CHRISTMAS EVE 

Tuesday, December 24

Early Sung Mass

5:00 p.m.

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HOLY FAMILY SUNDAY

Sung Mass

December 29

12:30 

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MARY, THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

Wednesday, January 1

Sung Mass

12:30 noon

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EPIPHANY OF THE LORD

Sunday, January 5

Sung Mass at 12:30 noon

ADVENT LESSONS AND CAROLS WITH BENEDICTION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

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Christmas Eve Mass

Tuesday, December 24

5:00 p.m.

Traditional English Language 

and Carols

TOAST OF LOYALTY AT AC CONFERENCE

Your Eminence, Excellency, Fathers, Brothers and Sisters in Christ. 

I have been asked by the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society to, on their behalf, welcome all of you who have travelled to this celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Apostolic Constitution which, thanks to our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict and the ongoing support of the Holy Father, has become a part of the New Evangelization. 

In addition, we want to thank you, Cardinal Collins, for your initial and continuing support of the small communities of Anglicans and others who are finding their way into the full communion of the Catholic Church through the ministry of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. 

I have to smile as I think of the various paths that have brought us here in late 2019.  I am, like many now living in Toronto an immigrant, a Montreal-born Expos fan – a transplant. So, for our American visitorsI feel compelled to mention that until the 1960s Montrealwas the largest city in Canada. In recent years Toronto has come to be the largest city and to consider itself the centre of Canada (if not of the universe). 

It is now almost 14 years since I first contacted the newly appointed Archbishop Collins (transplanted from Edmonton to Toronto) to inquire about the possibility of ordination and ministry in the Archdiocese of Toronto.  Little did I know, at that time, of the prayerful call to unity which was, even then, in its final planning stages in Rome. This planning would result in the ground-breaking invitation to Anglicans and others to cross the Tiber and, for me and other clergy, to serve as Catholic priests while retaining and building upon the Anglican patrimony within the embrace of the Holy See. 

This was a truly ecumenical break-through which continues to shape the future of dialogue with other Christian bodies. In the next 10 years we must pray and work for the extension of our mission and the new evangelization not only through beautiful language and music but, as George Weigel has put it so well in his latest book, commitment to truth and goodness as well – clear teaching with pastoral concern and outreach. 

On this special occasion I have been asked to offer a patrimonial toast of loyalty this evening in recognition of the work of your Eminence and so many others.  Thinking about this, it came to me that no better toast could be offered than the one traditionally offered by Dr. Healey Willan, the great Church musician and another transplant to Toronto.

Dr. Willan was famously noted for his self-description as:  English by birth, Canadian by adoption, Irish by extraction, and Scotch by absorption.  

I invite you, then, to raise your glasses and to join with me in a toast to Our Lady, Queen of Heaven and our Lady, Queen of Canada.   

Remembrance Sunday Requiem Mass

Traditional English Catholic 

SUNG REQUIEM MASS   

according to 

DIVINE WORSHIP: THE MISSAL

12:30 Sunday, November 13 

Christian Unity Pioneer to addresses AC Conference in Toronto Nov. 15 - 17

Fr Jack Barker is a pioneer of Christian unity by leading Anglicans back to full communion with the Holy See.

Following is a posting by the AC Society about the symposium celebrating 10 years since the proclamation of the apostolic constitution ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS.

Father Jack Barker (left), keynote speaker at our upcoming ninth conference on the Anglican tradition in the Catholic Church, has been called by Bishop Steven Lopes of the Ordinariate a “pioneer of the Pastoral Provision”. Trained in classical piano, physics and engineering, and in Anglican seminary programs in both England and the US, Fr Barker has been involved in the Anglican movement into the Catholic Church over the decades.

Involved for years with the American Church Union under the leadership of Canon DuBois, he and others formed Anglicans United, a group of catholic Anglicans that entered into a relationship with the Holy See that ultimately helped to bring about the Pastoral Provision. Later on, Fr Barker wrote about how the Pastoral Provision came about in his fascinating “Early History of the Anglican Use”.

