Parish Bulletin for Sunday, November 2, 2008

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

Faith and Hope

In a sermon shared with his fellow believers in November 1933, Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked: "Where are our dead?" and "Where will we be after our death?" (A Testament to Freedom, HarperCollins Publishers, San Francisco: 1995).

Today's celebration in honour of the faithful and, perhaps, not-so-faithful departed invites our consideration of these same questions. As his text, Bonhoeffer chose an Old Testament text from Wisdom, Chapter 3:1-9 and, like this author, he affirmed that the dead are in peace, at rest in the hand of God. God's peace, insisted Bonhoeffer, means that the battle is over; God's peace means refreshment for those whom life has made weary. It means security for those who have wandered through this life unprotected; it means a home for the homeless and dignity for those who have had theirs stolen by injustice, violence or the apathy of those who could have made a difference.

"They are in peace" helps to soothe the pain of those who mourn the fallen soldiers; "they are in peace" encourages the parent of the child who died too soon, too senselessly. "They are in peace" brings some small comfort to the survivors of this world's hatred and ethnic cleansing as they wonder how so many can be lost and so few care or mark their passing. "They are in peace" may help to mitigate the shame of Darfur, Tibet, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo and places like these because these many, many innocents are now with God, in peace.

As church, insisted Bonhoeffer, it is our responsibility to hold out this assurance of peace when people question death and dying. Indeed, the church exists in order to answer those questions. If it did not know these answers, and if it failed to speak them, then the church would be little more than a gathering of the hopeless. But this is not the church. On the contrary, the church is a people of unshakeable hope.

This hope, as Paul points out in his letter to the church in Rome, (Romans 5:5-11) does not disappoint because it is founded in the love of God, whose mercy for sinners knows no bounds. God's love has been proven beyond all doubt in the life and ministry of Jesus and especially in his embrace of death. How eager Paul is to offer reassurance. His words remind us that dying should hold no fear for us because with the peace that comes from being and resting in God comes also the joy of salvation and reconciliation with God.

At times, however, even the most unshakeable hope harbors a little doubt about those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. What about those whose "mark" seems to have been smudged or somewhat erased through sin or neglect of their spiritual health? How shall we answer Bonhoeffer's questions on their behalf? Where are our dead? How have they fared after dying? As if to anticipate these worrisome wonderings, the Johannine evangelist assures us that the dying and risen Jesus rejects no one. He further insists that Jesus does not lose any one of us. Rather, all are gathered unto him and unto his cross. There, in that moment when life meets death and emerges victorious, we are assured that we shall one day share in that same victory. Even though death is frightful, as Bonhoeffer admitted, death is also mercy – God's greatest mercy. Death lures us with heavenly force if only we keep in mind that it is the gateway to home, to the realm of peace. Therefore, as we celebrate those whom we remember today as the faithful departed, we acknowledge that they are simply farther along on their journey than we are.

The fact that Bonhoeffer could share such an attitude about death in the midst of the atrocities being perpetrated upon the innocent by the Third Reich attests to his faith and summons forth our own. Therefore, we do not ask "Why?" in the face of death, or "When?" or even "How?" We simply ask "Where?" and we are assured, "They are in peace." A German proverb affirms this fact of our faith: "Those who live in the Lord never see one another for the last time."

"Everyone whom my Father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me, because I have come down from heaven to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. And it is the will of him who sent me that I shall not lose any of those he has given me, but that I should raise them all to life on the last day."– John 6:37-39

We believe that God who had set us apart before we were born and called us by his favour chose to reveal his Son to us, that we might spread among all people the good tidings concerning him.

We believe that God has saved us and has called us to a holy life, not because of any merit of ours, but according to his own design – the grace held out to us in Christ Jesus before the world began.

May all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Nov. 4

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Giuseppe Pierri

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 5

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Nelson Raposo

THURSDAY, Nov. 6

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Eduardo and Cecilia Pierri

FRIDAY, Nov. 7

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Frank Topping

find eternal rest and refreshment in the glorious Kingdom of heaven.

For the sick, especially for . . . those who have asked for our prayers . . . for those among us in special need . . . for those who experience the shadows of sickness and pain. . . for those who feel isolated in their illness. . . for caregivers. . . We pray to the Lord.

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, November 9, 2008

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

The holy place we celebrate today is uniquely important, as is attested by the inscription above its doors: "The mother church of Rome and of all the churches in the world." In this capacity, St. John Lateran welcomes all who believe in Jesus, and this basilica represents both the joys and the struggles that have shaped Christianity through the centuries.

The faith was declared illegal by Rome and subjected to several waves of persecution for its first three centuries, so Jesus' followers were unable to gather publicly or in an official capacity until Emperor Constantine became a Christian in 313. For that reason, there were no existing churches until the fourth Christian century.

