“This is the commandment of God, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another.” 1 Jn 1,3

Dear parishioners, 

It’s just that simple. This is John’s answer to the age-old question: “How ought we to live?” On this Holy Family Sunday we turn naturally to our own families, take stock, wonder how we are doing, how we might do better as a family. The letter of John provides us with a delightfully simple answer: “Believe in Jesus, and just love one another.” And he adds that to the extent that we live in this way, God abides in us as a family and we abide in him. There can be in fact no greater peace, tinged with happiness, than to live our family life in faith and hope in Jesus, in love, and in the abiding sense that God is with us and that we are with him, always. It is my prayer, as we venture into a New Year, that all of our families will be graced by the Holy Spirit with this faith and love and certainty of God’s presence to them that results in a peace that nothing can conquer.

Apart from the inspiration above from Scripture, my main message today is one of thanks. We have a deep debt of gratitude toward all our liturgical ministries that have worked double-time to make our Christmas celebrations everything that they could be. The ushers, the sacristans, the ministers of the eucharist, the lectors, the choirs, the altar-servers, the church decorators. They all worked double-time so that we could gather as many times as possible to lessen the number of people in attendance each time we gather. I want to mention especially the coordinators of each of these groups, who really had to scramble to find people for each mass. They are Steven Colon, for the ushers, Zeny Trainor, Gleceria Fomalin, Angelina Lim, Daisy Descallar, our principal sacristans, Rene Montilla and Susan Fontanilla for the eucharistic ministers, Tess Sumagui for the lectors, Susan Diewold for the choirs, Erwin Mau for the altar-servers, Myra Cabalfin for the church decoration, and last but not least Rose Pillay, our over-all liturgy coordinator. I pray that God will reward them one hundredfold for all they do for us.

There is a bit of an urgent need at the Men’s Hostel, given the cold spell that is coming. They have reached out to our Catholic Street Ministry and Catholic Street Missionaries for help in order to be able to stay open during the day from now till January 6th. If this is something you would be in a position to help with, call Mildred at 778-885-9611 or email her at [email protected]. 

It came as a complete surprise to me that our Padre Pio Prayer group is still alive and active online during this pandemic. They have two online monthly activities: a Bible study on the third Thursday of the month, from 7-8 pm., and a monthly catechesis, coupled with the prayer of the Rosary, on the first Saturday of the month, from 7-8:30 p.m. For details, links, and passwords, just email [email protected] Please note that the January catechesis has been moved to Saturday January 8th.

Finally, one last mention of Project Advance before the year closes. I want to say firstly, on behalf of the archdiocese, thank you for your incredible generosity again this year. And secondly, a reminder that everything you contribute to Project Advance between now and December 31st comes straight back to the parish, and is moved to our building fund.

I conclude this pastor’s corner with the very predictable prayer that God will keep us all safe and well during this festive season and beyond.

Fr. Guy