Parish Bulletin for Sunday, September 2, 2007

22nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

A Message from Father Tom

Welcome back to all who have been on vacation and welcome as well to the new faces I have seen over the summer. It is hard to believe we are entering into the home stretch of summer, with all of its particular joys and freedom from routines. School begins next week and summer vacations become the memories we can savour over the coming months.

It has been a busy time for the parish and I am hoping as you read this that you have seen our latest project – the skylights – replaced and leak-free once more. September also brings us to that time when we prepare - prepare for the sacraments of initiation with our parish children, prepare with adults who come to see who we are and prepare once again to celebrate Sunday together with renewed and replenished energy and joy.

Once again, I will be facilitating reflection sessions during Advent and Lent. It appears that you enjoy coming together to explore what Good News we can discover together! You also enjoyed the sessions with Odilie Gaudet, who has graciously offered to return once more in late September. As we enter into this coming season, may we be open to the gift of the Spirit, calling us into new growth and deeper relationship with the Lord.

What is a parable?

Over the next few weeks, we will explore the Gospels of Luke as he proclaims some of the more well-known parables Jesus told. What makes a parable a parable is this: After the teller has gotten us on familiar ground, the ground gives way. Stay tuned for more!

TUESDAY, Sept. 4

Weekday

8:30 a.m. – Intention: Thanksgiving

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 5

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Nelson Uartions Raposo

THURSDAY, Sept. 6

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Enrique Alesna

FRIDAY, Sept. 7

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Murray Vallance

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Parish Bulletin for Sunday, September 9, 2007

23rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

"What is a Parable?"

Luke's Gospel is full of the stories Jesus told, the stories we call parables. What happens in parables? "Parable" isn't simply a word for any story Jesus told. They are a particular kind of story whether told by Jesus or someone else. The teller of the parable takes us into the story in a way that makes us nod our heads: "Yes, isn't that the truth." We are on familiar ground and we think we understand where this is going. Then, sometimes very briefly, sometimes at great length, Jesus takes us down interesting and very familiar steps of the story.

What makes a parable a parable is this: After the teller has gotten us on familiar ground, the ground gives way. The story stops going where we thought, no, where we were comfortable for it to go. All of a sudden, in a good parable told by the Master Storyteller, Jesus, we are drawn in hook, line and sinker!

The story is really about us. We have been carefully nodding our heads in agreement as if the parable -teller was supporting us on the surface of the water as we paddle along like little children and then the parable-teller somehow lets us go, and we have to sink or swim. That is the work of a good parable: to take us into something familiar and then pull the rug out so that we can see what is really at stake.

When Jesus told these parables to his disciples or to the people who came to listen to him or to those who came to test him or to each one of us as we listen to them proclaimed in the Gospel, it isn't just you or me as an individual being drawn into the story so that it is easy to back out quietly and ignore the intent of the story. No, it is the group itself, this church that we are, that is challenged to change its way of understanding how life in discipleship is really to be lived. Each of us listens here, each of us willing to go where the story goes. Parables – Jesus – challenges us and we are called to act. The story leaves us in the middle and we must, as church, find our way out. Why? Because parables are like that.

Think about the stories that are so familiar to us – parables about behaviour at a wedding banquet, about what to do before you build a tower or go into battle, about a person who owns 100 sheep and loses one of them, a woman who has 10 coins until one of them is lost, a father who has two very different sons, a landowner who fires his manager and how the manager quickly settles accounts with those who owe money to the landowner, a rich man and a poor man and their fate in this world and the next. Listen to them with new ears and a renewed heart.

TUESDAY, Sept. 11

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Gertude Hannah

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 12

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Samuel Johns

THURSDAY, Sept. 13

St. John Chrysostom

8:30 a.m. – Intention:Thanksgiving, Alda Fereire

FRIDAY, Sept. 14

Triumph of the Cross

8:30 a.m. - † Antoine Arsenault

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, September 16, 2007

24th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Reflection Continued: "The Prodigal Son"

What parent wouldn't nod in agreement when this story begins - "A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, 'I want my share now'? " Same parents, same home, two different personalities. We know the situation well. This is something out of our own lives. The younger son leaves home, lives well for a while, but the money runs out and famine hits his new country. Serves him right, some will be thinking. Hope he has learned his lesson, others may think. Even this younger son realizes that he needs to eat some serious crow in order to get back into his father's farm, even if that means working the fields and admitting that he has done something wrong.

Yet this parable shows us a father who runs to greet his son, hugs and kisses him, kills the fatted calf and rejoices to think he has this son back home. Those who come to this story for the first time may be just a little bit shocked. Wait a minute! What just happened here? This was a good story of a young man who did great wrong to his family as well as to himself and doesn't he really need to be taught a serious lesson about life and consequences? What is this with the hugs and kisses, rings and robes, music and dancing and a banquet no less? Just what kind of example does this set for other young people? And, heaven forbid, what if he decides to do it again? Isn't this the very time for tough love? Doing this kind of thing leads to no good and penance must be done.

And yet Jesus takes us into the very heart of the Gospel message. You can forget penance. You can ditch the wages of sin. What happened to the logical conclusion we were expecting? The kicker to the story comes in the concluding scene with the older son. He is furious - one can almost see him stamping his feet and shouting 'this is not fair.' And we are sympathetic to his position. We can almost hear the older son asking why this brother, who always was a bit spoiled anyway, can come back after wasting all that money and be welcomed with open arms. Here comes the whole point of the story, if we are really paying attention. The father doesn't argue with his older son. He simply tells him the truth. "My son, you are with me always, everything I have is yours. Now we must celebrate and rejoice because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found." For the father, these truths live side by side. For the older brother and for us they often do not.

