Dear parishioners,

In a leap of faith and hope that we won’t be shut down in the coming weeks, we have drawn up a schedule for Advent and Christmas. You will find it on all our platforms – parish website, Instagram page, Facebook page, and parish bulletin. Those of you who are on our cluster of email addresses will receive it in that way as well. We’re putting the final touches on our planning for Advent and Christmas at a meeting Saturday November 14th, so the schedule should be posted everywhere very shortly after that.

Please read it very carefully, as these are not usual times, so there is much in this event schedule that is out of the ordinary. I just want to draw your attention here to a few points: 

  1. There will be no 7:00 p.m. mass on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

  2. Pre-registration will be required for the special confession times. 

  3. In the spirit of doing something special for those who are prevented from ever attending mass because they are either elderly or vulnerable or both, in person attendance at the Christmas Eve mass will be reserved exclusively for them, so that they can attend in safety. For this reason, attendance at this mass has to be on invitation only. Therefore, there will be no general pre-registration offered for attendance at this mass, and there will be no admission of people standing outside, hoping to get in, even if there are fewer than fifty people in the church. The reason for this seemingly harsh policy is again, that for the safety of the elderly/vulnerable people in the church, they must be the only people in the church.

Since we are headed into winter, darkness, rain, and who knows, perhaps something that will look more and more like a lockdown, I want to focus today on resources for faith formation.

Firstly, online resources.

Most of you are familiar by now with Formed.org, so this is just a reminder that we are subscribed to Formed.org as a parish, and that it is very much appreciated by our parishioners who use it. Note that the parish password is no longer necessary. You just have to indicate that you are a parishioner of St. Mary’s, and provide your email address. Fuller information on the process for accessing Formed.org is available on all our sites.

We have just placed a link on our parish website to Shalom World TV, an online international Catholic television channel that appears also to be an excellent resource. To access it, just go to our parish website, stmarysvancouver.ca, and go down to the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, where you will see a yellow circle. Click on it, and you’re in.

The Search is an innovative video series that tackles the key questions of every human heart. In seven beautifully filmed episodes, Chris Stefanick and experts from multiple fields of science, medicine, psychology, art, and religion examine our place in the larger story of existence. You’ll find a lot to think about. The seven-video series began on Nov. 5 and is airing every Thursday, 7:00-8:30 p.m. until December 17th. Register online for free at thesearch.rcav.org and receive a free one-year personal subscription to Formed.

Secondly, resources on paper. We will continue to make the monthly edition of Living With Christ available at the entrance to the church. We will likewise distribute freely the Christmas edition. We will post a recommended offering for the Sunday edition for 2020-2021, as it costs us quite a bit more than the monthly and Christmas editions. Finally, two resources will be available for Advent, hopefully, effective next Sunday.

Some of you are no doubt aware of other excellent resources online or otherwise. Please share those resources with other parishioners by sending information to Lorna ([email protected]) and she will see to it that this information is posted on all our platforms.

Finally, in the hope that it will increase the odds of our being able to celebrate Advent and Christmas together, at least up to a point, please follow the public health guidelines!


Breaking news! Just before I sent this out, we received a letter from the Archbishop addressed to all Catholics, asking everyone to wear masks to church, and asking that there be no more communion on the tongue. Read the full letter on all our sites some time soon.


Keep safe and God bless,

Fr. Guy