Fr Barker has done us a real service in recording this history of how we came to be given a “pastoral provision for former Anglicans thereby ensuring their identity and the preservation of elements of their worship” and how the Holy See would open the Catholic priesthood to “even those Anglican priests who were married.” One of the more poignant moments in that history is the passing of Canon DuBois, who died in June, 1980, “with the dream of corporate reunion yet to be realized”, but who was “individually received into the full communion of the Roman Catholic Church prior to his death. During his illness private assurances were received from Rome that the petition would be approved.”

It took a few years for the implementation of the provision to begin to be worked out, but Fr Barker led members of his congregation into the Catholic Church in 1986, after which he ran a Catholic charitable organization, studied in Catholic seminaries, and was ultimately made a Catholic priest.

Now helping with the ordinariate community of Our Lady of Grace, Fr Barker has worked closely with Mgr Steenson and Bishop Lopes since the early days of the North American ordinariate.

Further details on Father Barker’s life and many years of service to catholic-minded Anglicans, to Catholics of the Anglican tradition, and to the wider Church can be read in his biography below. Father Barker will be speaking on the Anglican tradition in the Catholic Church, its history and its potential, at our upcoming conference and we encourage everyone to register now. Spread the word!

Born in 1941 in South Dakota and raised in southern California. A graduate of Hawthorne High School with highest honors. Bachelor’s in Physics from the College of Letters and Science at U.C.L.A. in 1963. He is trained in classical piano.

Under the sponsorship of a South African Anglican bishop, he attended Anglican Seminary at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, Yorkshire, England beginning in 1963. He received the General Ordination Examination certificate of the Church of England in 1965.

Because of the political realities in South Africa at the time it was recommended that he return to Los Angeles rather than be ordained and work in the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Kimberley and Kuruman. He applied to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and continued studies at Bloy Episcopal School of Theology. During this time he worked as an engineer in the Space Program at Hughes Aircraft on Project Surveyor, a precursor to Apollo Moon landings.

In 1970 he was ordained Deacon and then priest by Rt. Rev. Francis Eric Bloy at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Los Angeles. In the Fall of 1970 he was asked by Rev. James Jordan, jr. to come to St. Mary of the Angels as an associate and continue as a “worker-priest.” In early 1971 Father Jordan died suddenly of a massive heart.He was eventually installed as the Third Rector by Rt. Rev. Robert Claflin Rusack the Coadjutor bishop of the LA diocese.

From the beginning at St. Mary’s he became involved with the American Church Union (ACU) which was under the direction of its famous Executive Director Rev. Canon Albert Julius DuBois, affectionately known as “Mr. Catholic” in the Episcopal Church. Following the Minneapolis General Convention of 1976 he and Fathers Barker and Brown formed “Anglicans United” to lead the way in finding a new home for catholic minded Episcopalians.

The AU represented many former Episcopal parishes throughout the USA. Canon DuBois was invited to Rome for conversations about the possibility of former Episcopalians entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. He had a heart attack and Fathers Barker and Brown went in his stead.

Finally in 1986 many members of St. Mary of the Angels together with 100% of St Matthias formed a new combined parish and where all were received into the Catholic Church at a single Mass celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest who was part of what was known then as the Pastoral Provision. The remaining congregation at St. Mary’s became a part of the continuing Anglican movement.

Father Barker went on to run Catholic Charities in Nevada for two years and in 1989 was accepted into the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino where he attended the local seminary for one year of orientation and then two years of graduate level studies at St Patrick’s Pontifical Seminary in Menlo Park, California. He received the Masters in Divinity in 1992 and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of San Bernardino by Most Rev. Philip Straling the first bishop of that diocese.

He served two years as an assistant at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary and was pastor for nine years at St. Francis of Assisi in la Quinta; finally, he served twelve years at St Martha’s in Murrieta.

After a year and a half of candidacy he made his vows as an Oblate of the Order of Saint Benedict with the Abbey of St. John’s in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He is now retired in Murrieta and provides supply services to local Latin Rite parishes and helps at Our Lady of Grace Ordinariate Community.

acsociety.org/conference 

From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary - Prof R.F. Brown

The crucified Christ is one of the most familiar, yet most disconcerting images of medieval European civilization. How and why did the images of the dying God-man and his grieving mother achieve such prominence?  

