says, do not worry, child, trust me. "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit."

Through the centuries, many have made Jesus' mind their own and have followed him in offering their lives for the sake of their faith. In their dying, some have echoed the Johannine Jesus' words.

In a letter he wrote to Roman believers, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria (who was thought to have been a student of the Johannine school), declared, "I am the grain of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. . . . For what shall a man be profited, if he gain the whole world but lose his own soul?"

Ignatius, like Jesus, fell to the ground and died, and by virtue of his witness, many came to believe. Ignatius found his raison d'être in his living and suffering and dying for Christ. Have you found yours? If not, what better season than Lent to continue your search?

That all our beloved dead, especially

Tuesday, March 27

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Lucia Mancinelli

Wednesday, March 28

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Ida Beltrano

Thursday, March 29

Weekday 8:30 a.m. - † Maria Enriqueta Basurto

may know the refreshment, rest, and peace of God's heavenly kingdom . . . that all those who grieve may know God's comfort and consolation . . .Lord, in your mercy . . .

For the sick, especially for all those who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for all those who are sick . . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those who feel forgotten . . . Lord, in your mercy . . ..

For the Church: that we may embrace the paschal mystery and allow God to bring us through the little deaths of life and raise us up to new and fresh beginnings . . . Lord, in your mercy . . .

Celebrating the Triduum
Holy Spirit Church, April 5, 6, and 7

At the end of the season of Lent, the Christian community gathers together to celebrate the most holy of days in our Christian experience. The Triduum is a single celebration that takes place over a three-day period - from the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday and continuing until the conclusion of evening prayer on Easter Sunday.

One of the signs that marks these three days as one celebration is the silence that is woven through the fabric of the Triduum celebration. We are called to remember and celebrate the saving death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. As followers of the Christ, we are meant to focus on our immersion in the paschal event and to discover anew how we are to live the saving death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus - right here and right now.

When we celebrate the Triduum, we find ourselves placed right at the centre of the paschal mystery. The Triduum is one celebration - missing one part of these three days means you are not celebrating this one feast in its entirety - kind of like spending $100 for a ticket to a play you really wanted to see and then missing the second act. Come and celebrate!

Holy Thursday   April 5th 7:00 p.m.
Church opens at 6:00 p.m.

The one feast of the Triduum begins with the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday evening.

The gospel reading from John draws us into a deeper understanding of Eucharist. Through the powerful symbolic washing of feet, we ourselves are called to embrace the lifestyle of the servant Jesus. This is no mere role-playing or re-enactment, but rather a clear message that Eucharist and service are intimately intertwined.

Good Friday   April 6th 3:00 p.m.
Church opens at 11:00 a.m.

The Mass of the Lord's Supper ends in silence and the gathering of the community for the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord begins in silence.

The focus of this day is the saving death of the Lord Jesus and our participation in it. How do we live out the values of the reign of God so that we are able to stand as a stumbling block to the forces of darkness and evil?

Holy Saturday      Easter Vigil April 7th 7:00 p.m.
Church opens at 6:00 p.m.

The Vigil begins in darkness and silence. As the third celebration in the Triduum, the Easter Vigil proclaims Christ's victory over sin and death and our sharing in this wondrous gift of salvation.

The great Paschal Triduum is meant to be celebrated as one. A solemn proclamation from the Lord God begins the liturgy of the word on Holy Thursday; the solemnity of solemnities has begun.

From the original celebration of Passover, when the Lord liberated Israel from captivity, we progress over the next three days to the fulfillment of the Passover, when the risen Christ liberates us from sin and death. Join our community of faith as we celebrate the Easter Triduum.

Triduum

Holy Thursday
Mass of the Lord's Supper       at 7:00 p.m.

Good Friday
Celebration of the Lord's Passion      at 3:00 p.m.

Holy Saturday
Easter Vigil      at 7:00 p.m.

Please Note:
Stations of the Cross Good Friday      11:30 a.m.

Easter Sunday
Church opens at 7:30 a.m.

8:30 A.M.      10:00 A.M.      11:30 A.M.

Please note: The office is closed from Friday, April 6 through Monday, April 9 inclusive. The church and office re-open Tuesday, April 10. The church is closed on Monday, April 9.