The very first place set aside for such a purpose in Rome was a wing of the palatial home of the Laterani family being used by Constantine. From then on, except for a few periods (such as the Avignon papacy and the Italian revolution), most of the popes have been crowned at the Lateran, and many have resided and have conducted official business there.

But why is this feast so significant that it supersedes the Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time? Prolific author and gifted homilist William J. Bausch suggests that this feast underscores the catholicity or universality of Christianity (Once upon a Gospel, Twenty-Third Publications, New London, Conn.: 2008). Reminding us of our roots and our center, today's feast celebrates the worldwide fellowship that has marked our past. Today's feast also challenges our "almost pathological individualism and atomistic existence" (Bausch's words) with the truth that we are intended to be a community.

Of singular importance to our Hebrew ancestors, as is reflected in today's first reading, was the time the community of Israel spent in the presence of God in the Jerusalem temple. Ezekiel's description of the temple is comparable to that of Eden and attests to the Jewish conviction that the presence of God is the source and sustainer of all living things. Water, a precious commodity, is featured as flowing from the temple in all directions. This vivid imagery encourages contemporary believers to draw strength, inspiration and healing from their participation in the temple or church worship. With so much to attract our attention elsewhere, we may lose sight of the centricity of the liturgy for our life and well-being. To that end, Ezekiel calls us home today to worship, to God and to one another as a community of faith.

Paul's words, as first shared with the church in Corinth, invite believers to think of the holy place of God's presence in terms of flesh and blood rather than bricks and mortar. You and I, and all who gather, become that holy place by virtue of our drawing together in faith and because of God's promise (through Jesus) to be present. If each of us were to take it to heart, how might that conviction influence our attitude toward our bodies and the bodies of others? Would we desecrate the temple of our body with too much food, too much alcohol, with illicit drugs or smoking or promiscuity? Would we be so quick to harm another through violence? How would we reconcile allowing the temples of God to die from famine, disease, injustice or war? Wouldn't their status as holy places demand our care and our reverence?

It is clear through the actions of Jesus in today's Gospel that we should do something to prevent the pollution of holy people and holy places. The ancient temple was a place of prayer and not of buying and selling, but it had unfortunately become like so many holy places in our world today – a place to prey on the religious sentiment of the faithful in order to make a monetary profit. While reminding his contemporaries of the purpose of the temple, Jesus also used the occasion to teach that in him, a new meeting place for God was being established. Destroyed in death, he would nevertheless rise, and in his dying and rising, Jesus has become the holy person and the sacred place where God and humankind come together.

Remembrance Day November 11

Canadians pause today in silence to remember those who died in war and to pray for the victims of aggression and inhumanity throughout the world.

This is a day to pray for peace, to consider what we are doing as individuals, as a community and as a nation to bring God's peace into the world.

This is a day when a believing community should rededicate itself by prayer and action to the ideals Jesus gives us in the beatitudes. Lest we forget!

May all our beloved dead, especially

Tuesday, Nov. 11

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Angelina Manarin

Wednesday, Nov. 12

St. Josaphat

8:30 a.m. - † Diniz Raposo

Thursday, Nov. 13

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Anna Fung

Friday, Nov. 14

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Gertrude Fornarolo

. . . find eternal rest and refreshment in the glorious Kingdom of heaven. . . We pray . . . . For those of our community and our families who have died and for all those who have been buried from this place of worship during the past year. . . We pray. . . .

All those who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for the sick . . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those in hospitals, nursing homes or confined to their homes by illness or infirmity . . . for those who feel forgotten . . . for all care-givers . . . We pray . . . .

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, November 16, 2008

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Looking Back – Looking Forward – Living Today!

November invites us to stand on the threshold where two liturgical years meet, and to look back at the ending year with gratitude and ahead at the new year with hope. As we remember the past and anticipate the future, the sacred authors remind us that all is gift. This fact is enunciated quite clearly by a parable in the Gospel of Matthew that stands in the very centre of November.

In the Nov. 16 narrative, Jesus tells of a man who gave each of his servants a share of his possessions before departing on a journey, challenging us to consider ourselves in a similar light. In the interim between Jesus' two advents, each of us has been entrusted by Jesus with a special gift that we are to tend, and for which we shall be called to render an account.

Among the most important of these gifts is that eternal aspect of ourselves called soul (Nov. 2). This soul is created to live forever and will survive every struggle, even our death. Because of Jesus' unconditional love for sinners, this soul will forever enjoy the company of all those holy souls for whom living was an opportunity to love and serve God and others as faithfully as possible. As we remember all those holy souls this month, we thank God for the gift of anticipation; one day, we shall encounter all who have gone before us.

