“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” Is 61.1-2a

Dear parishioners,

Few things are more apt to put us into the mood of Christmas than this reminder, from Isaiah, of the reasons why the Son of God became man. Christmas is all about joyful anticipation of the deliverance, the redemption, the salvation which the child in the manger will bring about as his life in the human condition unfolds. Much to celebrate.

So how will we celebrate Christmas? With the new restrictions currently in place and extended to January 8th, we’ve had to give up on our hope of having a Christmas Eve mass for vulnerable parishioners, and of organizing church “walk-throughs” Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve. Here is what we will do instead, given that we can not celebrate mass with people in attendance, and that there must never be more than ten people in the church at any given time.

On December 24th, we will have, in addition to the regular 9:00 a.m. mass, the Christmas Eve mass at 4:00 p.m., live streamed. Immediately after mass, we will expose the Blessed Sacrament, and have benediction at 8:00 p.m., all live streamed from 4:00 until 8:00 with Christmas music playing to set the tone for adoration.

On December 25th, we will have the two live streamed masses at 11:15 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

On December 31st, we will have, in addition to the 9:00 a.m. morning mass, the mass of anticipation for New Year’s Day at 4:00 p.m. Both live streamed. As on Christmas Eve, the Blessed Sacrament will be exposed after the 4:00 p.m. live streamed mass, and there will be live streamed adoration until Benediction at 8:00 p.m.

On January 1st, we will celebrate the 11:15 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. masses, both live streamed.

In order to provide as many opportunities as possible for people to come to church for confessions and/or personal prayer, the church will be open from 7:00-8:00 p.m., from Sunday December 20th until Thursday January 7, with the exception of December 24th and 25th, and December 31st and January 1st. Pre-registration will be required, so that we can keep the number of people in the church at any time at fewer than ten.

Also, effective Tuesday December 22 until Thursday January 7th, and for the benefit of those who don’t like to venture out of their homes after dark, we will offer daytime hours of confessions and personal prayer. In addition to the already existing Sunday 1:00-2:00 p.m. timeslot, we will add two others, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:00-11:00 a.m. Again pre-registration will be required.

Throughout this period, with the exception of December 25th and January 1st, where there is no 9:00 a.m. mass, the current schedule of live streamed masses remains:

Sundays, 11:15 and 3:00 p.m.

Monday to Saturday, 9:00 a.m.

Reminder: Beginning already this coming Wednesday, December 16th, we will be live streaming the Simbang Gabi masses every morning at 6:00 a.m.!

This schedule will be posted on all our sites, in simplified form, hopefully, effective this Sunday December 13th.

We think that this approach to Christmas is safe, that it respects the public health directives in place until January 8th, and that it is in keeping with the stated desire of the Archdiocese that we multiply opportunities for confession and access to the church for personal prayer.

Our beautiful blue lights, together with those installed by the Knights, are up and shining. They are intended by the archdiocese as a gesture of solidarity with all those for whom this will be a “blue Christmas” for Covid-related reasons, people who have lost a loved one to Covid, people whose loved ones have tested positive and whom they can’t even be with because they are in long term care homes, and so many others. They are also intended as testimony to “Jesus, our living hope” – born of the Virgin Mary, hence the colour blue. And for us of course at St. Mary’s, they are more than fitting given our belonging to Mary! Come around and have a look after dark. It’s truly worth the trip.

A bit of bad news. Our celebration of the Immaculate Conception in the beauty of Psalm 98 singing and the projection of the Living Rosary that was to follow were derailed, due to insuperable technical difficulties. So we celebrated the Immaculate Conception in simplicity instead, which I’m sure was as pleasing to Mary as beauty. As for the Living Rosary, it’s posted on Youtube. There is a direct link to the video on all our sites: parish website, Instagram page, Facebook page, and bulletin.

Parish Advance. Eighteen more days to give! We are at a total of $51,000 in rebates. Eight per cent of parishioners have donated. Every penny you give comes back to the parish, and will help carry us over this period when for the second time our income from envelopes is down to near zero. Let’s rally together and raise our rate of participation to somewhere over 10%. I’m pretty sure that would constitute a record. To all those who have contributed thus far, thank you and God bless you.

St. Mary’s elementary school is now accepting applications for Kindergarten, 2021-2022. You can apply online on the school’s website.

I think that’s pretty well it for this week. Prompted by St. Paul’s beautiful exhortation in this Sunday’s second reading, let us resolve that in this Christmas season so compromised by Covid-19, we will nonetheless “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.” Cf. 1 Th 5,16

God keep us all safe and well, Fr. Guy