“In Christ you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.” Ep 1,13.14

Dear parishioners,

In today’s beautiful gospel and second reading, Jesus speaks to us of what it is to be an apostle, and Paul speaks to us of what it is to be a Christian. All beautiful, but more on this in this Sunday’s homily.

As usual, I just want to share with you a few things.

First, some great news. The archbishop has informed us that in conformity with Canon law, he has offered his resignation as archbishop to Pope Francis, who responded by asking him to stay on for three more years! We are very blessed.

The archbishop has postponed to July 17/18 the reinstatement of Sunday obligation. He will issue a decree on this this week. We will try to make it available on all our sites as soon as we receive it.  

Those of you who are attending mass in person will have noticed that there are no hymnals in the pews. This is because we’re not yet comfortable with multiple persons touching the same hymnals and with congregational singing to which hymnals in the pews are an invitation. There are also no Living with Christ Sunday missals in the pews. This is, again, because we’re not yet comfortable with multiple persons touching the same missals, but even more basically because when we were shut down in November 2020, we felt the best thing to do was to distribute the Sunday and weekday missals so that people can at least make use of them at home, rather than having them sit idle here in church. To compensate for their absence until the next liturgical year which begins with Advent, we will project the readings for the mass on Sundays, along with the Creed. If this should prove to be impossible because our projectors are no longer up to the task, we are working on a plan to replace our projectors, finances permitting.

Finally, it is the hobby of one of our parishioners to create greeting cards. She has created a certain number of lovely cards which she wishes to share with her fellow parishioners. You will find them alongside the parish bulletins as you exit the church at this Sunday’s masses. Thank you to this parishioner who wishes to remain anonymous!

As our ever-expanding percentage of fully vaccinated Canadians gives wings to our hope for a return to a normal life, a life without fear of infection for ourselves and for those we love, let us please remember in our daily prayer those among us who are fighting for their lives in ICU’s, and the millions in other countries who are still waiting for a first shot. May God deliver them all from this pandemic.

Fr. Guy