October 22, 2011
Posted in pastor
at 5:30 pm
Jesus reminds us today of the great commandment of love: love of God and love of neighbour.
God is Love
We must love God with our whole heart, all the time, in little things as well as in big. In his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI emphasizes the unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbour. According to him, “One is closely connected to the other that to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are closed to our neighbour or hate him altogether.” Love of neighbour is, therefore, a “path that leads to the encounter with God that closing our eyes to our neighbour also blinds us to God.”
The Mass
In and through the mass we discover our true identity, we realise who we are – community of believers, family of God, united in and through love. In the mass we pray and sing songs, a way of telling God we love him. In Holy Communion we come into intimate contact with our God who is love through the precious body and blood of Christ.
Mission Sunday
Today is mission Sunday, a day set apart for us to think about our fundamental mission as Christians: to preach the gospel of Christ so that all people may hear and believe and be baptized and ultimately come to the Eucharist and be saved. Through baptism we are called to be missionaries and to support the Church’s missionary endeavours. As someone rightly said, some give to mission by going while some go to mission by giving. Let us pray today and indeed always that the church’s missionary activities may meet with resounding success.
May we always be open to doing God’s will in our lives.
Fr. Paul
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October 15, 2011
Posted in pastor
at 5:30 pm
As Christians we are called to be followers of Christ, to live the way he lived and to endeavour to love others the way he did.
Today’s gospel passage is a great reminder that all that we are and all that we have comes from God and ultimately belongs to Him. As good stewards, therefore, we are obliged in conscience to give God what is His without holding back anything. Today in faith we have come to offer ourselves completely to Him as Jesus did on the cross of Calvary. The question I would like us to ask ourselves is: what is it that is holding me back from committing my entire life to God and of recognizing Jesus as the author and finisher of my faith?
Chosen in Christ
“He (God) has chosen you”, says St Paul in today’s second reading, to be his witness in a world that is more and more political and less and less religious. We are, therefore, challenged and our faith tested everyday. In such situations all we have to do is to look to Jesus, look to the traditions of the early church, look to the Holy Spirit and say “Yes” as Mary did to God who has chosen us in Christ.
P.S. Thank you Fr. Joe for making out time to come and celebrate the Holy Eucharist with us and to on behalf of the archbishop install me as the 18th pastor of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal parish.
May God grant success to the work of our hands and may He help us to be good citizens of this world and of the world to come.
Fr. Paul
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October 8, 2011
Posted in pastor
at 5:30 pm
God calls us to be happy not merely in a passing way in this life, but forever in His heavenly kingdom so as to enjoy the fullness of life.
In today’s gospel Jesus compares heaven to a great banquet. We have been invited to this great banquet. We believe that Christ has gone to prepare a place for us in heaven. The best expression of our faith in heaven can be made in the Eucharist, the mass. The mass is God’s greatest gift to us for which we should be very thankful! The mass reminds us of our great worth in the eyes of God and of Jesus. The mass tells us clearly that God is all loving and that each of us is worth loving. The mass likewise challenges us to go into the world to transform it and be witnesses of the great love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
In Thanksgiving And love
On this thanksgiving weekend, we are reminded of God’s immense love and goodness to us as individuals and as a family. With King David we cry out: “How can I repay the Lord for his goodness to me?”(Ps. 116). We have so much indeed to be grateful for: the gift of life, health, food on our table, our family, our parish, our country, Canada, “strong and free” and above all God’s gift of his only son, Jesus Christ in the Eucharist! These are great signs of God’s extravagant love and goodness to us! It is, therefore, right and fitting to give thanks to God! We do this by continuously seeking His face and to be mindful of the less privileged in our midst.
May God’s generosity to us encourage us to reach out to those in need.
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October 2, 2011
Posted in Homilies
at 3:45 pm
Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, October 02, 2011 – By Deacon Thomas Stephenson
For the past few weeks, the vineyard has been a recurring image in the Gospel. Remember that, two weeks ago, we heard of the landowner who hired labourers to work in his vineyard, and even though some of them only worked a small part of the day, he paid all of them equally. Last week, there was the story of the man with two sons, whom he asked to go work in the vineyard. These sons demonstrated through their actions which one was faithful to the father’s will. Today, the vineyard is the theme of not only the Gospel, which picks up where we left off last week, but also of the first reading and the Psalm.
The vineyard image has a few meanings. In the reading from Isaiah, there is a specific reference to the vineyard as the house of Israel. God is the owner of this vineyard, and he has taken great care to create it so that it will produce good fruit. He expects a good and just society to flourish within the hedge. From all appearances, there should be only the best grapes ready at harvest time. Instead, inexplicably, there are only the wild grapes of injustice and corruption. You can imagine the disappointment of the landowner in this situation. He wonders, what more could he have done? He did all the right things, made all the necessary preparations – why did this vineyard not produce the good fruit that he expected?
