“What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?

I will lift up the cup of salvation,

I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice and call on the name of the Lord.”Ps 116

Dear parishioners,

Today’s psalm 116 is very dear to me, for reasons I will share with you in Sunday’s homily

For now, just a few things to report.

Firstly, and importantly, you can read the full text of Archbishop Miller’s “Statement of Apology and Expression of Commitment”, issued on June 2nd in reaction to the discovery of the children’s graves at the Kamloops Residential School by clicking here.

We still can’t pass a basket around to gather your offerings, but we do have a drop-box, fastened to the last pew in the centre aisle, where you can deposit your envelopes.

Please note that the evening mass on Wednesday June 16th will not be available for in-person attendance since we will be celebrating the St. Mary’s School grade 7 farewell mass. Also, there will be no evening mass at all on Wednesday and Thursday, June 23rd and 24th, as we will be celebrating the St. Mary’s School grade 7 confirmations.

A change: given the dramatic drop in demand, we will no longer offer drive-through communion after Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evening masses. We will continue to offer drive-through communion after the Sunday 11:15 and 3:00 p.m. masses.

You still have until June 23rd to purchase tickets for our 50/50 online raffle. The jackpot is currently standing at $8850! You can find the page for ticket purchases on the parish website. All proceeds go to the building fund. For more information or assistance, contact Teresa Lung at 604-802-0890 or at [email protected]. You can also access the page directly at stmarysschool.rafflenexus.com/a/specialpurchase

Speaking of financial contributions, while we are only launching our Project Advance campaign in September, people have already begun to contribute. Just a reminder before we head into summer: our target this year is $97,000. Everything we receive above this amount will be returned to the parish. Again this year, we are playing it safe by simply holding on to these funds until we’ve recovered at least most, if not all, of our pre-pandemic parish income. For the month of May, we were at about 62% of our pre-pandemic income. We’re making it, thanks to your generosity and, for the time being, thanks to the federal wage subsidy. The crunch will come when the wage subsidy is discontinued, and if our collection income doesn’t recover to compensate for the loss of the wage subsidy. As a measure of prudence, we will keep the Project Advance rebates until such time as our income recovers. At that point, we will transfer what is left of the Project Advance rebates to the building fund. For more information on this year’s campaign, and for a promotional video featuring Archbishop Miller, go to www.projectadvance.ca More on this in September.

Finally, I need to repeal a suggestion I made last week. I suggested that if on a Friday, you check the pre-registration page for masses the following week and there are spots available, you can disregard our request that you sign up for only one Sunday mass per month and one weekday mass per week. But I was wrong. I thought that the pre-registration page for all masses the following week came down on Saturday. But it doesn’t, and people can sign up for a mass basically until the day before. So please, I ask again that for the time being, you please sign up for only one Sunday mass per month, and one weekday mass per week. Sorry about that.

This weekend, we have re-opened three new Sunday masses. Next weekend, we will re-open all the Sunday masses except for the 9:30 a.m. This is because we have insufficient time between the Sunday morning masses for people to leave and arrive without crossing paths. We are toying with a slight change to the schedule to resolve this problem, but we want to be reasonably sure, before we make a change, that it will be for the better. Pray for our proper discernment!

I believe that’s it for this week. God keep us all safe and well until this is over! 

Fr. Guy