Once more in this parable we have been led into familiar territory only to find ourselves cut loose and scrambling for footing when the father responds to his older son. If we are honest, we have become engaged in the story and we are now in the position of having to make decisions. We either take the father's demand for joyous celebration as our own attitude, or we have to shrug and mutter, "It just isn't fair". Can we? Are we really able to travel this new path, the path of discipleship? Parables call us to action. They make us think. And there is always a kicker - something we either accept or reject out of hand. That is the work of parables - to take us into something familiar, then pull the rug out and see what's really at stake. Parables open up questions and call us into action in our lives here and now.

TUESDAY, Sept. 18

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Mariano and Conseicao Coziaia

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 19

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Anna Fung

THURSDAY, Sept. 20

St. Andrew Kim and St. Paul Chong

8:30 a.m. - † Fred Northey

FRIDAY, Sept. 21

St. Matthew

8:30 a.m. – Intention: Thanksgiving

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, September 23, 2007

25th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

The Parable of – "The Unjust Steward"

How many of us have seen the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" presented by Al Gore? This documentary is about the consequences of abusing the earth and its resources, consequences brought about by the combination of human ignorance, greed and indifference. We now face a world that holds an excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the effect we now come to recognize as global warming.

Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are losing their natural habitats, severe storms and droughts are much more frequent and the resulting damage is much more catastrophic. The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled in the last 30 years. Global warming has also caused malaria to spread well beyond the tropics to higher altitudes, such as the Columbian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.

Unless this warming is checked, scientists predict that deaths from its effects will double in 25 years to 30,000 people a year. Sea levels could rise more than 20 feet, devastating coastal areas around the world and could result in the extinction of more than a million species by the year 2050! What on this earth can explain such disturbing events? Perhaps we need to look at today's gospel parable with the eyes of people living within this crisis. What accounts for this improper stewardship of an environment belonging to every living being? What explains such apathy toward the well-being of others?

As disciples of Jesus, we must be concerned with practising responsible stewardship – not only of the earth and its resources but also of one another and every living being. In short, we are called to fidelity to the demands of our relationship to the Lord of all. Justice and the stewardship it dictates concerns relationships – relationship with God and in God to all others – to people, to the earth and to all living creatures upon the earth.

Today's story goes to the heart of the Gospel message. It is not only about how we should respond, but about Jesus and what he is doing. This parable reveals Jesus' response to those who attacked him for breaking the law and for claiming to represent the will of God by declaring a reduction of debts and release from sins. Against the accusation of his critics, Jesus reiterated the message of grace, grace and more grace for those whom others deem the least lovable and least worthy. Although this parable features a rogue who is praised by his master, the irony of the story is that Jesus is no rogue at all and for his declaration of grace, Jesus receives God's blessing and approval.

And so today we are left with a few unanswered questions? What did I promise you about parables? Are we just or unjust stewards of this world's resources? Is THE Gospel an Inconvenient Truth or the framework of our call to do justice in the world?

TUESDAY, Sept. 25

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Glen Herron

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 26

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Elizabeth Middlebrook

THURSDAY, Sept. 27

Weekday

8:30 a.m. – Intentions for 59th wedding anniversary

FRIDAY, Sept. 28

Weekday

8:30 a.m. – Intention: Thanksgiving

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, September 30, 2007

26th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Rich Man, Poor Man

If we take today's parable to heart, we understand that the poor are always with us, and, like Lazarus, are as near as our own doorways. The poor live on our city streets and in our neighbourhoods, as well as on the fringes of society. They can either call forth the best part of us or they can be ignored; the choice is ours, as are the consequences of our choosing.

If we are serious about commitment to the poor, we are required not merely to exercise charity, but also, along with the giving and sharing of our resources, to exercise justice. Charity can sometimes be a necessary band-aid, a stop-gap absolutely needed, but stop-gap nonetheless, that satisfies hunger pangs, but does not address the problems causing the needs. Justice is a purposeful, well-planned effort that tackles the problems at their roots and becomes a long-term solution that does not only address the symptoms.

What the Lazaruses in our midst need, therefore, are frequent doses of charity, followed by a long-term dose of justice and just behaviour. Who, you might ask, are the Lazaruses among us? Lazarus lives in the children of this world who are dying each day from war, hunger, abuse, neglect, and diseases that could easily be prevented if their parents had the pennies needed to immunize them. Lazarus lives in the immigrants, refugees, and otherwise displaced persons on this earth for whom the lack of appropriate documents or a valid address subjects them to immoral treatment that is unacceptable to Christians. Lazarus lives in the homeless, many of whom are mentally ill or emotionally scarred victims.

Lazarus lives in those who languish in hospitals, convalescent and nursing homes where no one visits. Lazarus lives in those who suffer from Alzheimer's, dementia, and all those other diseases that rob people of their personalities, memories and dignity. Lazarus lives in the hundreds of thousands of AIDS orphans throughout the world who have no one to care for them. Lazarus lives in the people everywhere who are victims of torture and genocide. He cries out in the unheard screams from Darfur, the Congo, Uganda, Brazil, South America.

Every Lazarus is a child of God, created in God's image. Every Lazarus deserves our respect, our concern and our action to make sure they are cared for. Jesus reached out to foreigners, the sick, the sinners, the criminals and the otherwise disenfranchised of his society. If we who call ourselves his own do not do likewise, then our Christianity is a sham; our faith is a lie. If God can not act through you and me to recognize the Lazaruses who live among us, then through whom will their needs be met? Amen.

TUESDAY, Oct. 2

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Patricia Lane

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 3

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Betty Crocco

THURSDAY, Oct. 4

St. Francis of Assisi

8:30 a.m. - † Joseph Canale

FRIDAY, Oct. 5

Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Nelson Raposo