Dr. Rachel Fulton reviews developments in liturgical performance, private prayer, doctrine, and art along with the revulsion of medieval Jews at being baptized in the name of God born from a woman and the eroticism of the Marian exegesis of the Song of Songs.

From Judgment to Passion is the first systematic attempt to explain the origins and initial development of European devotion to Christ in his suffering humanity and to Blessed Mary in her compassionate grief. 

The book begins with the Carolingian campaign to convert the Saxons, in particular with the effort to explain for these new converts the mystery of the Eucharist, the miraculous presence of Christ's body at the Mass. 

Moving on to the early eleventh century, when the long-expected return on the millennium of his Passion (A.D. 1033) did not occur. This necessitated for believers a revision of Christian history.  Dr. Fulton examines the liturgies and devotions that arose amid this apocalyptic disappointment. 

The book turns finally to the twelfth century when, in the wake of the capture of Jerusalem in the First Crusade, there occurred the full flowering of a new, more emotional sensibility of faith.

In addition to its concern with explaining devotional change, From Judgment to Passion poses a second, crucial question: How is it possible for modern historians to understand not only the social and cultural functions but also the experience of faith―the engagement with emotions, of prayer and devotion? 

The various answers are exemplified throughout the book's narrative, answers that are both imaginative and empathetic. It is the incorporation of self into story that lay at the heart of the medieval effort to identify with Christ and Mary in their love and pain.

Dr. Fulton reviews and explains developments in liturgical performance, private prayer, doctrine, and art in light of this Christian mystery.

DR. RACHEL FULTON BROWN - U. OF CHICAGO HISTORY PROFESSOR AND RECENT CONERT TO CATHOLICISM

WELCOME HOME SUNDAY -- SEPT. 22

Join the STM Community for Sunday High Mass at 12:30 pm on Sunday, September 22 Refreshments and parish information following in the parish hall.

We are asking all members and regular visitors to welcome newcomers and seekers as we begin our Fall programme of adult catechesis and explore THE CATECHESIS OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD for children.

HOLY CONFIRMATION

EVANGELIUM -- Adults or young people who are over the age of 11 and considering the Sacrament of Confirmation  should contact Fr. Hodgins this month about instruction.  We are planning for the visit of Bishop Lopes to receive people into full communion and administer Holy Confirmation. In preparation for his visit, the EVANGELIUM programme is being offered again this Fall for anyone exploring the Catholic faith with a view to reception and Confirmation.

Sainte-Marie des Deux-Montagnes: Assumption Homily

The following homily was given at the Latin Missa Cantata offered in the Abbey Church on August 15, 2019 by Fr. John Hodgins and translated into French by Dom Charles Gilman.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Abbaye Sainte-Marie des Deux-Montagnes, Quebec, August 15, 2019

“And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?”  Luke 1 

This is the quizzical but hopeful greeting of our Blessed Mother by Elizabeth, her kinswoman. Blessed Mary has come to visit members of her family, Elizabeth and Zechariah, an older couple, who are sharing the joy of expecting a first child.  

Down the ages, expectant Christian mothers are moved by these words about our Blessed Mother, Mary, the chosen vessel for our hope and salvation. Elizabeth’s words are in the form of a question: “Why has the Mother of the Lord come to visit us?”  

This is not simply a query, it is a proclamation, a declaration of underlying hope: words of expectancy in a world of contingency and apprehension, words of faith in the power of God’s love coming to us in the person of the mother of our Lord and in the loving, saving potential of the divine Child she is carrying.

It is in this context of the love of family that we, all of us, receive the gifts of faith and hope.  Throughout scripture we are pointed to the human family as the centre of sustaining faith in an often challenging and hostile world.  Never more than today we need these words of faith and of hope nurtured within the sheltering love of the family whether it be the nuclear family of nature or the spiritual family of those who have chosen to live together in worship and service as in the community of a monastery. 

