Dear parishioners,

This week is mostly, I think, a repetition of things I’ve communicated to you in my last pastor’s corner, but I’ve come to understand and accept just how important repetition is.

Firstly, a reminder that effective this coming Monday, August 24th at 9:00 a.m., you will be able to pre-register for the following five Sunday masses: Saturday mass of anticipation at 5:00 p.m., and for the 8:00 a.m., 11:15 a.m., 3:00 p.m., and 7:00 p.m. masses on Sunday. The manner of pre-registration remains the same, by going onto the mass-registration page on our parish website, or by calling the parish office and dialing extension 0, to speak to Lorna. Again a reminder, you cannot pre-register simply by leaving a message in Lorna’s voice mailbox. If you leave a message, be sure to leave your phone number so that she can get back to you. Your registration to attend any given mass has to be confirmed with you by Lorna, or by Marianne, her assistant. Again on the topic of Sunday masses, we continue to ask that you register for only one Sunday mass per month, so as to provide an opportunity to as many people as possible to attend Sunday mass. Also, you must register for every single mass you wish to attend. No standing orders.

A second reminder: effective Saturday August 29th at the 5:00 p.m. mass, we will be asking people attending all masses to disinfect the area that they have occupied in the pew. This is to lighten the load of the ushers. To this end, we will place a disinfectant spray bottle and a roll of paper towels in each pew. And we ask that you end by disinfecting the bottle itself, since someone else will be using it after you. The soiled paper towels can be discarded in the bins at the three exits, along with gloves and masks. Also to lighten the ushers’ load, the bathrooms remain closed, although in a bind, just speak to one of the ushers. They will open the bathroom for you.

A third reminder: effective Monday August 31st, when you go to our parish website to pre-register online for attendance at mass, you will find a new sign-up page called “signedupgenius.com”. It is attractive, easy to use, much easier to manage, and doesn’t have the glitches that we are experiencing with our current registration page. In addition, when you register on this page, you will receive an automatic email reply, confirming that you have successfully registered.

Good news: we have crossed the threshold of 1000 subscriptions to our Youtube account! This means that effective now, we will receive a dividend from Youtube based on the amount of time people spend watching stuff on our Youtube page! We’ll let you know as time goes on just how much we are earning. In the meantime, keep on viewing our stuff!

I checked just before writing this, and the link to Formed.org is still on our parish website. If you haven’t already done so, please check it out. There is ample information as to the sorts of resources that you can access on Formed.org, as well as very clear instructions as to how to log on to this excellent source of faith formation.

Yet another reminder: by registering as a parishioner on our parish website, you are automatically placed on a cluster of email addresses and will receive, among other things, my pastor’s corner every week, without even having to look for it. It will come to you. Many questions are asked of you when you register, but the only fields that you must fill in are your name and email address.

We are officially launching this year’s Project Advance campaign in September, but I can say a few words here. There is a novelty to this year’s campaign: we will have our very own parish Project Advance website. It will go up on September 1st, and will contain all the information you need to know about our parish goal, our parish project, and where we are at in terms of pledges or donations already made, along with information on how to make a pledge and/or an online donation. As soon as we know what the address of this website is, we will make it known to you. The great news at this early date is that we are virtually certain to surpass our parish goal, that is to say, the amount we have to send to the Archdiocese, since our goal is $74,500, and we are already at over $60,000 in pledges made! Everything we contribute to Project Advance above and beyond $74,500 comes back to the parish. More on Project Advance when we make our official launch in September.

I take this opportunity to say thanks and God bless to all those who are able to, and are contributing financially to the parish either through the use of envelopes or online. Your generosity, together with the federal wage subsidy and significantly reduced expenditures are what is making it possible for us to stay afloat. God bless you all. On the same topic, while we can not pass the collection baskets around in church because of the pandemic, we have chained a very solid wooden box to the last pew in the centre aisle, into which you can deposit Sunday offering envelopes or any form of contribution.

Finally, a reminder to all who are prevented from attending mass at all because they are compromised or live with someone who is, we are available to take communion to you on request. Just call the parish office and dial 0 for the reception. I suspect that many of the people in such a situation are also people who typically don’t access our various sites and therefore don’t receive this message directly. Word of mouth is the only other way, so please, if you know anyone who is in this situation, let them know of our availability.

May God bless you and keep you all safe as we all venture warily back to school and work.

Fr. Guy