“When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Jn 12,33

Dear parishioners,

Jesus’ beautiful words in today’s gospel are a reminder of his passion, death, and resurrection that we will celebrate in just two weeks time, and of their consequences – we will all be drawn to himself. By the grace of God, may our celebration of the Holy Triduum be like never before. May it open our hearts and minds more widely to the beauty of this mystery.

Nothing has been announced yet, so we’re not in a position to tell you just how we will celebrate the Triduum. What we do know is that by and large, we will be celebrating at home, as a domestic church. At best, we will be gathering, as before, in person, in groups of 50 people. At worst, it will be as it is now, online, with walk-throughs and half-hour times for confession and receiving communion. As soon as we know what the situation will be, we will communicate it to you.

Today is the annual national collection for Development and Peace. If you are in a position to do so, please make a donation either by using an envelope or online on either one of our two sites, CanadaHelps.org and the RCAV site, or even by going directly to the Development and Peace website. Again this year, all funds destined for the developing world will be devoted to supporting local groups that are helping people recover from the Covid pandemic. A very worthy, very important cause.

I haven’t a lot to report this week, and I haven’t expressed acknowledgement in a long time, so today, I would like to send out thanks.

Thank you to those who are continuing to contribute to the parish so generously online, or by coming to the rectory once a week to drop off an envelope. Together with the federal wage subsidy, you are keeping us afloat. Thank you and God bless you for your perseverant support to the parish, even when we are basically shut down.

Thank you to the live streamers. In fact, next Sunday, which is Palm Sunday, we celebrate the one-year anniversary of live streaming at St. Mary’s! God bless them all, for their enthusiasm. As it happens, they are using this anniversary to “up” our live streaming a notch or two. They are making arrangements to make our live streaming much more widely accessible. More on this later.

Thank you to the ushers. They are legion, and they are faithful. We owe them so much. Without them, we would be completely shut down. A special thanks to Andrew Costales, who assumes alone, the enormous task of scheduling them. God bless you all for your generosity, especially going into Holy Week, when we will be calling upon your services quite a bit more, what with walk-throughs and extra communion/confession/prayer times.

Thank you to the sacristans, lectors, two-person choirs, and all the others who make it possible for our liturgical life to go on.

Thank you to the “rump” liturgy team, so ably headed by Rose Pillay, who, with much devotion, have planned our Ash Wednesday and Lenten practices, and are now planning, as best they can, a most uncertain Holy Week and Easter Triduum.

Thank you for our flower ministry team, who have already started working double-time to make our church beautiful for the Holy Triduum.

Thank you to our staff, who accept to work as much as possible from home, so as to minimize the odds of transmission here at the office. Thank you to Marianne, who exposes herself to a multitude of people every day so that we can remain open to the people.

Thank you to all our ministries that are doing whatever it takes to keep the ministry alive.

Finally, thanks to all those who have showered me with gifts and cards and beautiful words as I celebrated my birthday this week. I couldn’t understand why I was receiving so much attention this year, until I learned that the news of my birthday was made very public on Instagram and Facebook! It simply won’t be possible for me to thank personally all those who have emailed me, so I take this opportunity to thank you all. Your gestures are so very affirming. And please, a little prayer for me.

Just one thing to announce. Mildred has organized a talk by Mary Wagner on Tuesday, April 6th, that’s the Tuesday after Easter, at 7:30 p.m. You will find the information on how to pre-register for this online event on our parish website, and on our Instagram and Facebook pages. Mary Wagner is a person who has basically decided to lay down her life out of love for the unborn. She will share her faith journey with us on April 4.

God bless us and keep us all safe as we head into the holiest week of the year, just seven days from now.

Fr. Guy