Besides our reunions with family and friends, we shall meet our ancestral guides, among them Ezekiel (Nov. 9, 23) and Isaiah (Nov. 30), whose words have made God real for us. God is shepherd, they tell us and we are the sheep who are to gather with God and one another. God is Father and Mother, they have told us, and this gift of parental love makes us brothers and sisters to one another. God is the potter, they remind us, and we who are clay are to be pliable in God's hands, able to bend to God's will, willing to be shaped and moulded by God's ways.

This month we shall also meet the four evangelists and Paul. Together, they have been our weekly mentors, offering good example and inspiration so that we might carry Sunday's faith into every other day of the week. Besides the gift of soul, we also celebrate this month the gift of God's presence in time and space. God has become one of us in Jesus, and the incarnated divine presence, when made welcome, can make every place a sacred space. We are to revere that presence in all those people and places where God chooses to be revealed and experienced.

Besides those great temples (Nov. 9) where the presence of God is sometimes more obvious, Jesus has chosen also to disguise his divine presence in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the ill, the immigrant, the imprisoned, the homeless, the addict, the depressed, the tormented, the insane (Nov. 23). All these are temples too, gifts where the presence of God awaits our discovery. In our giving to these, we best revere the God who chooses to be revealed in them. We also become our best selves, for it is in giving and loving that spirituality develops and faith deepens. Along with the gifts of soul and the all-pervasive divine presence, our brother Jesus has entrusted each of us with gifts that we are to discover, develop and share with others. Some we are born with; others we learn; still others we adopt and make our own. At times we need help in order to recognize and realize the gifts God gives us. What we may not do is neglect to use our gifts by burying them in fear, self-doubt or selfishness.

Therefore, if careful listening is your gift, listen you must. If it is sharing a smile or a funny story, then smile and share you must. If your gift is knowing how to speak effectively to power, then speak you must. If sending cards or e-mails or making friendly phone calls is your gift, then communicate you must. If it is just being there to encourage and reassure people, then present you must be.

If changing the direction of a conversation gone gossipy is among your talents, then change you must. If tending to the sick is your forte, then tend you must. If it is teaching, then teach; if it is singing, then sing; if it is cooking, then cook. In all we are and all we have, all is gift.

Therefore, it seems appropriate to release the liturgical year now ending and welcome the new one now beginning with words made memorable by former U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld: "For all that has been, thanks! For all that will be, yes!"

May all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Nov. 18

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Creighton Begy

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 19

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Deceased Members of the Nidoy and Austriaco Families

THURSDAY, Nov. 20

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Lilian Deveau

FRIDAY, Nov. 21

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Magdalena Johannes and Akoysius Ng

that all may live again in the presence of the God of limitless love . . . for all who have gone before us and for those who are living in the shadow of grief . . . We pray . . . .

All those who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for the sick . . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those in hospitals, nursing homes or confined to their homes by illness or infirmity . . . for those who feel forgotten . . . for all care-givers . . . We pray . . . .

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, November 23, 2008

FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

Last Sunday of the Liturgical Year

For all the ordinary Sundays of the past 12 months we have been reading the Gospel of Matthew. We conclude today not with Matthew's stories of Jesus' death and of the empty tomb, for those we read during the Triduum. We conclude with what Matthew must have seen as the summing up, the 10 or so sentences that – if you couldn't read the whole Gospel – would give it to you in a nutshell.

In the whole telling of his Gospel, Matthew puts this text at the end of Jesus' years of preaching and travelling and wonder-working. He puts it immediately before his telling of how a certain woman came uninvited to the home where Jesus was a dinner guest, and how she anointed his feet and his head with costly ointment, and how, when the disciples complained about all this, Jesus told them: She has anointed me for my burial. So then Matthew can go directly to the story of Jesus' passion and death.

It is still true: If you can't find time to read all of Matthew's Gospel, just read the last part of Chapter 25 as we proclaim it today. For here, Jesus tells us, is what it comes down to. Imagine that the whole world is assembled, and angels too, and sentence will be passed. And what will be the terms by which we are to be welcomed to God's love forever or forever banished? Amazingly, it has nothing to do with religion! Nothing about being baptized, nothing about praying, nothing about contributing to the support of the church, nothing about paying attention to the homily. Those called to glory are called because they fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, took care of the sick and visited people in prison.

Are you shocked? Well hold onto your hats – they didn't do any of these things because they thought it would win them points. In fact, we have no idea why they did such things. The story doesn't tell us. We are left to wonder: Did they feed the hungry because they didn't think of food as something that "belongs" to any one of us, but as something that is always for those who need it? Did they care for the sick and welcome strangers because not to do so would make the world harsh and cold for everyone? Did they visit the prisoners because the prisoners couldn't visit them?

We simply do not know. We only know that they didn't do it to "win," to keep the rules or to please someone.