In the Gospel, once again the landowner is careful to do everything possible to create the proper environment for his vineyard. Once it is ready, he leases it to a group of tenants, probably people he had some reason to trust, with the expectation that at harvest time, they will keep their allotted portion and give him what he is owed. Is that what happens? No, somehow, over time, they have become corrupted. They repeatedly defy the owner’s requests for payment. They have decided for themselves not to live up to their agreement. They abuse the servants that are sent to collect. Was the landowner being unreasonable in his demands? The vineyard was supposed to produce grapes for him. He invested land, time, and money in this enterprise. The tenants would have benefitted as well, but ultimately it was his vineyard, his fruit. He was the owner, the master. He was quite patient with the rebellious tenants, to the point of sending his son to reason with them. He was so compassionate that despite the obvious danger, he sent his son in order to reach out and give the tenants an opportunity to repent. Instead, they killed the son, in the mistaken belief that somehow the vineyard would then become theirs, that they would be their own masters.
Getting back to the meanings of the vineyard, we can say that it is representative of the house of Israel; it is specifically referred to as such by Isaiah, and again in the Psalm. We can also hear Jesus comparing the wicked tenants to the chief priests and Pharisees. Those are the indisputable, correct meanings of these passages. But beyond that, these passages are saying something to us; they have an application to our lives.
What are the vineyards that God has created for us? We labour in vineyards created by God with just as much care and attention as the landowners of the scripture readings. Do we recognize that we are working in a vineyard that we occupy as tenants, and that we owe the fruits of our labour to the true owner? And, that we have a responsibility to produce good fruit? We like to think that we are our own masters, and it may not even cross our minds that what we do, day in and day out, ultimately we should be doing in service to the Lord. We don’t always feel the immediacy of His presence – like the landowner of the Gospel, He leaves it up to us, he has given us free will, to work in the vineyard as we see fit.
We should consider that the Provincial election coming up on Thursday is one instance where our work, in this case our vote, can have an impact outside our immediate circle of friends and relative. Our decision on who to vote for should be informed by our faith, with an eye to at least in some way bearing good fruit. I’ll borrow from what I said prior to the Federal election in 2008: It is not enough to decide to vote for a particular candidate, or to not vote for a particular party, just because of slogans, or sound bites, or the headlines we read. Our politics must be about more than special interests and partisan attacks. It should be less about “what’s in it for me?” and more about “how does this truly serve to promote the dignity and sacredness of others?”. All of the political parties have plans that claim to be in society’s best interests. But what on the surface looks like it is a good solution may not be the best in the long run. It is only with proper discernment, looking past the hype and the conventional wisdom, that we can be confident in making a good decision.
Although we should be involved, politics is not the primary vineyard for most of us to be placing our efforts. Our vineyards start with ourselves, and with our responsibility to God to bear fruit in our own immortal souls. Our families, our friends and neighbours, our communities, and our workplaces, are all places where God is calling us to labour and produce fruit for Him. We mention these areas for us to work in fairly regularly, but it is important that we not lose sight of where we might be able to make a difference in the lives of those around us.
We may not always remember that God is the Lord of our lives. We may sometimes feel as though we are the masters, the vineyard belongs to us, and we can do what we want. That is a very human inclination. And it is important to note that God will have at least as much patience with us as the landowner had with the tenants. We see that the owner, God, strives to give the tenants, us, every possible chance to reconcile with Him. In this Gospel, the vineyard is an indication of God’s care for His people. So, let us commit ourselves to work in our vineyards using the talents God has given us. And, to remember that the fruits and the glory belong to God, and if we bear good fruit, He is happy to give us our portion for eternity in Heaven.
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October 1, 2011
Posted in pastor
at 5:30 pm
We have chosen as our Parish Theme for the Pastoral Year, 2011/2012: “Though many, we are one body in Christ” (Roms. 12:5). It is my wish and that of the Pastoral Council that we be guided by this theme as we journey together and as we strive to live out daily the gospel message of Jesus Christ. It is also a great reminder that we as individuals, families, groups, ministry heads and indeed members of various ministries are all connected with Christ and with one another, mutually dependent, united in love. This unity is manifested visibly each time we gather around the table of the Lord to worship God our Father in His Son through the Spirit, thereby making our parish a place we contemplate the mystery of our salvation in Christ Jesus!
Thank You
Thanks to all those who signed up during our gifts and services campaign last weekend. In my assessment I think the entire exercise was a huge success as many parishioners did sign up thereby making a commitment to use their time, talents and abilities in the service of God and one another. For those who missed out last weekend, the campaign is still on! It’s not late to step forward to get involved in your parish. Gifts and services forms are still available in the foyer and at the back of the church or you can call the parish office.
As we rejoice and give thanks to God for this great gift – our parish family, may He make us joyful witnesses to the truth of the gospel and may our words and actions be directed toward building up the body of Christ for the greater glory of God.
Fr. Paul
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