In the face of the prevalent materialism of our day, we hear again the words of a simple woman of no social standing in the face of the culture of death.  In a culture vying for euthanasia and abortion we see the example of heroic women: images, reflections of Blessed Mary, women who nurture the child in the womb, women who nurture the hope of the world in prayer and in their care for others.

In my work as a hospital chaplain I am daily moved by the profound and bottomless love of mothers for their sick children. I am in awe of the long vigils by the bedside, the holding and caressing of the little heads of their children who suffer from cancer or any of the many diseases which flesh is heir to.
  
I think particularly of an older mother in her early 40’s whom I met recently at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She is currently sleeping on a cot beside her little nine month old son who has Down’s Syndrome and heart complications. She is often accompanied by her only other child, a 17 year old confident young man who is off to university this Fall but who spends time with his tiny brother and supporting his mother.

The husband and father of the family is away from home for long periods with work.  The mother holds vigil as the little one improves and then has another in a series of setbacks.  The bottomless love of this mother and of other mothers I encounter is a shining example of the love which mirrors that of the blessed Mother who “comes to us” in our weakness and our need, of the blessed Mother who thinks only of our health and our hope, the holy Mother who, like Jesus, has never and will never leave us.

The great English mystic, Julian of Norwich, reflecting on the presence of our Lady wrote these words in her book Revelations of Divine Love, words that she understood to come from Jesus as she contemplated his holy Mother:

“I know well that you wish to see my blessed mother . . . she is what all my blessed creatures most desire to see.”  

Julian continues, speaking of the spiritual vision of our Lady as she is assumed into heaven: 

I was not taught [Julian says] to long to see [our Lady’s] bodily presence while I am here, but the virtues of her blessed soul, her truth, her wisdom, her love, through which I am taught to know myself and reverently to fear God. . . .  And Jesus . . . showed me a spiritual vision of her high and noble and glorious and more pleasing to him than all the creatures . . . . now in delight, honour and joy.

Celebrating Saint Thomas More . . .

Traditional English Liturgy and Music celebrating the

Seventh Annual Patronal Mass at STM

Sunday, June 30 at 12:30 p.m.

Refreshments will follow in the parish hall.

Parking in the parish school parking lot off Westminster Street (one-way) east off Roncesvalles.

SUNG MASS AND THE SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION

SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2018

12:30

CATHOLIC PARISH OF 

ST. THOMAS MORE

Traditional English Liturgy 

and 

Choral Music

Refreshments follow.   

Write Cardinal Pell to offer your prayers and support

George Weigel has kindly provided us with Cardinal Pell's mailing address. 

Please send Mass cards, letters and other surface mail to encourage the Cardinal in this time of trial.

George Cardinal Pell,

Melbourne Assessment Prison,

317-353 Spencer St.,

West Melbourne, VIC 3003

Australia

ST. PAUL IN PRISON - Rembrandt

THE PSALM 44 INITIATIVE 

The Psalm 44 Initiative - Mass offerings for Cardinal Pell

I am asking the assistance of Catholic priests around the world with a project that came in prayer while offering the daily office and, in particular, while praying Psalm 44.  

Psalm 44. Deus, auribus. WE have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us * what thou hast done in their time of old:
2 How thou hast driven out the heathen with thy hand, and planted our fathers in; * how thou hast destroyed the nations, and made thy people to flourish.     3 For they gat not the land in possession through their own sword, * neither was it their own arm that helped them;     4 But thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance; * because thou hadst a favour unto them.     5 Thou art my King, O God; * send help unto Jacob.     6 Through thee will we overthrow our enemies, * and in thy Name will we tread them under that rise up against us.     7 For I will not trust in my bow, * it is not my sword that shall help me;     8 But it is thou that savest us from our enemies, * and puttest them to confusion that hate us.     9 We make our boast of God all day long, * and will praise thy Name for ever.     10 But now thou art far off, and puttest us to confusion, * and goest not forth with our armies.     11 Thou makest us to turn our backs upon our enemies, * so that they which hate us spoil our goods.     12 Thou lettest us be eaten up like sheep, * and hast scattered us among the heathen.     13 Thou sellest thy people for nought, * and takest no money for them.     14 Thou makest us to be rebuked of our neighbours, * to be laughed to scorn, and had in derision of them that are round about us.
15 Thou makest us to be a byword among the nations1, * and that the peoples2 shake their heads at us.     16 My confusion is daily before me, * and the shame of my face hath covered me;     17 For the voice of the slanderer and blasphemer, * for the enemy and avenger.     18 And though all this be come upon us, yet do we not forget thee, * nor behave ourselves frowardly in thy covenant.     19 Our heart is not turned back, * neither our steps gone out of thy way;     20 No, not when thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons, * and covered us with the shadow of death.     21 If we have forgotten the Name of our God, and holden up our hands to any strange god, * shall not God search it out? for he knoweth the very secrets of the heart.     22 For thy sake also are we killed all the day long, * and are counted as sheep appointed to be slain.     23 Up, Lord, why sleepest thou? * awake, and be not absent from us for ever.     24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, * and forgettest our misery and trouble?     25 For our soul is brought low, even unto the dust; * our belly cleaveth unto the ground.     26 Arise, and help us, * and deliver us, for thy mercy's sake. Coverdale Version