And thus we end this year of reading Matthew's Gospel with a hard story. It is for us and our conversations and imaginations to think how it should be heard in a time when so much about our world, the large world and the everyday world, has changed. Would we still ask: When did we see you hungry? When thirsty? When in jail?

As church, we turn next Sunday to Advent. But turn this corner with the story and the questions from Matthew's Gospel.

May all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Nov. 25

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Robert Kirk

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Paul Fung

THURSDAY, Nov. 27

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Maria and Rosario Romagnvolo

FRIDAY, Nov. 28

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Daniel Jude Florentino

. . . find eternal rest and refreshment in the glorious Kingdom of heaven. . . . We pray. . .

All those who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for the sick . . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those in hospitals, nursing homes or confined to their homes by illness or infirmity . . . for those who feel forgotten . . . for all care-givers . . . We pray . . . .

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, November 30, 2008

NEW BEGINNINGS

First Sunday of Advent
"Stay Awake"

  

Like a blank page eager to receive the pen, the new liturgical year stands before us, waiting to see what we shall do and who we shall become. Only God knows what is ahead, and the spirit of the Advent season invites believers to allow the blank page to be filled not by their own plans and determinations but by the word and will of God.

This is not an easy feat for those who take great satisfaction in carefully organizing their days and nights. With PDA or BlackBerry in hand, many approach life as a project with certain goals that must be accomplished in a given amount of time. Of course, there is nothing wrong with living carefully, but with regard to God and the spiritual life, the mentors of Advent call us to cultivate another attitude.

Mary, who probably had other plans for herself and Joseph, was called to allow God to rewrite her story. Her own version of her future surely did not include being a mother before marriage, but God's draft for her life took her on a path that included unexpected difficulties.

The life and ideas of John, son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, were similarly redirected. Initially, John seemed to envision himself as a reformer who was to prepare the way for the messiah who would lead Judah to victory over its oppressors. But God, in Jesus, made it clear that John's involvement would make ready the path of a messiah who would suffer for the victory he would achieve. As Jesus' precursor, John would have the page of his life abbreviated, cut short by his death at Herod's hands. Jesus, too, certainly had his own ideas about his messiah-ship, but he allowed God to dictate these ideas and the manner in which he would live out his short life. Like Mary, Joseph and John the Baptizer, Jesus submitted his curriculum vitae to God's editing.

Now let us shift from this author/editor symbolism to another image, one that the prophet Isaiah in the first reading brings forth for our inspiration – the potter and the clay. When a potter takes an amorphous lump of clay to the wheel, it is the potter who moulds and shapes and spins and scrapes until what is conceived in her mind's eye begins to find its form and function. Then it is the potter who places his handiwork in the kiln, where it is fired and given a certain permanency.

So it is with life. While we human beings are not exactly amorphous lumps of clay, our wills are nevertheless subject to a greater will and a keener vision. Through the experiences of living, giving and growing, the divine potter helps to shape our hearts, our minds, our wills. Through the suffering and struggles of life's kiln, purification comes. Motivation becomes purer. Integrity becomes firmer. Faith becomes deeper. Hope grows stronger and love finds its greatest intensity. Both images clearly state that another is calling the shots and forming the future.

In today's second reading, Paul refers to the work of the divine editor on our life stories, and to the efforts of the potter on the clay, as grace. Grace enriches the believer, insists Paul, with every good gift. Grace confirms the knowledge of Christ and the good news of salvation within us and invites our authentic witness to the same. Grace empowers change and growth and new beginnings. Grace enables independent and self-sufficient human beings to allow God to write the script. Grace allows God to throw and fire the pot and to decide how it will be used. Above all, grace helps us to prepare for the moment of our ultimate encounter with the divine editor and potter, whenever that moment will come.

Mark, in today's Gospel, reminds us that while we cannot know when, we do know how we are to prepare – through watchful waiting. Inherent to our watchful waiting is a daily willingness to submit the copy and the clay of our lives to God.

While we cannot know what God may choose to write on the pages of this new liturgical year before us, and we may not know how God will shape the clay that is our life, we do know some things with certainty: Ours is a loving and merciful God. Ours is a God who sees us in all we are, in all we do. Ours is a God who gives new life and new beginnings to all who call out in hope.

May all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Dec. 2

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Michael Cummins

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 3

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Glenn Vardy

THURSDAY, Dec. 4

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Mary Waychison

FRIDAY, Dec. 5

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Georgina Aprile

. . . find eternal rest and refreshment in the glorious Kingdom of heaven. . . . We pray, O God. . .Thy kingdom come. . .

All those who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for the sick . . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those in hospitals, nursing homes or confined to their homes by illness or infirmity . . . for those who feel forgotten . . . for all care-givers . . . We pray, O God ...Thy kingdom come . . . .