I was convicted by the Holy Spirit to offer one Mass each week on behalf of Cardinal Pell while he is incarcerated and to send him a Mass card with a note explaining what is being done.  I am asking you, my brother priests, to do likewise.   

Of course lay people may also offer their Mass intentions for Cardinal Pell and send him a note of support.  

A wave of Mass offerings and mountains of mail going to the Cardinal can be a great spiritual grace for all of us during these very dark days.  

Send your Mass cards and letters to:

George Cardinal Pell,

Melbourne Assessment Prison,

317-353 Spencer St.,

West Melbourne, VIC 3003

Australia

Holy Winter Advice, Batman:

Get your Flu shot and come for the 

St. Blaise Blessing of Throats 

on 

Sunday, Feb. 3 

after the 12:30 Sung Mass. 

You won't regret it.

A Visitor selects on the DIVINE WORSHIP Mass

Attended the Anglican-use Ordinariate Mass in Toronto today. So very beautiful.

Unless you experience it, a lengthy essay would be needed to explain, but everything is perfectly laid out: the language, the intentions, the times to kneel, stand, sit: everything. Nothing is left unsaid. Everything is in it's right place.

Everything is properly disposed for the worship of God.

Today, the Mass was sung, and there was multiple pieces by composer William Byrd, a favourite of the Queen of his day because he created beautiful Anglican hymns for his sovereign by day, and excellent chant for his persecuted Catholic brothers and sisters with the rest of his time and talent.

In the last month I have attended Masses of the Ghanian and Syro-Malabar communities. It is a great benefit of living in such a diverse city to be able to goto Masses of many rites and languages. And everything done in these Masses are really good for these communities. But I have to say: my heart is with the Anglican Use liturgy.

And, I had this insight: how could this thing of great beauty and truth and goodness have survived so many cultural upheavals, starting with the vicious persecutions of the Church in England under Henry VIII and on?

Well, perhaps it is because of the many Holy men and and women who came before the martyrs and, of course, the incredible faith of the many martyrs of England and Wales which ensued.

All the very best things of Bede, Becket, Hugh of Lincoln, David, More and on and on and on... all the very best of their lives, their education, their formation, their blood, sweat, tears and prayers: all the very best of the way God loves us and wants us to love and honour Him back: it is all in the Anglican-use liturgy.

I hope you get a chance to visit one of their parishes around the world. Their communities are small and loving. According to my friends, they look out for their members Monday thru Saturday, and not just observe them on Sunday.

As the Church continues to be ripped asunder from the appalling leadership of most bishops in the Western world, as the courts and insurance companies wrestle away the secular treasures of the Church, from money to land. As these institutions sadly seem to be required to force justice into the behavioural norm of the chancellaries around the world, there will be these little enclaves of charity rooted in the first Commandment especially found in these Anglican-use parishes.

On the Feast Day of Mary,
our mother and our greatest patron in her maternal responsibilities with Jesus her son, may you have a 2019 that is full of peace, joy and the building of the Kingdom where ever you are.

Peace of Christ +++